Southern Life in Southern Literature/John Pendleton Kennedy

by Maurice Garland Fulton (Ed.)

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher."

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

[John Pendleton Kennedy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1795. After graduating from a local college he studied law and began to practice his profession. For the rest of his life he divided his attention among law, politics, and literature. In 1852 he became Secretary of the Navy under President Fillmore. He died at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1870.]

SELECTIONS FROM "SWALLOW BARN"

Swallow Barn, an Old Virginia Estate

Swallow Barn is an aristocratical old edifice which sits, like a brooding hen, on the southern bank of the James River. It looks down upon a shady pocket or nook, formed by an indentation of the shore, from a gentle acclivity thinly sprinkled with oaks whose magnificent branches afford habitation to sundry friendly colonies of squirrels and woodpeckers.

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

This time-honored mansion was the residence of the family of Hazards. But in the present generation the spells of love and mortgage have translated the possession to Frank Meriwether, who, having married Lucretia, the eldest daughter of my late Uncle Walter Hazard, and lifted some gentlemanlike encumbrances which had been sleeping for years upon the domain, was thus inducted into the proprietary rights. The adjacency of his own estate gave a territorial feature to this alliance, of which the fruits were no less discernible in the multiplication of negroes, cattle, and poultry than in a flourishing clan of Meriwethers.

The main building is more than a century old. It is built with thick brick walls, but one story in height, and surmounted by a double-faced or hipped roof, which gives the idea of a ship bottom upwards. Later buildings have been added to this as the wants or ambition of the family have expanded. These are all constructed of wood, and seem to have been built in defiance of all laws of congruity, just as convenience required. But they form altogether an agreeable picture of habitation, suggesting the idea of comfort in the ample space they fill and in their conspicuous adaptation to domestic uses.

The hall door is an ancient piece of walnut, which has grown too heavy for its hinges and by its daily travel has furrowed the floor in a quadrant, over which it has an uneasy journey. It is shaded by a narrow porch, with a carved pediment upheld by massive columns of wood, somewhat split by the sun. An ample courtyard, inclosed by a semicircular paling, extends in front of the whole pile, and is traversed by a gravel road leading from a rather ostentatious iron gate, which is swung between two pillars of brick surmounted by globes of cut stone. Between the gate and the house a large willow spreads its arched and pendent drapery over the grass. A bridle rack stands within the inclosure, and near it a ragged horse-nibbled plum tree—the current belief being that a plum tree thrives on ill usage—casts its skeleton shadow on the dust.

Some Lombardy poplars, springing above a mass of shrubbery, partially screen various supernumerary buildings at a short distance in the rear of the mansion. Amongst these is to be seen the gable end of a stable, with the date of its erection stiffly emblazoned in black bricks near the upper angle, in figures set in after the fashion of the work on a girl's sampler. In the same quarter a pigeon box, reared on a post and resembling a huge teetotum, is visible, and about its several doors and windows a family of pragmatical pigeons are generally strutting, bridling, and bragging at each other from sunrise until dark.

Appendant to this homestead is an extensive tract of land which stretches some three or four miles along the river, presenting alternately abrupt promontories mantled with pine and dwarf oak, and small inlets terminating in swamps. Some sparse portions of forest vary the landscape, which, for the most part, exhibits a succession of fields clothed with Indian corn, some small patches of cotton or tobacco plants, with the usual varieties of stubble and fallow grounds. These are inclosed by worm fences of shrunken chestnut, where lizards and ground squirrels are perpetually running races along the rails.

A few hundred steps from the mansion a brook glides at a snail's pace towards the river, holding its course through a wilderness of laurel and alder, and creeping around islets covered with green mosses. Across this stream is thrown a rough bridge, which it would delight a painter to see; and not far below it an aged sycamore twists its roots into a grotesque framework to the pure mirror of a spring, which wells up its cool waters from a bed of gravel and runs gurgling to the brook. There it aids in furnishing a cruising ground to a squadron of ducks who, in defiance of all nautical propriety, are incessantly turning up their sterns to the skies. On the grass which skirts the margin of the spring I observe the family linen is usually spread out by some three or four negro women, who chant shrill music over their washtubs, and seem to live in ceaseless warfare with sundry little besmirched and bow-legged blacks, who are never tired of making somersaults and mischievously pushing each other on the clothes laid down to dry.

Beyond the bridge, at some distance, stands a prominent object in the perspective of this picture,—the most venerable appendage to the establishment,—a huge barn with an immense roof hanging almost to the ground and thatched a foot thick with sunburnt straw, which reaches below the eaves in ragged flakes. It has a singularly drowsy and decrepit aspect. The yard around it is strewed knee-deep with litter, from the midst of which arises a long rack resembling a chevaux-de-frise, which is ordinarily filled with fodder. This is the customary lounge of half a score of oxen and as many cows, who sustain an imperturbable companionship with a sickly wagon, whose parched tongue and drooping swingletrees, as it stands in the sun, give it a most forlorn and invalid character; whilst some sociable carts under the sheds, with their shafts perched against the walls, suggest the idea of a set of gossiping cronies taking their ease in a tavern porch. Now and then a clownish hobbledeboy

colt, with long fetlocks and disordered mane, and a thousand burs in his tail, stalks through this company. But as it is forbidden ground to all his tribe, he is likely very soon to encounter a shower of corncobs from some of the negro men; upon which contingency he makes a rapid retreat across the bars which imperfectly guard the entrance to the yard, and with an uncouth display of his heels bounds away towards the brook, where he stops and looks back with a saucy defiance; and after affecting to drink for a moment, gallops away with a braggart whinny to the fields.

 

The Master of Swallow Barn

The master of this lordly domain is Frank Meriwether. He is now in the meridian of life—somewhere about forty-five. Good cheer and, an easy temper tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable, portly figure, and the latter a contemplative turn of mind, which inclines him to be lazy and philosophical.

He has some right to pride himself on his personal appearance, for he has a handsome face, with a dark-blue eye and a fine intellectual brow. His head is growing scant of hair on the crown, which induces him to be somewhat particular in the management of his locks in that locality, and these are assuming a decided silvery hue.

It is pleasant to see him when he is going to ride to the Court House on business occasions. He is then apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue broadcloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an unusual amount of plaited ruffle strutting through the folds of a Marseilles waistcoat. A worshipful finish is given to this costume by a large straw hat, lined with green silk. There is a magisterial fullness in his garments which betokens condition in the world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended by a chain of gold, jingles as he moves, pronouncing him a man of superfluities.

[He is too lazy to try to go into politics, but did once make a pretence of studying law in Richmond, and is a somewhat autocratic justice of the peace.]

… Having in this way qualified himself to assert and maintain his rights, he came to his estate, upon his arrival at age, a very model of landed gentlemen. Since that time his avocations have had a certain literary tincture; for having settled himself down as a married man, and got rid of his superfluous foppery, he rambled with wonderful assiduity through a wilderness of romances, poems, and dissertations, which are now collected in his library, and, with their battered blue covers, present a lively type of an army of continentals at the close of the war, or a hospital of invalids. These have all, at last, given way to the newspapers—a miscellaneous study very attractive and engrossing to country gentlemen. This line of study has rendered Meriwether a most perilous antagonist in the matter of legislative proceedings.

A landed proprietor, vith a good house and a host of servants, is naturally a hospitable man. A guest is one of his daily wants. A friendly face is a necessary of life, without which the heart is apt to starve, or a luxury without which it grows parsimonious. Men who are isolated from society by distance feel these wants by an instinct, and are grateful for the opportunity to relieve them. In Meriwether the sentiment goes beyond this. It has, besides, something dialectic in it. His house is open to everybody, as freely almost as an inn. But to see him when he has had the good fortune to pick up an intelligent, educated gentleman,—and particularly one who listens well!—a respectable, assentatious stranger! All the better if he has been in the Legislature, and better still, if in Congress. Such a person caught within the purlieus of Swallow Barn may set down one week's entertainment as certain,—inevitable,—and as many more as he likes—the more the merrier. He will know something of the quality of Meriwether's rhetoric before he is gone.

Then again, it is very pleasant to see Frank's kind and considerate bearing towards his servants and dependents. His slaves appreciate this and hold him in most affectionate reverence, and, therefore, are not only contented, but happy under his dominion.…

He is somewhat distinguished as a breeder of blooded horses; and ever since the celebrated race between Eclipse and Henry has taken to this occupation with a renewed zeal, as a matter affecting the reputation of the state. It is delightful to hear him expatiate upon the value, importance, and patriotic bearing of this employment, and to listen to all his technical lore touching the mystery of horsecraft. He has some fine colts in training, which are committed to the care of a pragmatical old negro, named Carey, who, in his reverence for the occupation, is the perfect shadow of his master. He and Frank hold grave and momentous consultations upon the affairs of the stable, in such a sagacious strain of equal debate that it would puzzle a spectator to tell which was the leading member of the council. Carey thinks he knows a great deal more upon the subject than his master, and their frequent intercourse has begot a familiarity in the old negro which is almost fatal to Meriwether's supremacy. The old man feels himself authorized to maintain his positions according to the freest parliamentary form, and sometimes with a violence of asseveration that compels his master to abandon his ground, purely out of faint-heartedness. Meriwether gets a little nettled by Carey's doggedness, but generally turns it off in a laugh. I was in the stable with him, a few mornings after my arrival, when he ventured to expostulate with the venerable groom upon a professional point, but the controversy terminated in its customary way. "Who sot you up, Master Frank, to tell me how to fodder that 'ere cretur, when I as good as nursed you on my knee?"

