SCENE IN THE BIVOUAC.
"Bustle, my lads--bustle! These are stirring times," exclaimed
Habershaw, riding with an air of great personal consequence into the
midst of the troop, as they were gathered, still on horseback, under the
chestnut. "We have made a fine night's work of it, and, considering that
we fought in the dark against men ready armed for us, this has not been
such a light affair. To be sure, in point of numbers, it is a trifle;
but the plan, Peppercorn--the plan, and the despatch, and the neatness
of the thing--that's what I say I am entitled to credit for. Bless your
soul, Peppercorn, these fellows were sure to fall into my trap--there
was no getting off. That's the effect of my generalship, you see,
Peppercorn. Study it, boy! We could have managed about twenty more of
the filthy rebels handsomely; but this will do--this will do. I took, as
a commanding officer ought always to do, the full responsibility of the
measure, and a good share of the fight. Did I not, Peppercorn? Wasn't I,
in your opinion, about the first man in the river?"
"I'll bear witness, valiant and victorious captain," answered the
dragoon, "that you fired the first shot; and I am almost willing to make
oath that I saw you within at least twenty paces of the enemy, exhorting
your men."
"Now lads--wait for the word--dismount!" continued the captain, "and
make up your minds to pass the night where you are. Peppercorn, the
prisoners I put under your identical charge. Remember that! keep your
eyes about you. Set a guard of four men upon them; I will make you
accountable." He then added, in an under tone, "hold them safe until
to-morrow, man, and I promise you, you shall have no trouble in watching
them after that."
"You shall find them," replied Peppercorn.
"Silence," interrupted the captain; "hear my orders, and give no reply.
Now, sir, before you do anything else, call your roll, and report your
killed, wounded, and missing."
Upon this order, the dragoon directed the men, after disposing of their
horses, to form a line. He then called over the squad by their real
names, and immediately afterwards reported to his superior, who, in
order to preserve a proper dignified distance, had retreated some paces
from the group, the following pithy and soldier-like account:--
"Two men wounded, noble captain, in the late action; two missing; one
horse, saddle and bridle lost; one horse and two prisoners taken from
the enemy."
"The names of the wounded, sir?"
"Tom Dubbs and Shadrach Green; one slightly scratched, and the other
bruised by a kick from the blacksmith."
"The missing, sir?"
"Dick Waters, commonly called Marrow Bone, and Roger Bell, known in your
honor's list by the name of Clapper Claw."
"They have skulked," said the captain.
"Marrow Bone is as dead as a door nail, sir," said the orderly with
perfect indifference, and standing affectedly erect. "He fell in the
river, and the probability is that Clapper Claw keeps him company."
"What!" roared Habershaw, "have the diabolical scoundrels made away with
any of my good fellows? Have the precious lives of my brave soldiers
been poured out by the d----d rebels? By my hand, they shall feel
twisted rope, Peppercorn!--cold iron is too good for them."
"Softly, captain!" said the orderly. "You don't blame the enemy for
showing fight? We mustn't quarrel with the chances of war. There is not
often a fray without a broken head, captain. We must deal with the
prisoners according to the laws of war."
"Of Tory war, Peppercorn, aye, that will I! String the dogs up to the
first tree. The devil's pets, why didn't they surrender when we set upon
them! To-morrow: let them look out to-morrow. No words, orderly; send
out two files to look for the bodies, and to bring in the stray horse
if they can find him. A pretty night's work! to lose two good pieces of
stuff for a brace of black-hearted whigs!"
The two files were detailed for the duty required, and immediately set
out, on foot, towards the scene of the late fray. The rest of the troop
were dismissed from the line.
"I would venture to ask, sir," said Butler, addressing the captain, "for
a cup of water: I am much hurt."
"Silence, and be d----d to you!" said Habershaw gruffly, "silence, and
know your place, sir. You are a prisoner, and a traitor to boot."
"Don't you hear the gentleman say he is hurt?" interposed Robinson.
"It's onnatural, and more like a beast than a man to deny a prisoner a
little water."
"By my sword, villain, I will cleave your brain for you, if you open
that rebel mouth of yours again!"
