From Tarborough our travellers continued their route towards the Pedee,
by the main road which led through Cross creek, a small hamlet on Cape
Fear river, near the site of the present town of Fayetteville. The
general features of the country were even more forbidding than those I
have already described as characteristic of this portion of North
Carolina. Even to the present day, cultivation has done but little to
cheer up the natural desolation of those tracts of wilderness which lie
between the rivers. But at the early period to which the events I have
been detailing have reference, the journey undertaken by our little
caravan might be compared to that which is now frequently made through
the more southern extremity of the Union, from the Atlantic to the Gulf
of Mexico, an attempt seldom essayed by a female, and sufficiently
trying to the hardihood of the stoutest travellers. The forethought and
attention of Horse Shoe Robinson, however, contributed to alleviate the
pains of the enterprise, and to enable Mildred to overcome its
difficulties.
In the present alarmed and excited state of this province, the party
were less liable to interruption in this secluded and destitute section
of the country, than they might have been, had they chosen a lower and
more populous district; and the consciousness that every day's
perseverance brought them nearer to the ultimate term of their journey,
gave new vigor, at least, to Mildred's capacity to endure the privations
to which she was exposed. But few vestiges of the war yet occurred to
their view. The great wilderness, like the great ocean, retains no
traces of the passage of hostile bodies. Sometimes, indeed, the signs of
a woodland encampment were visible in the midst of the forest, on the
margin of some sluggish brook or around a sylvan fountain, where the
impression of recent hoof-prints, the scattered fragments of brushwood
cut for temporary shelter, and the still smouldering ashes of camp
fires, showed that masses of men had been in motion. The deer fled,
too, with a more frightened bound towards their coverts, as if lately
alarmed by the pursuit of the huntsman; but the images of devastation,
which are associated with the horrid front of war in the mind of all
familiar with its ravage, were absent. The eternal, leafy shade high
arching over the heads of the wayfarers, furnished no object for human
vengeance; and it still sighed in the fanning of the breeze, as of old
it sighed before man claimed dominion in the soil it sheltered. A far
different scene was shortly to be looked upon by our venturesome
friends.
Several days had again passed by, for the journey through the wilderness
had been slowly prosecuted, when Robinson, towards the approach of
evening, announced to Mildred his conjecture that they were not far off
the Pedee. The banks of this river had been the scene of frequent
hostilities, and the war that had been carried on here was of the most
ruthless kind. The river is characterized by a broad, deep, and quiet
stream, begirt with a vegetation of exceeding luxuriance. Its periodical
overflow seems to have poured out upon its margin a soil of
inexhaustible richness, that, for a mile or two on either side, forms a
striking contrast with the low, barren sand-hills that hem in the river
plain. Along this tract of level border, all the way to the Atlantic,
are found, as is usually the case throughout the Carolinas, the large
plantations of opulent gentlemen, who, by the cultivation of rice and
cotton, turn the fertility of the soil to the best account. These
possessions, presenting the most assailable points to an enemy, and,
indeed, almost the only ones in which the great interests of the
province might be wounded, were, during the whole of that bloody
struggle which distinguished the days of the "Tory Ascendency," the
constant objects of attack; and here the war was waged with a vindictive
malignity, on the part of the British and Tory partisans, that is
scarcely surpassed in the history of civil broils. The finest estates
were sacked, the dwellings burnt, and the property destroyed with
unsparing rage. The men were dragged from their houses and hung, the
women and children turned without food or raiment into the wilderness,
and political vengeance seemed to gorge itself to gluttony upon its own
rapine.
The thoughts of Robinson had been, for some days past, running upon the
probable difficulties that might attend the guise in which he was now
about to return to his native province. This was a subject of some
concern, since he ran a risk of being compelled either to desert his
charge, or to bring his companions into jeopardy, amongst the many
persons of both armies who were, at least by report, acquainted with his
name and his military connexions. He had explained to Mildred the
necessity of his appearing in some definite character, associated with
the object of her journey, and of which, upon emergency, he might claim
the benefit to retain his post near her. This matter was summarily
settled by Henry.
"In general, Mr. Horse Shoe, you can call yourself Stephen Foster: you
know Steve; and you can say that you are Mr. Philip Lindsay's gardener.
