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HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON.

A TALE OF THE TORY ASCENDENCY.

BY JOHN P. KENNEDY

AUTHOR OF "SWALLOW BARN," "ROB OF THE BOWL," ETC.

"I say the tale as 't was said to me."—Lay of the Last Minstrel

REVISED EDITION.

NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

182 Fifth Avenue
1876

Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
GEORGE P. PUTNAM,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

To WASHINGTON IRVING, Esq.

Dear Irving:—

With some little misgiving upon the score of having wasted time and paper both, which might have been better employed, I feel a real consolation in turning to you, as having, by your success, furnished our idle craft an argument to justify our vocation.

You have convinced our wise ones at home that a man may sometimes write a volume without losing his character—and have shown to the incredulous abroad, that an American book may be richly worth the reading.

In grateful acknowledgment of these services, as well as to indulge the expression of a sincere private regard, I have ventured to inscribe your name upon the front of the imperfect work which is now submitted to the public.

Very truly, yours, &c.,
JOHN P. KENNEDY.
Baltimore, May 1, 1885.

CONTENTS

[INTRODUCTION]
[PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION]
[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
[CHAPTER XV.]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
[CHAPTER XX.]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
[CHAPTER XXX.]
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
[CHAPTER XL.]
[CHAPTER XLI.]
[CHAPTER XLII.]
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
[CHAPTER XLV.]
[CHAPTER XLVI.]
[CHAPTER XLVII.]
[CHAPTER XLVIII.]
[CHAPTER XLIX.]
[CHAPTER L.]
[CHAPTER LI.]
[CHAPTER LII.]
[CHAPTER LIII.]
[CHAPTER LIV.]
[CHAPTER LV.]
[CHAPTER LVI.]
[CHAPTER LVII.]
[CHAPTER LVIII.]

INTRODUCTION

In the winter of eighteen hundred and eighteen-nineteen, I had occasion to visit the western section of South Carolina. The public conveyances had taken me to Augusta, in Georgia. There I purchased a horse, a most trusty companion, with whom I had many pleasant experiences: a sorrel, yet retained by me in admiring memory. A valise strapped behind my saddle, with a great coat spread upon that, furnished all that I required of personal accommodation. My blood beat temperately with the pulse of youth and health. I breathed the most delicious air in the world. My travel tended to the region of the most beautiful scenery. The weather of early January was as balmy as October; a light warm haze mellowed the atmosphere, and cast the softest and richest hues over the landscape. I retraced my steps from Augusta to Edgefield, which I had passed in the stage coach. From Edgefield I went to Abbeville, and thence to Pendleton. I was now in the old district of Ninety Six, just at the foot of the mountains. My course was still westward. I journeyed alone, or rather, I ought to say, in good company, for my horse and I had established a confidential friendship, and we amused ourselves with a great deal of pleasant conversation—in our way. Besides, my fancy was busy, and made the wayside quite populous—with people of its own: there were but few of any other kind.

In the course of my journey I met an incident, which I have preserved in my journal. The reader of the tale which occupies this volume has some interest in it.

"Upon a day," as the old ballads have it, one of the best days of this exquisite climate, my road threaded the defiles of some of the grandest mountains of the country. Huge ramparts of rock toppled over my path, and little streams leaped, in beautiful cascades, from ledge to ledge, and brawled along the channels, which often supplied the only footway for my horse, and, gliding through tangled screens of rhododendron, laurel, arbor vitæ, and other evergreens, plunged into rivers, whose waters exceed anything I had ever conceived of limpid purity. It may be poetical to talk of liquid crystal, but no crystal has the absolute perfection of the transparency of these streams. The more distant mountain sides, where the opening valley offered them to my view, were fortified with stupendous walls, or banks of solid and unbroken rock, rising in successive benches one above another, with masses of dark pine between; the highest forming a crest to the mountain, cutting the sky in sharp profile, with images of castellated towers, battlements, and buttresses, around whose summits the inhabiting buzzard, with broad extended wings, floated and rocked in air and swept in majestic circles.

The few inhabitants of this region were principally the tenants of the bounty lands, which the State of South Carolina had conferred upon the soldiers of the Revolution; and their settlements, made upon the rich bottoms of the river valleys, were separated from each other by large tracts of forest.

I had much perplexity in some portions of this day's journey in finding my way through the almost pathless forest which lay between two of these settlements. That of which I was in quest was situated upon the Seneca, a tributary of the Savanna river, here called Tooloolee. It was near sundown, when I emerged from the wilderness upon a wagon road, very uncertain of my whereabout, and entertaining some rather anxious misgivings as to my portion for the night.

I had seen no one for the last five or six hours, and upon falling into the road I did not know whether I was to take the right or the left hand—a very material problem for my solution just then.

During this suspense, a lad, apparently not above ten years of age, mounted bare back on a fine horse, suddenly emerged from the wood about fifty paces ahead of me, and galloped along the road in the same direction that I had myself resolved to take. I quickened my speed to overtake him, but from the rapidity of his movement, I found myself, at the end of a mile, not as near him as I was at the beginning. Some open country in front, however, showed me that I was approaching a settlement. Almost at the moment of making this discovery, I observed that the lad was lying on the ground by the road-side. I hastened to him, dismounted, and found him sadly in want of assistance. His horse had run off with him, thrown him, and dislocated, as it afterwards appeared, his shoulder-joint.

Whilst I was busy in rendering such aid as I could afford, I was joined by a gentleman of venerable aspect, the father of the youth, who came from a dwelling-house near at hand, which, in the engrossment of my occupation, I had not observed. We lifted the boy in our arms and bore him into the house.

I was now in comfortable quarters for the night. The gentleman was Colonel T——, as I was made aware by his introduction, and the kindly welcome he offered me, and I very soon found myself established upon the footing of a favored guest. The boy was laid upon a bed in the room where we sat, suffering great pain, and in want of immediate attention. I entered into the family consultation on the case. Never have I regretted the want of an acquisition, as I then regretted that I had no skill in surgery. I was utterly incompetent to make a suggestion worth considering. The mother of the family happened to be absent that night; and, next to the physician, the mother is the best adviser. There was an elder son, about my own age, who was playing a fiddle when we came in; and there was a sister younger than he, and brothers and sisters still younger. But we were all alike incapable. The poor boy's case might be critical, and the nearest physician, Dr. Anderson, resided at Pendleton, thirty miles off. This is one of the conditions of frontier settlement which is not always thought of.

In the difficulty of the juncture, a thought occurred to Colonel T., which was immediately made available. "I think I will send for Horse-Shoe Robinson," he said, with a manifest lighting up of the countenance, as if he had hit upon a happy expedient. "Get a horse, my son," he continued, addressing one of the boys, "and ride over to the old man, and tell him what has happened to your brother; and say, he will oblige me if he will come here directly." At the same time, a servant was ordered to ride to Pendleton, and to bring over Dr. Anderson.

In the absence of the first messenger the lad grew easier, and it became apparent that his hurt was not likely to turn out seriously. Colonel T., assured by this, drew his chair up to the fire beside me, and with many expressions of friendly interest inquired into the course of my journey, and into the numberless matters that may be supposed to interest a frontier settler in his intercourse with one just from the world of busy life. It happened that I knew an old friend of his, General ——-, a gentleman highly distinguished in professional and political service, to whose youth Colonel T. had been a most timely patron. This circumstance created a new pledge in my favor, and, I believe, influenced the old gentleman in a final resolve to send that night for his wife, who was some seven or eight miles off, and whom he had been disinclined to put to the discomfort of such a journey in the dark, ever since it was ascertained that the boy's case was not dangerous. I am pretty sure this influenced him, as I heard him privately instructing a servant to go for the lady, and to tell her that the boy's injury was not very severe, and "that there was a gentleman there who was well acquainted with General ——." I observed, hanging in a little black frame over the fire-place, a miniature engraved portrait of the general, which was the only specimen of the fine arts in the house—perhaps in the settlement. It was my recognition of this likeness that led, I fear, to the weary night ride of the good lady.

In less than an hour the broad light of the hearth—for the apartment was only lit up by blazing pine faggots, which, from time to time, were thrown upon the fire—fell upon a goodly figure. There was first a sound of hoofs coming through the dark—a halt at the door—a full, round, clear voice heard on the porch—and then the entrance into the apartment of a woodland hero. That fine rich voice again, in salutation, so gentle and so manly! This was our expected counsellor, Horse-Shoe Robinson. What a man I saw! With near seventy years upon his poll, time seemed to have broken its billows over his front only as the ocean breaks over a rock. There he stood—tall, broad, brawny, and erect. The sharp light gilded his massive frame and weather-beaten face with a pictorial effect that would have rejoiced an artist. His homely dress, his free stride, as he advanced to the fire; his face radiant with kindness; the natural gracefulness of his motion; all afforded a ready index to his character. Horse Shoe, it was evident, was a man to confide in.

"I hear your boy's got flung from his horse, Colonel," he said, as he advanced to the bed-side. "Do you think he is much hurt?" "Not so badly as we thought at first, Mr. Robinson," was the reply. "I am much obliged to you for coming over to-night. It is a great comfort to have your advice in such times."

"These little shavers are so venturesome—with horses in particular," said the visitor; "it's Providence, Colonel, takes care of 'em. Let me look at you, my son," he continued, as he removed the bed-clothes, and began to handle the shoulder of the boy. "He's got it out of joint," he added, after a moment. "Get me a basin of hot water and a cloth, Colonel. I think I can soon set matters right."

It was not long before the water was placed beside him, and Robinson went to work with the earnestness of a practised surgeon. After applying wet cloths for some time to the injured part, he took the shoulder in his broad hand, and with a sudden movement, which was followed by a shriek from the boy, he brought the dislocated bone into its proper position. "It doesn't hurt," he said, laughingly; "you are only pretending. How do you feel now?"

The patient smiled, as he replied, "Well enough now; but I reckon you was joking if you said that it didn't hurt."

Horse Shoe came to the fire-side, and took a chair, saying, "I larnt that, Colonel, in the campaigns. A man picks up some good everywhere, if he's a mind to; that's my observation."

This case being disposed of, Horse Shoe determined to remain all night with the family. We had supper, and, after that, formed a little party around the hearth. Colonel T. took occasion to tell me something about Horse Shoe; and the Colonel's eldest son gave me my cue, by which he intimated I might draw out the old soldier to relate some stories of the war.

"Ask him," said the young man, "how he got away from Charleston after the surrender; and then get him to tell you how he took the five Scotchmen prisoners."

We were all in good humor. The boy was quite easy, and everything was going on well, and we had determined to sit up until Mrs. T. should arrive, which could not be before midnight. Horse Shoe was very obliging, and as I expressed a great interest in his adventures, he yielded himself to my leading, and I got out of him a rich stock of adventure, of which his life was full. The two famous passages to which I had been asked to question him—the escape from Charleston, and the capture of the Scotch soldiers—the reader will find preserved in the narrative upon which he is about to enter, almost in the very words of my anthology. I have—perhaps with too much scruple—retained Horse Shoe's peculiar vocabulary and rustic, doric form of speech—holding these as somewhat necessary exponents of his character. A more truthful man than he, I am convinced, did not survive the war to tell its story. Truth was the predominant expression of his face and gesture—the truth that belongs to natural and unconscious bravery, united with a frank and modest spirit. He seemed to set no especial value upon his own exploits, but to relate them as items of personal history, with as little comment or emphasis as if they concerned any one more than himself.

It was long after midnight before our party broke up; and when I got to my bed it was to dream of Horse Shoe and his adventures. I made a record of what he told me, whilst the memory of it was still fresh, and often afterwards reverted to it, when accident or intentional research brought into my view events connected with the times and scenes to which his story had reference.

The reader will thus see how I came into possession of the leading incidents upon which this "Tale of the Tory Ascendency" in South Carolina is founded.

It was first published in 1835. Horse-Shoe Robinson was then a very old man. He had removed into Alabama, and lived, I am told, upon the banks of the Tuskaloosa. I commissioned a friend to send him a copy of the book. The report brought me was, that the old man had listened very attentively to the reading of it, and took great interest in it.

"What do you say to all this?" was the question addressed to him, after the reading was finished. His reply is a voucher which I desire to preserve: "It is all true and right—in its right place—excepting about them women, which I disremember. That mought be true, too; but my memory is treacherous—I disremember."

April 12, 1852.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The events narrated in the following pages, came to my knowledge in the progress of my researches into the personal history of some of the characters who figure in the story. I thought them worth being embodied into a regular narrative, for two reasons:—

First, because they intrinsically possess an interest that may amuse the lovers of adventure, and,

Second, because they serve to illustrate the temper and character of the War of our Revolution.

As yet, only the political and documentary history of that war has been written. Its romantic or picturesque features have been left for that industrious tribe of chroniclers, of which I hold myself to be an unworthy member, and who have of late, as the public is aware, set about the business in good earnest. It shall go hard with us if we do not soon bring to light every remnant of tradition that the war has left!

An opinion has heretofore prevailed that the Revolution was too recent an affair for our story-telling craft to lay hands upon it. But this objection, ever since the fiftieth anniversary, has been nullified by common consent,—that being deemed the fair poetical limit which converts tradition into truth, and takes away all right of contradiction from a surviving actor in the scene. The pension roll is manifestly growing thinner, and the widows—married young after the peace—make a decided majority on the list. These are the second-hand retailers of the marvels of the war; and it is observed that, like wine which has descended to the heir, the events have lost none of their flavor or value by the transmission. This is all so much clear gain to our fraternity; and it is obvious, therefore, that we must thrive.

My reader will perceive that I have been scrupulous to preserve the utmost historical accuracy in my narrative: and I hope, when he has finished the perusal, that he may find reason to award me the commendation of having afforded him some pleasure, by the sketch I have attempted of the condition of things in the south during the very interesting period of the "Tory Ascendency."

The Author.
May 1, 1835.

HORSE SHOE ROBINSON.

CHAPTER I.

A TOPOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE.

The belt of mountains which traverses the state of Virginia diagonally, from north-east to south-west, it will be seen by an inspection of the map, is composed of a series of parallel ranges, presenting a conformation somewhat similar to that which may be observed in miniature on the sea-beach, amongst the minute lines of sand hillocks left by the retreating tide. This belt may be said to commence with the Blue Ridge, or more accurately speaking, with that inferior chain of highlands that runs parallel to this mountain almost immediately along its eastern base. From this region westward the highlands increase in elevation, the valleys become narrower, steeper and cooler, and the landscape progressively assumes the wilder features which belong to what is distinctly meant by "the mountain country."

The loftiest heights in this series are found in the Alleghany, nearly one hundred and fifty miles westward from the first thread of the belt; and as the principal rivers which flow towards the Chesapeake find their sources in this overtopping line of mountain, it may be imagined that many scenes of surpassing beauty exist in those abrupt solitudes where the rivers have had to contend with the sturdy hills that nature had thrown across their passage to the sea.

The multiplication of the facilities of travel which the spirit of improvement has, of late years, afforded to this region; the healthfulness, or,—to use a term more germain to its excellence,—the voluptuousness of the climate, and the extraordinary abundance of waters of the rarest virtue, both for bathing and drinking, have all contributed, very recently, to render the mountains of Virginia notorious and popular amongst that daintily observant crowd of well-conditioned people who yearly migrate in quest of health, or of a refuge from the heats of summer, or who, perchance, wander in pursuit of those associations of hill and dale which are supposed to repair a jaded imagination, and to render it romantic and fruitful.

The traveller of either of these descriptions, who holds his journey westward, will find himself impelled to halt at Charlottesville, as a pleasant resting-place in the lap of the first mountains, where he may stop to reinforce his strength for the prosecution of the rugged task that awaits him. His delay here will not be unprofitable. This neat little village is not less recommended to notice by its position in the midst of a cultivated and plentiful country, than by its contiguity to the seats of three Presidents of the Union; and, especially, by its immediate proximity to Monticello, whose burnished dome twinkles through the crown of forest that adorns the very apex of its mountain pyramid, and which, as it has now grown to be the Mecca of many a pilgrim, will of itself furnish a sufficient inducement for our traveller's tarrying. An equal attraction will be found in the University of Virginia, which, at the distance of one mile, in the opposite direction from that leading to Monticello, rears its gorgeous and fantastic piles of massive and motley architecture—a lively and faithful symbol (I speak it reverently) of the ambitious, parti-colored and gallican taste of its illustrious founder.

From Charlottesville, proceeding southwardly, in the direction of Nelson and Amherst, the road lies generally over an undulating country, formed by the succession of hills constituting the subordinate chain of mountains which I have described as first in the belt. These hills derive a beautiful feature from the manner in which they are commanded,—to use a military phrase,—by the Blue Ridge, which, for the whole distance, rests against the western horizon, and heaves up its frequent pinnacles amongst the clouds, clothed in all the variegated tints that belong to the scale of vision, from the sombre green and purple of the nearer masses, to the light and almost indistinguishable azure of its remotest summits.

The constant interruption of some gushing rivulet, which hurries from the neighboring mountain into the close vales that intercept the road, communicates a trait of peculiar interest to this journey, affording that pleasant surprise of new and unexpected scenery, which, more than any other concomitant of travel, wards off the sense of fatigue. These streams have worn deep channels through the hills, and constantly seem to solicit the road into narrow passes and romantic dells, where fearful crags are seen toppling over the head of the traveller, and sparkling waters tinkle at his feet; and where the richest and rarest trees of the forest seem to have chosen their several stations, on mossy bank or cloven rock, in obedience to some master mind intent upon the most tasteful and striking combination of these natural elements.

A part of the country embraced in this description, has obtained the local designation of the South Garden, perhaps from its succession of fertile fields and fragrant meadows, which are shut in by the walls of mountain on either hand; whilst a still more remote but adjacent district of more rugged features, bears the appellation of the Cove, the name being suggested by the narrow and encompassing character of the sharp and precipitous hills that hem in and over-shadow a rough and brattling mountain torrent, which is marked on the map as the Cove creek.

At the period to which my story refers, the population of this central district of Virginia, exhibited but few of the characteristics which are found to distinguish the present race of inhabitants. A rich soil, a pure atmosphere, and great abundance of wood and water, to say nothing of the sylvan beauties of the mountain, possessed a great attraction for the wealthy proprietors of the low country; and the land was, therefore, generally parcelled out in large estates held by opulent owners, whose husbandry did not fail, at least, to accumulate in profusion the comforts of life, and afford full scope to that prodigal hospitality, which, at that period even more than at present, was the boast of the state. The laws of primogeniture exercised their due influence on the national habits; and the odious division of property amongst undeserving younger brothers, whom our modern philosophy would fain persuade us have as much merit, and as little capacity to thrive in the world as their elders, had not yet formed part of the household thoughts of these many-acred squires. From Charlottesville, therefore, both north and south, from the Potomac to the James river, there extended a chain of posts, occupied by lordly and open-hearted gentlemen,—a kind of civil cordon of bluff free-livers who were but little versed in the mystery of "bringing the two ends of the year together."

Since that period, well-a-day! the hand of the reaper has put in his sickle upon divided fields; crowded progenies have grown up under these paternal roof-trees; daughters have married and brought in strange names; the subsistence of one has been spread into the garner of ten; the villages have grown populous; the University has lifted up its didactic head; and everywhere over this abode of ancient wealth, the hum of industry is heard in the carol of the ploughman, the echo of the wagoner's whip, the rude song of the boatman, and in the clatter of the mill. Such are the mischievous interpolations of the republican system!

My reader, after this topographical sketch and the political reflections with which I have accompanied it, is doubtless well-prepared for the introduction of the worthy personages with whom I am about to make him acquainted.

CHAPTER II.

WHEREIN THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO TWO WORTHIES WITH WHOM HE IS LIKELY TO FORM AN INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCE.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon of a day towards the end of July, 1780, when Captain Arthur Butler, now holding a brevet, some ten days old, of major in the continental army, and Galbraith Robinson were seen descending the long hill which separates the South Garden from the Cove. They had just left the rich and mellow scenery of the former district, and were now passing into the picturesque valley of the latter. It was evident from the travel-worn appearance of their horses, as well as from their equipments, that they had journeyed many a mile before they had reached this spot; and it might also have been perceived that the shifting beauties of the landscape were not totally disregarded by Butler, at least,—as he was seen to halt on the summit of the hill, turn and gaze back upon the wood-embowered fields that lay beneath his eye, and by lively gestures to direct the notice of his companion to the same quarter. Often, too, as they moved slowly downward, he reined up his steed to contemplate more at leisure the close, forest-shaded ravine before them, through which the Cove creek held its noisy way. It was not so obvious that his companion responded to the earnest emotions which this wild and beautiful scenery excited in his mind.

Arthur Butler was now in the possession of the vigor of early manhood, with apparently some eight and twenty years upon his head. His frame was well proportioned, light and active. His face, though distinguished by a smooth and almost beardless cheek, still presented an outline of decided manly beauty. The sun and wind had tanned his complexion, except where a rich volume of black hair upon his brow had preserved the original fairness of a high, broad forehead. A hazel eye sparkled under the shade of a dark lash, and indicated, by its alternate playfulness and decision, an adventurous as well as a cheerful spirit. His whole bearing, visage and figure, seemed to speak of one familiar with enterprise and fond of danger:—they denoted gentle breeding predominating over a life of toil and privation.

