'Tis your hearing now, but mine will come, and you shall hang like a
dog! I'll follow you to the ends of the earth--I'll--"
I made a sign and the soldier brought his musket into play and pricked
his prisoner with the bayonet in token that time pressed. So we were rid
of the lawyer in bodily presence, though I could hear his snarlings and
spittings as the big Darmstädter ran him out at the bayonet's point.
During this tilt between his factor and me, Mr. Gilbert Stair had stood
apart, watchful but trembling. When we were alone I said:
"Now, Mr. Stair, I shall trouble you to billet me somewhere in your
house, as a member of my Lord's family. Lead on, if you please, and I'll
follow."
He went before me without a word, out of the little den and up the broad
stair, doddering like a man grown ten years older in a breath, and
catching at the balustrade to steady himself as we ascended. The room he
gave me was at an angle in one of the crookings of the corridor, and
pointing me to the door he went pottering away, still without a word or
a look behind him.
The door was on the latch, but it gave reluctantly, letting me in
suddenly when I set my shoulder to it. There was a quick little cry,
half of anger, half of affright, from within. I drew back hastily, with
a muttered curse upon the old man's spite, and in the act my spur caught
the door and slammed it shut behind me.
For reasons known only to Omniscience and to himself, Gilbert Stair had
shown me to my lady's chamber; she was standing, with her bodice off,
before the oval mirror on the high dressing case.
XXXVI
HOW I RODE POST ON THE KING'S BUSINESS
If a look might be a leven-stroke to do a man to death, I warrant you my
lady's flashing eyes would have crisped me to a cinder where I stood
fumbling with one hand behind me for the latch of the slammed door.
Scorn, indignation, outraged maiden modesty, all these thrust at me like
air-drawn daggers; and it needed not her, "Fie, for shame, Captain
Ireton!--and you would call yourself a gentleman!" to set me afire with
prinklings of abashment.
What could I say or do? The accursed door-latch would not find itself to
let me fly; and as for excusings, I could not tell her that her own
father had thrust me thus upon her. Yet, had she let me be, I hope I
should have had the wit to find the door fastening and the grace to run
away; in truth, I had the latch in hand when she lashed out at me again,
and my tingling shame began to give place to that master-devil of
passion which is never more than half whipped into subjection in the
best of us.
"How are you better than the man you warned me of?" she cried. And
then, in a tempest of grief: "Oh! you would not leave me the respect I
bore you; you must even rob me of that to fling it down and trample it
under foot!"
Figure to yourselves, my dears, that I was wholly blameless in this
unhappy breaking and entering, and so, mayhap, you may find excuse for
me. For now, though I could have gone, I would not. Her glorious beauty,
heightened beyond compare by the passionate outburst, held me
spellbound. And at my ear the master-devil whispered: She is your wedded
wife; yours for better or worse, till death part you. Who has a better
right to look upon her thus?
So it was that the love-madness came upon me again, and that thin
veneering wherewith the Christian centuries have so painfully overlaid
the natural man in us was cracked and riven, and the barbarian which
lies but skin-deep underneath bestirred himself and winked and blinked
himself awake in giant might, as did the primal man when he rose up to
look about him for his mate.
Before I knew what I would do, I was beside her, and honor, or what may
stand therefor betwixt a man and his friend, was flung away. But when I
would have crushed her sweetness in my arms she went upon her knees to
me.... Ah, God! she knelt to me as she had knelt to that other would-be
ravisher and begged me for mine own honor's sake to bethink me of what I
would do.
"Oh, Monsieur John! be merciful as you are strong!" she pleaded. "Think
what it will mean to you, and how you will loathe me and yourself as
well when this madness is overpast! Oh, go; go quickly, lest I, too,
forget--"
And so it was that I found sudden strength to turn and leave her
kneeling there; turned to grope blindly for the door with all the pains
of hell aflame within me.
For now I had put honor under foot; now I knew that I had truly earned
her scorn and loathing. I could no longer plead that I was the puppet of
fate flung against my will between this maiden and my dear lad. I was
the wilful offender; false to my love, false to my friend, a recreant to
every oath wherewith I had bound myself to be true and loyal to these
two.
