CHAPTER XII.
A POLITICAL RETROSPECT.--BUTLER ENTERS SOUTH CAROLINA.
It was the misfortune of South Carolina, during the revolutionary war,to possess a numerous party less attached to the union or more taintedwith disaffection than the inhabitants of any of the other states.Amongst her citizens the disinclination to sever from the mother countrywas stronger, the spread of republican principles more limited, and themarch of revolution slower, than in either of the other colonies,except, perhaps, in the neighbor state of Georgia, where the peopleresiding along the Savannah river, were so closely allied to theCarolinians in sentiment, habits, and pursuits, as to partake prettyaccurately of the same political prejudices, and to unite themselves inparties of the same complexion. Upon the first invasion of Georgia, atthe close of the year 1778, the city of Savannah was made an easyconquest, and a mere handful of men, early in 1779, were enabled topenetrate the interior as far as Augusta, and to seize upon that post.The audacity with which Prevost threatened Charleston in the same year,the facility of his march through South Carolina, and the safety whichattended his retreat, told a sad tale of the supineness of the people ofthat province. The reduction of Charleston in the following year, by SirHenry Clinton, was followed with singular rapidity by the conquest ofthe whole province. A civil government was erected. The most remoteposts in the mountains were at once occupied by British soldiers orprovincial troops, mustered under the officers of the royal army.Proclamations were issued to call back the wandering sheep to the royalfold; and they, accordingly, like herds that had been scattered frombeneath the eye of the shepherd by some rough incursion of wolves,flocked in as soon as they were aware of the retreat of their enemy.Lord Cornwallis, upon whom the command devolved after the return of SirHenry Clinton in June to New York, recruited his army from theserepentant or unwilling republicans; and the people rejoiced at what theythought the end of strife and the establishment of law. The auxiliarieswho had marched from Virginia and North Carolina under Colonel Buford,to assist in the defence of the southern capital, were informed of itssurrender as they journeyed thither, and soon found themselves obligedto fly through a country they had come to succor;--and when even at thedistance of one hundred and fifty miles from the city, were overtaken bythe ruthless troopers of Tarleton, and butchered under circumstancespeculiarly deplorable.
In truth, a large proportion of the population of South Carolina seem tohave regarded the revolution with disfavor, and they were slow to breaktheir ancient friendship for the land of their forefathers. The colonialgovernment was mild and beneficent in its action upon the province, andthe people had a reverence for the mother country deeper and moreaffectionate than was found elsewhere. They did not resent, because,haply, they did not feel the innovations of right asserted by theBritish crown, so acutely as some of their neighbors; to them it did notseem to be so unreasonable that taxation should be divorced fromrepresentation. They did not quarrel with the assumption of GreatBritain to regulate their trade for them in such manner as best suitedher own views of interest; nor did they see in mere commercialrestrictions the justification of civil war and hot rebellion;--because,peradventure, (if I may hazard a reason) being a colony of planterswhose products were much in demand in England, neither the regulationsof their trade nor the restrictions upon commerce, were likely to be soadjusted as to interfere with the profitable expansion of their labors.
Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the State at thetime of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. Tothis common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions; and the morebrilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderatingmass of public judgment. There is no trial of courage which will bearcomparison with that of a man whose own opinions stand in opposition,upon fearful questions of passion, to those of the "giddy-paced" andexcited multitude, and who, nevertheless, carries them "into act." Thatman who can stand in the breach of universal public censure, with allthe fashions of opinion disgracing him in the thoughts of the lookerson, with the tide of obloquy beating against his breast, and the fingersof the mighty, combined many, pointing him to scorn; nay, with the furyof the drunken rabble threatening him with instant death; and, worsethan all, having no present friend to whisper a word of defence orpalliative, in his behalf, to his revilers, but bravely giving his nakedhead to the storm, because he knows himself to be virtuous in hispurpose; that man shall come forth from this fierce ordeal like triedgold; philosophy shall embalm his name in her richest unction, historyshall give him a place on her brightest page, and old, yea, hoary,far-off posterity shall remember him as of yesterday.
There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with thebest spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to ithearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong as ever, in anyclime, worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission totheir conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prisons, rather thanthe yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times,retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighborstogether, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier-government that nowprofessed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished inthe woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen,exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and by rapidmovements of their woodland cavalry and brave blows, accomplished morethan thrice their numbers would have achieved in ordinary warfare.
