University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

The inmates of the Block House, as we remember,
had been warned by Hector of the probable approach
of danger, and preparation was the word in consequence.
But what was the preparation meant? Under
no distinct command, every one had his own favourite
idea of defence, and all was confusion in their councils.
The absence of Harrison, to whose direction all

parties would most willingly have turned their ears,
was now of the most injurious tendency, as it left
them unprovided with any head, and just at the moment
when a high degree of excitement prevailed against
the choice of any substitute. Great bustle and little
execution took the place of good order, calm opinion,
deliberate and decided action. The men were ready
enough to fight, and this readiness was an evil of itself,
circumstanced as they were. To fight would have
been madness then—to protract the issue and gain
time was the object; and few among the defenders of
the fortress at that moment were sufficiently collected
to see this truth. In reason, there was really but
a single spirit in the Block House, sufficiently deliberate
for the occasion—that spirit was a woman's—the
wife of Granger. She had been the child of poverty
and privation—the severe school of that best tutor,
necessity, had made her equable and intrepid. She
had looked suffering so long in the face, that she now
regarded it without a tear. Her parents had never
been known to her, and the most trying difficulties
clung to her from infancy up to womanhood. So exercised,
her mind grew strong in proportion to its trials,
and she had learned, in the end, to regard them with a
degree of fearlessness far beyond the capacities of
any well-bred heir of prosperity and favouring fortune.
The same trials attended her after marriage—since the
pursuits of her husband carried her into dangers, to
which even he could oppose far less ability than
his wife. Her genius soared infinitely beyond his
own, and to her teachings was he indebted for many of
those successes which brought him wealth in after
years. She counselled his enterprises, prompted or
persuaded his proceedings, managed for him wisely
and economically; in all respects proved herself unselfish;
and if she did not at any time appear above
the way of life they had adopted, she took care to
maintain both of them from falling beneath it—a result
too often following the exclusive pursuit of gain.
Her experience throughout life, hitherto, served her
admirably now, when all was confusion among the
councils of the men. She descended to the court
below, where they made a show of deliberation, and,
in her own manner, with a just knowledge of human
nature, proceeded to give her aid in their general progress.
Knowing that any direct suggestion from a
woman, and under circumstances of strife and trial,
would necessarily offend the amour propre of the nobler
animal, and provoke his derision, she pursued a sort of
management which an experienced woman is usually
found to employ as a kind of familiar—a wily little
demon, that goes unseen at her bidding, and does her
business, like another Ariel, the world all the while
knowing nothing about it. Calling out from the crowd
one of those whom she knew to be not only the most
collected, but the one least annoyed by any unnecessary
self-esteem, she was in a moment joined by
Grayson, and leading him aside, she proceeded to
suggest various measures of preparation and defence,
certainly the most prudent that had yet been made.
This she did with so much unobtrusive modesty, that
the worthy woodman took it for granted, all the while,
that the ideas were properly his own. She concluded
with insisting upon his taking the command.

“But Nichols will have it all to himself. That's
one of our difficulties now.”

“What of that? You may easily manage him,
Master Grayson.”

“How?” he asked.

“The greater number of the men here are of the
`Green Jackets?”'

“Yes—”

“And you are their lieutenant—next in command to
Captain Harrison, and their first officer in his
absence?”

“That's true

“Command them as your troop exclusively, and
don't mind the rest.”

“But they will be offended.”

“And if they are, Master Grayson, is this a time to

heed their folly when the enemy's upon us? Let
them. You do with your troop without heed to them,
and they will fall into your ranks—they will work
with you when the time comes.”

“You are right,” was the reply; and immediately
going forward with a voice of authority, Grayson, calling
only the “Green Jackets” around him, proceeded to
organize them, and put himself in command, as first
lieutenant of the only volunteer corps which the parish
knew. The corps received the annunciation with a
shout, and the majority readily recognised him.
Nichols alone grumbled a little, but the minority was
too small to offer any obstruction to Grayson's authority,
so that he soon submitted with the rest. The
command, all circumstances considered, was not improperly
given. Grayson, though not overwise, was
decisive, and in matters of strife, wisdom itself must
be subservient to resolution. Resolution in war is
wisdom. The new commander numbered his force,
placed the feeble and the young in the least trying
situations—assigned different bodies to different stations,
and sent the women and children into the upper
and most sheltered apartment. In a few moments,
things were arranged for the approaching conflict with
tolerable precision.

