University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
Robin Day, after sundry alarming adventures, finds himself at
last a volunteer, and on the eve of going into battle.

I travelled with great diligence all the night,
inspired in part by the fear of being pursued by the
truculent John Dabs, and in part by the hope of
overtaking some gallant band of patriots encamped
on the road, with perhaps General Dicky Dare
among them. In this hope I was destined to be
gratified, though, as it proved, not precisely in manner
and form as I had fondly anticipated.

I had trudged along, perhaps, three or four hours,
passing through one or two villages, in each of
which my presence created a terrible confusion,
first, by alarming all the dogs, and thereby their
masters; all of whom, I believe in my conscience,
attributed the sudden uproar to an assault by Admiral
Cockburn and all his vagabond banditti; when
it was my fortune to reach another little rural town,
upon the skirts of which, it happened, a band of
volunteers had made their camp around a huge
watchfire; where they were snoozing away the
night, dreaming of conquest and glory. A sentinel,
for my sins, had been stationed upon the road by
which I advanced; who, being waked out of some
vision of blood and battle by the sound of my foot-steps,
was seized with a direful panic, and roaring

out, “The British! the British!” let fly at me with
his musket, and then took to his heels, alarming his
comrades; who sprang from their beds, and fled
with equal speed and spirit, each firing off his piece,
like the sentinel, though for what purpose, unless in
hopes to do some chance execution on the assailing
foe, I never could divine.

I am sorry to say, this very unexpected reception
produced a somewhat unheroic perturbation in my
own spirits; so that I was suddenly seized with the
apprehension—notwithstanding that the soldier's
cries very plainly declared the contrary—that I had
stumbled upon a party of invaders, instead of Americans;
an idea that prevailed upon me to such an
effect, that I began to run away as furiously as they;
and, to be the more certain of getting out of danger,
I sprang from the road into the fields, and thence
ran into a wood; where I was soon as thoroughly
amazed and bewildered as if buried in the depths of
a Western wilderness.

Having wandered about in this bosky refuge for
several hours, reflecting upon the adventure, I became,
at length, convinced I had made a mistake, in
supposing myself among the British; and, being
heartily sick of the woods, as well as excessively
fatigued, I resolved to extricate myself as fast as I
could, look up some farm-house, and beg shelter and
a bed for the remainder of the night.

From the wood I succeeded in escaping, and a
farm-house I was lucky enough to find; but there
ended my good fortune; for besides being direfully
barked at by dogs, that seemed only waiting their
master's orders to tear me to pieces, I had no sooner
come within pistol-shot of the house than up flew
the windows, and out came the contents of some six
or seven muskets, fired at me by as many heroic in-mates;

whom I could hear calling to one another, in
an ecstasy of patriotic fury, to “defend the house to
the last extremity.” This dreadful volley was followed
by an immediate charge of the dogs, by whom
I was driven, with loss, from the field, and compelled
to ascend a tree; where, though out of reach of the
animals, who kept up a dismal barking below, I was
in momentary expectation of dying the death of a
tree'd bear—that is, of being followed, and shot
down, by some of those ardent worthies, the defenders
of the house.

To prevent a catastrophe so imminent, I fell to
work with my penknife, the only weapon in my
possession, and cut me off a huge bough from the
tree; with which I descended, nerved to desperation,
among my canine besiegers; and, charging them with
great intrepidity, knocking one over the head, and
breaking the leg of a second, besides dealing a world
of lesser injuries around, I had the good fortune to
put them entirely to rout, and thus secure an undisturbed
retreat.

I had now little difficulty in making my way to
a highroad, though without being able to say
whether or not it was the one I had left, when
repulsed from the village. To add to my difficulties
the sky became now so overcast with clouds, that I
could no longer determine the points of the compass,
and knew not in which direction I ought to proceed.
My adventures in the village and at the farm-house
had not cooled my desire to reach the scene of action
on the Chesapeake; indeed, I had no other
resource; and the hopes of finding my friend Dicky
Dare, without whose advice and assistance I felt it
next to impossible to tread aright the dangerous paths
of glory, were enough of themselves to urge me on.
But how to proceed was now the question; to solve

which I took a seat upon a stump at the roadside;
where, at the first effort to call up my thoughts, being
inexpressibly worn and wearied, I fell sound asleep.