Notwithstanding his profession, which was seen in his erect and peremptory carriage, his dress, at this time, was, with some slight exceptions, merely civil. And here, touching this matter of dress, I have a prefatory word to say to my reader. Although custom, or the fashion of the story-telling craft, may require that I should satisfy the antiquarian in this important circumstance of apparel of the days gone by, yet, on the present occasion, I shall be somewhat chary of my lore in that behalf;—seeing that any man who is curious on the score of the costume of the revolution time, may be fully satisfied by studying those most graphic "counterfeit presentments" of sundry historical passages of that day, wherewith Colonel Trumbull has furnished this age, for the edification of posterity, in the great rotunda of the Capitol of the United States. And I confess, too, I have another reason for my present reluctance,—as I feel some faint misgiving lest my principal actor might run the risk of making a sorry figure with the living generation, were I to introduce him upon the stage in a coat, whose technical description, after the manner of a botanical formula, might be comprised in the following summary:—long-waisted—wide-skirted—narrow- collared—broad-backed—big-buttoned—and large-lapelled;—and then to add to this, what would be equally outlandish, yellow small-clothes, and dark-topped boots, attached by a leather strap to the buttons at the knee,—without which said boots, no gentleman in 1780 ventured to mount on horseback.

But when I say that Captain Butler travelled on his present journey, habited in the civil costume of a gentleman of the time, I do not mean to exclude a round hat pretty much of the fashion of the present day—though then but little used except amongst military men—with a white cockade to show his party; nor do I wish to be considered as derogating from that peaceful character when I add that his saddle-bow was fortified by a brace of horseman's pistols, stowed away in large holsters, covered with bear skin;—for, in those days, when hostile banners were unfurled, and men challenged each other upon the highways, these pistols were a part of the countenance (to use an excellent old phrase) of a gentleman.

Galbraith Robinson was a man of altogether rougher mould. Nature had carved out, in his person, an athlete whom the sculptors might have studied to improve the Hercules. Every lineament of his body indicated strength. His stature was rather above six feet; his chest broad; his limbs sinewy, and remarkable for their symmetry. There seemed to be no useless flesh upon his frame to soften the prominent surface of his muscles; and his ample thigh, as he sat upon horseback, showed the working of its texture at each step, as if part of the animal on which he rode. His was one of those iron forms that might be imagined almost bullet proof. With all these advantages of person, there was a radiant, broad, good nature upon his face; and the glance of a large, clear, blue eye told of arch thoughts, and of shrewd, homely wisdom. A ruddy complexion accorded well with his sprightly, but massive features, of which the prevailing expression was such as silently invited friendship and trust. If to these traits be added an abundant shock of yellow, curly hair, terminating in a luxuriant queue, confined by a narrow strand of leather cord, my reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the person I wish to describe.

Robinson had been a blacksmith at the breaking out of the revolution, and, in truth, could hardly be said to have yet abandoned the craft; although of late, he had been engaged in a course of life which had but little to do with the anvil, except in that metaphorical sense of hammering out and shaping the rough, iron independence of his country. He was the owner of a little farm in the Waxhaw settlement, on the Catawba, and having pitched his habitation upon a promontory, around whose base the Waxhaw creek swept with a regular but narrow circuit, this locality, taken in connexion with his calling, gave rise to a common prefix to his name throughout the neighborhood, and he was therefore almost exclusively distinguished by the sobriquet of Horse Shoe Robinson. This familiar appellative had followed him into the army.

The age of Horse Shoe was some seven or eight years in advance of that of Butler—a circumstance which the worthy senior did not fail to use with some authority in their personal intercourse, holding himself, on that account, to be like Cassius, an elder, if not a better soldier. On the present occasion, his dress was of the plainest and most rustic description: a spherical crowned hat with a broad brim, a coarse grey coatee of mixed cotton and wool, dark linsey-woolsey trowsers adhering closely to his leg, hob-nailed shoes, and a red cotton handkerchief tied carelessly round his neck with a knot upon his bosom. This costume, and a long rifle thrown into the angle of the right arm, with the breech resting on his pommel, and a pouch of deer-skin, with a powder horn attached to it, suspended on his right side, might have warranted a spectator in taking Robinson for a woodsman, or hunter from the neighboring mountains.

Such were the two personages who now came "pricking o'er the hill." The period at which I have presented them to my reader was, perhaps, the most anxious one of the whole struggle for independence. Without falling into a long narrative of events which are familiar, at least to every American, I may recall the fact that Gates had just passed southward, to take command of the army destined to act against Cornwallis. It was now within a few weeks of that decisive battle which sent the hero of Saratoga "bootless home and weather-beaten back," to ponder over the mutations of fortune, and, in the quiet shades of Virginia, to strike the balance of fame between northern glory and southern discomfiture. It may be imagined then, that our travellers were not without some share of that intense interest for the events "upon the gale," which every where pervaded the nation. Still, as I have before hinted, Arthur Butler did not journey through this beautiful region without a lively perception of the charms which nature had spread around him. The soil of this district is remarkable for its blood-red hue. The side of every bank glowed in the sun with this bright vermillion tint, and the new-made furrow, wherever the early ploughman had scarred the soil, turned up to view the predominating color. The contrast of this with the luxuriant grass and the yellow stubble, with the grey and mossy rock, and with the deep green shade of the surrounding forest, perpetually solicited the notice of the lover of landscape; and from every height, the eye rested with pleasure upon the rich meadows of the bottom land—upon the varied cornfields spread over the hills; upon the adjacent mountains, with their bald crags peeping through the screen of forest, and especially upon the broad lines of naked earth that, here and there, lighted up and relieved, as a painter would say, with its warm coloring, the heavy masses of shade.

The day was hot, and it was with a grateful sense of refreshment that our wayfarers, no less than their horses, found themselves, as they approached the lowland, gradually penetrating the deep and tangled thicket and the high wood that hung over and darkened the channel of the small stream which rippled through the valley. Their road lay along this stream and frequently crossed it at narrow fords, where the water fell from rock to rock in small cascades, presenting natural basins of the limpid flood, embosomed in laurel and alder, and gurgling that busy music which is one of the most welcome sounds to the ear of a wearied and overheated traveller.

Butler said but little to his companion, except now and then to express a passing emotion of admiration for the natural embellishments of the region; until, at length, the road brought them to a huge mass of rock, from whose base a fountain issued forth over a bed of gravel, and soon lost itself in the brook hard by. A small strip of bark, that some friend of the traveller had placed there, caught the pure water as it was distilled from the rock, and threw it off in a spout, some few inches above the surface of the ground. The earth trodden around this spot showed it to be a customary halting place for those who journeyed on the road.

Here Butler checked his horse, and announced to his comrade his intention to suspend, for a while, the toil of travel.

"There is one thing, Galbraith," said he, as he discounted, "wherein all philosophers agree—man must eat when he is hungry, and rest when he is weary. We have now been some six hours on horseback, and as this fountain seems to have been put here for our use, it would be sinfully slighting the bounties of providence not to do it the honor of a halt. Get down, man; rummage your havresac, and let us see what you have there."

Robinson was soon upon his feet, and taking the horses a little distance off, he fastened their bridles to the impending branches of a tree; then opening his saddle-bags, he produced a wallet with which he approached the fountain, where Butler had thrown himself at full length upon the grass. Here, as he successively disclosed his stores, he announced his bill of fare, with suitable deliberation between each item, in the following terms:

"I don't march without provisions, you see, captain—or major, I suppose I must call you now. Here's the rear division of a roast pig, and along with it, by way of flankers, two spread eagles (holding up two broiled fowls), and here are four slices from the best end of a ham. Besides these, I can throw in two apple-jacks, a half dozen of rolls, and—"

"Your wallet is as bountiful as a conjurer's bag, sergeant; it is a perfect cornucopia. How did you come by all this provender?"

"It isn't so overmuch, major, when you come to consider," said Robinson. "The old landlady at Charlottesville is none of your heap-up, shake-down, and running-over landladies, and when I signified to her that we mought want a snack upon the road, she as much as gave me to understand that there wa'n't nothing to be had. But I took care to make fair weather with her daughter, as I always do amongst the creatures, and she let me into the pantry, where I made bold to stow away these few trifling articles, under the denomination of pillage. If you are fond of Indian corn bread, I can give you a pretty good slice of that."

"Pillage, Galbraith! You forget you are not in an enemy's country. I directed you scrupulously to pay for everything you got upon the road. I hope you have not omitted it to-day?"

"Lord, sir! what do these women do for the cause of liberty but cook, and wash, and mend!" exclaimed the sergeant. "I told the old Jezebel to charge it all to the continental congress."

"Out upon it, man! Would you bring us into discredit with our best friends, by your villanous habits of free quarters?"

"I am not the only man, major, that has been spoiled in his religion by these wars. I had both politeness and decency till we got to squabbling over our chimney corners in Carolina. But when a man's conscience begins to get hard, it does it faster than anything in nature: it is, I may say, like the boiling of an egg—it is very clear at first, but as soon as it gets cloudy, one minute more and you may cut it with a knife."

"Well, well! Let us fall to, sergeant; this is no time to argue points of conscience."

"You seem to take no notice of this here bottle of peach brandy major," said Robinson. "It's a bird that came out of the same nest. To my thinking it's a sort of a file leader to an eatable, if it ar'n't an eatable itself."

"Peace, Galbraith! it is the vice of the army to set too much store by this devil brandy."

The sergeant was outwardly moved by an inward laugh that shook his head and shoulders.

"Do you suppose, major, that Troy town was taken without brandy? It's drilling and countermarching and charging with the bagnet, all three, sir. But before we begin, I will just strip our horses. A flurry of cool air on the saddle spot is the best thing in nature for a tired horse."

Robinson now performed this office for their jaded cattle; and having given them a mouthful of water at the brook, returned to his post, and soon began to despatch, with a laudable alacrity, the heaps of provision before him. Butler partook with a keen appetite of this sylvan repast, and was greatly amused to see with what relish his companion caused slice after slice to vanish, until nothing was left of this large supply but a few fragments.

"You have lost neither stomach nor strength by the troubles, sergeant; the short commons of Charleston would have gone something against the grain with you, if you had stayed for that course of diet."

"It is a little over two months," said Robinson, "since I got away from them devils; and if it hadn't been for these here wings of mine (pointing to his legs), I might have been a caged bird to-day."

"You have never told me the story of your escape," said Butler.

"You were always too busy, or too full of your own thoughts, major, for me to take up your time with such talk," replied the other. "But, if you would like me to tell you all about it, while you are resting yourself here on the ground, and have got nothing better to think about, why, I'll start like old Jack Carter of our mess, by beginning, as he used to say when he had a tough story ahead, right at the beginning."

"Do so, sergeant, and do it discreetly; but first, swallow that mouthful, for you don't speak very clear."

"I'll wash down the gutter, major, according to camp fashion and then my throat will be as clear as the morning gun after sun rise."

And saying this, the tall soldier helped himself to a hearty draught of cool water mingled in fair proportion with a part of the contents of his flask, and setting the cup down by his side, he commenced as follows:—

"You was with us, major, when Prevost served us that trick in Georgia, last year—kept us, you remember, on the look out for him t'other side of the Savannah, whilst all the time he was whisking of it down to Charleston."

"You call this beginning at the beginning? Faith, you have started a full year before your time. Do you think yourself a Polybius or a Xenophon—who were two famous old fellows, just in your line, sergeant—that you set out with a history of a whole war."

"I never knew any persons in our line—officers or men—of either of them names,"—replied Robinson,—"they were nicknames, perhaps;—but I do know, as well as another, when a thing turns up that is worth notice, major; and this is one of 'em:—and that's the reason why I make mention of it. What I was going to say was this—that it was a sign fit for General Lincoln's consarnment, that these here British should make a push at Charleston on the tenth of May, 1779, and get beaten, and that exactly in one year and two days afterwards, they should make another push and win the town. Now, what was it a sign of, but that they and the tories was more industrious that year than we were?"

"Granted," said Butler, "now to your story, Mister Philosopher!"

"In what month was it you left us?" inquired the sergeant gravely.

"In March," answered Butler.

"General Lincoln sent you off, as we were told, on some business with the continental congress: to get us more troops, if I am right. It was a pity to throw away a good army on such a place—for it wa'nt worth defending at last. From the time that you set out they began to shut us in, every day a little closer. First, they closed a door on one side, and then on t'other: till, at last they sent a sort of flash-o'-lightning fellow—this here Colonel Tarleton—up to Monk's corner, which, you know, was our back door, and he shut that up and double bolted it, by giving Huger a most tremenjious lathering. Now, when we were shut in, we had nothing to do but look out. I'll tell you an observation I made, at that time."

"Well."

"Why, when a man has got to fight, it's a natural sort of thing enough;—but when he has got nothing to eat, it's an onnatural state. I have hearn of men who should have said they would rather fight than eat:—if they told truth they would have made honest fellows for our garrison at Charlestown. First, our vegetables—after that devil took up his quarters at Monk's corner—began to give out then, our meat; and, finally, we had nothing left but rice, which I consider neither fish, flesh, nor good salt herring"——

"You had good spirits, though, sergeant."

"If you mean rum or brandy, major, we hadn't much of that;—but if you mean jokes and laughs, it must be hard times that will stop them in camp.—I'll tell you one of them, that made a great hurra on both sides, where we got the better of a Scotch regiment that was plaguing us from outside the town. They thought they would make themselves merry with our starvation—so, they throwed a bomb shell into our lines, that, as it came along through the air, we saw had some devilment in it, from the streak it made in daylight; and, sure enough, when we come to look at it on the ground, we found it filled with rice and molasses—just to show that these Scotchmen were laughing at us for having nothing to eat. Well, what do we do but fill another shell with brimstone and hogslard, and just drop it handsomely amongst the lads from the land o'cakes? Gad, sir, it soon got to the hearing of the English regiment, and such a shouting as they sot up from their lines against the Scotchmen! That's what I call giving as good as they saunt, major—ha ha ha!"

"It wasn't a bad repartee, Galbraith," said Butler, joining in the laugh. "But go on with your siege."

"We got taken, at last," proceeded Horse Shoe, "and surrendered on the 12th of May. Do you know that they condescended to let us go through the motions of marching outside the lines? Still it was a sorry day to see our colors tied as fast to their sticks as if a stocking had been drawn over them. After that, we were marched to the barracks and put into close confinement."

"Yes, I have heard that; and with heavy hearts—and a dreary prospect before you, sergeant."

"I shouldn't have minded it much, Major Butler, it was the fortune of war. But they insulted us as soon as they got our arms from us. It was a blasted cowardly trick in them to endeavor to wean us from our cause, which they tried every day; it was seduction, I may say. First, they told us that Colonel Pinckney and some other officers had gone over; but that was too onprobable a piece of rascality,—we didn't believe one word on't. So, one morning Colonel Pinckney axed that we mought be drawed up in a line in front of the barracks; and there he made us a speech. We were as silent as so many men on a surprise party. The colonel said—yes, sir, and right in their very teeth—that it was an infamious, audacious calamy: that whenever he desarted the cause of liberty, he hoped they would take him, as they had done some Roman officer or other—I think one Officious, as I understood the colonel—you've hearn of him, may be—and tie his limbs to wild horses, and set them adrift, at full speed, taking all his joints apart, so that not one traitorious limb should be left to keep company with another. It was a mighty severe punishment, whoever he mought'a been. The British officers began to frown—and I saw one chap put his hand upon his sword. It would have done you good to witness the look the colonel gave him, as he put his own hand to his thigh to feel if his sword was there—he so naturally forgot he was a prisoner. They made him stop speaking howsever, because they gave out that it was perditious language; and so, they dismissed us—but we let them have three cheers to show that we were in heart."

"It was like Pinckney," said Butler; "I'll warrant him a true man, Galbraith."

"I'll thribble that warrant," replied Galbraith, "and afterwards make it nine. I wish you could have hearn him. I always thought a bugle horn the best music in the world, till that day. But that day Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's voice was sweeter than shawns and trumpets, as the preacher says, and bugles to boot. I have hearn people tell of speeches working like a fiddle on a man's nerves, major: but, for my part, I think they sometimes work like a battery of field-pieces, or a whole regimental band on a parade day. Howsever, I was going on to tell you, Colonel Pinckney put a stop to all this parleying with our poor fellows; and knowing, major, that you was likely to be coming this way, he axed me if I thought I could give the guard the slip, and make off with a letter to meet you. Well, I studied over the thing for a while, and then told him a neck was but a neck any how, and that I could try; and so, when his letter was ready, he gave it to me, telling me to hide it so that, if I was sarched, it couldn't be found on my person. Do you see that foot?" added Horse Shoe, smiling, "it isn't so small but that I could put a letter between the inside sole and the out, longways, or even crossways, for the matter of that, and that, without so much as turning down a corner. Correspondent and accordingly I stitched it in. The colonel then told me to watch my chance and make off to you in the Jarseys, as fast as I could. He told me, besides, that I was to stay with you, because you was likely to have business for me to do."

"That's true, good sergeant."

"There came on a darkish, drizzly evening; and a little before roll call, at sun set, I borrowed an old forage cloak from Corporal Green—you mought have remembered him—and out I went towards the lines, and sauntered along the edge of the town, till I came to one of your pipe-smoking, gin-drinking Hessians, keeping sentry near the road that leads out towards Ashley ferry:—a fellow that had no more watch in him—bless your soul!—as these Dutchmen hav'n't—than a duck on a rainy day. So, said I, coming up boldly to him, 'Hans, wie gehet es'—'Geh zum Teufel,' says he, laughing—for he knowed me. That was all the Dutch I could speak, except I was able to say it was going to rain, so I told him—'Es will regnen'—which he knowed as well as I did, for it was raining all the time. I had a little more palaver with Hans, and, at last, he got up on his feet and set to walking up and down. By this time the drums beat for evening quarters, and I bid Hans good night; but, instead of going away, I squatted behind the Dutchman's sentry box;—and, presently, the rain came down by the bucket full; it got very dark and Hans was snug under cover. The grand rounds was coming; I could hear the tramp of feet, and as no time was to be lost, I made a long step and a short story of it, by just slipping over the lines and setting out to seek my fortune."

"Well done, sergeant! You were ever good at these pranks."

"But that wasn't all," continued Robinson. "As the prime file leader of mischief would have it, outside of the lines I meets a cart with a man to drive it, and two soldiers on foot, by way of guard.

"The first I was aware of it, was a hallo, and then a bagnet to my breast. I didn't ask for countersigns, for I didn't mean to trade in words that night; but, just seizing hold of the muzzle of the piece, I twisted it out of the fellow's hand, and made him a present of the butt-end across his pate. I didn't want to hurt him, you see, for it wa'n't his fault that he stopped me. A back-hander brought down the other, and the third man drove off his cart, as if he had some suspicion that his comrades were on their backs in the mud. I didn't mean to trouble a peaceable man with my compliments, but on the contrary, as the preacher says, I went on my way rejoicing."

"You were very considerate, sergeant; I entirely approve of your moderation. As you are a brave man, and have a natural liking for danger, this was a night that, doubtless, afforded you great satisfaction."

"When danger stares you in the face," replied Horse Shoe, "the best way is not to see it. It is only in not seeing of it, that a brave man differs from a coward: that's my opinion. Well, after that I had a hard time of it. I was afraid to keep up the Neck road, upon account of the sodgers that was upon it; so I determined to cross the Ashley, and make for the Orangeburg district. When I came to the ferry, I was a little dubious about taking one of the skiffs that was hauled up, for fear of making a noise; so I slipped off my shoe that had your letter, and put it betwixt my teeth and swum the river. I must have made some splashing in the water—although I tried to muffle my oars, too, for first, I heard a challenge from the ferry-house, and then the crack of a musket: but it was so dark you couldn't see an egg on your own nose. There was a little flustering of lights on the shore, and a turnout of the guard, may be; but, I suppose, they thought it was a sturgeon, or some such beast, and so made no more of it; and I got safe to the other bank."

"Faithfully and bravely, sergeant!"

"For the first three or four days the chances were all against me. The whole country was full of tories, and it wasn't safe to meet a man on the road: you couldn't tell whether he was friend or enemy. I durstn't show my face in day-time at all, but lay close in the swamps; and when it began to grow dark, I stole out, like a wolf, and travelled across the fields, and along the by-ways."

"You had a good stomach to bear it, sergeant."

"A good stomach enough, but not much in it. I'll tell you another observation I made; when a man travels all night long on an empty stomach, he ought either to fill it next morning or make it smaller."

"And how is that to be managed, friend Horse Shoe?"

"Indian fashion," replied the sergeant. "Buckle your belt a little tighter every two or three hours. A man may shrivel his guts up to the size of a pipe stem. But I found a better way to get along than by taking in my belt"——

"Now, for another stratagem!"

"I commonly, about dark, crept as near to a farm house as I mought venture to go; and, putting on a poor mouth, told the folks I had a touch of the small-pox, and was dying for a little food. They were Christians enough to give me a dish of bread and milk, or something of that sort, and cowards enough to keep so much out of the way, as not to get a chance to look me in the face. They laid provisions on the ground, and then walked away while I came up to get them. Though I didn't think much of the fashion I was waited on, and had sometimes to quarrel with a bull-dog for my supper, I don't believe I ever ate with a better appetite in my life. The first bread of freedom, no matter how coarse, a man eats after his escape from prison, is the sweetest morsel in nature. And I do think it is a little pleasanter when he eats it at the risk of his life."

Butler nodded his head.

"Well, after this," continued Horse Shoe, "I had like to have lost all by another mishap. My course was for the upper country, because the nearer I got to my own home the better I was acquainted with the people. That scrummaging character, Tarleton, you may have hearn, scampered off, as soon as ever Charlestown was taken, after Colonel Abraham Buford, who was on his way down to the city when the news was fotch him of our surrender. Buford accordingly came to the right about, to get out of harm's way as fast as he could, and Tarleton followed close on his heels. Think of that devil, major, trying to catch a man a hundred miles away! It was a brazen hearted thing! considering, besides, that Buford had a good regiment with him. When nobody thought it anything more than a brag, sure enough, he overhauls Buford yonder at the Waxhaws—onawares, you may say—and there he tore him all to pieces. They say it was a bloody cruel sight, to see how these English troopers did mangle the poor fellows. I doubt there wasn't fair play. But, major, that Tarleton rides well and is a proper soldier, take him man to man. It so happened that as I was making along towards Catawba, who should I come plump upon, but Tarleton and his lads, with their prisoners, all halting beside a little run to get water!"

