University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

“The Oaks,” the dwelling-place of Colonel Walton,
was one of those old-time residences of the Carolina
planters to which, at this day, there attaches a sort
of human interest. A thousand local traditions hang
around them—a thousand stories of the olden time, and
of its associations of peril and adventure. The estate
formed one of the frontier-plantations upon the Ashley,
and was the site of a colonial barony. It had stood
sieges of the Indians in the wars of the Edistoes and
Yemassees; and, from a block-house station at first,
it had grown to be an elegant mansion, improved in
European style, remarkable for the length and deep
shade of its avenues of solemn oak, its general grace of
arrangement, and the lofty and considerate hospitality
of its proprietors. Such, from its first foundation to
the period of which we speak, had been its reputation;
and in no respect did the present owner depart from

the good tastes and the frank manly character of his
ancestors.

Colonel Richard Walton was a gentleman in every
sense of the word: simple, unpretending, unobtrusive,
and always considerate, he was esteemed and beloved
by all around him. Born to the possession of large
estates, his mind had been exercised happily by education
and travel; and at the beginning of the revolutionary
struggle, he had been early found to advocate
the claims of his native colony. At the commencement
of the war he commanded a party of horse, and had
been concerned in some of the operations against Prevost,
in the rapid foray which that general made into
Carolina. When Charlestown fell before the arms of
Sir Henry Clinton, overawed as was the entire country
below the Santee by the immediate presence in force
of the British army, he had tendered his submission
along with the rest of the inhabitants, despairing of any
better fortune. The specious offers of amnesty made
by Clinton and Arbuthnot, in the character of commissioners
for restoring peace to the revolted colonies,
and which called for nothing but neutrality from the
inhabitants, had the effect of deceiving him, in common
with his neighbours. Nor was this submission so partial
as we have been taught to think it. To the southward
of Charlestown, the militia, without summons, sent in a
flag to the British garrison at Beaufort, and made their
submission. At Camden the inhabitants negotiated
their own terms of repose. In Ninety-Six the submission
was the same; and, indeed, with the exception of
the mountainous borders, all show of hostility ceased
throughout the colony—the people generally seeming
to prefer quiet on any terms, to a resistance which,
at that moment of despondency, seemed worse than
idle.

This considerate pliability secured him, as it was
thought, in all the immunities of the citizen, without
subjecting him to any of those military duties which,
in other respects, his majesty had a perfect right to
call for from his loyal subjects. Such, certainly, were

the pledges of the British commanders—pledges made
with little reflection, or with designed subterfuge, and
violated with as little hesitation. They produced the
effect desired, in persuading to easy terms of arrangement
the people who might not have been conquered
but with great difficulty. Once disarmed and divided,
they were more easily overcome; and it was not long
after the first object had been obtained before measures
were adopted well calculated to effect the other.

Colonel Walton, though striving hard to convince
himself of the propriety of the course which he had
taken, remained still unsatisfied. He could not be assured
of the propriety of submission when he beheld,
as he did hourly, the rank oppression and injustice by
which the conquerors strove to preserve their ascendency
over the doubtful, while exercising it wantonly
among the weak. He could not but see how uncertain
was the tenure of his own hold upon the invaders, whom
nothing seemed to bind in the shape of solemn obligation.
The promised protection was that of the wolf,
and not the guardian dog; it destroyed its charge, and
not its enemy; and strove to ravage where it promised
to secure. As yet, it is true, none of these ills, in a
direct form, had fallen upon Colonel Walton; he had
suffered no abuses in his own person or family: on the
contrary, such were his wealth and influence, that it
had been thought not unwise, on the part of the conquerors,
to conciliate and sooth him. Still, the colonel
could not be insensible to the gradual approaches of
tyranny. He was not an unreflecting man; and as
he saw the wrongs done to others, his eyes became
duly open to the doubtful value of his own securities,
whenever the successes of the British throughout the
state should have become so general as to make them
independent of any individual influence. So thinking,
his mind gave a new stimulus to his conscience, which
now refused its sanction to the decision which, in a
moment of emergency and dismay, he had been persuaded
to adopt. His sympathies were too greatly
with the oppressed, and their sufferings were too immediately

