stewings of such roots and herbs as the Catawba could find in the wood.
Then, when we were at our wits' ends, and Yeates and I were casting
about how we could compass the bringing of a doctor from the
settlements, the fever took a turn for the better,--of its own accord,
or for Uncanoola's physickings, we knew not which,--and at the end of
the third week Dick was up and able to ride again, this time without the
forked stick to hold him in the saddle.
After this we went on without mishap, and with no hardship greater than
that of living solely upon the meat victual provided by the hunter's
rifle; and you who know this plough-dressed region at this later day
will wonder when I write it down that in all that long faring, or rather
to the last day's stage of it, we saw never a face of any of our kind,
or of the Catawba's.
You may be sure the month or more we spent thus in the heart of the
wildwood was but a sorry time for me. While the excitement of the
pursuit and rescue lasted, and later, when anxiety for Richard filled
the hours of the long days and nights, I was held a little back from
slipping into that pit of despair which I had digged for myself.
But when the strain was off and Dick was up and fit again, the misery
of it all came back with added goadings. I had never dreamed how cutting
sharp 'twould be to see these two together day by day; to see her
loving, tender care of him, and to hear him babble of his love for her
in his feverish vaporings. Yet all this I must endure, and with it a
thing even harder. For, to make it worse, if worse could be, the shadow
of complete estrangement had fallen between Margery and me. True to her
word, given in that moment when I had besought her not to speak aloud
for her own safety's sake, she had never opened her lips to me; and for
aught she said or did I might have been a deaf-mute slave beneath her
notice.
And as she drew away from me, she seemed to draw the closer to Richard
Jennifer, nursing him alive when he was at his worst, and giving him all
the womanly care and sympathy a sick man longs for. And later, when he
was fit to ride again, she had him always at her side in the onward
faring.
As I have said before, this was all as I would have it. Yet it made me
sick in my soul's soul; and at times I must needs fall behind to rave it
out in solitude, cursing the day that I was born, and that other more
misfortunate day when I had reared the barrier impassable between these
two.
What wonder, then, that, as we neared the fighting field of the great
war, I grew more set upon seizing the first chance that might offer an
honorable escape from all these heartburnings? 'Twas a weakness, if you
choose; I set down here naught but the simple fact, which had by now
gone as far beyond excusings as the underlying cause of it was beyond
forgiveness.
'Twas on the final day, the day when we were riding tantivy to reach
Queensborough by evening, that my deliverance came. I say deliverance
because at the moment it had the look of a short shrift and a ready
halter.
We had crossed our own Catawba and were putting our horses at the steep
bank on the outcoming side, when my saddle slipped. Dismounting to
tighten the girth, I called to the others to press on, saying I should
overtake them shortly.
The promise was never kept. I scarce had my head under the saddle flap
before a couple of stout knaves in homespun, appearing from I know not
where, had me fast gripped by the arms, whilst a third made sure of the
horse.
"A despatch rider," said the bigger of the two who pinioned me. "Search
him, Martin, lad, whilst I hold him; then we'll pay him out for
Tarleton's hanging of poor Sandy M'Guire."
I held my peace and let them search, taking the threat for a bit of
soldier bullyragging meant to keep me quiet. But when they had turned
the pockets of my borrowed coat inside out and ripped the lining and
made it otherwise as much the worse for their mishandling as it was for
wear, the third man fetched a rope.
"Did you mean that, friend?--about the hanging?" I asked, wondering if
this should be my loophole of escape from the life grown hateful.
"Sure enough," said the big man, coolly. "You'd best be saying your
prayers."
I laughed. "Were you wearing my coat and I yours, you might hang me and
welcome; in truth, you may as it is. Which tree will you have me at?"
The man stared at me as at one demented. Then he burst out in a guffaw.
"Damme, if you bean't a cool plucked one! I've a mind to take you to the
colonel."
"Don't do it, my friend. Though I am something loath to be snuffed out
by the men of my own side, we need not haggle over the niceties. Point
out your tree."
"No, by God! you're too willing. What's at the back of all this?"
"Nothing, save a decent reluctance to spoil your sport. Have at it, man,
and let's be done with it."
"Not if you beg me on your knees. You'll go to the colonel, I say, and
he may hang you if he sees fit. You must be a most damnable villain to
want to die by the first rope you lay eyes on."