"Again in trouble, sergeant! Truly you have had full measure of adventures!"

"I was pretty near nonplushed, major," said Horse Shoe, with a broad laugh, "but I thought of a stratagem. I let fall my under jaw, and sot my eyes as wild as a madman, and twisted my whole face out of joint—and began to clap my hands, and hurra for the red coats, like a natural fool. So, when Tarleton and two or three of his people came to take notice of me, they put me down for a poor idiot that had been turned adrift."

"Did they hold any discourse with you?"

"A good deal; and, just to try me, they flogged me with the flats of their swords; but I laughed and made merry when they hurt me worst, and told them I thanked them for their politeness. There were some of our people amongst the prisoners, that I knew, and I was mortally afeard they would let on, but they didn't. Especially, there was Seth Cuthbert, from Tryon, who had both of his hands chopped off in the fray at the Waxhaws; he was riding double behind a trooper, and he held up the stumps just to let me see how barbarously he was mangled. I was dubious they would see that he knowed me, but he took care of that. Bless your soul, major! he saw my drift in the first shot of his eye. Thinking that they mought take it into their noddles to carry me along with them back, I played the quarest trick that I suppose ever a man thought of; it makes me laugh now to tell it. I made a spring that fetched me right upon the crupper of Colonel Tarleton's horse, which sot him to kicking and flirting at a merry rate; and, whilst the creature was floundering as if a hornet had stung him, I took the colonel's cap and put it upon my own head, and gave him mine. And after I had vagaried in this sort of way for a little while, I let the horse fling me on the ground. You would have thought the devils would have died a laughing. And the colonel himself, although at first he was very angry, couldn't help laughing likewise. He said that I was as strange a fool as he ever saw, and that it would be a pity to hurt me. So he threw me a shilling, and, whilst they were all in good humor, I trudged away."

"It was a bold experiment, and might be practised a thousand times without success. If I did not know you, Robinson, to be a man of truth, as well as courage, I should scarce believe this tale. If any one, hereafter, should tell your story, he will be accounted a fiction-monger."

"I do not boast, Major Butler; and, as to my story, I care very little who tells it. Every trick is good in war. I can change my face and voice both, so that my best friends shouldn't know me: and, in these times, I am willing to change every thing but my coat, and even that, if I have a witness to my heart, and it will serve a turn to help the country. Am I not right?"

"No man ever blames another for that, sergeant, and if ever you should be put to the trial, you will find friends enough to vouch for your honesty."

"When I got away from Tarleton it wasn't long before I reached my own cabin. There I mustered my horse and gun, and some decent clothes; and after a good sleep, and a belly full of food, I started for the north, as fast as I could, with my letter. I put it into your own hands, and you know the rest."

"This will be a good tale for a winter night," said Butler, "to be told hereafter, in a snug chimney corner, to your wife and children, when peace, as I trust it may, will make you happy in the possession of both. Your embassy has had marvellous good luck so far. I hope it may prove a happy omen for our future enterprise. Now it is my turn, Galbraith, to tell you something of our plans. Colonel Pinckney has apprised me of the state of things in the upper country. Our good friend Clarke there meditates an attempt to regain Augusta and Ninety-six; and we have reason to believe that some levies will be made by our confederates in Virginia and elsewhere. My business is to co-operate in this undertaking; and as it was essential I should have the guidance of some man acquainted with that country—some good soldier, true and trusty—the colonel has selected you to accompany me. These red coats have already got possession of all the strongholds; and the tories, you know, swarm in the country, like the locusts of Egypt. I stand in need, sergeant, of a friend with a discreet head and a strong arm. I could not have picked out of the army a better man than Sergeant Galbraith Robinson. Besides, Horse Shoe," he added, putting his hand gently upon the sergeant's shoulder, "old acquaintance has bred an affection between us."

"I am a man that can eat my allowance, major," said Robinson, with an awkward diffidence at hearing the encomium just passed upon him, "and that's a matter that doesn't turn to much profit in an empty country. But I think I may make bold to promise, that you are not like to suffer, if a word or a blow from me would do you any good."

"Your belt may be serviceable in two ways in this expedition, Horse Shoe: it may be buckled closer in scant times, and will carry a sword in dangerous ones."

"May I ask, major," inquired Horse Shoe, "since you have got to talking of our business, what has brought us so high up the country, along here? It seems to me that the lower road would have been nearer."

"Suppose I say, Galbraith," replied Butler, with animation, "that there is a bird nestles in these woods, I was fond of hearing sing, would it be unsoldier-like, think you, to make a harder ride and a larger circuit for that gratification?"

"Oh! I understand, major," said Horse Shoe, laughing, "whether it be peace or whether it be war, these women keep the upper hand of us men. For my part, I think it's more natural to think of them in war than in peace. For, you see, the creatures are so helpless, that if a man don't take care of them, who would? And then, when a woman's frightened, as she must be in these times, she clings so naturally to a man! It stands to reason!"

"You will keep my counsel, Galbraith," interrupted Butler, "I have a reason which, perhaps, you may know by and by, why you should not speak of any thing you may see or hear. And now, as we have spent a good hour in refreshment, sergeant, make our horses ready. We'll take the road again."

Robinson promised caution in all matters that might be committed to his charge, and now set himself about saddling the horses for the journey. Whilst he was engaged in this occupation, Butler was startled to hear the sergeant abruptly cry out—"You devil, Captain Peter Clinch! what are you about?" and, looking hastily around, saw no one but the trusty squire himself, who was now sedately intent upon thrusting the bit into his horse's mouth,—a liberty which the animal seemed to resent by sundry manifestations of waywardness.

"To whom are you talking, Galbraith?"

"Only to this here contrary, obstropolous beast, major."

"What name did you call him by?" inquired Butler.

"Ha, ha, ha! was it that you was listening too?" said Horse Shoe. "I have christened him Captain Peter—sometimes Captain Peter Clinch. I'll tell you why. I am a little malicious touching the name of my horse. After the surrender of Charlestown, our regiment was put in the charge of a provost marshal, by the name of Captain Clinch, and his first name was Peter. He was a rough, ugly, wiry-haired fellow, with no better bowels than a barrel of vinegar. He gave us all sorts of ill usage, knowing that we wa'n't allowed to give him the kind of payment that such an oncomfortable fellow desarved to get. If ever I had met him again, major, setters parbus—as Lieutenant Hopkins used to say—which is lingo, I take it, for a fair field, I would'a cudgelled his pate for him, to the satisfaction of all good fellows. Well, when I got home, I gave his name to my beast, just for the pleasure of thinking of that hang-gallows thief, every time I had occasion to give the creetur a dig in the ribs, or lay a blow across his withers! And yet he is a most an excellent horse, major, and a hundred times more of a gentleman than his namesake,—though he is a little hard-headed too—but that he larnt from me. It really seems to me that the dumb beast thinks his name a disgrace, as he has good right, but has got used to it. And, besides, I hear that the cross-grained, growling dog of a captain has been killed in a scuffle since I left Charlestown, so now I consider my horse a sort of tombstone with the ugly sinner's name on it; and as I straddle it every day you see, that's another satisfaction."

"Well, sergeant, there are few men enjoy their revenge more good-humoredly than you. So, come, straddle your tombstone again, and make the bones beneath it jog."

In good glee, our travellers now betook themselves once more to the road.

CHAPTER III.

AN INCIDENT THAT SAVORS OF ROMANCE.

By the time the sun had fallen to the level of the summits of the Blue Ridge, Butler and Robinson had progressed so far in their journey, as to find themselves in the vicinity of the Rockfish river—a rapid mountain stream, that traverses the southern confine of Albemarle, and which, at that period, separated this county from Amherst. Their path had led them, by a short circuit, out of the ravine of Cove creek, along upon the ridges of the neighboring hills; and they were now descending from this elevation, into the valley of the Rockfish, near to the point where the Cove creek forms its junction with this river. The hill was covered with a stately forest, and a broad, winding road had been cut down the steep side, in such a manner as to present a high bank on one hand, and an abrupt sheer descent on the other. From this road might be seen, at intervals, glimmering through the screen of underwood, the waters of the small river below; whilst, at the same time, the circuitous course of the descending track left but few paces of its length visible from any one point, except where, now and then, it came boldly forth to the verge of some wild crag, from which glimpses were to be obtained of its frequent traverses towards the deep and romantic dell that received the mingled tribute of the two streams.

Here, as our travellers journeyed downward, their attention was awakened by the cry of hounds in pursuit of game. These sounds came from the wood on the crest of the hill above them; and the clamorous earnestness with which they assailed the ear, and roused the far echo of the highlands, showed the object of chase to have been suddenly surprised and hotly followed. The outcry was heard, for some moments, pursuing a direction towards the river, when, suddenly from the midst of the forest, the sharp twang of a rifle-shot showed that some hunter was on the watch to profit by the discovery of the dogs.

Robinson, as soon as he heard the report, urged his horse forward with speed, to the first turn of the road below; dismounted, and, throwing his rifle into the palm of his left hand, stood ready to give his fire wherever he might find occasion. Butler followed, and reined up close beside his companion.

"There is game afoot," said Galbraith, "and if that shot has not done its business, it may be my turn to try a hand."

These words were hardly spoken, when a wounded buck rushed to the brink of the bank, some twelve or fifteen feet above the heads of the travellers, and regardless of the presence of enemies, made one frantic bound forward into the air, and fell dead almost at Robinson's feet. So effectually had the work of death been done upon the poor animal, that he seemed to have expired, in the convulsion of this last leap, before he reached the ground; his antlers were driven into the clay; his eyes were fixed, and not a struggle followed.

"It was a home-shot that brought this poor fugitive to the earth," said Butler, as he stood gazing at the piteous spectacle before him, "and sped by a practised hand."

"I don't count him a good man, major," said Galbraith, with professional indifference, "who would mangle his meat by random firing. Now, this buck was taken sideways, as he leaped above the tops of the bushes, which is the ticklishest of all the ways of shooting a deer. The man that plucked this fellow, I'll warrant, can plant his ball just where he likes: right under the arm is the place for certainty; and the thing couldn't have been prettier done if the man had had a rest and a standing shot."

During this short interval, the hounds had arrived on the spot where the buck lay bleeding, and these, after a few minutes, were followed by two hunters of very dissimilar appearance, who came on foot, slowly leading their horses up the hill.

The first was a tall, gaunt woodman, of a sallow complexion, jet black eyes, and round head of smooth black hair. His dress was simply a coarse linen shirt and trowsers, the heat of the day being such as to allow him to dispense with coat and waistcoat. He carried, in one hand, a battered straw hat, and in the other, trailed a long rifle. His feet were covered with a pair of moccasins of brown leather, and the ordinary hunting equipments were suspended about his person.

The second was a youth apparently about sixteen, dressed in a suit of green summer-cloth, neatly and fancifully adapted to his figure, which was graceful and boyish. The jacket was short, and gathered into a small skirt behind; and both this and the pantaloons were garnished with a profusion of black cord and small black buttons. A highly polished leather belt was buckled around his waist; a cap of green cloth rested, somewhat conceitedly, amongst the rich locks of a head of light, curly hair that fell, with girlish beauty, over a fair brow, and gave softness to a countenance of pure white and red; and a neat foot showed to advantage in a laced boot. The whole appearance of the youth was of one of an amiable and docile bearing, and the small rifle or carbine which he bore in his hand, as well as the dainty accoutrements that belonged to it, amongst which was a diminutive bugle, looked more like the toys of a pampered boy, than any apparatus of service.

No sooner had these two approached near enough to Butler and his attendant for recognition, than the youth, quitting the hold of his horse, sprang forward with a joyous alacrity and seized Butler by the hand.

"Captain Butler," he cried with great animation, "how glad I am you have come! And how fortunate it is that I should meet you! Get down from your horse, I have something to tell you. Here, Stephen Foster, take this gentleman's horse."

"You are a fine fellow, Harry," said Butler, dismounting. "That smiling face of yours is full of pleasant news; it assures me that all are well at the Dove Cote." Then having given his horse in charge to Robinson, and walked a few paces apart with his young friend, he enquired, in a low and anxious tone, "Mildred, my dear Henry, what of your sister Mildred? Has she received my letter? Does she expect me? Is your father—"

"Now, captain," interrupted the other—"but heigh! don't the newspapers say you are brevetted? I am a pretty fellow to forget that! Well then, Major Butler, let me answer one question at a time. In the first place, sister Mildred is as well as any girl can be, that has a whole bushel of crosses to keep her out of spirits. Poor thing, she frets so, about you and my father. In the second place, she received your letter a week ago, and has had me patrolling this ridge every day since, just to keep a look-out for you; and, for the sake of company, I have had Stephen Foster hunting here all the time—more for an excuse than anything else, because on this side of the river the drives are not the best for deer—a man might be here a fortnight and not get a shot. Sister Mildred wanted me, if I should see you first, just to whisper to you that it is impossible to do anything with my father, especially at this time, for he has one of these English officers staying at the Dove Cote now, who, I am afraid, and so is sister Mildred, has come to do some mischief. Mildred says I must make some appointment with you to see her privately. I thought of Mrs. Dimock's, but this Englishman has a servant staying over there, and may be it wouldn't do. So, major, you will have to ride down to the big chestnut, on the bank of the river, just under the rock that we call the Fawn's Tower—you know where that is? it isn't more than two miles from here."

"I know it well, Henry, I will wait there patiently," replied Butler, as he now returned to his horse.

"Haven't we been in luck," said Henry, "to get so fine a buck at last? This fellow has eight branches. It is Stephen's rifle that has done it."

The woodman, during this conversation, had taken possession of his spoil, and was now busily engaged with his knife in cutting open and preparing the animal for transportation, according to the usages of woodcraft, whilst Robinson stood by, admiring the dexterity with which this office was performed. When the buck was, at last, thrown by Stephen across his horse, Henry gave him orders to ride forward.

"You will carry our game to your own house, Stephen; and don't forget, to-morrow, to let us have the saddle at the Dove Cote. And Stephen, you need not say that we have found any acquaintances upon the road, you understand!"

The man bowed his head, in token of obedience, and getting upon his long-backed steed, behind the buck, was soon lost to view in the windings of the hill.

"Sister Mildred is sometimes downright melancholy," said the young hunter, after he had remounted, and now rode beside Butler. "She is troubled about you, and is always telling me of some unpleasant dream. I almost think she is over-fanciful; and then she reads everything about the army, and talks almost like a man about soldiering. Do you know she is making a soldier of me? I am constantly reading military books, and practising drill, and laying out fortifications, just as if I was going into camp. My father doesn't know a word of it; his time is taken up with these English officers, writing to them, and every now and then there are some of them at our house. Mildred knows them—a famous spy she would make! Isn't she an excellent girl, Major Butler?"

"You and I should guard her, Henry, with more care than we guard our lives," replied Butler, with a serious emphasis.

"I hope," returned Henry, "she will be in better spirits after she sees you."

"I would to heaven," said Butler, "that we all had more reason to be of good cheer, than we are likely to have. It is as cloudy a day, Henry, as you may ever behold again, should you live, as I pray you may, to the ripest old age."

Henry looked up towards the west.

"There are clouds upon the sky," he said, "and the sun has dropped below them; but there is a streak of yellow light, near to the line of the mountain, that our wise people say is a sign that the sun will rise in beauty to-morrow."

"There is a light beyond the mountain," replied Butler, half speaking to himself, "and it is the best, the only sign I see of a clear to-morrow. I wish, Henry, it were a brighter beam."

"Don't you know Gates has passed South?" said Henry, "and has some pretty fellows with him, they say. And ar'n't we all mustering here—every man most? Ask Stephen Foster what I am?"

"And what will he tell me?"

"Why, that I am his deputy-corporal in the mounted riflemen; Stephen is the lieutenant."

"Oh, I crave your favor, brother officer, good master deputy-corporal, Henry Lindsay! and does your father allow you to ride in the ranks of the friends of liberty?"

"Sister Mildred persuaded him that as I am a mere lad, as she says,—look at me, major,—a pretty well grown lad, I take it, there is no harm in my playing soldier. So I ride always with Stephen Foster, and Mildred got me this light rifle-carbine. Now, major, I fancy I am pretty nearly as good a marksman as rides in the corps. Who is this with you?" asked Henry, looking back at Robinson, who loitered some distance in the rear purposely to avoid what might be deemed an intrusion upon the private conference of the two friends.

"That is a famous soldier, Henry; he was at the siege of Charleston, and last year at Savannah. He has had some hard blows, and can tell you more of war than you have ever read in all your studies."

"He wears a curious uniform," said Henry, "for a regular soldier. What is his name?"

"Galbraith Robinson—or Horse Shoe Robinson—to give him his most popular distinction. But it would be well to keep his name secret."

"I have heard of Horse Shoe," said Henry, with an expression of great interest. "So, this is the man himself? From all reports he is as brave as"—

"As who?" asked Butler, smiling at the tone of wonder with which Henry spoke.

"As Caius Marcius Coriolanus, who, I make no doubt, major, was about the bravest man in the books."

Butler laughed, and applauded the young martialist for his discrimination.

The road from the foot of the hill pursued the left, or northern, bank of the Rockfish, which shot along, with a rapid flood, over the rocks that lay scattered in its bed; and the gush of whose flight fell upon the ear like the loud tones of the wind. From either margin it was shaded by huge sycamores, whose tops, at this twilight hour, were marked in broad lines upon the fading sky, and whose wide spreading boughs met, from side to side, over the middle of the stream, throwing a deeper night upon the clear and transparent waters. The valley was closely bound by high precipitous hills, whose steep crags and narrow passes seemed to echo and prolong the gush of the stream, that was now mingled with the occasional lowing of cattle, the shriek of the owl, and the frequent hoarse scream of the whip-poor-will.

When our party had advanced about a mile along this road, Henry Lindsay took his bugle and blew a blast which seemed to dance in its reverberations from one side of the river to the other.

"Mildred knows my signal," said he; "that is the scout's warning: cavalry approaches: dress your line: prepare to receive a general officer."

"Henry, pray drop your military phrase, and tell me what this means?" said Butler.

"Ride on till you arrive beneath the Fawn's Tower. Wait for me there. I will give you a signal when I approach: and trust me for a faithful messenger. The river is deep at the rock, but you will find a boat fastened to this bank. When you hear my signal come across. Mr. Dimock's is only another mile; and, I'll warrant, the old lady will make you comfortable. Love, they say, major," added Henry, sportively, "is meat and drink, and a blanket to boot; but for all that, Mrs. Dimock's will not be amiss—especially for Horse Shoe, who, I take it, will have the roughest time of the party. If love is a blanket, Mr. Robinson," Henry continued, addressing himself to that worthy, "it doesn't cover two, you know."

"To my thinking, young sir," replied Horse Shoe, with a laugh, "it wouldn't fold so cleverly in a knapsack."

"Now that I have given my orders," said Henry, "and done my duty, I must leave you, for my road lies across the ford here. Where are my hounds? Hylas, Bell, Blanche, you puppies, where are you?"

Here Henry blew another note, which was immediately responded to by the hounds; and, plunging into the rapid and narrow stream, followed by the dogs, who swam close behind him, he was seen, the next moment, through the twilight, galloping up the opposite hill, as he called out his "good night" to his friends.

As soon as Henry had disappeared, the other two pricked their steeds forward at a faster pace. The rapid flow of the river, as they advanced along its bank, began to change into a more quiet current, as if some obstruction below had dammed up the water, rendering it deep and still. Upon this tranquil mirror the pale crescent of the moon and the faintly peeping stars were reflected; and the flight of the fire-fly was traced, by his own light and its redoubled image, upon the same surface.

The high toppling cliff of the Fawn's Tower, that jutted forth like a parapet above the road, soon arrested the attention of Butler; and at its base the great chestnut flung abroad his "vast magnificence of leaves," almost in emulation of the aspiring crag.

"We have reached our appointed ground," said Butler. "I shall want my cloak, Galbraith; the dews begin to chill my limbs."

They dismounted, and Butler threw his cloak around his shoulders. Then, in a thoughtful, musing state of mind, he strolled slowly along the bank of the river, till he was temporarily lost to view in the thick shades and sombre scenery around him. Robinson, having secured the horses, sat himself down at the foot of the chestnut, unwilling to interrupt, by conversation, the anxious state of feeling which he had the shrewdness to perceive predominated in Butler's mind.

CHAPTER IV.

A MEETING OF LOVERS——SOME INSIGHT INTO THE FUTURE.

The twilight had subsided and given place to a beautiful night. The moon had risen above the tree tops, and now threw her level rays upon the broad face of the massive pile of rocks forming the Fawn's Tower, and lit up with a silvery splendor, the foliage that clothed the steep cliff and the almost perpendicular hill in its neighborhood. On the opposite side of the river, a line of beech and sycamore trees, that grew almost at the water's edge, threw a dark shadow upon the bank. Through these, at intervals, the bright moonlight fell upon the earth, and upon the quiet and deep stream. The woods were vocal with the whispering noises that give discord to the nights of summer; yet, was there a stillness in the scene which invited grave thoughts, and recalled to Butler's mind some painful emotions that belonged to his present condition.

"How complicated and severe are those trials"—such was the current of his meditations—"which mingle private grief with public misfortune: that double current of ill which runs, on one side, to the overthrow of a nation's happiness, and, on the other, to the prostration of the individual who labors in the cause! What a struggle have I to encounter between my duty to my country and my regard for those tender relations that still more engross my affections, nor less earnestly appeal to my manhood for defence! Upon the common quarrel I have already staked my life and fortune, and find myself wrapt up in its most perilous obligations. That cause has enough in it to employ and perplex the strongest mind, and to invoke the full devotion of a head and heart that are exempt from all other solicitude: yet am I embarrassed with personal cares that are woven into the very web of my existence; that have planted themselves beside the fountain of my affections, and which, if they be rudely torn from me, would leave behind—but a miserable and hopeless wreck. My own Mildred! to what sad trials have I brought your affection; and how nobly hast thou met them!

