a grown man who cared not a bodle for his life, and not greatly for the
manner of its losing. I grant you this; and yet it was that same
bull-bellow of soldier profanity that saved my life. Whilst I was in the
storm of it, cursing the lawyer by every shouted epithet I could lay
tongue to, a miracle was wrought and Richard Jennifer and Ephraim
Yeates pushed their way through the ever-thickening ring of onlookers;
the latter to range himself beside me with his brown-barreled rifle in
the hollow of his arm, and my dear lad to fling himself upon me in a
bear's hug of joyous recognition and greeting.
"Score one for me, Jack!" he cried. "We were fair at t'other end of the
mountain, and 'twas I told Eph there was only one man in the two
Carolinas who could swear the match of that." Then he whirled upon my
judges. "What is this, gentlemen?--a court martial? Captain Ireton is my
friend, and as true a patriot as ever drew breath. What is your charge?"
Colonel Sevier, in whose command Richard and the old borderer had fought
in the hilltop battle, undertook to explain. I stood self-confessed as
the bearer of despatches from Lord Cornwallis to Major Ferguson, he
said, and I had claimed that the orders had been so altered as to delay
the major's retreat and so to bring on the battle. But they had just
found Lord Cornwallis's letter in my pocket, still sealed and
undelivered. And the tenor of it was precisely opposite to that of an
order calculated to delay the major's march, as Mr. Jennifer could see
if he would read it.
While Sevier was talking, the old borderer was fumbling in the breast of
his hunting-shirt, and now he produced a packet of papers tied about
with red tape.
"'Pears to me like you Injun-killers from t'other side o' the mounting
is in a mighty hot sweat to hang somebody," he said, as coolly as if he
were addressing a mob of underlings. "Here's a mess o' billy-doos with
Lord Cornwallis's name to 'em that I found 'mongst Major Ferguson's
leavings. If you'll look 'em over, maybe you'll find out, immejitly _if_
not sooner, that Cap'n John here is telling ye the plumb truth."
The papers were examined hastily, and presently John Sevier lighted upon
the despatch I had carried and delivered. Thereat the colonels put their
heads together; and then my case was re-opened, with Sevier as
spokesman.
"We have a letter here which appears to be the original order to
Ferguson, Captain Ireton. Can you repeat from memory the _postscriptum_
which you say was added to it?"
I gave the gist of my old patriarch's addendum as well as I could; and
thereupon suspicion fled away and my late judges would vie with one
another in hearty frontier hand-grasps and apologies, whilst the throng
that ringed us in forgot caution and weariness and gave me a cheer to
wake the echoes.
'Twas while this burst of gratulation was abuzz that Ephraim Yeates
raised a cry of his own.
"Stop that there black-legged imp o' the law!" he shouted, pushing his
way out of the circle. "He's the one that ought to hang!"
There was a rush for the wagon barricade, a clatter of horse-hoofs on
the hillside below, and Yeates's rifle went to his face. But the bullet
flew wide, and the black-garbed figure clinging to the horse's mane was
soon out of sight among the trees.
"Ez I allow, ye'd better look out for that yaller-skinned little
varmint, Cap'n John," quoth the old man, carefully wiping his rifle
preparatory to reloading it. "He's rank pizen, he is, and ye'll have to
break his neck sooner 'r later. I 'lowed to save ye the trouble, but old
Bess got mighty foul yestiddy, with all the shootings and goings on, and
I hain't got no lead-brush to clean her out."
Now that I was fully exonerated I was free to go and come as I chose;
nay, more, I was urged to cast in my lot with the over-mountain
partizans. As to this, I took counsel with Richard Jennifer whilst the
colonels were setting their commands in order for the march and loading
the prisoners with the captured guns and ammunition.
"What is to the fore, Dick?" I asked; "more fighting?"
The lad shook his head. "Never another blow, I fear, Jack. These fellows
crossed the mountain to whip Ferguson. Having done it they will go
home."
I could not forego a hearty curse upon this worst of all militia
weaknesses, the disposition to disperse as soon as ever a battle was
fought.
"'Tis nigh on to a crime," said I. "This victory, smartly followed up,
might well be the turning of the tide for us."
But the lad would not admit the qualifying condition. "'Twill be no less
as it is," he declared. "Mark you, Jack; 'twill put new life into the
cause and nerve every man of ours afresh. And as for the redcoats, if my
Lord Cornwallis gets the news of it in a lump, as he should, Gates will
have plenty of time to set himself in motion, slow as he is."
