HORSE SHOE AND BUTLER RESUME THEIR JOURNEY, WHICH IS DELAYED BY A SAVAGE
INCIDENT.
Morning broke, and with the first day-streak Robinson turned out of his
bed, leaving Butler so thoroughly bound in the spell of sleep, that he
was not even moved by the loud and heavy tramp of the sergeant, as that
weighty personage donned his clothes. Horse Shoe's first habit in the
morning was to look after Captain Peter, and he accordingly directed his
steps towards the rude shed which served as a stable, at the foot of the
hill. Here, to his surprise, he discovered that the fence-rails which,
the night before, had been set up as a barrier across the vacant
doorway, had been let down, and that no horses were to be seen about the
premises.
"What hocus-pocus has been here?" said he to himself, as he gazed upon
the deserted stable. "Have these rummaging and thieving Tories been out
maraudering in the night? or is it only one of Captain Peter's
old-sodger tricks, letting down bars and leading the young geldings into
mischief? That beast can snuff the scent of a corn field or a pasture
ground as far as a crow smells gunpowder. He'd dislocate and corruptify
any innocent stable of horses in Carolina!"
In doubt to which of these causes to assign this disappearance of their
cavalry, the sergeant ascended the hill hard-by, and directed his eye
over the neighboring fields, hoping to discover the deserters in some of
the adjacent pastures. But he could get no sight of them. He then
returned to the stable and fell to examining the ground about the door,
in order to learn something of the departure of the animals by their
tracks. These were sufficiently distinct to convince him that Captain
Peter, whose shoes had a peculiar mark well known to the sergeant, had
eloped during the night, in company with the major's gelding and two
others, these being all, as Horse Shoe had observed, that were in the
stable at the time he had retired to bed. He forthwith followed the
foot-prints which led him into the high road, and thence along it
westward for about two hundred paces, where a set of field bars, now
thrown down, afforded entrance into the cornfield. At this point the
sergeant traced the deviation of three of the horses into the field,
whilst the fourth, it was evident, had continued upon the road.
The conclusion which Galbraith drew from this phenomenon was expressed
by a wise shake of the head and a profound fit of abstraction. He took
his seat upon a projecting rail at the angle of the fence, and began to
sum up conjectures in the following phrase:
"The horse that travelled along that road, never travelled of his own
free will: that's as clear as preaching. Well, he wa'n't rode by Wat nor
by Mike Lynch, or else they are arlier men than I take them to be: but
still, I'll take a book oath that creetur went with a bridle across his
head, and a pair o' legs astride his back. And whoever held that bridle
in his hand, did it for no good! Scampering here and scampering there,
and scouring woods in the night too, when the country is as full of
Tories as a beggar's coat with----, it's a dogmatical bad sign, take it
which way you will. Them three horses had the majority, and it is the
nature of these beasts always to follow the majority: that's an
observation I have made; and, in particular, if there's a cornfield, or
an oatpatch, or a piece of fresh pasture to be got into, every
individual horse is unanimous on the subject."
Whilst the sergeant was engrossed with these reflections, "he was ware,"
as the old ballads have it, of a man trudging past him along the road.
This was no other than Wat Adair, who was striding forward with a long
and rapid step, and with all the appearance of one intent upon some
pressing business.
"Halloo! who goes there? where away so fast, Wat?" was Robinson's
challenge.
"Horse Shoe!" exclaimed Adair, in a key that bespoke surprise, and even
alarm,--"Ha, ha, ha!--By the old woman's pipe, you frightened me! I'll
swear, Galbraith Robinson, I heard you snoring as I passed by your
window three minutes ago."
"I'll swear that's not the truest word you ever spoke in your life,
Wat; though true enough for you, mayhap. Do you see how cleverly yon
light has broke across the whole sky? When I first turned out this
morning it was a little ribbon of day: the burning of a block-house at
night, ten miles off, would have made a broader streak. It was your own
snoring you heard, Wat; you have only forgot under whose window it was."
"What old witch has been pinching you, Horse Shoe, that _you_ are up so
early?" asked Adair. "Get back to the house, man, I will be with you
presently; I have my farm to look after, I'll see you presently."