"Man lives in the contentious crowd; he struggles for the palm that thousands may award, and far-speeding renown may rend the air with the loud huzza of praise. His is the strife of the theatre where the world are spectators; and multitudes shall glorify his success, or lament his fall, or cheer him in the pangs of death. But woman, gentle, silent, sequestered—thy triumphs are only for the heart that loves thee—thy deepest griefs have no comforter but the secret communion of thine own pillow!"

Whilst Butler, who had now returned beneath the cliff of the Fawn's Tower, was absorbed in this silent musing, his comrade was no less occupied with his own cares. The sergeant had acquired much of that forecast, in regard to small comforts, which becomes, in some degree, an instinct in those whose profession exposes them to the assaults of wind and weather. Tobacco, in his reckoning, was one of the most indispensable muniments of war; and he was, accordingly, seldom without a good stock of this commodity. A corn cob, at any time, furnished him the means of carving the bowl of a pipe; whilst, in his pocket, he carried a slender tube of reed which, being united to the bowl, formed a smoking apparatus, still familiar to the people of this country, and which, to use the sergeant's own phrase, "couldn't be touched for sweetness by the best pipe the very Queen of the Dutch herself ever smoked; and that"—he was in the habit of adding—"must be, as I take it, about the tenderest thing for a whiff that the Dutchman knowed how to make."

A flint and steel—part also of his gear—now served to ignite his tobacco, and he had been, for some time past, sedately scanning the length and breadth of his own fancies, which were, doubtless rendered the more sublime by the mistiness which a rich volume of smoke had shed across his vision and infused into the atmosphere around his brain.

"Twelve shillings and nine pence," were the first words which became audible to Butler in the depth of his revery. "That, major," said the sergeant, who had been rummaging his pocket, and counting over a handful of coin, "is exactly the amount I have spent since this time last night. I paid it to the old lady of the Swan at Charlottesville, taking a sixpence for mending your bridle rein. Since you must make me paymaster for our march, I am obliged to square accounts every night. My noddle wont hold two days reckoning. It gets scrimped and flustered with so many numberings, that I lose the count clean out."

"It is of little consequence, Galbraith," replied Butler, seeking to avoid his companion's interruption.

"Squaring up, and smoothing off, and bringing out this and that shilling straight to a penny, don't come natural to me," continued Robinson, too intent upon his reckoning to observe the disinclination of Butler to a parley, "money matters are not in my line. I take to them as disunderstandingly as Gill Bentley did to the company's books, when they made him Orderly on the Waccamaw picquet. For Gill, in the first place, couldn't write, and, in the next place, if he could'a done that, he never larnt to read, so you may suppose what a beautiful puzzleification he had of it to keep the guard roster straight."

"Sergeant, look if yonder boat is loose; I shall want it presently," said Butler, still giving no ear to his comrade's gossip.

"It is tied by an easy knot to the root of the tree," said Robinson, as he returned from the examination.

"Thank you," added Butler with more than usual abstractedness.

"Something, major, seems to press upon your spirits to-night," said the sergeant, in the kindest tones of inquiry. "If I could lend a hand to put any thing, that mought happen to have got crooked, into its right place again, you know, Major Butler, I wouldn't be slow to do it, when you say the word."

"I would trust my life to you, Galbraith, sooner than to any man living," replied the other, with an affectionate emphasis:—"But you mistake me, I am not heavy at heart, though a little anxious, sergeant, at what has brought me here, comrade," he added as he approached the sergeant, upon whose broad shoulder he familiarly laid his hand, with a smile; "you will keep a fellow soldier's counsel?"

"As I keep my heart in my body," interrupted Galbraith.

"I am sure of it; even as you keep your faith to your country my true and worthy brother," added Butler with animation, "and that is with no less honesty than a good man serves his God. Then, Galbraith, bear it in mind, I have come here for the sake of a short meeting with one that I love, as you would have a good soldier love the lady of his soul. You will hereafter speak of nothing that may fall within your notice. It concerns me deeply that this meeting should be secret."

"Major, I will have neither eyes nor ears, if it consarns you to keep any thing that mought chance to come to my knowledge, private."

"It is not for myself, sergeant, I bespeak this caution; I have nothing to conceal from you; but there is a lady who is much interested in our circumspection. I have given you a long and solitary ride on her account, and may hereafter ask other service from you. You shall not find it more irksome, Galbraith, to stand by a comrade in love, than you have ever found it in war, and that, I know, you think not much."

"The war comes naturally enough to my hand," replied Galbraith, "but as for the love part, major, excepting so far as carrying a message, or, in case of a runaway, keeping off a gang of pestifarious intermeddlers, or watching, for a night or so, under a tree, or any thing, indeed, in the riding and running, or watching, or scrimmaging line—I say, excepting these, my sarvice moughtn't turn to much account. I can't even play a fiddle at a wedding, and I've not the best tongue for making headway amongst the women. Howsomdever, major, you may set me down for a volunteer on the first forlorn hope you may have occasion for."

"Mr. Lindsay lives on the hill across the river. There are reasons why I cannot go to his house; and his daughter, Galbraith, is an especial friend to us and to our cause."

"I begin to see into it," interrupted the sergeant, laughing, "you have a notion of showing the old gentleman the same trick you played off upon Lord Howe's provost marshal, when you was lieutenant at Valley Forge, touching your stealing away his prisoner, Captain Roberts. That was a night affair, too. Well, the best wife a man can have, major, is the woman that takes to him through fire and water. There was Colonel Gardiner, that stole his wife just in that way, against all opposition of both father and mother, and a better woman never stitched up a seam, to my knowledge and belief."

"I have no thought of such an enterprise, sergeant," said Butler; "our purpose, for the present, must be confined to a short visit. We are houseless adventurers, Galbraith, and have little to offer to sweetheart or wife that might please a woman's fancy."

"When a woman loves a man, especially a sodger," replied the sergeant, "she sets as little store by house and home as the best of us. Still, it is a wise thing to give the creatures the chance of peace, before you get to tangling them with families. Hark, I hear something like footsteps on t'other side of the river! Mister Henry must be on his march."

After an interval, a low whistle issued from the opposite bank, and, in a moment, Butler was in the skiff, pushing his way through the sparkling waters.

As the small boat, in which he stood upright, shot from the bright moonlight into the shade of the opposite side, he could obscurely discern Mildred Lindsay leaning on her brother's arm, as they both stood under the thick foliage of a large beech. And scarcely had the bow struck upon the pebbly margin, before he bounded from it up the bank, and was, in the next instant, locked in the embrace of one whose affection he valued above all earthly possessions.

When that short interval had passed away, in which neither Mildred nor Arthur could utter speech; during which the lady leant her head upon her lover's bosom, in that fond familiarity which plighted faith is allowed to justify in the most modest maiden, sobbing the while in the intensity of her emotions, she then at last, as she slowly regained her self-possession, said, in a soft and melancholy voice, in which there was nevertheless a tone of playfulness:

"I am a foolish girl, Arthur. I can boast like a blustering coward, when there is nothing to fear; and yet I weep, like a true woman, at the first trial of my courage."

"Ah, my dear Mildred, you are a brave girl," replied Butler, as he held both of her hands and looked fondly into her face, "and a true and a tried girl. You have come kindly to me, and ever, like a blessed and gentle spirit of good, are prompt to attend me through every mischance. It is a long and weary time, love, since last we met."

"It is very, very long, Arthur."

"And we are still as far off, Mildred, from our wishes as at first we were."

"Even so," said Mildred sorrowfully. "A year of pain drags heavily by, and brings no hope. Oh, Arthur, what have I suffered in the thought that your life is so beset with dangers! I muse upon them with a childish fear, that was not so before our last meeting. They rise to disturb my daily fancies, and night finds them inhabiting my pillow. I was so thankful, that you escaped that dreary siege of Charleston!"

"Many a poor and gallant fellow soldier there bit his lip with a chafed and peevish temper," said Butler; "but the day will come, Mildred, when we may yet carry a prouder head to the field of our country's honor."

"And your share," interrupted Mildred, "will ever be to march in the front rank. In spite of all your perils past, your hard service, which has known no holiday, your fatigues, that I have sometimes feared would break down your health, and in spite too, of the claims, Arthur, that your poor Mildred has upon you, you are even now again bound upon some bold adventure, that must separate us, ah, perhaps, for ever! Our fate has malice in it. Ever beginning some fresh exploit!"

"You would not have your soldier bear himself otherwise than as a true knight, who would win and wear his lady-love by good set blows when there was need for them?"

"If I were the genius that conjured up this war, I would give my own true knight a breathing space. He should pipe and dance between whiles," replied Mildred sportively.

"He that puts his sickle into this field amongst the reapers," said Butler, with a thoughtful earnestness, "should not look back from his work."

"No, no, though my heart break while I say it—for, in truth, I am very melancholy, notwithstanding I force a beggar's smile upon my cheek; no, I would not have you stay or stand, Arthur, until you have seen this wretched quarrel at an end. I praised your first resolve—loved you for it—applauded and cheered you; I will not selfishly now, for the sake of my weak, womanish apprehension, say one word to withhold your arm."

"And you are still," said Butler, "that same resolute enthusiast that I found in the young and eloquent beauty who captivated my worthless heart, when the war first drew the wild spirits of the country together under our free banner?"

"The same foolish, conceited, heady, prattling truant, Arthur, that first took a silly liking to your pompous strut, and made a hero to her imagination out of a boasting ensign—the same in all my follies, and in all my faults—only altered in one quality."

"And pray, what is that one quality?"

"I will not tell you," said Mildred carelessly. "'Twould make you vainer than you are."

"It is not well to hide a kind thought from me, Mildred."

"Indeed it is not, Arthur. And so, I will muster courage to speak it," said the confiding girl with vivacity, after a short pause during which she hung fondly upon her lover's arm; and then suddenly changing her mood, she proceeded in a tone of deep and serious enthusiasm, "it is, that since that short, eventful and most solemn meeting, I have loved you, Arthur, with feelings that I did not know until then were mine. My busy fancy has followed you in all your wanderings—painted with stronger hues than nature gives to any real scene the difficulties and disasters that might cross your path—noted the seasons with a nervous acuteness of remark, from very faint-heartedness at the thought that they might blight your health or bring you some discomfort. I have pored over the accounts of battles, the march of armies, the tales of prisoners relating the secrets of their prisons; studied the plans of generals and statesmen, as the newspapers or common rumor brought them to my knowledge, with an interest that has made those around me say I was sadly changed. It was all because I had grown cowardly and feared even my own shadow. Oh, Arthur, I am not indeed what I was."

The solemnity, force and feeling with which Mildred gave utterance to these words, strangely contrasted with the light and gay tone in which she had commenced; but her thoughts had now fallen into a current that bore her forward into one of those bursts of excited emotion, which were characteristic of her temper, and which threw a peculiar energy and eloquence into her manner. Butler, struck by the rising warmth of her enunciation, and swayed in part by the painful reflections to which her topic gave rise, replied, in a state of feeling scarcely less solemn than her own—

"Ah, Mildred," and as he spoke, he parted her hair upon her pale forehead and kissed it, "dearest girl, the unknown time to come has no cup of suffering for me that I would not hold a cheap purchase for one moment like this. Even a year of painful absence past, and a still more solicitous one to come, may be gallantly and cheerfully borne when blessed with the fleeting interval of this night. To hear your faith, which though I never dwelt upon it but with a confidence that I have held it most profane to doubt, still, to hear it avowed from your own lips, now again and again, repeating what you have often breathed before, and in letter after letter, written down, it falls upon my heart, Mildred, like some good gift from heaven, specially sent to revive and quicken my resolution in all the toils and labors that yet await me. There must be good in store for such a heart as thine; and, trusting to this faith, I will look to the future with a buoyant temper."

"The future," said Mildred, as she lifted her eyes to the pale moon that now sheeted with its light her whole figure, as she and her lover strayed beyond the shade of the beech, "I almost shudder when I hear that word. We live but in the present; that, Arthur, is, at least, our own, poor as we are in almost all beside. That future is a perplexed and tangled riddle—a dreadful uncertainty, in the contemplation of which I grow superstitious. Such ill omens are about us! My father's inexorable will, so headstrong, so unconscious of the pain it gives me; his rooted, yes, his fatal aversion to you; my thraldom here, where, like a poor bird checked by a cord, I chafe myself by fluttering on the verge of my prison bounds; and then, the awful perils that continually impend over your head—all these are more than weak imaginings; they are the realities of my daily life, and give me, what I am almost ashamed to confess, a sad and boding spirit."

"Nay, nay, dearest Mildred! Away with all these unreasonable reckonings!" replied Butler, with a manner that too plainly betrayed the counterfeit of mirth. "Seclusion has dealt unworthily with you. It has almost turned thee into a downright sentimental woman. I will have none of this stepping to the verge of melancholy. You were accustomed to cheer me with sunny and warm counsel; and you must not forget it was yourself who taught me to strike aside the waves of fortune with a glad temper. The fates can have no spite against one so good as thou art! Time may bear us along like a rough trotting horse; and our journey may have its dark night, its quagmires, and its jack-o'lanterns, but there will come a ruddy morning at last—a smoother road, and an easier gait; and thou, my girl, shalt again instruct me how to win a triumph over the ills of life."

"And we will be happy, Arthur, because all around us will be so," added Mildred, catching the current of Butler's thoughts, with that ready versatility which eminently showed the earnestness and devotion of her feelings—"Ah, may heaven grant this boon, and bring these dreams to life! I think, Arthur, I should be happier now, if I could but be near you in your wanderings. Gladly would I follow you through all the dangers of the war."

"That were indeed, love, a trial past your faculty to endure. No, no, Mildred, she who would be a soldier's wife, should learn the soldier's philosophy—to look with a resigned submission on the present events, and trust to heaven for the future. Your share in this struggle is to commune with your own heart in solitude, and teach it patience. Right nobly have you thus far borne that grievous burden! The sacrifice that you have made—its ever present and unmitigated weight, silently and sleeplessly inflicting its slow pains upon your free and generous spirit; that, Mildred, is the chief and most galling of my cares."

"This weary war, this weary war," breathed Mildred, in a pensive under key, "when will it be done!"

"The longest troubles have their end," replied Butler, "and men, at last, spent with the vexations of their own mischief, fly, by a selfish instinct, into the bosom of peace. God will prosper our enterprise, and bring our battered ship into a fortunate haven."

"How little like it seems it now!" returned Mildred. "The general sorrow, alone, might well weigh down the stoutest heart. That cause which you have made mine, Arthur, to which you have bestowed your life, and which, for your sake," she added proudly, "should have this feeble arm of mine, could it avail, is it not even now trembling on the verge of ruin? Have not your letters, one after another told me of the sad train in which misfortunes have thickened upon the whole people? of defeat, both north and south, and, at this very time, of disgraceful mutiny of whole regiments under the very eye of Washington—that Washington who loves his country and her soldiers as a husband loves his bride, and a father his children. Have not those, to whom we all looked for champions, turned into mere laggards in the war for freedom? Oh, Arthur, do you not remember that these are the thoughts, the very words, which were penned by your own hand, for my especial meditation? How can I but fear that the good end is still far off? How can I but feel some weight upon my heart?"

"You have grown overwise, Mildred, in these ruminations. I am to blame for this, that in my peevish humor, vexed with the crosses of the day, I should have written on such topics to one so sensitive as yourself."

"Still it is true, Arthur, all report confirms it."

"These things do not become your entertainment, Mildred. Leave the public care to us. There are bold hearts, love, and strong arms yet to spare for this quarrel. We have not yet so exhausted our mines of strength, but that much rough ore still lies unturned to the sun, and many an uncouth lump of metal remains to be fashioned for serviceable use. History tells of many a rebound from despondency, so sudden and unreckoned, that the wisest men could see in it no other spring than the decree of God. He will fight the battle of the weak, and set the right upon a sure foundation."

"The country rings," said Mildred, again taking the more cheerful hue of her lover's hopes, and following out, with an affectionate sympathy, his tone of thought, "with anticipation of victory from Gates's southern march."

"That may turn out to be a broken reed," interrupted Butler, as if thinking aloud, and struck by Mildred's reference to a subject that had already engrossed his thoughts; "they may be deceived, Washington would have put a different man upon that service. I would have a leader in such a war, wary, watchful, humble—diffident as well as brave. I fear Gates is not so."

"Then, I trust, Arthur," exclaimed Mildred, with anxious alacrity, "that your present expedition does not connect you with his fortunes!"

"I neither follow his colors nor partake of his counsels," replied Butler. "Still my motions may not be exempt from the influence of his failure or success. The enemy, you are aware, has possessed himself of every post of value in South Carolina and Georgia. I go commissioned to advise with discreet and prudent men upon the means to shake off this odious domination. So far only, and remotely, too, I am a fellow-laborer with Gates. There are gallant spirits now afoot, Mildred, to strip these masters of their power. My office is to aid their enterprise."

"If you needs must go, Arthur, I have no word to say. You will leave behind you an aching heart, that morning, noon, and night, wearies heaven with its prayers for your safety. Alas, I have no other aid to give! How soon—how soon," she said, with a voice that faltered with the question, "does your duty compel you to leave me?"

"To-morrow's sunrise, love, must find me forth upon my way."

"To-morrow, Arthur? so quickly to part!"

"I dare not linger; not even for the rich blessing of thy presence."

"And the utmost length of your journey?"

"Indeed, I know not. At present my farthest aim is Ninety-six and Augusta. It much depends upon the pleasure of our proud and wilful masters."

Mildred stood for some moments looking upon the ground in profound silence. Her bosom heaved with a sad emotion.

"It is a dangerous duty," said she, at last. "I cannot speak my apprehension at the thought of your risks amongst the fierce and treacherous men that overrun the country to which you travel."

"These perils are exaggerated by distance," returned Butler. "A thousand expedients of protection and defence occur when present, which the absent cannot fancy. It is a light service, Mildred, and may more securely be performed with a gay heart than with a sad one. I pray you, do not suffer that active imagination of yours to invest the every day adventures of your poor soldier with a romantic interest of which they are not worthy. I neither slay giants, nor disenchant ladies, nor yoke captive griffins together. No, no, I shall outrun some over-fed clown, and outwit some simple boobies; and, perhaps, soil my boots in a great slough, and then hasten back, love, to boast of my marvels to the credulous ear of my own sweet girl, who, I warrant, will think me a most preposterous hero."

"How can you laugh, Arthur? And yet I would not have you catch my foolish sadness, either."

"I have with me, besides, Mildred, a friend good at need; one Galbraith Robinson, a practised and valiant soldier, who sits on yonder bank. He is to be the companion of my journey; he is shrewd, vigilant and cautious, an inhabitant, moreover, of the district to which I am bound; his wisdom can do much for my success. Then I travel, too, in peaceful guise. My business is more concerned with negotiation than with battle."

"It is a waylaid path, Arthur," said Mildred, in the same faint voice with which she had spoken before.

"Never take it so heavily, my love!" exclaimed Butler, familiarly seizing her hand, whose trembling now betrayed her agitation,—"it is the mere sport of the war to be upon a running service, where a light stratagem or so will baffle a set of dull-pated clodpoles! I scarcely deem it a venture, to dodge through a forest, where every man flies from his neighbor out of mutual distrust. These fellows have brought themselves upon such bad terms with their own consciences, that they start like thieves at the waving of a bulrush."

"They would be the more cruel," replied Mildred, "if some ill luck should throw you into their power. If that should happen," she added, and for a while she hesitated to speak, as a tear fell upon Butler's hand—"If that should happen, I cannot bear the thought."

"They dare offer me no wrong, Mildred. The chances of battle are sufficiently various to compel even the victors to pursue the policy of humanity to prisoners. The conqueror of to-day may himself be a captive to-morrow, and a bloody reprisal would await his barbarity. Again, let me remind you, these are not fit topics for your meditation."

"They are topics for my heart, Arthur, and will not be driven from it. If your lot should put you in the power of the enemy, the name of Mildred Lindsay, and the relation you bear her, whispered in their ears, may, perhaps, unlock their charity. My father has many friends in those ranks, and it may be that I am not unknown to some of them: oh, remember that!"

"You have little need to teach me to think or speak of Mildred Lindsay," said Butler, eagerly. "I cannot forget that name. But I may well doubt its charm upon the savage bulldogs who are now baiting our citizens in Carolina; those ruthless partizans who are poisoning the fountains of contentment at every fire-side. It is not a name to conjure evil spirits with."

"Major Butler," said Henry, who during this long interval had been strolling backward and forward, like a sentinel, at some distance from his sister and her lover, and who, with the military punctilio of a soldier on duty, forbore even to listen to what he could not have helped overhearing, if it had not been for humming a tune—"Major, I don't like to make or meddle with things that don't belong to me—but you and Mildred have been talking long enough to settle the course of a whole campaign. And as my father thinks he can't be too careful of Mildred, and doesn't like her walking about after night-fall, I shouldn't be surprised if a messenger were despatched for us—only I think that man Tyrrel is hatching some plot with him to-night, and may keep him longer in talk than usual."

"Who is Tyrrel?" inquired Butler.

"One that I wish had been in his grave before he had ever seen my father," answered Mildred with a bitter vehemence. "He is a wicked emissary of the royal party sent here to entrap my dear father into their toils. Such as it has ever been his fate to be cursed with from the beginning of the war; but this Tyrrel, the most hateful of them all."