"Well, tie up your tongue, you old mastiff," replied Frank, as he walked out of the stable, "and cease growling, since you will have it your own way"; and then, as we left the old man s presence, he added, with an affectionate chuckle, "a faithful old cur, too, that snaps at me out of pure honesty; he has not many years left, and it does no harm to humor him."

 

The Mistress of Swallow Barn

Whilst Frank Meriwether amuses himself with his quiddities, and floats through life upon the current of his humor, his dame, my excellent cousin Lucretia, takes charge of the household affairs, as one who has a reputation to stake upon her administration. She has made it a perfect science, and great is her fame in the dispensation thereof!

Those who have visited Swallow Barn will long remember the morning stir, of which the murmurs arose even unto the chambers and fell upon the ears of the sleepers: the dry rubbing of floors, and even the waxing of the same until they were like ice; and the grinding of coffee mills; and the gibber of ducks, and chickens, and turkeys; and all the multitudinous concert of homely sounds. And then, her breakfasts! I do not wish to be counted extravagant, but a small regiment might march in upon her without disappointment; and I would put them for excellence and variety against anything that ever was served upon platter. Moreover, all things go like clockwork. She rises with the lark and infuses an early vigor into the whole household. And yet she is a thin woman to look upon, and a feeble; with a sallow complexion, and a pair of animated black eyes which impart a portion of fire to a countenance otherwise demure from the paths worn across it in the frequent travel of a low-country ague. But, although her life has been somewhat saddened by such visitations, my cousin is too spirited a woman to give up to them; for she is therapeutical in her constitution, and considers herself a full match for any reasonable tertian in the world. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that she took more pride in her leechcraft than becomes a Christian woman; she is even a little vainglorious. For, to say nothing of her skill in compounding simples, she has occasionally brought down upon her head the sober remonstrances of her husband by her pertinacious faith in the efficacy of certain spells in cases of intermittent. But there is no reasoning against her experience. She can enumerate the cases—"and men may say what they choose about its being contrary to reason, and all that: it is their way! But seeing is believing—nine scoops of water in the hollow of the hand, from the sycamore spring, for three mornings, before sunrise, and a cup of strong coffee with lemon juice, will break an ague, try it when you will." In short, Mrs Frank says, "Lucretia will die in that creed."

I am occasionally up early enough to be witness to her morning regimen, which, to my mind, is rather tyrannically enforced against the youngsters of her numerous family, both white and black. She is in the habit of preparing some death-routing decoction for them, in a small pitcher, and administering it to the whole squadron in succession, who severally swallow the dose with a most ineffectual effort at repudiation, and gallop off with faces all rue and wormwood.

Everything at Swallow Barn that falls within the superintendence of my cousin Lucretia is a pattern of industry. In fact, I consider her the very priestess of the American system, for, with her, the protection of manufactures is even more of a passion than a principle. Every here and there, over the estate, may be seen, rising in humble guise above the shrubbery, the rude chimney of a log cabin, where all the livelong day the plaintive moaning of the spinning wheel rises fitfully upon the breeze, like the fancied notes of a hobgoblin, as they are sometimes imitated in the stories with which we frighten children. In these laboratories the negro women are employed in preparing yarn for the loom, from which is produced not only a comfortable supply of winter clothing for the working people but some excellent carpets for the house.

It is refreshing to behold how affectionately vain our good hostess is of Frank, and what deference she shows to his judgment in all matters except those that belong to the home department; for there she is confessedly, and without appeal, the paramount power. It seems to be a dogma with her that he is the very "first man in Virginia," an expression which in this region has grown into an emphatic provincialism. Frank, in return, is a devout admirer of her accomplishments, and although he does not pretend to an ear for music, he is in raptures at her skill on the harpsichord when she plays at night for the children to dance; and he sometimes sets her to singing "The Twins of Latona," and "Old Towler," and "The Rose-Tree in Full Bearing " (she does not study the modern music) for the entertainment of his company. On these occasions he stands by the instrument, and nods his head as if he comprehended the airs.

 

Traces of the Feudal System

The gentlemen of Virginia live apart from each other. They are surrounded by their bondsmen and dependents; and the customary intercourse of society familiarizes their minds to the relation of high and low degree. They frequently meet in the interchange of a large and thriftless hospitality, in which the forms of society are foregone for its comforts, and the business of life thrown aside for the enjoyment of its pleasures. Their halls are large, and their boards ample; and surrounding the great family hearth, with its immense burthen of blazing wood casting a broad and merry glare over the congregated household and the numerous retainers, a social winter party in Virginia affords a tolerable picture of feudal munificence.

Frank Meriwether is a good specimen of the class I have described. He seeks companionship with men of ability, and is a zealous disseminator of the personal fame of individuals who have won any portion of renown in the state. Sometimes I even think he exaggerates a little, when descanting upon the prodigies of genius that have been reared in the Old Dominion; and he manifestly seems to consider that a young man who has astonished a whole village in Virginia by the splendor of his talents must, of course, be known throughout the United States; for he frequently opens his eyes at me with an air of astonishment when I happen to ask him who is the marvel he is speaking of.

I observe, moreover, that he has a constitutional fondness for paradoxes and does not scruple to adopt and republish any apothegm that is calculated to startle one by its novelty. He has a correspondence with several old friends who were with him at college, and who have now risen into an extensive political notoriety in the state; these gentlemen furnish him with many new currents of thought, along which he glides with a happy velocity. He is essentially meditative in his character and somewhat given to declamation; and these traits have communicated a certain measured and deliberate gesticulation to his discourse. I have frequently seen him after dinner stride backward and forward across the room for some moments, wrapped in thought, and then fling himself upon the sofa and come out with some weighty doubt, expressed with a solemn emphasis. In this form he lately began a conversation, or rather a speech, that for a moment quite disconcerted me. "After all," said he, as if he had been talking to me before, although these were the first words he uttered—then making a parenthesis, so as to qualify what he was going to say—"I don't deny that the steamboat is destined to produce valuable results, but after all, I much question (and here he bit his upper lip, and paused an instant) if we are not better without it. I declare, I think it strikes deeper at the supremacy of the states than most persons are willing to allow. This annihilation of space, sir, is not to be desired. Our protection against the evils of consolidation consists in the very obstacles to our intercourse. Splatterthwaite Dubbs of Dinwiddie [or some such name; Frank is famous for quoting the opinions of his contemporaries. This Splatterthwaite, I take it, was some old college chum who had got into the legislature and, I dare say, made pungent speeches] made a good remark—that the home material of Virginia was never so good as when her roads were at their worst." And so Frank went on with quite a harangue, to which none of the company replied one word for fear we might get into a dispute. Everybody seems to understand the advantage of silence when Meriwether is inclined to be expatiatory.

This strain of philosophizing has a pretty marked influence in the neighborhood, for I perceive that Frank's opinions are very much quoted. There is a set of under-talkers about these large country establishments who are very glad to pick up the crumbs of wisdom which fall from a rich man's table; secondhand philosophers, who trade upon other people's stock. Some of these have a natural bias to this venting of upper opinions, by reason of certain dependences in the way of trade and favor; others have it from affinity of blood, which works like a charm over a whole county. Frank stands related, by some tie of marriage or mixture of kin, to an infinite train of connections, spread over the state; and it is curious to learn what a decided hue this gives to the opinions of the district. We had a notable example of this one morning not long after my arrival at Swallow Barn. Meriwether had given several indications immediately after breakfast of a design to pour out upon us the gathered ruminations of the last twenty-four hours, but we had evaded the storm with some caution, when the arrival of two or three neighbors,—plain, homespun farmers,—who had ridden to Swallow Barn to execute some papers before Frank as a magistrate, furnished him with an occasion that was not to be lost. After dispatching their business he detained them, ostensibly to inquire about their crops and other matters of their vocation, but, in reality, to give them that very flood of politics which we had escaped. We, of course, listened without concern, since we were assured of an auditory that would not flinch. In the course of this disquisition he made use of a figure of speech which savored of some previous study, or, at least, was highly in the oratorical vein. "Mark me, gentlemen," said he, contracting his brow over his fine thoughtful eye and pointing the forefinger of his left hand directly at the face of the person he addressed—"mark me, gentlemen; you and I may not live to see it, but our children will see it, and wail over it—the sovereignty of this Union will be as the rod of Aaron; it will turn into a serpent and swallow up all that struggle with it." Mr. Chub was present at this solemn denunciation and was very much affected by it. He rubbed his hands with some briskness and uttered his applause in a short but vehement panegyric, in which were heard only the detached words—"Mr. Burke—Cicero."

The next day Ned and myself were walking by the school-house and were hailed by Rip from one of the windows, who, in a sly undertone, as he beckoned us to come close to him, told us, "if we wanted to hear a regular preach, to stand fast." We could look into the schoolroom unobserved, and there was our patriotic pedagogue haranguing the boys with a violence of action that drove an additional supply of blood into his face. It was apparent that the old gentleman had got much beyond the depth of his hearers and was pouring out his rhetoric more from oratorical vanity than from any hope of enlightening his audience. At the most animated part of his strain he brought himself, by a kind of climax, to the identical sentiment uttered by Meriwether the day before. He warned his young hearers—the oldest of them was not above fourteen—"to keep a lynx-eyed gaze upon that serpentlike ambition which would convert the government at Washington into Aaron's rod, to swallow up the independence of their native state."

