XIII
IN WHICH A PILGRIMAGE BEGINS
As you have guessed before you turned this page, the men who charged soopportunely to cut me out of peril were my captors only in the savingsense.
Their overnight bivouac was not above a mile beyond the glade ofambushment. It was in a little dell, cunningly hid; and the embers ofthe camp-fires were still alive when we of the horse came first to thisagreed-on rallying point.
Here at this rendezvous in the forest's heart I had my first sight ofany fighting fragment of that undisciplined and yet unconquerablepatriot home-guard that even in defeat proved too tough a morsel forBritish jaws to masticate.
They promised little to the eye of a trained soldier, these borderlevies. In fancy I could see my old field-marshal,--he was the father ofall the martinets,--turn up his nose and dismiss them with acontemptuous "_Ach! mein Gott!_" And, truly, there was little outwardshow among them of the sterling metal underneath.
They came singly and in couples, straggling like a routed band ofbrigands; some loading their pieces as they ran. There was no hint ofsoldier discipline, and they might have been leaderless for aught I sawof deference to their captain. Indeed, at first I could not pick thecaptain out by any sign, since all were clad in coarsest homespun andwell-worn leather, and all wore the long, fringed hunting shirt andraccoon-skin cap of the free borderers.
Yet these were a handful of the men who had fought so stoutly againstthe Tory odds at Ramsour's Mill, their captain being that Abram Forneyof whom you may read in the histories; and though they made no militaryshow, they lacked neither hardihood nor courage, of a certainpersevering sort.
"Ever come any closter to your Amen than that, stranger?" drawled one ofthem, a grizzled borderer, lank, lean and weather-tanned, with a facethat might have been a leathern mask for any hint it gave of what wenton behind it. "I'll swear that little whip'-snap' officer cub had theword 'Fire' sticking in his teeth when I gave him old Sukey's mouthfulo' lead to chaw on."
I said I had come as near my exit a time or two before, though always infair fight; and thereupon was whelmed in an avalanche of questions suchas only simple-hearted folk know how to ask.
When I had sufficiently accounted for myself, Captain Forney--he was thelimber-backed young fellow I had ridden behind--gripped my hand andgave me a hearty welcome and congratulation.
"My father and yours were handfast friends, Captain Ireton. More thanthat, I've heard my father say he owed yours somewhat on the score ofgood turns. I'm master glad I've had a chance to even up a little;though as for that, we should both thank the Indian." At which he lookedaround as one who calls an eye-muster and marks a missing man. "Where isthe chief, Ephraim?"--this to the grizzled hunter who was methodicallyreloading his long rifle.
"He's back yonder, gathering in the hair-crop, I reckon. Never you mindabout him, Cap'n. He'll turn up when he smells the meat a-cooking,immejitly, _if_ not sooner."
Here, as I imagine, I looked all the questions that lacked answers; forCaptain Forney took it in hand to fit them out with explications.
"'Tis Uncanoola, the Catawba," he said; "one of the friendlies. He wasout a-scouting last night and came in an hour before daybreak with thenews that Colonel Tarleton was set upon hanging a spy of ours. From thatto our little ambushment--"
"I see," said I, wanting space to turn the memory leaves. "This Catawba:is he a man about my age?" Captain Forney laughed. "God He only knows anIndian's age. But Uncanoola has been a man grown these fifteen years ormore. I can recall his coming to my father's house when I was but alittle cadger."
At that, I remembered, too; remembered a tall, straight young savage,as handsome as a figure done in bronze, who used sometimes to meet me inthe lonelier forest wilds when I was out a-hunting; remembered how atfirst I was afraid of him; how once I would have shot him in a fit ofboyish race antipathy and sudden fright had he not flung away hisfirelock and stood before me defenseless.
Also, I recalled a little incident of the terrible scourge in '60 whenthe black pox bade fair to blot out this tribe of the Catawbas; how whenmy father had found this young savage lying in the forest,plague-stricken and deserted by all his tribesmen, he had saved his lifeand earned an Indian friendship.
"I know this Uncanoola," I said. "My father befriended him in the plagueof '60, and was never sorry for it, as I believe." Then I would ask ifthese Catawbas had ranged themselves on the patriot side, a questionwhich led the young militia captain to give me the news at large whilehis borderers were breaking camp and making their hasty preparations forthe day's march.
"'Tis liberty or death with us now; we've burnt our bridges behind us,"he said, when he had confirmed the tidings I had had the day before fromFather Matthieu. "And since here in Carolina we have to fight each managainst his neighbor, 'tis like to go hard with us, lacking help fromthe North."
"Measured by this morning's work, Captain Forney, these irregulars ofyours seem well able to give a good account of themselves," I ventured.
He shook his head doubtfully. He was but a boy in years, but war is ashrewd schoolmaster, and this youth, like many another on the fightingfrontier, had matriculated early.
"You've seen us at our best," he amended. "We can ambush like theIndians, fire a volley, yell, charge--and run away."