"That is as it may be. Who is your colonel?"
"Nay, rather, who are you?"
I gave my name and circumstance and was loosed of the hand-grip, though
the third man dropped the cord and stepped back to hold me covered with
his rifle.
"An Ireton, you say? Not little Jock, surely!"
"No, big Jock; big enough to lay you on your back, though you do have a
hand as thick as a ham."
He ignored the challenge and stuck to his text. "I never thought to see
the son of old Mad-bull Roger wearing a red coat," he said.
"That is nothing. Many as good a Whig as I am has been forced to wear a
red coat ere this, or go barebacked. But why don't you knot the halter?
In common justice you should either hang me or feed me. 'Tis hard upon
noon, and I breakfasted early."
"Fall in!" said the big man; and so I was marched quickly aside from the
road and into the denser thicketing of the wood. Here my captors
blindfolded me, and after spinning me around to make me lose the compass
points, hurried me away to their encampment which was inland from the
stream, though not far, for I could still hear the distance-minished
splashing of the water.
When the kerchief was pulled from my eyes I was standing in the midst of
a mounted riflemen's halt-camp, face to face with a young officer
wearing the uniform of the colonelcy in the North Carolina home troops.
He was a handsome young fellow, with curling hair and trim side-whiskers
to frame a face fine-lined and eager--the face of a gentleman well-born
and well-bred.
"Captain Ireton?" he said; by which I guessed that one of my capturers
had run on ahead to make report.
"The same," I replied.
"And you are the son of Mr. Justice Roger Ireton, of Appleby Hundred?"
"I have that honor."
He gave me his hand most cordially.
"You are very welcome, Captain; Davie is my name. I trust we may come to
know each other better. You are in disguise, as I take it; do you bring
news of the army?"
"On the contrary, I am thirsting for news," I rejoined. "I and three
others have but now returned from pursuing a British and Indian powder
convoy into the mountains to the westward. We have been out five weeks
and more."
He looked at me curiously. "You and three others?" he queried. "Come
apart and tell me about it whilst Pompey is broiling the venison. I
scent a whole Iliad in that word of yours, Captain Ireton."
"One thing first, if you please, Colonel Davie," I begged. "My
companions are faring forward on the road to Queensborough. They know
naught of my detention. Will you send a man to overtake them with a note
from me?"
The colonel indulged me in the most gentlemanly manner; and when my note
to Jennifer was despatched we sat together at the roots of a great oak
and I told him all that had befallen our little rescue party. He heard
me through patiently, and when the tale was ended was good enough to say
that I had earned a commission for my part in the affair. I laughed and
promptly shifted that burden to Ephraim Yeates's shoulders.
"The old hunter was our general, Colonel Davie. He did all of the
planning and the greater part of the executing. But for him and the
friendly Catawba, it would have gone hard with Jennifer and me."
"I fear you are over-modest, Captain," was all the reply I got; and then
my kindly host fell amuse. When he spoke again 'twas to give me a résumé
in brief of the military operations North and South.
At the North, as his news ran, affairs remained as they had been, save
that now the French king had sent an army to supplement the fleet, and
Count Rochambeau and the allies were encamped on Rhode Island ready to
take the field.
In the South the distressful situation we had left behind us on that
August Sunday following the disastrous battle of Camden was but little
changed. General Gates, with the scantiest following, had hastened first
to Salisbury and later to Hillsborough, and had since been busy striving
to reassemble his scattered forces.
A few military partizans, like my host, had kept the field, doing what
the few might against the many to retard my Lord Cornwallis's northward
march; and a week earlier the colonel with his handful of mounted
riflemen had dared to oppose his entry into Charlotte.
"'Twas no more than a hint to his Lordship that we were not afraid of
him," said my doughty colonel. "You know the town, I take it?"
"Very well, indeed."
"Well, we had harassed him all the way from Blair's Mill, and 'twas
midnight when we reached Charlotte. There we determined to make a stand
and give him a taste of our mettle. We dismounted, took post behind the
stone wall of the court house green and under cover of the fences along
the road."
"Good! an ambush," said I.