The disaffected abounded in the upper country, and here Cornwallismaintained some strong garrisons. The difficulties that surrounded therepublican leaders may well be supposed to have been appalling in thisregion, where regular posts had been established to furnish the Toriessecure points of union, and the certainty of prompt assistance wheneverrequired. Yet notwithstanding the numerical inferiority of the friendsof independence, their guarded and proscribed condition, their want ofsupport, and their almost absolute destitution of all the necessaries ofmilitary life, the nation was often rejoiced to hear of brilliantpassages of arms, where, however unimportant the consequences, thedisplay of soldiership and bravery was of the highest order. In suchencounters, or frays they might almost be called, from the smallness ofthe numbers concerned and the hand-to-hand mode of fighting which theyexhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others, had won afame that in a nation of poetical or legendary associations would havebeen reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse: but,alas! we have no ballads: and many men, who as well deserve to beremembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, havesunk down without even a couplet-epitaph upon the rude stone, that insome unfenced and unreverenced grave-yard still marks the lap of earthwhereon their heads were laid.
One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolinawas the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other indeadly feuds, and, not unfrequently, brother took up arms againstbrother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treacheryand distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they mighttrust to the rites of hospitality; and many a man laid his head upon hispillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger, or he with whom he hadbroken bread at his last meal, might not invade him in the secretwatches of the night and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, andmany slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are talestold of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by theblaze of their farm-yards to which the incendiary torch had beenapplied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by aconcealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to theshelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads weredangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to bedistinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothingcould be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleadingthe confident into the toils of war; nor is it possible to imagine astate of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity.
Such was the condition of the country to which m
y tale now makes itnecessary to introduce my reader. Butler's instructions required thathe should report himself to General Gates, and, unless detained for morepressing duty, to proceed with all the circumspection which theenterprise might require, to Colonel Clarke, who, it was known, was atthat time in the upland country of South Carolina, raising troops to actagainst Augusta and other British posts. He accordingly arrived athead-quarters, on the borders of the two Carolinas, in about a weekafter leaving the Dove Cote. The army of the brave and unfortunate DeKalb, which had been originally destined for the relief of Charleston,had been increased, by reinforcements of militia from Virginia and theadjoining States, to double the computed strength of the British forces;and Gates, on taking command of it, was filled with the most loftypresentiments of victory. Vainglorious and unadvisable, he is said tohave pushed forward with an indiscreet haste, and to have thrown himselfinto difficulties which a wiser man would have avoided. He professedhimself to stand in no need of recruits to his army, and Butler,therefore, after the delay of a few days, was left at liberty to pursuehis original scheme.
The wide-spread disaffection of the region through which our adventurerswere about to pass, inculcated the necessity of the utmost vigilance toavoid molestation from the numerous parties that were then abroadhastening to the seat of war. Under the almost entire guidance ofRobinson, who was familiar with every path in this neighborhood,Butler's plan was to temporize with whatever difficulties might besethis way, and to rely upon his own and his comrade's address for escape.
The sergeant's first object was to conduct his superior to his owndwelling, which was situated on the Catawba, a short distance above theWaxhaws. This was safely accomplished on the second day after they hadleft Gates. A short delay at this place enabled Butler to exchange thedress he had hitherto worn, for one of a more homely and rusticcharacter, a measure deemed necessary to facilitate his quiet passagethrough the country. With these precautions he and the trusty sergeantresumed their expedition, and now shaped their course across the regionlying between the Catawba and Broad rivers, with the intention ofreaching the habitation of Wat Adair, a well known woodsman who lived onthe southern side of the latter river, somewhat above its confluencewith the Pacolet. The route they had chosen for this purpose consistedof such circuitous and unfrequented paths as were least likely to beinfested by the scouts of the enemy, or by questioners who might be toocurious regarding the object of their journey.
