A POLITICAL RETROSPECT.--BUTLER ENTERS SOUTH CAROLINA.
It was the misfortune of South Carolina, during the revolutionary war,
to possess a numerous party less attached to the union or more tainted
with disaffection than the inhabitants of any of the other states.
Amongst her citizens the disinclination to sever from the mother country
was stronger, the spread of republican principles more limited, and the
march of revolution slower, than in either of the other colonies,
except, perhaps, in the neighbor state of Georgia, where the people
residing along the Savannah river, were so closely allied to the
Carolinians in sentiment, habits, and pursuits, as to partake pretty
accurately of the same political prejudices, and to unite themselves in
parties of the same complexion. Upon the first invasion of Georgia, at
the close of the year 1778, the city of Savannah was made an easy
conquest, and a mere handful of men, early in 1779, were enabled to
penetrate the interior as far as Augusta, and to seize upon that post.
The audacity with which Prevost threatened Charleston in the same year,
the facility of his march through South Carolina, and the safety which
attended his retreat, told a sad tale of the supineness of the people of
that province. The reduction of Charleston in the following year, by Sir
Henry Clinton, was followed with singular rapidity by the conquest of
the whole province. A civil government was erected. The most remote
posts in the mountains were at once occupied by British soldiers or
provincial troops, mustered under the officers of the royal army.
Proclamations were issued to call back the wandering sheep to the royal
fold; and they, accordingly, like herds that had been scattered from
beneath the eye of the shepherd by some rough incursion of wolves,
flocked in as soon as they were aware of the retreat of their enemy.
Lord Cornwallis, upon whom the command devolved after the return of Sir
Henry Clinton in June to New York, recruited his army from these
repentant or unwilling republicans; and the people rejoiced at what they
thought the end of strife and the establishment of law. The auxiliaries
who had marched from Virginia and North Carolina under Colonel Buford,
to assist in the defence of the southern capital, were informed of its
surrender as they journeyed thither, and soon found themselves obliged
to fly through a country they had come to succor;--and when even at the
distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the city, were overtaken by
the ruthless troopers of Tarleton, and butchered under circumstances
peculiarly deplorable.
In truth, a large proportion of the population of South Carolina seem to
have regarded the revolution with disfavor, and they were slow to break
their ancient friendship for the land of their forefathers. The colonial
government was mild and beneficent in its action upon the province, and
the people had a reverence for the mother country deeper and more
affectionate than was found elsewhere. They did not resent, because,
haply, they did not feel the innovations of right asserted by the
British crown, so acutely as some of their neighbors; to them it did not
seem to be so unreasonable that taxation should be divorced from
representation. They did not quarrel with the assumption of Great
Britain to regulate their trade for them in such manner as best suited
her own views of interest; nor did they see in mere commercial
restrictions the justification of civil war and hot rebellion;--because,
peradventure, (if I may hazard a reason) being a colony of planters
whose products were much in demand in England, neither the regulations
of their trade nor the restrictions upon commerce, were likely to be so
adjusted as to interfere with the profitable expansion of their labors.
Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the State at the
time of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. To
this common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions; and the more
brilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderating
mass of public judgment. There is no trial of courage which will bear
comparison with that of a man whose own opinions stand in opposition,
upon fearful questions of passion, to those of the "giddy-paced" and
excited multitude, and who, nevertheless, carries them "into act." That
man who can stand in the breach of universal public censure, with all
the fashions of opinion disgracing him in the thoughts of the lookers
on, with the tide of obloquy beating against his breast, and the fingers
of the mighty, combined many, pointing him to scorn; nay, with the fury
of the drunken rabble threatening him with instant death; and, worse
than all, having no present friend to whisper a word of defence or
palliative, in his behalf, to his revilers, but bravely giving his naked
head to the storm, because he knows himself to be virtuous in his
purpose; that man shall come forth from this fierce ordeal like tried
gold; philosophy shall embalm his name in her richest unction, history
shall give him a place on her brightest page, and old, yea, hoary,
far-off posterity shall remember him as of yesterday.
There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with the
best spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to it
hearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong as ever, in any
clime, worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission to
their conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prisons, rather than
the yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times,
retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighbors
together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier-government that now
professed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in
the woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen,
exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and by rapid
movements of their woodland cavalry and brave blows, accomplished more
than thrice their numbers would have achieved in ordinary warfare.
