Defeated at every point and with great loss, the British columns had
retired into the bed of the ravine, where, shielded from the fire of the
Americans, they lay several hours shivering with cold and ankle deep in
mud and water; yet consoling themselves with the hope that the renewal
of the assault under cover of the coming darkness, would be attended
with a happier issue. But the gallant General, who appeared in the
outset to have intended they should make picks of their bayonets and
scaling-ladders of each other's bodies, now that a mound sufficient for
the latter purpose could be raised of the slain, had altered his mind,
and alarmed, and mayhap conscience stricken at the profuse and
unnecessary sacrifice of human life which had resulted from the first
wanton attack, adopted the resolution of withdrawing his troops. This
was at length finally effected, and without further loss.
Fully impressed with the belief that the assailants would not be
permitted to forego the advantages they still possessed in their near
contiguity to the works, without another attempt at escalade, the
Americans had continued calmly at their posts; with what confidence in
the nature of their defences and what positive freedom from danger, may
be inferred from the fact of their having lost but one man throughout
the whole affair, and that one killed immediately through the loop-hole
by the shot that avenged the death of poor Middlemore. When at a late
hour they found that the columns were again in movement, they could
scarcely persuade themselves they were not changing their points of
attack. A very few minutes, however, sufficed to show their error; for,
in the indistinct light of a new moon, the British troops were to be
seen ascending the opposite face of the ravine and in full retreat. Too
well satisfied with the successful nature of their defence, the
Americans made no attempt to follow, but contented themselves with
pouring in a parting volley, which however the obscurity rendered
ineffectual. Soon afterwards the sally-port was again opened, and such
of the unfortunates as yet lingered alive in the trenches were brought
in, and every attention the place could afford paid to their
necessities.
An advanced hour of the night brought most of the American officers
together in their rude mess-room, where the occurrences of the day were
discussed with an enthusiasm of satisfaction natural to the occasion.
Each congratulated each on the unexpected success, but commendation was
more than usually loud in favor of their leader, to whose coolness and
judgment, in reserving his fire until the approach of the enemy within
pistol shot, was to be attributed the severe loss and consequent check
they had sustained.
Next became the topic of eulogium the gallantry of those who had been
worsted in all but their honor, and all spoke with admiration of the
devotedness of the two unfortunate officers who had perished in the
trenches--a subject which, in turn, led to a recollection of the brave
soldier who had survived the sweeping discharge from the bastion, and
who had been so opportunely saved from destruction by the Commandant
himself.
"Captain Jackson," said that officer, addressing one of the few who wore
the regular uniform of the United States army, "I should like much to
converse with this man, in whom I confess, as in some degree the
preserver of his life, I feel an interest. Moreover, as the only
uninjured among our prisoners, he is the one most calculated to give us
information in regard to the actual force of those whom we have this day
had the good fortune to defeat, as well as of the ultimate destination
of the British General. Notes of both these important particulars, if I
can possibly obtain them, I wish to make in a despatch of which I intend
you to be the bearer."
The Aid-de-camp, for in that capacity was he attached to the person of
Colonel Forrester, immediately quitted the room, and presently
afterwards returned ushering in the prisoner.
Although Gerald was dressed, as we have said, in the uniform of the
private grenadier, there was that about him which, in defiance of a
person covered from head to foot with the slimy mud of the trenches, and
a mouth black as ink with powder from the cartridges he had bitten, at
once betrayed him for something more than he appeared.
There was a pause for some moments after he entered. At length Colonel
Forrester inquired, in a voice strongly marked by surprise:
"May I ask, sir, what rank you hold in the British army?"
"But that I have unfortunately suffered more from your mud than your
fire," replied Gerald, coolly, and with undisguised bitterness of
manner, "the question would at once be answered by a reference to my
uniform."
"I understand you, sir; you would have me to infer you are what your
dress, and your dress alone, denotes--a private soldier?"
Gerald made no answer.
"Your name, soldier?"
"My name!"
"Yes; your name. One possessed of the gallantry we witnessed this day
cannot be altogether without a name."