The second week of August had half elapsed when, towards the evening ofa day that had been distinguished for the exhilarating freshness of theatmosphere, such as is peculiar to the highlands of southern latitudesat this season, our travellers found themselves descending through along and shady defile to the level ground that lay along the margin ofthe Broad river. The greater part of the day had been spent in threadingthe mazes of a series of sharp and abrupt hills covered with the nativeforest, or winding through narrow valleys, amongst tangled thickets ofbriers and copse-wood, by a path scarce wide enough to permit thepassage of a single horse. They had now emerged from the wilderness upona public highway, which extended across the strip of lowland thatskirted the river. The proximity of the river itself was indicated bythe nature of the ground, that here retained vestiges of occasionalinundations, as also by the rank character of the vegetation. The roadled through a swamp, which was rendered passable by a causey of timber,and was shaded on either side by a mass of shrubbery, composed oflaurel, magnolia, and such other plants as delight in a moist soil, overwhose forms a tissue of creeping plants was woven in such profusion asto form a fastness or impregnable retreat for all kinds of noxiousanimals. Above this wilderness, here and there, might be seen in thedepths of the morass, the robust cypress or the lurid pine, high enoughfor the mast of the largest ship, the ash, and gum, and, towering aboveall, the majestic poplar, with its branchless trunk bound up in theembraces of a huge serpent-like grapevine.
As soon as Butler found himself extricated from the difficult path thathad so much embarrassed his journey, and once more introduced upon aroad that allowed him to ride abreast with his companion, he could nothelp congratulating himself upon the change.
"Well, here at last, Galbraith," he said, "is an end to this bridlepath, as you call it. Thank heaven for it! The settlement of theaccount between this and the plain road would not leave much in ourfavor: on one side, I should have to set down my being twice unhorsed inriding up perpendicular hills; one plunge up to the belly in the mud ofa swamp; a dozen times in danger of strangling from grapevines; and howoften torn by briers, I leave you to reckon up by looking at my clothes.And all this is to be cast up against the chance of meeting a fewrascally Tories. Faith! upon the whole, it would have been as cheap tofight."
"Whist, Major, you are a young man, and don't study things as I do. Younever catch me without reason on my side. As to standing upon the trifleof a man or two odds in the way of a fight, when there was need ofscratching, I wouldn't be so onaccommodating as to ax you to do that.But I had some generalship in view, which I can make appear. This road,which we have just got into, comes up through Winnsborough, which is oneof the randyvoos of the Tories: now I thought if we outflanked them bycoming through the hills, we mought keep our heads out of a hornets'nest. The best way, Major Butler, to get along through this world is notto be quarrelsome; that's my principle."
"Truly, it comes well from you, sergeant, who within two days past havebeen in danger of getting your crown cracked at least six times! Wereyou not yesterday going to beat a man only for asking a harmlessquestion? A rough fellow to-boot, Horse Shoe, who might, fromappearance, have turned out a troublesome customer."
"Ho, ho, ho, Major! Do you know who that character was? That was madArchy Gibbs, from the Broken Bridge, one of the craziest devils after afracaw on the Catawba; a tearing Tory likewise."
"And was that an argument for wishing to fight him?"
"Why, you see, Major, I've got a principle on that subject. It's anobservation I have made, that whenever you come across one of theserampagious fellows, that's always for breeding disturbances, the bestway is to be as fractious as themselves. You have hearn of the way ofputting out a house on fire by blowing it up with gunpowder?"
"A pretty effectual method, Sergeant."
"Dog won't eat dog," continued Horse Shoe. "Ho, ho! I know thesecharacters; so I always bullies them. When we stopped yesterday at thesurveyor's, on Blair's Range, to get a little something to eat, and thatbevy of Tories came riding up, with mad Archy at their head, a thoughtstruck me that the fellows mought be dogging us, and that sot me tothinking what answer I should make consarning you, if they were toquestion me. So, ecod, I made a parson of you, ha, ha, ha! Sure enough,they began as soon as they sot down in the porch, to axing me about mybusiness, and then about yourn. I told them, correspondent andaccordingly, that you was a Presbyterian minister, and that I hadundertook to show you the way to Chester, where you was going to holdforth. And, thereupon, mad Archy out with one of his tremengious oaths,and swore he would have a sarmint from you, for the good of hisblackguards, before they broke up."
"Mad Archy and his blackguards would have profited, no doubt, by myspiritual lessons."
"Rather than let him have anything to say to you," proceeded Robinson,"for you wa'n't prepared, seeing that you didn't hear what was going on,though I spoke loud enough, on purpose, Major, for you to hear usthrough the window; I up and told Archy, says I, I am a peaceable man,but I'll be d----d if any minister of the gospel shall be insultedwhilst I have the care of him; and, furthermore, says I, I didn't comehere to interrupt no man; but if you, Archy Gibbs, or any one of yourcrew, says one ondecent word to the parson, they'll run the risk ofbeing flung sprawling on this here floor, and that's as good as if I hadsworn to it; and as for you, Archy, I'll hold you accountable for thegood conduct of your whole squad. But, Major, you are about the hardestman to take a wink I ever knowed. There was I a motioning of you, andsignifying to get your horse and be off, at least ten minutes before youtook the h
int."