With such a flaming sword to drive me forth, I stumbled from the room,
thinking only how I should quickest rid me of myself. Hastening to my
garret sleeping-place I buckled on my sword, found my shako, and went
straight to my Lord's bed-chamber. My rap at the door went unanswered,
and a broad-shouldered young fellow in a lieutenant's uniform, lounging
on a settle in the clock landing of the stair, told me Lord Cornwallis
was gone out.
I was face to face with this young lieutenant before I recognized him;
being so bent upon haste I should have passed him on the landing without
a second glance had he not risen to grip me by the shoulders.
"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, "is it thus you pass an old friend
without a word, Captain Ireton?"
'Twas my good death-watch; that Lieutenant Tybee of the light-horse who
had sunk the British officer in the man in that trying night at Appleby
Hundred. I returned his hearty greeting as well as I might, and would
have explained my present state and standing but that I was loath to lie
to him. But as to this, he saved me the shame of it.
"I could have sworn you were no rebel, Captain Ireton; indeed, I made
bold to say as much to our colonel, after it was all over. I told him a
soft word or two would have won you back to your old service. You see I
knew better than the others what lay beneath all your madnesses that
night."
"You knew somewhat, but not all," I said; and thereupon, lest he should
involve me deeper and detain me longer when I was athirst to be gone, I
hastened to ask where I might hope to find his Lordship and Colonel
Tarleton.
"'Tis the hour for parade; you will find them at the camp," he replied.
And then, out of the honest English heart of him: "Have you made your
peace, Captain? Do you need a friend to go with you?"
I said I had been granted a hearing by Lord Cornwallis but a little
while before; that by my Lord's appointment I was now a sort of honorary
aide-de-camp.
"Good!" said the lieutenant, gripping my hand in a way to make me wince
for the lie-in-effect hidden in the simple statement of fact. Then he
roared at the soldier standing guard at the house door below: "A mount
for Captain Ireton--and be swift about it!"
He held me in talk till the horse was fetched, happily doing most of the
talking himself, and when I was in the saddle gave me a hearty
God-speed. Being so sick with self-despisings, I fear I made but a poor
return for all this good comradeship; but at the time I could think of
nothing but the hell that flamed within me, and of how I could soonest
quench the fires of it.
The town, which I had not seen since early summer, was but little
changed by the British occupation, save in the livening of it by the
near-at-hand camp of an armed host. Being but a halt-point _en route_ in
the northward march, it was not fortified; indeed, for the matter of
that, the camp proper was a little way without the town, as I have said.
I rode slowly across the common, skirting the commissary's quarters and
making mental notes of all I saw; this from soldier habit solely, for at
the time I had little thought of living on to make a spy's use of them.
Arrived at the parade ground, I found my Lord galloping through the
lines on inspection, and so I must draw rein in the background and wait
my opportunity.
The pause gave space for some eye-sweep of the scene, and all the
soldier blood in me was stirred by the sight, the first I had had in
many a day, of a well-ordered army, fit, disciplined, machine-drilled
to move like the parts of a wondrous mechanism.
At the back of Lord Cornwallis and his galloping suite, Tarleton's
famous light-horse legion was drawn up; and fronting it was the
infantry, rank on rank, the glittering bayonets slanting in the October
sunlight as the regiments moved into place, or standing in rigid groves
of steel at the command to halt and port arms.
What was there in all our poor raw land to stand against this
well-trained host, armed--as we were not--with the deadly bayonet, and
moving as one man at the word of command? Not the bravest home guard or
militia troop, I thought; and this seeing of what he had had to front on
the field of Camden made me think less scornfully of Horatio Gates.
Riding presently around the field to be the nearer to the general when
my time should come, I missed the mark completely. It so chanced that as
the parade was ended my Lord and his suite were at the extreme right;
and when the regiments broke ranks I was forced to skirt the entire camp
to come into the road. By this time those I sought were gone into the
town, so I must needs turn about and follow, with the thing I had to say
still unspoken.
I need not drag you back and forth with me on the search I made to find
Lord Cornwallis again. 'Tis enough to say that after missing him here
and there, I ran him to earth at the court house, where, it was told
me, my Lord was sitting in council with his staff officers.
Thinking it worse than useless to try to force my way into the council
chamber, I waited in the raff of soldiery without, cursing the delay
which gave my despairing resolution time to cool. When I had closed the
door of my dear lady's chamber behind me I was resolved to fling myself
upon that fate which needed but a word from me to make my calling and
election to a gibbet swift and sure. Had I found my Lord Cornwallis in
his bed-room the word would have been spoken; but now the iron of
resolution cooled in spite of me.