The pale cheek of Gerald was slightly tinged. With all his grief, he
still was a man. The indirect praise lingered a moment at his heart,
then passed off with the slight blush that as momentarily dyed his
cheek.
"My name, sir, is a humble one, and little worthy to be classed with
those who have this day written theirs in the page of honor with their
heart's blood. I am called Gerald Grantham."
"Gerald Grantham!" repeated the Commandant, musingly, as though
endeavoring to bring back the recollection of such a name.
The prisoner looked at him steadfastly in return, yet without speaking.
"Is there another of your name in the British squadron?" continued
Colonel Forrester, fixing his eye full upon his prisoner.
"There are many in the British squadron whose names are unknown to me,"
replied Gerald, evasively, and faintly coloring.
"Nay," said Colonel Forrester, "that subterfuge more than anything
betrays you. Though not answered, I am satisfied. How we are to account
for seeing a gallant sailor attacking us in our trenches, in the humble
garb of a private soldier, and so out of his own element, I cannot
understand; but the name of Gerald Grantham, coupled with your manner
and appearance, assures us we are making personal acquaintance with one
to whose deeds we are not strangers. Gentlemen," addressing his
officers, "this is the Lieutenant Grantham, whose vessel was captured
last autumn at Buffalo, and of whose gallant defence my cousin, Captain
Edwin Forrester, has spoken so highly. Lieutenant Grantham," he pursued,
advancing and offering his hand, "when I had the happiness to save your
life this day, by dashing aside the fuze that would have been the agent
in your destruction, I saw in you but the brave and humble soldier, whom
it were disgrace not to have spared for so much noble daring. Judge how
great must be my satisfaction to know that I have been the means of
preserving, to his family and country, one whose name stands so high
even in the consideration of his enemies."
Poor Gerald! how bitter and conflicting must have been his feelings at
that moment. On the one side, touched by the highest evidences of esteem
a brave and generous enemy could proffer--on the other, annoyed beyond
expression at the recollection of an interposition which had thwarted
him in his fondest, dearest hope--that of losing, at the cannon's mouth,
the life he loathed. What had been done in mercy and noble forbearance,
was to him the direst punishment that could be inflicted; yet how was it
possible to deny gratitude for the motive which had impelled his
preservation, or fail in acknowledgment of the appreciation in which he
thus found himself personally held.
"It would be idle, Colonel Forrester," he said, taking the proffered
hand, "after the manner in which you have expressed yourself, to deny
that I am the officer to whom you allude. I feel deeply these marks of
your regard, although I cannot but consider any little merit that may
attach to me very much overrated by them. My appearance in this dress,
perhaps requires some explanation. Prevented by the shallowness of the
river from co-operating with the array in my gun-boat, and tired of
doing nothing, I had solicited and obtained permission to become one of
the storming party in the quality of volunteer, which of necessity
induced the garb in which you now behold me. You know the rest."
"And yet, Colonel," said a surly-looking backwoodsman, who sat with one
hand thrust into the bosom of a hunting frock, and the other playing
with the richly ornamented hilt of a dagger, while a round hat,
surmounted by a huge cockade, was perched knowingly over his left ear,
covering, or rather shadowing, little more than one fourth of his
head--"I reckon as how this here sort of thing comes within the spy act.
Here's a commissioned officer of King George, taken not only in our
lines, but in our very trenches in the disguise of a private soger. What
say you, Captain Buckhorn?" turning to one somewhat younger and less
uncouth, who sat next him habited in a similar manner. "Don't you think
it comes within the spy act?"
Captain Buckhorn, however, not choosing to hazard an opinion on the
subject, merely shrugged his shoulders, puffed his cigar, and looked at
the Colonel as if he expected him to decide the question.
"As I am a true Tennessee man, bred and born, Major Killdeer," said the
Aid-de-camp Jackson, "I can't see how that can lie. To come within the
spy act, a man must be in plain clothes, or in the uniform of his enemy.
Now, Liftenant Grantham, I take it, comes in the British uniform, and
what signifies a whistle if he wears gold lace or cotton tape, provided
it be stuck upon a scarlet coat, and that in the broad face of day, with
arms in his hand,--aye, and a devil of a desperation to make good use of
them too"--he added, with a good naturedly malicious leer of the eye
towards the subject of his defence.