This conceit immediately ran through all the lower circles at Swallow Barn. Mr. Tongue, the overseer, repeated it at the blacksmith's shop in the presence of the blacksmith and Mr. Absalom Bulrush, a spare, ague-and-feverish husbandman who occupies a muddy slip of marshland on one of the river bottoms, which is now under a mortgage to Meriwether; and from these it has spread far and wide, though a good deal diluted, until in its circuit it has reached our veteran groom Carey, who considers the sentiment as importing something of an awful nature. With the smallest encouragement, Carey will put on a tragi-comic face, shake his head very slowly, turn up his eyeballs, and open out his broad, scaly hands, while he repeats with labored voice, "Look out, Master Ned! Aaron's rod a black snake in Old Virginny!" Upon which, as we fall into a roar of laughter, Carey stares with astonishment at our irreverence. But having been set to acting this scene for us once or twice, he now suspects us of some joke and asks "if there isn't a copper for an old negro," which if he succeeds in getting, he runs off, telling us "he is too 'cute to make a fool of himself."

Meriwether does not dislike this trait in the society around him. I happened to hear two carpenters one day, who were, making some repairs at the stable, in high conversation. One of them was expounding to the other some oracular opinion of Frank's touching the political aspect of the country, and just at the moment when the speaker was most animated, Meriwether himself came up. He no sooner became aware of the topic in discussion than he walked off in another direction, affecting not to hear it, although I knew he heard every word. He told me afterwards that there was "a wholesome tone of feeling amongst the people in that part of the country."

 

The Quarter

Having dispatched these important matters at the stable, we left our horses in charge of the servants and walked towards the cabins, which were not more than a few hundred paces distant. These hovels, with their appurtenances, formed an exceedingly picturesque landscape. They were scattered, with out order, over the slope of a gentle hill; and many of them were embowered under old and majestic trees. The rudeness of their construction rather enhanced the attractiveness of the scene. Some few were built after the fashion of the better sort of cottages, but age had stamped its heavy traces upon their exterior; the green moss had gathered upon the roofs, and the coarse weatherboarding had broken, here and there, into chinks. But the more lowly of these structures, and the most numerous, were nothing more than plain log cabins, compacted pretty much on the model by which boys build partridge traps, being composed of the trunks of trees, still clothed with their bark, and knit together at the corners with so little regard to neatness that the timbers, being of unequal lengths, jutted beyond each other, sometimes to the length of a foot. Perhaps none of these latter sort were more than twelve feet square and not above seven in height. A door swung upon wooden hinges, and a small window of two narrow panes of glass were, in general, the only openings in the front. The intervals between the logs were filled with clay, and the roof, which was constructed of smaller timbers, laid lengthwise along it and projecting two or three feet beyond the side or gable walls, heightened, in a very marked degree, the rustic effect. The chimneys communicated even a droll expression to these habitations. They were, oddly enough, built of billets of wood, having a broad foundation of stone, and growing narrower as they rose, each receding gradually from the house to which it was attached, until it reached the height of the roof. These combustible materials were saved from the access of the fire by a thick coating of mud, and the whole structure, from its tapering form, might be said to bear some resemblance to the spout of a teakettle; indeed, this domestic implement would furnish no unapt type of the complete cabin.

From this description, which may serve to illustrate a whole species of habitations very common in Virginia, it will be seen that, on the score of accommodation, the inmates of these dwellings were furnished according to a very primitive notion of comfort. Still, however, there were little garden patches attached to each, where cymblings, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and cabbages flourished in unrestrained luxuriance. Add to this that there were abundance of poultry domesticated about the premises, and it may be perceived that, whatever might be the inconveniences of shelter, there was no want of what, in all countries, would be considered a reasonable supply of luxuries.

Nothing more attracted my observation than the swarms of little negroes that basked on the sunny sides of these cabins and congregated to gaze at us as we surveyed their haunts. They were nearly all in that costume of the golden age which I have heretofore described, and showed their slim shanks and long heels in all varieties of their grotesque natures. Their predominant love of sunshine, and their lazy, listless postures, and apparent content to be silently looking abroad, might well afford a comparison to a set of terrapins luxuriating in the genial warmth of summer on the logs of a mill pond.

And there, too, were the prolific mothers of this redundant brood—a number of stout negro women who thronged the doors of the huts, full of idle curiosity to see us. And, when to these are added a few reverend, wrinkled, decrepit old men, with faces shortened as if with drawing strings, noses that seemed to have run all to nostril, and with feet of the configuration of a mattock, my reader will have a tolerably correct idea of this negro quarter, its population, buildings, external appearance, situation, and extent.

Meriwether, I have said before, is a kind and considerate master. It is his custom frequently to visit his slaves, in order to inspect their condition and, where it may be necessary, to add to their comforts or relieve their wants. His coming amongst them, therefore, is always hailed with pleasure. He has constituted himself into a high court of appeal, and makes it a rule to give all their petitions a patient hearing and to do justice in the premises. This, he tells me, he considers as indispensably necessary. He says that no overseer is entirely to be trusted; that there are few men who have the temper to administer wholesome laws to any population, however small, without some omissions or irregularities, and that this is more emphatically true of those who administer them entirely at their own will. On the present occasion, in almost every house where Frank entered, there was some boon to be asked; and I observed that, in every case, the petitioner was either gratified or refused in such a tone as left no occasion or disposition to murmur. Most of the women had some bargains to offer, of fowls or eggs or other commodities of the household use, and Meriwether generally referred them to his wife, who, I found, relied almost entirely on this resource for the supply of such commodities, the negroes being regularly paid for whatever was offered in this way.

One old fellow had a special favor to ask—a little money to get a new padding for his saddle, which, he said, "galled his cretur's back." Frank, after a few jocular passages with the veteran, gave him what he desired, and sent him off rejoicing.

"That, sir," said Meriwether, "is no less a personage than Jupiter. He is an old bachelor and has his cabin here on the hill. He is now near seventy and is a kind of King of the Quarter. He has a horse, which he extorted from me last Christmas, and I seldom come here without finding myself involved in some new demand as a consequence of my donation. Now he wants a pair of spurs, which, I suppose, I must give him. He is a preposterous coxcomb, and Ned has administered to his vanity by a present of a chapeau de bras, a relic of my military era, which he wears on Sundays with a conceit that has brought upon him as much envy as admiration—the usual condition of greatness."

The air of contentment and good humor and kind family attachment, which was apparent throughout this little community, and the familiar relations existing between them and the proprietor struck me very pleasantly. I came here a stranger, in great degree, to the negro character, knowing but little of the domestic history of these people, their duties, habits, or temper, and somewhat disposed, indeed, from prepossessions, to look upon them as severely dealt with, and expecting to have my sympathies excited towards them as objects of commiseration. I have had, therefore, rather a special interest in observing them. The contrast between my preconceptions of their condition and the reality which I have witnessed, has brought me a most agreeable surprise. I will not say that, in a high state of cultivation and of such self-dependence as they might possibly attain in a separate national existence, they might not become a more respectable people, but I am quite sure they never could become a happier people than I find them here. Perhaps they are destined, ultimately, to that national existence in the clime from which they derive their origin—that this is a transition state in which we see them in Virginia. If it be so, no tribe of people have ever passed from barbarism to civilization whose middle stage of progress has been more secure from harm, more genial to their character, or better supplied with mild and beneficent guardianship, adapted to the actual state of their intellectual feebleness, than the negroes of Swallow Barn. And, from what I can gather, it is pretty much the same on the other estates in this region. I hear of an unpleasant exception to this remark now and then, but under such conditions as warrant the opinion that the unfavorable case is not more common than that which may be found in a survey of any other department of society. The oppression of apprentices, of seamen, of soldiers, of subordinates, indeed, in every relation, may furnish elements for a bead-roll of social grievances quite as striking, if they were diligently noted and brought to view.

 

SELECTIONS FROM "HORSESHOE ROBINSON"

Horseshoe Robinson

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.…

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. He was habited in the costume of a gentleman of the time, with 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, while his saddlebow 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 mold. 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. 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 connection 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 Horseshoe Robinson. This familiar appellative had followed him into the army.

The age of Horseshoe was some seven or eight years in advance of that of Butler. On the present occasion his dress was of the plainest and most rustic description: a spherical crowned hat with a broad brim, a coarse gray coatee of mixed cotton and wool, dark linsey-woolsey trousers adhering closely to his leg, hobnailed 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 deerskin, with a powderhorn 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 weatherbeaten 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.

 

[On his way South, Captain Butler passed by Dove Cote, in Virginia, where lived Mildred Lindsay, with whom he was in love. Mildred Lindsay's father was loyal to the king and did not look with favor upon Butler's suit since he had entered the Continental army. Mildred's father favored Tyrrel, who had been sent from England to look after the king's interest. Under these circumstances it was impossible for Butler to do more than to see Mildred secretly on the river bank. At Mrs. Dimock's inn, where Butler and Horseshoe were to spend the night, they met with James Curry, an attendant of Tyrrel, who was carefully watched by Horseshoe under the suspicion that he might be a spy. A quarrel ensued, followed by a fight in which Curry was worsted. The next morning the captain and his companion left early, and after a journey of a week they reached the headquarters of General Gates. Finding no need for his services there, Butler continued his way, according to instructions, to join Colonel Clarke, who was in the mountains of South Carolina raising troops. Horseshoe conducted him by a circuitous route to the house of Wat Adair, a well-known mountaineer, whose good will they wished to obtain. But Adair gave the travelers away to the Tories in spite of the efforts of Mary Musgrove, a mountain girl, to warn Butler. Adair accompanied Horseshoe and Butler on their departure, in order to show them the road.]