"I was near spoiling all, Galbraith, for from your familiarity withthese fellows I at first thought them friends."
"They were mighty dubious, you may depend. And it was as much as I coulddo to keep them from breaking in on you. They said it was strange, andso it was, to see a parson riding with pistols; but I told them you wasobliged to travel so much after night that it was as much as you coulddo to keep clear of panthers and wolves; and in fact, major, I had totell them a monstrous sight of lies, just to keep them in talk whilstyou was getting away: it was like a rare guard scrummaging by platoonson a retreat to get the advance off. I was monstrous afeard, major, youwouldn't saddle my horse."
"I understood you at last, Galbraith, and made everything ready for amasterly retreat, and then moved away with a very sober air, leaving youto bring up the rear like a good soldier. And you know, sergeant, Ididn't go so far but that I was at hand to give you support, if you hadstood in need of it. I wonder now that they let you off so easily."
"They didn't want to have no uproar with me, Major Butler. They knowedme, that although I wa'n't a quarrelsome man, they would'a got some oftheir necks twisted if I had seen occasion: in particular, I would havetaken some of mad Archy's crazy fits out of him--by my hand I would,major! But I'll tell you,--I made one observation, that this here sortof carrying false colors goes against a man's conscience: it doesn'tseem natural for a man, that's accustomed and willing to stand by hiswords, to be heaping one lie upon top of another as fast as he can speakthem. It really, Major Butler, does go against my grain."
"That point of conscience," said Butler laughing, "has been dulyconsidered, and, I believe, we are safe in setting it down as entirelylawful to use any deceit of speech to escape from an enemy in time ofwar. We have a dangerous trade, sergeant, and the moralists indulge usmore than they do others: and as I am a minister, you know, you need notbe afraid to trust your conscience to my keeping."
"They allow that all's fair in war, I believe. But it don't signify, aman is a good while before he gets used to this flat lying, for I can'tcall it by any other name."
"If we should be challenged on this road, before we reach Wat Adair's,"said Butler, "it is your opinion that we should say we are graziersgoing to the mountains to buy cattle."
"That's about the best answer I can think of. Though you must be alittle careful about that. If you see me put my hand up to my mouth andgive a sort of a hem, major, then leave the answer to me. A gang of rawlads might be easily imposed upon, but it wouldn't do if there's an oldsodger amongst them; he mought ax some hard questions."
"I know but little of this grazier craft to bear an examination. I fearI should fare badly if one of these bullies should take it into his headto cross-question me."
"If a man takes on too much with you," replied Robinson, "it is well tobe a little saucy to him. If he thinks you are for a quarrel, thechances are he won't pester you. But if any of these Tories should onlytake it into their heads, without our telling them right down in so manywords, for I would rather a lie, if it is to come out, should take aroundabout way, that we are sent up here by Cornwallis, or Rawdon, orLeslie, or any of their people to do an arrand, they will be as civil,sir, as your grandmother's cat, for, major, they are a blasted set ofcringin' whelps, the best of them, and will take anything that has G. R.marked on it with thanks, even if it was a cat-o'nine tails, which theydesarve every day at rollcall, the sorry devils!"
"I am completely at my wits' end, Galbraith. I have not done muchjustice to your appointment of me as a parson, and when I come to playthe grazier it will be still worse; even in this disguise of a plaincountryman I make a poor performer; I fear I shall disgrace the boards."
"If the worst comes to the worst, major, the rule is run or fight. Wecan manage that, at any rate, for we have had a good deal of both in thelast three or four years."
"God knows we have had practice enough, sergeant, to make us perfect inthat trick. Let us make our way through this treacherous ground asquickly and as quietly as we can. Get me to Clarke by the shortestroute, and keep as much among friends as you know how."
"As to that, Major Butler, it is all a matter of chance, for, to tellyou the plain truth, I don't know who to depend upon. A quick eye, animble foot, and a ready hand, will be our surest friends. Then with thepistols at your saddle, besides a pair in your pocket, and a dirk forclose quarters, and my rifle here for a long shot, major, I am not muchdoubtful but what we shall hold our own."
"How far are we from Adair's?" asked Butler.
"Not more than a mile," replied Horse Shoe. "You may see the ferry justahead. Wat lives upon the top of the first hill on the other side."
"Is that fellow to be trusted, sergeant?"