"You seem to me to be in a very onreasonable hurry, Wat, considering
that you have the day before you. But, softly, I'll walk with you, if
you have no unliking to it."
"No, no, I'm busy, Galbraith; I'm going to look after my traps; I'd
rather you'd go back to the house and hurry breakfast. Go! You would
only get scratched with briers if you followed me."
"Ha, ha, ha! Wat! Briers, did you say? Look here, man, do you see them
there legs? Do they look as if they couldn't laugh at yourn in any sort
of scrambling I had a mind to set them to? Tut, I'll go with you just to
larn you the march drill."
"Then I'll not budge a foot after the traps."
"You are crusty, Wat Adair; what's the matter with you?"
"Is Major Butler up yet?" asked the woodman thoughtfully.
"_Who_ do you say? _Major_ Butler."
"_Major!_" cried Adair, with affected surprise.
"Yes, you called him Major Butler?"
"I had some dream, I think, about him: or, didn't you call him so
yourself, Horse Shoe?"
"Most undoubtedly, I did not," replied Robinson seriously.
"Then I dreamt it, Horse Shoe: these dreams sometimes get into the head,
like things we have been told. But, Galbraith, tell me the plain
up-and-down truth, what brings you and Mr. Butler into these parts? What
are you after in Georgia? It does seem strange to find men that are
wanted below, straggling here in our woods at such a time as this."
"There are two sorts of men in this world, Wat," said the sergeant, with
a smile, "them that axes questions, and them that won't answer
questions. Now, which, do you think, I belong to? Why, to the last, you
tinker! Where are our horses, Wat? Tell me that. Who let them out of the
stable?"
"Perhaps they let themselves out," replied Adair, "they were not
haltered."
"You are either knave or fool, Wat. Come here. There are the tracks of
the beast that carried the man up this road, who sot loose all the
horses that were in that stable."
"Mike Lynch, perhaps," said Adair, with an assumed expression of
ignorance. "Where can that fellow have been so early? Oh, I remember, he
told me last night that he was going this morning to the blacksmith's.
He ought to be back by this time."
"And you are here to larn the news from him?" said the sergeant, eyeing
Adair with a suspicious scrutiny.
"You have just hit it, Horse Shoe," returned Wat, laughing. "I did want
to know if there were any more squads of troopers foraging about this
district: for these cursed fellows whip in upon a man and cut him up
blade and ear, without so much as thanks for their pillage, and so I
told Mike to inquire of the blacksmith, for he is more like to know than
anybody else, whether there was any more of these pestifarious
scrummagers abroad."
"And your traps, Wat?"
"That was only a lie, Galbraith--I confess it. I was afeard to make you
uneasy by telling you what I was after. But still it wasn't a broad,
stark, daylight lie neither; it was only a civil fib, for I was going
after my wolf trap before I got my breakfast. But here comes Mike."
At this juncture Lynch was seen emerging from the wood, mounted on a
rough, untrimmed pony, which he was urging forward under repeated blows
with his stick. The little animal was covered with foam; and, from his
travel-worn plight, gave evidence of having been taxed to the utmost of
his strength in a severe journey. At some hundred paces distant, the
rider detected the presence of Adair and his companion, and came to a
sudden halt. He appeared to deliberate as if with a purpose to escape
their notice; but finding that he was already observed by them, he put
his horse again in motion, advancing only at a slow walk. Adair hastily
quitted Robinson, and, walking forward until he met Lynch, turned about
and accompanied him along the road, conversing during this interval in
a key too low to be heard by the sergeant.
"Here's Horse Shoe thrusting his head into our affairs. Conjure a lie
quickly about your being at the blacksmith's; I told him you were there
to hear the news."
"Aye, aye! I understand."
"You saw Hugh?"
"Yes. The gang will be at their post."
"Hush! Be merry; laugh and have a joke--Horse Shoe is very suspicious."
"You have ridden the crop-ear like a stolen horse," continued Adair, as
soon as he found himself within the sergeant's hearing. "See what a
flurry you have put the dumb beast in. If it had been your own nag, Mike
Lynch, I warrant you would have been more tedious with him."