 

Capture of Butler and Horseshoe

Meantime Butler and Robinson advanced at a wearied pace. The twilight had so far faded as to be only discernible on the western sky. The stars were twinkling through the leaves of the forest, and the light of the firefly spangled the wilderness. The road might be descried, in the most open parts of the wood, for some fifty paces ahead; but where the shrubbery was more dense, it was lost in utter darkness. Our travelers, like most wayfarers towards the end of the day, rode silently along, seldom exchanging a word and anxiously computing the distance which they had yet to traverse before they reached their appointed place of repose. A sense of danger, and the necessity for vigilance, on the present occasion, made them the more silent.

"I thought I heard a wild sort of yell just now—people laughing a great way off," said Robinson, "but there's such a hooting of owls and piping of frogs that I mought have been mistaken. Halt, major. Let me listen—there it is again."

"It is the crying of a panther, sergeant; more than a mile from us, by my ear."

"It is mightily like the scream of drunken men," replied the sergeant; "and there, too! I thought I heard the clatter of a hoof."

The travelers again reined up and listened.

"It is more like a deer stalking through the bushes, Galbraith."

"No," exclaimed the sergeant, "that's the gallop of a horse making down the road ahead of us, as sure as you are alive; I heard the shoe strike a stone. You must have hearn it, too."

MAJOR BUTLER AND HORSESHOE ROBINSON
Reproduction of vignette on title-page of original edition of
"Horseshoe Robinson"

"I would n't be sure," answered Butler.

"Look to your pistols, major, and prime afresh."

"We seem to have ridden a great way," said Butler, as he concluded the inspection of his pistols and now held one of them ready in his hand. "Can we have lost ourselves? Should we not have reached the Pacolet before this?"

"I have seen no road that could take us astray," replied Robinson, "and, by what we were told just before sundown, I should guess that we couldn't be far off the ford. We haven't then quite three miles to Christie's. Well, courage, major! supper and bed were never spoiled by the trouble of getting to them."

"Wat Adair, I think, directed us to Christie's?" said Butler.

"He did; and I had a mind to propose to you, since we caught him in a trick this morning, to make for some other house, if such a thing was possible, or else to spend the night in the woods."

"Perhaps it would be wise, sergeant; and if you think so still, I will be ruled by you."

"If we once got by the riverside, where our horses mought have water, I almost think I should advise a halt there. Although I have made one observation, Major Butler that running water is lean fare for a hungry man. Howsever, it won't hurt us, and if you say the word we will stop there."

"Then, sergeant, I do say the word."

"Isn't that the glimmering of a light yonder in the bushes?" inquired Horseshoe, as he turned his gaze in the direction of the bivouac, "or is it these here lightning bugs that keep so busy shooting about?"

"I thought I saw the light you speak of, Galbraith; but it has disappeared."

"It is there again, major; and I hear the rushing of the river we are near the ford. Perhaps this light comes from some cabin on the bank."

"God send that it should turn out so, Galbraith! for I am very weary."

"There is some devilment going on in these woods, major. I saw a figure pass in front of the light through the bushes. I would be willing to swear it was a man on horseback. Perhaps we have, by chance, fallen on some Tory muster; or, what's not so likely, they may be friends. I think I will ride forward and challenge."

"Better pass unobserved, if you can, sergeant," interrupted Butler. "It will not do for us to run the risk of being separated. Here we are at the river; let us cross, and ride some distance; then, if any one follow us, we shall be more certain of his design."

They now cautiously advanced into the river, which, though rapid, was shallow; and having reached the middle of the stream, they halted to allow their horses water.

"Captain Peter is as thirsty as a man in a fever," said Horseshoe. "He drinks as if he was laying in for a week. Now, major, since we are here in the river, look up the stream. Don't you see, from the image in the water, that there's a fire on the bank? And there, by my soul! there are men on horseback. Look towards the light. Spur, and out on the other side! Quick—quick—they are upon us!"

At the same instant that Horseshoe spoke a bullet whistled close by his ear, and in the next, six or eight men galloped into the river from different points. This was succeeded by a sharp report of firearms from both parties, and the vigorous charge of Robinson, followed by Butler, through the array of the assailants. They gained the opposite bank and now directed all their efforts to outrun their pursuers; but in the very crisis of their escape Butler's horse, bounding under the prick of the spur, staggered a few paces from the river and fell dead. A bullet had lodged in a vital part, and the energy of the brave steed was spent in the effort to bear his master through the stream. Butler fell beneath the stricken animal, from whence he was unable to extricate himself. The sergeant, seeing his comrade s condition, sprang from his horse and ran to his assistance, and, in the same interval, the ruffian followers gained the spot and surrounded their prisoners. An ineffectual struggle ensued over the prostrate horse and rider, in which Robinson bore down more than one of his adversaries, but was obliged, at last, to yield to the overwhelming power that pressed upon him.

"Bury your swords in both of them to the hilts!" shouted Habershaw; "I don't want to have that work to do to-morrow."

"Stand off!" cried Gideon Blake, as two or three of the gang sprang forward to execute their captain s order; "stand off! the man is on his back, and he shall not be murdered in cold blood"; and the speaker took a position near Butler, prepared to make good his resolve. The spirit of Blake had its desired effect, and the same assailants now turned upon Robinson.

"Hold!" cried Peppercorn, throwing up his sword and warding off the blows that were aimed by these men at the body of the sergeant. "Hold, you knaves! this is my prisoner. I will deal with him to my liking. Would a dozen of you strike one man when he has surrendered? Back, ye cowards; leave him to me. How now, old Horseshoe; are you caught, with your gay master here? Come, come, we know you both. So yield with a good grace, lest, peradventure, I might happen to blow out your brains."

"Silence, fellows! You carrion crows!" roared Habershaw.

"Remember the discipline I taught you. No disorder, nor confusion, but take the prisoners, since you hav'n't the heart to strike; take them to the rendezvous. And do it quietly—do you hear? Secure the baggage; and about it quickly, you hounds!"

Butler was now lifted from the ground, and, with his companion, was taken into the custody of Blake and one or two of his companions, who seemed to share in his desire to prevent the shedding of blood. The prisoners were each mounted behind one of the troopers, and in this condition conducted across the river. The saddle and other equipments were stripped from the major's dead steed; and Robinson's horse, Captain Peter, was burdened with the load of two wounded men, whose own horses had escaped from them in the fray. In this guise the band of freebooters, with their prisoners and spoils, slowly and confusedly made their way to the appointed place of reassembling. In a few moments they were ranged beneath the chestnut, waiting for orders from their self-important and vain commander.

[The next day Horseshoe Robinson managed to escape and bent all his ingenuity to bring about the freedom of Butler. While endeavoring to accomplish this, he meets with the following adventure.]

 

Horseshoe captures Five Prisoners

David Ramsay s house was situated on a byroad, between five and six miles from Musgrove's mill, and at about the distance of one mile from the principal route of travel between Ninety-Six and Blackstock's. In passing from the military post that had been established at the former place, towards the latter, Ramsay's lay off to the left, with a piece of dense wood intervening. The byway, leading through the farm, diverged from the main road and traversed this wood until it reached the cultivated grounds immediately around Ramsay s dwelling. In the journey from Musgrove's mill to this point of divergence the traveler was obliged to ride some two or three miles upon the great road leading from the British garrison, a road that, at the time of my story, was much frequented by military parties, scouts, and patrols, that were concerned in keeping up the communication between the several posts which were established by the British authorities along that frontier. Amongst the Whig parties, also, there were various occasions which brought them under the necessity of frequent passage through this same district, and which, therefore, furnished opportunities for collision and skirmish with the opposite forces.

On the morning that succeeded the night in which Horseshoe Robinson arrived at Musgrove's, the stout and honest sergeant might have been seen, about eight o'clock, leaving the main road from Ninety-Six, at the point where that leading to David Ramsay's separated from it, and cautiously urging his way into the deep forest by the more private path into which he had entered. The knowledge that Innis was encamped along the Ennoree within a short distance of the mill had compelled him to make an extensive circuit to reach Ramsay's dwelling, whither he was now bent; and he had experienced considerable delay in his morning journey by finding himself frequently in the neighborhood of small foraging parties of Tories whose motions he was obliged to watch for fear of an encounter. He had once already been compelled to use his horse's heels in what he called "fair flight," and once to ensconce himself a full half hour under cover of the thicket afforded him by a swamp. He now, therefore, according to his own phrase, "dived into the little road that scrambled down through the woods towards Ramsay's, with all his eyes about him, looking out as sharply as a fox on a foggy morning"; and with this circumspection he was not long in arriving within view of Ramsay's house. Like a practiced soldier, whom frequent frays has taught wisdom, he resolved to reconnoiter before he advanced upon a post that might be in possession of an enemy. He therefore dismounted, fastened his horse in a fence corner, where a field of corn concealed him from notice, and then stealthily crept forward until he came immediately behind one of the outhouses.

The barking of a house dog brought out a negro boy, to whom Robinson instantly addressed the query,

"Is your master at home?"

"No, sir. He's got his horse, and gone off more than an hour ago."

"Where is your mistress?"

"Shelling beans, sir."

"I didn't ask you," said the sergeant, "what she is doing, but where she is."

"In course, she is in the house, sir," replied the negro with a grin.

"Any strangers there?"

"There was plenty on em a little while ago, but they've been gone a good bit."

