it could have been but little short of midnight when we came down into the great trace near the ambush ground where we had set our trap for the peace men.
the night had cleared most beautifully, and overhead the stars were burning like points of white fire in the black dome of the heavens. as often happens after a shower, the night shrillings of the forest were in fullest tide; and a whip-will's-widow, disturbed by our approach, fluttered to a higher perch and set up his plaintive protest.
at our turning eastward on the trace, the old hunter massed our little company as compactly as the path allowed, and giving us the word to follow cautiously, tossed his bridle rein to the catawba and went on ahead to feel out the way.
this rearrangement set me to ride abreast with margery; and for the first time since that fateful night in the upper room at appleby hundred we were together and measurably alone.
since death might be lying in wait for us at any turn in the winding bridle-path, i had no mind to break the strained silence. but, womanlike, she would not miss the chance to thrust at me.
"are you not afire with shame, captain ireton?" she said, bitterly; and then: "how you must despise me!"
i knew not what she meant; but being most anxious for her safety, i begged her not to talk, putting it all upon the risk we ran in passing the outlet of the sunken valley. now, as you have long since learned, my tongue was but a skilless servant; and though i sought to make the command the gentlest plea, she took instant umbrage and struck back smartly.
"you need not make the danger an excuse. i will be still; and when i speak to you again, you will be willing enough to hear me, i promise you!"
"nay, then, dear lady; you must not take it so!" i protested. "'tis my misfortune to be ever blundering."
but to this she gave me no answer at all; and barring a word or two of heartening for her serving woman, she never opened her lips again throughout the passage perilous.
by good hap we came to the crossing of the cavern stream without meeting any foeman; and on the farther side of the shallow ford we found the old borderer awaiting us.
"ez i allow, we've smelt the bait in the trap and come off with whole bones, like shadrach, meshach and abednego," he said, mixing metaphor, scripture phrase and frontier idiom as was his wont. then he put a leg over his horse and gave the stirrup-word: "from now on, old jehu, the son o' nimshi, is the hoss-whipper we've got to beat. get ye behind, cap'n john, and give the hoss that lags a half inch 'r so of your sword-p'int."
then and there began a night flight long to be remembered. down the valley of the swift river to the ford where yeates and i had crossed after the mock rescue of margery the night before, we let the horses pick the way as they could. but once beyond the ford, where the trace was wider and the footing less precarious, we plied whip and spur, pushing the saddle-beasts for every stride we could get out of them in the blind race.
i have marveled often that we came not once to grief in all this long night-gallop through the darkness. there was every chance for it. the over-arching trees of the great forest shut out all the starlight, and the trace was no more than a bridle-path, rougher than any cart road. yet we held the breakneck pace steadily, save for the time it took to thread some steep defile to a stream crossing, or to scramble up its fellow on the opposite side; and when the dawn began to gray in the sky ahead, we were well out of the broken mountain region and into the opener forest of the hill country.
the sun was yet below the eastern horizon when we came to the fording of a larger stream than any we had crossed in the night. its course was toward the sunrise, hence i took it for some tributary of the catawba or the broad.
"'tis the broad itself," said ephraim yeates, in answer to my asking; "and yit it ain't; leastwise, it ain't the one you know. 'tis the one the parley-voos claimed in the old war, and they call it the frinch broad."
"but that flows north and westward, if i remember aright," said i.
"so it do, so it do—in gineral. but hereabouts 'twill run all ways for sunday, by spells."
"if this be the french broad we are not yet out of the tuckasege country, as i take it."
"mighty nigh to it; nigh enough to make camp for a resting spell. i reckon ye're a-needing that same pretty toler'ble bad, ain't ye, little gal?" this last to margery.
weary as she was she smiled upon him brightly, as though he had been her grandsire and so free to name her how he pleased.
"i shall sleep well when we are out of danger. but you must not stop for me, or for jeanne, till 'tis safe to do so."