"Alas, alas, your poor father! Mildred, what deep sorrow do I feel that he and I should be so estranged. I could love him, counsel with him, honor him, with a devotion that should outrun your fondest wish. His generous nature has been played upon, cheated, abused; and I, in whom fortune and inclination should have raised him a friend, have been made the victim of his perverted passion."

"True, true," exclaimed Mildred, bursting into tears, and resting her head against her lover's breast, "I can find courage to bear all but this—I am most unhappy;" and for some moments she sobbed audibly.

"The thought has sometimes crossed me," said Butler, "that I would go to your father and tell him all. It offends my self-respect to be obliged to practise concealment towards one who should have a right to know all that concerns a daughter so dear to him. Even now, if I may persuade you to it, I will go hand in hand with you, and, with humble reverence, place myself before him and divulge all that has passed between us."

"No, no, Arthur, no," ejaculated Mildred with the most earnest determination. "It will not come to good. You do not understand my father's feelings. The very sight of you would rouse him into frenzy; there is no name which might fall upon his ear with deeper offence than yours. Not yet, Arthur, the time has not yet come."

"I have been patient," said Butler, "patient, Mildred, for your sake."

"To try him now," continued Mildred, whose feelings still ran, with a heady impetuosity, upon this newly-awakened and engrossing topic; "now, in the very depth of his bitterest aversion to what he terms an impious rebellion, and whilst his heart is yet moved with an almost preternatural hate against all who uphold the cause, and to you, especially, above whose head there hovers, in his belief, some horrid impending curse that shall bring desolation upon him and all who claim an interest in his blood—no, no, it must not be!"

"Another year of pent-up vexation, self-reproach and anxious concealment must then glide by, and perhaps another," said Butler. "Well, I must be content to bear it, though, in the mean time, my heart bleeds for you, Mildred; it is a painful trial."

"For good or for evil our vow is now registered in heaven," replied Mildred, "and we must abide the end."

"I would not have it other than it is, dearest girl, except this stern resolve of your father—not for the world's wealth," said Butler warmly. "But you spoke of this Tyrrel—what manner of man is he? How might I know him?"

"To know him would answer no good end, Arthur. His soul is absorbed in stratagem, and my dear father is its prey. I too am grievously tormented by him; but it is no matter, I need not vex your ear with the tale of his annoyance."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Butler with a sudden expression of resentment.

"All that concerns my father, concerns me," said Mildred. "It is my evil destiny, Arthur, to be compelled to endure the associations of men, whose principles, habits, purposes, are all at war with my own. Alas, such are now my father's constant companions. This man Tyrrel, whose very name is a cheat put on, I doubt not, to conceal him from observation—goes farther than the rest in the boldness of his practice. I have some misgiving that he is better acquainted with the interest you take in me, than we might suspect possible to a stranger. I fear him. And then, Arthur, it is my peculiar misery that he has lately set up a disgusting pretension to my regard. Oh! I could give him, if my sex had strength to strike, the dagger, sooner than squander upon him one kind word. Yet am I obliged by circumstance to observe a strained courtesy towards him, which, frugal as it is, makes me an unwilling hypocrite to my own heart."

"Tyrrel," ejaculated Butler, "Tyrrel! I have heard no such name abroad!" then, muttering a deep curse, as he bit his lip with passion, he added, "Oh, that I could face this man, or penetrate his foul purpose! How is it likely I might meet him?"

"You shall have no temptation to a quarrel," said Mildred; "your quick resentment would but give activity to his venom. For the sake of my peace, Arthur, and of your own, inquire no further. Time may disclose more than rash pursuit."

"Leave that to sister Mildred and myself, major," said Henry, who listened with great interest to this conversation, "I have my eye upon him—let that satisfy you; and when sister Mildred puts up the game, depend upon it, I will bring him down."

"Thanks, thanks, dear Henry! I can trust you for a ready friend, and will even follow your good advice. A more favorable season for this concern may soon arrive; meantime, I will bear this hint in mind."

Again Henry made an appeal to the lovers to bring their conference to an end. It was a sorrowful moment, the events of which were brief, earnest and impassioned, and such as a dull scribbler, like myself, might easily mar in the telling; yet they were such as zealous and eager natures, who have loved with an intense and absorbing love, and who have parted in times of awful danger and uncertainty, may perchance be able to picture to themselves, when they recall the most impressive incident of their lives to memory. I will only say, that, in that dark shade where the beech tree spread his canopy of leaves over the cool bank, and marked his shadow's profile on the green sward—that grassy sward, on which "the constant moon" lit up the dewy lamps, hung by the spider on blade and leaf; and in that silent time, when the distant water-fall came far-sounding on the ear, when sleepless insects chirped in the thicket, and dogs, at some remote homestead, howled bugle-like to the moon; and in that chill hour, when Mildred drew her kerchief close around her dew-besprinkled shoulders, whilst Arthur, fondly and affectionately, half enveloped her in the folds of a military cloak, as he whispered words of tender parting in her ear, and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek; and when, moreover, Henry's teeth chattered like a frozen warder's, then it was, and there, that this enthusiastic girl again pledged her unalterable devotion to the man of her waking thoughts and nightly dreams, come weal, come woe, whatever might betide; and the soldier paid back the pledge with new ardor and endearment, in the strong language that came unstudied from the heart, meaning all that he said, and rife with a feeling beyond the reach of words. And, after "mony a locked and fond embrace," full tearfully, and lingeringly, and, in phrase oft repeated, the two bade "farewell," and invoked God's blessing each upon the other, and then, not without looking back, and breathing a fresh prayer of blessings, they separated on their dreary way, Mildred retiring, as she had come, on the arm of her brother, and Butler, springing hurriedly into the skiff and directing its swift passage to the middle of the stream, where, after a pause to enable him to discern the last footsteps of his mistress, as her form glided into the obscure distance, he sighed a low "God bless her," then resumed his oar, and sturdily drove his boat against the "opponent bank."

CHAPTER V.

A COMFORTABLE INN, AND A GOOD LANDLADY——THE MISFORTUNES OF HEROES DO NOT ALWAYS DESTROY THE APPETITE.

As soon as Butler landed from the skiff, he threw his cloak into the hands of the sergeant; then, with a disturbed haste, sprang upon his horse, and, commanding Robinson to follow, galloped along the road down the river as fast as the nature of the ground and the obscurity of the hour would allow. A brief space brought them to the spot where the road crossed the stream, immediately in the vicinity of the widow Dimock's little inn, which might here be discerned ensconced beneath the cover of the opposite hill. The low-browed wooden building, quietly stationed some thirty paces off the road, was so adumbrated in the shelter of a huge willow, that the journeyer, at such an hour as this, might perchance pass the spot unconsciously by, were it not for an insulated and somewhat haggard sign-post that, like a hospitable seeker of strangers, stood hard by the road side, and there displayed a shattered emblem in the guise of a large blue ball, a little decayed by wind and weather, which said Blue Ball, without superscription or device, was universally interpreted to mean "entertainment for man and horse, by the widow Dimock." The moonlight fell with a broad lustre upon the sign post and its pendent globe; and our travellers, besides, could descry, through the drapery of the willow, a window, of some rear building of the inn, richly illuminated by what, from the redness of the light, might be conjectured to be a bundle of blazing faggots.

As the horses had, immediately upon entering the ford, compelled their masters to a halt, whilst they thrust their noses into the water and drank with the greediness of a long and neglected thirst, it was with no equivocal self-gratulation that Robinson directed his eye to the presignifications of good cheer which were now before him. Butler had spoken "never a word," and the sergeant's habits of subordination, as well as an honest sympathy in what he guessed to be the griefs of his superior officer, had constrained him to a respectful silence. The sergeant, however, was full of thoughts which, more than once during the gallop from the Fawn's Tower, he was on the point of uttering by way of consolation to Butler, and which nothing prevented but that real delicacy of mind that lies at the bottom of a kind nature, and inhabits the shaggy breast of the rustic, at least full as often as it lodges in the heart of the trim worldling. The present halt, seemed, in Horse Shoe's reckoning, not only to furnish a pretext to speak, but, in some degree, to render it a duty; and, in truth, an additional very stimulating subject presented itself to our good squire, in his instantaneous conviction that the glare from the tavern window had its origin in some active operation which, at this late hour, might be going on at the kitchen chimney; to understand the full pungency of which consideration, it is necessary to inform my reader, that Robinson had, for some time past, been yielding himself to certain doubts, whether his friend and himself might not arrive at the inn at too late an hour to hope for much despatch in the preparation for supper. In this state of feeling, partly bent to cheer the spirits of Butler, and partly to express his satisfaction at the prospect of his own comfort, he broke forth in the following terms—

"God bless all widows that set themselves down by the road-side, is my worst wish! and, in particular, I pray for good luck to the widow Dimock, for an orderly sort of body, which I have no doubt she is; and keeps good hours—to judge by the shine of the kitchen fire which is blazing yonder in the rear—and which, to tell truth, major, I began to be afeard would be as dead, by this time o' night, as the day the hearth-stone was first laid. She desarves to be spoken of as a praiseworthy woman. And, moreover, I should say she has popped her house down in a most legible situation, touching our day's march, by which I mean it isn't one step too near a reasonable bed hour. I count it lucky, major, on your account; and although it isn't for me to give advice in woman affairs—for I know the creatures do try the grit and edge of a man amazingly sometimes—yet, if I mought say what was running in my head fit for a gentleman and an officer like you to do in such a tribulation, it would be this: drop thinking and chawing over your troubles, and take them with a light heart, as things that's not to be mended by a solemncolly long-facedness. A good victual's meal and a fair night's rest would make another man of you. That's my observation; and I remember once to hear you say the same yourself, upon occasion of your losing the baggage wagons last fall on the Beaufort convoy. You ha'n't forgot it, major?"

"Thank you, thank you, sergeant. Your counsel is kindly offered and wisely said, and I will follow it. But it is a little hard, fellow soldier," added Butler, with something like an approach to jocularity, "it's a little hard to have one's misfortunes cast in his teeth by a comrade."

"I thought it would make you laugh, major!" replied Robinson, with a good-natured solicitude, "for it wan't in the possibilities of a mortal earthly man to save the baggage; and, I remember, you laughed then, as well as the rest of us, when them pestifarious, filching sheep stealers made off with our dinners: nobody ever blamed you for it."

"Ah, Galbraith, you are a good friend, and you shall say what you please to me," said Butler, with a returning cheerfulness; "sorrow is a dull companion to him who feeds it, and an impertinent one to everybody beside. So, ride forward, and we will endeavor to console ourselves with the good cheer of the widow. And, hark, Galbraith, this Mistress Dimock is an especial friend of mine: pray you, let her see, by your considerateness towards her, that you are aware of that—for my sake, good Horse Shoe."

The two soldiers soon reached the inn, and, having dismounted, Butler aroused the attention of the inmates by a few strokes upon the door with his riding rod.

The reply to this summons was a shrill invitation, in a feminine voice, to "walk in;" and no sooner had Butler thrown open the door and advanced a few paces into the passage, than the head of an elderly female was seen thrust through the partially expanded doorway of the adjoining room. Another instant, and the dusky figure of Mistress Dimock herself was visible to our travellers.

"What would you be pleased to have, sir?" inquired the dame, with evident distrust at this untimely approach of strangers.

"Accommodation for the night, and whatever you have good to offer a friend, Mistress Dimock."

"Who are you that ride so late?" again interrogated the hostess; "I am cowardly, sir, and cautious, and have reason to be careful who comes into my house; a poor unprotected woman, good man."

"A light, mother," said Butler, "and you shall know us better. We are travellers and want food and rest, and would have both with as little trouble to you as possible; a light will show you an old friend."

"Wait a moment," returned the dame; and then added, as she observed Butler walk into a room on the left, "Take care, sir, it is risking a fall to grope in the dark in a strange house."

"The house is not so strange to me as you suppose. Unless you have moved your furniture I can find the green settee beyond the cupboard," said Butler, familiarly striding across the room, and throwing himself into the old commodity he had named.

The landlady, without heeding this evidence of the conversancy of her visitor with the localities of the little parlor, had hastily retreated, and, in a moment afterwards, returned with a light, which, as she held it above her head, while she peered through a pair of spectacles, threw its full effulgence upon the face of her guest.

"Dear me, good lack!" she exclaimed, after a moment's gazing; "Arthur Butler, o' my conscience! And is it you, Mr. Butler?" Then, putting the candle upon the table, she seized both of his hands and gave them a long and hearty shake. "That Nancy Dimock shouldn't know your voice, of all others! Where have you been, and where are you going? Mercy on me! what makes you so late? And why didn't you let me know you were coming? I could have made you so much more comfortable. You are chilled with the night air; and hungry, no doubt. And you look pale, poor fellow! You surely couldn't have been at the Dove Cote?" which last interrogatory was expressed with a look of earnest and anxious inquiry.

"No, not there," replied Butler, almost in a whisper; "alas, my kind dame, not there," he added, with a melancholy smile, as he held the hand of the hostess and shook his head; "my fortune has in no jot improved since I left you almost a year ago. I broke from you hastily then to resume my share in the war, and I have had nothing but hard blows ever since. The tide, Mistress Dimock, sets sadly against us."

"Never let your heart fail you," exclaimed the landlady; "it isn't in the nature of things for the luck to be for ever on the shady side. Besides, take the good and bad together, you have not been so hardly dealt by, Captain Butler."

"Major Butler, madam, of the second Carolina continental reg'lar infantry," interrupted Robinson, who had stood by all this time unnoticed, "Major Butler; the captain has been promoted, by occasion of the wiping out of a few friends from the upper side of the adjutant's roll, in the scrimmage of Fort Moultrie. He is what we call, in common parley, brevetted."

This annunciation was made by the sergeant with due solemnity, accompanied by an attempt at a bow, which was abundantly stiff and ungraceful.

"My friend Sergeant Robinson," said Butler; "I commend him, Mistress Dimock, to your especial favor, both for a trusty comrade, and a most satisfactory and sufficient trencher man."

"You are welcome and free to the best that's in the house, sergeant," said the landlady, courtesying; "and I wish, for your sake, it was as good as your appetite, which ought to be of the best. Mr. Arthur Butler's word is all in all under this roof; and, whether he be captain or major, I promise you, makes no difference with me. Bless me! when I first saw you, major, you was only an ensign; then, whisk and away! and back you come a pretty lieutenant, about my house: and then a captain, forsooth! and now, on the track of that, a major. It is up-up-up-the ladder, till you will come, one of these days, to be a general; and too proud, I misdoubt, to look at such a little old woman as me! hegh, hegh, hegh! a pinch of snuff, Mr. Arthur." And here the good dame prolonged her phthisicky laugh for some moments, as she presented a box of Scotch snuff to her guest. "But I'll engage promotion never yet made the appetite of a travelling man smaller than before; so, gentlemen, you will excuse me while I look after your supper."

"The sooner the better, ma'am," said Robinson; "your night air is a sort of a whetstone to the stomach; but first, ma'am, I would be obligated to you, if you would let me see the ostler."

"Hut, tut! and have I been drivelling here all this time," exclaimed the dame, "without once spending a thought upon your cattle! Tony, Tony, To-ny, I say," almost shrieked the hostess, as she retreated along the passage towards the region of the kitchen, and then back again to the front door. "Are you asleep? Look to the gentlemen's horses; lead them to the stable, and don't spare to rub them down; and give them as much as they can eat. Where are you, old man?"

"What's the use of all this fuss, Missus Dimck? Arn't I here on the spot, with the cretur's in my hand?" grumbled out an old, stunted negro, who answered to the appellation of ostler; "Arn't I getting the baggage off, as fast as I can onbuckle the straps?—I don't want nobody to tell me when I ought to step out. If a hos could talk, he ain't got nothing new to say to me. Get out, you varmints," he shouted, with a sudden vivacity of utterance, at three or four dogs that were barking around him; "Consarn you! What you making such a conbobberation about? You all throat when you see gentmen coming to the house; better wait tell you see a thief; bound, you silent enough then, with your tail twixt your legs! Blossom, ya sacy slut, keep quiet, I tell you!"

In the course of this din and objurgation, the old negro succeeded in disburdening the horses of their furniture, and was about to lead them to the stable, when Robinson came to give him some directions.

"Mind what you are after with them there cattle. Give them not a mouthful for a good hour, and plenty of fodder about their feet; I'll look at them myself before you shut up. Throw a handful of salt into the trough, Tony, and above all things, don't let me catch you splashing water over their backs; none of that; do you hear?"

"Haw, haw, haw!" chuckled Tony; "think I don't know how to take care of a hos, mass! Been too use to creturs, ever sense so high. Bless the gentman! one of the best things on arth, when you're feared your hos is too much blowed, is to put a sprinkling of salt in a bucket o'water, and just stir a leetle Indian meal in with it; it sort of freshes the cretur up like, and is onaccountable good in hot weather, when you ain't got no time to feed. But cold water across the lines! oh, oh, I too cute in hos larning for that! Look at the top of my head—gray as a fox!"

"Skip then, or I'll open upon you like a pack of hounds," said Robinson, as he turned on his heel to re-enter the house, "I'll look in after supper."

"Never mind me," replied Tony, as he led the horses off, "I have tended Captain Butler's hos afore this, and he wan't never onsatisfied with me."

These cares being disposed of, Horse Shoe returned to the parlor. The tidy display of some plain furniture, and the scrupulous attention to cleanliness in every part of the room, afforded an intelligent commentary upon the exact, orderly and decent character of the Widow Dimock. The dame herself was a pattern of useful thrift. Her short figure, as she now bustled to and fro, through the apartment, was arrayed in that respectable, motherly costume which befitted her years; and which was proper to the period of my story, when the luxury of dress was more expensive than at present, and when a correspondent degree of care was used to preserve it in repair. Evidences of this laudable economy were seen in the neatness with which a ruffle was darned, or a weak point fortified by a nicely adjusted patch, presenting, in some respect, a token both of the commendable pride of the wearer, and of the straitness of the national means, since the prevalence of war for five years had not only reduced the wealth of individuals and rendered frugality indispensable, but had, also, literally deprived the country of its necessary supply of commodities; thus putting the opulent and the needy, to a certain extent, upon the same footing. On the present occasion, our good landlady was arrayed in a gown of sober-colored chintz, gathered into plaits in the skirt, whilst the body fitted closely over a pair of long-waisted stays, having tight sleeves that reached to the elbow. The stature of the dame was increased a full inch by a pair of high-heeled, parti-colored shoes, remarkable for their sharp toes; and a frilled muslin cap, with lappets that reached under the chin, towered sufficiently high to contribute, also, something considerable to the elevation of the tripping little figure of its wearer.

In such guise did Mistress Dimock appear, as she busied herself in preparing needful refreshment for the travellers; and for some time the house exhibited all that stir which belongs to this important care when despatched in a retired country inn.

By degrees, the table began to show the bounties of the kitchen. A savory dish of fried bacon, the fumes of which had been, for a quarter of an hour, gently stimulating the appetite of the guests, now made its appearance, in company with a pair of broiled pullets; and these were followed by a detachment of brown-crested hoecakes—the peculiar favorite of the province; an abundance of rich milk, eggs, butter, and other rural knicknackeries, such as no hungry man ever surveys with indifference. These were successively deposited upon a homespun table cloth, whose whiteness rivalled the new snow, with an accuracy of adjustment that, by its delay, produced the most visible effects upon the sergeant, who, during the spreading of the board, sat silently by, watching, with an eager and gloating earnestness, the slow process, ever and anon uttering a short hem, and turning about restlessly on his chair.

I may pause here, after the fashion of our worthy friend Horse Shoe, to make an observation. There is nothing that works so kindly upon the imagination of a traveller, if he be in any doubt as to his appetite, as the display of such a table. My particularity of detail, on the present occasion, will, therefore, be excused by my reader, when I inform him that Butler had arrived at the inn in that depressed tone of spirits which seemed to defy refreshment; and that, notwithstanding this impediment, he played no insignificant part afterwards at supper; a circumstance mainly attributable to that gentle but irresistible solicitation, which the actual sight and fragrance of the board addressed to his dormant physical susceptibility. I might, indeed, have pretermitted the supper altogether, were there not a philosophical truth at the bottom of the matter, worthy of the notice of the speculative and curious reader; namely, that where a man's heart is a little teased with love, and his temper fretted by crossings, and his body jolted by travel; especially, when he has been wandering through the night air, with owls hooting in his ears; and a thin drapery of melancholy has been flung, like cobwebs, across his spirits, then it is my doctrine, that a clean table, a good-humored landlady and an odorous steaming-up of good things, in a snug, cheerful little parlor, are certain to beget in him a complete change of mood, and to give him, instead, a happy train of thoughts and a hearty relish for his food. Such was precisely Butler's condition.

He and the sergeant now sat down at the table, and each drew the attention of the other by the unexpected vigor of their assaults upon the dainties before them; Robinson surprised to find the major so suddenly revived, and Butler no less unprepared to see a man, who had achieved such wonders at dinner, now successively demolish what might be deemed a stout allowance for a well fed lion.

"It almost seems to go against the credit of my house," said the hostess, "to set gentlefolks down at my table without a cup of tea; but so it is; we must get used to be stripped of all the old-fashioned comforts. It is almost treason for an honest woman to have such an article in her house now, even if it could be fairly come by. Still, I'll engage I am tory enough yet to like the smell of hyson. They have no mercy upon us old women, major; they should have a care, or they will drive us into the arms of the enemy."

"Faith then, ma'am," interrupted Horse Shoe bluntly, as he threw his eye over his shoulder at the landlady, who had broken into a laugh at her own sally of humor, "it would be no wonder if you were soon driven back again."