'Twas then I had an inspiration, and I thought upon it for a moment.
"What are your plans, Richard?"
He shook his head. "I have none worth the name."
"Then you are not committed to Colonel Sevier for a term of service?"
"No; nor to Cleaveland, nor McDowell, nor any. We heard there was to be
fighting hereaway,--Ephraim Yeates and I,--and we came as volunteers."
"Good! then I have a thought which may stand for what it is worth. To
make the most of this victory over Major Ferguson, Gates should be
apprised at once and by a sure tongue; and his Lordship should have the
news quickly, too, and in a lump, as you say. Let us take horse and ride
post, we two; you to Gates at Hillsborough, and I to Charlotte."
"I had thought of my part of that," he said in a muse. Then he came
alive to the risk I should run. "But you can't well go back to
Cornwallis now, Jack: 'tis playing with death. There will be other
news-carriers--there are sure to be; and a single breath to whisper what
you have done will hang you higher than Haman."
I shrugged at this. "'Tis but a war hazard."
He looked at me curiously. I saw a shrewd question in his eyes and set
instant action as a barrier in the way of its asking.
"Let us find Colonel Sevier and beg us the loan of a pair of horses,"
said I; and so we were kept from coming upon the dangerous ground of
pointed questions and evasive answers.
Somewhat to my surprise, both Sevier and Shelby fell in at once with our
project, commending it heartily; and I learned from the lips of that
courtliest of frontiersmen, "Nolichucky Jack," the real reason for the
proposed hurried return of the over-mountain men. The Cherokees, never
to be trusted, had, as it seemed, procured war supplies from the British
posts to the southward, and were even now on the verge of an uprising.
By forced marches these hardy borderers hoped to reach their homes in
time to defend them. Otherwise, as both commanders assured us, they
would take the field with Gates.
"We have done what we could, Captain Ireton, and not altogether what we
would," said Sevier in the summing-up. "It remains now for General Gates
to drive home the wedge we have entered." Then he looked me full in the
eyes and asked if I thought Horatio Gates would be the man to beetle
that wedge well into the log.
I made haste to say that I knew little of the general; that I was but a
prejudiced witness at best, since my father had known and misliked the
man in Braddock's ill-fated campaign against the French in '55. But
Richard spoke his mind more freely.
"'Tis not in the man at this pass, Colonel Sevier," he would say; "not
after Camden. I know our Carolinians as well as any, and they will never
stand a second time under a defeated leader. If General Washington would
send us some one else; or, best of all, if he would but come himself--"
"George Washington; ah, there is a man, indeed," said Sevier, his
dark-blue eyes lighting up. "Whilst he lives, there is always a good
hope. But we must be doing, gentlemen, and so must you. God speed you
both. Our compliments to General Gates, Mr. Jennifer; and you may tell
him what I have told you--that but for our redskin threateners we should
right gladly join him. As for Lord Cornwallis, you, Captain Ireton, will
know best what to say to him. I pray God you may say it and come off
alive to tell us how he took it."
We made our acknowledgments; and when I had bespoken good care for
Tybee, we took leave of these stout fighters, and of old Ephraim as
well, since the borderer was to serve as a guide for the over-mountain
men, at least till they were come upon familiar ground to the westward.
'Twas now hard upon ten of the clock in the forenoon, and we had our
last sight of the brave little army whilst it was wending its way slowly
down the slopes of King's Mountain. Of what became of it; how its weary
march dragged on from day to day; how it was hampered by the train of
captives, halted by rain-swollen torrents, and was well-nigh starved
withal; of all these things you may read elsewhere. But now you must
ride with Richard Jennifer and me, and our way lay to the eastward.
All that Sunday we pressed forward, hasting as we could through the
stark columned aisles of the autumn-stripped forest, and looking hourly
to come upon Tarleton's legion marching out to Ferguson's relief.
Since Richard Jennifer had ridden to the hounds in all this middle
ground from boyhood, we were able to take my blind wanderings in reverse
as the arrow flies; and by nightfall we were well down upon the main
traveled road leading to Beattie's fording of the Catawba.
As your map will show you, this was taking me somewhat out of my way to
the northward; but it was Richard's most direct route to Salisbury and
beyond, and by veering thus we made the surer of missing Colonel
Tarleton, who, as we thought, would likely cross the river at the lower
ford.
Once in the high road we pushed on briskly for the river, nor did we
draw rein until the sweating beasts were picking their way in the
darkness down the last of the hills which sentinel the Catawba to the
westward.