The two previous nights, as I have already mentioned,
were passed almost wholly without sleep;
and the present made, as I may say, the third in
which I had not closed my eyes; for, I believe,
it was well nigh dawn when I dropped asleep.
Sound, dead, and long, therefore, were my slumbers;
and it was not until many hours after the sun
had risen that I again opened my eyes, and rose
from the sod, whereon (for I had rolled, in my
sleep, off the stump,) I certainly enjoyed as pleasant
a nap as I had ever known in my life.

I was wakened by sounds the most agreeable, at
that time, that could fall upon my ears; they were
bursts of military music, the roll of a distant drum,
that accompanied a fife, breathing out the spirit-stirring
notes of Yankee Doodle.

“Bravo!” said I, kindling with joy and enthusiasm;
“I shall now be a volunteer; and Mr. John
Dabs, and cowardly villagers, and barking dogs,
and their crazy masters, may all go to the —” it
is no matter to whom.

I followed the sounds; and, by and by, I caught
sight of the martial band from which they proceeded,
consisting of no more than ten or twelve persons in
all, whose odd appearance and equipments, struck
me with amazement. Their dresses were by no
means military, no two being decked precisely alike;
some had long coats, some jackets, and some neither
jacket nor coat; but most of them had scarfs, or
what were meant for scarfs, of all imaginable hues,
red, yellow, green, blue—tied about their loins, and
a few had even additional ones wrapped round their
hats. Their arms were as various as their accoutrements—each

man having a hanger at his side, and a
belt stuck full of pistols, besides guns; of which
there seemed a plentiful variety, some marching
with one on each shoulder, like so many Robinson
Crusoes. As for their march I never saw any thing
so disorderly, every man stalking along as best
pleased himself, and all swearing, talking, whistling,
singing in a manner wonderful to observe. Their
officers—and I almost doubted, at first, whether
they had any—seemed to be but two in number,
and were distinguishable only by being more obstreperous
than their followers; at least, the man
who marched at their head swore with a louder
voice and greater volubility than any one else; except
a second worthy personage, who carried a banner
of a very odd appearance, which, indeed, I afterwards
found was an old red flannel petticoat, and
seemed to aim at rivalry in profanity with the other.

I immediately saw, or thought I saw, that this,
instead of being a band of regular soldiers, or disciplined
volunteers, was a company of mere militia-men
got together in a hurry, and stuffed with Dutch
courage for the occasion, having quaffed, along with
the gallantry that swims in the bottle, a deal of the
folly and perverseness that lie at the bottom. This
was a great disappointment to me, as I should have
preferred to unite my fate with some company of
soldiers in handsome uniform; but I thought it was
not much matter with what corps I began my campaign,
seeing I should soon, as I hoped, transfer my
services to another—to that, whichever it might be,
honoured by the presence of my friend Dickey Dare.

Having solaced myself with this reflection, I advanced
towards the warriors; who, at sight of me,
began to make some demonstrations of hostility,
such as it had been my luck already twice to meet,

during the last eight hours; that is, they drew, some
of them, their swords and pistols, while others leveled
their guns, as if about to blow or hew me to
atoms; a catastrophe that was averted partly by
their commander d—g their eyes for being so ready
to fight without his orders, (which reproof, by the
way, was immediately echoed, in the same tones,
by the knight of the petticoat,) and partly by myself
calling out, with great energy, that I was a
friend.

“Friend be d—d—that is—friend, advance;” quoth
the commander; an injunction which I immediately
obeyed, though with somewhat of fear and trembling.

