University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
“THE GLORIOUS FOURTH” AT SEA.

Let us skip over the small hours which were consumed by
our little community — we may suppose — after a very common
fashion on shore. There was silence in the ship for a space.
But a good strong corps was ready, at the peep of day, to
respond, with a general shout, to that salutation to the morn
which our worthy captain had assigned to the throats of his pet
brass pieces. We were not missing at the moment of uproar;
and, as the bellowing voices roared along the deep, we echoed
the clamor with a hurrah scarcely less audible in the courts of
Neptune.

I need not dwell upon the exhibition of deshabilles, as we severally
appeared on deck in nightgown and wrapper, with otherwise
scant costume. But, as our few lady-passengers made no
appearance at this hour, there was no need for much precaution.
We took the opportunity afforded by their absence to procure
a good sousing from the sea, administered, through capacious
buckets, by the hands of a courteous coalheaver, who received
his shilling a-head for our ablutions. By the way, why should
not these admirable vessels, so distinguished by their various
comforts, be provided with half-a-dozen bathing-rooms? We
commend the suggestion to future builders. A bath is even
more necessary at sea than on shore, and, lacking his bath, there
is many a pretty fellow who resorts to his bottle. Frequent
ablution is no small agent of a proper morality.

Outraging no propriety by our garden-like innocence of costume,
we began the day merrily, and contrived to continue it
cheerily. At the hour of twelve, the awning spread above us,
a smooth sea below, a fine breeze streaming around us, we were
all assembled upon the quarter-deck, a small but select congregation,
to hear the man in a saffron skin and green spectacles.

We dispensed with the whole reading of the Declaration of
Independence; our reader graciously abridging it to doggrel
dimensions, after some such form as the following, which he
delivered, as far as permitted, with admirable grace and most
senatorial dignity: —
He was here broken in upon by a sharp shriek, rather than a
voice, which we found to proceed from a Texan, who had worn
his Mexican blanket during the whole voyage, and whom some
of the passengers were inclined to think was no other than
Sam Houston himself. His interruption furnished a sufficiently
appropriate finishing line to the doggrel of our reader: —

“Oh, go ahead, and d—n the expense.”

“The very principle of the Revolution,' said the orator.

“Particularly as they never redeemed the continental money.
My grandmother has papered her kitchen with the `I. O. U'S'
of our fathers of Independence.”

This remark led to others, and there was a general buzz,
when the orator put in, first calling attention, and silencing all
voices, by a thundering slap with the flat of his hand upon the
cover of a huge volume which he carried in his grasp.

“Look you, gentlemen,” said he, with the air of a person who
was not disposed to submit to wrong — “you asked me to be
your orator, and hang me if I am to be choused out of the performance,
now that I have gone through all my preparations.
Scarcely had I received your appointment before I proceeded
to put myself in training. I went below and got myself a dose
of `snake and tiger' — a beverage I had not tasted before for
the last five months — and I commended myself, during a
twenty minutes' immersion in the boatswain's bath at the fore —
while you were all sleeping, I suppose — to the profound and
philosophical thoughts which were proper to this great occasion.
With the dawn, and before the cannon gave counsel to the day,
I was again immersed in meditation and salt-water; followed by
a severe friction at the hands of one of the stewards, and another
touch of `snake and tiger' at the hands of the butler. I have

thus prepared myself for the occasion, and I'll let you know I
am not the man to prepare myself for nothing. Either you
must hear me, or you must fight me. Let me know your resolution.
If I do not begin upon you all, I shall certainly begin
upon some one of you, and I don't know but that Texan shall
be my first customer, as being the first to disturb the business
of the day. An audible snort from the blanket was the only
answer from that quarter; while the cry of — “An orator!
an orator!” from all parts of the ship, pacified our belligerent
Demosthenes.

He began accordingly.

THE ORATION OF THE GREEN-SPECTACLED ALABAMIAN.

“Shipmates or Fellow-Citizens: We are told by good authority
that no man is to be pronounced fortunate so long as he
lives, since every moment of life is subject to caprices which
may reverse his condition, and render your congratulations
fraudulent and offensive. The same rules, for the same reason,
should be adopted in regard to nations, and no eulogy should
be spoken upon their institutions, until they have ceased to
exist. It would accordingly be much easier for me to dilate
upon the good fortune of Copan and Palenque than upon any
other countries, since they will never more suffer from invasion,
and the scandalous chronicle of their private lives is totally lost
to a prying posterity.

“In regard to our country, what would you have me say? Am
I summoned to the tribune to deal in the miserable follies and
falsehoods which now pervade the land? At this moment, from
every city, and state, and village, and town and hamlet in the
Union, ascends one common voice of self-delusion and deception.
You hear, on all hands, a general congratulation of themselves
and one another, about our peace, and prosperity and harmony.
About our prosperity a great deal may be said honestly, if not
about its honesty. Never did a people so easily and excellently
clothe and feed themselves. Our ancestors were very poor
devils, compared to ourselves, in respect to their acquisitions.
Their very best luxuries are not now to be enumerated, except
among our meanest and commonest possessions; and, without

being better men, our humblest citizens enjoy a domestic condition
which would have made the mouths to water, with equal
delight and envy, of the proudest barons of the days of Queen
Bess and Harry the Eighth. What would either of these
princes have given to enjoy ices such as Captain Berry gave us
yesterday, and the more various luxuries which (I see it in his
face) he proposes to give us to-day! What would the best
potentates, peers and princes of Europe, even at this day, give
to be always sure of such oysters as expose themselves, with all
their wealth of fat, buried to the chin, about the entrances of
our harbors, from Sandy Hook to Savannah, in preference to
the contracted fibres and coppery-flavored substitutes which
they are forced to swallow, instead of the same admirable and
benevolent ocean vegetable, as we commonly enjoy it here.
And what — O Americans! — can they offer in exchange for
the pear, the peach, the apple and the melon, such as I already
taste, in anticipation of events which shall take place in this
very vessel some two hours hence? It is enough, without enumerating
more of our possessions — possessions in the common
enjoyment of our people — that I insist on the national prosperity.

“But this is our misfortune. We are too prosperous. We are
like Jeshuran, of whom we read in the blessed volume, who,
waxing too fat, finally kicked. Fatal kicking! Foolish Jeshuran!
In our fatness— in our excess of good fortune — we are
kicking ungraciously, like him; and we shall most likely, after
the fashion of the ungracious cow of which the Book of Fables
tells us, kick over the bucket after we have fairly filled it.

“We admit the prosperity: but where's the peace? It is in
the very midst of this prosperity that we hear terrible cries from
portions of our country, where they have not yet well succeeded
in casting off the skins of their original savage condition. There's
Bully Benton, and Big-Bone Allen, and Humbug Houston, and
Little Lion Douglass, and Snaky-Stealing Seward, and Copper-Captain
Cass, and a dozen others, of bigger breeches than
brains, and mightier maws than muscles — hear how they severally
roar and squeak![1] One would cut the carotid of corpulent

John Bull; another would swallow the mines of Mexico;
a third would foul the South, a fourth the North; and they are
all for kicking up a pretty d—d fuss generally, expecting
the people to foot the bill.

“And now, with such an infernal hubbub in our ears, on every
side, from these bomb-bladders, should there be peace among
us? We cry `peace' when there is no peace! Their cry is
`war,' even in the midst of prosperity, and when short-cotton is
thirteen cents a pound! And war for what? As if we had not
prosperity enough, and a great deal too much, shipmates, since
we do not know what to do with it, and employ such blatherskites
as these to take it into their ridiculous keeping. In so
many words, shipmates, these Beasts of Babylon, representing
us poor boobies of America, are each of them, professedly on our
part, playing the part of Jeshuran the Fat! They are kicking
lustily, and will, I trust, be kicked over in the end, and before
the end, and kicked out of sight, by that always-avenging destiny,
which interposes, at the right moment, to settle accounts
with blockhead statesmen and blockhead nations.

“Now, how are we to escape our own share of this judgment
of Jeshuran? Who shall say how long it will be before we set
our heels against the bucket, and see the green fields of our
liberties watered with the waste of our prosperities! (I'm not
sure of the legitimacy of this figure, but can't stop now to analyze
it. We'll discuss it hereafter before the Literary Club of
Charleston, which is said to be equally famous for its facts and
figures.) But, so long as it is doubtful if we shall escape this
disaster — so long as the future is still in nubibus, and these
clouds are so full of growl and blackness — we may reasonably
doubt if our prosperity is either secure or perfect. Certainly,
it is not yet time either for its history or eulogy.

“But for our peace, our harmony, if not our prosperity?

“Believing ourselves prosperous, as we all do and loudly
asseverate, and there should be no good reason why harmony
should not be ours. But this harmony is of difficult acquisition,
and we must first ask, my brethren, what is harmony?

“When we sit down to dinner to-day, it is in the confident
expectation that harmony will preside over the banquet. There
is no good reason why it should be otherwise. There will be

ample at the feast for all the parties. Each will get enough,
and probably of the very commodity he desires. If he does
not, it is only because there is not quite enough for all, and the
dish happens to be nearer me than him! Nevertheless, we
take for granted that harmony will furnish the atmosphere of
the feast to-day. It will render grateful the various dishes of
which we partake. It will assist us in their digestion. We
will eat and drink in good humor, and rise in good spirits.
Each one will entertain and express his proper sentiments, and,
as our mutual comfort will depend upon a gentlemanly conduct,
so no one will say or do anything to make his neighbor feel
uncomfortable. If you know that the person next to you has
a corn upon his toe, you will not tread on it in order to compel
his attention to your wants; and, should you see another about
to swallow a moderate mouthful of cauliflower, it will not be
your care to whisper a doubt if the disquiet of the person in the
adjoining cabin was not clearly the result of cabbage and cholera.
This forbearance is the secret of harmony, and I trust we
shall this day enjoy it as the best salad to our banquet.

“And now, how much of this harmony is possessed among
our people in the states? Are you satisfied that there is any
such feeling prevailing in the nation, when, in all its states, it
assembles in celebration of this common anniversary? Hearken
to the commentary. Do you hear that mighty hellabaloo in the
East? It comes from Massachusetts Bay. It is just such an
uproar as we have heard from that quarter for a hundred years.
First, it fell upon the ears of the people of Mohegan, and Naraganset,
and Coneaughtehoke — the breechless Indians — and
it meant massacre. The Indians perished by sword-cut and
arquebus-shot and traffic — scalps being bought at five shillings
per head, till the commodity grew too scarce for even cupidity
to make capital with. Very brief, however, was the interval
that followed. Our Yankee brethren are not the people to
suffer their neighbors to be long at peace, or to be themselves
pacific. Very soon, and there was another hellabaloo! The
victims this time were the Quakers; and they had to fly from a
region of so much prosperity, using their best legs, in order to
keep their simple scalps secure under their broad brims. What
was to be done to find food for the devouring appetite of these

rabid wretches, who so well discriminated always as to seek
their victims in the feeble, and rarely suffered their virtues to
peril their own skins. They turned next, full-mouthed, upon
the old women, and occasionally upon the young. At the new
hellabaloo of these saints, these poor devils — and, unluckily,
the devils whom they were alleged to serve were too poor to
bring them any succor — were voted to be witches; they were
cut off by cord and fire, until the land was purged of all but its
privileged sinners.

“Short again was the rest which these godly savages gave
themselves or their neighbors. The poor Gothamites next fell
beneath the ban, and the simple Dutchmen of Manhattan were
fain to succumb under the just wrath of the God-appointed race.
And now, all the neighboring peoples being properly subjected,
the hellabaloo was raised against the cavaliers who dwelt south
of the Potomac.

“These were ancient enemies of the saints in the mother-country.
But there had been reasons hitherto for leaving them
undisturbed. They had been good customers. They had been
the receivers of the stolen goods brought them by these wise
men of the East, and did not then know that the seller could
give no good title to the property he sold. As long as our cavalier
continued to buy the African, the saints hinted not a word
about the imperfectness of the title. It was only when he
refused to buy any more of the commodity that he was told it
was stolen.

“And now the hellabaloo is raised against all those having
the stolen goods in possession. Does this hellabaloo sound like
harmony, my brethren? and don't you think there will be an
answering hellabaloo to this, which will tend still more to disturb
the harmonies? And, with these wild clamors in our ear,
rocking the nation from side to side, who is it that cries `peace!
peace! peace!' when there is no peace? Am I to be made
the echo of a falsehood? Shall my lips repeat the silly commonplace
which cheats nobody, and persuades nobody, and
makes nobody repent? No, my brethren! Let us speak the
truth. There is no peace, no harmony, no union among us.
As a people, we are already sundered. We now hate and strive
against each other; and, until we come back to justice — to the

recognition of all those first principles which led our ancestors
into a league, offensive and defensive, for a common object and
with a common necessity, — the breach will widen and widen,
until a great gulf shall spread between us, above which Death
will hang ever with his black banner; and across which terror,
and strife, and vengeance, shall send their unremitting bolts of
storm and fire! Let us pray, my brethren, that, in regard to
our harmony, we arrest our prosperity, lest we grow too fat, and
kick like Jeshuran!”

Here a pause. Our orator was covered with perspiration.
He hemmed thrice with emphasis. He had reached a climax.
The Texan was sleeping audibly, giving forth sounds like an
old alligator at the opening of the spring. Our few Yankee
voyagers had arisen some time before, not liking the atmosphere,
and were now to be seen with the telescope, looking out into
the East for dry land. The orator himself seemed satisfied
with the prospect. He saw that his audience were in the right
mood to be awakened. He wiped his face accordingly, put on
his green spectacles, and in a theatrical aside to the steward —

“Hem! steward! another touch of the snake and tiger.”

I do not know that I need give any more of this curious oration,
which was continued to much greater length, and discussed
a most amusing variety of subjects, not omitting that of Communism,
and Woman's Rights. Know-Nothingism had not then
become a fixed fact in the political atmosphere, or it would,
probably, have found consideration also.

Very mixed were the feelings with which the performance
was greeted. Our secessionists from South Carolina and other
states, of whom there were several on board, were quite satisfied
with our orator's view of the case; but our Yankees, reappearing
when it was fairly over, were not in the mood to suffer
it to escape without sharp censure. The orator was supposed
to have made a very unfair use of the occasion and of his
own appointment. But the orator was not a customer with
whom it was politic to trifle; and as he seemed disposed to
show his teeth, more than once, the discussion was seasonably
arrested by the call to dinner.

They live well on the steamers between New York and
Charleston. Both cities know something of good living, and in

neither is the taste for turtle likely to die out. Why is the
breed of aldermen so little honored in either? Our captain is
proverbially a person who can sympathize duly with the exigencies
of appetite, and his experience in providing against them
has made him an authority at the table. Ordinarily admirable,
our dinner on the glorious Fourth was worthy of the occasion.
The committee of arrangements had duly attended to their
duties.

