University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Hastings turned furiously at the interruption; but
the stranger, though entirely unarmed, stood firmly, and
looked on him with composure.

“That's a bright sword you wear,” said he, “but
scarcely a good stroke, and any thing but a gallant
one, Master Sergeant, which you make with it. How
now, is it the fashion with English soldiers to draw
upon unarmed men?”

The person addressed turned upon the speaker with
a scowl which seemed to promise that he would
transfer some portion of his anger to the new-comer.
He had no time, however, to do more than
look his wrath at the interruption; for among the
many persons whom the noise had brought to the
scene of action was the fair Bella Humphries herself.
She waited not an instant to place herself between
the parties, and, as if her own interest in the persons
concerned gave her an especial right in the matter, she
fearlessly passed under the raised weapon of Hastings,
addressing him imploringly, and with an air of
intimacy, which was, perhaps, the worst feature in the
business—so, at least, the individual appeared to think
to whose succour she had come. His brow blackened
still more at her approach, and when she interfered to
prevent the strife, a muttered curse, half-audible, rose
to his lips; and brandishing the club which he had
wielded with no little readiness before, he seemed
more than ever desirous of renewing the combat, though
at all its disadvantages. But the parties around generally

interfered to prevent the progress of the strife;
and Bella, whose mind seemed perfectly assured of
Hastings' invincibility, addressed her prayers only to
him, and in behalf of the other.

“Now don't strike, Master Sergeant—don't, I pray!
John is only foolish, and don't mean any harm. Strike
him not, I beg you!”

“Beg for yourself, Bella Humphries—I don't want
any of your begging for me. I'm no chicken, and can
hold my own any day against him. So don't come between
us—you in particular—you had better keep
away.”

The countryman spoke ferociously; and his dark
eye, long black hair, and swarthy cheek, all combined
to give the expression of fierce anger which his words
expressed, a lively earnestness not ill-adapted to sustain
them. The girl looked on him reproachfully as he
spoke, though a close observer might have seen in her
features a something of conscious error and injustice.
It was evident that the parties had been at one period
far more intimate than now; and the young stranger,
about whom the coil had begun, saw in an instant the
true situation of the twain. A smile passed over his
features, but did not rest, as his eye took in at a glance
the twofold expression of Bella's face, standing between
her lovers, preventing the fight—scowled on furiously
by the one, and most affectionately leered at by the
other. Her appeal to the sergeant was so complimentary,
that even were he not half-ashamed of what he had
already done in commencing a contest so unequal, he
must have yielded to it and forborne; and some of his
moderation, too, might have arisen from his perceiving
the hostile jealousy of spirit with which his rival regarded
her preference of himself. His vanity was enlisted
in the application of the maiden, and with a
becoming fondness of expression in his glance, turning
to the coquette, he gave her to understand, while
thrusting his sword back into the scabbard, that he
consented to mercy on the score of her application.
Still, as Davis held out a show of fight, and stood

snugly ensconced behind his chair, defying and even
inviting assault, it was necessary that the sergeant
should draw off honourably from the contest. While
returning the weapon to the sheath, therefore, he spoke
to his enemy in language of indulgent warning, not
unmixed with the military threats common at the
period—

“Hark you, good fellow—you're but a small man to
look out for danger, and there's too little of you, after
all, for me to look after. I let you off this time; but
you're on ticklish territory, and if you move but one
side or the other, you're but a lost man after all. It's
not a safe chance to show rebel signs on the king's
lightway, and you have an ugly squinting at disaffection.
My eyes are on you, now, and if I but see you
wink, or hear you hint, treason,—ay, treason, rebellion
—I see it in your eyes, I tell you,—but wink it or look
it again, and you know it's short work, very short
work, and a shorter journey, to the tight rope and the
branching tree.”