"safe? lord love ye, child! 'safe' is a word beyond us yit, and will be till we sot ye down on your daddy's door-stone. but we'll make out to give ye a bite and sup and forty winks o' sleep immejitly, if not sooner, now."
so, on the farther side of the stream the hunter led the way aside, and when we were come to a small meadow glade with good grazing for the horses, he called a halt, lifted the women from their saddles and came to help me ease dick down. the poor lad was stiff and sore, having no more use of his joints than if he were a bandaged mummy; but the fever delirium had passed and he was able to laugh feebly at the tree-limb contrivance rigged to hold him in the saddle.
"how did we come out of it, jack?" he asked, when we had let him feel the comfort of lying flat upon his back on the soft sward.
"as you see. we are all here, and all in fair fettle, saving yourself. you're the heaviest loser."
he smiled, and his eyes languid with the fever sought out margery, who would not come anigh whilst i was with him.
"that remains to be seen, jack. if my dream comes true, i shall be the richest gainer."
"what did you dream?"
he beckoned me to bend lower over him. "i dreamed i was sore hurt, and that she was binding up my bruises and crying over me."
"'twas no dream," i said; and with that i went to help yeates make a bough shelter for the women while uncanoola was grinding the maize for the breakfast cakes.
'tis not my purpose to weary you with a day-by-day accounting for all that befell us on the way back to mecklenburg. suffice it to say that we ate and slept and rose to mount and ride again; this for five days and nights, during which jennifer's fever grew upon him steadily.
at the close of the fifth day our night halt was in a deserted log cabin at the edge of an unfinished clearing in the heart of the forest. here richard's sickness anchored us, and for three full weeks the journey paused.
we nursed the lad as best we could for a fortnight, dosing him with stewings of such roots and herbs as the catawba could find in the wood. then, when we were at our wits' ends, and yeates and i were casting about how we could compass the bringing of a doctor from the settlements, the fever took a turn for the better,—of its own accord, or for uncanoola's physickings, we knew not which,—and at the end of the third week dick was up and able to ride again, this time without the forked stick to hold him in the saddle.
after this we went on without mishap, and with no hardship greater than that of living solely upon the meat victual provided by the hunter's rifle; and you who know this plough-dressed region at this later day will wonder when i write it down that in all that long faring, or rather to the last day's stage of it, we saw never a face of any of our kind, or of the catawba's.
you may be sure the month or more we spent thus in the heart of the wildwood was but a sorry time for me. while the excitement of the pursuit and rescue lasted, and later, when anxiety for richard filled the hours of the long days and nights, i was held a little back from slipping into that pit of despair which i had digged for myself.
but when the strain was off and dick was up and fit again, the misery of it all came back with added goadings. i had never dreamed how cutting sharp 'twould be to see these two together day by day; to see her loving, tender care of him, and to hear him babble of his love for her in his feverish vaporings. yet all this i must endure, and with it a thing even harder. for, to make it worse, if worse could be, the shadow of complete estrangement had fallen between margery and me. true to her word, given in that moment when i had besought her not to speak aloud for her own safety's sake, she had never opened her lips to me; and for aught she said or did i might have been a deaf-mute slave beneath her notice.
and as she drew away from me, she seemed to draw the closer to richard jennifer, nursing him alive when he was at his worst, and giving him all the womanly care and sympathy a sick man longs for. and later, when he was fit to ride again, she had him always at her side in the onward faring.
as i have said before, this was all as i would have it. yet it made me sick in my soul's soul; and at times i must needs fall behind to rave it out in solitude, cursing the day that i was born, and that other more misfortunate day when i had reared the barrier impassable between these two.
what wonder, then, that, as we neared the fighting field of the great war, i grew more set upon seizing the first chance that might offer an honorable escape from all these heartburnings? 'twas a weakness, if you choose; i set down here naught but the simple fact, which had by now gone as far beyond excusings as the underlying cause of it was beyond forgiveness.