"Shame on you, Mr. Sergeant Robinson," retorted the dame, laughing again, "I didn't expect to hear such a speech from you; that's a very sorry compliment to a poor country woman. If the men on our side think so little of us as you do, it would be no wonder if we all desert to King George; but Major Arthur Butler, I am sure, will tell you that we old bodies can sometimes make ourselves very useful—gainsay it who will."

"You seem to be rather hard, Galbraith," said Butler, "on my good friend Mistress Dimock. I am sure, madam, the sergeant has only been unlucky in making himself understood; for I know him to be a man of gallantry to your sex, and to cherish an especial liking for the female friends of our cause, amongst whom, Mistress Dimock, I can certify he is prepared to set a high value upon yourself. The sergeant was only endeavoring to provoke your good humor. Try this honey, Galbraith; Mistress Dimock is famous for her beehives; and perhaps it will give a sweeter edge to your tongue."

"I spoke, major," replied Robinson, awkwardly endeavoring to extricate himself under this joint rebuke, and, at the same time, plunging a spoon into the dish to which Butler had invited his notice, "consarning the difficulty of having ladies—whether old or young makes no difference, it wan't respecting the age of Mistress Dimock, nor her beauty, by no means, that I said what I did say; but it was consarning of the difficulty of having the women with them in their marches and their counter-marches. What could such tender creatures have done at such a place as the sieging of Charlestown? Certain, this is most elegant honey!" he added, by way of parenthesis, as he devoured a large slice of bread, well covered with a fragment of honeycomb, as if anxious to gain time to collect his ideas; for, with all Horse Shoe's bluntness, he was essentially a diffident man. "It is my opinion, ma'am, the best thing the women can do, in these here wars, is to knit; and leave the fighting of it out, to us who hav'n't faces to be spoiled by bad weather and tough times."

"I don't want to have art nor part in these quarrels," replied the widow. "The saints above are witnesses, I think it unnatural enough to see a peaceable country, and a quiet honest people, vexed and harried, and run down with all this trooping of horses, and parading of armies, and clattering of drums, amongst the hills that never heard any thing worse than the lowing of a heifer before. But still, I wish well to liberty; and if it must be fought for, why, I am even content to take my share of the suffering, in my own lonesome way; and they that bear the heat of the day, and their friends, shall always be served in my house with the best that's in it, and at the most reasonable rates. Even if they come without money, I am not the woman to turn them off with an empty stomach; I mean them of the right side."

"Well, that's as sensible a speech, Mistress Dimock," said Horse Shoe, quickly seizing the occasion to make amends to the landlady for his former bluntness, "and as much to the purpose, and spoken with as much wisdom and circumscription, as mought come out of the mouth of e'er a lady in the land—high born or low born—I don't care where the other comes from. And it does a man's heart good to hear the woman-kind holding out such presentments. It's encouraging on the face of it."

During this conversation the supper was finished, and Mrs. Dimock had now seated herself, with her elbows upon the table, so placed as to allow her to prop her chin upon her hands, in which position she fell into an earnest but quiet, under-toned confabulation with Butler, who partook of it with the more interest, as it related to the concerns of the family at the Dove Cote.

"Mr. Lindsay, poor man," said the dame, in the course of this conference, "is wofully beset. It almost looks as if he was haunted by an evil spirit, sure enough, which folks used to say of him after his wife's death—and which, to tell you the truth, our young lady Mildred has sometimes more than half hinted to me; he is so run at, and perplexed, and misguided by strangers that can have no good intention in coming to see him. There is Mr. Tyrrel, over at the Dove Cote at this very time, on his third visit, major, in less now than two months past; yes, let me see, he brought the news here of the recapitulation—I think you military call it—though, heaven knows, I have but a poor head for these bloodthirsty words—I mean the taking of Charleston; three times has he been here, counting from that day. Where he comes from, and who are his kith and kin, I am sure I don't know."

"Tyrrel, ha! yes, I have heard of him to-night, for the first time," said Butler.

"He must be a rich man," continued the hostess, "for he travels with two white servants, and always pays his way in gold. One of his men is now in the house; and, between you and me, major, this man is a very inquisitive sort of person, and would hardly be taken for a serving man; and he is a cautious fellow too, although there is a good deal of swagger and bullying about him, which might deceive one at first sight."

"Here, in the house to-night?" inquired Butler.

"Speak low, major, the man is now walking the porch before our windows."

"What does Mildred say of this Tyrrel?" asked Butler.

"Has she been here lately?"

"The good lady never stirs from home whilst Tyrrel is at the Dove Cote; for fear, I believe, that he will follow her, for they do whisper about in the neighborhood—though I don't say it to alarm you, Mr. Arthur, that this man is of the high quality, a nobleman, some say, and that he has come here a-courting. Only think of the assurance of the man! But if he was a prince, and every hair of his head strung with diamonds, and Miss Mildred was as free as the day you first saw her, I can say with safety he would find but cold comfort in that game; for she despises him, major, both for himself and for his tory principles. She does hate him with a good will. No, no, her heart and soul are both where they ought to be, for all her father, poor man, and this rich gentleman! Oh, it is a cruel thing that you and our pretty lady cannot live quietly together; but Mr. Lindsay is past talking to about it. I declare I think his mind is touched: I positively believe it would kill him if he knew all that has passed in this house; but he is, in the main, a good man, and a kind father, and is very much to be pitied. I see you are sad and sorrowful, Mr. Arthur: I didn't mean to distress you with my prating. You tell me, you think you may travel as far as Georgie."

"Even so far, good dame, if some accident should not shorten my career. These are doubtful times, and my path is as uncertain as the chances of war. It may be long before I return.

"I grieve night and day, and my heart bleeds for Miss Mildred, for she is so good, so constant, so brave, too, for a woman," said the widow with unaffected emotion. "Well-a-day! what woes these wars have brought upon us! You told her your plans, Mr. Arthur?"

"Our interview was short and painful," replied Butler. "I scarcely know what I said to her. But, one thing I entreat of you: my letters will be directed to your charge; you will contrive to have them promptly and secretly delivered: oblige me still in that, good mother. Henry will often visit you."

"And a brave and considerate young man he is, major; I'll be surety for his making of an honorable and a real gentleman. Do you join the army in Carolina?"

"Perhaps not. My route lies into the mountains, our troops struggle for a footing in the low country."

"If I may make bold, Major Butler, to drop a word of advice into your ear, which, seeing that I'm an older man than you," interrupted the sergeant, in an admonitory whisper, "I think I have got good right to do, why I would just say that there may be no great disconvenience in talking before friends; but sometimes silence brings more profit than words. So, I vote that we leave off telling the course of our march till such time as it is done, and all is safe. There will be briers enough in our way, without taking the trouble to sow them by the road-side. The man that stands a little aside from that window, out on the porch, throws his shadow across the sill oftener than is honest, according to my reckoning. You said, ma'am," continued Horse Shoe, addressing the widow, "that the fellow in the porch yon is Mr. Tyrrel's man."

"He walks later than usual to-night," replied Mrs. Dimock, "for though he can't be called a man of regular hours, yet, unless he can find an idler to keep him company, he is accustomed to be in his bed before this."

"He is after no good, depend upon that," said Horse Shoe. "I have twice seen the light upon his face behind the shutter: so, true man or spy, it's my admonishment not to speak above the purring of a cat."

"You are right, Galbraith," said Butler. "We have many reasons to distrust him; and it is at least safest to keep our affairs private."

"If I thought he was prying," continued Galbraith, "which I do measurably insinuate and believe, I would take the freedom to give him the benefit of a drilling on good manners. Ha, major! as I have a hand, he is reconnoitring us now at this identical time! Didn't you see him pass up and down before the door, and look in as greedily as if our faces were picture-books for him to read? I will have a word with him, and, wise or simple, I will get his calibre before I am done with him. Never let on, major; stay where you are. I promised to look after our horses."

The hostess and her guest now continued their communion; in which we leave them, whilst we follow Horse Shoe towards the stable.

CHAPTER VI.

There're two at fisty-cuffs about it;
Sir, I may say at dagger's drawing,
But that I cannot say, because they have none.

Mayor of Quinborough.

When Horse Shoe left the apartment, he discovered the person, whose demeanor had excited his suspicion, leaning against a post of the porch, in front of the house. The moonlight, as it partially fell upon this man's figure, disclosed a frame of sufficient mould to raise a surmise, that, in whatever form of communication the sergeant might accost him, he was not likely to find a very tractable subject to his hand. Robinson, however, without troubling himself with the contemplation of such a contingency, determined to delay his visit to the stable long enough to allow himself the expression of a word of warning or rebuke, to indicate to the stranger the necessity for restraining his curiosity in regard to the guests of the inn. With this view he halted upon the porch, while he scanned the person before him, and directed an earnest gaze into his face. The stranger, slightly discomfited by this eager scrutiny, turned his back upon his visitor, and, with an air of idle musing, threw his eyes towards the heavens, in which position he remained until summoned by the familiar accost of Horse Shoe.

"Well! and what do you make of the moon? As sharp an eye as you have in your head, neighbor, I'm thinking it will do you no great sarvice there. You're good at your spying trade; but you will get nothing out of her; she keeps her secrets."

Startled by this abrupt greeting, which was made in a tone half-way between jest and earnest, the stranger quickly confronted his challenger, and bestowed upon him a keen and inquiring inspection; then breaking into a laugh, he replied with a free and impudent swagger—

"You are mistaken, Master Jack Pudding. What says the proverb? Wit's in the wane when the moon's at full. Now, our mistress has let me into a secret. She tells me that you will not lose your wits, when she comes to her growth. The reason why? first, because she never troubles herself with so small a stock as yours, and second, because your thick skull is moon-proof; so, you're safe, friend."

"A word in your ear," said Horse Shoe; "you are not safe, friend, if you are cotched again peeping through the chinks of the window, or sneaking upon the dark side of the doorway, to pick up a crumb of talk from people that are not axing your company. Keep that in your memory."

"It's a base lie, Mr. Bumpkin, if you mean to insinuate that I did either."

"Oh, quiet and easy, good man! No flusterifications here! I am civil and peaceable. Take my advice, and chaw your cud in silence, and go to bed at a reasonable hour, without minding what folks have to say who come to the widow Dimock's. It only run in my head to give you a polite sort of a warning. So, good night; I have got business at the stable."

Before the other could reply, Robinson strode away to look after the accommodations of the horses.

"The devil take this impertinent ox-driver!" muttered the man to himself, after the sergeant had left him; "I have half a mind to take his carcase in hand, just to give it the benefit of a good, wholesome manipulation. A queer fellow, too—a joker! A civil, peaceable man!—the hyperbolical rogue! Well, I'll see him out, and, laugh or fight, he shan't want a man to stand up to him!"

Having by this train of reflection brought himself into a mood which might be said to hover upon the isthmus between anger and mirth, ready to fall to either side as the provocation might serve, the stranger sauntered slowly towards the stable, with a hundred odd fancies as to the character of the man he sought running through his mind. Upon his arrival there he found that Horse Shoe was occupied in the interior of the building, and being still in a state of uncertainty as to the manner in which it was proper he should greet our redoubtable friend, he took a seat on a small bench at the door, resolved to wait for that worthy's reappearance. This delay had a soothing effect upon his temper, for as he debated the subject over in his mind, certain considerations of policy seemed to indicate to him the necessity of making himself better acquainted with the business and quality of the individual whom he came to meet.

After a few moments, Horse Shoe was seen with old Tony at the stable door, where, notwithstanding the unexpected presence of the man to whom he had so lately offered his unwelcome advice, and upon whom he now conferred not the slightest notice, he continued uninterruptedly, and with deliberate composure, to give his orders upon what, at that moment, doubtless, he deemed matter of much graver importance than any concern he might have in the visit of his new acquaintance.

"Do what I tell you, Tony; get a piece of linen, rub it well over with tallow, and bring it here along with a cup of vinegar. The beast's back is cut with the saddle, and you must wash the sore first with the vinegar, and then lay on the patch. Go, old fellow, and Mrs. Dimock, may be, can give you a strip of woollen cloth to sarve as a pad."

With these instructions the negro retired towards the house.

"I see you understand your business," said the stranger. "You look to your horse's back at the end of a day's journey, and you know how to manage a sore spot. Vinegar is the thing! You have had a long ride?"

"How do you know that?" inquired Horse Shoe.

"Know it! any man might guess as much by the way you shovelled down your supper. I happened by chance to pass your window, and seeing you at it, faith! for the soul of me I couldn't help taking a few turns more, just to watch the end of it. Ha! ha! ha! give me the fellow that does honor to his stomach! And your dolt head must be taking offence at my looking at you! Why, man, your appetite was a most beautiful rarity; I wouldn't have lost the sport of it for the pleasure of the best supper I ever ate myself."

"Indeed!" said Robinson, drily.

"Pease upon the trencher!" exclaimed the other, with the air of a pot companion; "that's the true music for good fellows of your kidney! But it isn't every where that you will find such bountiful quarters as you get here at the Blue Ball in that cursed southern country a man like you would breed a famine, if you even do not find one ready made to your hand when you get there."

"Where mought you be from?" asked the sergeant, with great gravity, without responding to the merriment of his visitor, and purposely refraining from the answer which he saw it was the other's drift to obtain relative to the course of his travel.

"It was natural enough that you should have mistaken my object," continued the stranger, heedless of Horse Shoe's abrupt question, "and have suspected me for wanting to hear some of your rigmarole; but there you did me wrong. I forgive you for that, and, to tell you the truth, I hate your——?"

"That's not to the purpose," said Horse Shoe; "I axed you a civil question, and maybe, that's more than you have a right to. You can answer it or let it alone. I want to know where mought you be from?"

"Since you are bent upon it, then," replied the other, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking with a saucy emphasis, "I'll answer your question, when you tell me what mought be your right to know."

"It's the custom of our country," rejoined Horse Shoe, "I don't know what it may be in yourn, to larn a little about the business of every man we meet; but we do it by fair, out-and-out question and answer—all above board, and we hold in despise all sorts of contwistifications, either by laying of tongue-traps, or listening under eaves of houses."

"Well, most wise and shrewd master, what do you call my country? Ha! ha! ha! I would be sworn you think you have found some mare's nest! If it were not that your clown pate is somewhat addled by over feeding, I would hold your speech to be impertinent. My country, I'd have your sagacity to understand——"

"Tut, man, it arn't worth the trouble of talking about it! I never saw one of your people that I didn't know him by the first word that came out of his lips. You are an Englishman, and a red coat into the bargain, as we call them in these parts. You have been a sodger. Now, never bounce at that, man! There's no great harm in belonging to that craft. They listed you, as likely as not, when you was flusticated with liquor, and you took your pay; there was a bargain, and it was your business to stand to it. But I have got a piece of wisdom to whisper to you, insomuch as you are not in the most agreeablest part of the world to men of your colors, it would be best to be a little more shy against giving offence. You said some saucy things to me just now, but I don't grudge your talking, because you see, I am an onaccountable hard sort of person to be instigated by speeching."

"Verily, you are a most comical piece of dulness," said the other, in a spirit of raillery. "In what school did you learn your philosophy, friend? You have been brought up to the wholesome tail of the plough, I should say—an ancient and reputable occupation."

"When I obsarved, just now," replied Robinson, somewhat sternly, "that I couldn't be instigated, I meant to be comprehended as laying down a kind of general doctrine that I was a man not given to quarrels; but still, if I suspicioned a bamboozlement, which I am not far from at this present speaking, if it but come up to the conflagrating of only the tenth part of the wink of an eye, in a project to play me off, fore God, I confess myself to be as weak in the flesh as e'er a rumbunctious fellow you mought meet on the road."

"Friend," said the other, "I do not understand thy lingo. It has a most clodpolish smack. It is neither grammar, English, nor sense."

"Then, you are a damned, onmannerly rascal," said Horse-Shoe, "and that's grammar, English, and sense, all three."

"Ha, you are at that! Now, my lubberly booby, I understand you," returned the other, springing to his feet. "Do you know to whom you are speaking?"

"Better than you think for," replied the sergeant, placing himself in an erect position to receive what he had a right to expect, the threatened assault of his adversary, "I know you, and guess your arrand here."

"You do?" returned the other sharply. "You have been juggling with me, sir. You are not the gudgeon I took you for. It has suited your purpose to play the clown, eh? Well, sir, and pray, what do you guess?"

"Nothing good of you, considering how things go here. Suppose I was to say you was, at this self-same identical time, a sodger of the king's? I have you there!"

The stranger turned on his heel and retreated a few paces, evidently perplexed at the new view in which the sergeant suddenly rose to his apprehension. His curiosity and his interest were both excited to gain a more distinct insight into a man whom he had mistaken for a mere simpleton, but whose hints showed him to be shrewdly conversant with the personal concerns of one, whom, apparently, he had seen to-night for the first time in his life. With this anxiety upon his mind, he again approached the sergeant, as he replied to the last question.

"Well, and if I were? It is a character of which I should have no reason to be ashamed."

"That's well said!" exclaimed Horse Shoe. "Up and speak out, and never be above owning the truth; that's the best sign that can be of a man. Although it mought be somewhat dangerous, just hereabouts, to confess yourself a sodger of King George—let me tell you, that, being against you, I am not the person to mislest you on that head, by spreading the news abroad, or setting a few dozen of whigs upon your scent, which is a thing easily done. If your business here is peaceable and lawful, and you don't let your tongue brawl against quiet and orderly people, you are free to come and go for me."

"Thank you, sir: but look you; it isn't my way to answer questions about my own business, and I scorn to ask any man's leave to come and go where and when my occasions call me."

"If it isn't your way to answer questions about your own business," replied Horse Shoe, "it oughtn't to be your way to ax them about other people's; but that don't disturb me; it is the rule of the war to question all comers and goers that we happen to fall in with, specially now, when there's a set of your devils scampering and raging about in Carolina, hardly a summer day's ride off this province, burning houses and killing cattle, and turning everything topsy-turvy, with a pack of rascally tories to back them. In such times all sorts of tricks are played, such as putting on coats that don't belong to a man, and deceiving honest people by lies, and what not."

"You are a stranger to me," said the other; "but let me tell you, without circumlocution or periphrase, I am a free born subject of the king, and I see no reason why, because some of his people have turned rebels a true man, who travels his highway, should be obliged to give an account of himself to every inquisitive fellow who chooses to challenge it. Suppose I tell you that you meddle with matters that don't concern you?"

"Then you mought chance to get your head in your hand, that's all. And, hark you, if it wan't that I am rather good-natured, I mought happen to handle you a little rough for that nicknaming of the friends of liberty, by calling them rebels. It doesn't suit such six-pence-a-day fellows as you, who march right or left at the bidding of your master, to rob a church or root up an honest man's peaceful hearth, without so much as daring to have a thought about the righteousness of the matter—it doesn't suit such to be befouling them that fight for church and fire-side both, with your scurvy, balderdash names."

"Well, egad! you are a fine bold fellow who speaks his thoughts, that's not to be denied!" said the stranger, again suddenly changing his mood, and resorting to his free and easy address. "You suit these times devilish well. I can't find it in my heart to quarrel with you. We have both been somewhat rough in speech, and so, the account is square. But now tell me, after all, are you sure you have guessed me right? How do you know I am not one of these very rebels myself?"

"For two good and point-blank reasons. First, you dar'n't deny that you have pocketed the king's money and worn his coat—that's one. And, second, you are now here under the orders of one of his officers."

"No, no, good friend," said the man, with a voice of less boldness than heretofore, "you are mistaken for once in your life. So far what you say, I don't deny—I am in the service of a gentleman, who for some private affairs of his own has come on a visit to this part of the province, and I admit I have been in the old country."

"I am not mistaken, good friend," drawled out Robinson, affectedly. "You come from the south. I can tell men's fortunes without looking into the palms of their hands."

"You are wrong again," said the other tartly, as he grew angry at being thus badgered by his opponent, "I come from the north."

"That's true and it's false both," returned Robinson. "From the north, I grant you—to the south with Sir Henry, and from the south up here. You will find I can conjure a little, friend."

"The devil take your conjuring!" exclaimed the other, as he bit his lip and strode restlessly backward and forward; which perplexity being observed by the sergeant, he did not fail to aggravate it by breaking into a hoarse laugh, as he said——

"It wa'n't worth your while to try to deceive me. I knowed you by manifold and simultaneous signs. Him that sets about scouting after other people's secrets, ought to be wary enough to larn to keep his own. But don't take it so to heart, neighbor, there's no occasion for oneasiness—I have no mind to harm you."

"Master bully," said the stranger, planting himself immediately in front of the sergeant, "in England, where I was bred, we play at cudgels, and sometimes give broken heads; and some of us are gifted with heavy fists, wherewith we occasionally contrive to box a rude fellow who pries too much into our affairs."

"In our country," replied Horse Shoe, "we generally like to get a share of whatever new is stirring, and, though we don't practise much with cudgels, yet, to sarve a turn, we do, now and then, break a head or so; and, consarning that fist work you happened to touch upon, we have no condesentious scruples against a fair rap or two over the knowledge-box, and the tripping-up of a fractious chap's heels, in the way of a sort of a rough-and-tumble, which, may be, you understand. You have been long enough here, mayhap, to find that out."

"Then, it is likely, it would please you to have a chance at such a game? I count myself a pretty tolerable hand at the play," said the stranger, with a composure corresponding to that exhibited by Horse Shoe.

"Ho, ho! I don't want to hurt you, man," replied the Sergeant. "You will get yourself into trouble. You are hot-headeder than is good for your health."

"As the game was mentioned, I thought you might have a fancy to play it."

"To be sure I would," said Horse Shoe, "rather than disappoint you in any reasonable longing. For the sake of quiet—being a peaceable man, I will take the trouble to oblige you. Where, do you think, would be the likeliest spot to have it?"

"We may readily find a piece of ground at hand," replied the other. "It is a good moonlight play, and we may not be interrupted if we get a little distance off before the negro comes back. Toe to toe, and face to face, suits me best with both friend and foe."