"Hardly that, since they were looking to have resistance. Tarleton was
sick, and Major Hanger commanded the British van. He charged, and we
peppered them smartly. They tried it again, and this time their infantry
outflanked us. We abandoned the court house and formed again in the
eastern edge of the town; and now, bless you! 'twas my Lord Charles
himself who had to ride forward and flout at his men for their want of
enterprise."
"But you could never hope to hold on against such odds!" I exclaimed.
"Oh, no; but we held them for a third charge, and beat them back, too.
Then they brought up two more regiments and we mounted and got off in
tolerably good order, losing only six men killed. But Colonel Francis
Locke was one of these; and my brave Joe Graham was all but cut to
pieces--a sore blow to us just now."
The colonel sighed and a silence fell upon us. 'Twas I who broke it to
say: "Then we are still playing a losing hand in the South, as I take
it?"
"'Tis worse than that. As the game stands we have played all our trumps
and have not so much as a long suit left. Cornwallis will go on as he
pleases and overrun the state, and the militia will never stand to front
him again under Horatio Gates. Worse still, Ferguson is off to the
westward, embodying the Tories by the hundred, and we shall have
burnings and hangings and harryings to the king's taste."
I nursed my knee a moment and then said: "What may one man do to help,
Colonel Davie?"
He looked up quickly. "Much, if you are that man, and you do not value
your life too highly, Captain Ireton."
"You may leave that out of the question," said I. "I shall count it the
happiest moment of my life when I shall have done something worth their
killing me for."
Again he gave me that curious look I had noted before. Then he laughed.
"If you were as young as Major Joe Graham, and had been well crossed in
love, I could understand you better, Captain. But, jesting aside, there
is a thing to do, and you are the man to do it. Our spies are thick in
Cornwallis's camp, but what is needed is some master spirit who can plot
as well as spy for us. Major Ferguson moves as Cornwallis pulls the
strings. Could we know the major's instructions and designs, we might
cut him off, bring the Tory uprising to the ground, and so hearten the
country beyond measure. I say we might cut him off, though I know not
where the men would come from to do it."
"Well?" said I, when he paused.
"The preliminary is some better information than our spies can give us.
Now you have been an officer in the British service, and--"
I smiled. "Truly; and I have the honor, if you please to call it so, of
his Lordship's acquaintance. Also, I have that of Colonel Tarleton and
the members of his staff, the same having tried and condemned me as a
spy at Appleby Hundred some few weeks before this chase I have told you
of."
His face fell. "Then, of course, it is out of the question for you to
show yourself in Cornwallis's headquarters."
I rose and buttoned my borrowed coat.
"On the contrary, Colonel Davie, I am more than ever at your service.
Let me have a cut of your venison and a feed for my horse, and I shall
be at my Lord's headquarters as soon as the nag can carry me there."
XXXII
IN WHICH I AM BEDDED IN A GARRET
"Tis a very pretty hazard, Captain Ireton. But can it be brought off
successfully, think you?"
"As I have said, it hangs somewhat upon the safety of my portmanteau. If
that has come through unseized to Mr. Pettigrew at Charlotte, and I can
lay hands on it, 'twill be half the battle."
"You say you left it behind you at New Berne?"
"Yes; Mr. Carey was to forward it as he could."
Colonel Davie had given me bite and sup, and I was ready to take the
road. My plan, such as it was, had been determined upon, and to the
furthering of it, the colonel had written me a letter to a friend in the
town who might shelter me for a night and make the needed inquiry for my
belongings. Also, he had given me another letter, of which more anon,
and had pressed upon me a small purse of gold pieces--a treasure rare
enough in patriot hands in that impoverished time.
When all was done, two of my late captors were ordered to set me
straight in the road; and some half-hour past noon I had shaken hands
with the big fellow in homespun who had been so bent upon hanging me
without benefit of clergy, had crossed the river, and was making the
first looping in a detour which should bring me into Charlotte from the
westward.
'Twas drawing on toward evening, and I had recrossed the river a mile or
more below Appleby Hundred, when I began to meet the outposts of the
British army. I was promptly halted by the first of these; but my
borrowed uniform and a ready word or two passed me within the lines as a
courier riding post to headquarters from Major Ferguson in the west.
The lieutenant in command of the first vedette line was not
over-curious. He asked me a few questions about the major's plans and
dispositions,--questions which, thanks to Colonel Davie's information, I
was able to answer glibly enough, swallowed my tale whole, and was so
obliging as to give me the password for the night to help me through the
inner sentry lines.