The time at length arrived for that interchange of mortal and
mental felicities which the literary stereotypists describe as the
feast of reason and the flow of soul; and sentiment was to be indulged.
Our excellent captain, sweetness in all his looks, homage
in his eye, in every action dignity and grace, filling his
glass, bowed to a stately matron, one of our few lady-passengers
—

“The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, madam.”

“Thank you, captain, but I never take wine,” was the reply.

“Perfectly right, madam,” put in the orator of the day;
“Though written that wine cheereth the heart of man it is nowhere
said that it will have any such effect on the heart of
woman.”

There was a little by-play after this, between the orator and
the lady, the latter looking and speaking as if half disposed now
to take the wine, if only to prove that its effects might be as
cheering to the one sex as to the other. But the captain rising,
interrupted the episode.

“Fill your glasses, gentlemen.”

“All charged,” cried the vice.

1. The day we celebrate! — Dear to us only as the memorial
of an alliance between nations, which was to guaranty protection,
justice, and equal rights, to all.

The batteries being opened, the play went on without interruption:
I shall go on with the toasts, seriatim.

2. The Constitution.—Either a bond for all, or a bond for none.
Not surely such a web as will bind fast the feeble, and through
which the strong may break away without restraint.

3. The Union.— The perfection of harmony, if, as it was designed
to be, in the language of Shakspeare, — the “unity and
married calm of States.”—

4. The Slave States of the South.— The conservators of the
peace, where faction never rears its head, where mobs tear not
down, nor burn, nor destroy the hopes and habitations of the
peaceful and the weak, and where reverence in the people is
still the guarantee for a gentleman in the politician.

5. The Agriculture of the South.— The source of peace, hospitality,
and those household virtues, which never find in business
a plea against society.

6. Cotton and Corn.— The grand pacificators, which in covering
and lining the poor of Europe, bind their hands with peace,
and fill their hearts with gratitude.

7. Washington.— A Southron and a slaveholder—pious without
cant; noble without arrogance; brave without boast; and
generous without ostentation!—When the Free-Soilers shall be
able to boast of such a citizen and son, it may be possible to believe
them honest in their declarations, and unselfish in their objects
— but not till then.

8. The President of the United States.— We honor authority
and place; but let authority see that it do honor to itself. Let
no man suppose that he shall play the puppet in his neighbors'
hands, and not only escape the shame thereof, but win the good
name of skilful play for himself. He who would wield authority,
must show himself capable of rule; and he who has famously
borne the sword, must beware lest other men should use his
truncheon.

[Par Parenthese.— Brave old Zachary Taylor was the reigning
president when this toast was given.]

9. The Native State.—Yours or mine, no matter. We are all
linked indissolubly, by a strange and more than mortal tie, to a
special soil. To that soil does the true soul always hold itself
firmly bound in a fidelity that loves to toil in its improvement,
and will gladly die in its defence.

10. Woman. — Whether as the virgin she wins our fancies,
as the wife our hearts, as the mother our loyalty, still, in all, the
appointed angel to minister to our cares, to inspirit our hopes,
to train our sensibilities, and to lift our sympathies, to the pure,
the gentle, the delicate, and the true.

11. Our Slaves.— Like our children, minors in the hands of
the guardian, to be protected and trained to usefulness and virtue

— to be taught service and obedience — love and loyalty — to
be nurtured with a care that never wrongs, and governed by a
rule that simply restrains the excesses of humanity.

12. Our Captain and his Ship.— A good husband for such a
wife, — he lets her steam it, but keeps her in stays; — she may
boil up, but never keeps the house in hot water — and all the
hellabaloo finally ends in smoke. If she keeps up a racket below,
he at least, trumpet in hand, walks the decks, and is still
the master. May he always keep her to her bearings, and never
suffer her to grow so old, as, like some other old woman, to become
past bearing.

Here, the captain, overcome with emotion, his face covered
with blushes, rose, and after the fierce plaudits of the table had
subsided, replied in the most eloquent language to the compliment,
concluding thus —

“And while I remain the master of this goodly creature, gentlemen,
let me assure you, she will never discredit her breeding;
certainly never while she continues to bear such children as I
have the honor to see before me. Gentlemen, I give you —

“The Fair — Equally precious as fair weather, fair play, and
fair women. While deriving from these the best welfare of the
heart, may we be called upon to bid them farewell only when
it is decreed that we shall fare better.”

The regular toasts were resumed and concluded with the thirteent:—

13. The Orator of the Day.— He hath put the chisel to the
seam, the wedge to the split, the hammer to the head, the saddle
on the horse. He has spoken well and wisely, and decently,
without the hellabaloo which usually marks a fourth of July
oration. Let him be honored with the mark of greatness, and
if there be a place in senate and assembly which it would not
discredit a wise man and a gentleman to occupy, send him
thither.

Our orator was again on his feet. His green spectacles under
them at the same moment — and, such a speech in reply: —
there is no reporting it, but if Alabama does not yet ring with
the voice of that nondescript, then hath she lost the taste for
racy matters.

It will be seen that, thus far, the secessionists have pretty

much had the affair in their own hands: and our brethren north
of the Hudson were not in the best of humors — were somewhat
riled, indeed, by the character of the oration and the toasts that
followed. They attempted to reply, in the volunteer toasts
which they offered, quoting Daniel Webster and others very
freely, but without much visible effect. For once, the majority
was against them. Our space will not suffice to report their
toasts, the answers, or the discussions which ensued; but it is
doing them justice only to give one of the several volunteer
songs which were sung in honor of the Union. The secessionists
had a poet on board, but his muse was suffering from sea-sickness
or some other malady. She was certainly reluctant
and made no sign. The lay that I give might have issued from
the mint of Joel Barlow for aught I know: —

UNION AND LIBERTY.

Pretty sharp were the criticisms of this ode on the part of
our secessionists.

“It halts and hobbles like the Union itself,” was the sneer of
one.

“In truth,” said another, “it is ominous, lacking, here and
there, some very necessary feet.”

“Its measures, like those of government are admirably unequal.”

In short, politically, poetically, morally, and musically, the
poor ode was declared, by a punster present, to be certainly
within poetic rule, as it was decidedly odeous. At this — unkindest
cut of all — the unhappy singer — author, too, perhaps
— was suddenly seized with sea-sickness, and disappeared on
deck. The day was at its close as we left the table. We came
forth to enjoy a delicious sunset, and I was then officially notified
that a story was expected from me that night. My turn
had come. The ladies were graciously pleased to command
that I should give them a tale of the Revolution, as appropriate
to the day, and, after a fine display of fireworks, we composed
ourselves in the usual circle, and I delivered myself of the following
narrative, which I need not say to those who know me
was founded on fact: —

THE BRIDE OF THE BATTLE.

A TALE OF THE REVOLUTION.

1. CHAPTER I.

To the reader who, in the pursuit of the facts in our national
history, shall confine himself only to those records which are to
be found in the ordinary narrative, much that he reads will be
found obscure, and a great deal absolutely untruthful. Our
early historians gave themselves but little trouble in searching
after details. A general outline was all that they desired, and,
satisfied with this, they neither sought after the particular events
which should give rise to the narrative, nor into the latent causes

which gave birth to many of its actions. In the history of South
Carolina, for example, (which was one brimming with details and
teeming with incidents,) there is little to be found — as the history
is at present written — which shall afford to the reader even a
tolerably correct idea of the domestic character of the struggle.
We know well enough that the people of the colony were of a
singularly heterogeneous character; that the settlers of the lower
country were chiefly Cavaliers and Huguenots, or French Protestants,
and that the interior was divided into groups, or settlements,
of Scotch, Irish, and German. But there is little in the
record to show that, of these, the sentiment was mixed and various
without degree; and that, with the exception of the parishes
of the lower country, which belonged almost wholly, though
with slight modifications, to the English church, it was scarcely
possible to find any neighborhood, in which there was not something
like a civil war. The interior and mountain settlements
were most usually divided, and nearly equally, between their attachments
to the crown and the colony. A Scotch settlement
would make an almost uniform showing in behalf of the English
authority — one, two, or three persons, at the utmost, being of
the revolutionary party. An Irish settlement (wholly Protestant,
be it remembered) would be as unanimous for the colonial
movements; while the Germans were but too frequently for the
monarchical side, that being represented by a prince of Hanover.
The German settlements mostly lay in the Forks of Edisto, and
along the Congarees. The business of the present narrative
will be confined chiefly to this people. They had settled in rather
large families in Carolina, and this only a short period before
the Revolution. They had been sent out, in frequent instances,
at the expense of the crown, and this contributed to
secure their allegiance. They were ignorant of the nature of
the struggle, and, being wholly agricultural, could not well be
taught the nature of grievances which fell chiefly upon commerce
and the sea-board. Now, in Carolina, and perhaps throughout
the whole south, the Revolution not only originated with the
natives of the country, but with the educated portions of the
natives. It was what may be termed the gentlemen of the colony
— its wealth and aristocracy — with whom and which the
movement began; and though it is not our purpose here to go
into this inquiry, we may add that the motives to the revolutionary
movement originated with them, in causes totally different
from those which stimulated the patriotism of the people of
Massachusetts Bay. The pride of place, of character and of
intellect, and not any considerations of interest, provoked the
agricultural gentry of the south into the field.

It was the earnest desire of these gentry, at the dawning of
the Revolution, to conciliate the various people of the interior.
At the first signs of the struggle, therefore, an attempt was made
to influence the German population along the Edisto and Congaree,
by sending among them two influential men of their own
country, whose fidelity to the mouvement party was beyond dispute.
But these men were unsuccessful. They probably made
few converts. It is enough, if we give a glimpse at the course
of their proceedings in a single household in the Forks of Edisto.[2]
George Wagner and Felix Long arrived at the habitation of
Frederick Sabb, on the 7th day of July, 1775. Frederick was
an honest Dutchman of good character, but not the man for revolution.
He was not at home on the arrival of the commissioners,
but his good vrow, Minnicker Sabb, gave them a gracious reception.
She was a good housekeeper, with but one daughter; a
tall, silent girl, with whom the commissioners had no discourse.
But Minnicker Sabb, had she been applied to, might have proved
a better revolutionist than her spouse. It is very certain, as the
results will show, that Frederica Sabb, the daughter, was of the
right material. She was a calm, and sweetly-minded damsel,
not much skilled in society or books — for precious little was the
degree of learning in the settlement at this early period; but
the native mind was good and solid, and her natural tastes, if
unsophisticated, were pure and elevated. She knew, by precious
instincts, a thousand things which other minds scarcely ever
reach through the best education. She was what we call, a good
girl, loyal, with a warm heart, a sound judgment, and a modest,
sensible behavior. We are not seeking, be it remembered, a
heroine, but a pure, true-hearted woman. She was young too —
only seventeen at this period — but just at the season when the

woman instincts are most lively, and her susceptibilities most
quick to all that is generous and noble. She made the cakes
and prepared the supper for the guests that evening, and they
saw but little of her till the evening feast had been adjusted, and
was about to be discussed. By this time old Frederick Sabb had
made his appearance. He came, bringing with him three of his
neighbors, who were eager to hear the news. They were followed,
after a little space, and in season for supper, by another
guest — perhaps the most welcome of all to the old couple — in
the person of a favorite preacher of the methodist persuasion.
Elijah Fields, was a man of middle age, of a vigorous mind and
body, earnest and impetuous, and represented, with considerable
efficiency, in his primitive province, the usefulness of a church
which, perhaps, more than any other, has modelled itself after
that of the Primitive Fathers. We shall see more of Elijah
Fields hereafter. In the course of the evening, three other
neighbors made their appearance at the farmhouse of Frederick
Sabb; making a goodly congregation upon which to exercise
the political abilities of Messrs. Wagner and Long. They were
all filled with a more or less lively curiosity in regard to the
events which were in progress, and the objects which the commissioners
had in view. Four of these neighbors were of the
same good old German stock with Frederick Sabb, but two of
them were natives of the country, from the east bank of the
north branch of the Edisto, who happened to be on a visit to an
adjoining farmstead. The seventh of these was a young Scotchman,
from Cross Creek, North Carolina, who had already declared
himself very freely against the revolutionary movement. He
had, indeed, gone so far as to designate the patriots as traitors,
deserving a short cord and a sudden shrift; and this opinion was
expressed with a degree of temper which did not leave it doubtful
that he would gladly seek an opportunity to declare himself
offensively in the presence of the commissioners. As we shall
see more of this person hereafter, it is only right that we should
introduce him formally to the reader as Matthew or Mat Dunbar.
He went much more frequently by the name of Mat than Matthew.
We may also mention that he was not entirely a politician.
A feeling of a tender nature brought him to the dwelling
of old Sabb, upon whose daughter, Frederica, our young Scotchman
was supposed to look with hungry eyes. And public conjecture
did not err in its suspicions.

But Mat Dunbar was not without a rival. Richard Coulter
was the only native of the country present, Parson Fields excepted.
He was a tall, manly youth, about the same age with
Dunbar. But he possessed many advantages over the latter,
particularly in respect to person. Tall, while Dunbar was short,
with a handsome face, fine eye, and a luxuriant shock of hair,
and a massive beard of the same color, which gave quite a martial
appearance to his features, otherwise effeminate — the spectator
inevitably contrasted him with his rival, whose features,
indeed, were fair, but inexpressive; and whose hair and beard
were of the most burning and unmitigated red. Though stout
of limb, vigorous and athletic, Mat Dunbar was awkward in his
movement, and wanting in dignity of bearing. Mentally, the
superiority of Coulter was not so manifest. He was more diffident
and gentle than the other, who, experienced by travel, bold
and confident, never exhibited himself at less than his real worth.
These preliminaries must suffice. It is perhaps scarcely necessary
to say that Frederica Sabb made her comparisons between
the two, and very soon arrived at one conclusion. A girl of common
instincts rarely fails to discover whether she is sought or
not; and the same instincts leads her generally to determine between
rivals long in advance of the moment when they propose.
Richard Coulter was certainly her favorite — though her prudence
was of that becoming kind which enabled her easily to keep to
herself the secret of her preference.

Old Sabb treated his guests with good Dutch hospitality. His
wife and daughter were excellent housekeepers, and the table
was soon spread with good things for supper. Butter, milk, and
cream-cheeses, were not wanting; pones and hoe-cakes made
an ample showing, and a few broiled chickens, and a large platter
of broiled ham, in the centre of the table, were as much a
matter of course in that early day, in this favorite region, as we
find them among its good livers now. Of course, supper was
allowed to be discussed before the commissioners opened their
budget. Then the good vrow took her place, knitting in hand,
and a huge ball of cotton in her lap, at the door, while the guests
emerged from the hall into the piazza, and sweet Frederica Sabb,

quietly, as was her habit, proceeded to put away the debris of
the feast, and to restore the apartment to its former order. In
this she was undisturbed by either of her lovers; the custom of
the country requiring that she should be left to these occupations
without being embarrassed by any obtrusive sentiments, or
even civilities. But it might be observed that Richard Coulter
had taken his seat in the piazza, at a window looking into the
hall, while Mat Dunbar had placed himself nearly at the entrance,
and in close neighborhood with the industrious dame.
Here he divided himself between attentions to her, and an occasional
dip into the conversation on politics, which was now fully
in progress. It is not our purpose to pursue this conversation.
The arguments of the commissioners can be readily conjectured.
But they were fruitless to persuade our worthy Dutchman into
any change, or any self-committals, the issue of which might endanger
present comforts and securities. He had still the same
answer to every argument, delivered in broken English which
we need not imitate.