The speaker looked round significantly upon the
company as he uttered a warning and threat, which,
though addressed particularly to the refractory countryman,
were yet evidently as much meant for the benefit
of the rest. Not that the worthy sergeant had any reason
for uttering language which, in all respects, seemed
so gratuitous; but this was of a piece with the wantonly
injudicious habits of his superiors, from whom, with
the readiness of subordination, he made free to borrow,
and, with as little discrimination, quite as frequently
employed it, not less for the gratification of his vanity
than for the exercise of his power. The speech had
something of its usual effect,—keeping in silence those
whose love of talk might have prompted to occasional
remark, though without any serious feeling in the matter;
and subduing thoroughly all demonstrations of
dislike on the part of the few, who, feeling things more
deeply, might be disposed rather to act than to speak,
when under such provocation. However the persons
around may have felt at the moment, they were generally

prudent enough to be silent. Old Humphries
alone, with uplifted hands, and somewhat touched with
liquor, now seeing all danger over, came forward, and
hobbling up to the sergeant, cried out, in reply—

“Why, bless us, sergeant, you talk as if you were
among the enemies of his majesty, and not among his
good friends and well-wishers. Now, I'm sure I can
answer for all here. There's Jones and Baxter, Lyons
and Tom Walker there—all true blue—right loyal good
fellows, who drink the health of King George—God
bless him!—whenever they can get a drink; and as for
Jack Davis, bless us, sergeant, there's no better boy
in Goose Creek, though he is cross and snappish when
his fit's on, and no chicken either, as he says himself.
He'll fight for his majesty any day, I know. There's no
mistake in him—there's no mistake in any of the boys
—I can answer for all that's here, except—” and here
the landlord paused in one of the longest speeches he
had ever made, and his eye rested doubtfully upon the
person of the stranger.

“Except me,” said the latter, coming forward,
looking Hastings attentively in the face as he spoke,
and at the same time placing his hand with some little
emphasis upon the shoulders of old Humphries—“except
me, Master Humphries, for whom you can say
nothing—of whom you know nothing—but about whom
you are excessively curious. You only know I am not a
captain, nor yet a colonel; and as I have not satisfied
your desires on these subjects, of course you cannot
answer for my loyalty.”

“Bless us, no; that I can't, stranger.”

“But I can, Master Humphries, and that's enough
for all parties; and I can say, as you have already said
for these gentlemen, that my loyalty is quite as good as
that of any around me, as we shall all see in season.
And now that this quarrel is ended, let me only beg of
the worthy sergeant here, that he may not be so quick
to draw his weapon upon the man that is unarmed.
The action is by no means so creditable to the soldier,

and one that he may, most probably, in time,
come to be ashamed of.”

The perfect coolness and self-possession of the
stranger, in this brief interlude, confounded Hastings
not less than it did the rest. He knew not in what
character to behold him, and, but that he was rather
stolid than otherwise, might have exhibited traces of
that confusion which his mind certainly felt. But the
air of superiority which the other manifested, annoyed
him too greatly to give way to doubt or indetermination;
and he was about to answer roughly, when a remark
which Davis made, of a churlish nature, to the
coquettish Bella Humphries, who still lingered beside
the sergeant, attracted the latter's attention, and giving
a glance to the speaker, he threw his collected spleen
in that quarter, while addressing the girl—

“See, now, that's the good you get for saving him
from punishment. He doesn't thank you at all for
what you've done.”

“No, that I don't!” cried the incorrigible Davis:
“I owe her as little thanks as I owe you kindness,—
and I'll pay off both some day. I can hold my own
without her help; and as for her begging, I don't want
it—I won't have it—and I despise it.”

“What's that?” cried Hastings, with a show of
returning choler.

“Nothing, sergeant, nothing; don't mind what he
says; he's only foolish, and don't mean any harm.
Now take your hand away from the sword, I beg you.”

The girl looked so prettily, as she prayed him to be
quiet, that the soldier relented. Her deferential solicitude
was all-influential, and softened much of the harsh
feeling that might have existed in his bosom. Taking
her arm into his own, with a consequential strut,
and throwing a look of contempt upon his rival as he
passed, the conqueror moved away into the adjoining
apartment, to which, as his business seems private at
present, we shall not presume to follow him.

His departure was the signal for renovated I life
in several of those persons who, in the previous scene,

seemed quiescent enough. They generously came
forward to Davis with advice and friendly counsel to
keep himself out of harm's way, and submit, most civilly,
like a good Christian, to the gratuitous blow and
buffet. The most eloquent among them was the landlord.

“Now, bless me,” said he, “John, my dear boy,
why will you be after striving with the sergeant?
You know you can't stand against him, and where's
the use? He's quite too tough a colt for you to manage,
now, I tell you.”