"At all events, in my conceit, it's an attempt to undervally himself,"
pursued the tenacious Kentuckian Major. "Suppose his name warn't known
as it is, he'd have passed for a private soger, and would have been
exchanged for one, without our being any the wiser; whereby the United
States, service, I calculate, would have lost an officer in the balance
of account."
"Although there cannot be the slightest difficulty," observed Colonel
Forrester, "in determining on the doubt first started by you, Major
Killdeer I confess, that what you have now suggested involves a question
of some delicacy. In the spirit, although not altogether in the letter,
of your suggestion, I agree; so much so, Mr. Grantham," he added,
turning to Gerald, "that in violence to the inclination I should
otherwise have felt to send you back to your lines, on parole of honor,
I shall be compelled to detain you until the pleasure of my government
be known as to the actual rank in which you are to be looked upon. I
should say that, taken in arms as a combatant without rank, we have no
right to know you as anything else; but as I may be in error, I am sure
you will see how utterly impossible it is for me to take any such
responsibility upon myself, especially after the difficulty you have
just heard started."
Gerald, who had listened to this discussion with some astonishment, was
not sorry to find the manner of its termination. In the outset he had
not been without alarm that the hero of one hour might be looked upon
and hanged as the spy of the next; and tired as he was of life, much as
he longed to lay it down, his neck had too invincible a repugnance to
anything like contact with a cord to render him ambitious of closing his
existence in that way. He was not at all sorry, therefore, when he found
the surly-looking Major Killdeer wholly unsupported in his sweeping
estimate of what he called the "spy act." The gentlemanly manner of
Colonel Forrester, forming as it did so decided a contrast with the
unpolished--even rude frankness of his second in command was not without
soothing influence upon his mind, and to his last observation he
replied, as he really felt, that any change in his views as to his
disposal could in no way affect him, since it was a matter of total
indifference whether he returned to Amherstburg, or was detained where
he was. In neither case could he actively rejoin the service until duly
exchanged, and this was the only object embraced in any desire he might
entertain of the kind.
"Still," added the Colonel, "although I may not suffer you to return yet
into Canada, I can see no objection to according you the privilege of
parole of honor, without at all involving the after question of whether
you are to be considered as the soldier or the officer. From this moment
therefore, Mr. Grantham, you will consider yourself a prisoner at large
within the fort--or, should you prefer journeying into the interior, to
sharing the privations and the dullness inseparable from our isolated
position, you are at liberty to accompany Captain Jackson, my
Aid-de-camp, who will leave this within twelve hours, charged with
dispatches for the Governor of Kentucky."
Gerald had already acknowledged to himself that, if anything could add
to his wretchedness, it would be a compulsory residence in a place not
only destitute itself of all excitement, but calling up, at every hour,
the images of his brave companions in danger--men whom he had known when
the sun of his young hopes shone unclouded, and whom he had survived but
to be made sensible of the curse of exemption from a similar fate;
still, with that instinctive delicacy of a mind whose natural refinement
not even a heavy weight of grief could wholly deaden, he felt some
hesitation in giving expression to a wish, the compliance with which
would, necessarily, separate him from one who had so courteously treated
him, and whom he feared to wound by an appearance of indifference.
"I think, Mr. Grantham," pursued Colonel Forrester, remarking his
hesitation, "I can understand what is passing in your mind. However I
beg you will suffer no mere considerations of courtesy to interfere with
your inclination. I can promise you will find this place most dismally
dull, especially to one who has no positive duty to perform in it. If I
may venture to recommend, therefore, you will accompany Captain Jackson.
The ride will afford you more subject for diversion than anything we can
furnish here."
Thus happily assisted in his decision Gerald said, "Since, Sir, you
leave it optional with me, I think I shall avail myself of your kind
offer and accompany Captain Jackson. It is not a very cheering sight,"
he pursued, anxious to assign a satisfactory reason for his choice, "to
have constantly before one's eyes the scene of so signal a discomfiture
as that which our arms have experienced this day."