'Twas not that I was less willing to pay the price of expiation; that
must be done in any case. But I had seen the enemy, and all the soldier
in me rebelled at the thought of dying like a noosed bullock in the
shambles. Could I but strike that one good blow.
The old court house of our greater Mecklenburg was such as some of you
may remember; a stout wooden building raised upon brick pillars to leave
a story underneath. In the time of the British occupation this lower
story served as a market house, and the public entrance to the court
room above was reached by steps on the outside. In my boyhood days this
outer stair was the only one; but now in wandering aimlessly through the
market-place beneath I found another flight in a corner; the "jury
stair," they called it, since it provided the means of egress from the
jury box above.
The sight of this inner stair set me plotting. Could I make use of it to
come unseen into the council chamber of Lord Cornwallis and his
officers?
The market-place was well thronged with venders and soldier buyers; the
patriotic Mecklenburgers were not averse to the turning of an honest
penny upon the needs of their oppressors, as it seemed. I watched my
chance, and when there were no prying eyes to mark it, made the dash up
the steps.
Happily for the success of the adventure there was an angle in the
narrow stair to hide me whilst I lifted the trap door in the court-room
floor a scant half-inch and got my bearings. As I had hoped, the trap
opened behind the jury box, and I was able to raise it cautiously and so
to draw myself up into the room above, unseen and unheard.
A peep around the corner of the high jury stalls showed me my Lord and
his suite gathered about the lawyers' table in front of the bar. Of the
staff I recognized only Stedman, the commissary-general; Tarleton,
looking something the worse for his late illness; Major Hanger, his
second in command, and the young Irishman, Lord Rawdon.
At the moment of my espial, Cornwallis was speaking, and I drew back to
listen, well enough content to be in earshot. For if my good angel had
timed my coming I could not have arrived at a more opportune moment.
"What we have to consider now is how best to reach Ferguson with an
express instantly," his Lordship was saying. "This rising of the
over-mountain men is likely to prove a serious matter--not only for the
major, but for the king's cause in the two provinces. Lacking positive
orders to the contrary, Ferguson will fight--we all know that; and if he
should be defeated 'twill hopelessly undo his work among the border
loyalists and set us back another twelvemonth."
"Then your Lordship will order him to come in with what he has?" said a
voice which I knew for Colonel Tarleton's.
"Instanter, had I a sure man to send."
"Pshaw! I can find you a hundred amongst the late royalist recruits."
'Twas young Lord Rawdon who said this.
"Damn them!" said his Lordship shortly; "I would sooner trust this new
aide of mine. He comes straight from the major and can find his way back
again."
Tarleton laughed. "I fear we shall never agree upon him, my Lord. I know
not how he has made his peace with you, but I do assure you he is as
great a rascal as ever went unhung. 'Tis true, as you say, I did not go
into the particulars; but were Captain Stuart or Sir Francis Falconnet
here, either of them would convince your Lordship in a twinkling."
There was silence for a little space following the colonel's
denunciation of me, and then my Lord broke it to say: "I may not be so
credulous as you think, Colonel. Rebel spy or true-blue loyalist, he is
safe enough for the present. In the meantime in this matter of reaching
Ferguson we may make good use of him."
"In what manner, your Lordship?" asked one whose voice I did not
recognize.
"He has come straight from Major Ferguson, as I say; and, loyalist or
rebel, he can find his way back to Gilbert Town."
"But you'll never be trusting him with despatches!" said Lord Rawdon.
"There is no need to trust him. He can be given the despatches with some
hint of their purport, and of how much the king's cause will profit by
their safe delivery."
Again a silence fell upon the group around the lawyers' table, and then
some one--'twas Major Hanger, as I thought--said: "'Tis an unread riddle
for me as yet, my Lord."
Cornwallis laughed. "Where are your wits this morning, gentlemen? If he
be loyal and true, the despatches will go safe enough. If, on the other
hand, he be a rebel and a spy, he will doubtless tamper with them; but
in that case he will none the less ride straight enough to Major
Ferguson's headquarters in the West."