"Better with the help of gold, major, than without it. Wat was neverover honest. But it is worth our while to make a friend of him if wecan."
Our travellers had now reached the river, which was here a smooth anddeep stream, though by no means so broad as to entitle it to thedistinction by which, in its lower portion, it has earned its name. Ithere flowed sluggishly along in deep and melancholy shade.
Butler and his companion were destined to encounter a difficulty at thisspot which less hardy travellers would have deemed a seriousembarrassment. The boat was not to be seen on either side of the river,having been carried off a few hours before, according to the informationgiven by the inmates of a negro cabin, constituting the family of theferryman, by a party of soldiers.
Robinson regarded this obstacle with the resignation of a practisedphilosopher. He nodded his head significantly to his companion uponreceiving the intelligence, as he said,
"There is some mischief in the wind. These Tories are always dodgingabout in gangs; and when they collect the boats on the river, it iseither to help them forward on some house-burning and thieving business,or to secure their retreat when they expect to have honest men at theirheels. It would be good news to hear that Sumpter was near theircruppers, which, by the by, is not onlikely neither. You would be toldof some pretty sport then, major."
"Sumpter's means, sergeant," replied Butler, "I fear, are not equal tohis will. There are heavy odds against him, and it isn't often that hecan venture from his hiding-place. But what are we to do now,Galbraith?"
"Ha, ha! do as we have often done before this, launch our four-leggedships, and take a wet jacket coolly and dispassionately, as that quaredevil Lieutenant Hopkins used to tell us when he was going to make acharge of the bagnet. We hav'n't no time to lose, major, and if we had,I don't think the river would run dry. So, here goes."
With these words Robinson plunged into the stream, and, with his rifleresting across his shoulder, he plied his voyage towards the oppositebank with the same unconcern as if he had journeyed on dry land. As soonas he was fairly afloat he looked back to give a few cautions to Butler.
"Head slantwise up stream, major, lean a little forward, so as to sinkyour horse's nose nearer to the water, he swims all the better for it.Slacken your reins and give him play. You have it now. It isn'toncomfortable in a day's ride to get a cool seat once in a while. Herewe are safe and sound," he continued, as they reached the furthermargin, "and nothing the worse for the ferrying, excepting it be atrifle of dampness about the breeches."
The two companions now galloped towards the higher grounds of theadjacent country.
By the time that they had gained the summit of a long hill that roseimmediately from the plain of the river, Robinson apprised Butler thatthey were now in the vicinity of Adair's dwelling. The sun had sunkbelow the horizon, and the varied lustre of early twilight tinged thesurrounding scenery with its own beautiful colors. The road, as it woundupwards gradually emerged from the forest upon a tract of open country,given signs of one of those original settlements which, at that day,were sparsely sprinkled through the great wilderness. The space that hadbeen snatched from the ruggedness of nature, for the purpose ofhusbandry, comprehended some three or four fields of thinly cultivatedland. These were yet spotted over
with stumps of trees, that seemed toleave but little freedom to the course of the ploughshare, and bespoke athriftless and slovenly tillage. A piece of half cleared ground,occupying the side of one of the adjacent hills, presented to the eye ofour travellers a yet more uncouth spectacle. This spot was still clothedwith the native trees of the forest, all of which had beendeath-stricken by the axe, and now heaved up their withered and saplessbranches towards the heavens, without leaf or spray. In the phrase ofthe woodman, they had been _girdled_ some years before, and weredestined to await the slow decay of time in their upright attitude. Itwas a grove of huge skeletons that had already been bleached into anashy hue by the sun, and whose stiff and dry members rattled in thebreeze with a preternatural harshness. Amongst the most hoary of thesevictims of the axe, the gales of winter had done their work and thrownthem to the earth, where the shattered boles and boughs lay as they hadfallen, and were slowly reverting into their original dust. Others,whose appointed time had not yet been fulfilled, gave evidence of theirstruggle with the frequent storm, by their declination from theperpendicular line. Some had been caught in falling by the boughs of asturdier neighbor, and still leaned their huge bulks upon thesesupports, awakening the mind of the spectator to the fancy, that theyhad sunk in some deadly paroxysm into charitable and friendly arms, and,thus locked together, abided their tardy but irrevocable doom. It was afield of the dead; and the more striking in its imagery from thecontrast which it furnished to the rich, verdurous, and lively forestthat, with all the joyousness of health, encompassed this blighted spot.Its aspect was one of unpleasant desolation; and the traveller of thepresent day who visits our western wilds, where this slovenly practiceis still in use, will never pass through such a precinct without a senseof disgust at the disfiguration of the landscape.