"The crop-ear is not worth the devil's fetching, Wat. He is as lazy as a
land-turtle, and too obstinate for any good-tempered man's patience.
Look at that stick--I have split it into a broom on the beast."
"You look more like a man at the end of the day than at the beginning of
it," said Robinson. "How far had you to ride, Michael?"
"Only over here to the shop of Billy Watson, in the Buzzard's nest,"
replied Lynch, "which isn't above three miles at the farthest. My saw
wanted setting, so I thought I'd make an early job of it, but this beast
is so cursed dull I have been good three-quarters of an hour since I
left the smith's."
"What news do you bring?" inquired Adair.
"Oh, none worth telling again. That cross-grained, contrary,
rough-and-tumble bear gouger, old Hide-and-Seek, went down yesterday
with the last squad of Ferguson's new draughts."
"Wild Tom Eskridge," said Wat Adair. "You knowed him, Horse Shoe, a
superfluous imp of Satan!" continued the woodman, laying a particular
accent on the penultimate of this favorite adjective, which he was
accustomed to use as expressive of strong reprobation. "So he is cleared
out at last! Well, I'm glad on't, for he was the only fellow in these
hills I was afeard would give you trouble, Galbraith."
"Superfluous or not," replied the sergeant, pronouncing the word in the
same manner as the woodman, and equally ignorant of its meaning, "it
will be a bad day for Tom Eskridge, the rank, obstropolous Tory, when he
meets me, Wat Adair. I have reason to think that he tried to clap some
of Tarleton's dragoons on my back over here at the Waxhaws. There's hemp
growing for that scape-grace at this very time."
"You heard of no red coats about the Tiger?" asked Adair.
"Not one," replied Lynch; "the nearest post is Cruger's, in Ninety-Six."
"Then your way, Mr. Robinson, is tolerable for to-day," added Adair:
"but war is war, and there is always some risk to be run when men are
parading with their rifles in their hands. But see! it is hard upon
sunrise. Let us go and give some directions about breakfast. I will send
out some of the boys to hunt up the horses; they will be ready by the
time we have had something to eat."
Without further delay, Adair strode rapidly up the hill to the
dwelling-house, the sergeant and Lynch following as soon as the latter
had put his jaded beast in the stable. By the time these were assembled
in the porch the family began to show signs of life, and it was a little
after sunrise when Butler came forth ready for the prosecution of his
journey. A few words were exchanged in private between Lynch and the
woodman, and after much idle talk and contrived delay, two lazy and
loitering negro boys were sent off in quest of the travellers' horses.
Not long after this the animals were seen coursing from one part of the
distant field to another, defying all attempts to get them into a
corner, or to compel them to pass through the place that had been opened
in order to drive them towards the stable.
There was an air of concern and silent bewilderment visible upon
Butler's features, and an occasional expression of impatience escaped
his lips as he watched from the porch the ineffectual efforts of the
negroes to force the truant steeds towards the house.
"All in good time," said Adair, answering the thoughts and looks of
Butler, rather than his words, "all in good time; they must have their
play out. It is a good sign, sir, to see a traveller's horse so
capersome of a morning. Wife, make haste with your preparations; Horse
Shoe and his friend here mustn't be kept back from their day's journey.
Stir yourself, Mary Musgrove!"
"Will the gentlemen stay for breakfast?" inquired Mary, with a doubtful
look at Butler.
"Will they? To be sure they will! Would you turn off friends from the
door with empty stomachs, you mink, and especially with a whole day's
starvation ahead of them?" exclaimed the woodman.
"I thought they had far to ride," replied the girl, "and would choose,
rather than wait, to take some cold provision to eat upon the road."
"Tush! Go about your business, niece! The horses are not caught yet, and
you may have your bacon fried before they are at the door."