"H'm; your Lordship is still too deep for me," said Tarleton's second in
command. "If he be a rebel and a spy, why, in God's name, should he
carry your Lordship's letters to any but some rag-tag colonel of his own
kidney?"
My Lord laughed again. "Truly, Major, you should go to a dame's school
and learn diplomacy. If we tell him beforehand what our object is, how
could any rebel of them all defeat it more surely than by going to
Ferguson with a garbled message that would make him stand and fight a
losing battle?"
"But, my Lord--the risk!" cut in the commissary-general.
"There need be none. An hour after he sets out we shall send a mounted
detail after him with an Indian tracker to nose out his trail. The
lieutenant in command will carry duplicate despatches. At the worst,
Ireton will guide these followers to Ferguson's rendezvous; and, so far
as we know, he is the only man who knows exactly where to find the
major."
I had heard enough. Under cover of the chorus of bravos raised by Lord
Cornwallis's explication of his plot within a plot, I lifted the
trap-door and made my exit as noiselessly as I had come.
Guessing that no time would be lost in putting the plan into action, I
made haste to be found inquiring hither and yon for the
commander-in-chief when my Lord and his suite came down the outer stair;
and when we were met I was quickly told of my assignment to courier
duty.
"Make your preparations to take the road within the hour, and report to
me at Friend Stair's," said my Lord, most affably. "We shall put your
new-found loyalty to the test, Captain Ireton, by entrusting you with a
most important mission. Go with the commissary-general and he will find
you your mount and equipment."
Thus dismissed, I went with Stedman, and was accorded a more gentlemanly
welcome than my overhearings had given me leave to expect.
On the way to the horse paddock the commissary-general told me of his
plan to write a history of the campaign; a bit of confidence which set
me laughing inwardly and wondering if he would put one John Ireton,
sometime of the Scots Blues, and late captain in her Apostolic Majesty's
Hussars, between the covers of his book. 'Tis small wonder that he did
not. I have since had the pleasure of reading his history of the great
war, and I find it curiously lacking in those incidents which did not
redound to the honor and glory of the king's cause and army in the
field.
Not to digress, however, my makeshift mount was soon exchanged for a
better; I was allowed to draw what I would of accoutrements and
provender from the king's stores; and so, to cut it short, I was
presently at the door of my Lord's headquarters fully equipped and ready
for the road.
I did hope in those last few moments that I might have a chance to
exchange a word with my dear lady; might ask her forgiveness, or,
failing so much grace of her, might at least have another sight of her
sweet face.
But even this poor boon was denied me. I was scarce out of the saddle
when an aide came to conduct me to the general, and I saw no one in the
house save my Lord himself.
As you would guess, my instructions conformed exactly to the plan
outlined by Lord Cornwallis in the council. I was entrusted with a
sealed packet for delivery to Major Ferguson, and, for safety's sake, as
my Lord explained, I was given the meat of the message to deliver
verbally should the need arise. Ferguson was to be ordered to come in
instantly by forced marches, if necessary, and he was on no account to
risk a battle with the over-mountain men.
You may be sure, my dears, that I scarce drew breath till I was a-horse
and out of the town and galloping hard on the road to that ford of
Master Macgowan's which afterward became famous in our history under the
misspelling "Cowan's Ford." 'Twas too good to be true that I should be
thrust thus into the very gaping mouth of opportunity, and now and again
I would feel the packet buttoned tight beneath my hussar jacket to make
sure 'twas not a dream to vanish at a touch.
In the mad joy of it the spirit of prophecy came upon me, and I saw as
if the thing were done, how at last I held the fate of the patriot cause
in all our west country in the hollow of my hand.
XXXVII
OF WHAT BEFELL AT KING'S CREEK
Skipping lightly over the happenings of the two days following my
departure from Charlotte on the king's errand, I may say that after
passing the British outposts at the crossing of the Catawba, I met
neither friend nor foe; and from noon on I rode to the westward through
a pitiless drizzling rain, splashed to the belt with the mire of the
road, and having little chance to inquire my way.
This last lack grew with the passing hours to the size of a threatening
hazard. As you may have guessed, I knew no more than a blind man the
route I should take; knew no more of the whereabouts of Gilbert Town and
Major Ferguson's rendezvous than that both were some eighty miles to the
westward.