Robinson, having thus satisfied himself as to the safety of his visit, directed the boy to take his horse and lead him up to the door. He then entered the dwelling.

"Mistress Ramsay," said he, walking up to the dame, who was occupied at a table, with a large trencher before her, in which she was plying that household thrift which the negro described; "luck to you, ma'am, and all your house! I hope you haven't none of these clinking and clattering bullies about you, that are as thick over this country as the frogs in the kneading troughs, that they tell of."

"Good lack, Mr. Horseshoe Robinson," exclaimed the matron, offering the sergeant her hand. "What has brought you here? What news? Who are with you? For patience sake, tell me!"

"I am alone," said Robinson, "and a little wettish, mistress," he added, as he took off his hat and shook the water from it; "it has just sot up a rain, and looks as if it was going to give us enough on 't. You don't mind doing a little dinner work of a Sunday, I see—shelling of beans, I s'pose, is tantamount to dragging a sheep out of a pond, as the preachers allow on the Sabbath—ha, ha!—Where s Davy?"

"He's gone over to the meetinghouse on Ennoree, hoping to hear something of the army at Camden; perhaps you can tell us the news from that quarter?"

"Faith, that's a mistake, Mistress Ramsay. Though I don't doubt that they are hard upon the scratches by this time. But, at this present speaking, I command the flying artillery. We have but one man in the corps—and that's myself; and all the guns we have got is this piece of ordinance that hangs in this old belt by my side (pointing to his sword), and that I captured from the enemy at Blackstock's. I was hoping I mought find John Ramsay at home—I have need of him as a recruit."

"Ah, Mr. Robinson, John has a heavy life of it over there with Sumpter. The boy is often without his natural rest, or a meal's victuals, and the general thinks so much of him that he can't spare him to come home. I haven't the heart to complain as long as John's service is of any use, but it does seem, Mr. Robinson, like needless tempting of the mercies of Providence. We thought that he might have been here to-day; yet I am glad he didn't come, for he would have been certain to get into trouble. Who should come in this morning, just after my husband had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats; they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again. And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house, and calling for this, and calling for that as if they owned the feesimple of everything on the plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horseshoe, to see them run out in the yard and catch up my chickens and ducks, and kill as many as they could string about them—and I not daring to say a word, though I did give them a piece of my mind, too."

"Who is at home with you?" inquired the sergeant, eagerly.

"Nobody but my youngest boy, Andrew," answered the dame. "And then the filthy, toping rioters—" she continued, exalting her voice.

"What arms have you in the house?" asked Robinson, without heeding the dame's rising anger.

"We have a rifle, and a horseman's pistol that belongs to John. They must call for drink, too, and turn my house of a Sunday morning into a tavern."

"They took the route towards Ninety-Six, you said, Mistress Ramsay?"

"Yes; they went straight forward upon the road. But, look you, Mr. Horseshoe, you re not thinking of going after them?"

"Isn't there an old field, about a mile from this, on that road?" inquired the sergeant, still intent upon his own thoughts.

"There is," replied the dame; "with the old schoolhouse upon it."

"A lopsided, rickety, log cabin in the middle of the field. Am I right, good woman? "

"Yes."

"And nobody lives in it? It has no door to it?"

"There ha'n't been anybody in it these seven years."

"I know the place very well," said the sergeant, thoughtfully; "there is woods just on this side of it."

"That's true," replied the dame; "but what is it you are thinking about, Mr. Robinson?"

"How long before this rain began was it that they quitted this house?"

"Not above fifteen minutes."

"Mistress Ramsay, bring me the rifle and pistol both—and the powderhorn and bullets."

"As you say, Mr. Horseshoe," answered the dame, as she turned round to leave the room; "but I am sure I can't suspicion what you mean to do."

In a few moments the woman returned with the weapons, and gave them to the sergeant.

"Where is Andy?" asked Horseshoe.

The hostess went to the door and called her son, and almost immediately afterwards a sturdy boy of about twelve or fourteen years of age entered the apartment, his clothes dripping with rain. He modestly and shyly seated himself on a chair near the door, with his soaked hat flapping down over a face full of freckles, and not less rife with the expression of an open, dauntless hardihood of character.

"How would you like a scrummage, Andy, with them Scotchmen that stole your mother's chickens this morning?" asked Horseshoe.

"I'm agreed," replied the boy, "if you will tell me what to do."

"You are not going to take the boy out on any of your desperate projects, Mr. Horseshoe?" said the mother, with the tears starting instantly into her eyes. "You wouldn't take such a child as that into danger?"

"Bless your soul, Mrs. Ramsay, there ar'n't no danger about it! Don't take on so. It s a thing that is either done at a blow, or not done, and there's an end of it. I want the lad only to bring home the prisoners for me, after I have took them."

"Ah, Mr. Robinson, I have one son already in these wars—God protect him!—and you men don't know how a mother's heart yearns for her children in these times. I can not give another," she added, as she threw her arms over the shoulders of the youth and drew him to her bosom.

"Oh! it ain't nothing," said Andrew, in a sprightly tone. "It's only snapping of a pistol, mother, pooh! If I'm not afraid, you oughtn't to be."

"I give you my honor, Mistress Ramsay," said Robinson, "that I will bring or send your son safe back in one hour; and that he sha'n't be put in any sort of danger whatsomedever; come, that's a good woman!"

"You are not deceiving me, Mr. Robinson?" asked the matron, wiping away a tear. "You wouldn't mock the sufferings of a weak woman in such a thing as this?"

"On the honesty of a sodger, ma'am," replied Horseshoe, "the lad shall be in no danger, as I said before—whatsomedever."

"Then I will say no more," answered the mother. "But Andy, my child, be sure to let Mr. Robinson keep before you."

Horseshoe now loaded the firearms, and having slung the pouch across his body, he put the pistol into the hands of the boy; then, shouldering his rifle, he and his young ally left the room. Even on this occasion, serious as it might be deemed, the sergeant did not depart without giving some manifestation of that light-heartedness which no difficulties ever seemed to have the power to conquer. He thrust his head back into the room, after he had crossed the threshold, and said with an encouraging laugh. "Andy and me will teach them, Mistress Ramsay, Pat's point of war we will surround the ragamuffins."

"Now, Andy, my lad," said Horseshoe, after he had mounted Captain Peter, "you must get up behind me. Turn the lock of your pistol down," he continued, as the boy sprang upon the horse's rump, "and cover it with the flap of your jacket, to keep the rain off. It won't do to hang fire at such a time as this."

The lad did as he was directed, and Horseshoe, having secured his rifle in the same way, put his horse up to a gallop, and took the road in the direction that had been pursued by the soldiers.

As soon as our adventurers had gained a wood, at the distance of about half a mile, the sergeant relaxed his speed, and advanced at a pace a little above a walk.

"Andy," he said, "we have got rather a ticklish sort of a job before us, so I must give you your lesson, which you will understand better by knowing something of my plan. As soon as your mother told me that these thieving villains had left her house about fifteen minutes before the rain came on, and that they had gone along upon this road, I remembered the old field up here, and the little log hut in the middle of it; and it was natural to suppose that they had just got about near that hut when this rain came up; and then, it was the most supposable case in the world that they would naturally go into it, as the dryest place they could find. So now, you see, it's my calculation that the whole batch is there at this very point of time. We will go slowly along, until we get to the other end of this wood, in sight of the old field, and then, if there is no one on the lookout, we will open our first trench; you know what that means, Andy?"

"It means, I s pose, that we'll go right smack at them," replied Andrew.

"Pretty exactly," said the sergeant. "But listen to me. Just at the edge of the woods you will have to get down and put yourself behind a tree. I'll ride forward, as if I had a whole troop at my heels, and if I catch them, as I expect, they will have a little fire kindled, and, as likely as not, they'll be cooking some of your mother's fowls."

"Yes, I understand," said the boy eagerly,—

"No, you don't," replied Horseshoe, "but you will when you hear what I am going to say. If I get at them onawares, they'll be mighty apt to think they are surrounded, and will bellow, like fine fellows, for quarter. And thereupon, Andy, I'll cry out 'stand fast,' as if I was speaking to my own men, and when you hear that, you must come up full tilt, because it will be a signal to you that the enemy has surrendered. Then it will be your business to run into the house and bring out the muskets, as quick as a rat runs through a kitchen; and when you have done that, why, all's done. But if you should hear any popping of firearms—that is, more than one shot, which I may chance to let off—do you take that for a bad sign, and get away as fast as you can heel it. You comprehend."

"Oh! yes," replied the lad, "and I'll do what you want, and more too, maybe, Mr. Robinson."

"Captain Robinson,—remember, Andy, you must call me captain, in the hearing of these Scotsmen."

"I'll not forget that neither," answered Andrew.

By the time that these instructions were fully impressed upon the boy, our adventurous forlorn hope, as it may fitly be called, had arrived at the place which Horseshoe Robinson had designated for the commencement of active operations. They had a clear view of the old field, and it afforded them a strong assurance that the enemy was exactly where they wished him to be, when they discovered smoke arising from the chimney of the hovel. Andrew was soon posted behind a tree, and Robinson only tarried a moment to make the boy repeat the signals agreed on, in order to ascertain that he had them correctly in his memory. Being satisfied from this experiment that the intelligence of his young companion might be depended upon, he galloped across the intervening space, and, in a few seconds, abruptly reined up his steed in the very doorway of the hut. The party within was gathered around a fire at the further end, and, in the corner near the door, were four muskets thrown together against the wall. To spring from his saddle and thrust himself one pace within the door was a movement which the sergeant executed in an instant, shouting at the same time:—

"Halt! File off right and left to both sides of the house, and wait orders. I demand the surrender of all here," he said, as he planted himself between the party and their weapons. "I will shoot down the first man who budges a foot."

