 | CHAPTER IV. The wigwam and the cabin |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
We pass over a period of eighteen months. In this time John
Houston had sold out the little cottage near Reedy River, and
had removed his wife to the residence of his mother near Paris
Mountain. Why he had not adopted this measure on the demise
of Widow Heywood is matter of conjecture only. His own mother
was now dead, and it was the opinion of those around, that it
was only after this latter event that he could venture upon a step
which might seem to divide the sceptre of household authority—
a point about which despotical old ladies are apt to be very
jealous. His household was as badly provided for as ever, but
some good angel, whose presence might have been suspected,
still watched over the wants of the suffering wife, and the hollow
of an ancient chestnut now received the stores which we have
formerly seen placed upon the rude blocks near the thicket fence
in Greenville. Whether John Houston still suspected the interference
of his hated playmate we cannot say. The prudent
caution of the latter availed so that they did not often meet, and
never under circumstances which could justify a quarrel. But
events were ripening which were to bring them unavoidably into
collision. We are now in the midst of the year 1776. The
strife had already begun, of Whig and Tory, in the upper part
of South Carolina. It happened some time in 1774 that the afterwards
notorious Moses Kirkland stopped one night at the dwelling
of John Houston. This man was already busy in stirring up
disaffection to the popular party of the State. He was a man of
loose, vicious habits, and irregular propensities. He and John
Houston were kindred spirits; and the hunter was soon enlisted
under his banners. He was out with Kirkland in the campaign
of 1775, when the Tories were dispersed and put down by the
decisive measures of General Williamson and William Henry
Drayton. It so happened that Arthur Holt made his appearance
in the field, also for the first time, in the army of Williamson.
been enemies. But they did not meet. The designs of Kirkland
were baffled, his troops dispersed, and the country settled down
into a condition of seeming quiet. But it was a seeming quiet
only. The old wounds festered, and when, in 1780, the metropolis
of the State fell into the hands of the British, yielding to
captivity nearly the whole of its military power, the Tories resumed
their arms and impulses with a fury which long forbearance
had heightened into perfect madness. Upon the long and
melancholy history of that savage warfare which followed, we
need not dwell. The story is already sufficiently well known.
It is enough to say that John Houston distinguished himself by his
cruelties. Arthur Holt threw by the plough, and was one of
Butler's men for a season. With the decline of British power in
the lower, the ascendancy in the upper country finally passed
over to the Whigs. Both parties were now broken up into little
squads of from ten to fifty persons;—the Tories, the better to
avoid pursuit, the Whigs, the better to compass them in all their
hiding-places.
It was a cold and cheerless evening in the month of November
that Arthur Holt, armed to the teeth, stopped for the night, with a
party of eleven men, at a cottage about fourteen miles from his
own dwelling on the banks of Reedy River.
An hour had not well elapsed, before Arthur Holt found some
one jerking at his shoulder. He opened his eyes and recognised
the epileptic of whom mention was made in the early part of our
narrative. Acker was still an epileptic, and still, to all appearance,
a boy;—he was small, decrepit, pale, and still liable to the
shocking disease, the effects of which were apparent equally in
his withered face and shrivelled person. But he was not without
intelligence, and his memory was singularly tenacious of benefits
and injuries. Eagerly challenging the attention of Arthur Holt,
he proceeded to tell him that John Houston had only two hours
before been seen with a party of seven, on his way to the farm at
Paris Mountain, where, at that very moment, he might in all
probability be found. By this time the troopers, accustomed to
sudden rousings, were awake and in possession of the intelligence.
It was greedily listened to by all but Arthur Holt. John Houston
the inhabitants had fallen victims to his brutality and hate. To
take him, living or dead,—to feed the vengeance for which they
thirsted,—was at once the passion of the party. It was with
some surprise that they found their leader apathetic and disposed
to fling doubt upon the information.
“I know not how you could have seen John Houston, Peter
Acker, with seven men, when we left him behind us, going below,
and crossing at Daniel's Ford on the Ennoree, only two days
ago.”
“ 'Twas him I seed, Captain, and no other. Don't you think I
knows John Houston? Oughtn't I to know him? Wasn't it he
that used to beat me, and duck me in the water? I knows him.
'Twas John Houston, I tell you, and no other person.”
“You are mistaken, Peter—you must be mistaken. No horse
could have brought him from the Ennoree so soon.”
“He's on his own horse, the great bay. 'Tis John Houston,
and you must catch him and hang him.”
One of the party, a spirited young man, named Fletchall, now
said:
“Whether it's Houston and his men or not, Captain Holt, we
should see who the fellows are. Acker ought to know Houston,
and though we heard of him on the Ennoree, we may have
heard wrong. It's my notion that Acker is right; and every
man of Reedy River, that claims to be a man, ought to see to it.”