And now I observed, as I drew nigh, that my
redoubtable warriors, who were three-fourths of
them, at least, in a very soldierly condition, and the
other fourth hastening to become so by frequent and
open application to sundry gourds, canteens, and
black bottles, that were circulating among them, had
taken as good care of the main chance in the second
particular as the first, being quite as well provided
with meat as with liquor. There was scarce a man of
them that had not in his hand, or upon his back,
something wherewithal to meet the exigencies of
hunger; some bore fowls, some little pigs, some
sheep, and one tall fellow was staggering under a hindquarter
of beef, that looked like a gate of Gaza on
his shoulders. Even the magnificent captain himself
was as well burthened as any of his men, having a
garland of young chickens hung round his neck, and
a bundle of screaming guinea-fowls hanging from
his sash—which sash, by the way, bore to my eyes
a prodigious resemblance to a woman's shawl, or
some other article of female apparel. And, indeed,
the same might be said of the brilliant girdles and

hatbands that adorned the persons of the others, who
seemed to me to have borrowed largely of their
wives and daughters, to complete their equipments.

The captain received me with a stare of mingled
wrath and solemnity, and demanded, with a dreadful
hickup, and still more dreadful oath, “who I
was.”

“Sir,” said I, with as much dignity as I could
assume, though somewhat confounded at the strange
reception—“my name is Robin Day; and I have
come to volunteer my humble assistance in this glorious
service.”

“Glorious, by G—!” cried the commander; “never
was on such a chicken-eating campaign in my life;
chickens to fight, and chickens to eat—and oxen and
assen, and piggen and sheepen, and—But, curse me,
there's no time for gabble. Well, sir, d—n my eyes,
consider yourself a prisoner of war.”

“A prisoner, sir!” said I, amazed; “I come to
volunteer.”

“Oh, ay! you do?” quoth the officer, recollecting
himself. “Well then,”—here he flung a bundle of
chickens on my shoulders—“hang on to the roosters
and fall in.”

“Sir,” said I, hastily, “if you will give me a
sword and a musket, I should much prefer—”

“Oh, you would, would you?” cried the captain,
turning, with a hickup, to his men:—“Here, you Black
Jack, or Tom Spike, or some of you, d—n my eyes,
han't you a reefer's toothpick, or a barking iron, or
some such bloody piece of business, for the young
un?”—

“Just the thing to sarve him, my eyes!” cried a
one-eyed sailor-looking fellow, clapping on my
shoulder a gun some eight or ten feet long, a huge
ducking piece, such as I had heard fowlers used, but

without dreaming it was ever so horribly big and
heavy. “Just the thing to a ropeyarn,” said the
one-eyed man, grinning as I embraced, with no
good will, the gigantic weapon, nearly twice as long
as myself;—“could'nt fit better, my eyes! if you'd
been measured for it by the tailor.”

“Hold your jaw, Sam Slack,” quoth the captain,
eyeing me with such an approving look of drunken
gravity that I felt tempted to beg permission to exchange
my unwieldy weapon for another of more
appropriate size, as also to hint a dignified desire to
get rid of the chickens; a request that was, however,
prevented by the martialist exclaiming, “I likes
them that's gentlemen, and has the game in them.
—But, I say, shipmate, hang on to the roosters!”
Then turning to his followers, he gave the word of
command to resume the march—“Attention! Starboard
your helm;—right about wheel—march.—
Strike up, music; let's have a little more of Yankee
Doodle.”

With that, the music struck up, my gallant captain
waddled forward, his Falstaff regiment followed
at his heels, and I, who had been assigned no particular
place, and therefore marched, as I stood, at the
commander's side, trudged along in equal time, wondering
much at my brothers in arms, and perhaps
quite as much at myself for having taken service
with them.

It struck me, that these gallant personages, from
the captain down, had much more of a nautical than
military character about them, their dress and speech
alike smacking of salt water. But this did not appear
very surprising, considering the country where we
were, the shores of a vast navigable bay or arm of
the sea; and, besides, the ravages of the enemy, it
might be supposed, had driven on shore the crews

of all the bay vessels, who would very naturally
band together to resist his further encroaches on the
land. I must confess, however, I was greatly perplexed
by many odd expressions that fell from these
amphibious heroes; whose destination, as well as
other interesting particulars in relation to them, I
became very desirous to learn, and addressed myself
to the commander accordingly. The answer I got
was a command to “hold my peace and hang on to
the roosters,” accompanied with a look of authority
I durst not dispute.