University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

Hector met his master at the door of the cottage
with tidings from the daughter which somewhat compensated
for the harsh treatment of the father. She
had consented to their meeting that afternoon in the
old grove of oaks, well known even to this day in that
neighbourhood, for its depth and beauty of shadow, and
its sweet fitness for all the purposes of love. Somewhat
more satisfied, therefore, he took his way to the
Block House, where the foresters awaited him.

They met in consultation, and the duties before
Harrison were manifold. He told the party around
him all that it was necessary they should know, in
order to ensure proper precautions; and having persuaded
them of the necessity of this labour, he found
no difficulty in procuring their aid in putting the Block

House in better trim for the reception of the enemy. To
do this, they went over the fabric together. The pickets
forming an area or yard on two of its sides, having been
made of the resinous pine of the country, were generally
in good preservation. The gate securing the entrance
was gone, however, and called for immediate attention.
The door of the Block House itself—for it had but
one—had also been taken away, and the necessity was
equally great of its restoration. The lower story of
the fortress consisted of but a single apartment, in
which no repairs were needed. The upper story was
divided into two rooms, and reached by a ladder—a
single ladder serving both divisions, and transferable
to each place of access when their ascent was desirable.
One of these apartments, built more securely
than the other, and pierced with a single small window,
had been meant as the retreat of the women and children,
and was now in the possession of Granger, the
trader, and his wife. His small stock in trade, his
furs, blankets, knives, beads, hatchets, etc., were
strewn confusedly over the clapboard floor. These
were the articles most wanted by the Indians. Fire-arms
it had been the policy of the English to keep
from them as much as possible. Still, the intercourse
between them had been such that this desire was not
always practicable. Many of their principal persons
had contrived to procure them, either from the English
tradesmen themselves, or from the Spaniards of St.
Augustine, with whom of late the Yemassees had
grown exceedingly intimate; and though, from their
infrequent use, not perfectly masters of the weapon,
they were still sufficiently familiar with it to increase
the odds already in their favour on the score
of numbers. Apart from this, the musket is but little
if any thing superior to the bow and arrow in the
American forests. It inspires with more terror, and is
therefore more useful; but it is not a whit more fatal.
Once discharged, the musket is of little avail. The
Indian then rushes forward, and the bayonet becomes
innocuous, for the striking and sure distance for
the tomahawk in his hands is beyond the reach of its
thrust. The tomahawk, with little practice, in any
hand, can inflict a severe if not a fatal wound at twelve
paces, and beyond ordinary pistol certainty. As long
as his quiver lasts—say twelve or fifteen arrows—
the bow in the close woods is superior to the musket
in the grasp of an Indian, requiring only the little time
necessary after the discharge of one, in fixing another
arrow upon the elastic sinew. The musket too, in the
hands of the Englishman, and according to his practice,
is a sightless weapon. He fires in line, and without
aim. The Anglo-American, therefore, has generally
adopted the rifle. The eye of the Indian regulates
every shaft from his bow with a rapidity given him by
repeated and hourly practice from his childhood, and
he learns to take the same aim at his enemy which he
would take at the smallest bird among his forests.
But to return.

Harrison, with Grimstead, the smith, Grayson,
Granger, and the rest, looked carefully to all the defences
of the fortress, employing them generally in the
repairs considered necessary, nor withholding his own
efforts in restoring the broken timber or the maimed
shutter. The tools of the carpenter were as familiar
as the weapon of warfare to the hand of the American
woodsman, and the aid of the smith soon put things in
train for a stout defence of the fabric, in the event of
any necessity. This having been done, the whole
party assembled in Granger's apartment to partake of
the frugal meal which the hands of the trader's wife
had prepared for them. We have seen the bold step
taken by this woman in delivering up to the Yemassees
the treaty which conveyed their lands to the
Carolinians, by which, though she had risked the displeasure
of Sir Edmund Bellinger, whom the point
of honour would have rendered obstinate, she had
certainly saved the lives of the party. She was a
tall, masculine, and well-made woman; of a sanguine
complexion, with deeply sunken, dark eyes,
hair black as a coal and cut short like that of a man.