"A mule to drive and a fool to hold back, are two of the contrariest things I know," said Robinson, "and so, seeing that you are in arnest about it, let us go at it without more ado upon the first good bit of grass we can pop upon along the river."

In this temper the two antagonists left the vicinity of the stable, and walked some hundred paces down along the bank of the stream. The man with whom Horse Shoe was about to hold this strange encounter, and who now walked quietly by his side, had the erect and soldierly port of a grenadier. He was square-shouldered, compact and muscular, and the firmness of his gait, his long and easy stride, and the free swing of his arm as he moved onward in the moonlight, showed Robinson that he was to engage with an adversary of no common capacity. There was, perhaps, on the other side, some abatement in this man's self-confidence, when the same light disclosed to his deliberate inspection the brawny proportions of the sergeant, which, in the engrossment of the topics bandied about in the late dialogue, he had not so accurately regarded.

When they had walked the distance I have mentioned, they had little difficulty to select a space of level ground with a sufficient mould for the purpose of the proposed trial of strength.

"Here's as pretty a spot as we mought find on the river," said Robinson, "and so get ready, friend. Before we begin, I have a word to say. This here bout is not a thing of my seeking, and I take it to be close akin to downright tom-foolery, for grown up men to set about thumping and hammering each other, upon account of a brag of who's best man, or such like, when the whole univarse is full of occasions for scuffles, and stands in need of able-bodied fellows, to argufy the pints of right and wrong, that can't be settled by preachers, or books, or lawyers. I look upon this here coming out to fight no better than a bit of arrant nonsense. But, as you will have it, it's no consarn of mine to stop you."

"You are welcome to do your worst," replied the other, "and the less preaching you make with it, the more saving of time."

"My worst," interrupted Horse Shoe, "is almost more than I have the conscience to do to any man who isn't a downright flagratious enemy; and, once more, I would advise you to think before you draw me into a fray; you are flustrated, and sot upon a quarrel, and mayhap, you conjecture that by drawing me out from behind my retrenchments, by which is signified my good nature, and forcing me to deploy into line and open field, you'll get the advantage of an old sodger over me; but there, Mr. Dragoon, you are mistaken. In close garrison or open field, in siege or sally, crossing a defile or reconnoitring on a broad road, I am not apt to lose my temper, or strike without seeing where my blow is to hit. Now, that is all I have to say: so, come on."

"You are not what you seem," said the antagonist, in a state of wonder at the strain of the sergeant's composed and deliberate speech, and at the familiarity which this effusion manifested with the details of military life. "In the devil's name, who are you? But, don't fancy I pause to begin our fight, for any other reason than that I may know who I contend with. On the honor of a soldier, I promise you, I will hold you to your game—man, or imp of hell—I care not. Again, who in the devil are you?"

"You have hit it," replied Horse Shoe. "My name is Brimstone, I am first cousin to Belzebub."

"You have served?"

"I have."

"And belong to the army yet?"

"True again; and I am as tough a sodger, and may be I mought say, as old a sodger as yourself."

"Your hand, fellow soldier. I mistook you from the beginning. You continentals—that's the new-fangled word—are stout fellows, and have a good knack at the trick of war, though you wear rough coats, and are savagely unrudimented in polite learning. No matter what colors a man fights under, long usage makes a good comrade of him; and, by my faith! I am not amongst the last to do him honor, even though we stand in opposite ranks. As you say, most sapient Brimstone, we are not much better than a pair of fools for this conspiracy to knock about each other's pates, here at midnight; but you have my pledge to it, and so, we will go at it, if it be only to win a relish for our beds; I will teach you, to-night, some skill in the art of mensuration. You shall measure two full ells upon this green sod."

"There's my hand," said Horse Shoe; "now, if I am flung, I promise you I won't be angry. If I sarve you in the same fashion, you must larn to bear it."

"With all my heart. So here I stand upon my guard. Begin."

"Let me feel your weight," said Robinson, laughing, as he put one hand upon his adversary's shoulder, and the other against his side. "Hark you, master, I feel something hard here about your ribs; you have pistols under your coat, friend. For the sake of fair play and keeping rid of foul blood, you had best lay them aside before we strike. Anger comes up onawares."

"I never part from my weapons," replied the other, stepping back and releasing himself from Robinson's grasp. "We are strangers; I must know the company I am in, before I dismiss such old cronies as these. They have got me out of a scrape before this."

"We took hands just now," said Robinson, angrily. "When I give my hand, it is tantamount to a book oath that I mean fair, round dealing with the man who takes it. I told you, besides, I was a sodger—that ought to have contented you—and you mought sarch my breast, inside and out, you'd seen in it nothing but honest meanings. There's something of a suspectable rascality, after that, in talking about pistols hid under the flaps of the coat. It's altogether onmanful, and, what's more, onsodgerly. You are a deceit, and an astonishment, and a hissing, all three, James Curry, and no better, to my comprehension, than a coward. I know you of old, although, mayhap, you disremember me. I have hearn said, by more than one, that you was a double-faced, savage-hearted, disregardless beast, that snashed his teeth where he darsn't bite, and bullied them that hadn't the heart to fight; I have hearn that of you, and, as I live, I believe it. Now, look out for your bull head, for I will cuff you in spite of your pistols."

With these words, Horse Shoe gave his adversary some half dozen overpowering blows, in such quick succession as utterly defied and broke down the others guard; and then, seizing him by the breast, he threw the tall and stalwart form of Curry at full length upon the ground.

"There's your two ells for you! there's the art of menstirration, you disgrace to the tail of a drum," exclaimed Horse Shoe, with accumulating wrath, as the prostrate man strove to extricate himself from the lion grasp that held him. In this strife, Curry several times made an effort to get his hand upon his pistol, in which he was constantly foiled by the superior vigor of the sergeant.

"No, no," continued the latter, as he became aware of this attempt, "James Curry, you shall never lay hold upon your fire-arms whilst I have the handling of you. Give them up, you twisting prevaricationer; give them up, you disgracer of powder and lead; and larn this from a rebel, that I don't blow out your brains, only because I wouldn't accommodate the devil by flinging such a lump of petrifaction into his clutches. There, man," he added, as he threw the pistols far from him into the river, his exasperation, at the same time, moderating to a lower temperature, "get upon your feet; and now, you may go hunt for your cronies in yonder running stream. You may count it a marcy that I haven't tossed you after them, to wash the cowardly blood off your face. Now that you are upon your legs, I tell you here, in the moonlight, man to man, with nobody by to hold back your hand, that you are a lying, deceitful skulker, that loves the dark side of a wall better than the light, and steals the secrets of honest folks, and hasn't the heart to stand up fairly to the man that tells you of it. Swallow that, James Curry, and see how it will lay upon your stomach."

"I will seek a time!" exclaimed Curry, "to right myself with your heart's blood."

"Pshaw! man," replied Horse Shoe, "don't talk about heart's blood. The next time we come into a field together, ax for Galbraith Robinson, commonly called Horse Shoe Robinson. Find me out, that's all. We may take a frolic together then, and I give you my allowance to wear your pistols in your belt."

"We may find a field yet, Horse Shoe Robinson," returned Curry, "and I'll not fail of my appointment. Our game will be played with broadswords."

"If it should so turn out, James, that you and me are to work through a campaign in the same quarter of the world, as we have done afore, James, I expect, I'll take the chance of some holiday to pay my respects to you. I wont trouble you to ride far to find me; and then, it may be broadsword or pistol, rifle or bagnet, I'm not over-scrumptious which. Only promise I shall see you when I send for you."

"It's a bargain, Galbraith Robinson! Strong as you think yourself in your cursed rough-and-tumble horseplay, I am soldier enough for you any day. I only ask that the time may come quickly."

"You have no objection to give us a hand to clinch that bargain, James?" asked Horse Shoe. "There's my paw; take it, man, I scorn to bear malice after the hot blood cools."

"I take it with more pleasure now," said Curry, hastily seizing the hand, "than I gave mine to you before to-night, because it is a pledge that suits my humor. A good seat in a saddle, four strong legs below me, and a sharp blade, I hold myself a match for the best man that ever picked a flint in your lines."

"Now, friend Curry," exclaimed the sergeant, "good night! Go look for your pop-guns in the river; and if you find them, hold them as a keepsake to remember Horse Shoe Robinson. Good night."

Robinson left his adversary, and returned to the inn, ruminating, as he walked, over the strange incident in which he had just been engaged. For a while his thoughts wore a grave complexion; but, as his careless good humor gradually broke forth through the thin mist that enveloped it, he was found, before he reached the porch, laughing, with a quiet chuckle, at the conceit which rose upon his mind, as he said, half-audibly, "Odd sport for a summer night! Howsever, every one to his liking, as the old woman said; but to my thinking, he mought have done better if he had gone to sleep at a proper hour, like a moralised and sober Christian."

When he entered the parlor, he found Butler and the landlady waiting for him.

"It is late, sergeant," said the Major. "You have forgotten the hour; and I began to fear you had more to say to your friend, there, than suited the time of night."

"All is right, by your smiling," added the landlady; "and that's more than I expected at the time you walked out of the room. I couldn't go to my bed, till I was sure you and my lodger had no disagreeable words; for, to tell you the truth, I am greatly afraid of his hot and hasty temper."

"There is nothing hot or hasty about him, ma'am," replied Robinson; "he is about as peaceable a man as you mought expect to meet in such times as these. I only told him a little scrap of news, and you would have thought he would have hugged me for it, ha, ha, ha."

"We are to sleep in the same room, sergeant," said Butler, "and our good hostess will show us the way to it."

The dame, upon this hint, took a candle, and conducted her guests to a chamber in the upper story, where, after wishing them "a good night," she courtesied respectfully, and left them to their repose.

"Tell me, sergeant, what you made out of that fellow," said Butler, as he undressed himself. "I see that you have had some passage with him; and, from your tarrying so long, I began to be a little apprehensive of rough work between you. What passed, and what have you learned?"

"Enough, major, to make us more circumscriptious against scouts, and spies, and stratagems. When I was a prisoner at Charlestown, there was an amazing well-built fellow, a dragoon, that had been out with Tarleton; but, when I saw him, he was a sort of rithmatical account-keeper and letter-scribbler for that young fighting-cock, the Earl of Caithness, him that was aidegong to Sir Henry Clinton. Well, this fellow had a tolerable bad name, as being a chap that the devil had spiled, in spite of all the good that had been pumped into him at school; for, as I have hearn, he was come of gentle people, had a first rate edication, and I reckon, now, major, he talks as well as a book, whereupon I have an observation."

"Keep that until to-morrow, sergeant," interrupted Butler, "and go on with what you had to tell me."

"You must be a little sleepy, major: however, this fellow, they say, was cotched cheating with cards one day, when he was playing a game of five shilling loo with the King or the Queen, or some of the dukes or colonels in the guards—for he wa'n't above any thing rascally. So, it was buzzed about, as you may suppose when a man goes to cheating one of them big fish—and the King gave him his choice to enlist, or go to the hulks; and he, being no fool, listed, as a matter of course. In that way he got over here; and, as I tell you, was a sort of sarvent to that young Earl. He sometimes came about our quarters to list prisoners and make Tories of 'em, for his own people kept him to do all that sort of dirty work, upon account of the glibness of his tongue. He was a remarkable saucy fellow and got nothing but ill-will from the prisoners—though, I make no doubt, the man is a tolerable sodger on sarvice. Now, after telling you all this, major, you must know that the identical, same, particular man that we saw looking through the porch window at us to-night"—

"Is the man you have been describing? Is it possible? Are you sure of it?"

"I knowed him the minute I clapped eyes on him: his name is James Curry: but, as I didn't stay long at Charlestown, and hadn't any thing to do with him in particular, it seems he didn't remember me."

"You conversed with him?"

"Most sartainly I did. I wanted to gather a little consarning of his visit up here: but the fellow's been so battered about in the wars, that he knows how to hold his tongue. I had some mischief in me, and did want to make him just angry enough to set his speech loose; and, besides, I felt a little against him upon account of his misdoings with our people in Carolina, and so, I said some rough things to him; and, as my discourse ar'n't none of the squarest in pint of grammar and topographical circumlocution—as Lieutenant Hopkins used to say—why he set me down for a piece of an idiot, and began to hoax and bamboozle me. I put that matter straight for him very soon, by just letting him say so much and no more. And then, as I was a peaceable man, major, he seemed to see that I didn't want to have no quarrel with him, which made him push it at me rather too hard, and all my civility ended in my giving him what he wanted at first—a tolerable, regular thrashing."

The sergeant continued to relate to Butler the details of this adventure, which he did with more prolixity than the weariness of his listener was able to endure; for the major, having in the progress of the narrative got into bed, and having, in the increasing oscitancy of his faculties, exhausted every expression of assent by which one who listens to a tale is accustomed to notify his attention—he at length dropped into a profound sleep, leaving the sergeant to conclude at his leisure.

When Robinson perceived this, he had nothing left but to betake himself, with all expedition, to his own rest; whereupon he threw off his coat, and taking the coverings of the bed appropriated to his use, spread them upon the floor, as he pronounced an anathema against sleeping on feathers, (for it must be observed, that our good hostess, at that early day, was liable to the same censure of an unnatural attachment to feather beds in summer, which may, at the present time,[1] be made against almost every country inn in the United States,) and then extinguishing the candle, he stretched himself upon the planks, as he remarked to his unconscious companion, "that he was brought up on a hard floor;" and after one or two rolls, he fell into that deep oblivion of cares, by which nature re-summons and supplies the strength which toil, watching and anxiety wear down.

The speed of Horse Shoe's journey through this pleasant valley of sleep might be measured somewhat in the same manner that the route of a mail stage may sometimes be traced through a mountain defile, by the notes of the coachman's horn; it was defined by the succession of varying intonations through which he ascended the gamut, beginning with a low but audible breathing, and rising through the several stages of an incipient snore, a short quick bark, and up to a snort that constituted the greatest altitude of the ascent. Occasionally a half articulated interjection escaped him, and words that showed in what current his dreams were sailing: "No pistols! Look in the water, James! Ha ha!" These utterings were accompanied with contortions of body that more than once awaked the sleeper; but, at last, the huge bulk of Horse Shoe grew motionless in a deep and strong sleep.

The next morning, at early dawn, our travellers resumed their journey, which I will leave them to prosecute, whilst I conduct my reader to the affairs and interests that dwell about the Dove Cote.

CHAPTER VII.

SOME ACCOUNT OF PHILIP LINDSAY—SENSIBILITY AND RETIREMENT APT TO ENGENDER A PERNICIOUS PHILOSOPHY.

The thread which I have now to take up and weave into this history requires that my narrative should go back for some years. It briefly concerns the earlier fortunes of Philip Lindsay.

His father emigrated from England, and was established in Virginia about the year 1735, as a secretary to the governor of the province. He was a gentleman of good name and fortune. Philip was born within a year after this emigration. As America was then comparatively a wilderness, and afforded but few facilities for the education of youth, the son of the secretary was sent at an early age to England, where he remained, with the exception of an occasional visit to his parents, under the guardianship of a near relative, until he had completed, not only his college course, but also his studies in the Temple—an almost indispensable requirement of that day for young gentlemen of condition.

His studies in the Temple had been productive of one result, which Lord Coke, if I remember, considers idiosyncratic in the younger votaries of the law—he had fallen in love with an heiress. The natural consequence was a tedious year, after his return home, spent at the seat of the provincial government, and a most energetic and persevering interchange of letters with the lady, whom my authority allows me to name Gertrude Marshall. This was followed by another voyage across the Atlantic, and finally, as might be predicted, by a wedding with all proper observance and parental sanction. Lindsay then returned, a happier and more tranquil man, to Virginia, where he fulfilled the duties of more than one public station of dignity and trust.

In due course of time he fell heir to his father's wealth, which with the estate of his wife made him one of the most opulent and considerable gentlemen of the Old Dominion.

He had but two children—Mildred and Henry—with four years difference between their ages. These were nurtured with all the care and indulgent bounty natural to parents whose affections are concentrated upon so small a family circle.

Lindsay's character was grave and thoughtful, and inclined him to avoid the contests of ambition and collision with the world. A delicate taste, a nice judgment, and a fondness for inquiry made him a student and an ardent lover of books. The ply of his mind was towards metaphysics; he delved into the obsolete subtleties of the old schools of philosophy, and found amusement, if not instruction, in those frivolous but ingenious speculations which have overshadowed even the best wisdom of the schoolmen with the hues of a solemn and absurd pedantry. He dreamed in the reveries of Plato, and pursued them through the aberrations of the Coryphæans. He delighted in the visions of Pythagoras, and in the intellectual revels of Epicurus. He found attraction in the Gnostic mysteries, and still more in the phantasmagoria of Judicial Astrology. His library furnished a curious index to this unhealthy appetite for the marvellous and the mystical. The writings of Cornelius Agrippa, Raymond Lully, and Martin Delvio, and others of less celebrity in this circle of imposture, were found associated with truer philosophies and more approved and authentic teachers.

These studies, although pursued with an acknowledgment of their false and dangerous tendency, nevertheless had their influence upon Lindsay's imagination. There are few men in whom the mastery of reason is so absolute as to be able totally to subdue the occasional uprising of that element of superstition which is found more or less vigorous in every mind. A nervous temperament, which is almost characteristic of minds of an imaginative cast, is often distressingly liable to this influence, in spite of the strongest resolves of the will and the most earnest convictions of the judgment. If those who possess this temperament would confess, they might certify to many extraordinary anxieties and troubles of spirit, which it would pain them to have the world believe.

Lindsay's pursuits had impressed his understanding with some sentiment of respect for that old belief in the supernatural, and had, perhaps, even warmed up his faith to a secret credulity in these awful agencies of the spiritual world, or at least to an unsatisfied doubt as to their existence. Many men of sober brow and renown for wisdom are unwilling to acknowledge the extent of their own credulity on the same topic.

His relations to the government, his education, pursuits and temper, as might be expected, had deeply imbued Lindsay with the politics of the tory party, and taught him to regard with distrust, and even with abhorrence, the revolutionary principles which were getting in vogue. In this sentiment he visited with a dislike that did not correspond with the more usual development of his character, all those who were in any degree suspected of aiding or abetting the prevailing political heresy of the times.

About two years after the birth of Mildred, he had purchased a tract of land in the then new and frontier country lying upon the Rockfish river. Many families of note in the low country had possessed themselves of estates at the foot of the Blue Ridge, in this neighborhood, and were already making establishments there. Mr. Lindsay, attracted by the romantic character of the scenery, the freshness of the soil, and the healthfulness of the climate, following the example of others, had laid off the grounds of his new estate with great taste, and had soon built, upon a beautiful site, a neat and comfortable rustic dwelling, with such accommodation as might render it a convenient and pleasant retreat during the hot months of the summer.

The occupation which this new establishment afforded his family; the scope which its improvement gave to their taste; and the charms that intrinsically belonged to it, by degrees communicated to his household an absorbing interest in its embellishment. His wife cherished this enterprise with a peculiar ardor. The plans of improvement were hers; the garden, the lawns, the groves, the walks—all the little appendages which an assiduous taste might invent, or a comfort-seeking fancy might imagine necessary, were taken under her charge; and one beauty quickly following upon another, from day to day, evinced the dominion which a refined art may exercise with advantage over nature. It was a quiet, calm, and happy spot, where many conveniences were congregated together, and where, for a portion of every succeeding year, this little family nestled, as it were, in the enjoyment of voluptuous ease. From this idea, and especially as it was allied with some of the tenderest associations connected with the infancy of Mildred, it was called by the fanciful and kindly name of "The Dove Cote."

The education of Mildred and Henry became a delightful household care. Tutors were supplied, and the parents gave themselves up to the task of supervision with a fond industry. They now removed earlier to the Dove Cote with every returning spring, and remained there later in the autumn. The neighborhood furnished an intelligent and hospitable society; and the great western wilderness smiled with the contentment of a refined and polished civilization, which no after day in the history of this empire has yet surpassed—perhaps, not equalled. It is not to be wondered at, that a mind so framed as Lindsay's, and a family so devoted, should find an exquisite enjoyment in such a spot.

Whilst this epoch of happiness was in progression, the political heaven began to be darkened with clouds. The troubles came on with harsh portents; war rumbled in the distance, and, at length, broke out in thunder. Mildred had, in the meantime, grown up to the verge of womanhood,—a fair, ruddy, light-haired beauty, of exceeding graceful proportions, and full of the most interesting impulses. Henry trod closely upon her heels, and was now shooting through the rapid stages of boyhood. Both had entwined themselves around their parents' affections, like fibres that conveyed to them their chief nourishment; and the children were linked to each other even, if that where possible, by a stronger band.

The war threw Lindsay into a perilous predicament. His estates were large, and his principles exposed him to the sequestration which was rigidly enforced against the royalist party. To avoid this blow, or, at least, to mitigate its severity, he conveyed the estate of the Dove Cote to Mildred; assigning, as his reason for doing so, that, as it was purchased with moneys belonging to his wife, he consulted and executed her wish, in transferring the absolute ownership of it to his daughter. The rest of his property was converted into money, and invested in funds in Great Britain. As soon as this arrangement was made, about the second year of the war, the Dove Cote became the permanent residence of the family; Lindsay preferring to remain here rather than to retire to England, hoping to escape the keen notice of the dominant party, and to find, in this classic and philosophical privacy, an oblivion of the rude cares that beset the pillow of every man who mingled in the strife of the day.