The disaffected abounded in the upper country, and here Cornwallis
maintained some strong garrisons. The difficulties that surrounded the
republican leaders may well be supposed to have been appalling in this
region, where regular posts had been established to furnish the Tories
secure points of union, and the certainty of prompt assistance whenever
required. Yet notwithstanding the numerical inferiority of the friends
of independence, their guarded and proscribed condition, their want of
support, and their almost absolute destitution of all the necessaries of
military life, the nation was often rejoiced to hear of brilliant
passages of arms, where, however unimportant the consequences, the
display of soldiership and bravery was of the highest order. In such
encounters, or frays they might almost be called, from the smallness of
the numbers concerned and the hand-to-hand mode of fighting which they
exhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others, had won a
fame that in a nation of poetical or legendary associations would have
been reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse: but,
alas! we have no ballads: and many men, who as well deserve to be
remembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, have
sunk down without even a couplet-epitaph upon the rude stone, that in
some unfenced and unreverenced grave-yard still marks the lap of earth
whereon their heads were laid.
One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina
was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in
deadly feuds, and, not unfrequently, brother took up arms against
brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery
and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might
trust to the rites of hospitality; and many a man laid his head upon his
pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger, or he with whom he had
broken bread at his last meal, might not invade him in the secret
watches of the night and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and
many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales
told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the
blaze of their farm-yards to which the incendiary torch had been
applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a
concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the
shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were
dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be
distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing
could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading
the confident into the toils of war; nor is it possible to imagine a
state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity.
Such was the condition of the country to which my tale now makes it
necessary to introduce my reader. Butler's instructions required that
he should report himself to General Gates, and, unless detained for more
pressing duty, to proceed with all the circumspection which the
enterprise might require, to Colonel Clarke, who, it was known, was at
that time in the upland country of South Carolina, raising troops to act
against Augusta and other British posts. He accordingly arrived at
head-quarters, on the borders of the two Carolinas, in about a week
after leaving the Dove Cote. The army of the brave and unfortunate De
Kalb, which had been originally destined for the relief of Charleston,
had been increased, by reinforcements of militia from Virginia and the
adjoining States, to double the computed strength of the British forces;
and Gates, on taking command of it, was filled with the most lofty
presentiments of victory. Vainglorious and unadvisable, he is said to
have pushed forward with an indiscreet haste, and to have thrown himself
into difficulties which a wiser man would have avoided. He professed
himself to stand in no need of recruits to his army, and Butler,
therefore, after the delay of a few days, was left at liberty to pursue
his original scheme.
The wide-spread disaffection of the region through which our adventurers
were about to pass, inculcated the necessity of the utmost vigilance to
avoid molestation from the numerous parties that were then abroad
hastening to the seat of war. Under the almost entire guidance of
Robinson, who was familiar with every path in this neighborhood,
Butler's plan was to temporize with whatever difficulties might beset
his way, and to rely upon his own and his comrade's address for escape.
The sergeant's first object was to conduct his superior to his own
dwelling, which was situated on the Catawba, a short distance above the
Waxhaws. This was safely accomplished on the second day after they had
left Gates. A short delay at this place enabled Butler to exchange the
dress he had hitherto worn, for one of a more homely and rustic
character, a measure deemed necessary to facilitate his quiet passage
through the country. With these precautions he and the trusty sergeant
resumed their expedition, and now shaped their course across the region
lying between the Catawba and Broad rivers, with the intention of
reaching the habitation of Wat Adair, a well known woodsman who lived on
the southern side of the latter river, somewhat above its confluence
with the Pacolet. The route they had chosen for this purpose consisted
of such circuitous and unfrequented paths as were least likely to be
infested by the scouts of the enemy, or by questioners who might be too
curious regarding the object of their journey.
The second week of August had half elapsed when, towards the evening of
a day that had been distinguished for the exhilarating freshness of the
atmosphere, such as is peculiar to the highlands of southern latitudes
at this season, our travellers found themselves descending through a
long and shady defile to the level ground that lay along the margin of
the Broad river. The greater part of the day had been spent in threading
the mazes of a series of sharp and abrupt hills covered with the native
forest, or winding through narrow valleys, amongst tangled thickets of
briers and copse-wood, by a path scarce wide enough to permit the
passage of a single horse. They had now emerged from the wilderness upon
a public highway, which extended across the strip of lowland that
skirted the river. The proximity of the river itself was indicated by
the nature of the ground, that here retained vestiges of occasional
inundations, as also by the rank character of the vegetation. The road
led through a swamp, which was rendered passable by a causey of timber,
and was shaded on either side by a mass of shrubbery, composed of
laurel, magnolia, and such other plants as delight in a moist soil, over
whose forms a tissue of creeping plants was woven in such profusion as
to form a fastness or impregnable retreat for all kinds of noxious
animals. Above this wilderness, here and there, might be seen in the
depths of the morass, the robust cypress or the lurid pine, high enough
for the mast of the largest ship, the ash, and gum, and, towering above
all, the majestic poplar, with its branchless trunk bound up in the
embraces of a huge serpent-like grapevine.