“So you think, Master Humphries—so you think.
But I'm not so sure of it, now, by half. I can stand a
thump as well as any man—and I haint lived so long
in Goose Creek not to know how to give one too.
But how you stand it—you, I say, Dick Humphries—
I don't altogether see.”

“Eh, John—how I stand it? Bless us, what do you
mean, boy? He don't trouble me—he don't threaten
me—I'm a good subject to his majesty.”

The youth laughed irreverently, and the stranger,
who had been standing apart, but still within hearing,
noted the incident with a considerable show of interest
in his countenance.

“And what do you laugh for, John? Don't, boy—I
pray you, don't. Let's have a glass together, then say
what you mean. Good old Jamaica! Won't you join
us, stranger?”

The youth declined, and Davis proceeded—

“My meaning's soon said, Master Humphries. I'm
sorry to see—” and here, with a praiseworthy delicacy,
he whispered in the old man's ear his objections to the
large degree of intimacy existing between the British
sergeant and his pretty daughter.

“Oh, go, John! there's no harm, boy. You're only
jealous 'cause she turned you off.”

“Turned me off, indeed!” responded the other, indignantly
and aloud—“turned me off! No, Master
Humphries—not so bad neither. But it's no use talking—you'll
know all in time, and will wish you had

minded what I told you. But go your own gait, you'll
grow fatter upon it;” and with this not very nice proverb
the disappointed lover turned away.

This scene had not been lost upon the stranger youth,
though little regarded by the other personages, who
had each made his speech and taken his drink and departure.
There was much more spoken that we do
not care to record, but which, duly noted by the ears of
the one observer to whom we have made especial reference,
was held not unworthy in his mind of proper
consideration. He had seen a dogged disposition on
the part of Davis to break and to quarrel with the
British sergeant; and though he clearly saw that
much of this disposition arose, as old Humphries had
asserted, from a jealous dislike of the intimacy between
Bella and the person in question, he yet perceived that
many of the phrases made use of by the countryman
indicated any thing but respect or good feeling for the
British authority. There was a sturdy brusqueness
in his air and manner, when the other spoke to him of
treason, which said that the crime was, after all, a venial
one in his mind; and this disposition, perceptible as it
must have been to the sergeant, not less than to the
stranger, might doubtless have prompted much of that
violence on his part which had been so happily and in
time arrested. Nor was there any thing precipitate or
uncommon in what the sergeant had done. Such exhibitions
were common in the bitter and unserupulous
warfare of the south. The word and the blow, and frequently
the blow first, was the habitual mode of silencing,
not treason, but all manner of opposition; and this
was the injudicious course by which the British, regarding
South Carolina as a conquered province, revolted
the popular feeling from all sympathy with their
authority, and provoked that spirit of determined resistance
and hostility which, in a few weeks only after
this event, blazed up throughout the whole colony, from
one end to the other, and commenced that series of
harassing operations, the partisan warfare, which, in
spite of frequent defeats, cut off the foraging parties of

the British army, destroyed its resources, diminished
its exercise, contracted its sphere of operations daily,
and, in the end, drove the invader to the seaboard, and
from thence to his departing vessels.

Old Humphries followed Davis to the door, and
again renewed the conversation. The landlord seemed
to have a good feeling for his guest, who had probably
been a crony of his own, and a favoured lover of his
daughter, before the British army had made its appearance
to compel a change of political sentiment in the
one, or a British sergeant, in his red coat and round
face, to effect as great a revolution in the bosom of the
other. His object seemed to be to persuade Davis into
a more cautious habit of forbearance, when speaking
of the existing powers; and he warned him of the unhesitating
nature of the enemy when punishing what
they held rebellion, and of the severe kinds of punishment
put in exercise on such occasions. But whether
it was that the youth really felt sorely, too sorely for
calm reflection, the loss of his sweetheart—or whether
the assault of the sergeant had opened his eyes to the
doubtful tenure by which the American held his security
under the rule that now prevailed throughout the
land—may not well be said; but there was a reckless
audacity in his replies to the friendly suggestions of
the landlord, which half-frightened the latter personage
out of his wits.