"Pshaw, pshaw! Captain Habershaw, this will never do," said Peppercorn;
"men are men, and must have food and drink. Here, Gideon Blake, give me
your flask of liquor and bring me some water from the river. It is my
duty, captain, to look after the prisoners."
Gideon Blake, who was a man of less savage temper than most of his
associates, obeyed this command with alacrity, and even added a few
words of kindness, as he assisted in administering refreshment to the
prisoners. This evidence of a gentler nature did not escape the comment
of the ruffian captain, who still remembered his old grudge against the
trooper.
"Away, sir," he said in a peremptory and angry tone, "away and attend to
your own duty. You are ever fond of obliging these beggarly whigs. Hark
you, Peppercorn," he added, speaking apart to the dragoon, "take care
how you trust this skulking vagabond: he will take bribes from the
rebels, and turn his coat whenever there is money in the way. I have my
eye upon him."
"If I chose to speak," said Gideon Blake.
"Hold your peace, you grey fox," cried the captain. "Not a word! I know
your doublings. Remember you are under martial law, and blast me, if I
don't make you feel it! There are more than myself suspect you."
"I should like to know," said Butler, "why I and my companion are
molested on our journey. Have we fallen amongst banditti, or do you bear
a lawful commission? If you do, sir, let me tell you, you have disgraced
it by outrage and violence exercised towards unoffending men, and shall
answer for it when the occasion serves. On what pretence have we been
arrested?"
"Hark, my young fighting-cock," replied the captain. "You will know your
misdemeanors soon enough. And if you would sleep to-night with a whole
throat, you will keep your tongue within your teeth. It wouldn't take
much to persuade me to give you a little drum-head law. Do you hear
that?"
"It is my advice, major," whispered Robinson, "to ax no questions of
these blackguards."
"Be it so, sergeant," said Butler, "I am weary and sick."
When other cares were disposed of, and the excited passions of the
lawless gang had subsided into a better mood, the dragoon took Butler's
cloak from the baggage and spread it upon the ground beneath the shelter
of the shrubbery, and the suffering officer was thus furnished a bed
that afforded him some small share of comfort, and enabled to take that
rest which he so much needed. Robinson seated himself on the ground
beside his companion, and in this situation they patiently resigned
themselves to whatever fate awaited them.
Soon after this the whole troop were busy in the preparations for
refreshment and sleep. The horses were either _hobbled_, by a cord from
the fore to the hind foot, and turned loose to seek pasture around the
bivouac, or tethered in such parts of the forest as furnished them an
opportunity to feed on the shrubbery. The fire was rekindled, and some
small remnants of venison roasted before it; and in less than an hour
this reckless and ill-governed band were carousing over their cups with
all the rude ribaldry that belonged to such natures.
"Come, boys," said Peppercorn, who seemed to take a delight in urging
the band into every kind of excess, and who possessed that sort of sway
over the whole crew, including their leader no less than the privates,
which an expert and ready skill in adapting himself to the humor of the
company gave him, and which faculty be now appeared to exercise for the
increase of his own influence. "Come, boys, laugh while you can--that's
my motto. This soldiering is a merry life, fighting, drinking, and
joking. By the God of war! I will enlist the whole of you into the
regular service--Ferguson or Cruger, which you please, boys! they are
both fine fellows and would give purses of gold for such charming, gay,
swaggering blades. Fill up your cans and prepare for another bout. I'm
not the crusty cur to stint thirsty men. A toast, my gay fellows!"
"Listen to Peppercorn," cried out some three or four voices.
"Here's to the honor of the brave captain Hugh Habershaw, and his
glorious dogs that won the battle of Grindall's ford!"
A broad and coarse laugh burst from the captain at the announcement of
this toast.
"By my sword!" he exclaimed, "the fight was not a bad fight."
"Can you find a joint of venison, Gideon?" said Peppercorn, aside. "If
you can, give it, and a cup of spirits, to the prisoners. Stop, I'll do
it myself, you will have the old bull-dog on your back."
And saying this the dragoon rose from his seat, and taking a few
fragments of the meat which had been stripped almost to the bone, placed
them, together with a canteen, beside Butler.