"Leap to your arms," cried the young officer who commanded the little party inside of the house. "Why do you stand?"

"I don't want to do you or your men any harm, young man," said Robinson, as he brought his rifle to a level, "but, by my father's son, I will not leave one of you to be put upon a muster roll if you raise a hand at this moment."

Both parties now stood, for a brief space, eyeing each other in a fearful suspense, during which there was an expression of doubt and irresolution visible on the countenance of the soldiers, as they surveyed the broad proportions and met the stern glance of the sergeant, whilst the delay, also, began to raise an apprehension in the mind of Robinson that his stratagem would be discovered.

"Shall I let loose upon them, captain?" said Andrew Ramsay, now appearing, most unexpectedly to Robinson, at the door of the hut. "Come on, boys!" he shouted, as he turned his face towards the field.

"Keep them outside of the door—stand fast," cried the doughty sergeant, with admirable promptitude, in the new and sudden posture of his affairs caused by this opportune appearance of the boy. "Sir, you see that it's not worth while fighting five to one; and I should be sorry to be the death of any of your brave fellows; so take my advice, and surrender to the Continental Congress and this scrap of its army which I command."

During this appeal the sergeant was ably seconded by the lad outside, who was calling out first on one name and then on another, as if in the presence of a troop. The device succeeded, and the officer within, believing the forbearance of Robinson to be real, at length said:

"Lower your rifle, sir. In the presence of a superior force, taken by surprise and without arms, it is my duty to save bloodshed. With the promise of fair usage, and the rights of prisoners of war, I surrender this little foraging party under my command."

"I'll make the terms agreeable," replied the sergeant. "Never doubt me, sir. Right hand file, advance, and receive the arms of the prisoners!"

"I'm here, captain," said Andrew, in a conceited tone, as if it were a near occasion of merriment; and the lad quickly entered the house and secured the weapons, retreating with them some paces from the door.

"Now, sir," said Horseshoe to the ensign, "your sword, and whatever else you mought have about you of the ammunitions of war!"

The officer delivered up his sword and a pair of pocket pistols. As Horseshoe received these tokens of victory, he asked, with a lambent smile and what he intended to be an elegant and condescending composure, "Your name, sir, if I mought take the freedom?"

"Ensign St. Jermyn, of his Majesty s seventy-first regiment of light infantry."

"Ensign, your servant," added Horseshoe, still preserving this unusual exhibition of politeness. "You have defended your post like an old sodger, although you ha'n't much beard on your chin; but, seeing you have given up, you shall be treated like a man who has done his duty. You will walk out now and form yourselves in line at the door. I'll engage my men shall do you no harm; they are of a marciful breed."

When the little squad of prisoners submitted to this command and came to the door, they were stricken with equal astonishment and mortification to find, in place of the detachment of cavalry which they expected to see, nothing but a man, a boy, and a horse. Their first emotions were expressed in curses, which were even succeeded by laughter from one or two of the number. There seemed to be a disposition on the part of some to resist the authority that now controlled them; and sundry glances were exchanged which indicated a purpose to turn upon their captors. The sergeant no sooner perceived this than he halted, raised his rifle to his breast, and, at the same instant, gave Andrew Ramsay an order to retire a few paces and to fire one of the captured pieces at the first man who opened his lips.

"By my hand," he said, "if I find any trouble in taking you all five safe away from this here house, I will thin your numbers with your own muskets! And that's as good as if I had sworn to it."

"You have my word, sir," said the ensign; "lead on."

"By your leave, my pretty gentleman, you will lead, and I'll follow!" replied Horseshoe. "It may be a new piece of drill to you; but the custom is to give the prisoners the post of honor."

"As you please, sir," answered the ensign. "Where do you take us to?"

"You will march back by the road you came," said the sergeant.

Finding the conqueror determined to execute summary martial law upon the first who should mutiny, the prisoners submitted, and marched in double file from the hut back towards Ramsay's—Horseshoe, with Captain Peter's bridle dangling over his arm, and his gallant young auxiliary Andrew, laden with double the burden of Robinson Crusoe (having all the firearms packed upon his shoulders), bringing up the rear. In this order victors and vanquished returned to David Ramsay's.

"Well, I have brought you your ducks and chickens back, mistress," said the sergeant, as he halted the prisoners at the door; "and what's more, I have brought home a young sodger that's worth his weight in gold.

"Heaven bless my child! my brave boy!" cried the mother, seizing the lad in her arms, unheeding anything else in the present perturbation of her feelings. "I feared ill would come of it; but Heaven has preserved him. Did he behave handsomely, Mr. Robinson? But I am sure he did."

"A little more venturesome, ma'am, than I wanted him to be," replied Horseshoe; "but he did excellent service. These are his prisoners, Mistress Ramsay; I should never have got them if it hadn't been for Andy. In these drumming and fifing times the babies suck in quarrel with their mother's milk. Show me another boy in America that's made more prisoners than there was men to fight them with, that's all!"

 

[This capture of the British ensign Horseshoe Robinson was able to turn to good account as a means of saving Butler. He exacted from the ensign a letter to his British companions telling them of his capture and begging them to be lenient with their prisoner, Major Butler, in order that his life might not be forfeit for any harsh treatment to Butler. This letter reached the British just in time to stay a sentence of death from being pronounced upon Butler. The next day brought the news of a decisive defeat of the Americans under General Gates, and this led the British to think that they might carry out the sentence against Butler without endangering the life of Ensign Jermyn. Accordingly Butler was notified that he would be executed two days hence. Horseshoe, however, brought up a small force of Americans to attack the British camp just in time to save Butler's life, but after the defeat of the British Butler could not be found. James Curry had succeeded in conducting him from the camp at the beginning of the engagement and eventually carried him to Allen Musgrove's mill. Through the aid of Mary Musgrove, Butler effected his escape, but in a short time was captured by another Tory party.

In the meantime Mildred Lindsay, hearing of Butler s capture through letters brought from him by Horseshoe Robinson, had started from her home at Dove Cote with her brother for Cornwallis' headquarters in the hope of securing her lover's safety. While in Cornwallis camp she learned of Butler's escape and started on her return to Virginia. On her way she met Mary Musgrove and her father, who had been driven from their home and were fleeing to the North, and learned from them of Butler's recapture. Immediately she turned back to follow and join Butler, accompanied by her brother Henry, Horseshoe Robinson, Mary Musgrove, and Allen Musgrove. This party journeyed toward Gilbert-town unconscious of the fact that military developments were bringing the British troops under Ferguson, whose prisoner Butler was, in the same direction. In the meantime, events had been leading up to the battle of King's Mountain, in which the threads of the story are dramatically brought together into an effective climax.]

 

The Battle of King's Mountain

Towards noon the army reached the neighborhood of King"s Mountain. The scouts and parties of the advance had brought information that Ferguson had turned aside from his direct road and taken post upon this eminence, where, it was evident, he meant to await the attack of his enemy. Campbell, therefore, lost no time in pushing forward and was soon rewarded with a view of the object of his pursuit. Some two or three miles distant, where an opening through the forest first gave him a sight of the mass of highland, he could indistinctly discern the array of the adverse army perched on the very summit of the hill.

The mountain consists of an elongated ridge rising out of the bosom of an uneven country to the height of perhaps five hundred feet, and presenting a level line of summit, or crest, from which the earth slopes down, at its southward termination and on each side, by an easy descent; whilst northward it is detached from highlands of inferior elevation by a rugged valley, thus giving it the character of an insulated promontory not exceeding half a mile in length. At the period to which our story refers it was covered, except in a few patches of barren field or broken ground, with a growth of heavy timber, which was so far free from underwood as in no great degree to embarrass the passage of horsemen; and through this growth the eye might distinguish, at a considerable distance, the occasional masses of gray rock that were scattered in huge bowlders over its summit and sides.

The adjacent region lying south from the mountain was partially cleared and in cultivation, presenting a limited range of open ground, over which the march of Campbell might have been revealed in frequent glimpses to the British partisan for some three or four miles. We may suppose, therefore, that the two antagonists watched each other during the advance of the approaching army across this district with emotions of various and deep interest. Campbell drew at length into a ravine which, bounded by low and short hills and shaded by detached portions of the forest, partly concealed his troops from the view of the enemy, who was now not more than half a mile distant. The gorge of this dell, or narrow valley, opened immediately towards the southern termination of the mountain; and the column halted a short distance within, where a bare knoll, or round, low hill, crowned with rock, jutted abruptly over the road and constituted the only impediment that prevented each party from inspecting the array of his opponent.

It was an hour after noon, and the present halt was improved by the men in making ready for battle. Meanwhile the chief officers met together in front and employed their time in surveying the localities of the ground upon which they were soon to be brought to action. The knoll I have described furnished a favorable position for this observation, and thither they had already repaired.

I turn from the graver and more important matters which may be supposed to have occupied the thoughts of the leaders, as they were grouped together on the broad rock, to a subject which was at this moment brought to their notice by the unexpected appearance of two females on horseback, on the road a full half mile in the rear of the army, and who were now approaching at a steady pace. They were attended by a man who, even thus far off, showed the sedateness of age; and a short space behind them rode a few files of troopers in military array. It was with mingled feelings of surprise and admiration at the courage which could have prompted her at such a time to visit the army that the party recognized Mildred Lindsay and her attendants in the approaching cavalcade. These emotions were expressed by them in the rough and hearty phrase of their habitual and familiar intercourse.