At the foot of this hill a by-road led to Macgowan's ford some six miles
farther down the river, and here, as I supposed, our ways would lie
apart. But when we came to the forking of the road, Richard pulled his
mount into the by-path, clapping the spurs to the tired horse so that
we were a good mile beyond the forking before I could overtake him.
"How now, lad?" said I, when I had run him down. "Would you take a
fighting hazard when you need not? There is sure to be a British patrol
at the lower ford."
He jerked his beast down to a walk and we rode in silence side by side
for a full minute before he said gruffly: "You'd never find the way
alone."
I laughed. "Barring myself, you are the clumsiest of evaders, Dick. I am
on my own ground here, and that you know as well as I."
"Damn you!" he gritted between his teeth. "When we are coming near
Appleby Hundred you are fierce enough to be rid of me."
I saw his drift at that: how he would take all the chance of capture and
a spy's rope for the sake of passing within a mile of Mistress Margery,
or of the house he thought she was in.
"Go back, Dick, whilst you may," said I. "She is not at Appleby
Hundred."
He turned upon me like a lion at bay.
"What have you done with her?"
"Peace, you foolish boy. I am not her keeper. Her father took her to
Charlotte on the very day you saw her safe at home."
He reined up short in the narrow way. "So?" he said, most bitingly. "And
that is why you take the embassy to Lord Cornwallis and fub me off with
the one to Gates. By heaven, Captain Ireton, we shall change rôles here
and now!"
Ah, my dears, the love-madness is a curious thing. Here was a man who
had saved my life so many times I had lost the count of them, feeling
for my throat in the murk of that October night as my bitterest foeman
might.
And surely it was the love-demon in me that made me say: "You think I am
standing in your way, Richard Jennifer? Well, so I am; for whilst I live
you may not have her. Why don't you draw and cut me down?"
'Twas then Satan marked my dear lad for his very own.
"On guard!" he cried; "draw and defend yourself!" and with that the
great claymore leaped from its sheath to flash in the starlight.
What with his reining back for space to whirl the steel I had the time
to parry the descending blow. But at the balancing instant the
brother-hating devil had the upper hand, whispering me that here was the
death I coveted; that Margery might have her lover, if so she would,
with her husband's blood upon his head.
So I sat motionless while the broadsword cut its circle in air and came
down; and then I knew no more till I came to with a bees' hive buzzing
in my ears, to find myself lying in the dank grass at the path side. My
head was on Richard's knee, and he was dabbling it with water in his
soaked kerchief.
XLI
HOW I PLAYED THE HOST AT MY OWN FIRESIDE
You may be sure that by now the anger gale had blown itself out, that
the madness had passed for both of us; and when I stirred, Richard broke
out in a tremulous babblement of thanksgiving for that he had not slain
me outright.
"I was mad, Jack; as mad as any Bedlamite," he would say. "The devil
whispered me that you would fight; that you wanted but a decent excuse
to thrust me out of the way. And when I saw you would not stir, 'twas
too late to do aught but turn the flat of the blade. Oh, God help me!
I'll never let a second thought of that little Tory prat-a-pace send me
to hell again."
"Nay," said I; "no such rash promises, I pray you, Richard. We are but
two poor fools, with the love of a woman set fair between us. But you
need not fight me for it. The love is yours--not mine."
"Don't say that, Jack; I'm selfish enough to wish it were true; as it is
not. I know whereof I speak."
"No," I denied, struggling to my feet; "it has been yours from the
first, Dick. I am but a sorry interloper."
For a moment he was all solicitude to know if my head would let me
stand; but when I showed him I was no more than clumsily dizzy from the
effects of the blow, he went on.
"I say I know, and I do, Jack. She has refused me again."
I groaned in spirit. I knew it must have come to that. Yet I would ask
when and where.
"'Twas on our last day's riding," he went on; "after we had had your
note saying you would undertake a mission for Colonel Davie."
I took two steps and groped for the horse's bridle rein.
"Did she tell you why she must refuse you?"
He helped me find the rein for my hand and the stirrup for my foot.
"There was no 'why' but the one--she does not love me."
"But I say she does, Dick; and I, too, know whereof I speak."
He flung me into the saddle as a strong man might toss a boy, and I
understood how that saying of mine had gone into his blood.
"Then there must be some barrier that I know not of," he said. Whereupon
he put hand to head as one who tries to remember. "Stay; did you not say
there was a barrier, Jack?--when we were wrestling with death in the
Indian fires? Or did I dream it?"