"And yet," said Colonel Forrester, "despite of that discomfiture, there
was nothing in the conduct of those engaged that should call a blush
into the cheek of the most fastidious stickler for national glory. There
is not an officer here present," he continued, "who is not prepared to
attest with myself, that your column in particular behaved like heroes.
By the way, I could wish to know, but you will use your own discretion
in answering or declining the question, what was the actual strength of
your attacking force?"
"I can really see no objection to a candid answer to your question,
Colonel," returned Gerald, after a moment's consideration. "Each
division was, I believe, for I cannot state with certainty, little more
than two hundred strong, making in all, perhaps, from six hundred to six
hundred and fifty men. In return, may I ask the number of those who so
effectually repulsed us?"
"Why I guess only one hundred and fifty, and most all my volunteers,"
somewhat exultingly exclaimed Major Killdeer.
"Only one hundred and fifty men!" repeated Gerald, unable to disguise
his vexation and astonishment.
"That ere's a poser for him," said the Major, turning and addressing
Captain Buckhorn in an under tone, who replied to him with a wink from
his nearest eye.
"Even so, Mr. Grantham," replied the Colonel. "One hundred and fifty men
of all arms, save artillery, composed my force at the moment when your
columns crossed the plain. To-night we muster one hundred and
forty-nine."
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Gerald warming into excitement, with vexation
and pique, "what a disgraceful affair."
"Disgraceful, yes--but only in as far as regards those who planned, and
provided (or rather ought to have provided) the means of attack. I can
assure you, Mr. Grantham, that although prepared to defend my post to
the last, when I saw your columns first emerge from the wood, I did not
expect, with my small force, to have been enabled to hold the place one
hour; for who could have supposed that even a school boy, had such been
placed at the head of an army, would have sent forward a storming party,
without either fascines to fill a trench, or ladders to ascend from it
when filled. Had these been provided, there can be no doubt of the
issue, for, to repulse the attempt at escalade in one quarter, I must
have concentrated the whole of my little force--and thereby afforded an
unopposed entrance to the other columns--or even granting my garrison to
have been sufficient to keep two of your divisions in check, there still
remained a third to turn the scale of success against us."
"I can understand the satisfaction with which you discovered this
wretched bungling on the part of our leaders," remarked Gerald, with
vexation.
"No sooner had I detected the deficiency," pursued Colonel Forrester,
"than I knew the day would be my own, since the obstacles opposed to
your attempt would admit of my spreading my men over the whole line
embraced within the attack. The result, you see, has justified my
expectation. But enough of this. After the fatigues of the day, you must
require both food and rest. Captain Jackson, I leave it to you to do the
honors of hospitality towards Mr. Grantham, who will so shortly become
your fellow-traveller; and if, when he has performed the ablutions he
seems so much to require, my wardrobe can furnish anything your own
cannot supply to transform him into a backwoodsman (in which garb I
would strongly advise him to travel). I beg it may be put under
contribution without ceremony."
So saying, Colonel Forrester departed to the rude log-hut that served
him for his head-quarters, first enjoining his uncouth second to keep a
sufficient number of men on the alert, and take such other precautions
as were necessary to guard against surprise--an event, however, of which
little apprehension was entertained, now that the British troops
appeared to have been wholly withdrawn.
Sick, wearied, and unhappy, Gerald was but too willing to escape to the
solitude of retirement, to refuse the offer which Captain Jackson made
of his own bed, it being his intention to sit up all night in the
mess-room, ready to communicate instantly with the Colonel in the event
of any alarm.
Declining the pressing invitation of the officers to join in the repast
they were about to make for the first time since the morning, and more
particularly that of Captain Buckhorn, who strongly urged him to "bring
himself to an anchor and try a little of the Wabash," he took a polite
but hasty leave of them all, and was soon installed for the night in the
Aid-de-camp's dormitory.