"It shall be ready, then, in a moment," returned Mary, and she betook
herself diligently to her task of preparation. During the interval that
followed, the maiden several times attempted to gain a moment's speech
with Butler, but the presence of Adair or Lynch as frequently forbade
even a whisper; and the morning meal was at length set smoking on the
table without the arrival of the desired opportunity. The repast was
speedily finished, and the horses having surrendered to the emissaries
who had been despatched to bring them in, were now in waiting for their
masters. Horse Shoe put into the woodman's hand a small sum of money in
requital for the entertainment afforded to his comrade and himself, and
having arranged their baggage upon the saddles, announced that they were
ready to set forward on their journey. Whilst the travellers were
passing the farewells customary on such occasions, Mary Musgrove, whose
manner during the whole morning gave many indications of a painful
secret concern, now threw herself in Butler's way, and as she modestly
offered him her hand at parting, and heard the little effusion of
gallantry and compliment with which it was natural for a well-bred man
and a soldier to speak at such a moment, she took the opportunity to
whisper--"The left hand road at the Fork--remember!" and instantly
glided away to another part of the house. Butler paused but for an
instant, and then hurried forward with the sergeant to their horses.
"Wat, you promised to put us on the track to Grindall's Ford," said
Horse Shoe, as he rose into his seat.
"I am ready to go part of the way with you," replied the woodman, "I
will see you to the Fork, and after that you must make out for
yourselves. Michael, fetch me my rifle."
It was not more than half past six when the party set forth on their
journey. Our two travellers rode along at an easy gait, and Wat Adair,
throwing his rifle carelessly across his shoulder, stepped out with a
long swinging step that kept him, without difficulty, abreast of the
horsemen, as they pursued their way over hill and dale.
They had not journeyed half a mile before they reached a point in the
woods at which Adair called a halt.
"My trap is but a little off the road," he said, "and I must beg you to
stop until I see what luck I have this morning. It's a short business
and soon done. This way, Horse Shoe; it is likely I may give you sport
this morning."
"Our time is pressing," said Butler. "Pray give us your directions as to
the road, and we will leave you."
"You would never find it in these woods," replied Wat; "there are two or
three paths leading through here, and the road is a blind one till you
come to the fork; the trap is not a hundred yards out of your way."
"Rather than stop to talk about it, Wat," said the sergeant, "we will
follow you, so go on."
The woodman now turned into the thickets, and opening his way through
the bushes, in a few moments conducted the two soldiers to the foot of a
large gum tree.
"By all the crows, I have got my lady!" exclaimed Wat Adair, with a
whoop that made the woods ring. "The saucy slut! I have yoked her, Horse
Shoe Robinson! There's a picture worth looking at."
"Who?" cried Butler; "of whom are you speaking?"
"Look for yourself, sir," replied the woodman. "There's the mischievous
devil; an old she-wolf that I have been hunting these two years. Oh, ho,
madam! Your servant!"
Upon looking near the earth, our travellers descried the object of this
triumphant burst of joy, in a large wolf that was now struggling to
release herself from the thraldom of her position. The trap was
ingeniously contrived. It consisted of a long opening into the hollow
trunk of the tree, beginning about four feet from the ground and cut out
with an axe down to the root. An aperture had been made at the upper end
of the slit about a foot wide, and the wood had been hewed away
downwards, in such a manner as to render the slit gradually narrower as
it approached the lower extremity, until near the earth it was not more
than four inches in width, thus forming a wedge-shaped loophole into the
hollow body of the tree. A part of the carcase of a sheep had been
placed on the bottom inside, the scent of which had attracted the wolf,
and, in her eagerness to possess herself of this treasure she had risen
on her hind legs high enough to find the opening sufficiently wide to
allow her head to be thrust in, whence, slipping downwards, the slit
became so narrow as to prevent her from withdrawing her jaws. The only
mode of extrication from this trap was to rear her body to the same
height at which she found admission, an expedient which, it seems,
required more cunning than this proverbially cunning animal was gifted
with. She now stood captive pretty much in the same manner that oxen are
commonly secured in their stalls.
For a few moments after the prisoner was first perceived, and during the
extravagant yelling of Adair at the success of his stratagem, she made
several desperate but ineffectual efforts to withdraw her head; but as
soon as Butler and Robinson had dismounted, and, together with their
guide, had assembled around her, she desisted from her struggles, and
seemed patiently to resign herself to the will of her captor. She stood
perfectly still with that passive and even cowardly submission for
which, in such circumstances, this animal is remarkable: her hind legs
drooped and her tail was thrust between them, whilst not a snarl nor an
expression of anger or grief escaped her. Her characteristic sagacity
had been completely baffled by the superior wolfish cunning of her
ensnarer.