"You did not dream it. But you were telling me what she said."
"Oh, yes; 'twas little enough. She cut me off at the first word as if
my speaking were a mortal sin. And when I would have tried again, she
gave me a look to make me wince and broke out crying as if her heart
would burst."
I steadied myself as I could by the saddle horn and waited till he was
up and we were moving on. Then I would say: "Truly, there is a barrier,
Richard; if I promise you that I am going to Charlotte to remove it once
for all, will you trust me and go about your affair with General Gates?"
"Trust you, Jack? Who am I that I should do aught else? When I am cool
and sane, I'm none so cursed selfish; I could even give her over to you
with a free hand, could I but hear her say she loves you as I would have
her love me. But when I am mad.... Ah, God only knows the black blood
there is in the heart at such times."
We rode on together in silence after that, and were come to the bank of
the river before we spoke again. But here Dick went back to my warning,
saying, whilst we let the horses drink: "'Tis patrolled on the other
bank, you say?"
"It was when I passed it a few days agone."
"Then I will turn back and cross at Beattie's. 'Twill make you a risk
you need not take--to have me with you."
But I thought now that the upper ford might be guarded as well; and if
there must be a cutting of a road through the enemy's outpost line for
Dick, two could do it better than one. So I said:
"No; we are here now, and if need be I can lend you the weight of a
second blade to see you safe through."
"And you with your head humming like a basket of bees, as I make no
doubt it will?"
I laughed. "I should be but a sorry soldier and a sorrier friend if I
should let a love-tap with the flat of a blade make me fail you at the
pinch."
He reached across the little gap that parted us and grasped my hand.
"By God!" he swore, most feelingly, "you are as true as the steel you
carry, Jack Ireton!"
"Nay," said I, in honest shame; "I do confess I was thinking less of my
friend than of the importance of the errand he rides on."
"But if there should be a fight, you will spoil your chance of coming
peaceably to Charlotte and my Lord's headquarters."
"If I am recognized--yes. But the night is dark, and a brush with the
outpost need not betray me."
At this he consented grudgingly, and we pushed on to the crossing. Now
since this fording place of Master Macgowan's has marched into our
history, you will like to know what the historians do not tell you:
namely, how it was but a makeshift wading place, armpit deep over a
muddy bottom from the western bank to the bar above an island in
mid-stream, and deflecting thence through rocky shallows to a point on
the eastern bank some distance below the island. 'Twas here that Lord
Cornwallis got entangled some months later--but I must not anticipate.
We made the crossing of the main current in safety and were a-splash in
the rocky shallows beyond the island when we sighted the camp-fires of
the outpost. To ride straight upon the patrol was to invite disaster,
and though Jennifer was for a charging dash, a hurly-burly with the
steel, and so on to freedom beyond, he listened when I pointed out that
our beasts were too nearly outworn to charge, and that the noise we must
make would rouse the camp and draw the fire of every piece in it long
before we could reach the bank and come to blade work.
"What for it, then?" he asked, impatiently. "My courage is freezing
whilst we wait."
"There is nothing for it but to hold straight on across," I said.
"That we can not; 'twill be over the horses' ears. The beasts will drown
themselves and us as well."
How we should have argued it out I do not know, for just then Jennifer's
horse, scenting the troop mounts on the farther shore, cocked tail and
ears, let out a squealing neigh, and fell to curveting and plunging in a
racket that might have stood for the splashings of an advancing army.
In a twinkling the outpost camp was astir and a bellowing hail came to
us across the water. Having no answer, the troopers began to let off
their pieces haphazard in the darkness; and with the singing _zip_ of
the first musket ball, Richard went battle-mad, as he always did in the
face of danger.
"At them!" he thundered, clapping spurs to his jaded beast and whipping
out the great claymore; and so we charged, the forlornest hope that ever
fell upon an enemy.
How we came ashore alive through the gun-fire is one of those mysteries
to which every battle adds its quota; but the poor beasts we rode were
not so lucky. Jennifer's horse went down while we were yet some yards
from the bank; and mine fell a moment later. To face a score of waiting
enemies afoot was too much for even Richard's rash courage; so when we
were free of the struggling horses we promptly dove for shelter under
the up-stream bank.
Here the darkness stood our friend; and when the redcoat troopers came
down to the river's edge with torches to see what had become of us, we
took advantage of the noise they made and stole away up-stream till a
shelving beach gave us leave to climb to the valley level above.