“The king, George, has been a good king to me, my friends.
I was poor, but I am not poor now. I had not a finger of land
before I came hither. Now, I have good grants, and many
acres. I am doing well. For what should I desire to do better?
The good king will not take away my grants; but if I should
hear to you, I should be rebel, and then he would be angry, and
he might make me poor again as I never was before. No, no,
my friends; I will sign no association that shall make me lose
my lands.”

“You're right!” vociferated Mat Dunbar. “It's treason, I
say, to sign any association, and all these rangers here, in arms,
are in open rebellion, and should be hung for it; and let the
time come, and I'm one to help in the hanging them!”

This was only one of many such offensive speeches which Dunbar
had contrived to make during the evening. The commissioners
contented themselves with marking the individual, but without
answering him. But his rudely-expressed opinions were not
pleasing to old Sabb himself, and still less so to his worthy vrow,
who withdrew at this into the hall; while the stern voice of
Elijah Fields descended in rebuke upon the offender.

“And who art thou,” said he abruptly, “to sit in judgment

upon thy brethren? And who has commissioned thee to lend
thyself to the taking of human life? Life is a sacred thing,
young man — the most precious of human possessions, since it
depends on the time which is allowed us whether we shall ever
be fit for eternity. To one so young as thyself, scarcely yet
entered on thy career as a man, it might be well to remember
that modesty is the jewel of youth, and that when so many of
the great and good of the land have raised their voices against
the oppressions of the mother-country, there may be good reason
why we, who know but little, should respect them, and listen
till we learn. If thou wilt be counselled by me, thou wilt hearken
patiently to these worthy gentlemen, that we may know all the
merits of their argument.”

Dunbar answered this rebuke with a few muttered sentences,
which were hardly intelligible, making no concessions to the
preacher or the commissioners, yet without being positively
offensive. Richard Coulter was more prudent. He preserved
a profound silence. But he was neither unobservant nor indifferent.
As yet he had taken no side in the controversy, and
was totally uncommitted among the people. But he had been
a listener, and was quietly chewing the cud of self-reflection.

After a little while, leaving the venerable seniors still engaged
in the discussion — for Wagner and Long, the commissioners,
were not willing to forego the hope of bringing over a
man of Sabb's influence — the young men strolled out into the
grounds where their horses had been fastened. It was almost
time to ride. As they walked, the Scotchman broke out abruptly:
—

“These fellows ought to be hung, every scoundrel of them;
stirring up the country to insurrection and treason; but a good
lesson of hickories, boys, might put a stop to it quite as well as
the halter! What say you? They ride over to old Carter's
after they leave Daddy Sabb's, and it's a lonesome track! If
you agree, we'll stop 'em at Friday's flats, and trice 'em up to a
swinging limb. We're men enough for it, and who's afraid?”

The proposition was received with great glee by all the young
fellows, with one exception. It was a proposition invoking sport
rather than patriotism. When the more eager responses were
all received, Richard Coulter quietly remarked: —

“No, no, boys; you must do nothing of the kind. These are
good men, and old enough to be the fathers of any of us. Besides,
they're strangers, and think they're doing right. Let 'em
alone.”

“Well, if you wont,” said Dunbar, “we can do without you.
There are four of us, and they're but two.”

“You mistake,” replied Coulter, still quietly, “they are three!”

“How! who?”

“Wagner, Long, and Richard Coulter!”

“What, you! Will you put yourself against us? You go
with the rebels, then?”

“I go with the strangers. I don't know much about the rebellion,
but I think there's good sense in what they say. At all
events, I'll not stand by and see them hurt, if I can help it.”

“Two or three, boys,” continued Dunbar, “will make no difference!”

This was said with a significant toss of the head toward Coulter.
The instincts of these young men were true. They already
knew one another as rivals. This discovery may have
determined the future course of Coulter. He did not reply to
Dunbar; but, addressing his three companions, he said, calling
each by his Christian name, “You, boys, had better not mix in
this matter before it's necessary. I suppose the time will come,
when there can be no skulking, But it's no use to hurry into
trouble. As for four of you managing three, that's not impossible;
but I reckon there will be a fight first. These strangers may
have weapons; but whether they have or not, they look like
men; and I reckon, you that know me, know that before my
back tastes of any man's hickory, my knife will be likely to
taste his blood.”

Dunbar replied rudely for the rest; and, but that Coulter
quietly withdrew at this moment, seemingly unruffled, and without
making any answer, there might have been a struggle between
the two rivals even then. But the companions of Dunbar
had no such moods or motives as prompted him. They were
impressed by what Coulter had said, and were, perhaps, quite as
much under his influence as under that of Dunbar. They accordingly
turned a cold shoulder upon all his exhortations, and
the commissioners, accordingly, left the house of old Sabb in

safety, attended by young Coulter. They little knew his object
in escorting them to the dwelling of Bennett Carter, where they
stayed that night, and never knew the danger from which his
prompt and manly courage had saved them. But the events
of that night brought out Richard Coulter for the cause of the
patriots; and a few months found him a second lieutenant in a
gallant corps of Thompson's rangers, raised for the defence of
the colony. But the commissioners parted from Frederick Sabb
without making any impression on his mind. He professed to
desire to preserve a perfect neutrality — this being the suggestion
of his selfishness; but his heart really inclined him to the
support of the “goot King Jorge,” from whom his grants of land
had been derived.

“And what dost thou think, brother Fields?” said he to the
parson, after the commissioners had retired.

“Brother Sabb,” was the answer, “I do not see that we need
any king any more than the people of Israel, when they called
upon Samuel for one; and if we are to have one, I do not see
why we should not choose one from out our own tribes.”

“Brother Fields, I hope thou dost not mean to go with these
rebels.”

“Brother Sabb, I desire always to go with my own people.”

“And whom callest thou our own people?”

“Those who dwell upon the soil and nurse it, and make it
flourish; who rear their flocks and children upon it, in the fear
of God, and have no fear of man in doing so.”

“Brother Fields, I fear thou thinkst hardly of `goot King
Jorge,'” said our Dutchman, with a sigh. “Minnicker, my
vrow, get you de Piple.”

2. CHAPTER II.

We pass over a long interval of quite three years. The
vicissitudes of the Revolution had not materially affected the
relations of the several parties to our narrative. During this
period the patriots of South Carolina had been uniformly successful.
They had beaten away the British from their chief
city, and had invariably chastized the loyalists in all their attempts
to make a diversion in favor of the foreign enemy. But

events were changing. These performances had not been
effected but at great sacrifice of blood and treasure, and a formidable
British invasion found the state no longer equal to its
defence. Charleston, the capital city, after frequent escapes,
and a stout and protracted defence, had succumbed to the besiegers,
who had now penetrated the interior, covering it with
their strongholds, and coercing it with their arms. For a brief
interval, all opposition to their progress seemed to be at an end
within the state. She had no force in the field, stunned by repeated
blows, and waiting, though almost hopeless of her opportunity.
In the meantime, where was Richard Coulter? A
fugitive, lying perdu either in the swamps of Edisto or Congaree,
with few companions, all similarly reduced in fortune, and
pursued with a hate and fury the most unscrupulous and unrelenting,
by no less a person than Matthew Dunbar, now a captain
of loyalists in the service of George the Third. The position of
Coulter was in truth very pitiable; but he was not without his
consolations. The interval which had elapsed since our first
meeting with him, had ripened his intimacy with Frederica
Sabb. His affections had not been so unfortunate as his patriotism.
With the frank impulse of a fond and feeling heart, he
had appealed to hers, in laying bare the secret of his own; and
he had done so successfully. She, with as frank a nature, freely
gave him her affections, while she did not venture to bestow on
him her hand. His situation was not such as to justify their
union, and her father positively forbade the idea of such a connection.
Though not active among the loyalists, he was now
known to approve of their sentiments; and while giving them
all the aid and comfort in his power, without actually showing
himself in armor, he as steadily turned a cold and unwilling
front to the patriots, and all those who went against the
monarch.

The visits of Richard Coulter to Frederica were all stolen
ones, perhaps not the less sweet for being so. A storm sometimes
brought him forth at nightfall from the shelter of the neighboring
swamp, venturing abroad at a time when loyalty was supposed
to keep its shelter. But these visits were always accompanied
by considerable peril. The eye of Matthew Dunbar was
frequently drawn in the direction of the fugitive, while his passions

were always eager in the desire which led him to seek for
this particular victim. The contest was a well-known issue of
life and death. The fugitive patriot was predoomed always to
the halter, by those, who desired to pacify old revenges, or acquire
new estates. Dunbar did not actually know that Coulter
and Frederica Sabb were in the habit of meeting; but that they
had met, he knew, and he had sworn their detection. He had
become a declared suitor of that maiden, and the fears of old
Sabb would not suffer him to decline his attentions to his daughter,
or to declare against them. Dunbar had become notoriously
an unmitigated ruffian. His insolence disgusted the old Dutchman,
who, nevertheless, feared his violence and influence. Still,
sustained by good old Minnicker Sabb, his vrow, the father had
the firmness to tell Dunbar freely, that his daughter's affections
should remain unforced; while the daughter herself, seeing the
strait of her parents, was equally careful to avoid the final necessity
of repulsing her repulsive suitor. She continued, by a
happy assertion of maidenly dignity, to keep him at bay, without
vexing his self-esteem; and to receive him with civility, without
affording him positive encouragement. Such was the condition
of things among our several parties, when the partisan war
began; when the favorite native leaders in the south — the first
panic of their people having passed — had rallied their little
squads, in swamp and thicket, and were making those first demonstrations
which began to disquiet the British authorities, rendering
them doubtful of the conquests which they had so lately
deemed secure. This, be it remembered, was after the defeat
of Gates at Camden, when there was no sign of a Continental
army within the state.

It was at the close of a cloudy afternoon, late in October,
1780, when Mat Dunbar, with a small command of eighteen
mounted men, approached the well-known farmstead of Frederick
Sabb. The road lay along the west bank of the eastern
branch of the Edisto, inclining to or receding from the river, in
correspondence with the width of the swamp, or the sinuosities
of the stream. The farm of Sabb was bounded on one side by
the river, and his cottage stood within a mile of it. Between,
however, the lands were entirely uncleared. The woods offered
a physical barrier to the malaria of the swamp; while the ground,

though rich, was liable to freshet, and required a degree of labor
in the drainage which it was not in the power of our good
Dutchman to bestow. A single wagon-track led through the
wood to the river from his house; and there may have been
some half dozen irregular foot-paths tending in the same direction.
When within half a mile from the house, Mat Dunbar
pricked up his ears.

“That was surely the gallop of a horse,” he said to his lieutenant
— a coarse, ruffianly fellow like himself, named Clymes.

“Where away?” demanded the other.

“To the left. Put in with a few of the boys, and see what
can be found.”

Clymes did as he was bidden; but the moment he had disappeared,
Dunbar suddenly wheeled into the forest also, putting
spurs to his horse, and commanding his men to follow and scatter
themselves in the wood. A keen suspicion was at the bottom
of his sudden impulse; and, with his pistol in his grasp, and his
teeth set firmly, he darted away at a rate that showed the eagerness
of the blood-hound, on a warm scent. In a few moments the
wood was covered with his people, and their cries and halloes
answering to each other, turned the whole solitude into a scene
of the most animated life. Accustomed to drive the woods for
deer, his party pursued the same habit in their present quest,
enclosing the largest extent of territory, and gradually contracting
their cordon at a given point. It was not long before a certain
degree of success seemed to justify their pursuit. A loud
shout from Clymes, his lieutenant, drew the impetuous Dunbar
to the place, and there he found the trooper, with two others of
the party, firmly confronted by no less a person than Frederica
Sabb. The maiden was very pale, but her lips were closely
compressed together, and her eyes lightened with an expression
which was not so much indicative of anger as of courage and resolve.
As Dunbar rode up, she addressed him.

“You are bravely employed, Captain Dunbar, in hunting with
your soldiers a feeble woman.”

“In faith, my dear Miss Sabb, we looked for very different
game,” replied the leader, while a sardonic smile played over
his visage. “But perhaps you can put us in the way of finding
it. You are surely not here alone?”

“And why not? You are within hail of my father's dwelling.”

“But yours, surely, are not the tastes for lonely walks.”

“Alas! sir, these are scarcely the times for any other.”

“Well, you must permit me to see that your walks are in no
danger from intrusion and insult. You will, no doubt, be confounded
to hear that scattered bands of the rebels are supposed
to be, even now, closely harbored in these swamps. That villain,
Coulter, is known to be among them. It is to hunt up
these outlyers — to protect you from their annoyances, that I
am here now.”

“We can readily dispense with these services, Captain Dunbar.
I do not think that we are in any danger from such enemies,
and in this neighborhood.”

It was some effort to say this calmly.

“Nay, nay, you are quite too confident, my dear Miss Sabb.
You know not the audacity of these rebels, and of this Richard
Coulter in particular. But let me lay hands on him! You will
hardly believe that he is scarce ten minutes gone from this spot.
Did you not hear his horse?”

“I heard no horses but your own.”

“There it is! You walk the woods in such abstraction that
you hear not the danger, though immediately at your ears. But
disperse yourselves in pursuit, my merry men, and whoso brings
me the ears of this outlaw, shall have ten guineas, in the yellow
gold itself. No continental sham! Remember, his ears, boys!
We do not want any prisoners. The trouble of hanging them
out of the way is always wisely saved by a sabre-cut or pistol-bullet.
There, away!”

The countenance of Frederica Sabb instantly assumed the
keenest expression of alarm and anxiety. Her whole frame
began to be agitated. She advanced to the side of the ruffianly
soldier, and put her hand up appealingly.

“Oh! Captain Dunbar, will you not please go home with me,
you and your men? It is now our supper-hour, and the sun is
near his setting. I pray you, do not think of scouring the
woods at this late hour. Some of your people may be hurt.”

“No danger, my dear — all of them are famous fox-hunters.”

“There is no danger to us, believe me. There is nobody in
the woods that we fear. Give yourself no trouble, nor your men.”

“Oh, you mistake! there is surely some one in this wood
who is either in your way or mine — though you heard no
horse.”

“Oh! now I recollect, sir, I did hear a horse, and it seemed
to be going in that direction.”

Here the girl pointed below. The tory leader laughed outright.

“And so he went thither, did he? Well, my dear Miss Sabb,
to please you, I will take up the hunt in the quarter directly
opposite, since it is evident that your hearing just now is exceedingly
deceptive. Boys, away! The back-track, hark you! —
the old fox aims to double.”