It would be idle to say that Gerald never closed his eyes that
night--still more idle would it be to attempt a description of all that
passed through a mind whose extent of wretchedness may be inferred from
his several desperate although unsuccessful, efforts at the utter
annihilation of all thought. When he met Colonel Forrester and his
officers in the mess-room at breakfast, he was dressed, as had been
recommended, in the hunting frock and belt of a backwoodsman; and in
this his gentlemanly figure looked to such advantage as to excite
general attention--so much so, indeed, that Major Killdeer was more than
once detected in eyeing his own heavy person, as if to ascertain if the
points of excellence were peculiar to the dress or to the man. Sick and
dispirited as he was, Gerald felt the necessity of an attempt to rally,
and however the moralist may condemn the principle, there is no doubt
that he was considerably aided in his effort by one or two glasses of
bitters which Captain Buckhorn strongly recommended as being of his
wife's making, and well calculated to put some color into a man's
face--an advantage in which, he truly remarked, Grantham was singularly
deficient.
Accurate intelligence having been obtained from a party of scouts, who
had been dispatched early in the morning to track their course, that the
British General with his troops and Indians had finally departed,
preparations were made about midday for the interment of the fallen. Two
large graves were accordingly dug on the outer brow of the ravine, and
in these the bodies of the fallen soldiers were deposited, with all the
honors of war. A smaller grave, within the fort, and near the spot where
they so nobly fell, was considerately allotted to Cranstoun and
Middlemore. There was a composedness on the brow of the former that
likened him, even in death, to the living man; while, about the
good-humored mouth of poor Middlemore, played the same sort of
self-satisfied smile that had always been observable there when about to
deliver himself of a sally. Gerald, who had imposed upon himself the
painful duty of attending to their last committal to earth, could not
help fancying that Middlemore must have breathed his last with an
inaudible pun upon his lips--an idea that inexpressibly affected him.
Weighed down with sorrow as was his own soul, he had yet a tear for the
occasion--not that his brave comrades were dead, but that they had died
with so much to attach them to life--while he whose hope was in death
alone, had been chained, as by a curse to an existence compared with
which death was the first of human blessings.
On the following morning, after an early breakfast, he and Captain
Jackson quitted the fort, Colonel Forrester--who had not failed to
remark that the brusque manner of his aide-de-camp was not altogether
understood by his charge--taking occasion at parting, to assure the
latter that, with all his eccentricity, he was a kind-hearted man, whom
he had selected to be near him more for his personal courage, zeal, and
general liberality of feeling, than for any qualifications of intellect
he possessed.
The means provided for their transport into the interior were well
assimilated to the dreariness of the country through which they passed.
Two common pack-horses, lean, galled by the saddle, and callous from
long acquaintance with the admonitory influence both of whip and spur,
had been selected by Captain Jackson as the best within the fort.
Neither were the trappings out of keeping with the steeds they decked.
Moth-eaten saddles, almost black with age, beneath which were spread
pieces of dirty blanket to prevent further excoriation of the already
bared and reeking back--bridles, the original thickness of which had
been doubled by the incrustation of mould and dirt that pertinaciously
adhered to them--stirrups and bits, with their accompanying buckles--the
absence of curb chains being supplied by pieces of rope--all afforded
evidence of the wretchedness of resource peculiar to a back settlement
population. Over the hard saddles, however, had been strapped the
blankets which, when the travellers were fortunate enough to meet with a
hut at the close of their day's ride, or, as was more frequently the
case, when compelled to bivouac in the forest before the fire kindled by
the industry of the hardy aide-de-camp, served them as their only couch
of rest, while the small leather valise tied to the pummel of the
saddle, and containing their scanty wardrobe, was made to do the duty of
the absent pillow. The blanket Gerald found to be the greatest advantage
of his grotesque equipment--so much so, indeed, that when compelled, by
the heavy rains which took place shortly after their departure, to make
it serve, after the fashion of a backwoodsman, as a covering for his
loins and shoulders, he was obliged to own that his miseries, great as
they were, were yet susceptible of increase.
Notwithstanding Captain Jackson had taken what he considered to be the
best of the two Rosinantes for himself. Gerald had no reason to deny the
character for kind-heartedness given of him by Colonel Forrester.