There was a stern something in her glance which repelled;
and though gentle and even humble in her
usual speech, there were moments when her tone was
that of reckless defiance, and when her manner was
any thing but conciliatory. Her look was always grave,
even sombre, and no one saw her smile. She thus
preserved her own and commanded the respect of
others, in a sphere of life to which respect, or in very
moderate degree, is not often conceded; and though
now she did not sit at the board upon which the humble
meal had been placed, her presence restrained
the idle remark which the wild life of most of those
assembled around it, would be well apt to instigate and
occasion. At dinner Hector was examined as to his
detention on board of the schooner. He told the
story of his capture as already given, and though
the poor fellow had in reality heard nothing, or very
little, of the conversation between the sailor and the
Indians, yet the clear narrative which he gave, descriptive
of the free intercourse between the parties, and
the presence of the belt of wampum, were proofs strong
as holy writ, conclusive to the mind of Harrison of
the suspicion he had already entertained.

“And what of the schooner—what did you see
there, Hector?”

“Gun, mosser—big gun, little gun—long sword,
little sword, and hatchets plenty for Injins.”

“What sort of men?”

“Ebery sort, mosser, English, Dutch, French,
Spanish,—ugly little men wid big whiskers, and long
black hair, and face nebber see water.”

This was information enough, and with some further
deliberation the parties separated, each in the performance
of some duty which by previous arrangement had
been assigned him. An hour after the separation, and
Walter Grayson arrived at the landing upon the river,
a few hundred yards from the cottage where he lived,
in time to see his brother, who was just about to put
off with several bundles of skins in a small boat towards
the vessel of the supposed Indian trader. The manner

of the latter was cold, and his tone rather stern and
ungracious.

“I have waited for you some hours, Walter Grayson,”
said he, standing upon the banks, and throwing a bundle
into the bottom of the boat.

“I could come no sooner, Hugh; I have been busy
in assisting the captain.”

“The captain—will you never be a freeman, Walter—will
you always be a water-carrier for a master?
Why do you seek and serve this swaggerer, as
if you had lost every jot of manly independence?”

“Not so fast, Hugh,—and my very good younger
brother—not so fast. I have not served him, more than
I have served you and all of us, by what I have done this
morning.”—He then went on to tell his brother of the
occurrences of the day. The other seemed much astonished,
and there was something of chagrin manifest
in his astonishment—so much so indeed, that Walter
could not help asking him if he regretted that Harrison
should get his own again.

“No—not so, brother,—but the truth is, I was about
to take my skins to this same trader for sale and barter,
and my purpose is something staggered by your
intelligence.”

“Well, I don't know but it should stagger you; and
I certainly shouldn't advise you, for the man who
comes to smuggle and kidnap will scarcely heed
smaller matters of trade.”

“I must go—I want every thing, even powder and
lead.”

“Well, that's a good want with you, Hugh, for if
you had none, you'd be better willing to work at home.”

“I will not go into the field,”—said the other, haughtily
and impatiently. “It will do for you, to take the
mule's labour, who are so willing to be at the beck and
call of every swaggering upstart, but I will not. No!
Let me rather go with the Indians, and take up with
them, and dress in their skins, and disfigure myself
with their savage paint; but I will neither dig nor hew
when I can do otherwise.”

“Ay, when you can do otherwise, Hugh Grayson
—I am willing. But do not deceive yourself, young
brother of mine. I know, if you do not, why the
labours of the field, which I must go through with, are
your dislike. I know why you will rather drive the
woods, day after day, in the Indian fashion, along with
Chiparee or Occonestoga and with no better company,
for now and then a buck or doe, in preference to more
regular employment and a more certain subsistence.”

“And why is it then, Walter—let me have the benefit
of your knowledge.”

“Ay, I know and so do you, Hugh, and shame, I
say, on the false pride which regards the toil of your
own father, and the labours of your own brother, as
degrading. Ay, you blush, and well you may, Hugh
Grayson. It is the truth—a truth I have never spoken
in your ears before, and should not have spoken now
but for the freedom and frequency with which you, my
younger brother, and for whom I have toiled when he
could not toil for himself, presume to speak of my conduct
as slavish. Now examine your own, and know
that as I am independent, I am not slavish—you can
tell for yourself whether you owe as little to me, as I
to you and to all other persons. When you have answered
this question, Hugh, you can find a better application
than you have yet made of that same word
`slave.”'