Thus fortified, I rode on boldly, and having the countersign the
difficulties vanished. When I was come to town it was well past
candle-lighting; and the patrol was out in force. But by dint of using
the password freely I made my way unhindered to the house of the
gentleman to whom Colonel Davie's letter accredited me.
Here, however, the difficulties began. Though the camp of the army lay
just without the town to the southward, the officers were quartered in
every house, and that of Colonel Davie's friend was full to
overflowing. What was to be done we knew not, but at the last moment my
friend's friend thought of an expedient and wrote a note for me whilst I
waited, half in hiding, in the outer hall.
"'Tis a desperate chance, but these are desperate times," said my
would-be helper. "I am sending you to the town house of one of our
plantation seigneurs--a man who is fish, flesh or fowl, as his interest
demands. I hear he came in to-day to take protection, and there is a
chance that he will shelter you for the sake of your red coat and a gold
piece or two. But I warn you, you must be what you appear to be--a
soldier of the king--and not what this note of Colonel Davie's says you
are."
Seeing a wide field of danger-chances in this haphazarding, I would have
asked more about this trimming gentleman to whom I was to be handed on;
but at that moment there came a thundering at the door, and my anxious
host was fain to hustle me out through the kitchen as he could, catching
up a black boy on the way to be my guide.
"God speed you," he said at parting. "Make your footing good for the
night, if you can, and we'll see what can be done to-morrow. I'll send
your portmanteau around in the morning, if so be Mr. Pettigrew has it."
With that I was out in the night again, turning and doubling after my
guide, who seemed to be greatly afeard lest I should come nigh enough to
cast an evil eye upon him.
'Twas but a little distance we had to go, and I had no word out of my
black rascal till we reached the door-stone of a familiar mansion but
one remove from the corner of the court house green. Here, with a
stuttering "D-d-dis de house, Massa," he fled and left me to enter as I
could.
Since the street was busily astir with redcoat officers and men coming
and going, and any squad of these might be the questioners to doubt my
threadbare courier tale, I lost no time in running up the steps and
hammering a peal with the heavy knocker. Through the side-lights I could
see that the wide entrance hall was for the moment unoccupied; but at
the knocker-lifting I had a flitting glimpse of some one--a little man
all in sober black--coming down the stair. There was no immediate answer
to my peal, but when I would have knocked again the door was swung back
and I stepped quickly within to find myself face to face with--Margery.
I know not which of the two of us was the more dumbfounded; but this I
do know; that I was still speechless and fair witless when she swept me
a low-dipped curtsy and gave me my greeting.
"I bid you good evening, Captain Ireton," she said, coldly; and then
with still more of the frost of unwelcome in her voice: "To what may we
be indebted for this honor?"
Now, chilling as these words were, they thrilled me to my finger-tips,
for they were the first she had spoken to me since the night of my
offending in the black gorge of the far-off western mountains. None the
less, they were blankly unanswerable, and had the door been open I
should doubtless have vanished as I had come. Of all the houses in the
town this was surely the last I should have run to for refuge had I
known the name of its master; and it was some upflashing of this thought
that helped me find my tongue.
"I never guessed this was your father's house," I stammered, bowing low
to match her curtsy. "I beg you will pardon me, and let me go as I
came."
She laid a hand on the door-knob. "Is--is there any one here whom you
would see?" she asked; and now her eyes did not meet mine, and I would
think the chill had melted a little.
"No. I was begging a night's lodging of a friend whose house is full. He
sent me here with a note to--ah--to your father, as I suppose, though in
his haste he did not mention the name."
She held out her hand. "Give me the letter."
"Nay," said I; "that would be but thankless work. Knowing me, your
father must needs conceive it his duty to denounce me."
"Give it me!" she insisted; this with an impatient little stamp of the
foot and an upglance of the compelling eyes that would have constrained
me to do a far foolisher thing, had she asked it.
So I gave her the letter and stood aside, hat in hand, while she read
it. There were candles in their sconces over the mantel and she moved
nearer to have the better light. The soft glow of the candles fell upon
her shining hair, and upon cheek and brow; and I could see her bosom
rise and fall with the quick-coming breath, and the pulse throbbing in
her fair white neck. And with the seeing I became a fool of love again
in very earnest, and was within a hair's breadth of sinking honor and
all else in an outpouring of such words as a man may say once to one
woman in all the world--and having said them may never unsay them.