There was a sting in this speech that made it tell. They did
not understand the delicacy of their Captain's situation, nor could
he explain it. He could only sigh and submit. Buckling on his
armour, he obeyed the necessity, and his eager troop was soon in
motion for the cottage of Houston at Paris Mountain. There, two
hours before, John Houston had arrived. He had separated from
his companions. It was not affection for his wife that brought
Houston to his home. On the contrary, his salutation was that
of scorn and suspicion. He seemed to have returned, brooding
on some dark imagination or project. When his wife brought
his child, and put him on his knees, saying with a mournful look
of reproach, “You do not even ask for your son!” the reply, betraying
the foulest of fancies—“How know I that he is!” showed
soul. The miserable woman shrunk back in horror, while his
eyes, lightened by a cold malignant smile, pursued her as if in
mockery. When she placed before him a little bread and meat,
he repulsed it, exclaiming: “Would you have me fed by your
Arthur?” And when she meekly replied by an assurance that
the food did not come from him, his answer, “Ay, but I am not
so sure of the sauce!” indicated a doubt so horrible, that the poor
woman rushed from the apartment with every feeling and fibre
of her frame convulsed. Without a purpose, except to escape
from suspicions by which she was tortured, she had turned the
corner of the enclosure, hurrying, it would seem, to a little thicket,
where her sorrows would be unseen, when she suddenly encountered
Arthur Holt, with a cocked pistol in his grasp. The troopers
had dismounted and left their horses in the woods. They
were approaching the house cautiously, on foot, and from different
quarters. The object was to effect a surprise of the Tory;—
since, armed and desperate, any other more open mode of approach
might, even if successful, endanger valuable life. The
plan had been devised by Arthur. He had taken to himself that
route which brought him first to the cottage. His object was
explained in the few first words with Leda Houston.
“Arthur Holt!—you here!” was her exclamation, as she
started at his approach.
“Ay; and your husband is here!”
“No, no!” was the prompt reply.
“Nay, deny not! I would save him—away! let him fly at
once. We shall soon be upon him!”
A mute but expressive look of gratitude rewarded him, while,
forgetting the recent indignities to which she had been subjected,
Leda hurried back to the cottage and put Houston in possession
of the facts. He started to his feet, put the child from his knee,
though still keeping his hand upon its shoulder, and glaring upon
her with eyes of equal jealousy and rage, he exclaimed—
“Woman! you have brought my enemy upon me!”
To this charge the high-souled woman made no answer, but
her form became more erect, and her cheek grew paler, while
her exquisitely chiselled lips were compressed with the effort to
to relieve him of the child; but he repulsed her, and grasping
the little fellow firmly in his hands, with no tenderness of hold,
he lifted him to his shoulder, exclaiming—
“No! he shares my danger! he goes with me. He is at least
your child—he shall protect me from your—”
The sentence was left unfinished as he darted through the
door! With a mother's scream she bounded after him, as he
took his way to the edge of the little coppice in which his horse
was fastened. The agony of a mother's soul lent wings to her
feet. She reached him ere he could undo the fastenings of his
horse, and, seizing him by his arm, arrested his progress.
“What!” he exclaimed; “you would seize—you would deliver
me!”
“My child! my child!” was her only answer, as she clung
to his arm, and endeavoured to tear the infant from his grasp.
“He goes with me! He shall protect me from the shot!”
“You will not, cannot risk his precious life.”
“Do I not risk mine?”
“My son—your son!”
“Were I sure of that!”
“God of heaven! help me! Save him! save him!”
But there was no time for parley. A pistol-shot was fired
from the opposite quarter of the house, whether by accident, or
for the purpose of alarm, is not known, but it prompted the
instant movement of the ruffian, who, in order to extricate himself
from the grasp of his wife, smote her to the earth, and in
the midst of the child's screams hurried forward with his prize.
To reach the coppice, to draw forth and mount his horse, was
the work of an instant only. The life of the hunter and the
partisan had made him expert enough in such performances.
Mounted on a splendid bay, of the largest size and greatest
speed, he lingered but a moment in sight, the child conspicuously
elevated in his grasp, its head raised above his left shoulder, while one
of its little arms might be seen stretching towards his motner, now
rising from the earth. At this instant Arthur Holt made his appearance.
From the wood, where he had remained as long as he
might, he had beheld the brutal action of his enemy. It was the
convulsively grasped and cocked his pistol, as he rushed forward
to revenge it. But the unhappy woman rose in time to prevent
him. Her extended arms were thrown across his path. He
raised the deadly weapon above them.
“Would you shoot! oh, my God! would you shoot! Do you
not see my child! my child!”
The action of Arthur was suspended at the mother's words;
and, lifting the child aloft with a powerful arm, as if in triumph
and defiance, the brutal father, putting spurs to his horse, went
off at full speed. A single bound enabled the noble animal to
clear the enclosure, and, appearing but a single moment upon the
hillside, the mother had one more glimpse of her child, whose
screams, in another moment, were drowned in the clatter of the
horse's feet. She sunk to the ground at the foot of Arthur, as his
comrades leapt over the surrounding fence.
| CHAPTER IV. The wigwam and the cabin | |