He was destined to a grievous disappointment. His wife, to whom he was romantically attached, was snatched from him by death, just at this interesting period. This blow, for a time, almost unseated his reason. The natural calm of such a mind as Lindsay's is not apt to show paroxysms in grief. Its sorrow was too still and deep for show. The flight of years, however, brought healing on their wings; and Mildred and Henry gradually relumed their father's countenance with flashes of cheerful thought, that daily grew broader and more abiding; till, at last, sense and duty completed their triumph, and once more gave Lindsay to his family, unburdened of his grief, or, if not unburdened, conversing with it only in the secret hours of self-communion.

His hopes of ease and retirement were disappointed in another way. The sequesterment of the Dove Cote was not sufficient to shut out the noise nor the intrigues of the war. His reputation, as a man of education, of wealth, of good sense, and especially as a man of aristocratic pretensions, irresistibly drew him into the agitated vortex of politics. His house was open to the visits of the tory leaders, no less than to those of the other side; and, although this intercourse could not be openly maintained without risk, yet pretexts were not wanting, occasionally, to bring the officers and gentlemen in the British interest to the Dove Cote. They came stealthily and in disguise, and they did not fail to involve him in the insidious schemes and base plottings by which a wary foe generally endeavors to smoothe the way of invasion. The temporary importance which these connections conferred, and the assiduous appeal which it was the policy of the enemy to make to his loyalty, wrought upon the vanity of the scholar, and brought him, by degrees, from the mere toleration of an intercourse that he at first sincerely sought to avoid, into a participation of the plans of those who courted his fellowship. Still, however, this was grudgingly given—as much from the inaptitude of his character, as from a secret consciousness, at bottom, that it was contrary to the purpose that had induced him to seek the shelter of the woods. Unless, therefore, the spur was frequently applied to the side of his reluctant resolution, his zeal was apt to weary in its pace, or, to change my figure for one equally appropriate, to melt away in the sunny indolence of his temper.

I have said that, during the tenderer years of the children, and up to the period of the loss of their mother, they had received the most unremitting attention from their parents. The bereavement of his wife, the deep gloom that followed this event, and the now engrossing character of the war, had in some degree relaxed Lindsay's vigilance over their nurture, although it had in no wise abated his affection for them; on the contrary, perhaps this was more concentrated than ever. Mildred had grown up to the blossom-time of life, in the possession of every personal attraction. From the fanciful ideas of education adopted by her father, or rather from the sedulous care with which he experimented upon her capacity, and devoted himself to the task of directing and waiting upon the expansion of her intellect, she had made acquirements much beyond her years, and altogether of a character unusual to her sex. An ardent and persevering temper had imparted a singular enthusiasm to her pursuits; and her air, though not devoid of playfulness, might be said to be habitually abstracted and self-communing.

As the war advanced, her temper and situation both enlisted her as a partisan in the questions which it brought into discussion; and, whilst her father's opinions were abhorrent to this struggle for independence, she, on the other hand, unknown to him, was casting her thoughts, feelings, affections, and hopes upon the broad waters of rebellion; and, if not expecting them to return to her, after many days, with increase of good, certainly believing that she was mingling them with those of patriots who were predestined to the brightest meed of glory.

A father is not apt to reason with a daughter; the passions and prejudices of a parent are generally received as principles by the child; and most fathers, counting upon this instinct, deem it enough to make known the bent merely of their own opinions, without caring to argue them. This mistake will serve to explain the wide difference which is sometimes seen between the most tenderly attached parent and child, in those deeper sentiments that do not belong to the every-day concerns of life. Whilst, therefore, Mr. Lindsay took no heed how the seed of doctrine fructified and grew in the soil where he desired to plant it, it in truth fell upon ungenial ground, and either was blown away by the wind, or perished for want of appropriate nourishment.

As the crisis became more momentous, and the discussion of national rights more rife, Mildred's predilections ran stronger on the republican side; and, at the opening of my story, she was a sincere and enthusiastic friend of American independence,—a character (however it may be misdoubted by my female readers of the present day, nursed as they are in a lady-like apathy to all concerns of government, and little aware, in the lazy lap of peace, how vividly their own quick sensibilities may be enlisted by the strife of men) neither rare nor inefficient amongst the matrons and maidens of the year seventy-six, some of whom—now more than fifty years gone by—are embalmed in the richest spices and holiest ointment of our country's memory.

It is, however, due to truth to say, that Mildred's eager attachment to this cause was not altogether the free motion of patriotism. How often does some little under-current of passion, some slight and amiable prepossession, modest and unobserved, rise to the surface of our feelings, and there give its direction to the stream upon which floats all our philosophy! What is destiny but these under-currents that come whencesoever they list, unheeded at first, and irresistible ever afterwards!

My reader must be told that, before the war broke out, this enthusiastic girl had flitted across the path of Arthur Butler, then a youth of rare faculty and promise, who combined with a gentle and modest demeanor an earnest devotion to his country, sustained by a chivalrous tone of honor that had in it all the fanciful disinterestedness of boyhood. It will not, therefore, appear wonderful that, amongst the golden opinions the young man was storing up in all quarters, some fragments of this grace should have made a lodgment in the heart of Mildred Lindsay.

Butler was a native of one of the lower districts of South Carolina, and was already the possessor, by inheritance, of what was then called a handsome fortune. He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct of her parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the seat of opulence and fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful and the rarely-gifted united in a splendid little constellation, in which wealth threw its sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and learning and eloquence were warmed by the smiles of fair women: there gallant men gave the fascinations of wit to a festive circle unsurpassed in the new world, or the old, for its proportion of the graces that embellish, and the endowments that enrich life. In this circle there was no budding beauty of softer charm than the young Mildred, nor was there amongst the gay and bright cavaliers that thronged the "little academy" of Eden, (the governor of the province,) a youth of more favorable omen than Arthur Butler.

The war was at the very threshold, and angry men thought of turning the ploughshare into the sword. Amongst these was Butler; an unsparing denouncer of the policy of Britain, and an unhesitating volunteer in the ranks of her opposers. It was at this eventful time that he met Mildred. I need hardly add that under these inauspicious circumstances they began to love. Every interview afterwards (and they frequently saw each other at Williamsburg and Richmond) only developed more completely the tale of love that nature was telling in the heart of each.

Butler received from Congress an ensign's commission in the continental army, and was employed for a few months in the recruiting service at Charlottesville. This position favored his views and enabled him to visit at the Dove Cote. His intercourse with Mildred, up to this period, had been allowed by Lindsay to pass without comment: it was regarded but as the customary and common-place civility of polite society. Mildred's parents had no sympathy in her lover's sentiments, and consequently no especial admiration of his character, and they had not yet doubted their daughter's loyalty to be made of less stern materials than their own. Her mother was the first to perceive that the modest maiden awaited the coming of the young soldier with a more anxious forethought than betokened an unoccupied heart. How painfully did this perception break upon her! It opened upon her view a foresight of that unhappy sequence of events that attends the secret struggle between parental authority and filial inclination, when the absorbing interests of true love are concerned: a struggle that so frequently darkens the fate of the noblest natures, and whose history supplies the charm of so many a melancholy and thrilling page. Mrs. Lindsay had an invincible objection to the contemplated alliance, and immediately awakened the attention of her husband to the subject. From this moment Butler's reception at the Dove Cote was cold and formal, and Mr. Lindsay did not delay to express to his daughter a marked aversion to her intimacy with a man so uncongenial to his own taste. I need not dwell upon the succession of incidents that followed: are they not written in every book that tells of young hearts loving in despite of authority? Let it suffice to say that Butler, "many a time and oft," hied stealthily and with a lover's haste to the Dove Cote, where, "under the shade of melancholy boughs," or sometimes of good Mistress Dimock's roof, he found means to meet and exchange vows of constancy with the lady of his love.

Thus passed the first year of the war. The death of Mrs. Lindsay, to which I have before adverted, now occurred. The year of mourning was doubly afflictive to Mildred. Her father's grief hung as heavily upon her as her own, and to this was added a total separation from Butler. He had joined his regiment and was sharing the perils of the northern campaigns, and subsequently of those which ended in the subjugation of Carolina and Georgia. During all this period he was enabled to keep up an uncertain and irregular correspondence with Mildred, and he had once met her in secret, for a few hours only, at Mistress Dimock's, during the autumn immediately preceding the date of the opening of my story.

Mrs. Lindsay, upon her death-bed, had spoken to her husband in the most emphatic terms of admonition against Mildred's possible alliance with Butler, and conjured him to prevent it by whatever means might be in his power. Besides this, she made a will directing the distribution of a large jointure estate in England between her two children, coupling, with the bequest, a condition of forfeiture, if Mildred married without her father's approbation.

I have now to relate an incident in the life of Philip Lindsay, which throws a sombre coloring over most of the future fortunes of Mildred and Arthur, as they are hereafter to be developed in my story.

The lapse of years, Lindsay supposed, would wear out the first favorable impressions made by Arthur Butler upon his daughter. Years had now passed: he knew nothing of the secret correspondence between the parties, and he had hoped that all was forgotten. He could not help, however, perceiving that Mildred had grown reserved, and that her deportment seemed to be controlled by some secret care that sat upon her heart. She was anxious, solicitous, and more inclined, than became her youth, to be alone. Her household affections took a softer tone, like one in grief. These things did not escape her father's eye.

It was on a night in June, a little more than a year before the visit of Butler and Robinson which I have narrated in a former chapter, that the father and daughter had a free communion together, in which it was his purpose to penetrate into the causes of her disturbed spirit. The conference was managed with an affectionate and skilful address on the part of the father, and "sadly borne" by Mildred. It is sufficient to say that it revealed to him a truth of which he was previously but little aware, namely, that neither the family afflictions nor the flight of two years had rooted out the fond predilection of Mildred for Arthur Butler. When this interview ended Mildred retired weeping to her chamber, and Lindsay sat in his study absorbed in meditation. The object in life nearest to his heart was the happiness of his daughter; and for the accomplishment of this what sacrifice would he not make? He minutely recalled to memory all the passages of her past life. What error of education had he committed, that she thus, at womanhood, was found wandering along a path to which he had never led her, which, indeed, he had ever taught her to avoid? What accident of fortune had brought her into this, as he must consider it, unhappy relation? "How careful have I been," he said, "to shut out all the inducements that might give a complexion to her tastes and principles different from my own! How sedulously have I waited upon her footsteps from infancy onward, to shield her from the influences that might mislead her pliant mind! And yet in this, the most determinate act of her life, that which is to give the hue to the whole of her coming fortune, the only truly momentous event in her history—how strangely has it befallen!"

In such a strain did his thoughts pursue this harassing subject. The window of his study was open, and he sat near it, looking out upon the night. The scene around him was of a nature to awaken his imagination and lead his musings towards the preternatural and invisible world. It was past midnight, and the bright moon was just sinking down the western slope of the heavens, journeying through the fantastic and gorgeous clouds, that, as they successively caught her beam, stood like promontories jutting upon a waveless ocean, their rich profiles tipped with burnished silver. The long black shadows of the trees slept in enchanted stillness upon the earth: the night-wind breathed through the foliage, and brought the distant gush of the river fitfully upon his ear. There was a witching harmony and music in the landscape that sorted with the solitary hour, and conjured up thoughts of the world of shadows. Lindsay's mind began to run upon the themes of his favorite studies: the array of familiar spirits rose upon his mental vision; the many recorded instances of what was devoutly believed the interference of the dead in the concerns of the living, came fresh, at this moment, to his memory, and made him shudder at his lonesomeness. Struggling with this conception, it struck him with an awe that he was unable to master: "some invisible counsellor," he muttered, "some mysterious intelligence, now holds my daughter in thrall, and flings his spell upon her existence. The powers that mingle unseen in the affairs of mortals, that guide to good or lead astray, have wafted this helpless bark into the current that sweeps onward, unstayed by man. I cannot contend with destiny. She is thy child, Gertrude," he exclaimed, apostrophizing the spirit of his departed wife. "She is thine, and thou wilt hover near her and protect her from those who contrive against her peace: thou wilt avert the ill and shield thy daughter!"

Excited almost to phrensy, terrified and exhausted in physical energy, Lindsay threw his head upon his hand and rested it against the window-sill. A moment elapsed of almost inspired madness, and when he raised his head and looked outward upon the lawn, he beheld the pale image of the being he had invoked, gliding through the shrubbery at the farthest verge of the level ground. The ghastly visage was bent upon him, the hand steadily pointed towards him, and as the figure slowly passed away the last reverted gaze was directed to him. "Great God!" he ejaculated, "that form—that form!" and fell senseless into his chair.

During the night, Mildred was awakened by a low moan, which led her to visit her father's chamber. He was not there. In great alarm she betook herself to his study, where she found him extended upon a sofa, so enfeebled and bewildered by this recent incident that he was scarcely conscious of her presence.

A few weeks restored Lindsay to his usual health, but it was long before he regained the equanimity of his mind. He had seen enough to confirm his faith in the speculations of that pernicious philosophy which is wrapt up in the studies of which I have before given the outline; and he was, henceforth, oftentimes melancholy, moody, and reserved in spite of all the resolves of duty, and in defiance of a temper naturally placid and kind.

Let us pass from this unpleasant incident to a theme of more cheerful import: the loves of Mildred and Arthur. I have said these two had secret meetings. They were not entirely without a witness. There was a confidant in all their intercourse: no other than Henry Lindsay, who united to the reckless jollity of youth an almost worshipping love of his sister. His thoughts and actions were ever akin to hers. Henry was therefore a safe depository of the precious secret; and as he could not but think Arthur Butler a good and gallant comrade, he determined that his father was altogether on the wrong side in respect to the love affair, and, by a natural sequence, wrong also in his politics.

Henry had several additional reasons for this last opinion. The whole country-side was kindled into a martial flame, and there was nothing to be heard but drums and trumpets. There were rifle-corps raising, and they were all dressed in hunting-shirts, and bugles were blowing, and horses were neighing: how could a gallant of sixteen resist it? Besides, Stephen Foster, the woodman, right under the brow of the Dove Cote, was a lieutenant of mounted riflemen, and had, for some time past, been training Henry in the mystery of his weapon, and had given him divers lessons on the horn to sound the signals, and had enticed him furtively to ride in a platoon on parade, whereof he had dubbed Henry corporal or deputy corporal. All this worked well for Arthur and Mildred.

Mr. Lindsay was not ignorant of Henry's popularity in the neighborhood, nor how much he was petted by the volunteer soldiery. He did not object to this, as it served to quiet suspicion of his own dislike to the cause, and diverted the observation of the adherents of what he called the rebel government, from his own motions; whilst, at the same time, he deemed it no other than a gewgaw that played upon the boyish fancy of Henry without reaching his principles.

Mildred, on the contrary, did not so regard it. She had inspired Henry with her own sentiments, and now carefully trained him up to feel warmly the interests of the war, and to prepare himself by discipline for the hard life of a soldier. She early awakened in him a wish to render service in the field, and a resolution to accomplish it as soon as the occasion might arrive. Amongst other things, too, she taught him to love Arthur Butler and keep his counsel.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MANSION OF A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR.

The site of the Dove Cote was eminently picturesque. It was an area of level ground, containing, perhaps, two acres, on the summit of a hill that, on one side, overhung the Rockfish river, and on the other rose by a gentle sweep from the champaign country below. This summit might have been as much as two hundred feet above the bed of the stream, and was faced on that side by a bold, rocky precipice, not absolutely perpendicular, but broken into stages or platforms, where grassy mould had accumulated, and where the sweet-brier and the laurel, and clusters of the azalea, shot up in profuse luxuriance. The fissures of the crag had also collected their handful of soil and gave nourishment to struggling vines, and everywhere the ash or pine, and not unfrequently the dogwood, took possession of such spots upon the rocky wall, as these adventurous and cliff-loving trees had found congenial to their nature. The opposite or northern bank of the river had an equal elevation, and jutted forward so near to the other as to leave between them a cleft, which suggested the idea of some sudden abruption of the earth in those early paroxysms that geologists have deemed necessary to account for some of the features of our continent. Below was heard the ceaseless brattle of the waters, as they ran over and amongst the rocks which probably constituted the debris formed in the convulsion that opened this chasm. It was along through this obscure dell that the road, with which my reader is acquainted, found place between the margin of the stream and the foot of the rocks. The general aspect of the country was diversified by high knolls and broken masses of mountain land, and the Dove Cote itself occupied a station sufficiently above the surrounding district to give it a prospect, eastward, of several miles in extent. From this point the eye might trace the valley of the Rockfish, by the abrupt hill-sides that hemmed it in, and by the growth of sombre pines that coated the steeps where nothing else could find a foot-hold. Not far below, in this direction, was to be seen the Fawn's tower, a singular pinnacle of rock, which had acquired its name from the protection it was said to have afforded to a young deer against the assault of the hounds; the hard-pressed animal, as the tradition relates, having gained this insulated point by a bound that baffled the most adventurous of his pursuers, and admiration of the successful boldness of the leap having won from the huntsman the favor that spared his life.

With the exception of a large chestnut near the edge of the cliff, and of some venerable oaks, that had counted centuries before the white man rested his limbs beneath their shade, the native growth of the forest had been removed by Lindsay from the summit I have described, and he had substituted for the wild garniture of nature a few of the choicest trees of the neighboring woods. Here he had planted the elm, the holly and the linden tree, the cedar and the arbor vitæ. This platform was semicircular, and was bounded by a terrace or walk of gravel that swept around its circumference. The space inclosed was covered with a natural grass, which the frequent use of the scythe had brought to the resemblance of velvet; and the lower side of the terrace was guarded by a hedge-row of cedar. Over this green wall, as the spectator walked forth in fair summer time, might he look out upon the distant woods and meadows; and there he might behold the high-road showing itself, at distant intervals, upon the hill-sides; and in the bottom lands, that lay open to the sun through the forest-bound valleys, might he see herds of grazing cattle, or fields of yellow grain, or, perchance, the slow moving wain burdened with hay, or slower moving plough.

The mansion itself partook of the character of the place. It was perched—to use a phrase peculiarly applicable to its position—almost immediately at that point where the terrace made an angle with the cliff, being defended by a stone parapet, through which an iron wicket opened upon a flight of rough-hewn steps, that terminated in a pathway leading down to the river.

The main building was of stone, consisting of one lofty story, and capped with a steep roof, which curved so far over the front as to furnish a broad rustic porch that rested almost upon the ground. The slim pillars of this porch were concealed by lattice-work, which was overgrown with creeping vines; and the windows of the contiguous rooms, on either side of a spacious hall, opened to the floor, and looked out upon the lawn and upon the quiet landscape far beyond. One of these apartments was also accessible through the eastern gable, by a private doorway shaded by a light veranda, and was appropriated by Lindsay to his library. This portal seemed almost to hang over the rock, having but the breadth of the terrace between it and the declivity, and showing no other foreground than the parapet, which was here a necessary defence against the cliff, and from which the romantic dell of the river was seen in all its wildness.

There were other portions of the mansion constructed in the same style of architecture, united to this in such a manner as to afford an uninterrupted communication, and to furnish a range of chambers for the use of the family. A rustic effect was everywhere preserved. Stacks of chimneys shot up in grotesque array; and heavy, old-fashioned windows looked quaintly down from the peaked roof. Choice exotics, planted in boxes, were tastefully arranged upon the lawn; cages with singing-birds were suspended against the wall and the whole mass of building, extending along the verge of the cliff, so as to occupy the entire diameter of the semicircle, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet, sorted by its simplicity of costume, if I may so speak, and by its tidy beauty, with the close-shaven grass-plot and its trim shades.

Above the whole, flinging their broad and gnarled arms amongst the chimney tops, and forming a pleasing contrast with the artificial embellishments of this spot, some ancient oaks, in primeval magnificence, reared their time-honored trunks, and no less sheltered the habitation from the noon-tide heats, than they afforded an asylum to the ringdove and his mate, or to the countless travellers of the air that here stopped for rest or food.

Such was the general aspect of the Dove Cote; a spot where a philosopher might glide through life in unbroken contemplation; where a wearied statesman might betake himself to reassemble the scattered forces of intellect for new enterprises; where the artist might repair to study with advantage the living graces of God's own painting; and where young beauty might bud and bloom amongst the most delicate and graceful forms of earth.

The interior of the dwelling was capacious and comfortable. Its furniture, suitable to the estate of the owner, was plain, and adapted to a munificent rather than to an ostentatious hospitality. It was only in the library that evidence might be seen of large expense. Here, the books were ranged from the floor to the ceiling, with scarcely an interval, except where a few choice paintings had found space, or the bust of some ancient worthy. One or two ponderous lounging chairs stood in the apartment; and the footstep of the visitor was dulled into silence by the soft nap of (what, in that day, was a rare and costly luxury) a Turkey carpet. This was in all respects an apartment of ease, and it was provided with every incentive to beguile a student into silent and luxurious communion with the spirit of the sages around him,—whose subtlest thoughts and holiest breathings, whose most volatile fancies, had been caught up, fixed, and turned into tangible substance, more indestructible than adamant, by the magic of letters.

I have trespassed on the patience of my reader to give him a somewhat minute description of the Dove Cote, principally because I hope thereby to open his mind to a more adequate conception of the character of Philip Lindsay. By looking at a man in his own dwelling, and observing his domestic habits, I will venture to affirm, it shall scarcely in any instance fail to be true, that, if there be seen a tasteful arrangement of matters necessary to his comfort; if his household be well ordered, and his walks clean and well rolled, and his grassplots neat; and if there be no slovenly inattention to repairs, but thrift against waste, and plenty for all; and, if to these be added habits of early rising and comely attire—and, above all, if there be books, many books, well turned and carefully tended—that man is one to warm up at the coming of a gentleman; to open his doors to him; to take him to his heart, and to do him the kindnesses of life. He is a man to hate what is base, and to stand apart from the mass, as one who will not have his virtue tainted. He is a man, moreover, whose worldly craft may be so smothered and suppressed, in the predominance of the household affections, that the skilful and designing, alas, may ever practise with success their plans against him.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.