'twas on the final day, the day when we were riding tantivy to reach queensborough by evening, that my deliverance came. i say deliverance because at the moment it had the look of a short shrift and a ready halter.
we had crossed our own catawba and were putting our horses at the steep bank on the outcoming side, when my saddle slipped. dismounting to tighten the girth, i called to the others to press on, saying i should overtake them shortly.
the promise was never kept. i scarce had my head under the saddle flap before a couple of stout knaves in homespun, appearing from i know not where, had me fast gripped by the arms, whilst a third made sure of the horse.
"a despatch rider," said the bigger of the two who pinioned me. "search him, martin, lad, whilst i hold him; then we'll pay him out for tarleton's hanging of poor sandy m'guire."
i held my peace and let them search, taking the threat for a bit of soldier bullyragging meant to keep me quiet. but when they had turned the pockets of my borrowed coat inside out and ripped the lining and made it otherwise as much the worse for their mishandling as it was for wear, the third man fetched a rope.
"did you mean that, friend?—about the hanging?" i asked, wondering if this should be my loophole of escape from the life grown hateful.
"sure enough," said the big man, coolly. "you'd best be saying your prayers."
i laughed. "were you wearing my coat and i yours, you might hang me and welcome; in truth, you may as it is. which tree will you have me at?"
the man stared at me as at one demented. then he burst out in a guffaw. "damme, if you bean't a cool plucked one! i've a mind to take you to the colonel."
"don't do it, my friend. though i am something loath to be snuffed out by the men of my own side, we need not haggle over the niceties. point out your tree."
"no, by god! you're too willing. what's at the back of all this?"
"nothing, save a decent reluctance to spoil your sport. have at it, man, and let's be done with it."
"not if you beg me on your knees. you'll go to the colonel, i say, and he may hang you if he sees fit. you must be a most damnable villain to want to die by the first rope you lay eyes on."
"that is as it may be. who is your colonel?"
"nay, rather, who are you?"
i gave my name and circumstance and was loosed of the hand-grip, though the third man dropped the cord and stepped back to hold me covered with his rifle.
"an ireton, you say? not little jock, surely!"
"no, big jock; big enough to lay you on your back, though you do have a hand as thick as a ham."
he ignored the challenge and stuck to his text. "i never thought to see the son of old mad-bull roger wearing a red coat," he said.
"that is nothing. many as good a whig as i am has been forced to wear a red coat ere this, or go barebacked. but why don't you knot the halter? in common justice you should either hang me or feed me. 'tis hard upon noon, and i breakfasted early."
"fall in!" said the big man; and so i was marched quickly aside from the road and into the denser thicketing of the wood. here my captors blindfolded me, and after spinning me around to make me lose the compass points, hurried me away to their encampment which was inland from the stream, though not far, for i could still hear the distance-minished splashing of the water.
when the kerchief was pulled from my eyes i was standing in the midst of a mounted riflemen's halt-camp, face to face with a young officer wearing the uniform of the colonelcy in the north carolina home troops. he was a handsome young fellow, with curling hair and trim side-whiskers to frame a face fine-lined and eager—the face of a gentleman well-born and well-bred.
"captain ireton?" he said; by which i guessed that one of my capturers had run on ahead to make report.
"the same," i replied.
"and you are the son of mr. justice roger ireton, of appleby hundred?"
"i have that honor."
he gave me his hand most cordially.
"you are very welcome, captain; davie is my name. i trust we may come to know each other better. you are in disguise, as i take it; do you bring news of the army?"
"on the contrary, i am thirsting for news," i rejoined. "i and three others have but now returned from pursuing a british and indian powder convoy into the mountains to the westward. we have been out five weeks and more."
he looked at me curiously. "you and three others?" he queried. "come apart and tell me about it whilst pompey is broiling the venison. i scent a whole iliad in that word of yours, captain ireton."
"one thing first, if you please, colonel davie," i begged. "my companions are faring forward on the road to queensborough. they know naught of my detention. will you send a man to overtake them with a note from me?"
the colonel indulged me in the most gentlemanly manner; and when my note to jennifer was despatched we sat together at the roots of a great oak and i told him all that had befallen our little rescue party. he heard me through patiently, and when the tale was ended was good enough to say that i had earned a commission for my part in the affair. i laughed and promptly shifted that burden to ephraim yeates's shoulders.