Wat laughed aloud with a coarse and almost fiendish laugh, as he cried
out--
"I have cotched the old thief at last, in spite of her cunning! With a
warning to boot. Here is a mark I sot upon her last winter," he added,
as he raised her fore leg, which was deprived of the foot; "but she
would be prowling, the superfluous devil! It is in the nature of these
here blood-suckers, to keep a going at their trade, no matter how much
they are watched. But I knowed I'd have her one of these days. These
varmints have always got to pay, one day or another, for their
villanies. Wa'n't she an old fool, Horse Shoe, to walk into this here
gum for a piece of dead mutton? Ha, ha, ha! if she had had only the
sense to rear up, she might have had the laugh on us! But she hadn't;
ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, Wat Adair," said Robinson, "you had a mischievous head when you
contrived that trap."
"Feel her ribs, Mr. Butler," cried Wat, not heeding the sergeant; "I
know who packed that flesh on her. There isn't a lamb in my flock to-day
that wouldn't grin if he was to hear the news."
"Well, what are you going to do with her, Adair?" inquired Butler;
"remember you are losing time here."
"Do with her!" ejaculated the woodman; "that's soon told: I will skin
the devil alive."
"I hope not," exclaimed Butler. "It would be an unnecessary cruelty.
Despatch her on the spot with your rifle."
"I wouldn't waste powder and ball on the varmint," replied Adair. "No,
no, the knife, the knife!"
"Then cut her throat and be done with it."
"You are not used to these hellish thieves, sir," said the woodman.
"There is nothing that isn't too good for them. By the old sinner, I'll
skin her alive! That's the sentence!"
"Once more, I pray not," said Butler imploringly.
"It is past praying for," returned Adair, as he drew forth his knife and
began to whet it on a stone. "She shall die by inches, and be damned to
her!" he added, as his eye sparkled with savage delight. "Now look and
see a wolf punished according to her evil doings."
The woodman stood over his captive and laughed heartily, as he pointed
out to his companions the quailing and subdued gestures of his victim,
indulging in coarse and vulgar jests whilst he described minutely the
plan of torture he was about to execute. When he had done with his
ribaldry, he slowly drew the point of his knife down the back-bone of
the animal, from the neck to the tail, sundering the skin along the
whole length. "That's the way to unbutton her jacket," he said, laughing
louder than ever.
"For God's sake, desist!" ejaculated Butler. "For my sake, save the poor
animal from this pain! I will pay you thrice the value of the skin."
"Money will not buy her," said Wat, looking up for an instant. "Besides,
the skin is spoiled by that gash."
"Here is a guinea, if you will cut her throat," said Butler, "and
destroy her at once."
"That would be murder out-right," replied Adair; "I never take money to
do murder; it goes agin my conscience. No, no, I will undress the old
lady, and let her have the benefit of the cool air in this hot weather.
And if she should take cold, you know, and fall sick and die of that,
why then, Mr. Butler, you can give me the guinea. That will save my
conscience," he added, with a grin that expressed a struggle between his
avarice and cruelty.
"Come, Galbraith, I will not stay to witness the barbarity of this
savage. Mount your horse, and let us take our chance alone through the
woods. Fellow, I don't wish your further service."
"Look there now!" said Adair; "where were you born, that you are so
mighty nice upon account of a blood-sucking wolf? Man, it's impossible
to find your way through this country; and you might, by taking a wrong
road, fall in with them that would think nothing of serving you as I
serve this beast."
"Wat, curse your onnatural heart," interposed the sergeant. "Stob her at
once. It's no use, Mr. Butler," he said, finding that Adair did not heed
him, "we can't help ourselves. It's wolf agin wolf."
"I knowed you couldn't, Horse Shoe," cried Wat, with another laugh. "So
you may as well stay to see it out."
