University of Virginia Library

1. THE YEMASSEE.
A ROMANCE OF CAROLINA.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“GUY RIVERS,” “MARTIN FABER,” &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

Some men only live for great occasions. They
sleep in the calm—but awake to double life, and unlooked-for
activity, in the tempest. They are the
zephyr in peace, the storm in war. They smile until
you think it impossible they should ever do otherwise,
and you are paralyzed when you behold the change
which an hour brings about in them. Their whole life
in public would seem a splendid deception; and as their
minds and feelings are generally beyond those of the
great mass which gathers about, and in the end depends
upon them, so they continually dazzle the vision and
distract the judgment of those who passingly observe
them. Such men become the tyrants of all the rest,
and, as there are two kinds of tyranny in the world,
they either enslave to cherish or to destroy.

Of this class was Harrison,—erratic, daring, yet
thoughtful,—and not to be measured by such a mind
as that of the pastor, Matthews. We have seen his
agency—a leading agency—in much of the business of
the preceding narrative. It was not an agency of the
moment, but of continued exertion, the result of a due
recognition of the duties required at his hands. Nor
is this agency to be discontinued now. He is still
busy, and, under his direction and with his assistance,
the sound of the hammer, and the deep echo of the
axe, in the hands of Granger, the smith, and Hector,

were heard without intermission in the Block House,
“closing rivets up,” and putting all things in a state of
preparation for those coming dangers which his active
mind had predicted. He was not to be deceived by
the thousand shows which are apt to deceive others.
He looked more deeply into principles and the play
of moods in other men, than is the common habit;
and while few of the borderers estimated with him
the amount of danger and difficulty which he felt to
be at hand, he gave himself not the slightest trouble
in considering their vague speculations, to which a liberal
courtesy might have yielded the name of opinions.
His own thoughts were sufficient for him; and while
this indifference may seem to have been the product
of an excess of self-esteem, we shall find in the sequel
that, in the present case, it arose from a strong
conviction, the legitimate result of a calm survey of
objects and actions, and a cool and deliberate judgment
upon them.

We have beheld some of his anxieties in the strong
manifestation which he gave to Occonestoga, when he
despatched the unfortunate young savage as a spy, on an
adventure which had found such an unhappy and unlooked-for
termination. Entirely ignorant of the event, it
was with no small impatience that his employer waited
for his return during the entire night and the better portion
of the ensuing day. The distance was not so great
between the two places, but that the fleet-footed Indian
might have readily overcome it in a night, giving him
sufficient allowance of time also for all necessary
discoveries; and, doubtless, such would have been the
case but for his ill-advised whisper in the ear of
Hiwassee, and the not less ill-advised visit to the
cottage of Matiwan. The affection of the mother for
the fugitive and outlawed son, certainly, deserved no
less; but while it demanded that regardful return,
which, amid all his errors, he fondly gave her, the
policy of the warrior was sadly foregone in that indiscreet
proceeding. His failure—the extent yet unknown
to Harrison—left the latter doubtful whether to

ascribe it to his misfortune, or to treachery; and this
doubt contributed greatly to his solicitude. In spite of
the suggestions of Granger, who knew the young warrior
of old, he could not help suspecting him of desertion
from the English cause as a concession by which
to secure himself a reinstatement in the confidence of
his people; and this suspicion, while it led to new
preparations for the final issue, on the part of Harrison,
was fruitful at the same time of exaggerated anxiety
to his mind. To much of the drudgery of hewing and
hammering, therefore, he subjected himself with the
rest; and though cheerful in its performance, the most
casual observer could have readily seen how much
station and education had made him superior to such
employ. Having thus laboured for some time, he proceeded
to other parts of his assumed duties, and
mounting his steed,—a favourite and fine chestnut—
and followed by Dugdale, who had been carefully
muzzled, he took his way in a fleet gallop through the
intricacies of the surrounding country.