under his own eyes, to permit of this; and
gloomy with the consciousnes of his error—and the
more so as he esteemed it now irremediable—vexed
with his momentary weakness, and apprehensive of the
future—his mind grew sullen with circumstances—his
feelings sank; and, gradually withdrawing from all the
society around him, he solaced himself in his family
mansion with the small circle which widowhood, and
other privations of time, had spared him. Nor did
his grief pass without some alleviation in the company
of his daughter Katharine—she, the high-born, the
beautiful, the young—the admiration of her neighbourhood,
revelling in power, yet seemingly all unconscious
of its sway. The rest of his family in this retirement
consisted of a maiden sister, and a niece, Emily
Singleton, whom, but a short time before, he had
brought from Santee, in the hope that a change of air
might be of benefit to that life which she held by a
tenure the most fleeting and capricious.

He saw but few persons besides. Studiously estranging
himself, he had no visiters, unless we may
except the occasional calls of the commanding officer
of the British post at Dorchester. This visiter, to
Colonel Walton, appeared only as one doing an appointed
duty, and exercising upon these visits that kind
of surveillance over the people of the country which
seemed to be called for by his position. Colonel Proctor
had another object in his visits to “The Oaks.”
He sought to ingratiate himself into the favour of the
father, on account of his lovely daughter; and to the
charms of one, rather than the political feelings of the
other, were the eyes of the British officer properly
addressed. Katharine was not ignorant of her conquest,
for Proctor made no efforts to conceal the
impression which she had made upon his heart. The
maiden, however, gave him but small encouragement.
She gloried in the name of a rebel lady, and formed
one of that beautiful array, so richly shining in the story
of Carolina, who, defying danger, and heedless of privation,
spoke boldly in encouragement to those who

yet continued to struggle for its liberties. She did not
conceal her sentiments; and whatever may have been
the personal attractions of Colonel Proctor, they were
wanting in force to her mind, as she associated him with
her own and the enemies of her country. Her reception
of her suitor was coldly courteous; and that which
her father gave him, though always studiously considerate
and gentle, Colonel Proctor, at the same time,
could not avoid perceiving was constrained and frigid
—quite unlike the warm and familiar hospitality which
otherwise marked and still marks, even to this day, the
gentry of that neighbourhood.

It was drawing to a close—that day of events in the
history of our little squad of partisans whose dwelling
was the Cypress Swamp. Humphries, who had engaged
to meet Major Singleton with some necessary
intelligence from Dorchester, was already upon his
way to the place of meeting, and had just passed out
of sight of Ashley River, when he heard the tramp of
horses moving over the bridge, and on the same track
with himself. He sank into cover as they passed,
and beheld Colonel Proctor and a Captain Dickson,
both on station at the garrison, on their way to “The
Oaks.” Humphries allowed them to pass; then renewing
his ride, soon effected the meeting with Major Singleton.
As we have already seen, their object was
“The Oaks” also; but the necessity of avoiding a
meeting with the British officers was obvious, and they
kept close in the wood, leaving the ground entirely to
their opponents.

Though, as we have said, rather a frequent visiter
at “The Oaks,” the present ride of Colonel Proctor in
that quarter had its usual stimulus dashed somewhat by
the sense of the business which occasioned it. Its
discharge was a matter of no little annoyance to the
Englishman, who was not less sensitive and generous
than brave. It was for the purpose of imparting to
Colonel Walton, in person, the contents of that not
yet notorious proclamation of Sir Henry Clinton, with
which he demanded the performance of military duty

from the persons who had been paroled; and by means
of which, on departing from the province, he planted the
seeds of that revolting patriotism which finally overthrew
the authority he fondly imagined himself to have
successfully re-established.