Butler had now walked to his horse, mounted, and retired some distance
into the wood to avoid further converse with the tormentor of the
ensnared beast, and to withdraw himself from a sight so revolting to his
feelings. In the meantime, Adair proceeded with his operation with an
alacrity that showed the innate cruelty of his temper. He made a cross
incision through the skin, from the point of one shoulder to the other,
the devoted subject of his torture remaining, all the time, motionless
and silent. Having thus severed the skin to suit his purpose, the
woodman now, with an affectation of the most dainty precision,
flourished his knife over the animal's back, and then burst into a loud
laugh.
"I can't help laughing," he exclaimed, "to think what a fine, dangling,
holiday coat I am going to make of it. I shall strip her as low as the
ribs, and then the flaps will hang handsomely. She will be considered a
beauty in the sheep-folds, and then she may borrow a coat, you see, from
some lamb; a wolf in sheep's clothing is no uncommon sight in this
world."
"Wat Adair," said Horse Shoe, angrily, "I've a mind to take the wolf's
part and give you a trouncing. You are the savagest wolf in sheep's
clothing yourself that it was ever my luck to see."
"You think so, Horse Shoe!" cried Wat, tauntingly. "You might chance to
miss your way to-day, so don't make a fool of yourself! Ill will would
only take away from you a finger-post--and it isn't every road through
this district that goes free of the Tory rangers."
"Your own day will come yet," replied Horse Shoe, afraid to provoke the
woodman too far on account of the dependence of himself and his
companion upon Adair's information in regard to the route of their
journey. "We have to give and take quarter in this world."
"You see, Horse Shoe," said Adair, beginning to expostulate, "I don't
like these varmints, no how; that's the reason why. They are cruel
themselves and I like to be cruel to them. It's a downright pleasure to
see them winch, for, bless your soul! they don't mind common
throat-cutting, no more than a calf. Now here's the way to touch their
feelings."
At this moment he applied the point of his knife to separating the hide
from the flesh on either side of the spine, and then, in his eagerness
to accomplish this object, he placed his knife between his teeth and
began to tug at the skin with his hands, accompanying the effort with
muttered expressions of delight at the involuntary and but
ill-suppressed agonies of the brute. The pain, at length became too
acute for the wolf, with all her characteristic habits of submission,
to bear, and, in a desperate struggle that ensued between her and her
tormentor, she succeeded, by a convulsive leap, in extricating herself
from her place of durance. The energy of her effort of deliverance
rescued her from the woodman's hand, and turning short upon her
assailant, she fixed her fangs deep into the fleshy part of his thigh,
where, as the foam fell from her lips, she held on firmly as if
determined to sell her life dearly for the pain she suffered. Adair
uttered a groan from the infliction, and, in the hurry of the instant,
dropped his knife upon the ground. He was thus compelled to bear the
torment of the grip, until he dragged the still pertinaciously-adhering
beast a few paces forward, where, grasping up his knife, he planted it,
by one deeply driven blow, through and through her heart. She silently
fell at his feet, without snarl or bark, releasing her hold only in the
impotency of death.
"Curse her!" cried Adair, "the hard-hearted, bloody-minded devil! That's
the nature of the beast--cruel and wicked to the last, damn her!" he
continued, raving with pain, as he stamped his heel upon her head: "damn
her in the wolf's hell to which she has gone!"
Robinson stood by, unaiding, and not displeased to see the summary
vengeance thus inflicted by the victim upon the oppressor. This calmness
provoked the woodman, who, with that stoicism which belongs to
uncivilized life, seemed determined to take away all pretext for the
sergeant's exultation, by affecting to make light of the injury he had
received.
"I don't mind the scratch of the cursed creature," he said, assuming a
badly counterfeited expression of mirth, "but I don't like to be cheated
out of the pleasure of tormenting such mischievous varmints. It's well
for her that she put me in a passion, or she should have carried a
festered carcase that the buzzards might have fed upon before she died.
But come--where is Mr. Butler? I want that guinea. Ho, sir!" he
continued, bawling to Butler, as he tied up his wound with a strap of
buckskin taken from his pouch, "my guinea! I've killed the devil to
please you, seeing you would have it."