As soon as Butler found himself extricated from the difficult path that
had so much embarrassed his journey, and once more introduced upon a
road that allowed him to ride abreast with his companion, he could not
help congratulating himself upon the change.
"Well, here at last, Galbraith," he said, "is an end to this bridle
path, as you call it. Thank heaven for it! The settlement of the
account between this and the plain road would not leave much in our
favor: on one side, I should have to set down my being twice unhorsed in
riding up perpendicular hills; one plunge up to the belly in the mud of
a swamp; a dozen times in danger of strangling from grapevines; and how
often torn by briers, I leave you to reckon up by looking at my clothes.
And all this is to be cast up against the chance of meeting a few
rascally Tories. Faith! upon the whole, it would have been as cheap to
fight."
"Whist, Major, you are a young man, and don't study things as I do. You
never catch me without reason on my side. As to standing upon the trifle
of a man or two odds in the way of a fight, when there was need of
scratching, I wouldn't be so onaccommodating as to ax you to do that.
But I had some generalship in view, which I can make appear. This road,
which we have just got into, comes up through Winnsborough, which is one
of the randyvoos of the Tories: now I thought if we outflanked them by
coming through the hills, we mought keep our heads out of a hornets'
nest. The best way, Major Butler, to get along through this world is not
to be quarrelsome; that's my principle."
"Truly, it comes well from you, sergeant, who within two days past have
been in danger of getting your crown cracked at least six times! Were
you not yesterday going to beat a man only for asking a harmless
question? A rough fellow to-boot, Horse Shoe, who might, from
appearance, have turned out a troublesome customer."
"Ho, ho, ho, Major! Do you know who that character was? That was mad
Archy Gibbs, from the Broken Bridge, one of the craziest devils after a
fracaw on the Catawba; a tearing Tory likewise."
"And was that an argument for wishing to fight him?"
"Why, you see, Major, I've got a principle on that subject. It's an
observation I have made, that whenever you come across one of these
rampagious fellows, that's always for breeding disturbances, the best
way is to be as fractious as themselves. You have hearn of the way of
putting out a house on fire by blowing it up with gunpowder?"
"A pretty effectual method, Sergeant."
"Dog won't eat dog," continued Horse Shoe. "Ho, ho! I know these
characters; so I always bullies them. When we stopped yesterday at the
surveyor's, on Blair's Range, to get a little something to eat, and that
bevy of Tories came riding up, with mad Archy at their head, a thought
struck me that the fellows mought be dogging us, and that sot me to
thinking what answer I should make consarning you, if they were to
question me. So, ecod, I made a parson of you, ha, ha, ha! Sure enough,
they began as soon as they sot down in the porch, to axing me about my
business, and then about yourn. I told them, correspondent and
accordingly, that you was a Presbyterian minister, and that I had
undertook to show you the way to Chester, where you was going to hold
forth. And, thereupon, mad Archy out with one of his tremengious oaths,
and swore he would have a sarmint from you, for the good of his
blackguards, before they broke up."
"Mad Archy and his blackguards would have profited, no doubt, by my
spiritual lessons."
"Rather than let him have anything to say to you," proceeded Robinson,
"for you wa'n't prepared, seeing that you didn't hear what was going on,
though I spoke loud enough, on purpose, Major, for you to hear us
through the window; I up and told Archy, says I, I am a peaceable man,
but I'll be d----d if any minister of the gospel shall be insulted
whilst I have the care of him; and, furthermore, says I, I didn't come
here to interrupt no man; but if you, Archy Gibbs, or any one of your
crew, says one ondecent word to the parson, they'll run the risk of
being flung sprawling on this here floor, and that's as good as if I had
sworn to it; and as for you, Archy, I'll hold you accountable for the
good conduct of your whole squad. But, Major, you are about the hardest
man to take a wink I ever knowed. There was I a motioning of you, and
signifying to get your horse and be off, at least ten minutes before you
took the hint."