Isaac, here, can let you enough into the craft to pass muster, if any of
them should take it into their heads to examine you. Mind that, Isaac:
and recollect, old fellow, you are only sister Mildred's waiting man."
"Sartainly, master," replied Isaac.
"And sergeant, I'll tell you all about Steve; so that you can get your
lesson by heart. You have a wife and five children--remember that. I'll
give you all their names by-and-by."
"Thanks to the marcies of God, that ar'n't my misfortune yet," said
Horse Shoe, laughing; "but, Mr. Henry, I have got conscience enough now
for any lie that can be invented. The major and me talked that thing
over, and he's of opinion that lying, in an enemy's country, is not
forbidden in the scriptures. And I have hearn the preacher say that
Rahab, who was not a woman of good fame no how, yet she was excused by
the Lord for telling the king of Jericho a most thumping lie, consarning
her not knowing what had become of the two men that Joshua, the judge of
Israel, who was a general besides, had sent into the town to
reconnoitre; which was a strong case, Mister Henry, seeing that Rahab,
the harlot, was a taking of sides against her own people. So, I like
your plan and I'll stick by it."
This being agreed upon, it became one of the amusements of the road-side
to put the sergeant through his catechism, which was designed to make
him familiar with the traits of private history relating to the Dove
Cote and its appurtenances, that he might thereby maintain his
identity, in the event of a close investigation. Horse Shoe was but an
awkward scholar in this school of disguise, and gave Henry sufficient
employment to keep him in the path of probability; and, indeed, the
young teacher himself found it difficult to maintain an exact
verisimilitude in the part which it was his own province to play in this
deception.
On the evening to which we have alluded, the sergeant, finding himself
within a short distance of the district of country in which he was
almost certain to encounter parties of both friends and foes, adopted a
greater degree of circumspection than he had hitherto deemed it
necessary to observe. His purpose was to halt upon the borders of the
forest, and endeavor to obtain accurate information of the state of
affairs along the river, before he entered upon this dangerous ground.
Like a soldier who had a rich treasure to guard, he was determined to
run no hazard that might be avoided, in the safe conduct of the lady in
whose service he was enlisted. In accordance with this caution, he
directed the cavalcade to move onward at a moderate walk, in order that
they might not reach the limit of the woodland before the dusk of the
evening; and also in the hope of finding there some habitation where
they might pass the night. They had not advanced far in this manner
before the sergeant descried, at some distance ahead, a small log hut
standing by the road side, which, by the smoke that issued from the
chimney, he perceived to be inhabited. Upon this discovery, he ordered
the party to stop and await his return. Then giving spurs to his horse
he galloped forward, and, after a short interval of absence, returned,
made a favorable report of his reconnoissance, and conducted his
companions to the house.
The little cabin to which Mildred was thus introduced was the homestead
of an honest Whig soldier, by the name of Wingate, who was now in
service, under the command of one of the most gallant partisans that any
country ever produced, Francis Marion, then recently promoted to the
rank of a brigadier. The inmates were the soldier's family, consisting
of a young woman and a number of small children, all demonstrating by
their appearance a condition of exceedingly limited comfort. The hut
contained no more than two rooms, which exhibited but a scanty supply of
the meanest furniture. The forest had been cleared for the space of a
few acres around the dwelling, and these were occupied by a small
garden or vegetable patch, meagrely stocked with scattered and half
parched plants; and by a cornfield, along the skirts of which some lean
hogs were seen groping with a felonious stealthiness. A shed, in the
same inclosure, formed a rendezvous for a few half-starved cattle, that
probably obtained their principal but slender support from the
neighboring wood. Add to these a troop of fowls, that were now at roost
upon one of the trees hard by, and we have, probably, a tolerably
correct inventory of the worldly goods of this little family.
The woman of the house was kind and hospitable, and her attentions were
in no small degree quickened by the application of a few pieces of money
which Mildred insisted upon her receiving--much to the discomfiture of
the dame's self-possession--the boon consisting of hard coin, to an
amount of which, perhaps, she had never before been mistress.