“Oh, go not — go not!” she urged, passionately.

“Will I not?” exclaimed the loyalist, gathering up his reins
and backing his steed from her — “will I not? Away, Clymes,
— away, boys; and remember, ten guineas for that hand which
brings down the outlaw, Richard Coulter.”

Away they dashed into the forest, scattering themselves in
the direction indicated by their leader. Frederica watched their
departure with an anxious gaze, which disappeared from her
eyes the moment they were out of sight. In an instant all her
agitation ceased.

“Now—thank Heaven for the thought!” she cried — “it will
be quite dark before they find themselves at fault; and when they
think to begin the search below, he will be wholly beyond their
reach. But how to warn him against the meeting, as agreed on.
The coming of this man forbids that. I must see — I must contrive
it.” And with these muttered words of half-meaning, she
quietly made her way toward her father's dwelling, secure of the
present safety of her lover from pursuit. She had very successfully
practised a very simple ruse for his escape. Her apprehensions
were only but admirably simulated; and, in telling Dunbar
that the fugitive had taken one direction, she naturally relied
on his doubts of her truth, to make him seek the opposite. She
had told him nothing but the truth, but she had told it as a falsehood;
and it had all the effect which she desired. The chase
of the tory-captain proved unsuccessful.

3. CHAPTER III.

It was quite dark before Captain Dunbar reached the cottage
of Frederick Sabb, and he did so in no good humor. Disappointed
of his prey, he now suspected the simple ruse by which
he had been deluded, and his first salutation of Frederica Sabb,
as he entered the cottage, was in no friendly humor.

“There are certain birds, Miss Sabb,” said he, “who fly far
from their young ones at the approach of the hunter, yet make
such a fuss and outcry, as if the nest were close at hand and in
danger. I see you have learned to practise after their lessons.”

The girl involuntarily replied: “But, indeed, Captain Dunbar,
I heard the horse go below.”

“I see you understand me,” was the answer. I feel assured
that you told me only the truth, but you had first put me in the
humor not to believe it. Another time I shall know how to
understand you.”

Frederica smiled, but did not seek to excuse herself, proceeding
all the while in the preparations for supper. This had been
got in readiness especially for the arrival of Dunbar and his
party. He, with Clymes, his first officer, had become inmates
of the dwelling; but his troopers had encamped without, under
instructions of particular vigilance. Meanwhile, supper proceeded,
Sabb and his vrow being very heedful of all the expressed
or conjectured wants of their arbitrary guests. It was
while the repast was in progress that Dunbar fancied that he
beheld a considerable degree of uneasiness in the manner and
countenance of Frederica. She ate nothing, and her mind and
eyes seemed equally to wander. He suddenly addressed her,
and she started as from a dream, at the sound of her own name,
and answered confusedly.

“Something's going wrong,” said Dunbar, in a whisper, to
Clymes; “we can put all right, however, if we try.”

A significant look accompanied the whisper, and made the
second officer observant. When supper was concluded, the
captain of the loyalists showed signs of great weariness. He
yawned and stretched himself amazingly, and without much
regard to propriety. A like weariness soon after exhibited itself

in the second offieer. At length Dunbar said to Old Sabb, using
a style of address to which the old man was familiar, “Well,
Uncle Fred, whenever my bed's ready, say the word. I'm
monstrous like sleep. I've ridden a matter of fifty miles to-day.
In the saddle since four o'clock — and a hard saddle at that.
I'm for sleep after supper.”

The old man, anxious to please his guest, whom he now
began rather to fear than favor, gave him soon the intimation
which he desired, and he was conducted to the small chamber, in
a shed-room adjoining the main hall, which had been assigned
him on all previous occasions. Old Sabb himself attended his
guest, while Lieutenant Clymes remained, for a while longer,
the companion of the old lady and her daughter. Dunbar soon
released his host from further attendance by closing the door
upon him, after bowing him out with thanks. He had scarcely
done so, before he approached one of the two windows in the
chamber. He knew the secrets of the room, and his plan of
operations had been already determined upon. Concealing his
light, so that his shadow might not appear against the window,
he quietly unclosed the shutter so as to rouse no attention by
the sound. A great fig-tree grew near it, the branches, in some
degree, preventing the shutter from going quite back against
the wall. This afforded him additional cover to his proceedings,
and he cautiously passed through the opening, and lightly descended
to the ground. The height was inconsiderable, and he
was enabled, with a small stick, to close the window after him.
In another moment he passed under the house, which stood on
logs four or five feet high, after the manner of the country, and
took a crouching attitude immediately behind the steps in the
rear of the building. From these steps to the kitchen was an
interval of fifteen or eighteen yards, while the barn and other
outhouses lay at convenient distances beyond. Shade-trees
were scattered about, and fruit-trees, chiefly peach, rendering
the space between something like a covered way. We need
not inquire how long our captain of loyalists continued his watch
in this unpleasant position. Patience, however, is quite as natural
as necessary a quality to a temper at once passionate and
vindictive. While he waited here, his lieutenant had left the
house, scattered his men privily about the grounds, and had

himself stolen to a perch, which enabled him to command the
front entrance to the cottage. The only two means of egress
were thus effectually guarded.

In a little time the household was completely quiet. Dunbar
had heard the mutterings, from above, of the family prayers, in
which it was no part of his profession to partake; and had
heard the footsteps of the old couple as they passed through
the passage-way to the chamber opposite the dining-hall. A
chamber adjoining theirs was occupied by Frederica Sabb; but
he listened in vain for her footsteps in that quarter. His watch
was one calculated to try his patience, but it was finally rewarded.
He heard the movement of a light foot over head,
and soon the door opened in the rear of the dwelling, and he
distinguished Frederica as she descended, step by step, to the
ground. She paused, looked up and around her, and then, darting
from tree to tree, she made her way to the kitchen, which
opened at her touch. Here, in a whisper, she summoned to her
side a negro — an old African who, we may at the same time
mention, had been her frequent emissary before, on missions such
as she now designed. Brough, as he was called, was a faithful
Ebo, who loved his young mistress, and had shown himself particularly
friendly to her affaires de cœur. She put a paper into
his hands, and her directions employed few words.

“Brough, you must set off for Mass Richard, and give him
this. You must keep close, or the soldiers will catch you. I
don't know where they've gone, but no doubt they're scattered
in the woods. I have told him, in this paper, not to come, as
he promised; but should you lose the paper —”

“I no guine lose'em,” said Brough seemingly rather displeased
at the doubt, tacitly conveyed, of his carefulness.

“Such a thing might happen, Brough; nay, if you were to
see any of the tories, you ought to destroy it. Hide it, tear it
up, or swallow it, so that they won't be able to read it.”

“I yerry, misses.”

“Very good! And now, when you see Mass Richard, tell
him not to come. Tell him better go farther off, across the fork,
and across the other river; for that Mat Dunbar means to push
after him to-morrow, and has sworn to hunt him up before he
stops. Tell him, I beg him, for my sake, though he may not

be afraid of that bad man, to keep out of his way, at least until
he gathers men enough to meet him on his own ground.”

The startling voice of Dunbar himself broke in upon the whispered
conference. “Mat Dunbar is exceedingly obliged to you,
Miss Sabb.”

“Ah!” shrieked the damsel — “Brough — fly, fly, Brough.”
But Brough had no chance for flight.

“His wings are not sufficiently grown,” cried the loyalist, with
a brutal yell, as he grappled the old negro by the throat, and
hurled him to the ground. In the next moment he possessed
himself of the paper, which he read with evident disappointment.
By this time the sound of his bugle had summoned his
lieutenant, with half a dozen of his followers, and the kitchen
was completely surrounded.

“Miss Sabb, you had best retire to the dwelling. I owe you
no favors, and will remember your avowed opinion, this night, of
Mat Dunbar. You have spoken. It will be for me yet to speak.
Lieutenant Clymes, see the young lady home.”

“But, sir, you will not maltreat the negro?”

“Oh! no! I mean only that he shall obey your commands.
He shall carry this note to your favorite, just as you designed,
with this difference only, that I shall furnish him with an escort.”

“Ah!”

Poor Frederica could say no more. Clymes was about to
hurry her away, when a sense of her lover's danger gave her
strength.

“Brough,” she cried to the negro; “you won't show where
Mass Richard keeps?”

“Never show dem tory not'in', missis.”

The close gripe of Dunbar's finger upon the throat of the negro
stifled his further speech. But Frederica was permitted to
see no more. The hand of Clymes was laid upon her arm, and
she went forward promptly to save herself from indignity. She
little knew the scene that was to follow.

4. CHAPTER IV.

The moment she had disappeared from the kitchen, the negro
was taken forth by the captain of loyalists, who by this time
had surrounded himself with nearly all his band. A single soldier
had been stationed by Clymes between the house and
kitchen, in order to arrest the approach of any of the whites from
the former to the scene where Brough was about to undergo a certain
painful ordeal. The stout old African, doggedly, with a
single shake of his head, obeyed his captors, as they ordered
him to a neighboring wood — a small copse of scrubby oaks, that
lay between the settlement and the swamp forest along the river.
Here, without delay, Brough was commanded, on pain of rope
and hickory, to deliver up the secret of Richard Coulter's hiding-place.
But the old fellow had promised to be faithful. He
stubbornly refused to know or to reveal anything. The scene
which followed is one that we do not care to describe in detail.
The reader must imagine its particulars. Let it suffice that the
poor old creature was haltered by the neck, and drawn up repeatedly
to the swinging limb of a tree, until the moral nature,
feeble at least, and overawed by the terrors of the last mortal
agony, surrendered in despair. Brough consented to conduct the
party to the hiding-place of Richard Coulter.

The savage nature of Matthew Dunbar was now in full exercise.

“Boot and saddle!” was the cry; and, with the negro, both
arms pinioned, and running at the head of one of the dragoon's
horses, leashed to the stirrup-leather, and in constant danger,
should he be found tripping, of a sudden sabre cut, the whole
party, with two exceptions, made their way down the country,
and under the guidance of the African. Two of the soldiers had
been placed in watch upon the premises, with instructions, however,
to keep from sight, and not suffer their proximity to be
suspected. But the suspicion of such an arrangement in existence
was now natural enough to a mind, like that of Frederica
Sabb, made wary by her recent misfortune. She was soon apprized
of the departure of the loyalist troop. She was soon
taught to fear from the weakness of poor Brough. What was

to be done? Was her lover to be caught in the toils? Was
she to become indirectly the agent of his destruction? She determined
at all events to forego no effort by which to effect his
escape. She was a girl of quick wit and prompt expedients.
No longer exposing herself in her white cotton garments, she
wrapped herself closely up in the great brown overcoat of her
father, which buried her person from head to foot. She stole
forth from the front entrance with cautious footsteps, employing
tree and shrub for her shelter whenever they offered. In this
way she moved forward to a spot inclining to the river, but
taking an upward route, one which she naturally concluded had
been left without a guard. But her objects required finally that
she should change her course, and take the downward path, as
soon as she could persuade herself that her progress was fairly
under cover. Still she knew not but that she was seen, and
perhaps followed, as well as watched. The spy might arrest
her at the very moment when she was most hopeful of her
object. How to guard against this danger? How to attain the
necessary security? The question was no sooner formed than
answered. Her way lay through a wilderness of leaves. The
silent droppings from the trees for many years had accumulated
around her, and their constant crinkling beneath her tread,
drawing her notice to this source of fear, suggested to her the
means of safety. There had not been a rain for many weeks.
The earth was parched with thirst, The drought had driven
the sap from shrub and plant; and just below, on the very route
taken by the pursuing party, a natural meadow, a long, thin
strip, the seat of a bayou or lake long since dried up, was covered
with a rank forest of broom-grass, parched and dried by
the sun. The wind was fresh, and driving right below. To
one familiar with the effect of firing the woods in a southern
country under such circumstances, the idea which possessed the
mind of our heroine was almost intuitive. She immediately stole
back to the house, her eagerness finding wings, which, however,
did not betray her caution. The sentinels of Dunbar kept easy
watch, but she had not been unseen. The cool, deliberate tory
had more than once fitted his finger to the trigger of his horseman's
pistol, as he beheld the approach toward him of the shrouded
figure. But he was not disposed to show himself, or to give
the alarm before he could detect the objects of his unknown visiter.
Her return to the house was not beheld. He had lost
sight of her in the woods, and fancied her still to be in the neighborhood.
Unable to recover his clue, he still maintained his
position waiting events.

It was not long before she reappeared upon the scene. He
did not see the figure, until it crossed an open space, on his right,
in the direction of the river. He saw it stoop to the earth, and
he then bounded forward. His haste was injurious to his objects.
He fell over the prostrate trunk of a pine, which had
been thrown down for ranging timber only a few days before,
and lay dark, with all its bark upon it, in the thick cover of the
grass. His pistol went off in his fall, and before he could recover
his feet, he was confounded to find himself threatened by a
rapid rushing forest of flame, setting directly toward him. For
a moment, the sudden blaze blinded him, and when he opened
his eyes fully upon surrounding objects, he saw nothing human
— nothing but the great dark shafts of pine, beneath which the
fire was rushing with the roar and volume of swollen billows of
the sea, breaking upon the shore which they promise to engulf.
To save himself, to oppose fire to fire, or pass boldly through
the flame where it burned most feebly, was now a first necessity;
and we leave him to extricate himself as he may, while we follow
the progress of Frederica Sabb. The flame which she had
kindled in the dry grass and leaves, from the little old stablelantern
of the cottage, concealed beneath the great-coat of her
father, had sufficed as a perfect cover to her movements. The
fire swept below, and in the direction of the tory sentinels. The
advance of the one, she had perceived, in the moment when she
was communicating the blazing candle to the furze. She fancied
she was shot when she heard the report of the pistol; but
pressing her hand to her heart, the lantern still in her grasp, she
darted headlong forward by one of the paths leading directly to
the river. The fire was now raging over all the tract between
her and the tory sentries. Soon, she descended from the pine
ridge, and passed into the low flat land, strewed with gray cypresses,
with their thousand knees, or abutments. The swamp
was nearly dry. She found her way along a well-known path
to the river, and from beneath a clump of shrouding willows,

drew forth a little dug-out, the well-known cypress canoe of the
country. This was a small egg shell-like structure, scarcely
capable of holding two persons, which she was well accustomed
to manage. At once she pushed boldly out into the broad stream,
whose sweet rippling flow, a continuous and gentle murmur, was
strangely broken by the intense roar and crackling of the fire
as it swept the broad track of stubble, dry grass and leaves,
which lay in its path. The lurid shadows sometimes passed
over the surface of the stream, but naturally contributed to increase
her shelter. With a prayer that was inaudible to herself,
she invoked Heaven's mercy on her enterprise, as, with a strong
arm, familiar in this exercise, she plied from side to side the little
paddle which, with the favoring currents of the river, soon
carried her down toward the bit of swamp forest where her lover
found his refuge. The spot was well known to the maiden,
though we must do her the justice to say she would never have
sought for Richard Coulter in its depths, but in an emergency
like the present. It was known as “Bear Castle,” a close thicket
covering a sort of promontory, three fourths of which was encircled
by the river, while the remaining quarter was a deep
swamp, through which, at high water, a streamlet forced its way,
converting the promontory into an islet. It was unfortunate for
Coulter and his party that, at this season the river was much
lower than usual, and the swamp offered no security on the land
side, unless from the denseness of the forest vegetation. It
might now be passed dry shod.