Richard shook himself like a water-soaked spaniel and laughed grimly.
"Well, here we are, safe across, horseless, and well belike to freeze to
death," he commented. "What next?"
I made him a bow. "You are on my demesne of Appleby Hundred, Captain
Jennifer, and it shall go hard with us if we can not find a fire to warm
a guest and a horse to mount him withal. Let us go to the manor house
and see what we can discover."
He entered at once into the spirit of the jest, and together we trudged
the scant mile through the stubble-fields to my old roof-tree. As you
would guess, we looked to find the manor house turned into an outpost
headquarters; but now we were desperate enough to face anything.
Howbeit, not to rush blindly into the jaws of a trap, we first routed
out the old black majordomo at the negro quarters; and when we learned
from him that the great house was quite deserted, we took possession and
had the black make us a rousing fire in the kitchen-arch. Nay, more;
when we had steamed ourselves a little dry, we had old Anthony stew and
grill for us, and fetch us a bottle of that madeira of my father's
laying in.
"A toast!" cried Richard, when the bottle came, springing to his feet
with the glass held high. "To the dear lady of Appleby Hundred, and may
she forgather with the man she loves best, be it you, or I, or another,
Jack Ireton!"
We drank it standing; and after would sit before the fire, havering like
two love-sick school-boys over the charms of that dear lady to whom one
of us was less than naught, and to whom the other could be but naught
whilst that first one lived.
You will smile, my dears, that we should come to this when, but a short
hour before, one of us had been bent upon slaying the other for Mistress
Margery's sake. But the human heart is many-sided; notably that heart
the soldier carries. And though I looked not to live beyond the setting
of another sun, I was glad to my finger-tips to have this last
loving-cup with my dear lad. I thought it would nerve me bravely for
what must come--and so it did, though not as I prefigured.
We were still sitting thus before the kitchen-arch when the dawn began
to dim the firelight, and the work of the new day confronted us. Pinned
down, old Anthony confessed that some two or three horses of the Appleby
Hundred stables had escaped the hands of the foragers of both sides; and
two of these he fetched for us. Of the twain one chanced to be
Blackstar, the good beast which had carried me from New Berne in the
spring; and so I had my own horse betwixt my knees when I set Dick a
mile on the road to Salisbury, and bade him farewell.
His last word to me was one of generous caution.
"Remember, Jack; 'haste, haste, post haste' is your watchword. There
will be other couriers in from the battle-field at King's Mountain; and
you must hang and fire your news-petard and vanish before they come to
betray you."
"Trust me," said I, evasively; and so we parted, he to gallop eastward,
and I to charge down peaceably upon that British outpost we had set
abuzz in the small hours of the night.
XLII
IN WHICH MY LORD HAS HIS MARCHING ORDERS
Though I had passed out of the British lines less than a week before in
decent good odor, save for Colonel Tarleton's ill word, I met with
nothing like the welcome at the outpost camp that a king's courier had a
right to expect.
The captain in command was not the one who had passed me out. He was a
surly brute of the Yorkshire breed; and when he had heard that I was an
express rider from Major Ferguson, he was pleased to demand my papers.
To this I must needs make answer that I carried no written despatches;
that my news was for the commander-in-chief's private ear. This I told
my Yorkshire pig, demanding to be sent, under guard if he chose, to the
headquarters in Charlotte.
But Captain Nobbut would hear to no such reasonable proposal. On the
contrary, he would hold me in arrest till he could report me and have
instructions from his colonel.
Knowing what a stake it was I rode for, you may imagine how this day in
durance ate into me like a canker. With ordinary diligence the trooper
who carried the news of me should have gone to Charlotte by way of
Queensborough and returned by noon. But being of the same surly breed
with his captain, 'twas full three of the clock before he came ambling
back with an order to set me forthwith upon the road to headquarters.
Once free of the camp of detention you may be sure I put Blackstar to
his best paces; but hasten as I would it was coming on to evening when I
passed the inner safety line and galloped down the high street of the
town.
As luck would have it, the first familiar face I saw was that of Charles
Stedman, the commissary-general. On my inquiry he directed me straight.
"My Lord is at supper at Mr. Stair's. Have you news, Captain?"
I drew breath of relief. Happily the loss of the day had not made me the
bearer of stale tidings. So I made answer with proper reticence, saying
that I had news, but it was for Lord Cornwallis's ear first of all. None
the less, if the commissary-general were pleased to come with me--