"I was near spoiling all, Galbraith, for from your familiarity with
these fellows I at first thought them friends."
"They were mighty dubious, you may depend. And it was as much as I could
do to keep them from breaking in on you. They said it was strange, and
so it was, to see a parson riding with pistols; but I told them you was
obliged to travel so much after night that it was as much as you could
do to keep clear of panthers and wolves; and in fact, major, I had to
tell them a monstrous sight of lies, just to keep them in talk whilst
you was getting away: it was like a rare guard scrummaging by platoons
on a retreat to get the advance off. I was monstrous afeard, major, you
wouldn't saddle my horse."
"I understood you at last, Galbraith, and made everything ready for a
masterly retreat, and then moved away with a very sober air, leaving you
to bring up the rear like a good soldier. And you know, sergeant, I
didn't go so far but that I was at hand to give you support, if you had
stood in need of it. I wonder now that they let you off so easily."
"They didn't want to have no uproar with me, Major Butler. They knowed
me, that although I wa'n't a quarrelsome man, they would'a got some of
their necks twisted if I had seen occasion: in particular, I would have
taken some of mad Archy's crazy fits out of him--by my hand I would,
major! But I'll tell you,--I made one observation, that this here sort
of carrying false colors goes against a man's conscience: it doesn't
seem natural for a man, that's accustomed and willing to stand by his
words, to be heaping one lie upon top of another as fast as he can speak
them. It really, Major Butler, does go against my grain."
"That point of conscience," said Butler laughing, "has been duly
considered, and, I believe, we are safe in setting it down as entirely
lawful to use any deceit of speech to escape from an enemy in time of
war. We have a dangerous trade, sergeant, and the moralists indulge us
more than they do others: and as I am a minister, you know, you need not
be afraid to trust your conscience to my keeping."
"They allow that all's fair in war, I believe. But it don't signify, a
man is a good while before he gets used to this flat lying, for I can't
call it by any other name."
"If we should be challenged on this road, before we reach Wat Adair's,"
said Butler, "it is your opinion that we should say we are graziers
going to the mountains to buy cattle."
"That's about the best answer I can think of. Though you must be a
little careful about that. If you see me put my hand up to my mouth and
give a sort of a hem, major, then leave the answer to me. A gang of raw
lads might be easily imposed upon, but it wouldn't do if there's an old
sodger amongst them; he mought ax some hard questions."
"I know but little of this grazier craft to bear an examination. I fear
I should fare badly if one of these bullies should take it into his head
to cross-question me."
"If a man takes on too much with you," replied Robinson, "it is well to
be a little saucy to him. If he thinks you are for a quarrel, the
chances are he won't pester you. But if any of these Tories should only
take it into their heads, without our telling them right down in so many
words, for I would rather a lie, if it is to come out, should take a
roundabout way, that we are sent up here by Cornwallis, or Rawdon, or
Leslie, or any of their people to do an arrand, they will be as civil,
sir, as your grandmother's cat, for, major, they are a blasted set of
cringin' whelps, the best of them, and will take anything that has G. R.
marked on it with thanks, even if it was a cat-o'nine tails, which they
desarve every day at rollcall, the sorry devils!"
"I am completely at my wits' end, Galbraith. I have not done much
justice to your appointment of me as a parson, and when I come to play
the grazier it will be still worse; even in this disguise of a plain
countryman I make a poor performer; I fear I shall disgrace the boards."
"If the worst comes to the worst, major, the rule is run or fight. We
can manage that, at any rate, for we have had a good deal of both in the
last three or four years."
"God knows we have had practice enough, sergeant, to make us perfect in
that trick. Let us make our way through this treacherous ground as
quickly and as quietly as we can. Get me to Clarke by the shortest
route, and keep as much among friends as you know how."
"As to that, Major Butler, it is all a matter of chance, for, to tell
you the plain truth, I don't know who to depend upon. A quick eye, a
nimble foot, and a ready hand, will be our surest friends. Then with the
pistols at your saddle, besides a pair in your pocket, and a dirk for
close quarters, and my rifle here for a long shot, major, I am not much
doubtful but what we shall hold our own."
"How far are we from Adair's?" asked Butler.
"Not more than a mile," replied Horse Shoe. "You may see the ferry just
ahead. Wat lives upon the top of the first hill on the other side."
"Is that fellow to be trusted, sergeant?"