“I'd rather eat acorns, now, Master Humphries, I tell
you, and sleep in the swamps in August, than hush my
tongue when I feel it's right to speak. They shan't
crow over me, though I die for it; and let them look
out; for I tell you now, Dick Humphries, flesh and
blood can't stand their persecutions. There's no
chance for life, let 'lone property. Look how they
did Frampton's wife, and she in such a way; and only
three days ago they tied up Tom Raysor's little boy
Ben, and give him a matter of fifty lashes with hickories
thick as my thumb, and all because the boy
wouldn't tell where his father was hiding.”

“But you see, John, that all came of the hiding.

If Frampton and Raysor had not taken to the swamp,
the old lady would have been let alone, and the boy
wouldn't have been whipt. Aint they in arms now
against his majesty?”

“Yes; and if his majesty goes on after this fashion
there will be a few more, I can tell you. Now, you
yourself, Dick Humphries, I put it to yourself, whether
the thing's right, and whether we ought to stand it.
Now, I know you of old, and know you're no more a
loyalist than—”

“Hush! Bless us, John Davis, how you talk, boy!
hush, hush!” and with an air of the greatest trepidation,
looking around and perceiving that, though the
stranger appeared to be reading very earnestly from
the pages of the “Royal (Charlestown) Gazette,” he
was yet within hearing, the landlord led his companion
farther from the door, and the conversation, as it proceeded
to its conclusion, was entirely lost to all ears
but their own. It was not long before Humphries returned
to the hall, and endeavoured to commence a sort
of desultory dialogue with the stranger guest, whose
presence had produced the previous quarrel. But this
personage seemed to desire no such familiarity, for
scarcely had the old man begun, when throwing down
the sheet he had been reading, and thrusting upon his
head the rakish cap which all the while had rested on
his knee, he rose from his seat, and moving rapidly to
the door of the apartment, followed the steps of Davis,
whom he beheld pursuing his way along the main
bridge road and towards the river. The path was
clear in this quarter; not a solitary being, but themselves,
was to be seen—by them at least. In the centre
of the bridge—a crazy structure of ill-adjusted
timber thrown over a point of the stream where it
most narrowed—the pursuing stranger overtook the
moodily-wandering countryman. He stopped him in
his progress till he could come up with him, by a
friendly hail; and freely approaching him, tendered
him his open hand in a cordial salutation. The other
grasped it with honest pleasure.

“Master Davis, for such, I believe, is your name,”
said the stranger, frankly, “I owe you thanks for so
readily, though I must say rashly, taking up my quarrel.
I understand that your brush with that soldier-fellow
was on my account; and though, like yourself,
I need nobody to fight my battles, I must yet thank
you for the good spirit which you have shown in this
matter.”

“No thanks, stranger. I don't know what name to
call you—”

“No matter; names are unnecessary, and the fewer
known the better in these doubtful times. I care not
to utter mine, though it has but little value. Call me
what you please.” The other looked surprised, but
still satisfied, and replied after this fashion—

“Well, squire, as I said, you owe me no thanks at
all in this affair, for though I did take up the matter on
your hook, it was because I had a little sort of hankering
to take it up on my own. I have long had a grudge
at that fellow, and I didn't care much on whose score
it began, so it had a beginning.”

“He has done you wrong?” half affirmatively, half
inquiringly, said his companion.

“Reckon he has, squire, and no small wrong neither;
but that's neither here nor there, seeing there's little
help for it.”

“How! no help for it! What may be the nature of
this injury, for which a man with your limbs and spirit
can find no help?”

The countryman looked at the speaker with a curious
expression, in which a desire to confide, and a proper
hesitancy in intrusting his secret thoughts to a stranger,
were mingled equally. The other beheld the expression,
and readily divining the difficulty, proceeded
to remove it.

“This man has wronged you, friend Davis: you
are his match—more than his match; you have better
make and muscle, and manage your club quite as well
as he his broadsword:—why should you not have justice
if you desire it?”

“If I desire it!” cried the other, and his black eye
sparkled. “I do desire it, squire; but there's odds
against me, or we'd a-been at it afore this.”

“What odds?”

“Look there!” and as Davis replied he pointed to
the fortress upon the opposite hill, a few hundred yards
off, where the cross of Great Britain streamed high
among the pine-trees, and from the entrance of which,
at that very moment, a small body of regulars were
pouring out into the street, and proceeding with martial
music to the market-place.

“I see,” replied the other—“I see; but why should
they prove odds against you in a personal affair with
this sergeant? You have justice from them surely.”