At the outset I had thought to feel out the way in general by cautious
inquiry along the road; but when I came to consider of this, the risk of
betraying my ignorance to those who followed me was too great to let me
turn aside to any of the wayside houses; and as for chance passers-by,
there were none--the rain kept all within doors.
So I was constrained to gallop on without pause; and throughout that
comfortless afternoon and the scarce less miserable day which followed,
there were no incidents to break the dull monotony of the blind race
save these two; that once the clouds lifted enough to give me a glimpse
of my pursuers in a far reach to the eastward; and once again I had a
sight of an awkward horseman in the road before me--saw him and tried to
overtake him, and could not, for all his clumsy riding.
Now I was curious about this lone horseman ahead for more reasons than
one, but chiefly because my glimpse of him seemed to show me the back of
a man whom I made sure I had left safe behind in the British guard-house
in Charlotte, to wit: the scoundrelly little pettifogger.
At first I scoffed at the idea. Saying he were free to leave Charlotte,
how should he be riding post on my haphazard road to the westward? 'Twas
against all reason, and yet the tittuping figure of which I had but a
rain-veiled glimpse named itself Owen Pengarvin in spite of all the
reasons I could bring to bear.
'Twas close on eventide of the second day, the early evening gloaming of
a chill autumnal rain-day, and I had been since morning dubiously lost
in the somber trackless forest, when an elfish cry rose, as it would
seem, from beneath the very hoofs of my horse.
"God save the king!"
The bay shied suddenly, standing with nostrils a-quiver; and I had to
look closely to make out the little brown dot of humanity clad in russet
homespun crouching in the path, its childish eyes wide with fear and its
lips parted to shrill again: "God save the king!"
I threw a stiff leg over the cantle and swung down to go on one knee to
my stout challenger. I can never make you understand, my dears, how the
sight of this helpless waif appearing thus unaccountably in the heart of
the great forest mellowed and softened me. 'Twas a little maid, not
above three or four years old, and with a face that Master Raphael might
have taken as a pattern for one of his seraphs.
"What know you of the king, little one?" I asked.
"Gran'dad told me," she lisped. "If I was to see a soldier-man I must
say, quick, 'God save the king,' or 'haps he'd eat me. Is--is you
hungry, Mister Soldier-man?"
"Truly I am that, sweetheart; but I don't eat little maids. Where is
your grandfather?"
"Ain't got any gran'favver; I said 'gran'_dad_.'"
"Well, your gran'dad, then; can you take me to him?"
"I don't know. 'Haps you'd eat _him_."
"No fear of that, my dear. Do I look as if I ate people?"
She gave me a long scrutiny out of the innocent eyes and then put up two
little brown hands to be taken. "I tired" she said; and my sore heart
went warm within me when I took her in my arms and cuddled her. After a
long-drawn sigh of contentment, she said: "My name Polly; what's yours?"
"You may call me Jack, if you please--Captain Jack, if that comes the
easier. And now will you let me take you to your gran'dad?"
She nodded, and I spoke to the bay and mounted, still holding her
closely in my arms.
"Tell me quickly which way to go, Polly," I said; for besides being, as
I would fear, far out of the way to Gilbert Town, the last hilltop to
the rear had given me another sight of my shadowing pursuers riding hard
as if they meant to overtake me.
The little maid sat up straight on the saddle horn and looked about her
as if to get her bearings.
"That way," she said, pointing short to the right; and I wheeled the
horse into a blind path that wound in and out among the trees for a long
half mile, to end at a little clearing on the banks of a small stream.
In the midst of the clearing was a rude log cabin; and in the open
doorway stood a man bent and aged, a patriarchal figure with white hair
falling to his shoulders and a snowy beard such as Aaron might have
worn. At sight of me the old watcher disappeared within the house, but a
moment later he was out again, fingering the lock of an ancient
Queen's-arm.
I drew rein quickly, and the little maid sat up and saw the musket.
"Don't shoot, gran'dad!" she cried. "He's Cappy Jack, and he doesn't
eat folkses."
At this the old man came to meet us, though still with the clumsy musket
held at the ready.
"These be parlous times, sir," he said, half in apology, I thought. And
then: "You have made friends with my little maid, and I owe you somewhat
for bringing her safe home."
"Nay," said I; "the debt is mine, inasmuch as I have the little one for
my friend. 'Tis long since I have held a trusting child in my arms, I do
assure you, sir."