'Twas a most practical little thing she did that saved me from falling
headlong into this last ditch of dishonor. Twisting the letter into a
spill she stood on tiptoe to light it at one of the candles, saying:
"'Twas a foolish thing to put on paper, and might well hang the writer
in such times as these. He says you are a king's man and well known to
him, and you are neither." But when the letter was a crisp of blackened
paper-ash she turned upon me, and once again the changeful eyes were
cold and her words were stranger-formal.
"What is it you would have me do, Captain Ireton?"
"Nothing," I made haste to say; "nothing save to believe that I came
here unwittingly--and to let me go."
"Where will you go? The town is alive with those who would--who would--"
"Who would show me scant mercy, you would say. True; and yet I came
hither--to the town, I mean--of my own free will."
Her mood changed in the pivoting fraction of an instant, and now the
beautiful eyes were alight and warm and pleadingly eloquent.
"Oh, why did you come? Are you--are you what they said you were?"
"A spy? If I am, you would scarce expect me to confess it, even to you."
"'Tis dishonorable--most dishonorable!" she cried. "I could respect a
brave soldier enemy; but a spy--"
There was a clattering of hoofs in the street and a jingle of
sword-scabbards on the door-stone. I wheeled to face the newcomers,
determined now to front it boldly as a desperate man at bay. But before
the fumbling hands without could find the door-knob Margery was beside
me, all a-flutter in a trembling-fit of excitement.
"Up the stair, quickly, _pour l'amour de Dieu!_" she whispered; and we
were at the clock landing when the great door opened and some half-dozen
king's officers came in. We crouched together behind the balustrade till
they should pass beyond the sight of us, and in the group I marked a man
stout and heavy built, walking full solidly for his two-and-forty years.
He wore his own hair dressed high in front in the fashion first set for
the women by the Grand Monarque's loose-wife; and as he passed under the
candles I saw that it was graying slightly. His face, high-browed,
long-nosed, double-chinned, with the eyes womanish for bigness and
marked with brows that might have been penciled by the hair-dresser, I
had seen before; but lacking this present sight of it, the orders on
his breast would have named him the ranking general of the army in the
field--Lord Charles Cornwallis. With all the houses in the town to
choose among, I had blundered into this--my Lord's own headquarters.
I had but a passing glimpse of the incoming group, for when it was well
beneath the turn of the stair, my lady had me up and running again,
driving me on before her to the chamber floor above, along a dimly
lighted corridor with many turnings, and so to a _cul-de-sac_ in the
same--a doorless passage with a high dormer window in the end and no
other apparent means of egress.
Margery had snatched a candle from one of the corridor holders in the
flight, and now she bade me sit on the floor and draw my boots. I did
it, shamefacedly enough, being but a foul and ragged vagabond unfit to
have her come anigh me. But I might have spared my blushings for she had
turned her back and was opening a secret door in the high wainscot.
Beyond the door lay a raftered garret half filled with cast-off house
lumber and lighted and aired by two high roof windows. Into this she led
me, with a finger on her lip for silence. A hum of voices, the clinking
of glass, and now and again a hearty soldier laugh told me that my
garret was above some living-room of the house.
While I stood, boots in hand, she found a makeshift candlestick and in
a trice had spread me a pallet on an ancient oaken settle big enough to
serve for a choir stall in a cathedral.
"You'll be safe here for the night, if so be you will make no more noise
than a rat might make," she whispered. "_Mais, mon Dieu!_ 'tis a
terrible risk. How you will get off in the morning I do not know."
"Leave that to me," I rejoined. Then I remembered the portmanteau and
the promise that it should be sent hither. Here was a further
complication, and I must needs beg a boon of her. "A black boy will
bring my portmanteau in the morning. I have a decent desire to be hanged
in clean clothing; may I beg you to--"
She made a quick little gesture of impatience; at the further
complication, or at my boldness in asking, I knew not which. But her
whispered reply was of assent, and then she turned to leave me.
At that a sudden fierce desire to know why she had thus befriended me
came to throttle prudence.