"What's that ye're saying, youngster?" The grizzled hunter had finishedreloading his rifle, and, lounging in earshot with all the freedom ofthe border, would take the captain up sharply on this last.
"You heard me, Eph Yeates," replied my young captain, curtly.
The old man leaned his rifle against a tree, spat on his hands, cut aclumsy caper in air, and gave tongue in a yell that should have beenheard by Tarleton's men at Appleby.
"By the eternal 'coonskins! I can gouge the eye out of ary man that saysEph Yeates carn't stand up fair and square and whop his weight inwildcats; and I can do it now, _if_ not sooner!" he shrilled. "Come on,you pap-eating, apron-stringed, French-daddied--"
Where the blast of vituperative insult would have spent itself innatural course we were not to know, for in the midst another of theborderers, a wiry little man in greasy deerskin, came up behind thecapering ancient, whipped an arm around his neck, and in a trice the twowent down, kicking, scratching, buffeting and mauling, as like to apair of battling bobcats as was ever seen.
For a moment I thought my youngster would let them have it out to thefinish, but he did not. At his order some of the others pulled the twainapart, reluctantly, I fancied; and when the thing was done the old mancaught up his rifle and strode away in blackest wrath without a lookbehind him.
Captain Forney shrugged and spread his hands as his French father mighthave done.
"Now you know wherein our weakness lies, Captain Ireton," he said."There goes as true a man and as keen a shot as ever pulled trigger. Lethim fight in his own way, and he'll take cover and name his man forevery bullet in his pouch. But as for yielding to decent authority, orstanding against trained troops in open field--" He shrugged again andturned to tighten his saddle-girth.
"I see," said I. Then I asked him of his plans and intendings, and wastold that he and his handful were a-march to join General Rutherford,who was gone to the Forks of Yadkin to break up some Tory embodimentthereabouts.
"You have your work cut out to dodge the British light-horse, CaptainForney," said I; capping the venture by telling him what little I knewof Tarleton's dispositions, and also of the Indian-arming plot I hadoverheard.
"We'll dodge the redcoats, never you fear; we're at our best in that,"he rejoined, carelessly. "And as to the Cherokee upstirring, that's anold story. The king's men have tried it twice and they have not yetcaught Jack Sevier or Jimmie Robertson a-napping. Ease your mind on thatscore, Captain Ireton, and come along with us, if you have nothingbetter to do. I can promise you hard living, and hard fighting enough tokeep it in countenance."
At this I was brought down to some consideration of the present and itsdemands. As fortune's wheel had twirled, I had
my life, to be sure; butby the having of it was made the basest traitor to my friend--toJennifer, and no whit less to Margery.
'Twas out of any thought that I should take the field against the commonenemy, leaving this tangled web of mystery and misery behind. Insheerest decency I owed it first to Jennifer to make a swift and frankconfession of the ill-concluded tale of happenings. That done, I owed itequally to him and Margery to find some way to set aside the midnightmarriage.
So I fell back upon my wound for an excuse, telling the captain that Iwas not yet fit to take the field--which was true enough. Whereupon heand his men set me well beyond the danger of immediate pursuit and weparted company.
When I was left alone I had no plan that reached beyond the day's end.Since to go to Jennifer House by daylight would be to run my neck afreshinto the noose, I saw nothing for it but to lie in hiding tillnightfall. The hiding place that promised best was the old hunting lodgein the forest, and thitherward I turned my face.
It was a wise man who said that he who goes with heavy heart dragsheavy feet as well; but while I live I shall remember how that sayingclogged the path for me that morning, making the shrub-sweet summer airgrow thick and lifeless as I toiled along. For sober second thought, andthe unnerving reaction which comes upon the heels of some sharp periloverpast, left me aghast at the coil in which a tricky fate hadentangled me.
The second thought made plain the dispiteous hardness of it all, showingme how I had reasoned like a boy in planning for retrieval. WouldJennifer believe my tale, though I should swear it out word for word onthe Holy Evangelists? I doubted it; and striving to see it through hiseyes, was made to doubt it more. For death should have been myjustifier, and death had played me false.
As for setting the midnight marriage aside, I made sure the lawyer tribecould find a way, if that were all. But here there was a loyal daughterof the Church to reckon with. Loathing her bonds, as any true-heartedmaiden must, would Margery consent to have them broken by the law? Iknew well she would not. Though our poor knotting of the tie had beenlittle better than a tragic farce, it lacked nothing of force to bindthe tender conscience of a woman bred to look upon the churchly rite asfinal.
So, twist and turn it as I might, the coil was desperate; and as Istrode on gloomily, measuring this the first stage in a pilgrimage I hadnever thought to make, a fire of sullen anger began to smoke andsmolder within me, and I could find it in my heart to curse the cruelkindness of my rescuers; to sorrow in my inmost soul that they had comebetween to make a living recreant of one who would fain have died anhonest man.
The Master of Appleby Page 15