"Let me beg, gentlemen," said Campbell, interrupting them, "that you speak kindly and considerately of yonder lady. By my honor, I have never seen man or woman with a more devoted or braver heart. Poor girl! she has nobly followed Butler through his afflictions and taken her share of suffering with a spirit that should bring us all to shame. Horseshoe Robinson, who has squired her to our camp, even from her father's house, speaks of a secret between her and our captive friend that tells plainly enough to my mind of sworn faith and long-tried love. As men and soldiers we should reverence it. Williams, look carefully to her comfort and safety. Go, man, at once and meet her on the road. God grant that this day may bring an end to her grief!"…

It was three o'clock before these arrangements were completed. I have informed my reader that the mountain terminated immediately in front of the outlet from the narrow dell in which Campbell's army had halted, its breast protruding into the plain only some few hundred paces from the head of the column, whilst the valley, that forked both right and left, afforded an easy passage along the base on either side. Ferguson occupied the very summit, and now frowned upon his foe from the midst of a host confident in the strength of their position and exasperated by the pursuit which had driven them into this fastness.

Campbell resolved to assail this post by a spirited attack, at the same moment, in front and on the flanks. With this intent his army was divided into three equal parts. The center was reserved to himself and Shelby; the right was assigned to Sevier and M'Dowell; the left, to Cleveland and Williams. These two latter parties were to repair to their respective sides of the mountain, and the whole were to make the onset by scaling the heights as nearly as possible at the same instant.

The men, before they marched out of the ravine, had dismounted and picketed their horses under the winding shelter of the hills, and, being now separated into detached columns formed in solid order, they were put in motion to reach their allotted posts. The Amherst Rangers were retained on horseback for such duty as might require speed and were stationed close in the rear of Campbell's own division, which now merely marched from behind the shelter of the knoll and halted in the view of the enemy until sufficient delay should be afforded to the flanking divisions to attain their ground.

Mildred, attended by Allen Musgrove and his daughter, still maintained her position on the knoll and from this height surveyed the preparations for combat with a beating heart. The scene within her view was one of intense occupation. The air of stern resolve that sat upon every brow; the silent but onward movement of the masses of men advancing to conflict; the few brief and quick words of command that fell from the distance upon her ear; the sullen beat of the hoof upon the sod, as an occasional horseman sped to and fro between the more remote bodies and the center division, which yet stood in compact phalanx immediately below her at the foot of the hill; then the breathless anxiety of her companions near at hand, and the short note of dread and almost terror that now and then escaped from the lips of Mary Musgrove, as the maiden looked eagerly and fearfully abroad over the plain—all these incidents wrought upon her feelings and caused her to tremble. Yet amidst these novel emotions she was not insensible to a certain lively and even pleasant interest arising out of the picturesque character of the spectacle. The gay sunshine striking aslant these moving battalions, lighting up their fringed and many-colored hunting-shirts and casting a golden hue upon their brown and weather-beaten faces, brought out into warm relief the chief characteristics of this peculiar woodland army. And Mildred sometimes forgot her fears in the fleeting inspiration of the sight, as she watched the progress of an advancing column—at one time moving in close ranks, with the serried thicket of rifles above their heads, and at another deploying into files to pass some narrow path, along which, with trailed arms and bodies bent, they sped with the pace of hunters beating the hillside for game. The tattered and service-stricken banner that shook its folds in the wind above these detached bodies likewise lent its charm of association to the field in the silence and steadfastness of the array in which it was borne, and its constant onward motion, showing it to be encircled by strong arms and stout hearts.

Turning from these, the lady's eye was raised, with a less joyous glance, towards the position of the enemy. On the most prominent point of the mountain's crest she could descry the standard of England fluttering above a concentrated body whose scarlet uniforms, as the sun glanced upon them through the forest, showed that here Ferguson had posted his corps of regulars and held them ready to meet the attack of the center division of the assailants; whilst the glittering of bayonets amidst the dark foliage, at intervals, rearward along the line of the summit, indicated that heavy detachments were stationed in this quarter to guard the flanks. The marching and countermarching of the frequent corps from various positions on the summit, the speeding of officers on horseback, and the occasional movement of small squadrons of dragoons, who were at one moment seen struggling along the sides of the mountain and, at another, descending towards the base or returning to the summit, disclosed the earnestness and activity of the preparation with which a courageous soldier may be supposed to make ready for his foe.

It was with a look of sorrowful concern which brought tears into her eyes that Mildred gazed upon this host and strained her vision in the vain endeavor to catch some evidences of the presence of Arthur Butler.…

Meanwhile Campbell and Shelby, each at the head of his men in the center division of the army, steadily commenced the ascent of the mountain. A long interval ensued, in which nothing was heard but the tramp of the soldiers and a few. words of almost whispered command, as they scaled the height; and it was not until they had nearly reached the summit that the first peal of battle broke upon the sleeping echoes of the mountain.

Campbell here deployed into line, and his men strode briskly upwards until they had come within musketshot of the British regulars, whose sharp and prolonged volleys, at this instant, suddenly burst forth from the crest of the hill. Peal after peal rattled along the mountain side, and volumes of smoke, silvered by the light of the sun, rolled over and enveloped the combatants.

When the breeze had partially swept away this cloud, and opened glimpses of the battle behind it, the troops of Campbell were seen recoiling before an impetuous charge of the bayonet, in which Ferguson himself led the way. A sudden halt by the retreating Whigs, and a stern front steadfastly opposed to the foe, checked the ardor of his pursuit at an early moment, and, in turn, he was discovered retiring towards his original ground, hotly followed by the mountaineers. Again the same vigorous onset from the royalists was repeated, and again the shaken bands of Campbell rallied and turned back the rush of battle towards the summit. At last, panting and spent with the severe encounter, both parties stood for a space eyeing each other with deadly rage and waiting only to gather breath for the renewal of the strife.

At this juncture the distant firing heard from either flank furnished evidence that Sevier and Cleveland had both come in contact with the enemy. The uprising of smoke above the trees showed the seat of the combat to be below the summit on the mountain sides and that the enemy had there halfway met his foe, whilst the shouts of the soldiers, alternating between the parties of either army, no less distinctly proclaimed the fact that at these remote points the field was disputed with bloody resolution and various success.

It would overtask my poor faculty of description to give my reader even a faint picture of this rugged battlefield. During the pause of the combatants of the center Campbell and Shelby were seen riding along the line and by speech and gesture encouraging their soldiers to still more determined efforts. Little need was there for exhortation; rage seemed to have refreshed the strength of the men, who, with loud and fierce huzzas, rushed again to the encounter. They were met with a defiance not less eager than their own, and for a time the battle was again obscured under the thick haze engendered by the incessant discharges of firearms. From this gloom a yell of triumph was sometimes heard, as momentary success inspired those who struggled within; and the frequent twinkle of polished steel glimmering through the murky atmosphere, and the occasional apparition of a speeding horseman, seen for an instant as he came into the clear light, told of the dreadful earnestness and zeal with which the unseen hosts had now joined in conflict. The impression of this contact was various. Parts of each force broke before their antagonists, and in those spots where the array of the fight might be discerned through the shade of the forest or the smoke of battle, both royalists and Whigs were found, at the same instant, to have driven back detached fragments of their opponents. Foemen were mingled hand to hand, through and among their adverse ranks, and for a time no conjecture might be indulged as to the side to which victory would turn.

The flanking detachments seemed to have fallen into the same confusion and might have been seen retreating and advancing upon the rough slopes of the mountain in partisan bodies, separated from their lines, thus giving to the scene an air of bloody riot, more resembling the sudden insurrection of mutineers from the same ranks than the orderly war of trained soldiers.

Through the din and disorder of this fight it is fit that I should take time to mark the wanderings of Galbraith Robinson, whose exploits this day would not ill deserve the pen of Froissart. The doughty sergeant had, for a time, retained his post in the ranks of the Amherst Rangers, and with them had traveled towards the mountain top, close in the rear of Campbell's line. But when the troops had recoiled before the frequent charges of the royalists, finding his station, at best, but that of an inactive spectator, he made no scruple of deserting his companions and trying his fortune on the field in such form of adventure as best suited his temper. With no other weapon than his customary rifle, he stood his ground when others retreated, and saw the ebb and flow of "flight and chase" swell round him, according to the varying destiny of the day. In these difficulties it was his good fortune to escape unhurt, a piece of luck that may, perhaps, be attributed to the coolness with which he either galloped over an adversary or around him, as the emergency rendered most advisable.

In the midst of this busy occupation, at a moment when one of the refluxes of battle brought him almost to the summit, he descried a small party of British dragoons, stationed some distance in the rear of Ferguson's line, whose detached position seemed to infer some duty unconnected with the general fight. In the midst of these he thought he recognized the figure and dress of one familiar to his eye. The person thus singled out by the sergeant's glance stood bareheaded upon a projecting mass of rock, apparently looking with an eager gaze towards the distant combat. No sooner did the conjecture that this might be Arthur Butler flash across his thought than he turned his steed back upon the path by which he had ascended and rode with haste towards the Rangers.

"Stephen Foster," he said, as he galloped up to the lieutenant and drew his attention by a tap of the hand upon his shoulder, "I have business for you, man—you are but wasting your time here—pick me out a half dozen of your best fellows and bring them with you after me. Quick—Stephen—quick!"