Frequently when winding through some dense forest, or moving over some
extensive plain where nothing beyond themselves told of the existence of
man, his companion would endeavor to divert him from the abstraction and
melancholy in which he was usually plunged, and, ascribing his
melancholy to an unreal cause, seek to arouse him by the consolatory
assurance that he was not the first man who had been taken
prisoner--adding that there was no use in snivelling, as "what was done
couldn't be undone, and no great harm neither, as there was some as
pretty gals in Kaintuck as could be picked out in a day's ride; and that
to a good-looking young fellow like himself, with nothing to do but make
love to them, _that_ ought to be no mean consideration, enabling him, as
it would, to while away the tedium of captivity." At other times he
would launch forth into some wild rhapsody, the invention of the moment,
or seek to entertain his companion with startling anecdotes connected
with his encounters with the Indians on the Wabash, (where he had
formerly served) in the course of which much of the marvellous, to call
it by the most indulgent term, was necessarily mixed up--not perhaps
that he was quite sensible of this himself, but because he possessed a
constitutional proneness to exaggeration that rendered him even more
credulous of the good things he uttered than those to whom he detailed
them.
But Gerald heard without being amused, and, although he felt thankful
for the intention, was distressed that his abstraction should be the
subject of notice, and his despondency the object of care. To avoid this
he frequently suffered Jackson to take the lead, and, following some
distance in the rear with his arms folded and the reins loose upon the
horse's neck, often ran the risk of having his own neck broken by the
frequent stumbling of the unsure-footed beast. But the Captain as often
returned to the charge, for, in addition to a sincere desire to rally
his companion, he began at length to find it exceedingly irksome to
travel with one who neither spoke himself, nor appeared to enjoy speech
in another; and when he had amused himself with whistling, singing,
hallooing, and cutting a thousand antics with his arms, until he was
heartily tired of each of these several diversions, he would rein in his
horse to suffer Gerald to come up, and, after a conciliating offer of
his rum flask, accompanied by a slice of hung beef that lined the wallet
depending from his shoulder, enter upon some new and strange exploit, of
which he was as usual the hero. Enforced in a degree to make some return
for the bribe offered to his patience, Gerald would lend--all he
could--his ear to the tale; but long before the completion he would give
such evidence of his distraction, as utterly to disconcert the narrator,
and cause him finally to have recourse to one of the interludes above
described.
In this manner they had journeyed some days, when the rains suddenly
commenced with a violence and continued with a pertinacity, that might
have worn out the cheerfulness of much less impatient spirits than those
of our travellers, who without any other protection than what was
afforded by the blanket tightly girt around the loins, and fastened over
the shoulders in front of the chest, presented an appearance quite as
wild as the waste they traversed. It was in vain that, in order to
promote a more rapid circulation, they essayed to urge their jaded
beasts out of the jog-trot in which they had set out. Accustomed to this
from the time when they first emerged from colthood into horsehood, the
aged steeds, like many aged senators of their day, were determined
enemies to anything like innovation on the long established customs of
their caste; and, although, unlike the said senators, they were made to
bear all the burdens of the state, still did they not suffer themselves
to be driven out of the sluggish habits in which sluggish animals of
every description seem to feel themselves privileged to indulge. Whip
and spur, therefore, were alike applied in vain, as to any accelerated
motion in themselves; but with this advantage at least to their riders,
that while the latter toiled vigorously for an increase of vital warmth
through the instrumentality of their non-complying hacks they found it
where they least seemed to look for it--in the mingled anger and
activity which kept them at the fruitless task.
It was at the close of one of those long days of wearying travel
throughout a vast and unsheltered plain--where only here and there rose
an occasional cluster of trees, like oases in the desert--that, drenched
to the skin with the steady rain, which commencing at the dawn had
continued without a moment's intermission, they arrived at a small log
hut, situate on the skirt of a forest forming one of the boundaries of
the vast savannah they had traversed. Such was the unpromising
appearance of this apology for a human dwelling, that, under any other
circumstances, even the "not very d----d particular" Jackson, as the
aide-de-camp often termed himself, would have passed it by without
stopping; but after a long day's ride, and suffering from the greatest
evils to which a traveller can well be subjected--cold, wet and
hunger--even so wretched a resting-place as this was not to be despised;
and accordingly a determination was formed to stop there for the night.