Butler now rode up to the spot, and, in answer to this appeal, gave it
an angry and indignant refusal.
"Lead us on our way, sir," he added. "We have lost too much time already
with your brutal delay. Lead on, sir!"
"You will get soon enough to your journey's end," replied Adair with a
smile, and then sullenly took up his rifle and led the way through the
forest.
A full half hour or more was lost by the incident at the trap, and
Butler's impatience and displeasure continued to be manifested by the
manner with which he urged the woodman forward upon their journey. After
regaining the road, and traversing a piece of intricate and tangled
woodland, by a bridle-path into which their guide had conducted them,
they soon reached a broader and more beaten highway, along which they
rode scarce a mile before they arrived at the Fork.
"I have seen you safe as far as I promised," said the woodman, "and you
must now shift for yourselves. You take the right hand road; about ten
miles further you will come to another prong, there strike to the left,
and if you have luck you will get to the ford before sundown. Three
miles further is Christie's. Good bye t' ye! And Horse Shoe, if you
should come across another wolf stuck in a tree, skin her, d' ye hear?
Ha! ha! ha! Good bye!"
"Ride on!" said Butler to the sergeant, who was about making some reply
to Adair; "ride on! Don't heed or answer that fellow, but take the road
he directs. He is a beast and scoundrel. Faster, good sergeant, faster!"
As he spoke he set his horse to a gallop. Robinson followed at equal
speed, the woodman standing still until the travellers disappeared from
his view behind the thick foliage that overhung their path. Having seen
them thus secure in his toil, the treacherous guide turned upon his
heel, shouldered his rifle, and limped back to his dwelling.
"I have a strange misgiving of that ruffian, sergeant," said Butler,
after they had proceeded about a quarter of a mile. "My mind is
perplexed with some unpleasant doubts. What is your opinion of him?"
"He plays on both sides," replied Horse Shoe, "and knows more of you
than by rights he ought. He spoke consarning of you, this morning, as
_Major_ Butler. It came out of his mouth onawares."
"Ha! Is my name on any part of my baggage or dress?"
"Not that I know of," replied the sergeant; "and if it was, Wat can't
read."
"Were you interrupted in your sleep last night, Galbraith? Did you hear
noises in our room?"
"Nothing, Major, louder nor the gnawing of a mouse at the foot of the
plank partition. Did you see a spirit that you look so solemn?"
"I did, sergeant!" said Butler, with great earnestness of manner. "I had
a dream that had something more than natural in it."
"You amaze me, Major! If you saw anything, why didn't you awake me?"
"I hadn't time before it was gone, and then it was too late. I dreamed,
Galbraith, that somehow--for my dream didn't explain how she came
in--Mary Musgrove, the young girl we saw----"
"Ha! ha! ha! Major, that young girl's oversot you! Was that the sperit?"
"Peace, Galbraith, I am in earnest; listen to me. I dreamt Mary Musgrove
came into our room and warned us that our lives were in danger; how, I
forget, or perhaps she did not tell, but she spoke of our being waylaid,
and, I think, she advised that at this very fork of the road we have
just passed, we should take the left hand--the right, according to my
dream, she said, led to some spring."
"Perhaps the Dogwood, Major," said Robinson, laughing; "there is such a
place, somewhere in these parts."
"The Dogwood! by my life," exclaimed Butler; "she called it the Dogwood
spring."
"That's very strange," said Robinson gravely; "that's very strange,
unless you have hearn some one talk about the spring before you went to
bed last night. For, as sure as you are a gentleman, there is such a
spring not far off, although I don't know exactly where."
"And what perplexes me," continued Butler, "is that, this morning,
almost in the very words of my dream, Mary Musgrove cautioned me, in a
whisper, to take the left road at the fork. How is she connected with my
dream? Or could it have been a reality, and was it the girl herself who
spoke? I have no recollection of such a word from her before I retired
to bed."