The lieutenant of the Rangers collected the desired party and rode after the sergeant, who now conducted this handful of men, with as much rapidity as the broken character of the ground allowed, by a circuit for considerable distance along the right side of the mountain until they reached the top. The point at which they gained the summit brought them between Ferguson's line and the dragoons, who, it was soon perceived, were the party charged with the custody of Butler, and who had been thus detached in the rear for the more safe guardianship of the prisoner. Horseshoe's maneuver had completely cut them off from their friends in front, and they had no resource but to defend themselves against the threatened assault or fly towards the parties who were at this moment engaged with the flanking division of the Whigs. They were taken by surprise, and Horseshoe, perceiving the importance of an immediate attack, dashed onwards along the ridge of the mountain with precipitate speed, calling out to his companions to follow. In a moment the dragoons were engaged in a desperate pell-mell with the Rangers.

"Upon them, Stephen! Upon them bravely, my lads! Huzza for Major Butler! Fling the major across your saddle—the first that reaches him," shouted the sergeant, with a voice that was heard above all the uproar of battle. "What ho—James Curry!" he cried out, as soon as he detected the presence of his old acquaintance in this throng; "stand your ground, if you are a man!"

The person to whom this challenge was directed had made an effort to escape towards a party of his friends whom he was about summoning to his aid, and in the attempt had already ridden some distance into the wood, whither the sergeant had eagerly followed him.

"Ah, ha, old Truepenny, are you there?" exclaimed Curry, turning short upon his pursuer and affecting to laugh as if in scorn. "Horseshoe Robinson, well met!" he added sternly, "I have not seen a better sight to-day than that fool's head of yours upon this hill. No, not even when just now Patrick Ferguson sent your yelping curs back to hide themselves behind the trees."

"Come on, James!" cried Horseshoe, "I have no time to talk. We have an old reckoning to settle, which perhaps you mought remember. I am a man of my word, and, besides, I have set my eye upon Major Butler," he added, with a tone and look that were both impressed with the fierce passion of the scene around him.

"The devil blast you and Major Butler to boot!" exclaimed Curry, roused by Horseshoe's air of defiance. "To it, bully! It shall be short work between us, and bloody," he shouted, as he discharged a pistol shot at the sergeant s breast; which failing to take effect, he flung the weapon upon the ground, brandished his sword, and spurred immediately against his challenger. The sweep of the broadsword fell upon the barrel of Horseshoe's uplifted rifle, and in the next instant the broad hand of our lusty yeoman had seized the trooper by the collar and dragged him from his horse. The two soldiers came to the ground, locked in a mutual embrace, and for a brief moment a desperate trial of strength was exhibited in the effort to gain their feet.

"I have you there," said Robinson, as at length, with a flushed cheek, quick breath, and bloodshot eye, he rose from the earth and shook the dragoon from him, who fell backwards on his knee. "Curse you, James Curry, for a fool and villain! You almost drive me, against my will, to the taking of your life. I don't want your blood. You are beaten, man, and must say so. I grant you quarter upon condition ———"

"Look to yourself! I ask no terms from you," interrupted Curry, as suddenly springing to his feet, he now made a second pass, which was swung with such unexpected vigor at the head of his adversary that Horseshoe had barely time to catch the blow, as before, upon his rifle. The broadsword was broken by the stroke, and one of the fragments of the blade struck the sergeant upon the forehead, inflicting a wound that covered his face with blood. Horseshoe reeled a step or two from his ground and clubbing the rifle, as it is called, by grasping the barrel towards the muzzle, he paused but an instant to dash the blood from his brow with his hand and then with one lusty sweep, to which his sudden anger gave both precision and energy, he brought the piece full upon the head of his foe with such fatal effect as to bury the lock in the trooper s brain, whilst the stock was shattered into splinters. Curry, almost without a groan, fell dead across a ledge of rock at his feet.

"The grudge is done and the fool has met his desarvings," was Horseshoe's brief comment upon the event, as he gazed sullenly, for an instant, upon the dead body. He had no time to tarry. The rest of his party were still engaged with the troopers of the guard, who now struggled to preserve the custody of their prisoner. The bridle rein of Captain Peter had been caught by one of the Rangers, and the good steed was now quickly delivered up to his master, who, flinging himself again into his saddle, rushed into the throng of combatants. The few dragoons, dispirited by the loss of their leader and stricken with panic at this strenuous onset, turned to flight, leaving Butler in the midst of his friends.

"God bless you, major!" shouted Robinson, as he rode up to his old comrade, who, unarmed, had looked upon the struggle with an interest corresponding to the stake he had in the event. " Up, man—here, spring across the pommel. Now, boys, down the mountain, for your lives! Huzza, huzza! we have won him back!" he exclaimed, as, seizing Butler's arm, he lifted him upon the neck of Captain Peter and bounded away at full speed towards the base of the mountain, followed, by Foster and his party.

The reader may imagine the poignancy of Mildred's emotions as she sat beside Allen Musgrove and his daughter on the knoll and watched the busy and stirring scene before her. The center division of the assailing army was immediately in her view on the opposite face of the mountain, and no incident of the battle in this quarter escaped her notice. She could distinctly perceive the motions of the Amherst Rangers, to whom she turned her eyes with a frequent and eager glance as the corps with which her brother Henry was associated, and when, the various fortune of the fight disclosed to her the occasional retreat of her friends before the vigorous sallies of the enemy or brought to her ear the renewed and angry volleys of musketry, she clenched Mary Musgrove's arm with a nervous grasp and uttered short and anxious ejaculations that showed the terror of her mind.

"I see Mister Henry yet," said Mary, as Campbell's troops rallied from the last shock, and again moved towards the summit. "I see him plainly, ma'am—for I know his green dress and caught the glitter of his brass bugle in the sun. And there now—all is smoke again. Mercy, how stubborn are these men! And there is Mister Henry once more—near the top. He is safe, ma'am."

"How earnestly," said Mildred, unconsciously speaking aloud as she surveyed the scene, "Oh. how earnestly do I wish this battle was done! I would rather, Mr. Musgrove, be in the midst of yonder crowd of angry men, could I but have their recklessness, than here in safety to be tortured with my present feelings."

"In God is our trust, madam," replied the miller. "His arm is abroad over the dangerous paths, for a shield and buckler to them that put their trust in him. Ha! there is Ferguson's white horse rushing, with a dangling rein and empty saddle, down the mountain through Campbell's ranks; the rider has fallen, and there, madam—there, look on it!—is a white flag waving in the hands of a British officer. The fight is done. Hark, our friends are cheering with a loud voice!"

"Thank Heaven—thank Heaven!" exclaimed Mildred, as she sprang upon her feet. "It is even so!"

The loud huzzas of the troops rose upon the air; the firing ceased; the flag of truce fluttered in the breeze; and the confederated bands of the mountaineers, from every quarter of the late battle, were seen hurrying towards the crest of the mountain and mingling amongst the ranks of the conquered foe. Again and again the clamorous cheering of the victors broke forth from the mountain top and echoed along the neighboring valleys.

During this wild clamor and busy movement a party of horsemen were seen, through the occasional intervals of the low wood that skirted the valley on the right, hastening from the field with an eager swiftness towards the spot where Mildred and her companions were stationed.

As they swept along the base of the mountain and approached the knoll they were lost to view behind the projecting angles of the low hills that formed the ravine, through which, my reader is aware, the road held its course. When they reappeared it was in ascending the abrupt acclivity of the knoll and within fifty paces of the party on the top of it.

It was now apparent that the approaching party consisted of Stephen Foster and three or four of the Rangers led by Horseshoe Robinson, with Butler still seated before him as when the sergeant first caught him up in the fight. These were at the same moment overtaken by Henry Lindsay, who had turned back from the mountain at the first announcement of victory to bring the tidings to his sister.

Mildred's cheek grew deadly pale and her frame shook as the cavalcade rushed into her presence.

"There—take him!" cried Horseshoe, with an effort to laugh, but which seemed to be half converted into a quaver by the agitation of his feelings, as, springing to the ground, he swung Butler from the horse, with scarce more effort than he would have used in handling a child; "take him, ma'am. I promised myself to-day that I'd give him to you. And now you've got him. That's a good reward for all your troubles. God bless us but I'm happy to-day."

"My husband!—My husband!" were the only articulate words that escaped Mildred's lips, as she fell senseless into the arms of Arthur Butler.

 

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

[William Gilmore Simms was born at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1806. He received but a limited education, and at the age of twelve became apprenticed to a druggist. But as this occupation did not appeal to him, he began at eighteen the study of law. This profession he abandoned in a short time to become editor of a newly established literary magazine, and from this time on he devoted his entire time to literary work. He was a most prolific writer and not only produced numerous volumes of poetry and fiction but edited one short-lived periodical after another and contributed to various others. The war made the close of his life a sad one. His home was partly burned in 1862, and in 1865 it, together with his fine library, was entirely destroyed. During the years of the war his wife and several of his children died. He found also that the public was beginning to lose its relish for the type of story he wrote. The words of the epitaph he left behind at his death in Charleston in 1870 suggest the essentially brave spirit of the man, "Here lies one who, after a reasonably long life, distinguished chiefly by unceasing labors, has left all his better work undone."

To attempt an enumeration of Simms's many volumes is impossible, the total being, according to one count, above eighty. Suffice it to say that besides fiction he wrote numerous volumes of dramas,