The field thus marred might have contained some fifty acres, and it wasnow occupied, in the intervals between the lifeless trunks, with afeeble crop of Indian corn, whose husky and parched blades, as theyfluttered in the evening wind, added new and appropriate features to theinexpressible raggedness of the scene. The same effect was further aidedand preserved by the cumbrous and unseemly worm fence that shot forthits stiff angles around the tract.
On the very apex of the hill up which our travellers were nowclambering, was an inclosure of some three or four acres of land, in themiddle of which, under the shade of a tuft of trees, stood a group oflog cabins so situated as to command a view, of nearly every part of thefarm. The principal structure was supplied with a rude porch thatcovered three of its sides; whilst the smoke that curled upwards from awide-mouthed chimney, and the accompaniment of a bevy of little negroesthat were seen scattered amongst the out-houses, gave an air ofhabitation and life to the place that contrasted well with thestillness of the neighboring wood. A well-beaten path led into a narrowravine where might be discerned, peeping forth from the weeds, the roofof a spring house; and, in the same neighborhood, a rough garden wasobservable, in which a bed of broad-leaved cabbages seemed to have theirground disputed by a plentiful crop of burdock, thistles, and otherintruders upon a manured soil. In this inclosure, also, the hollyhockand sunflower, rival coxcombs of the vegetable community, gave theirbroad and garish tribute to the beautifying of the spot.
The road approached within some fifty paces of the front of the cabins,where access was allowed, not by the help of a gate, but only by a kindof ladder or stile formed of rails, which were so arranged as to furnishsteps across the barrier of the worm fence at four or five feet from theground.
"Are you sure of entertainment here, Galbraith?" inquired Butler, asthey halted at the stile. "This Wat Adair is not likely to be churlish,I hope?"
"I don't think I am in much humor to be turned away," replied Robinson."It's my opinion that a man who has rode a whole day has a sort of rightto quarters wherever the night finds him--providing he pays for what hegets. But I have no doubt of Wat, Major. Holloa! who's at home? WatAdair! Wat Adair! Travellers, man! Show yourself."
"Who are you that keep such a racket at the fence there?" demanded afemale voice. "What do you mean by such doings before a peaceablehouse?"
"Keep your dogs silent, ma'am," returned Horse Shoe, in a blunt and loudkey, "and you will hear us. If you are Wat Adair's wife you are as goodas master of this house. We want a night's lodging and must have it--andbesides, we have excellent stomachs, and mean to pay for all we get.Ain't that reason enough to satisfy a sensible woman, Mrs. Adair?"
"If you come to make disturbance," said a man of a short and sturdyfigure, who at this moment stepped out from the house and took aposition in front of it, with a rifle in his hand--"if you come here toinsult a quiet family you had best turn your horses' heads up the roadand jog further."
"We might do that, sir, and fare worse," said Butler, in a conciliatorytone. "You have no need of your gun; we are harmless travellers who havecome a long way to get under your roof."
"Where from?" asked the other.
"From below," said Horse Shoe promptly.
"What side do you take?"
"Your side for to-night," returned Robinson again. "Don't beobstropolous, friend," he continued, at the same time dismounting, "wehave come on purpose to pay Wat a visit, and if you ha'n't got nobrawlers in the house, you needn't be afraid of us."
By this time the sergeant had crossed the stile and approached thequestioner, to whom he offered his hand. The man gazed for a moment uponhis visitor, and then asked--
"Isn't this Galbraith Robinson?"
"They call me so," replied Horse Shoe; "and if I ain't mistaken, this isMichael Lynch. You wan't going to shoot at us, Michael?"
"A man must have sharp eyes when he looks in the face of a neighbornow-a-days," said the other. "Come in; Wat's wife will be glad to seeyou. Wat himself will be home presently. Who have you here, Galbraith?"
"This is Mr. Butler," answered Horse Shoe, as the Major joined them. "Heand me are taking a ride across into Georgia, and we thought we wouldgive Wat a call just to hear the news."
"You are apt to fetch more news than you will take away," replied theother; "but there is a good deal doing now in all quarters. Howsever, gointo the house, we must give you something to eat and a bed besides."
After putting their horses in charge of a negro who now approached inthe character of an ostler, our adventurers followed Michael Lynch intothe house.
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