The distance from “Bear Castle” to the farmstead of old
Frederick Sabb, was, by land, but four or five miles. By water
it was fully ten. If, therefore, the stream favored the progress
of our heroine, the difference against Dunbar and his tories was
more than equalled by the shorter route before him, and the
start which he had made in advance of Frederica. But Brough
was no willing guide. He opposed frequent difficulties to the
distasteful progress, and, as they neared the spot, Dunbar found
it necessary to make a second application of the halter before
the good old negro could be got forward. The love of life, the
fear of death, proved superior to his loyalty.

Brough could have borne any quantity of flogging — nay, he
could, perhaps, have perished under the scourge without confessing,

but his courage failed, when the danger was that of being
launched into eternity. A shorter process than the cord or
swinging limb would not have found him so pliant. With a
choking groan he promised to submit, and, with heart swollen
almost to bursting, he led the route, off from the main road now,
and through the sinuous little foot-paths which conducted to the
place of refuge of our patriots.

It was at this point, having ascertained what space lay between
him and his enemy, that Dunbar dismounted his troopers.
The horses were left with a guard, while the rest of his men,
under his personal lead, made their further progress on foot.
His object was a surprise. He designed that the negro should
give the “usual” signal with which he had been taught to approach
the camp of the fugitive; and this signal — a shrill whistle,
three times sounded, with a certain measured pause between
each utterance — was to be given when the swamp was entered
over which the river, in high stages of the water, made its breach.
These instructions were all rigidly followed. Poor Brough, with
the rope about his neck, and the provost ready to fling the other
end of the cord over the convenient arm of a huge sycamore
under which they stood, was incapable of resistance. But his
strength was not equal to his submission. His whistle was but
feebly sounded. His heart failed him and his voice; and a repeated
contraction of the cord, in the hands of the provost, was
found essential to make him repeat the effort, and give more
volume to his voice. In the meanwhile, Dunbar cautiously
pushed his men forward. They passed through great hollows,
where, at full water, the alligator wallowed; where the whooping
crane sought his prey at nightfall; where the fox slept in
safety, and the wild-cat in a favorite domain. “Bear Castle”
was the fortress of many fugitives. Aged cypresses lay like the
foundations of ancient walls along the path, and great thorny
vines, and flaming, flowery creepers flaunted their broad streamers
in the faces of the midnight gropers through their solitudes.
The route would have been almost impassable during the day
for men on horseback; it was a tedious and toilsome progress
by night for men on foot. But Dunbar, nothing doubting of
the proximity of his enemy, went forward with an eagerness
which only did not forget its caution.

5. CHAPTER V.

The little party of Richard Coulter consisted of four persons
besides himself. It was, perhaps, an hour before this that he sat
apart from the rest conversing with one of his companions. This
was no other than Elijah Fields, the methodist preacher. He
had become a volunteer chaplain among the patriots of his own
precinct, and one who, like the bishop of Beauvais, did not scruple
to wield the weapons of mortal warfare as well as those of
the church. It is true he was not ostentatious in the manner of
the performance; and this, perhaps, somewhat increases its merit.
He was the man for an emergency, forgetting his prayers
when the necessity for blows was pressing, and duly remembering
his prayers when the struggle was no longer doubtful. Yet
Elijah Fields was no hypocrite. He was a true, strong-souled
man, with blood, will, energies and courage, as well as devotion,
and a strong passion for the soil which gave him birth. In plain
terms, he was the patriot as well as the preacher, and his manhood
was required for both vocations.

To him, Richard Coulter, now a captain among the partisans
of Sumter, had unfolded the narrative of his escape from Dunbar.
They had taken their evening meal; their three companions
were busy with their arms and horses, grouped together in
the centre of the camp. Our two principal persons occupied a
little headland on the edge of the river, looking up the stream.
They were engaged in certain estimates with regard to the number
of recruits expected daily, by means of which Coulter was
in hopes to turn the tables on his rival; becoming the hunter
instead of the fugitive. We need not go over the grounds of
their discussion, and refer to the general progress of events
throughout the state. Enough to say that the Continental army,
defeated under Gates, was in course of reorganization, and reapproaching
under Greene; that Marion had been recently active
and successful below; and that Sumter, defeated by Tarleton
at Fishing creek, was rapidly recruiting his force at the foot
of the mountains. Richard Coulter had not been utterly unsuccessful
in the same business along the Eidsto. A rendezvous of
his recruits was appointed to take place on the ensuing Saturday;

and, at this rendezvous, it was hoped that he would find
at least thirty stout fellows in attendance. But we anticipate.
It was while in the discussion of these subjects that the eyes of
Coulter, still looking in the direction of his heart, were attracted
by the sudden blaze which swept the forests, and dyed in lurid
splendor the very face of heaven. It had been the purpose of
Frederica Sabb, in setting fire to the undergrowth, not only to
shelter her own progress, but in this way to warn her lover of
his danger. But the effect was to alarm him for her safety rather
than his own.

“That fire is at Sabb's place,” was his first remark.

“It looks like it,” was the reply of the preacher.

“Can it be that Dunbar has burnt the old man's dwelling?”

“Hardly!”

“He is not too good for it, or for anything monstrous.
He has burnt others — old Rumph's — Ferguson's, and many
more.”

“Yes! but he prefers to own, and not destroy old Sabb's. As
long as he has a hope of getting Frederica, he will scarcely commit
such an outrage.”

“But if she has refused him — if she answers him as she feels,
scornfully —”

“Even then he will prefer to punish in a different way. He
will rather choose to take the place by confiscation than burn it.
He has never put that fire, or it is not at Sabb's, but this side
of it, or beyond it.”

“It may be the act of some drunken trooper. At all events,
it requires that we should be on the look-out. I will scout it for
a while and see what the mischief is. Do you, meanwhile, keep
everything ready for a start.”

“That fire will never reach us.”

“Not with this wind, perhaps; but the enemy may. He evidently
beat the woods after my heels this evening, and may be
here to-morrow, on my track. We must be prepared. Keep
the horses saddled and bitted, and your ears open for any summons.
Ha! by heavens, that is Brough's signal now.”

“Is it Brough's? If so, it is scarcely from Brough in a healthy
state. The old fellow must have caught cold going to and fro
at all hours in the service of Cupid.”

Our preacher was disposed to be merry at the expense of our
lover.

“Yes, it is Brough's signal, but feeble, as if the old fellow
was really sick. He has probably passed through this fire,
and has been choked with the smoke. But he must have an
answer.”

And, eager to hear from his beloved one, our hero gave his
whistle in reply, and moved forward in the direction of the isthmus.
The preacher, meanwhile, went toward the camp, quite
prompt in the performance of the duties assigned him.

“He answers,” muttered the tory captain; “the rebels are
delivered to our hands!” And his preparations were sternly
prosecuted to make a satisfactory finish to the adventure of the
night. He, too, it must be remarked, though somewhat wondering
at the blazing forest behind him, never for a moment divined
the real origin of the conflagration. He ascribed it to accident,
and, possibly, to the carelessness of one of the troopers
whom he left as sentinels. With an internal resolution to make
the fellow, if offending, familiar with the halberds, he pushed
forward, as we have seen, till reaching the swamp; while the
fire, obeying the course of the wind, swept away to the right of
the path kept by the pursuing party, leaving them entirely without
cause of apprehension from this quarter.

The plans of Dunbar, for penetrating the place of Coulter's
refuge, were as judicious as they could be made under the circumstances.
Having brought the troopers to the verge of the
encampment, the negro was fastened to a tree by the same rope
which had so frequently threatened his neck. The tories pushed
forward, each with pistol cocked and ready in the grasp. They
had scattered themselves abroad, so as to form a front sufficient
to cover, at moderate intervals, the space across the isthumus.
But, with the withdrawal of the immediate danger, Brough's
courage returned to him, and, to the furious rage and discomfiture
of Dunbar, the old negro set up on a sudden a most boisterous
African howl — such a song as the Ebo cheers himself
with when in the doubtful neighborhood of a jungle which may
hide the lion or the tiger. The sound re-echoed through the
swamp, and startled, with a keen suspicion, not only our captain
of patriots, but the preacher and his associates. Brough's voice

was well known to them all; but that Brough should use it after
such a fashion was quite as unexpected to them as to Dunbar
and his tories. One of the latter immediately dropped back, intending
to knock the negro regularly on the head; and, doubtless,
such would have been the fate of the fellow, had it not been
for the progress of events which called him elsewhere. Richard
Coulter had pressed forward at double quick time as he heard
the wild chant of the African, and, being familiar with the region,
it occupied but little space to enable him to reach the line
across which the party of Dunbar was slowly making its way.
Hearing but a single footfall, and obtaining a glimpse of a single
figure only, Coulter repeated his whistle. He was answered
with a pistol shot — another and another followed; and he had
time only to wind his bugle, giving the signal of flight to his
comrades, when he felt a sudden sickness at his heart, and a
faintness which only did not affect his judgment. He could still
feel his danger, and his strength sufficed to enable him to roll
himself close beside the massive trunk of the cypress, upon which
he had unhappily been perched when his whistle drew the fire
upon him of several of the approaching party. Scarcely had
he thus covered himself from a random search when he sunk into
insensibility.

Meanwhile, “Bear Castle,” rang with the signals of alarm and
assault. At the first sound of danger, Elijah Fields dashed forward
in the direction which Coulter had taken. But the private
signal which he sounded for the other was unanswered, and
the assailants were now breaking through the swamp, and were
to be heard on every hand. To retreat, to rally his comrades,
to mount their steeds, dash into the river and take the stream,
was all the work of an instant. From the middle of the sweeping
current the shouts of hate and defiance came to the ears of
the tories as they broke from the copse and appeared on the
banks of the river. A momentary glimpse of the dark bulk of
one or more steeds as they whirled round an interposing headland,
drew from them the remaining bullets in their pistols, but
without success; and, ignorant of the effect of a random bullet
upon the very person whom, of all, he most desired to destroy,
Mat Dunbar felt himself once more foiled in a pursuit which he
had this time undertaken with every earnest of success.

“That d—d African!” was his exclamation. “But he shall
hang for it now, though he never hung before.”

With this pious resolution, having, with torches, made such
an exploration of Bear Castle as left him in no doubt that all
the fugitives had escaped, our tory captain called his squad
together, and commenced the return. The fatigue of passing
through the dry swamp on their backward route was much
greater than when they entered it. They were then full of
excitement — full of that rapture of the strife which needs not
even the feeling of hate and revenge to make it grateful to an
eager and impulsive temper. Now, they were baffled; the excitement
was at an end; and, with the feeling of perfect disappointment
came the full appreciation of all the toils and exertions
they had undergone. They had but one immediate consolation
in reserve, and that was the hanging of Brough, which Dunbar
promised them. The howl of the African had defeated their
enterprise. The African must howl no longer. Bent on murder,
they hastened to the tree where they had left him bound,
only to meet with a new disappointment. The African was
there no longer.

6. CHAPTER VI.

It would be difficult to describe the rage and fury of our captain
of loyalists when he made this discovery. The reader will
imagine it all. But what was to be done? Was the prey to
be entirely lost? And by what agency had Brough made his
escape? He had been securely fastened, it was thought, and
in such a way as seemed to render it impossible that he should
have been extricated from his bonds without the assistance of
another. This conjecture led to a renewal of the search. The
rope which fastened the negro lay on the ground, severed, as by
a knife, in several places. Now, Brough could not use his
hands. If he could, there would have been no sort of necessity
for using his knife. Clearly, he had found succor from another
agency than his own. Once more our loyalists darted into the
recesses of Bear Castle; their torches were to be seen flaring
in every part of that dense patch of swamp-forest, as they
waved them over every spot which seemed to promise concealment
to the fugitive.

“Hark!” cried Dunbar, whose ears were quickened by eager
and baffled passions. “Hark! I hear the dip of a paddle.”

He was right. They darted forth from the woods, and when
they reached the river's edge, they had a glimpse of a small
dark object, which they readily conceived to be a canoe, just
rounding one of the projections of the shore and going out of
sight, full a hundred yards below. Here was another mystery.
The ramifications of Bear Castle seemed numerous; and, mystified
as well as mortified, Dunbar, after a tedious delay and a
search fruitlessly renewed, took up the line of march back for old
Sabb's cottage, inly resolved to bring the fair Frederica to terms,
or, in some way, to make her pay the penalty for his disappointments
of the night. He little dreamed how much she had to do
with them, or that her hand had fired the forest-grasses, whose
wild and terrific blaze had first excited the apprehensions and
compelled the caution of the fugitives. It is for us to show
what further agency she exercised in this nocturnal history.

We left her alone, in her little dug-out, paddling or drifting
down the river with the stream. She pursued this progress
with proper caution. In approaching the headlands around
which the river swept, on that side which was occupied by Dunbar,
she suspended the strokes of her paddle, leaving her silent
boat to the direction of the currents. The night was clear and
beautiful and the river undefaced by shadow, except when the
current bore her beneath the overhanging willows which grew
numerously along the margin, or when the winds flung great
masses of smoke from the burning woods across its bright, smooth
surface. With these exceptions, the stream shone in a light not
less clear and beautiful because vague and capricious. Moonlight
and starlight seem to make a special atmosphere for youth, and
the heart which loves, even when most troubled with anxieties
for the beloved one, never, at such a season, proves wholly
insensible to the soft, seductive influences of such an atmosphere.
Our Frederica was not the heroine of convention. She had
never imbibed romance from books; but she had affections out
of which books might be written, filled with all those qualities
at once strong and tender, which make the heroine in the moment
of emergency. Her heart softened as, seated in the centre
of her little vessel, she watched the soft light upon the

wave, or beheld it dripping, in bright, light droplets, like fairy
glimpses, through the overhanging foliage. Of fear — fear for
herself — she had no feeling. Her apprehensions were all for
Richard Coulter, and her anxieties increased as she approached
the celebrated promontory and swamp-forest, known to this
day upon the river as “Bear Castle.” She might be too late.
The captain of the loyalists had the start of her, and her only
hope lay in the difficulties by which he must be delayed, going
through a blind forest and under imperfect guidance — for she
still had large hopes of Brough's fidelity. She was too late —
too late for her purpose; which had been to forewarn her lover
in season for his escape. She was drifting toward the spot
where the river, at full seasons, made across the low neck by
which the promontory of “Bear Castle” was united with the
main land. Her paddle no longer dipped the water, but was
employed solely to protect her from the overhanging branches
beneath which she now prepared to steer. It was at her approach
to this point that she was suddenly roused to apprehension
by the ominous warning chant set up by the African.