“Justice!—such justice as a tory captain gives
when he wants your horse, and don't want to pay for
it.” Davis replied truly, in his summing up of British
justice at that period.

“But you do not mean to say that the people would
not be protected, were complaints properly made to the
officers?”

“I do; and what's worse, complaint only goes after
new hickories. One man was strapped up only yesterday,
because he complained that Corporal Townes
kicked his wife and broke his crockery. They gave
him a hundred lashes.”

“And yet loyalty must have its advantages, more
than equal to this usage, else”—and a smile of bitter
scorn played upon the lips of the speaker as he finished
the sentence—“else there would not be so many to
love it so well and submit to it so patiently.”

The countryman gazed earnestly at the speaker,
whose eyes were full of a most searching expression,
which could not be misunderstood.

“Dang it, stranger,” he cried, “what do you mean—
who are you?”

“A man—one who has not asked for a British protection,
nor submitted to their hickories;” and the form
of the stranger was elevated duly as he spoke, and
his eye was lighted up with scornful fires, as his reference

was made sarcastically to the many in the neighbourhood
who had done both. The man's face was
flushed when he hear this reply; the tears gathered
in his eyes, and with a bitter emphasis, though in low
tones, as if he felt all the shame of his acknowledgment,
he replied—

“God curse me, but I did! I was one of those who
took a protection. Here it is—here's the paper. Here's
where I sold my country, and put myself down in
black and white, to be beaten like a dog with hickories.
But it's not too late; and look you, stranger, I believe
you're true blue, but if you aint, why it's all the same
thing—I care not—you may go tell quick as you please;
but I will break the bargain.”

“How?—speak!” and the form of the other was advanced
and seemed to dilate, as he watched the earnest
glow in every feature of his companion.

“How?—by tearing up the paper: see”—and, as he
spoke, he tore into small bits the guaranty of British
protection, which, in common with most of his neighbours,
he had been persuaded to accept from the commandant
for his security, and as a condition of that
return, which he pledged at the same time, to his duty
and his allegiance.

“Your life is in my hands,” exclaimed his companion,
deliberately. “Your life is in my hands.”

“Take it!” cried the countryman, and he threw himself
upon his guard, while his fingers clutched fiercely
the knife which he carried in his bosom. His small
person, slight but active, thrown back, every muscle in
action and ready for contest; his broad-brimmed white
hat dashed from his brow; his black glossy hair
dishevelled and flying in the wind; lips closely compressed,
while his deep, dark eye shot forth fires of
anger, fiercely enlivening the dusky sallow of his cheek
—all gave to him a most imposing expression of animated
life and courage in the eye of his companion.

“Take it—take the worthless life!” he cried, in low
but emphatic accents. “It is worthless, but you will
fight for it.”

The other regarded him with a look of admiration
sobered into calm.

“Your life is in my hands, but it is safe. God forbid,
Master Davis,” said he, with solemnity, “God
forbid that I should assail it. I am your friend, your
countryman, and I rejoice in what you have done. You
have done well and nobly in destroying that evidence
of your dishonour; for it is dishonour to barter one's
country and its liberties for dastardly security—for
one's miserable life. You have done well; but be not
rash. Your movement must be in quiet. Nothing rash,
nothing precipitate. Every step you now take must
be one of caution, for your path is along the steeps of
danger. But come with me—you shall know more.
First secure those scraps; they may tell tales upon
you; a quick hand and close eye may put them together,
and then your neck would be fit game for the
halter you sergeant warned you of. But what now—
what are the troops about?”

The countryman looked, at his companion's question,
and beheld the troops forming in the market-place,
while the note of the bugle at intervals, and an occasional
sullen tap of the drum, gathered the crowd of
the village around them.

“It's a proclamation, squire. That's the market-place,
where they read it first. They give us one
every two or three days, sometimes about one thing,
sometimes another. If the cattle's killed by the whigs,
though it may be their own, there's a proclamation;[1] but
we don't mind them much, for they only tell us to be
quiet and orderly, and, Heaven knows, we can't be more
so. They will next go to the church, where they will
again read it. That's nigher, and we can get round in
time to hear what it is. Shall we go, squire?” The
other expressed his willingness, and leaving the bridge,
they proceeded in the direction of the crowd.