Colonel Walton received his guests with his accustomed
urbanity: he received them alone; and the eyes
of Colonel Proctor looked round the apartment inquiringly,
but in vain, as if he desired another presence.
His host understood the glance perfectly, for he had
not been blind to the frequent evidences of attachment
which his visiter had shown towards his daughter; but
he took no heed of it; and, with a lofty reserve of
manner, which greatly added to the awkwardness of
the commission which the Englishman came to execute,
he simply confined himself to the occasional remark—such
only as was perfectly unavoidable with
one with whom politeness was habitual, and the predominant
feeling at variance with it, the result of a
calm and carefully regulated principle. It was only
with a steady resolution, at last, that Proctor was enabled
to bring his conversation into any thing like
consistency and order. He commenced, despairing of
any better opening, with the immediate matter which
he had in hand.

“Colonel Walton does not now visit Dorchester
so frequently as usual, nor does he often travel so far
as the city. May I ask if he has heard any late intelligence
of moment?”

Walton looked inquiringly at his guest, as if to
gather from his features something of that intelligence
which his words seemed to presage. But the expression
was unsatisfactory—perhaps that of care—so
Walton thought, and it gave him a hope of some
better fortune for his country than had usually attended
its arms heretofore.

“I have not, sir; I ride but little now, and have not
been in Dorchester for a week. Of what intelligence
do you speak, sir?”

“The proclamation of Sir Henry Clinton, sir—his

proclamation on the subject of protections granted to the
militia of the province, those excepted made prisoners
in Charlestown.”

Colonel Walton looked bewildered; but still coldly,
and without a word, awaited the conclusion of Proctor's
statement. But the speaker paused for a moment, and
when he again spoke, the subject seemed to have been
somewhat changed.

“I am truly sorry, Colonel Walton, that it has not
been heretofore in your power to sympathize more
freely and openly with his majesty's arms in this warfare
against his rebellious subjects.”

“Stay, sir, if you please: these subjects, of whom
your phrase is rather unscrupulous, are my relatives
and countrymen; and their sentiments on this rebellion
have been and are my own, though I have adopted the
expedient of a stern necessity, and in this have suspended
the active demonstration of principles which I
am nevertheless in no haste to forget, and do not suppress.”

“Pardon me, sir; you will do me grace to believe I
mean nothing of offence. However erring your thought,
I must respect it as honest; but this respect does not
forbid that I should lament such a misfortune—a misfortune,
scarcely less so to his majesty than to you. It is
my sincere regret that you have heretofore found it less
than agreeable to unite your arms with those of our
army in the arrest of this unnatural struggle. The
commission proffered you by Sir Henry—”

“Was rejected, Colonel Proctor, and my opinions
then fairly avowed and seemingly respected. No
reference now to that subject need be made by either
of us.”

“Yet am I called upon to make it now, Colonel
Walton; and I do so with a hope that what is my
duty will not lose me, by its performance, the regard
of him to whom I speak. I am counselled to remind
you, sir, of that proposition by the present commander-in-chief
of his majesty's forces in the South, Earl
Cornwallis. The proclamation of Sir Henry Clinton,

to which I have alluded, is of such a nature as opens
fresh ground for the renewal of that offer; and in this
packet I have instructions to that end, with a formal
enclosure of seal and signature, from his excellency
himself, which covers the commission to you, sir, in
your full rank, as engaged in the rebel army.”

“You will keep it, sir; again it is rejected. I cannot
lift arms against my countrymen; and though I
readily understand the necessity which requires you to
make the tender, you will permit me to say, that I hold
it only an equivocal form of insult.”

“Which, I again repeat, Colonel Walton, is foreign
to all intention on the part of the commander-in-chief.
For myself, I surely need make no such attestation.
He, sir, is persuaded to the offer simply as he knows
your worth and influence—he would secure your co-operation
in the good cause of loyalty, and at the same
time would soften what may seem the harsh features of
this proclamation.”