On riding up to the door, it was opened to their knock, when a tall
man--apparently its only occupant--came forth, and after viewing the
travellers a moment with a suspicious eye, inquired "what the strangers
wanted?"
"Why I guess," said Jackson, "it doesn't need much conjuration to tell
that. Food and lodging for ourselves, to be sure, and a wisp of hay and
tether for our horses. Hospitality, in short; and that's what no true
Tennessee man, bred and born, never refused yet--no, not even to an
enemy, such a night as this."
"Then you must go further in search of it," replied the woodsman,
surlily. "I don't keep no tavern, and han't got no accommodation; and
what's more, I reckon I'm no Tennessee man."
"But any accommodation will do friend. If you havn't got beds, we'll
sit up all night, and warm our toes at the fire, and spin long yarns,
as they tell in the Eastern sea-ports. Anything but turn a fellow out
such a night as this."
"But I say, stranger," returned the man fiercely and determinedly, "I
an't got no room any how, and you shan't bide here."
"Oh, ho, my old cock! that's the ticket, is it? But you'll see whether
an old stager like me is to be turned out of any man's house such a
night as this. I havn't served two campaigns against the Ingins and the
British for nothing; and here I rest for the night."
So saying, the determined Jackson coolly dismounted from his horse, and
unbuckling the girth, proceeded to deposit the saddle, with the valise
attached to it, within the hut, the door of which still stood open.
The woodman, perceiving his object, made a movement, as if to bar the
passage; but Jackson with great activity seized him by the wrist of the
left hand, and, all-powerful as the ruffian was, sent him dancing some
few yards in front of the threshold before he was aware of his
intention, or could resist the peculiar _knack_ with which it was
accomplished. The aide-de-camp, meanwhile, had deposited his saddle in a
corner near the fire, and on his return to the door, met the
inhospitable woodsman advancing as if to court a personal encounter.
"Now, I'll tell you what it is, friend," he said calmly, throwing back
at the same time the blanket that concealed his uniform and--what was
more imposing--a brace of large pistols stuck in his belt. "You'd better
have no nonsense with me, I promise you, or--" and he tapped with the
fore finger of his right hand upon the butt of one of them, with an
expression that could not be misunderstood.
The woodsman seemed little awed by this demonstration. He was evidently
one on whom it might have been dangerous for one man, however well
armed, to have forced his presence, so far from every other human
habitation; and it is probable that his forbearance then arose from the
fact of there being two opposed to him, for he glanced rapidly from one
to the other, nor was it until he seemed to have mentally decided that
the odds of two to one were somewhat unequal, that he at length withdrew
himself out of the doorway, as if in passive assent to the stay he could
not well prevent.
"Just so, my old cock," continued Jackson, finding that he had gained
his point, "and when you speak of this again, don't forget to say it was
a true Tennessee man, bred and born, that gave you a lesson in what no
American ever wanted--hospitality to a stranger. Suppose you begin and
make your self useful, by tethering and foddering old spare bones."
"I reckon as how you've hands as well as me," rejoined the surly
woodsman, "and every man knows the ways of his own beast best. As for
fodder, they'll find it on the skirt of the wood, and where natur'
planted it."
Gerald meanwhile, finding victory declare itself in favor of his
companion, had followed his example and entered the hut with his saddle.
As he again quitted it, a sudden flash of light from the fire, which
Jackson was then in the act of stirring, fell upon the countenance of
the woodsman who stood without, his arms folded and his brow scowling,
as if planning some revenge for the humiliation to which he had been
subjected. In the indistinct dusk of the evening Grantham had not been
able to remark more than the outline of the figure; but the voice struck
him as one not unknown to him, although somewhat harsher in its tones
than that which his faint recollection of the past supplied. The glance
he had now obtained, momentary as it was, put every doubt to rest. What
his feelings were in recognising in the woodsman the traitor settler of
the Canadas, Jeremiah Desborough, we leave to our readers to infer.