"Make the best of your time," he said, "you have but short allowance and
none of the best. If I can serve you, I will do it with a good heart;
so, call on me."
Then turning to the sergeant, who sat nigh, he whispered in his ear,
and, with a distinct and somewhat taunting emphasis, inquired,
"Friend Horse Shoe, mayhap thou knowest me?"
"That I do, James Curry," replied the sergeant, "and I have a mean
opinion of the company you keep. I don't doubt but you are ashamed to
say how you come by them."
"All is fish that comes into the Dutchman's net," said Curry. "To-night
I have caught fat game. You are a sturdy fellow, master Blacksmith, and
good at a tug, but remember, friend, I owe you a cuff, and if you
weren't a prisoner you should have it."
"Show me fair play, James Curry, and you shall have a chance now," said
Horse Shoe; "I'll keep my parole to surrender when it is over."
"Silence, fool!" returned Curry, at the same time rudely pinching
Robinson's ear. "You will be a better man than I take you to be, if you
ever wrestle with me again. I have not forgotten you."
The dragoon now rejoined his comrades.
"Peppercorn," cried Habershaw, "d----n the prisoners, let them fast
to-night. The lads want a song. Come, the liquor's getting low, we want
noise, we want uproar, lad! Sing, bully, sing!"
"Anything to get rid of the night, noble captain. What shall I give
you?"
"The old catch, master Orderly. The Jolly Bottle, the Jolly Bottle,"
cried Habershaw, pronouncing this word according to ancient usage, with
the accent on the last syllable, as if spelt "bottel;" "give us the
Jolly Bottle, we all know the chorus of that song. And besides it's the
best in your pack."
"Well, listen, my wet fellows!" said Peppercorn, "and pipe lustily in
the chorus."
Here the orderly sang, to a familiar old English tune, the following
song, which was perhaps a common camp ditty of the period.
"You may talk as you please of your candle and book,
And prate about virtue, with sanctified look;
Neither priest, book, nor candle, can help you so well
To make friends with the world as the Jolly Bottle."
"Chorus, my lads; out with it!" shouted the singer; and the whole crew
set up a hideous yell as they joined him.
"Sing heave and ho, and trombelow,
The Jolly Bottle is the best I trow.
"Then take the bottle, it is well stitched of leather,
And better than doublet keeps out the wind and weather:
Let the bottom look up to the broad arch of blue,
And then catch the drippings, as good fellows do.
With heave and ho, and trombelow,
'Tis sinful to waste good liquor, you know.
"The soldier, he carries his knapsack and gun.
And swears at the weight as he tramps through the sun
But, devil a loon, did I ever hear tell,
Who swore at the weight of the Jolly Bottle.
So heave and ho, and trombelow,
The Jolly Bottle is a feather, I trow."
Here the song was interrupted by the return of the two files who had
been sent to bring in the bodies of the dead. They had found the missing
horse, and now led him into the circle laden with the corpses of Bell
and Waters. The troopers halted immediately behind the ring of the
revellers, and in such a position as to front Peppercorn and the
captain, who were thus afforded a full view of the bodies by the blaze
of the fire.
"Easy," almost whispered Habershaw, now half-intoxicated, to the two
troopers, as he lifted his hands and motioned to them to halt; "put them
down gently on the ground. Go on, Peppercorn; let the dead help
themselves: finish the song! That chorus again, my boys!" And here the
last chorus was repeated in the highest key of merriment.
Peppercorn cast an eye at the bodies which, during the interval, had
been thrown on the earth, and while the men who had just returned were
helping themselves to the drink, he proceeded, in an unaltered voice,
with the song.
"When drinkers are dry, and liquor is low,
A fray that takes off a good fellow or so,
Why, what does it do, but help us to bear
The loss of a comrade, in drinking his share?
Then heave and ho, and trombelow,
A fray and a feast are brothers, you know.
"The philosophers say it's a well-settled fact,
That a vessel will leak whose bottom is cracked;
And a belly that's drilled with a bullet, I think,
Is a very bad belly to stow away drink.