The force thus commanded by Grayson was small
enough—the whole number of men in the Block
House not exceeding twenty-five. The women and
children within its shelter were probably twice that
number. The population had been assembled in great
part from the entire extent of country lying between
the Block House and the Indian settlements. From
the Block House downward to Port Royal Island, there
had been no gathering to this point; the settlers in
that section, necessarily, in the event of a like difficulty,
seeking a retreat to the fort on the island, which
had its garrison already, and was more secure, and
in another respect much more safe, as it lay more
contiguous to the sea. The greater portion of the
country immediately endangered from the Yemassees

had been duly warned, and none but the slow, the indifferent,
and the obstinate, but had taken sufficient
heed of the many warnings given them, as to have put
themselves in safety. Numbers, however, coming
under one or other of these classes, had fallen victims
to their folly or temerity in the sudden onslaught
which followed the first movement of the savages
sent among them, who, scattering themselves over the
country, had made their attack so nearly at the same
time, as to defeat any thing like unity of action in the
resistance which might be offered them.

Grayson's first care in his new command was to get
the women and children fairly out of the way. The
close upper apartment of the Block House had been
especially assigned them; and there they had assembled
generally. But some few of the old ladies were
not to be shut up; and his own good Puritan mother
gave the busy commandant no little trouble. She
went to and fro, interfering in this, preventing that,
and altogether annoying the men to such a degree,
that it became absolutely necessary to put on a show
of sternness which it was the desire of all parties to
avoid. With some difficulty and the assistance of
Granger's wife, he at length got her out of the way,
and to the great satisfaction of all parties, she worried
herself to sleep in the midst of a Psalm, which she
croned over to the dreariest tune in her whole collection.
Sleep had also fortunately seized upon the
children generally, and but few, in the room assigned to
the women, were able to withstand the approaches of
that subtle magician. The wife of the trader, almost
alone, continued watchful; thoughtful in emergency,
and with a ready degree of common sense, to contend
with trial, and to prepare against it. The confused
cluster of sleeping forms, in all positions, and of all
sorts and sizes, that hour, in the apartment so occupied,
was grotesque enough. One figure alone, sitting
in the midst, and musing with a concentrated mind,
gave dignity to the ludicrous grouping—the majestic
figure of Mary Granger—her dark eye fixed upon the

silent and sleeping collection, in doubt and pity—her
black hair bound closely upon her head, and her broad
forehead seeming to enlarge and grow with the busy
thought at work within it. Her hand, too—strange association—rested
upon a hatchet.

Having completed his arrangements with respect to
the security of the women and children, and put them
fairly out of his way, Grayson proceeded to call a sort
of council of war for further deliberation; and having
put sentinels along the picket, and at different points
of the building, the more “sage, grave men” of the garrison
proceeded to their further arrangements. These
were four in number—one of them was Dick Grimstead,
the blacksmith, who, in addition to a little farming,
carried on when the humour took him, did the
horse-shoeing and ironwork for his neighbours of ten
miles round, and was in no small repute among them.
He was something of a woodman too; and hunting,
and perhaps drinking, occupied no small portion of the
time which might, with more profit to himself, have
been given to his farm and smithy. Nichols, the rival
leader of Grayson, was also chosen, with the view
rather to his pacification than with any hope of good
counsel to be got out of him. Granger, the trader,
made the third; and presiding somewhat as chairman,
Grayson the fourth. We may add that the wife of
the trader, who had descended to the lower apartment
in the meantime, and had contrived to busy herself in
one corner with some of the wares of her husband,
was present throughout the debate. We may add, too,
that at frequent periods of the deliberation, Granger
found it necessary to leave the consultations of the
council for that of his wife.

“What are we to do?” was the general question.

“Let us send out a spy, and see what they are
about,” was the speech of one.

“Let us discharge a few pieces, to let them know
that the servants of the people watch for them,” said
Nichols, who loved a noise.

“No, d—n 'em,” said the burly blacksmith, “don't

waste, after that fashion, the powder for which a buck
would say, thank you. If we are to shoot, let's put it
to the red-skins themselves. What do you say,
Master Grayson?”

“I say, keep quiet, and make ready.”

“Wouldn't a spy be of service?” suggested Granger,
with great humility, recurring to his first proposition.

“Will you go?” was the blunt speech of the blacksmith.
“I don't see any good a spy can do us.”

“To see into their force.”

“That won't strengthen ours. No! I hold, Wat
Grayson, to my mind. We must give the dogs powder
and shot when we see 'em. There's no other way—
for here we are, and there they are. They're for fight,
and will have our scalps, if we are not for fight too.
We can't run, for there's no place to go to; and besides
that, I'm not used to running, and won't try to run
from a red-skin. He shall chaw my bullet first.”

“To be sure,” roared Nichols, growing remarkably
valorous. “Battle, say I. Victory or death.”

“Well, Nichols, don't waste your breath now—you
may want it before all's over—” growled the smith, with
a most imperturbable composure of countenance,—
“if it's only to beg quarter.”