“Poor Brough! what can they be doing with him?” was her
question to herself. But the next moment she discovered that
this howl was meant to be a hymn; and the peculiar volume
which the negro gave to his utterance, led her to divine its import.
There was little time allowed her for reflection. A moment
after, and just when her boat was abreast of the bayou which
Dunbar and his men were required to cross in penetrating the
place of refuge, she heard the sudden pistol shooting under which
Coulter had fallen. With a heart full of terror, trembling with
anxiety and fear, Frederica had the strength of will to remain
quiet for the present. Seizing upon an overhanging bough, she
lay concealed within the shadow of the copse until the loyalists
had rushed across the bayou, and were busy, with lighted torches,
exploring the thickets. She had heard the bugle of Coulter
sounded as he was about to fall, after being wounded, and her
quick consciousness readily enabled her to recognise it as her
lover's. But she had heard no movement afterward in the quarter
from which came the blast, and could not conceive that he
should have made his way to join his comrades in the space of
time allowed between that and the moment when she heard

them taking to the river with their horses. This difficulty led
to new fears, which were agonizing enough, but not of a sort to
make her forgetful of what was due to the person whom she
came to save. She waited only until the torrent had passed the
straits — until the bayou was silent — when she fastened her
little boat to the willows which completely enveloped her, and
boldly stepped upon the land. With a rare instinct which proved
how deeply her heart had interested itself in the operations of
her senses, she moved directly to the spot whence she had heard
the bugle-note of her lover. The place was not far distant from
the point where she had been in lurking. Her progress was arrested
by the prostrate trunk of a great cypress, which the hurricane
might have cast down some fifty years before. It was
with some difficulty that she scrambled over it; but while crossing
it she heard a faint murmur, like the voice of one in pain,
laboring to speak or cry aloud. Her heart misgave her. She
hurried to the spot. Again the murmur — now certainly a moan.
It is at her feet, but on the opposite side of the cypress, which
she again crosses. The place was very dark, and in the moment
when, from loss of blood, he was losing consciousness, Richard
Coulter had carefully crawled close to the cypress, whose bulk,
in this way, effectually covered him from passing footsteps. She
found him, still warm, the flow of blood arrested, and his consciousness
returning.

“Richard! it is me — Frederica!”

He only sighed. It required but an instant for reflection on
the part of the damsel; and rising from the place where she had
crouched beside him, she darted away to the upper grounds where
Brough still continued to pour out his dismal ejaculations — now
of psalms and song, and now of mere whoop, halloo and imprecation.
A full heart and a light foot make quick progress
when they go together. It was necessary that Frederica should
lose no time. She had every reason to suppose that, failing to
secure their prey, the tories would suffer no delay in the thicket.
Fortunately, the continued cries of Brough left her at no time
doubtful of his where-abouts. She soon found him, fastened to
his tree, in a state sufficiently uncomfortable for one whose ambition
did not at all incline him to martyrdom of any sort. Yet
martyrdom was now his fear. His first impulses, which had given

the alarm to the patriots, were succeeded by feelings of no pleasant
character. He had already had a taste of Dunbar's punishments,
and he dreaded still worse at his hands. The feeling
which had changed his howl of warning into one of lament —
his whoop into a psalm — was one accordingly of preparation.
He was preparing himself, as well as he could, after his African
fashion, for the short cord and the sudden shrift, from which he
had already so narrowly escaped.

Nothing could exceed the fellow's rejoicing as he became
aware of the character of his new visiter.

“Oh, Missis! Da's you? Loose 'em! Cut you' nigger loose!
Le' 'em run! Sich a run! you nebber see de like! I take dese
woods, dis yer night, Mat Dunbar nebber see me 'gen long as
he lib! Ha! ha! Cut! cut, missis! cut quick! de rope is work
into my berry bones!”

“But I have no knife, Brough.”

“No knife! Da's wha' woman good for! No hab knife!
Take you teet', misses — gnaw de rope. Psho! wha' I tell
you? Stop! Put you' han' in dis yer pocket — you fin' knife,
if I no loss em in de run.”

The knife was found, the rope cut, the negro free, all in much
less time than we have taken for the narration; and, hurrying
the African with her, Frederica was soon again beside the person
of her lover. To assist Brough in taking him upon his back, to
help sustain the still partially insensible man in this position until
he could be carried to the boat, was a work of quick resolve,
which required, however, considerable time for performance. But
patience and courage, when sustained by love, become wonderful
powers; and Richard Coulter, whose moans increased with
his increasing sensibility, was finally laid down in the bottom of
the dug-out, his head resting in the lap of Frederica. The boat
could hold no more. The faithful Brough, pushing her out into
the stream, with his hand still resting on stern or gunwale, swam
along with her, as she quietly floated with the currents. We
have seen the narrow escape which the little vessel had, as she
rounded the headland below, just as Dunbar came down upon
the beach. Had he been there when the canoe first began to
round the point, it would have been easy to have captured the
whole party; since the stream, somewhat narrow at this place,

set in for the shore which the tories occupied, and a stout swimmer
might have easily drawn the little argosy upon the banks.

7. CHAPTER VII.

To one familar with the dense swamps that skirt the rivers
through the alluvial bottom lands of the South, there will be no
difficulty in comprehending the fact that a fugitive may find
temporary security within half a mile of his enemy, even where
his pursuers hunt for him in numbers. Thus it happened that,
in taking to the river, our little corporal's guard of patriots, under
the direction of Elijah Fields, the worthy preacher, swimming
their horses round a point of land on the opposite shore,
sought shelter but a little distance below “Bear island,” in a
similar tract of swamp and forest, and almost within rifleshot of
their late retreat. They had no fear that their enemy would
attempt, at that late hour, and after the long fatigue of their
recent march and search, to cross the river in pursuit of them;
and had they been wild enough to do so, it was equally easy to
hide from search, or to fly from pursuit. Dunbar felt all this as
sensibly as the fugitives; and, with the conviction of his entire
failure at “Bear Castle,” he gave up the game for the present.
Meanwhile, the little bark of Frederica Sabb made its way down
the river. She made her calculations on a just estimate of the
probabilities in the situation of Coulter's party, and was not deceived.
As the boat swept over to the opposite shore, after
rounding the point of land that lay between it and “Bear Castle,”
it was hailed by Fields, for whom Brough had ready answer.
Some delay, the fruit of a proper caution, took place before our
fugitives were properly sensible of the character of the stranger;
but the result was, that, with returning consciousness, Richard
Coulter found himself once more in safety with his friends; and,
a still more precious satisfaction, attended by the woman of his
heart. It was not long before all the adventures of Frederica
were in his possession, and his spirit became newly strengthened
for conflict and endurance by such proofs of a more than feminine
attachment which the brave young girl had shown. Let us leave
the little party for a season, while we return with the captain of
loyalists to the farmstead of old Frederick Sabb.

Here Mat Dunbar had again taken up his quarters as before,
but with a difference. Thoroughly enraged at his disappointment,
and at the discovery that Frederica had disappeared — a fact
which produced as much disquiet in the minds of her parents, as
vexation to her tory lover; and easily guessing at all of the steps
which she had taken, and of her object; he no longer imposed
any restraints upon his native brutality of temper, which, while
he had any hope of winning her affections, he had been at some
pains to do. His present policy seemed to be to influence her
fears. To reach her heart, or force her inclinations, through the
dangers of her parents, was now his object. Unfortunately, the
lax discipline of the British authority, in Carolina particularly,
in behalf of their own followers, enabled him to do much toward
this object, and without peril to himself. He had anticipated
the position in which he now found himself, and had provided
against it. He had obtained from Col. Nesbitt Balfour, the military
commandant of Charleston, a grant of the entire farmstead
of old Sabb — the non-committalism of the old Dutchman never
having enabled him to satisfy the British authorities that he was
a person deserving their protection. Of the services and loyalty
of Dunbar, on the contrary, they were in possession of daily evidence.
It was with indescribable consternation that old Sabb
looked upon the massive parchment — sealed, signed, and made
authoritative by stately phrases and mysterious words, of the purport
of which he could only conjecture — with which the fierce
Dunbar denounced him as a traitor to the king, and expelled him
from his own freehold.

“Oh! mein Gott!” was his exclamation. “And did the goot
king Tshorge make dat baber? And has de goot king Tshorge
take away my grants?”

The only answer to this pitiful appeal, vouchsafed him by the
captain of loyalists, was a brutal oath, as he smote the document
fiercely with his hand and forbade all further inquiry. It may
have been with some regard to the probability of his future marriage
— in spite of all — with the old Dutchman's daughter, that
he permitted him, with his wife, to occupy an old log-house
which stood upon the estate. He established himself within the
dwelling-house, which he occupied as a garrisoned post with all
his soldiers. Here he ruled as a sovereign. The proceeds of

the farm were yielded to him, the miserable pittance excepted
which he suffered to go to the support of the old couple. Sabb
had a few slaves, who were now taught to recognise Dunbar as
their master. They did not serve him long. Three of them
escaped to the woods the night succeeding the tory's usurpation,
and but two remained in his keeping, rather, perhaps, through
the vigilance of his sentinels, and their own fears, than because
of any love which they entertained for their new custodian.
Both of these were women, and one of them no less a person
than the consort of Brough, the African. Mrs. Brough — or, as we
had better call her — she will understand us better — Mimy (the
diminutive of Jemima), was particularly watched, as through her
it was hoped to get some clue to her husband, whose treachery,
it was the bitter resolution of our tory captain to punish, as soon
as he had the power, with exemplary tortures. Brough had some
suspicions of his design, which it was no part of his policy to
assist; but this did not discourage him from an adventure which
brought him again very nearly into contact with his enemy. He
determined to visit his wife by stealth, relying upon his knowledge
of the woods, his own caution, and the thousand little arts
with which his race usually takes advantage of the carelessness,
the indifference, or the ignorance of its superior. His wife, he
well knew, conscious of his straits, would afford him assistance
in various ways. He succeeded in seeing her just before the
dawn of day one morning, and from her discovered the whole
situation of affairs at the farmstead. This came to him with
many exaggerations; particularly when Mimy described the
treatment to which old Sabb and his wife had been subjected.
His tale did not lose any of its facts or dimensions, when carried
by Brough to the fugitives in the swamp forests of Edisto. The
news was of a character to overwhelm the affectionate and dutiful
heart of Frederica Sabb. She instantly felt the necessity before
her, and prepared herself to encounter it. Nine days and nights
had she spent in the forest retreats of her lover. Every tenderness
and forbearance had been shown her. Nothing had taken
place to outrage the delicacy of the female heart; and pure
thoughts in her mind had kept her free from any annoying
doubts about the propriety of her situation. A leafy screen from
the sun, a sylvan bower, of broad branches and thickly-thatched
leaves, had been prepared for her couch at night; and, in one
contiguous, lay her wounded lover. His situation had amply
reconciled her to her own. His wound was neither deep nor
dangerous. He had bled copiously, and swooned rather in consequence
of loss of blood than from the severity of his pains.
But the hands of Elijah Field — a rough but not wholly inexperienced
surgeon—had bound up his hurts; which were thus permitted
to heal from the first intention. The patient was not slow
to improve, though so precious sweet had been his attendance —
Frederica herself, like the damsels of the feudal ages, assisting
to dress his wound, and so tender him with sweetest nursing, that
he felt almost sorry at the improvement which, while lessening
his cares, lessened her anxieties. Our space will not suffer us to
dwell upon the delicious scenes of peace and love which the two
enjoyed together in these few brief days of mutual dependence.
They comprised an age of immeasurable felicity, and brought
the two together in bonds of sympathy, which, however large
had been their love before, now rendered the passion more than
ever at home and triumphant in their mutual hearts. But, with
the tidings of the situation in which her parents suffered, and the
evident improvement of her lover, the maiden found it necessary
to depart from her place of hiding — that sweet security of
shade, such as the fancy of youth always dreams of, but which
it is the lot of very few to realize. She took her resolution
promptly.

“I must leave you, Richard. I must go home to my poor
mother, now that she is homeless.”

He would, if he could, have dissuaded her from venturing herself
within the reach of one so reckless and brutal as Mat Dunbar.
But his sense of right seconded her resolution, and though
he expressed doubts and misgivings, and betrayed his uneasiness
and anxiety, he had no arguments to offer against her purpose.
She heard him with a sweet smile, and when he had finished,
she said: —

“But I will give you one security, dear Richard, before we
part, if you will suffer me. You would have married me more
than a year ago; but as I knew my father's situation, his preferences,
and his dangers, I refused to do so until the war was
over. It has not helped him that I refused you then. I don't

see that it will hurt him if I marry you now; and there is something
in the life we have spent together the last few days, that
tells me we ought to be married, Richard.”

This was spoken with the sweetest possible blush upon her
cheeks.

“Do you consent, then, dear Frederica?” demanded the enraptured
lover.