“And what is this proclamation, sir? Let me hear
that: the matter has been somewhat precipitately discussed
in advance of the text.”

“Surely, sir,” said Proctor, eagerly, as the language
of Colonel Walton's last remarks left a hope in his
mind that he might think differently on the perusal of
the document, which he now took from the hands of
his companion, Dickson—“surely, sir, and I hope you
will reconsider the resolve which I cannot help thinking
precipitately made.”

The listener simply bowed his head, and motioned
the other to proceed. Proctor obeyed; and, unfolding
the instrument, proceeded to convey its contents to
the ears of the astonished Carolinian. As he read, the
cheek of Colonel Walton glowed like fire—his eye
kindled—his pulsation increased—and when the insidious
decree, calling upon him to resume the arms which
he had cast aside when his country needed them, and lift
them in behalf of her enemies, was fairly comprehended
by his sense, his feelings had reached that
climax which despaired of all utterance. He started

abruptly from his seat, and paced the room in strong
emotion; then suddenly approaching Proctor, he took
the paper from his hand, and read it with unwavering
attention. For a few moments after he had been
fully possessed of its contents, he made no remark;
then, with a strong effort, suppressing as much as possible
his aroused feelings, he addressed the Briton in
tones of inquiry which left it doubtful what, in reality,
those feelings were.

“And you desire that I should embrace this commission,
Colonel Proctor, which, if I understand it, gives
me command in a service which this proclamation is to
insist upon—am I right?”

“It is so, sir; you are right. Here is a colonel's
commission under his majesty, with power to appoint
your own officers. Most gladly would I place it in
your hands.”

“Sir—Colonel Proctor, this is the rankest villany—
villany and falsehood. By what right, sir, does Sir
Henry Clinton call upon us for military service, when
his terms of protection, granted by himself and Admiral
Arbuthnot, secured all those taking them in a condition
of neutrality?”

“It is not for me, Colonel Walton,” was Proctor's
reply—“it is not for me to discuss the commands of
my superiors. But does not the proclamation declare
these paroles to be null and void after the twentieth?”

“True. But by what right does your superior violate
his compact? Think you, sir, that the Carolinians
would have taken terms with invasion, the conditions
and maintenance of which have no better security
than the caprice of one of the parties? Think you, sir,
that I, at least, would have been so weak and foolish?”

“Perhaps, Colonel Walton—and I would not offend
by the suggestion,” replied the other, with much moderation—“perhaps,
sir, it was a singular stretch of
indulgence to grant terms at all to rebellion.”

“Ay, sir, you may call it by what name you please;
but the terms, having been once offered and accepted,
were to the full as binding between the law and the
rebel as between the prince and dutiful subjects.”

“I may not argue, sir, the commands of my superior,”
rejoined the other, firmly, but calmly.

“I am not so bound, Colonel Proctor; it is matter
for close argument and solemn deliberation with me,
and it will be long, sir, before I shall bring myself to
lift arms against my countrymen.”

“There is a way of evading that necessity, Colonel
Walton,” said Proctor, eagerly.

The other looked at him inquiringly, though he evidently
did not hope for much from the suggested alternative.

“That difficulty, sir, may be overcome: his majesty
has need of troops in the West Indies; Lord Cornwallis,
with a due regard to the feelings of his dutiful
subjects of the colonies, has made arrangements for an
exchange of service. The Irish regiments will be
withdrawn from the West Indies, and those of loyal
Carolinians substituted. This frees you from all risk
of encountering with your friends and countrymen,
while at the same time it answers equally the purposes
of my commander.”

The soldier by profession saw nothing degrading,
nothing servile in the proposed compromise. The
matter had a different aspect in the eyes of the southern
gentleman. The proposition which would send him
from his family and friends, to engage in conflict with
and to keep down those to who he had no antipathy,
was scarcely less painful in its exactions than to take
up arms against his immediate neighbours. The suggestion,
too, which contemplated the substitution of
troops of foreign mercenaries, in the place of native
citizens, who were to be sent to other lands in the
same capacity, was inexpressibly offensive, as it directly
made him an agent for the increase of that power
which aimed at the destruction of his people and his
principles. The sense of ignominy grew stronger in
his breast as he heard it, and he paced the apartment
in unmitigated disorder.