"Better with the help of gold, major, than without it. Wat was never
over honest. But it is worth our while to make a friend of him if we
can."
Our travellers had now reached the river, which was here a smooth and
deep stream, though by no means so broad as to entitle it to the
distinction by which, in its lower portion, it has earned its name. It
here flowed sluggishly along in deep and melancholy shade.
Butler and his companion were destined to encounter a difficulty at this
spot which less hardy travellers would have deemed a serious
embarrassment. The boat was not to be seen on either side of the river,
having been carried off a few hours before, according to the information
given by the inmates of a negro cabin, constituting the family of the
ferryman, by a party of soldiers.
Robinson regarded this obstacle with the resignation of a practised
philosopher. He nodded his head significantly to his companion upon
receiving the intelligence, as he said,
"There is some mischief in the wind. These Tories are always dodging
about in gangs; and when they collect the boats on the river, it is
either to help them forward on some house-burning and thieving business,
or to secure their retreat when they expect to have honest men at their
heels. It would be good news to hear that Sumpter was near their
cruppers, which, by the by, is not onlikely neither. You would be told
of some pretty sport then, major."
"Sumpter's means, sergeant," replied Butler, "I fear, are not equal to
his will. There are heavy odds against him, and it isn't often that he
can venture from his hiding-place. But what are we to do now,
Galbraith?"
"Ha, ha! do as we have often done before this, launch our four-legged
ships, and take a wet jacket coolly and dispassionately, as that quare
devil Lieutenant Hopkins used to tell us when he was going to make a
charge of the bagnet. We hav'n't no time to lose, major, and if we had,
I don't think the river would run dry. So, here goes."
With these words Robinson plunged into the stream, and, with his rifle
resting across his shoulder, he plied his voyage towards the opposite
bank with the same unconcern as if he had journeyed on dry land. As soon
as he was fairly afloat he looked back to give a few cautions to Butler.
"Head slantwise up stream, major, lean a little forward, so as to sink
your horse's nose nearer to the water, he swims all the better for it.
Slacken your reins and give him play. You have it now. It isn't
oncomfortable in a day's ride to get a cool seat once in a while. Here
we are safe and sound," he continued, as they reached the further
margin, "and nothing the worse for the ferrying, excepting it be a
trifle of dampness about the breeches."
The two companions now galloped towards the higher grounds of the
adjacent country.
By the time that they had gained the summit of a long hill that rose
immediately from the plain of the river, Robinson apprised Butler that
they were now in the vicinity of Adair's dwelling. The sun had sunk
below the horizon, and the varied lustre of early twilight tinged the
surrounding scenery with its own beautiful colors. The road, as it wound
upwards gradually emerged from the forest upon a tract of open country,
given signs of one of those original settlements which, at that day,
were sparsely sprinkled through the great wilderness. The space that had
been snatched from the ruggedness of nature, for the purpose of
husbandry, comprehended some three or four fields of thinly cultivated
land. These were yet spotted over with stumps of trees, that seemed to
leave but little freedom to the course of the ploughshare, and bespoke a
thriftless and slovenly tillage. A piece of half cleared ground,
occupying the side of one of the adjacent hills, presented to the eye of
our travellers a yet more uncouth spectacle. This spot was still clothed
with the native trees of the forest, all of which had been
death-stricken by the axe, and now heaved up their withered and sapless
branches towards the heavens, without leaf or spray. In the phrase of
the woodman, they had been _girdled_ some years before, and were
destined to await the slow decay of time in their upright attitude. It
was a grove of huge skeletons that had already been bleached into an
ashy hue by the sun, and whose stiff and dry members rattled in the
breeze with a preternatural harshness. Amongst the most hoary of these
victims of the axe, the gales of winter had done their work and thrown
them to the earth, where the shattered boles and boughs lay as they had
fallen, and were slowly reverting into their original dust. Others,
whose appointed time had not yet been fulfilled, gave evidence of their
struggle with the frequent storm, by their declination from the
perpendicular line. Some had been caught in falling by the boughs of a
sturdier neighbor, and still leaned their huge bulks upon these
supports, awakening the mind of the spectator to the fancy, that they
had sunk in some deadly paroxysm into charitable and friendly arms, and,
thus locked together, abided their tardy but irrevocable doom. It was a
field of the dead; and the more striking in its imagery from the
contrast which it furnished to the rich, verdurous, and lively forest
that, with all the joyousness of health, encompassed this blighted spot.