The cheek of the hearer grew pale and crimson,
alternately, at the reproach of the speaker, whose eye
watched him with not a little of that sternness of
glance, which heretofore had filled his own. At one
moment, the collected fury of his look seemed to
threaten violence, but, as if consideration came opportunely,
he turned aside, and after a few moments' pause,
replied in a thick, broken tone of voice:—

“You have said well, my elder brother and my
better. Your reproach is just—I am a dependant—a
beggar—one who should acknowledge, if he has not
craved for, charity. I say it—and I feel it, and the
sooner I requite the obligation the better. I will go to

this trader, and sell my skins if I can, kidnapper or
pirate though he be. I will go to him, and beg him to
buy, which I might not have done but for your speech.
You have said harshly, Walter Grayson, very harshly,
but truly, and—I thank you, I thank you, believe me—
I thank you for the lesson.”

As he moved away, the elder brother turned quick
upon him, and with an ebullition of feeling which did
not impair his manliness, he grappled his hand—

“Hugh, boy, I was harsh and foolish, but you
wrought me to it. I love you, brother—love you as if
you were my own son, and do not repent me of any
thing I have done for you, which, were it to be done
over again, I should rejoice to do. But when you
speak in such harsh language of men whom you know
I love, you provoke me, particularly when I see and
know that you do them injustice. Now, Captain Harrison,
let me tell you—”

“I would not hear, Walter—nothing, I pray you, of
that man!”

“And why not?—Ah, Hughey, put down this bad
spirit—this impatient spirit, which will not let you
sleep; for even in your sleep it speaks out, and I have
heard it.”

“Ha!” and the other started, and laid his hand on
the arm of his brother—“thou hast heard what?”

“What I will not say—not even to you, but enough,
Hugh, to satisfy me, that your dislike to Harrison
springs from an unbecoming feeling.”

“Name it.”

“Jealousy!—I have already hinted as much, and
now I tell you that your love for Bess Matthews, and
her love for him, are the cause of your hate to Harrison.”

“You mean not to say she loves him.”

“I do, Hugh—honestly I believe it.”

And as the elder brother replied, the other dashed
down his hand, which, on putting the question, he had
taken, and rushed off, with a feeling of desperation, to
the boat. In a moment, seated centrally within it, he

had left the banks; and the little flap oar was plied from
hand to hand with a rapidity and vigour more than
half derived from the violent boiling of the feverish
blood within his veins. With a glance of sympathy
and of genuine feeling, Walter Grayson surveyed his
progress for a while, then turned away to the cottage
and to other occupations.

In a little while, the younger brother, with his small
cargo, approached the vessel, and was instantly hailed
by a gruff voice from within.

“Throw me a rope,” was the cry of Grayson.

“For what—what the devil should make us throw
you a rope—who are you—what do you want?” was
the reply. The speaker, who was no other than our
old acquaintance Chorley, appearing at the same
moment, and looking down at the visiter.

“You buy furs and skins, captain—I have both, and
here is a bag of amber, fresh gathered, and the drops
are large.[1] I want powder for them, and shot—some
knives and hatchets.”

“You get none from me, blast me.”

“What, wherefore are you here, if not for trade?”
was the involuntary question of Grayson. The seaman,
still desirous of preserving appearances as much
as possible, found it necessary to control his mood,
which the previous circumstances of the morning
were not altogether calculated to soften greatly. He
replied therefore evasively.

“Ay, to be sure I come for trade, but can't you wait
till I haul up to the landing? I am afraid there's not
water enough for me to do so now, for the stream
shoals here, as I can tell by my soundings, too greatly
for the risk; but to-morrow—come to-morrow, and I'll
trade with you for such things as you want.”

“And whether you haul to the landing or not, why
not trade on board to-day? Let me bring my skins up;
throw me a rope, and we shall soon trade. I want but
few things, and they will require no long search; you
can easily say if you have them.”

But this was pressing the point too far upon Chorley's
good-nature. The seaman swore indignantly at the
pertinacity of his visiter, and pouring forth a broadside
of oaths, bade him tack ship and trouble him no longer.

“Be off now, young one, before I send you a supply
of lead not so much to your liking. If you don't take
this chance and put about, you'll never catch stays
again. I'll send a shot through your timber-trunk and
scuttle her at once.”

The fierce spirit of Grayson ill brooked such treatment,
but he had no remedy save in words. He did not
scruple to denounce the seaman as a low churl and
an illnatured ruffian. Coolly then, and with the utmost
deliberation, paddling himself round, with a disappointed
heart, he made once more for the cottage landing.