“I beg quarter—never!” cried the doctor, fiercely.

“It's agreed, then, that we are to fight—is that what
we are to understand?” inquired Grayson, desirous to
bring the debate to a close, and to hush the little acerbities
going on between the doctor and the smith.

“Ay, to be sure—what else?” said Grimstead.

“What say you, Granger?”

“I say so too, sir—if they attack us—surely.”

“And you, Nichols?”

“Ay, fight, I say. Battle to the last drop of blood
—to the last moment of existence. Victory or death,
ay, that's my word.”

“Blast me, Nichols—what a bellows,” shouted the
smith.

“Mind your own bellows, Grimstead—it will be the

better for you. Don't trouble yourself to meddle with
mine—you may burn your fingers,” retorted the demagogue,
angrily.

“Why, yes, if your breath holds hot long enough,”
was the sneering response of the smith, who seemed
to enjoy the sport of teasing his windy comrade.

“Come, come, men, no words,” soothingly said the
commander. “Let us look to the enemy. You are all
agreed that we are to fight; and, to say truth, we didn't
want much thinking for that; but how, is the question
—how are we to do the fighting? Can we send out a
party for scouts—can we spare the men?”

“I think not,” said the smith, soberly. “It will require
all the men we have, and some of the women
too, to keep watch at all the loop-holes. Besides, we
have not arms enough, have we?”

“Not muskets, but other arms in abundance. What
say you, Nichols—can we send out scouts?”

“Impossible! we cannot spare them, and it will
only expose them to be cut up by a superior enemy.
No, sir, it will be the nobler spectacle to perish, like
men, breast to breast. I, for one, am willing to die for
the people. I will not survive my country.”

“Brave man!” cried the smith—“but I'm not
willing to die at all, and therefore I would keep snug
and stand 'em here. I can't skulk in the bush, like
Granger; I'm quite too fat for that. Though I'm sure,
if I were such a skeleton sort of fellow as Nichols
there, I'd volunteer as a scout, and stand the Indian
arrows all day.”

“I won't volunteer,” cried Nichols, hastily. “It will
set a bad example, and my absence might be fatal.”

“But what if all volunteer?” inquired the smith,
scornfully.

“I stand or fall with the people,” responded the
demagogue, proudly. At that moment, a shrill scream
of the whip-poor-will smote upon the senses of the
council.

“It is the Indians—that is a favourite cry of the
Yemassees,” said the wife of Granger. The company

started to their feet, and seized their weapons.
As they were about to descend to the lower story, the
woman seized upon the arm of Grayson, and craved his
attendance in the adjoining apartment. He followed;
and leading him to the only window in the room, without
disturbing any around her, she pointed out a fallen
pine-tree, evidently thrown down within the night,
which barely rested upon the side of the log house,
with all its branches, and but a few feet below the
aperture through which they looked. The tree must
have been cut previously, and so contrived as to fall
gradually upon the dwelling. It was a small one, and
by resting in its descent upon other intervening trees,
its approach and contact with the dwelling had been
unheard. This had probably taken place while the
garrison had been squabbling below, with all the
women and children listening and looking on. The
apartment in which they stood, and against which the
tree now depended, had been made, for greater security,
without any loop-holes, the musketry being calculated
for use in that adjoining and below. The danger
arising from this new situation was perceptible at a
glance.

“The window must be defended. Two stout men
will answer. But they must have muskets,” spoke the
woman.

“They shall have them,” said Grayson, in reply to
the fearless and thoughtful person who spoke. “I will
send Mason and your husband.”

“Do—I will keep it till they come.”

“You?” with some surprise, inquired Grayson.

“Yes, Master Grayson—is there any thing strange
in that? I have no fears. Go—send your men.”

“But you will close the shutter.”

“No—better, if they should come—better it should
be open. If shut, we might be too apt to rest satisfied.
Exposure compels watchfulness, and men make the
best fortresses.”

Full of his new command, and sufficiently impressed
with its importance, Grayson descended to the arrangement

of his forces; and, true to his promise, despatched
Granger and Mason with muskets to the defence of
the window, as had been agreed upon with the wife
of the trader. They prepared to do so; but, to their
great consternation, Mason, who was a bulky man, had
scarcely reached midway up the ladder leading to
the apartment, when, snapping off in the middle, down
it came; in its destruction, breaking off all communication
between the upper and lower stories of the house
until it could be repaired. To furnish a substitute
was a difficult task, about which several of the men
were set immediately. This accident deeply impressed
the wife of the trader, even more than the
defenders of the house below, with the dangers of
their situation; and in much anxiety, watchful and sad,
she paced the room in which they were now virtually
confined, in momentary expectation of the enemy.