Its aspect was one of unpleasant desolation; and the traveller of the
present day who visits our western wilds, where this slovenly practice
is still in use, will never pass through such a precinct without a sense
of disgust at the disfiguration of the landscape.
The field thus marred might have contained some fifty acres, and it was
now occupied, in the intervals between the lifeless trunks, with a
feeble crop of Indian corn, whose husky and parched blades, as they
fluttered in the evening wind, added new and appropriate features to the
inexpressible raggedness of the scene. The same effect was further aided
and preserved by the cumbrous and unseemly worm fence that shot forth
its stiff angles around the tract.
On the very apex of the hill up which our travellers were now
clambering, was an inclosure of some three or four acres of land, in the
middle of which, under the shade of a tuft of trees, stood a group of
log cabins so situated as to command a view, of nearly every part of the
farm. The principal structure was supplied with a rude porch that
covered three of its sides; whilst the smoke that curled upwards from a
wide-mouthed chimney, and the accompaniment of a bevy of little negroes
that were seen scattered amongst the out-houses, gave an air of
habitation and life to the place that contrasted well with the
stillness of the neighboring wood. A well-beaten path led into a narrow
ravine where might be discerned, peeping forth from the weeds, the roof
of a spring house; and, in the same neighborhood, a rough garden was
observable, in which a bed of broad-leaved cabbages seemed to have their
ground disputed by a plentiful crop of burdock, thistles, and other
intruders upon a manured soil. In this inclosure, also, the hollyhock
and sunflower, rival coxcombs of the vegetable community, gave their
broad and garish tribute to the beautifying of the spot.
The road approached within some fifty paces of the front of the cabins,
where access was allowed, not by the help of a gate, but only by a kind
of ladder or stile formed of rails, which were so arranged as to furnish
steps across the barrier of the worm fence at four or five feet from the
ground.
"Are you sure of entertainment here, Galbraith?" inquired Butler, as
they halted at the stile. "This Wat Adair is not likely to be churlish,
I hope?"
"I don't think I am in much humor to be turned away," replied Robinson.
"It's my opinion that a man who has rode a whole day has a sort of right
to quarters wherever the night finds him--providing he pays for what he
gets. But I have no doubt of Wat, Major. Holloa! who's at home? Wat
Adair! Wat Adair! Travellers, man! Show yourself."
"Who are you that keep such a racket at the fence there?" demanded a
female voice. "What do you mean by such doings before a peaceable
house?"
"Keep your dogs silent, ma'am," returned Horse Shoe, in a blunt and loud
key, "and you will hear us. If you are Wat Adair's wife you are as good
as master of this house. We want a night's lodging and must have it--and
besides, we have excellent stomachs, and mean to pay for all we get.
Ain't that reason enough to satisfy a sensible woman, Mrs. Adair?"
"If you come to make disturbance," said a man of a short and sturdy
figure, who at this moment stepped out from the house and took a
position in front of it, with a rifle in his hand--"if you come here to
insult a quiet family you had best turn your horses' heads up the road
and jog further."
"We might do that, sir, and fare worse," said Butler, in a conciliatory
tone. "You have no need of your gun; we are harmless travellers who have
come a long way to get under your roof."
"Where from?" asked the other.
"From below," said Horse Shoe promptly.
"What side do you take?"
"Your side for to-night," returned Robinson again. "Don't be
obstropolous, friend," he continued, at the same time dismounting, "we
have come on purpose to pay Wat a visit, and if you ha'n't got no
brawlers in the house, you needn't be afraid of us."
By this time the sergeant had crossed the stile and approached the
questioner, to whom he offered his hand. The man gazed for a moment upon
his visitor, and then asked--
"Isn't this Galbraith Robinson?"
"They call me so," replied Horse Shoe; "and if I ain't mistaken, this is
Michael Lynch. You wan't going to shoot at us, Michael?"
"A man must have sharp eyes when he looks in the face of a neighbor
now-a-days," said the other. "Come in; Wat's wife will be glad to see
you. Wat himself will be home presently. Who have you here, Galbraith?"
"This is Mr. Butler," answered Horse Shoe, as the Major joined them. "He
and me are taking a ride across into Georgia, and we thought we would
give Wat a call just to hear the news."
"You are apt to fetch more news than you will take away," replied the
other; "but there is a good deal doing now in all quarters. Howsever, go
into the house, we must give you something to eat and a bed besides."
After putting their horses in charge of a negro who now approached in
the character of an ostler, our adventurers followed Michael Lynch into
the house.