Mildred was exceedingly fatigued, and it was an object of early
consideration to furnish her the means of rest. Our hostess assisted by
old Isaac, and officiously but awkwardly superintended by Horse Shoe,
began her preparations for supper, to the abundance of which the
provident sergeant was enabled to contribute some useful elements from
his wallet. In one of the apartments of the hut, a shock-bed was spread
for the lady, and by the assistance of her cloak and some other
commodities which had been provided as part of her travelling gear, she
was supplied with a couch that formed no ill exchange for the weariness
of her long-inhabited saddle. Use and necessity are kind nursing-mothers
to our nature, and do not often fail to endow us with the qualities
proper to the fortune they shape out for us. This was not Mildred's
first experience of a homely lodging since she left the Dove Cote; and,
as privation and toil have a faculty to convert the rough pallet of the
peasant into a bed of down, she hailed the present prospect of rest with
a contented and grateful spirit.
The supper being dispatched, our lady was left alone with her hostess,
to seek the repose of which she stood so much in need.
The sergeant now set about making provision for the rest of his party.
This was done by erecting a shelter beneath one of the trees of the
forest, opposite to the door of the cabin. It was composed of a few
boughs stacked against the trunk of the tree, sufficiently covered with
leaves to turn aside any rain that might happen to fall. Under this
cover Horse Shoe appointed that he and his comrades should pass the
night, enjoining them to keep a regular watch for the security of the
lady, whose welfare was now the object of his most sedulous attention.
All these preparations were made with the exactness of military rule,
and with a skill that greatly delighted Henry.
The long summer twilight had faded away. Mildred had been, from an early
period, in the enjoyment of a profound slumber, and Henry and his negro
ally were seated at the front of their sylvan tent. The sergeant had
lighted his pipe, and now, taking his seat upon a log that lay near his
post, he began to smoke in good earnest, with a mind as free from
anxiety as if universal peace prevailed. In the sedate enjoyment of this
luxury, he fell into a descant on matters and things, interlarded with
long and strange stories of his own singular adventures, which he told
to the no small edification and amusement of Henry and the negro.
The habits of the experienced soldier were curiously illustrated in the
thoughtful and sober foresight with which Robinson adapted his plans to
the exigencies of his condition, and then in the imperturbable
light-heartedness with which, after his measures of safety were taken,
he waited the progress of events. His watchfulness seemed to be an
instinct, engendered by a familiarity with danger, whilst the steady and
mirthful tone of his mind was an attribute that never gave way to the
inroads of care. He was the same composed and self-possessed being in a
besieged garrison, in the moment of a threatened escalade, as amongst
his cronies by a winter fire-side.
"In this here starlight, Mister Henry," he said, after he had puffed out
two or three charges of his pipe, "I can't see your eyes, but by your
yawning, I judge you are a little sleepy. Take my advice and turn in. A
sodger ought to snatch his rest when he can get it. I'll keep guard over
our young lady; the Lord protect her, for a most an elegant and oncommon
precious young creature! Fling your great coat upon the leaves, and go
at it, my lad, like a good fellow."
"If I was at home Mr. Horse Shoe, at the Dove Cote, I could sit up all
night listening to your stories; but I believe I am bewitched to-night,
for my eyelids, this hour past, have been snapping like rat traps. So,
I'll just stretch out for an hour or so, and then get up and take my
turn at the guard."
"Don't trouble your head about watching," replied Horse Shoe, "you are
not old enough for that yet. At your time of life, Mr. Lindsay, a good
night's rest is the best part of a ration. And to-morrow, if I'm not
mistaken, you will have need of all the strength you can muster
to-night. As for me, it isn't much account whether I'm asleep or awake."
"Not so fast, sergeant," rejoined the youth, "I'm an older soldier than
you take me for; Stephen and I have watched many a night for racoons.
No, no, I'll have my turn towards morning. So, you and Isaac take the
first part of the night between you, and if anything should happen, call
me; I'm one of your minute men. So good night. My horse trots harder
than I thought he did."
It was not long before our boasted minute man was locked up in a spell
apparently as profound as that which the legend affirms assailed the
seven sleepers: and Isaac, not even waiting for the good example of his
master, had already sunk upon the ground, with that facility which
distinguishes his race, the most uncaring and happiest of mortals.