She put her hand into his own; he carried it to his lips, then
drew her down to him where he lay upon his leafy couch, and
repeated the same liberty with hers. His shout, in another
moment, summoned Elijah Field to his side. The business in
prospect was soon explained. Our good parson readily concurred
in the propriety of the proceeding. The inhabitants of the
little camp of refuge were soon brought together, Brough placing
himself directly behind his young mistress. The white teeth of
the old African grinned his approbation; the favoring skies
looked down upon it, soft in the dreamy twilight of the evening
sunset; and there, in the natural temple of the forest — none
surely ever prouder or more appropriate — with columns of gigantic
pine and cypress, and a Gothic luxuriance of vine, and leaf,
and flower, wrapping shaft, and cornice, capital and shrine, our
two lovers were united before God — our excellent preacher
never having a more solemn or grateful sense of the ceremony,
and never having been more sweetly impressive in his manner
of performing it. It did not impair the validity of the marriage
that Brough honored it, as he would probably have done his
own, by dancing Juba, for a full hour after it was over, to his
own satisfaction at least, and in the absence of all other witnesses.
Perhaps, of all his little world, there were none whom the
old negro loved quite so much, white or black, as his young
mistress and her youthful husband. With the midnight, Frederica
left the camp of refuge under the conduct of Elijah Fields.
They departed in the boat, the preacher pulling up stream —
no easy work against a current of four knots — with a vigorous
arm, which, after a tedious space, brought him to the landing
opposite old Sabb's farm. Here Frederica landed, and the dawn
of day found her standing in front of the old log-house which
had been assigned her parents, and a captive in the strict custody
of the tory sentries.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

It was with feelings of a tumultuous satisfaction that Mat Dunbar
found himself in possession of this new prize. He at once
conceived a new sense of his power, and prepared to avail himself
of all his advantages. But we must suffer our friend Brough
to become the narrator of this portion of our history. Anxious
about events, Coulter persuaded the old African, nothing loath, to
set forth on a scouting expedition to the farmstead. Following
his former footsteps, which had been hitherto planted in security,
the negro made his way, an hour before daylight, toward
the cabin in which Mimy, and her companion Lizzy, a young
girl of sixteen, were housed. They, too, had been compelled to
change their abodes under the tory usurpation; and now occupied
an ancient tenement of logs, which, in its time, had gone
through a curious history. It had first been a hog-pen, next a
hunter's lodge; had stabled horses, and had been made a temporary
fortress during Indian warfare. It was ample in its
dimensions — made of heavy cypresses; but the clay which had
filled its interstices had fallen out; of the chimney nothing remained
but the fireplace; and one end of the cabin, from the
decay of two or more of its logs, had taken such an inclination
downward, as to leave the security which it offered of exceedingly
dubious value. The negro does not much regard
these things, however, and old Mimy enjoyed her sleeps here
quite as well as at her more comfortable kitchen. The place,
indeed, possessed some advantages under the peculiar circumstances.
It stood on the edge of a limestone sink-hole — one of
those wonderful natural cavities with which the country abounds.
This was girdled by cypresses and pines, and, fortunately for
Brough, at this moment, when a drought prevailed, was entirely
free from water. A negro loves anything, perhaps, better than
water — he would sooner bathe in the sun than in the stream, and
would rather wade through a forest full of snakes than suffuse
his epidermis unnecessarily with an element which no one will
insist was made for his uses. It was important that the sink-hole
near Mimy's abode should be dry at this juncture, for it was
here that Brough found his hiding-place. He could approach
this place under cover of the woods. There was an awkward

interval of twelve or fifteen feet, it is true, between this place
and the hovel, which the inmates had stripped of all its growth
in the search for fuel; but a dusky form, on a dusky night, careful
to crawl over the space, might easily escape the casual
glance of a drowsy sentinel; and Brough was partisan enough
to know that the best caution implies occasional exposure. He
was not unwilling to incur the risk. We must not detail his
progress. Enough that, by dint of crouching, crawling, creeping,
rolling, and sliding, he had contrived to bury himself, at
length under the wigwam, occupying the space, in part, of a decayed
log connected with the clayed chimney, and fitting himself
to the space in the log, from which he had scratched out the
rotten fragments, as snugly as if he were a part of it. Thus,
with his head toward the fire, looking within — his body hidden
from those within by the undecayed portions of the timber — with
Mimy on his side of the fireplace, squat upon the hearth, and
busy with the hominy pot; Brough might carry on the most interesting
conversation in the world, in whispers, and occasionally
be fed from the spoon of his spouse, or drink from the calabash,
without any innocent person suspecting his propinquity. We
will suppose him thus quietly ensconced, his old woman beside
him, and deeply buried in the domestic histories which he came
to hear. We must suppose all the preliminaries to be despatched
already, which, in the case of an African dramatis personœ, are
usually wonderfully minute and copious.

“And dis nigger tory, he's maussa yer for true?”

“I tell you, Brough, he's desp'r't bad! He tek' ebbry ting
for he'sef! He sway [swears] ebbry ting for him — we nigger,
de plantation, hoss, hog, hominy; and ef young misses no marry
um — you yeddy? [hear] — he will hang ole maussa up to de
sapling, same as you hang scarecrow in de cornfiel'!”

Brough groaned in the bitterness of his spirit.

“Wha' for do, Brough?”

“Who gwine say? I 'spec he mus fight for um yet. Mass
Dick no chicken! He gwine fight like de debbil, soon he get
strong, 'fore dis ting gwine happen. He hab sodger, and more
for come. Parson 'Lijah gwine fight too — and dis nigger
gwine fight, sooner dan dis tory ride, whip and spur, ober we
plantation.”

“Why, wha' you tink dese tory say to me, Brough?”

“Wha' he say, woman?”

“He say he gwine gib me hundred lash ef I no get he breckkus
[breakfast] by day peep in de morning!”

“De tory wha' put hick'ry 'pon you' back, chicken, he hab
answer to Brough.”

“You gwine fight for me, Brough?”

“Wid gun and bagnet, my chicken.”

“Ah, I blieb you, Brough; you was always lub me wid you'
sperrit!”

“Enty you blieb? You will see some day! You got 'noder
piece of bacon in de pot, Mimy? Dis hom'ny 'mos' too dry in
de t'roat.”

“Leetle piece.”

“Gi' me.”

His creature wants were accordingly supplied. We must not
forget that the dialogue was carried on in the intervals in which
he paused from eating the supper which, in anticipation of his
coming, the old woman had provided. Then followed the recapitulation
of the narrative; details being furnished which showed
that Dunbar, desperate from opposition to his will, had thrown
off the restraints of social fear and decency, and was urging his
measures against old Sabb and his daughter with tyrannical severity.
He had given the old man a sufficient taste of his power,
enough to make him dread the exercise of what remained. This
rendered him now, what he had never been before, the advocate
himself with his daughter in behalf of the loyalist. Sabb's virtue
was not of a self-sacrificing nature. He was not a bad man
— was rather what the world esteems a good one. He was just,
as well as he knew to be, in his dealings with a neighbor; was
not wanting in that charity which, having first ascertained its
own excess of goods, gives a certain proportion to the needy;
he had offerings for the church, and solicited its prayers. But
he had not the courage and strength of character to be virtuous
in spite of circumstances. In plain language, he valued the securities
and enjoyments of his homestead, even at the peril of
his daughter's happiness. He urged, with tears and reproaches,
that soon became vehement, the suit of Dunbar, as if it had been
his own; and even his good vrow Minnicker Sabb, overwhelmed

by his afflictions and her own, joined somewhat in his entreaty.
We may imagine poor Frederica's afflictions. She had not dared
to reveal to either the secret of her marriage with Coulter. She
now dreaded its discovery, in regard to the probable effect which
it might have upon Dunbar. What limit would there be to his
fury and brutality, should the fact become known to him? How
measure his rage — how meet its excesses? She trembled as
she reflected upon the possibility of his making the discovery;
and, while inwardly swearing eternal fidelity to her husband, she
resolved still to keep her secret close from all, looking to the
chapter of providential events for that hope which she had not
the power to draw from anything within human probability.
Her eyes naturally turned to her husband, first of all mortal
agents. But she had no voice which could reach him — and
what was his condition? She conjectured the visits of old
Brough to his spouse, but with these she was prevented from all
secret conference. Her hope was, that Mimy, seeing and hearing
for herself, would duly report to the African; and he, she
well knew, would keep nothing from her husband. We have
witnessed the conference between this venerable couple. The
result corresponded with the anticipations of Frederica. Brough
hurried back with his gloomy tidings to the place of hiding in
the swamp; and Coulter, still suffering somewhat from his
wound, and conscious of the inadequate force at his control, for
the rescue of his wife and people, was almost maddened by the
intelligence. He looked around upon his party, now increased
to seven men, not including the parson. But Elijah Fields was
a host in himself. The men were also true and capable — good
riflemen, good scouts, and as fearless as they were faithful. The
troop under Dunbar consisted of eighteen men, all well armed
and mounted. The odds were great, but the despair of Richard
Coulter was prepared to overlook all inequalities. Nor was
Fields disposed to discourage him.

“There is no hope but in ourselves, Elijah,” was the remark
of Coulter.

“Truly, and in God!” was the reply.

“We must make the effort.”

“Verily, we must.”

“We have seven men, not counting yourself, Elijah.”

“I too am a man, Richard,” said the other, calmly.

“A good man and a brave; do I not know it, Elijah? But
we should not expose you on ordinary occasions.”

“This is no ordinary occasion, Richard.”

“True, true! And you propose to go with us, Elijah?”

“No, Richard! I will go before you. I must go to prevent
outrage. I must show to Dunbar that Frederica is your wife.
It is my duty to testify in this proceeding. I am the first witness.”

“But your peril, Elijah! He will become furious as a wild
beast when he hears. He will proceed to the most desperate
excesses.”

“It will be for you to interpose at the proper moment. You
must be at hand. As for me, I doubt if there will be much if
any peril. I will go unarmed. Dunbar, while he knows that I
am with you, does not know that I have ever lifted weapon in
the cause. He will probably respect my profession. At all
events, I must interpose and save him from a great sin, and a
cruel and useless violence. When he knows that Frederica is
irrevocably married, he will probably give up the pursuit. If
Brough's intelligence be true, he must know it now or never.”

“Be it so,” said Coulter. “And now that you have made
your determination, I will make mine. The odds are desperate,
so desperate, indeed, that I build my hope somewhat on that
very fact. Dunbar knows my feebleness, and does not fear me.
I must effect a surprise. If we can do this, with the first advantage,
we will make a rush, and club rifles. Do you go up
in the dug-out, and alone, while we make a circuit by land. We
can be all ready in five minutes, and perhaps we should set out
at once.”

“Right!” answered the preacher; “but are you equal to the
struggle, Richard?”

The young man upheaved his powerful bulk, and leaping up
to the bough which spread over him, grasped the extended limb
with a single hand, and drew himself across it.

“Good!” was the reply. “But you are still stiff. I have
seen you do it much more easily. Still you will do, if you will
only economize your breath. There is one preparation first to
be made, Richard. Call up the men.”

They were summoned with a single, shrill whistle, and Coulter
soon put them in possession of the adventure that lay before
them. It needed neither argument nor entreaty to persuade
them into a declaration of readiness for the encounter. Their
enthusiasm was grateful to their leader, whom they personally
loved.

“And now, my brethren,” said Elijah Fields, “I am about
to leave you, and we are all about to engage in a work of peril.
We know not what will happen. We know not that we shall
meet again. It is proper only that we should confess our sins
to God, and invoke his mercy and protection. My brothers, let
us pray.”

With these words, the party sank upon their knees, Brough
placing himself behind Coulter. Fervent and simple was the
prayer of the preacher — inartificial but highly touching. Our
space does not suffer us to record it, or to describe the scene, so
simple, yet so imposing. The eyes of the rough men were
moistened, their hearts softened, yet strengthened. They rose
firm and resolute to meet the worst issues of life and death, and,
embracing each of them in turn, Brough not excepted, Elijah
Fields led the way to the enemy, by embarking alone in the
canoe. Coulter, with his party, soon followed, taking the route
through the forest.

9. CHAPTER IX.

In the meantime, our captain of loyalists had gone forward
in his projects with a very free and fearless footstep. The
course which he pursued, in the present instance, affords one of
a thousand instances which go to illustrate the perfect recklessness
with which the British conquerors, and their baser allies,
regarded the claims of humanity, where the interests, the rights,
or the affections of the whig inhabitants of South Carolina were
concerned. Though resolutely rejected by Frederica, Dunbar
yet seemed determined to attach no importance to her refusal,
but, despatching a messenger to the village of Orangeburg, he
brought thence one Nicholas Veitch, a Scotch Presbyterian parson,
for the avowed object of officiating at his wedding rites.
The parson, who was a good man enough perhaps, was yet a

weak and timid one, wanting that courage which boldly flings
itself between the victim and his tyrant. He was brought into
the Dutchman's cottage, which Dunbar now occupied. Thither
also was Frederica brought, much against her will; indeed, only
under the coercive restraint of a couple of dragoons. Her
parents were neither of them present, and the following dialogue
ensued between Dunbar and herself, Veitch being the
only witness.

“Here, Frederica,” said Dunbar, “you see the parson. He
comes to marry us. The consent of your parents has been
already given, and it is useless for you any longer to oppose
your childish scruples to what is now unavoidable. This day,
I am resolved that we are to be made man and wife. Having
the consent of your father and mother, there is no reason for
not having yours.”

“Where are they?” was the question of Frederica. Her
face was very pale, but her lips were firm, and her eyes gazed,
without faltering, into those of her oppressor.

“They will be present when the time comes. They will be
present at the ceremony.”

“Then they will never be present!” she answered firmly.

“Beware, girl, how you provoke me! You little know the
power I have to punish—”

“You have no power upon my voice or my heart.”

“Ha!”

The preacher interposed: “My daughter, be persuaded.
The consent of your parents should be enough to incline you
to Captain Dunbar. They are surely the best judges of what
is good for their children.”

“I can not and I will not marry with Captain Dunbar.”

“Beware, Frederica!” said Dunbar, in a voice studiously
subdued, but with great difficulty — the passion speaking out in
his fiery looks, and his frame that trembled with its emotions.

“`Beware?'” said Frederica. “Of what should I beware?
Your power? Your power may kill me. It can scarcely go
farther. Know, then, that I am prepared to die sooner than
marry you.”

Though dreadfully enraged, the manner of Dunbar was still

carefully subdued. His words were enunciated in tones of a
laborious calm, as he replied:—

“You are mistaken in your notions of the extent of my power.
It can reach where you little imagine. But I do not desire to
use it. I prefer that you should give me your hand without
restraint or coercion.”

“That, I have told you, is impossible.”

“Nay, it is not impossible.”

“Solemnly, on my knees, I assure you that never can I, or
will I, while I preserve my consciousness, consent to be your wife.”

The action was suited to the words. She sunk on her knees
as she spoke, and her hands were clasped and her eyes uplifted,
as if taking a solemn oath to heaven. Dunbar rushed furiously
toward her.

“Girl!” he exclaimed, “will you drive me to madness? will
you compel me to do what I would not?”

The preacher interposed. The manner of Dunbar was that
of a man about to strike his enemy. Even Frederica closed
her eyes, expecting the blow.

“Let me endeavor to persuade the damsel, captain,” was the
suggestion of Veitch. Dunbar turned away and went toward
the window, leaving the field to the preacher. To all the entreaties
of the latter, Frederica made the same reply.

“Though death stared me in the face, I should never marry
that man!”

“Death shall stare you in the face!” was the fierce cry of
Dunbar. “Nay, you shall behold him in such terrors as you
have never fancied yet; but you shall be brought to know and
to submit to my power. Ho, there! Nesbitt, bring out the
prisoner.”

This order naturally startled Frederica. She had continued
kneeling. She now rose to her feet. In the same moment
Dunbar turned to where she stood, full of fearful expectation,
grasped her by the wrist, and dragged her to the window. She
raised her head, gave but one glance at the scene before her,
and fell back swooning. The cruel spectacle which she had
been made to witness, was that of her father, surrounded by a
guard, and the halter about his neck, waiting only the terrible
word from the ruffian in authority.

In that sight, the unhappy girl lost all consciousness. She
would have fallen upon the ground, but that the hand of Dunbar
still grasped her wrist. He now supported her in his arms.

“Marry us at once,” he cried to Veitch.

“But she can't understand — she can't answer,” replied the
priest.”

“That's as it should be,” answered Dunbar, with a laugh;
“silence always gives consent.”

The reply seemed to be satisfactory, and Veitch actually stood
forward to officiate in the disgraceful ceremony, when a voice at
the entrance drew the attention of the parties within. It was
that of Elijah Fields. How he had made his way to the building
without arrest or interruption is only to be accounted for by his
pacific progress — his being without weapons, and his well-known
priestly character. It may have been thought by the troopers,
knowing what was in hand, that he also had been sent for; and
probably something may be ascribed to the excitement of most
of the parties about the dwelling. At all events, Fields reached
it without interruption, and the first intimation that Dunbar had
of his presence was from his own lips.