So heave and ho, and trombelow,
The dead will be dry to-night, I trow."
"There they are, captain," said one of the returning troopers, after the
song, to which he and his companions had stood listening with delighted
countenances, was brought to an end, "there they are. We found Dick
Waters lying in the road, and when we first came to him he gave a sort
of groan, but we didn't lift him until we came back from hunting Roger
Bell; by that time the fellow was as dead as a pickled herring. Where do
you think we found Clapper Claw? Why, half a mile, almost, down the
stream. He was washed along and got jammed up betwixt the roots of a
sycamore. We had a long wade after him, and trouble enough to get
him--more, I'm thinking, than a dead man is worth. So, give us some more
rum; this is ugly work to be done in the dark."
"Scratch a hole for them, lads, under the bushes," said Habershaw; "put
a sod blanket over them before morning. That's the fortune of war, as
Peppercorn calls it. How are the wounded men getting along?"
"Oh bravely, captain," replied Shad Green, or, according to his
nickname, Red Mug: "this here physic is a main thing for a scratch."
"Bravely!" echoed Screech Owl, or Tom Dubbs, the same who had been
reported by the dragoon as "kicked by the blacksmith;" "we are
plastering up sores here with the jolly bottle:--
"Sing heave and ho, and trombelow,
The Jolly Bottle is a feather, I trow."
"What's a cracked crown, so as it holds a man's brains?" continued the
drunken carouser, whilst a laugh deformed his stupid physiognomy.
"How are we off for provisions, quarter-master?" inquired the captain of
one of the gang.
"Eaten out of skin, from nose to tail," replied Black Jack.
"Then the squad must forage to-night," continued Habershaw. "We must
take a buck, my sweet ones; there are plenty along the river. Get your
rifles and prepare lights, and, to keep out of the way of our horses,
don't stop short of a mile. Be about it, lads. Black Jack, this is your
business."
"True, Captain," replied the person addressed: "I shall have all things
ready directly."
It was near midnight when Black Jack, having prepared some faggots of
pitch-pine, and selected three or four of the best marksmen, left the
bivouac to look for deer. Habershaw himself, though lazy and
inordinately impressed with a sense of his own dignity, and now confused
with liquor, could not resist the attraction of this sport. He
accordingly, not long after the others had departed, took a rifle, and,
attended by his bull-dog, whom he never parted from on any occasion,
slowly followed in the direction chosen by the hunters.
Those in advance had scarcely walked along the margin of the river a
mile before they lighted their faggots, and began to beat the
neighboring thickets; and their search was not protracted many minutes
when the light of their torches was thrown full upon the eyes of a buck.
A shot from one of the marksmen told with unerring precision in the
forehead of the animal.
The report and the light brought the corpulent captain into the
neighborhood. He had almost walked himself out of breath and, as he did
not very well preserve his perpendicularity, or a straight line of
march, he had several times been tripped up by the roots of trees, or by
rocks and briers in his path. Exhausted, at length, and puzzled by the
stupefaction of his own brain, as well as by the surrounding darkness,
he sat down at the foot of a tree, determined to wait the return of the
hunting party. His faithful and congenial "Beauty," not less pursy and
short-winded than himself, and not more savage or surly in disposition,
now couched upon his haunches immediately between his master's legs; and
here this pair of beastly friends remained, silent and mutually soothed
by their own companionship. During this interval the person who bore the
fire, followed by one of the marksmen, crept slowly onward to the
vicinity of the spot where the captain had seated himself. The lapse of
time had proved too much for Habershaw's vigilance, and he had, at
length, with his head resting against the trunk of the tree, fallen into
a drunken slumber. The short crack of a rifle at hand, and the yell of
his dog awakened him. He started upon his feet with sudden surprise, and
stepping one pace forward, stumbled and fell over the dead body of his
favorite Beauty, who lay beneath him weltering in blood. The shot was
followed by a rush of the hunter up to the spot: it was Gideon Blake.
"Buck or doe, it is my shot!" cried Gideon, as he halted immediately
beside Habershaw.