"the old hunter was our general, colonel davie. he did all of the planning and the greater part of the executing. but for him and the friendly catawba, it would have gone hard with jennifer and me."
"i fear you are over-modest, captain," was all the reply i got; and then my kindly host fell amuse. when he spoke again 'twas to give me a résumé in brief of the military operations north and south.
at the north, as his news ran, affairs remained as they had been, save that now the french king had sent an army to supplement the fleet, and count rochambeau and the allies were encamped on rhode island ready to take the field.
in the south the distressful situation we had left behind us on that august sunday following the disastrous battle of camden was but little changed. general gates, with the scantiest following, had hastened first to salisbury and later to hillsborough, and had since been busy striving to reassemble his scattered forces.
a few military partizans, like my host, had kept the field, doing what the few might against the many to retard my lord cornwallis's northward march; and a week earlier the colonel with his handful of mounted riflemen had dared to oppose his entry into charlotte.
"'twas no more than a hint to his lordship that we were not afraid of him," said my doughty colonel. "you know the town, i take it?"
"very well, indeed."
"well, we had harassed him all the way from blair's mill, and 'twas midnight when we reached charlotte. there we determined to make a stand and give him a taste of our mettle. we dismounted, took post behind the stone wall of the court house green and under cover of the fences along the road."
"good! an ambush," said i.
"hardly that, since they were looking to have resistance. tarleton was sick, and major hanger commanded the british van. he charged, and we peppered them smartly. they tried it again, and this time their infantry outflanked us. we abandoned the court house and formed again in the eastern edge of the town; and now, bless you! 'twas my lord charles himself who had to ride forward and flout at his men for their want of enterprise."
"but you could never hope to hold on against such odds!" i exclaimed.
"oh, no; but we held them for a third charge, and beat them back, too. then they brought up two more regiments and we mounted and got off in tolerably good order, losing only six men killed. but colonel francis locke was one of these; and my brave joe graham was all but cut to pieces—a sore blow to us just now."
the colonel sighed and a silence fell upon us. 'twas i who broke it to say: "then we are still playing a losing hand in the south, as i take it?"
"'tis worse than that. as the game stands we have played all our trumps and have not so much as a long suit left. cornwallis will go on as he pleases and overrun the state, and the militia will never stand to front him again under horatio gates. worse still, ferguson is off to the westward, embodying the tories by the hundred, and we shall have burnings and hangings and harryings to the king's taste."
i nursed my knee a moment and then said: "what may one man do to help, colonel davie?"
he looked up quickly. "much, if you are that man, and you do not value your life too highly, captain ireton."
"you may leave that out of the question," said i. "i shall count it the happiest moment of my life when i shall have done something worth their killing me for."
again he gave me that curious look i had noted before. then he laughed.
"if you were as young as major joe graham, and had been well crossed in love, i could understand you better, captain. but, jesting aside, there is a thing to do, and you are the man to do it. our spies are thick in cornwallis's camp, but what is needed is some master spirit who can plot as well as spy for us. major ferguson moves as cornwallis pulls the strings. could we know the major's instructions and designs, we might cut him off, bring the tory uprising to the ground, and so hearten the country beyond measure. i say we might cut him off, though i know not where the men would come from to do it."
"well?" said i, when he paused.
"the preliminary is some better information than our spies can give us. now you have been an officer in the british service, and—"
i smiled. "truly; and i have the honor, if you please to call it so, of his lordship's acquaintance. also, i have that of colonel tarleton and the members of his staff, the same having tried and condemned me as a spy at appleby hundred some few weeks before this chase i have told you of."
his face fell. "then, of course, it is out of the question for you to show yourself in cornwallis's headquarters."
i rose and buttoned my borrowed coat.
"on the contrary, colonel davie, i am more than ever at your service. let me have a cut of your venison and a feed for my horse, and i shall be at my lord's headquarters as soon as the nag can carry me there."