The mystery was a singular one which hung over
Harrison in all that region. It was strange how
people loved him—how popular he had become, even
while in all intrinsic particulars so perfectly unknown.
He had somehow won golden opinions from all the
borderers, wild—untameable, and like the savages, as
in many cases they were; and the utmost confidence
was placed in his opinions, even when, as at this
time was the case, they happened to differ from the
general tenour of their own. This confidence, indeed,
had been partially given in the first instance, from the
circumstance of his having taken their lead suddenly,
when all were panic stricken around; and with an
audacity that looked like madness, but which in a time
of panic is good policy, had gone forth to the encounter
with the Coosaws, a small but desperate tribe,
which had risen, without any other warning than the
war-whoop, upon the Beaufort settlement. His valour
on this occasion, obtained from the Indians themselves
the nom de guerre of Coosah-moray-te, or the Coosaw-killer;

and one that seems to have been well deserved,
for in that affair the tribe nearly suffered annihilation,
and but a single town, that of Coosaw-hatchie, or the
refuge of the Coosaws, was left them of all their possessions.
The poor remains of their people from that
time became incorporated with the Yemassees. His
reckless audacity, cheerful freedom, mingled at the
same time so strangely with playfulness and cool composure,
while exciting the strongest interest, created
the warmest regard among the foresters; and though in
all respects of residence and family utterly unknown
save to one, or at the most, to two among them—appearing
as he did, only now and then, and as suddenly
disappearing—yet all were glad when he came, and
sorry when he departed. Esteeming him thus,
they gave him the command of the “green jackets,”
the small corps which, in that neighbourhood, the
affair of the Coosaws had first brought into something
like regular existence. He accepted this trust readily,
but freely assured his men that he might not be present
—such were his labours elsewhere—at all times to discharge
the duties. Such, however, was his popularity
among them, that a qualification like this failed to
affect their choice. They took him on his own terms,
called him Captain Harrison, or, more familiarly,
captain, and never troubled themselves for a single
instant to inquire whether that were his right name or
not; though, if they had any doubts, they never suffered
them to reach, certainly never to offend, the
ears of their commander. The pastor, rather more
scrupulous, as he thought upon his daughter, lacked
something of this confidence. We have seen how his
doubts grew as his inquiries had been baffled. The
reader, if he has not been altogether inattentive to the
general progress of the narrative, has, probably, at this
moment, a more perfect knowledge of our hero than
either of these parties.

But to return. Harrison rode into the neighbouring
country, all the settlements of which he readily appeared
to know. His first visit in that quarter had

been the result of curiosity in part, and partly in consequence
of some public responsibilities coming with
an official station, as by this time the reader will have
conjectured. A new and warmer interest came with
these, soon after he had made the acquaintance of the
beautiful Bess Matthews; and having involved his
own affections with that maiden, it was not long before
he found himself able to command hers. The father
of Bess objected, as the stranger was unknown, if
not nameless; but when did love ever seriously regard
the inclinations of papa? Bess loved Gabriel, and the
exhortations of the old gentleman had only the effect
of increasing a passion which grows vigorous from
restraint, and acquires obstinacy from compulsion.

But the lover went not forth on this occasion in
quest of his mistress. His labours were more imposing,
if less grateful. He went forth among his
troop and their families. He had a voice of warning
for all the neighbouring cottagers—a warning of danger,
and an exhortation to the borderers to be in perfect
readiness for it, at the well-known signal. But his
warning was in a word—an emphatic sentence—
which, once uttered, affected in no particular his usual
manner. To one and another he had the cheerful
encouragement of the brother soldier—the dry sarcasm
to the rustic gallant—the innocuous jest to the half-won
maiden; and, with the ancient grandsire or
grandam, the exciting inquiry into old times—merry
old England, or hilarious Ireland—or of whatever
other faderland from which they might severally have
come.

This adjusted, and having prepared all minds for
events which his own so readily foresaw—having
counselled the more exposed and feeble to the shelter
of the Block House at the first sign of danger,—the
lover began to take the place of the commander, and
in an hour we find him in the ancient grove—the well-known
place of tryst, in the neighbourhood of the
dwelling of old Matthews. And she was there—the
girl of seventeen—confiding, yet blushing at her own

confidence, with an affection as warm as it was unqualified
and pure. She hung upon his arm—she sat
beside him, and the waters of the little brooklet
gushed into music as they trickled on by their feet.
The air was full of a song of love—the birds sung
it—the leaves sighed it—the earth echoed, in many a
replication, its delicious burden, and they felt it.
There is no life, if there be no love. Love is the life
of nature—all is unnatural without it.—The golden
bowl has no wine, if love be not at its bottom—the instrument
has no music if love come not with the strain.
Let me perish—let me perish, when I cease to love—
when others cease to love me.