"I have hearn of these sort of things before, major, and never could
make them out. For my share, I believe in dreams. There is something
wrong here," continued the sergeant, after pondering over the matter for
a few moments, and shaking his head, "there is something wrong here,
Major Butler, as sure as you are born. I wasn't idle in making my own
observations: first, I didn't like the crossness of Wat's wife last
night; then, the granny there, she raved more like an old witch, with
something wicked in her that wouldn't let her be still, than like your
decent old bodies when they get childish. What did she mean by her
palaver about golden guineas in Wat's pocket, and the English officer?
Such notions don't come naturally into the head, without something to go
upon. And, moreover, when I turned out this morning, before it was
cleverly day, who do you think I saw?"
"Indeed I cannot guess."
"First, Wat walking up the road with a face like a man that had sot a
house on fire; and when I stopped him to ax what he was after, down
comes Mike Lynch--that peevish bull-dog--from the woods, on a little
knot of a pony, pretty nigh at full speed, and covered with lather; and
there was a sort of colloguing together, and then a story made up about
Mike's being at Billy Watson's, the blacksmith's. It didn't tell well,
major, and it sot me to suspicions. The gray of the morning is not the
time for blacksmith's work: there's the fire to make up, and what not.
Besides, it don't belong to the trade, as I know, here in the country,
to be at work so arly. I said nothing; but I made a sort of reckoning in
my own mind that they looked like a couple of desarters trying to sham a
sentry. Then again, there was our horses turned loose. There is
something in these signs, you may depend upon it, Major Butler!"
"That fellow has designs against us, Galbraith," said Butler, musing,
and paying but little attention to the surmises of the sergeant, "I can
hardly think it was a dream. It may have been Mary Musgrove herself, but
how she got there is past my conjecture. I saw nothing, I only heard the
warning. And I would be sworn she addressed me as Major Butler. You say
Wat Adair gave me the same title?"
"As I am a living man," replied Horse Shoe, "he wanted to deny it; and
then he pretended it was a fancy of his own."
"It is very strange, and looks badly," said Butler.
"Never mind, let the worst come to the worst, we have arms and legs
both," returned the sergeant.
"I will take the hint for good or for ill," said the major. "Sergeant,
strike across into the left hand road; in this I will move no farther."
"That's as wise a thing as we can do," replied Robinson. "If you have
doubts of a man, seem to trust him, but take care not to follow his
advice. There is another hint I will give you, let us examine our
fire-arms to see that we are ready for a battle."
Butler concurring in this precaution, the sergeant dismounted, and
having primed his rifle afresh, attempted to fire it into the air, but
it merely flashed, without going off. Upon a second trial the result was
the same. This induced a further examination, which disclosed the fact
that the load which had been put in the day previous had been
discharged, and a bullet was now driven home in the place of the powder.
It was obvious that this was designed. The machination of an enemy
became more apparent when, upon an investigation into the condition of
Butler's pistols, they were also found incapable of being used.
"This is some of Michael Lynch's doings whilst we were eating our
breakfast," said Horse Shoe, "and it is flat proof of treason in our
camp. I should like to go back if it was only for the satisfaction of
blowing out Wat's brains. But there is no use in argufying about it. We
must set things to rights, and move on with a good look-out ahead."
With the utmost apparent indifference to the dangers that beset them,
the sergeant now applied himself to the care of restoring his rifle to a
serviceable condition. With the aid of a small tool which he carried for
such a use, he opened the breach and removed the ball: Butler's pistols
were likewise put in order, and our travellers, being thus restored to
an attitude of defence, turned their horses' heads into the thicket upon
their left, and proceeded across the space that filled up the angle made
by the two branches of the road; and, having gained that branch which
they sought, they pressed forward diligently upon their journey.
The path they had to travel was lonely and rugged, and it was but once
or twice, during the day, that they met a casual wayfarer traversing
the same wild. From such a source, however, they were informed that they
were on the most direct road to Grindall's ford, and that the route they
had abandoned would have conducted them to the Dogwood spring, a point
much out of their proper course, and from which the ford might only have
been reached by a difficult and tortuous by-way.
These disclosures opened the eyes of Butler and his companion to the
imminent perils that encompassed them, and prompted them to the exercise
of the strictest vigilance. Like discreet and trusty soldiers, they
pursued their way with the most unwavering courage, confident that the
difficulty of retreat was fully equal to that of the advance.