“I am no hireling, Colonel Proctor; and the war,
hand to hand with my own sister's child, would be less

shameful to me, however full of pain and misery, than
this alternative.”

“There is no other, sir, that I know of.”

“Ay, sir, but there is—there is another alternative,
Colonel Proctor; more than that, sir—there is a
remedy.”

The eyes of the speaker flashed, and Proctor saw
that they rested upon the broadsword which hung upon
the wall before them.

“What is that, sir?” inquired the Briton.

“In the sword, sir—in the strife—to take up arms—
to prepare for battle!” was the stern reply.

Either the other understood him not, with an obtuseness
not common with him, or he chose not to understand
him, as he replied—

“Why, that, sir, is what he seeks—it is what Lord
Cornwallis desires, and what, sir, would, permit me to
say, be to me, individually, the greatest pleasure. Your
co-operation here, sir, would do more towards quieting
discontent than any other influence.”

The manner of Walton was unusually grave and
deliberate.

“You have mistaken me, Colonel Proctor. When
I spoke of taking up the sword, sir, I spoke of an alternative.
I meant not to take up the sword to fight your
battles, but my own. If this necessity is to be fixed
upon me, sir, I shall have no loss to know my duty.”

“Sir—Colonel Walton—beware! As a British
officer, in his majesty's commission, I must not listen
to this language. You will remember, sir, that I am
in command of this garrison, and of the neighbouring
country—bound to repress every show of disaffection,
and with the power to determine, in the last resort,
without restraint, should my judgment hold it necessary.
I would not willingly be harsh; and you will spare me,
sir, from hearing those sentiments uttered which become
not the ears of a loyal subject.”

“I am a free man, Colonel Proctor—I would be one,
at least. Things I must call by their right names;
and, as such, I do not hesitate to pronounce this decree

a most dishonest and criminal proceeding, which should
call up every honest hand in retribution. Sir Henry
Clinton has done this day what he will long be sorry
for.”

“And what, permit me to add, Colonel Walton—
what I myself am sorry for. But it is not for me to
question the propriety of that which my duty calls upon
me to enforce.”

“And pray, sir, what are the penalties of disobedience
to this mandate?”

“Sequestration of property and imprisonment, at the
discretion of the several commandants of stations.”

“Poor Kate!—But it is well it is no worse.” The
words fell unconsciously from the lips of the speaker:
he half-strode over the floor; then, turning upon Proctor,
demanded once more to look upon the proclamation.
He again read it carefully.

“Twenty days, Colonel Proctor, I see, have been
allowed by Sir Henry Clinton for deliberation in a
matter which leaves so little choice. So much is
scarcely necessary; you shall have my answer before
that time is over. Meanwhile, sir, let us not again
speak of the subject until that period.”

“A painful subject, sir, which I shall gladly forbear,”
said Proctor, rising; “and I will hope, at the same time,
that Colonel Walton thinks not unkindly of the bearer of
troublesome intelligence.”

“God forbid, sir! I am no malignant. You have
done your duty with all tenderness, and I thank you
for it. Our enemies are not always so considerate.”

“No enemies, I trust, sir. I am in hopes that, upon
reflection, you will not find it so difficult to reconcile
yourself to what, at the first blush, may seem so unpleasant.”

“No more, sir—no more on the subject,” was the
quick, but calm reply. “Will you do me grace, gentlemen,
in a glass of Madeira—some I can recommend?”

They drank; and seeing through the window the
forms of the young ladies, Colonel Proctor proposed

to join them in their walk—a suggestion which his
entertainer answered by leading the way. In the
meanwhile, go we back to our old acquaintance,
Major Singleton, and his trusty coadjutor, Humphries.