So thought the two—so felt they—and an hour of
delicious dreaming threw into their mutual souls a
linked hope, which promised not merely a future and
a lasting union to their forms, but an undecaying life
to their affections. They felt in reality that love must
be the life of heaven!

“Thou unmann'st me, Bess—thou dost, my Armida—
the air is enchanted about thee, and the active energy
which keeps me ever in motion when away from thee,
is gone, utterly gone, when thou art nigh. Wherefore
is it so? Thou art my tyrant—I am weak before
thee—full of fears, Bess—timid as a child in the
dark.”

“Full of hopes too, Gabriel, is it not? And what
is the hope if there be no fear—no doubt? They
sweeten each other. I thy tyrant, indeed—when thou
movest me as thou willest. When I have eyes only
for thy coming, and tears only at thy departure.”

“And hast thou these always, Bess, for such occasions?
Do thy smiles always hail the one, and thy
tears always follow the other?—I doubt, Bess, if
always.”

“And wherefore doubt—thou hast eyes for mine,
and canst see for thyself.”

“True, but knowest thou not that the lover looks
most commonly for the beauty, and not often for the
sentiment of his sweetheart's face? It is this which

they mean when the poets tell of love's blindness.
The light of thy eye dims and dazzles the gaze of
mine, and I must take the tale from thy lips—”

“And safely thou mayst, Gabriel—”

“May I—I hardly looked to find thee so consenting,
Bess—” exclaimed the lover, taking her response in a
signification rather at variance with that which she
contemplated, and, before she was aware, warmly
pressing her rosy mouth beneath his own.

“Not so—not so—” confused and blushing she exclaimed,
withdrawing quickly from his grasp. “I
meant to say—”

“I know—I know,—thou wouldst have said, I might
safely trust to the declaration of thy lips—and so I
do, Bess—and want no other assurance. I am happy
that thy words were indirect, but I am better assured
as it is, of what thou wouldst have said.”

“Thou wilt not love me, Gabriel, that thus I favour
thee—thou seest how weak is the poor heart which
so waits upon thine, and wilt cease to love what is so
quickly won.”

“It is so pretty, thy chiding, Bess, that to have thee
go on, it were well to take another assurance from thy
lips.”

“Now, thou shalt not—it is not right, Gabriel;
besides, my father has said—”

“What he should not have said, and will be sorry
for saying. He has said that he knows me not, and
indeed he does not, and shall not as long as in my
thought it is unnecessary, and perhaps unwise, that I
should be known to him.”

“But, why not to me—why shouldst thou keep thy
secret from me, Gabriel? Thou couldst surely trust
it to my keeping.”

“Ay, safely, I know, were it proper for thee to know
any thing which a daughter should of right withhold
from a father. But as I may not give my secret to
him, I keep it from thee; not fearing thy integrity, but
as thou shouldst not hold a trust without sharing thy
confidence with a parent. Trust me, ere long he shall

know all; but now, I may not tell him or thee. I may
not speak a name in this neighbourhood, where, if I
greatly err not, its utterance would make me fine
spoil for the cunning Indians, who are about some
treachery.”

“What, the Yemassees?”

“Even they, and of this I would have you speak to
your father. I would not foolishly alarm you, but go
to him. Persuade him to depart for the Block House,
where I have been making preparations for your comfort.
Let him only secure you all till this vessel takes
herself off. By that time we shall see how things go.”

“But what has this vessel to do with it, Gabriel?”

“A great deal, Bess, if my apprehensions are well
grounded; but the reasons are tedious by which I
come to think so, and would only fatigue your ear.”

“Not so, Gabriel—I would like to hear them, for
of this vessel, or rather of her captain, my father
knows something. He knew him well in England.”

“Ay!” eagerly responded Harrison—“I heard that,
you know; but, in reality, what—who is he?”

“His name is Chorley, as you have heard him say.
My father knew him when both were young. They
come from the same part of the country. He was a
wild, ill-bred profligate, so my father said, in his
youth; unmanageable and irregular—left his parents,
and without their leave went into a ship and became a
sailor. For many years nothing was seen of him—
by my father at least—until the other day, when, by
some means or other he heard of us, and made himself
known just before your appearance. I never saw him
to know or remember him before, but he knew me
when a child.”

“And do you know what he is—and his vessel?”