"May all the devils blast you, Gideon Blake!" thundered on the incensed
captain. "You have sought my life, you murdering wolf, and your bullet
has killed Beauty."
"I shot at the eyes of what I thought a deer," returned Blake. "You were
a fool, Hugh Habershaw, to bring a dog into such a place.
"My poor dog! my brave dog! Beauty was worth ten thousand such bastard
villains as you! And to have him killed! May the devil feast upon your
soul this night, Gideon Blake! Go! and account for your wickedness. Take
that, snake! tiger! black-hearted whig and rebel! and be thankful that
you didn't come to your end by the help of hemp!" and in this gust of
passion he struck his knife into the bosom of the trooper, who groaned,
staggered, and fell.
At this moment the person bearing the fire, hearing the groan of his
comrade, rushed up to the spot and seized Habershaw's arm, just as the
monster was raising it over the fallen man to repeat the blow.
"Damn him! see what he has done!" exclaimed the captain, as he lifted up
the dead body of the dog so as to show in the light the wound inflicted
by the ball between the eyes; "this poor, faithful, dumb beast was worth
a hundred such hell-hounds as he!"
"I am murdered," said the wounded man; "I am murdered in cold blood."
The noise at this place brought together the rest of the hunters, who
were now returning with the buck thrown across a horse that had been led
by one of the party. Blake's wound was examined by them, and some linen
applied to staunch the blood. The man had fainted, but it was not
ascertained whether the stab was mortal. Habershaw stood sullenly
looking on during the examination, and, finding that life had not
instantly fled, he coolly wiped his knife and restored it to his girdle.
"The fellow has no idea of dying," he said with a visible concern, "and
has got no more than he deserves. He will live to be hung yet. Take him
to quarters."
"Make a hurdle for him," said one of the bystanders, and, accordingly,
two men cut a few branches from the neighboring wood, and twisting them
together, soon constructed a litter upon which they were able to bear
the body of the wounded hunter to the rendezvous. The others, scarcely
uttering a word as they marched along, followed slowly with the buck,
and in half an hour the troop was once more assembled under the
chestnut.
For a time there was a sullen and discontented silence amongst the whole
crew, that was only broken by the groans of the wounded trooper.
Occasionally there was a slight outburst of sedition from several of the
troop, as a sharper scream, indicating some sudden increase of pain,
from Gideon Blake, assailed their ears. Then there were low and muttered
curses pronounced by Habershaw, in a tone that showed his apprehension
of some vengeance against himself; and these imprecations were mingled
with hints of the disloyalty of the trooper, and charges of a pretended
purpose to betray his fellow-soldiers, evidently insinuated by the
captain to excuse his act of violence. Then he approached the sick man
and felt his pulse, and examined his wound, and pronounced the hurt to
be trifling. "It will do him good," he said, with affected unconcern,
"and teach him to be more true to his comrades hereafter." But still the
fate of the man was manifestly doubtful, and the rising exasperation of
the troop became every instant more open. Alarmed and faint-hearted at
these symptoms of discontent, Habershaw at last called the men into a
circle and made them a speech, in which he expressed his sorrow for the
act he had committed, endeavored to excuse himself by the plea of
passion at the loss of his dog, and, finally, perceiving that these
excuses did not satisfy his hearers, acknowledged his drunken condition
and his unconsciousness of the deed he had done until the horrible
consequences of it were before his eyes. Here Peppercorn interposed in
his favor, alleging that he had examined the wound, and that, in his
opinion, the trooper's life was not in danger.
"And as the captain is sorry for it, lads," he concluded, "why, what is
to be done but let the thing drop? So, if there's another canteen in the
squad, we will wet our whistles, boys, and go to sleep."
This appeal was effectual, and was followed by a hearty cheer. So,
draining the dregs of the last flask, this debauched company retired to
rest--Habershaw sneaking away from them with a heart loaded with malice
and revenge.
A few men were employed, for a short time, in burying the bodies of the
troopers who were killed in the fray; and, excepting the guard, who
busied themselves in skinning the buck and broiling some choice slices
before the fire, and in watching the prisoners, or attending upon their
sick comrade, all were sunk into silence if not repose.