“I forbid this proceeding in the name and by the authority
of God,” was the stern interruption. “The girl is already
married!”

10. CHAPTER X.

Let us now retrace our steps and follow those of Richard
Coulter and his party. We have seen what has been the
progress of Elijah Fields. The route which he pursued was
considerably longer than that of his comrades; but the difference
of time was fully equalized by the superior and embarrassing
caution which they were compelled to exercise. The result
was to bring them to the common centre at nearly the same
moment, though the policy of Coulter required a different course
of conduct from that of Fields. Long before he reached the
neighborhood of old Sabb's farm, he had compelled his troopers
to dismount, and hide their horses in the forest. They then
made their way forward on foot. Richard Coulter was expert
in all the arts of the partisan. Though eager to grapple with
his enemy, and impatient to ascertain and arrest the dangers of

his lovely wife, he yet made his approaches with a proper caution.
The denseness of the forest route enabled him easily to
do so; and, making a considerable circuit, he drew nigh to the
upper part of the farmstead, in which stood the obscure outhouse,
which, when Dunbar had taken possession of the mansion,
he assigned to the aged couple. This he found deserted;
he little dreamed for what reason, — or in what particular emergency
the old Dutchman stood at that very moment. Making
another circuit, he came upon a copse, in which four of Dunbar's
troopers were grouped together in a state of fancied security.
Their horses were fastened in the woods, and they lay upon the
ground, greedily interested with a pack of greasy cards, which
had gone through the campaign.

The favorite game of that day was Old-Sledge, or All-Fours,
or Seven-Up; by all of which names it was indiscriminately known.
Poker, and Brag, and Loo, and Monte, and Vingt'un, were then
unknown in that region. These are all modern innovations, in
the substitution of which good morals have made few gains.
Dragoons, in all countries, are notoriously sad fellows, famous for
swearing and gaming. Those of Dunbar were no exception
to the rule. Our tory captain freely indulged them in the practice.
He himself played with them when the humor suited.
The four upon whom Coulter came were not on duty, though
they wore their swords. Their holsters lay with their saddles
across a neighboring log, not far off, but not immediately within
reach. Coulter saw his opportunity; the temptation was great;
but these were not exactly his prey — not yet, at all events. To
place one man, well armed with rifle and pair of pistols, in a
situation to cover the group at any moment, and between them
and the farmstead, was his plan; and this done, he proceeded
on his way.

His policy was to make his first blow at the head of the enemy
— his very citadel — trusting somewhat to the scattered condition
of the party, and the natural effect of such an alarm to scatter
them the more. All this was managed with great prudence; and,
with two more of his men set to watch over two other groups of
the dragoons, he pushed forward with the remaining four until
he reached the verge of the wood, just where it opened upon
the settlement. Here he had a full view of the spectacle — his

own party unseen — and the prospect was such as to compel his
instant feeling of the necessity of early action. It was at the
moment which exhibited old Sabb in the hands of the provost,
his hands tied behind him, and the rope about his neck. Clymes,
the lieutenant of Dunbar, with drawn sword, was pacing between
the victim and the house. The old Dutchman stood between
two subordinates, waiting for the signal, while his wife, little
dreaming of the scene in progress, was kept out of sight at the
bottom of the garden. Clymes and the provost were at once
marked out for the doom of the rifle, and the beads of two select
shots were kept ready, and levelled at their heads. But Dunbar
must be the first victim — and where was he? Of the scene in
the house Coulter had not yet any inkling. But suddenly he
beheld Frederica at the window. He heard her shriek, and beheld
her, as he thought, drawn away from the spot. His excitement
growing almost to frenzy at this moment, he was about to
give the signal, and follow the first discharge of his rifles with
a rush, when suddenly he saw his associate, Elijah Fields, turn
the corner of the house, and enter it through the piazza. This
enabled him to pause, and prevented a premature development
of his game. He waited for those events which it is not denied
that we shall see. Let us then return to the interior.

We must not forget the startling words with which Elijah
Fields interrupted the forced marriage of Frederica with her
brutal persecutor.

“The girl is already married.”

Dunbar, still supporting her now quite lifeless in his arms,
looked up at the intruder in equal fury and surprise.

“Ha, villain!” was the exclamation of Dunbar, “you are
here?”

“No villain, Captain Dunbar, but a servant of the Most High
God!”

“Servant of the devil, rather! What brings you here — and
what is it you say?”

“I say that Frederica Sabb is already married, and her husband
living!”

“Liar, that you are, you shall swing for this insolence.”

“I am no liar. I say that the girl is married, and I witnessed
the ceremony.”

“You did, did you?” was the speech of Dunbar, with a tremendous
effort of coolness, laying down the still lifeless form of
Frederica as he spoke; “and perhaps you performed the ceremony
also, oh, worthy servant of the Most High!”

“It was my lot to do so.”

“Grateful lot! And pray with whom did you unite the damsel?”

“With Richard Coulter, captain in the service of the State
of South Carolina.”

Though undoubtedly anticipating this very answer, Dunbar
echoed the annunciation with a fearful shriek, as, drawing his
sword at the same moment, he rushed upon the speaker. But
his rage blinded him; and Elijah Fields was one of the coolest
of all mortals, particularly when greatly excited. He met the
assault of Dunbar with a fearful buffet of his fist, which at once
felled the assailant; but he rose in a moment, and with a yell
of fury he grappled with the preacher. They fell together, the
latter uppermost, and rolling his antagonist into the fireplace,
where he was at once half buried among the embers, and in a
cloud of ashes. In the struggle, however, Dunbar contrived to
extricate a pistol from his belt, and to fire it. Fields struggled
up from his embrace, but a torrent of blood poured from his side
as he did so. He rushed toward the window, grasped the sill in
his hands, then yielded his hold, and sunk down upon the floor,
losing his consciousness in an uproar of shots and shouts from
without. In the next moment the swords of Coulter and Dunbar
were crossed over his prostrate body. The struggle was
short and fierce. It had nearly terminated fatally to Coulter,
on his discovering the still insensible form of Frederica in his
way. In the endeavor to avoid trampling upon her, he afforded
an advantage to his enemy, which nothing prevented him from
employing to the utmost but the ashes with which his eyes were
still half blinded. As it was, he inflicted a severe cut upon the
shoulder of the partisan, which rendered his left arm temporarily
useless. But the latter recovered himself instantly. His blood
was in fearful violence. He raged like a Bïrserker of the Northmen
— absolutely mocked the danger of his antagonist's weapon
— thrust him back against the side of the house, and hewing him
almost down with one terrible blow upon the shoulder, with a

mighty thrust immediately after, he absolutely speared him
against the wall, the weapon passing through his body, and into
the logs behind. For a moment the eyes of the two glared
deathfully upon each other. The sword of Dunbar was still uplifted,
and he seemed about to strike, when suddenly the arm
sunk powerless — the weapon fell from the nerveless grasp —
the eyes became fixed and glassy, even while gazing with tiger
appetite into those of the enemy — and, with a hoarse and stifling
cry, the captain of loyalists fell forward upon his conqueror,
snapping, like a wand of glass, the sword that was still fastened
in his body.

11. XI.

We must briefly retrace our steps. We left Richard Coulter
in ambush, having so placed his little detachments as to cover
most of the groups of dragoons — at least such as might be immediately
troublesome. It was with the greatest difficulty that
he could restrain himself during the interval which followed the
entry of Elijah Fields into the house. Nothing but his great
confidence in the courage and fidelity of the preacher could have
reconciled him to forbearance, particularly as, at the point which
he occupied, he could know nothing of what was going on within.
Meanwhile, his eyes could not fail to see all the indignities
to which the poor old Dutchman was subjected. He heard his
groans and entreaties.

“I am a goot friend to King Tshorge! I was never wid de
rebels. Why would you do me so? Where is de captaine? I
have said dat my darter shall be his wife. Go bring him to me,
and let him make me loose from de rope. I'm a goot friend to
King Tshorge!”

“Good friend or not,” said the brutal lieutenant, “you have
to hang for it, I reckon. We are better friends to King George
than you. We fight for him, and we want grants of land as well
as other people.”

“Oh, mine Gott!”

Just then, faint sounds of the scuffle within the house, reached
the ears of those without. Clymes betrayed some uneasiness;
and when the sound of the pistol-shot was heard, he rushed forward
to the dwelling. But that signal of the strife was the signal

for Coulter. He naturally feared that his comrade had been
shot down, and, in the same instant his rifle gave the signal to
his followers, wherever they had been placed in ambush. Almost
simultaneously the sharp cracks of the fatal weapon were heard
from four or five several quarters, followed by two or three scattering
pistol-shots. Coulter's rifle dropped Clymes, just as he
was about to ascend the steps of the piazza. A second shot
from one of his companions tumbled the provost, having in charge
old Sabb. His remaining keeper let fall the rope and fled in
terror, while the old Dutchman, sinking to his knees, crawled
rapidly to the opposite side of the tree which had been chosen
for his gallows, where he crouched closely, covering his ears
with his hands, as if, by shutting out the sounds, he could shut
out all danger from the shot. Here he was soon joined by
Brough, the African. The faithful slave bounded toward his
master the moment he was released, and hugging him first with
a most rugged embrace, he proceeded to undo the degrading
halter from about his neck. This done, he got the old man on
his feet, placed him still further among the shelter of the trees,
and then hurried away to partake in the struggle, for which he
had provided himself with a grubbing-hoe and pistol. It is no
part of our object to follow and watch his exploits; nor do we
need to report the several results of each ambush which had
been set. In that where we left the four gamblers busy at Old-Sledge,
the proceeding had been most murderous. One of Coulter's
men had been an old scout. Job Fisher was notorious for
his stern deliberation and method. He had not been content to
pick his man, but continued to revolve around the gamblers until
he could range a couple of them, both of whom fell under his
first fire. Of the two others, one was shot down by the companion
of Fisher. The fourth took to his heels, but was overtaken,
and brained with the butt of the rifle. The scouts then
hurried to other parts of the farmstead, agreeable to previous
arrangement, where they gave assistance to their fellows. The
history, in short, was one of complete surprise and route — the
dragoons were not allowed to rally; nine of them were slain
outright — not including the captain; and the rest dispersed, to
be picked up at a time of greater leisure. At the moment when
Coulter's party were assembling at the dwelling, Brough had
succeeded in bringing the old couple together. Very pitiful and
touching was the spectacle of these two, embracing with groans,
tears, and ejaculations — scarcely yet assured of their escape
from the hands of their hateful tyrant.

But our attention is required within the dwelling. Rapidly
extricating himself from the body of the loyalist captain, Coulter
naturally turned to look for Frederica. She was just recovering
from her swoon. She had fortunately been spared the sight
of the conflict, although she continued long afterward to assert
that she had been conscious of it all, though she had not been
able to move a limb, or give utterance to a single cry. Her
eyes opened with a wild stare upon her husband, who stooped
fondly to her embrace. She knew him instantly — called his
name but once, but that with joyful accents, and again fainted.
Her faculties had received a terrible shock. Coulter himself
felt like fainting. The pain of his wounded arm was great, and
he had lost a good deal of blood. He felt that he could not long
be certain of himself, and putting the bugle to his lips, he sounded
three times with all his vigor. As he did so, he became conscious
of a movement in the corner of the room. Turning in
this direction, he beheld, crouching into the smallest possible
compass, the preacher, Veitch. The miserable wretch was in a
state of complete stupor from his fright.

“Bring water!” said Coulter. But the fellow neither stirred
nor spoke. He clearly did not comprehend. In the next moment,
however, the faithful Brough made his appearance. His
cries were those of joy and exultation, dampened, however, as
he beheld the condition of his young mistress.

“Fear nothing, Brough, she is not hurt — she has only fainted.
But run for your old mistress. Run, old boy, and bring water
while you're about it. Run!”

“But you' arm, Mass Dick — he da bleed! You hu't?”

“Yes, a little — away!”

Brough was gone; and, with a strange sickness of fear, Coulter
turned to the spot where Elijah Fields lay, to all appearance,
dead. But he still lived. Coulter tore away his clothes, which
were saturated and already stiff with blood, and discovered the
bullet-wound in his left side, well-directed, and ranging clear
through the body. It needed no second glance to see that the

shot was mortal; and while Coulter was examining it, the good
preacher opened his eyes. They were full of intelligence, and
a pleasant smile was upon his lips.

“You have seen, Richard; the wound is fatal. I had a presentiment,
when we parted this morning, that such was to be
the case. But I complain not. Some victim perhaps was necessary,
and I am not unwilling. But Frederica?”

“She lives! She is here: unhurt but suffering.”

“Ah! that monster!”

By this time the old couple made their appearance, and Frederica
was at once removed to her own chamber. A few moments
tendance sufficed to revive her, and then, as if fearing that she
had not heard the truth in regard to Coulter, she insisted on
going where he was. Meantime, Elijah Fields had been removed
to an adjoining apartment. He did not seem to suffer.
In the mortal nature of his hurt, his sensibilities seemed to be
greatly lessened. But his mind was calm and firm. He knew
all around him. His gaze was fondly shared between the young
couple whom he had so lately united.

“Love each other,” he said to them; “love each other — and
forget not me. I am leaving you — leaving you fast. It is presumption,
perhaps, to say that one does not fear to die — but I
am resigned. I have taken life — always in self-defence — still
I have taken life! I would that I had never done so. That
makes me doubt. I feel the blood upon my head. My hope is
in the Lord Jesus. May his blood atone for that which I have
shed!”

His eyes closed. His lips moved, as it were, in silent prayer.
Again he looked out upon the two, who hung with streaming
eyes above him. “Kiss me, Richard — and you, Frederica —
dear children — I have loved you always. God be with you
— and — me!” He was silent.

Our story here is ended. We need not follow Richard Coulter
through the remaining vicissitudes of the war. Enough that
he continued to distinguish himself, rising to the rank of major
in the service of the state. With the return of peace, he removed
to the farmhouse of his wife's parents. But for him, in
all probability, the estate would have been forfeited; and the
great love which the good old Dutchman professed for King

George might have led to the transfer of his grant to some one
less devoted to the house of Hanover. It happened, only a few
months after the evacuation of Charleston by the British, that
Felix Long, one of the commissioners, was again on a visit to
Orangeburg. It was at the village, and a considerable number
of persons had collected. Among them was old Frederick Sabb
and Major Coulter. Long approached the old man, and, after
the first salutation, said to him — “Well, Frederick, have we
any late news from goot King Tshorge?” The old Dutchman
started as if he had trodden upon an adder — gave a hasty
glance of indignation to the interrogator, and turned away exclaiming
—“D—n King Tshorge! I don't care dough I nebber
more hears de name agen!”