“Nothing but this.—He makes voyages from St.
Augustine and Cuba, and trades almost entirely with
the Spaniards in that quarter.”

“But why should he have no connexion here with
us of that nature, or why is he here at all if such be his
business? This is one of the grounds of my apprehension—not

to speak of the affair of Hector, which
is enough, of itself, against him.”

“Ah—his crew is ignorant of the language, and
then he says, so he told us, he seeks to trade for furs
with the Indians.”

“Still, not enough. None of these reasons are
sufficient to keep his vessel from the landing, his men
from the shore, and himself mysteriously rambling in
the woods without offering at any object, unless it be
the smuggling of our slaves. I doubt not he comes to
deal with the Indians, but he comes as an emissary
from the Spaniards, and it is our skins and scalps he
is after, if any thing.”

“Speak not so, Gabriel, you frighten me.”

“Nay, fear not. There is no danger if we keep
our eyes open, and can get your obstinate old knot of
a father to open his.”

“Hush, Gabriel—remember he is my father.” And
she looked the rebuke which her lips uttered.

“Ay, Bess, I do remember it, or I would not bother
my head five seconds about him. I should gather you
up in my arms as the Pagan of old gathered up his
domestic gods when the earthquake came, and be off
with you without long deliberating whether a father
were necessary to your happiness or not.”

“Speak not so lightly, Gabriel—the subject is too
serious for jest.”

“It is, Bess—quite too serious for jest, and I do not
jest, or if I do I can't help it. I was born so, and it
comes to the same thing in the end. This is another
of his objections to me as your husband. I do not tie
up my visage when I look upon you, as if I sickened
of the thing I looked on—and he well knows how I detest
that hypocritical moral starch, with which our
would-be saints contrive to let the world see that sunshine
is sin, and a smile of inborn felicity a defiance
thrown in the teeth of the very God that prompts it.”

“But my father is no hypocrite, Gabriel.”

“Then why hoist their colours? He is too good a
man, Bess, to be their instrument, and much I fear me

that he is. He has too much of the regular round-head—the
genuine, never-end-the-sermon manner of
an old Noll sanctifier. I would forego a kiss—the
sweetest, Bess, that thy lips could give—to persuade
the old man, your father, but for a single moment, into
a hearty, manly, honest, unsophisticated, downright
laugh.”

“It is true, Gabriel, he laughs not, but then he does
not frown.”

“Not at thee, Bess—not at thee: who could? but
he does at me, most ferociously, and his mouth puckers
up when his eye rises to mine, in all the involutions
of a pine bur. But, forgive me: it is not of this I
would speak now. I will forgive though I may not
forget his sourness, if you can persuade him into a
little precaution at the present moment. There is
danger, I am satisfied; and your situation here is an
exposed one. This sailor-friend or acquaintance of
yours, is no friend if he deal with the Spaniards of
St. Augustine—certainly an enemy, and most probably
a pirate. I suspect him to be the latter, and have my
eyes on him accordingly. As to the trade with the
Indians that he talks of, it is all false, else why should
he lie here so many days without change of position
or any open intercourse with them? and then, what
better evidence against him than the kidnapping of
Hector?”

“But he has changed his position—his vessel has
moved higher up the river.”

“Since when?”

“Within the last three hours. Her movement was
pointed out by my father as we stood together on the
bluff fronting the house.”

“Indeed—this must be seen to, and requires despatch.
Come with me, Bess. To your father at once,
and say your strongest and look your sweetest. Be
twice as timid as necessary, utter a thousand fears and
misgivings, but persuade him to the shelter of the
Block House.”

“Where I may be as frequently as convenient in

the company of Master Gabriel Harrison. Is it not
so?”—and she looked up archly into his face. For
once the expression of his look was grave, and his
eye gazed deeply down into her own. With a sobriety
of glance not unmixed with solemnity, he spoke—

“Ah, Bess—if I lose thee, I am myself lost! But
come with me—I will see thee to the wicket,—safe,
ere I leave thee, beyond the province of the rattlesnake.”

“Speak not of that,” she quickly replied, with an
involuntary shudder, looking around her as she spoke,
upon the spot, just then contiguous, associated by that
scene, so deeply with her memory. He led her to the
end of the grove, within sight of her father's cottage,
and his last words at leaving her were those of urgent
entreaty, touching her removal to the Block House.