University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

Slowly, and with an expression of sorrow in his
countenance, corresponding with the unelastic and measured
movement of his body, Thumbscrew took his way
back to the hollow where he had left his more youthful
companion.

“Well, what have you seen to keep you so long,
Thumbscrew?” was the impatient inquiry of the youth.
The answer of the woodman to this interrogatory was
hesitatingly uttered, and he first deliberately told of his
encounter with Blonay, and the nature of the unsatisfactory
dialogue which had taken place between them. He
dwelt upon the cunning with which the other had kept
his secret during the conference; “but I found him out
at last,” said he, “and now I knows him to be a skunk
—a reg'lar built tory, as I mought ha' known from the
first moment I laid eyes on him.”

“Well—and where is he now, and how did you discover
this?” was the inquiry of the other.

This inquiry necessarily unfolded the intelligence
concerning the troop of horse, whose number, wagons,
and equipments he gave with all the circumspectness
and fidelity of an able scout; and this done, he was silent;
with the air, however, of one who has yet something
to unfold.

“But who commanded them, Thumbscrew?” asked
the other, “and what appeared to be their object? You
are strangely limited in your intelligence, and, at this

rate, will hardly justify the eulogy of Major Singleton,
who considers you the very best scout in the brigade.
Can you tell us nothing more? What sort of captain
had they?”

“A stout fellow, quite as broad, but not so tall as me,
with a skin brown, like mine, as a berry; a hook nose,
and a mouth more like the chop of a broad-axe than
any thing else.”

He paused, and the eyes of the scout and those of
his young comrade met. There was a quickening apprehension
of the truth in those of Mellichampe, which
made them kindle with successive flashes, while his
mouth, partaking of the same influence, quivered convulsively,
as, bending forward to his more sedate companion,
he demanded, with a stern, brief manner—

“You are not speaking of Barsfield, surely?”

“I am—that's the critter, or I'm no Christian.”

The youth seized his rifle as he replied—“And you
shot him not down!—you suffered him to pass you in
safety!—my father's blood yet upon his hands—unavenged—and
he going now, doubtless, to reap the reward
of his crime and perfidy! But he cannot have
gone far—he must be yet within reach, and, by the
eternal! he shall not escape me now. Hold me not
back, Thumbscrew—hold me not back! I deem you no
friend of mine that suffered the wretch to pass on in
safety, and I shall deem you still less my friend if you
labour to restrain me now. Hold me not, I tell you,
Witherspoon, or it will be worse for you.”

The youth, as he spoke, leaped upon his feet in a convulsion
of passion, that seemed to set at defiance all
restraint. His eyes, that before had sent forth only irregular
flashes of light and impulse, were now fixed in a
steady, unmitigated flame, that underwent no change.
Not so his lips, which quivered and paled more fitfully
than ever. He strove earnestly with his strong-limbed
comrade, who had grasped him firmly with the first ebullition

of that passion which he seemed to have anticipated.

“What would you do, Airnest?—don't be foolish,
now, I beg you; running your head agin a pine knot
that you can't swallow. It's all foolishness to go on so,
and can do no good. As to shooting that skunk, I
couldn't and wouldn't do it, though I had the muzzle up,
and it was a sore temptation, Airnest; for I remembered
the old man, and his white hair, and it stood before my
eyes jist like a picture, as I seed it last when it was
thickened together with his own blood.”

“Yet you could remember all this, and suffer his murderer
to escape?” reiterated the other.

“Yes! for it goes agin the natur of an honest man to
bite a man with cold bullet when the tother ain't on his
guard agin it. I'll take a shot any day with Barsfield,
man to man, or where a fight's going on with a hundred,
but, by dogs! I can't lie at the roadside, under a sapling,
and send a bullet at him onawares as he's riding down the
trace. It's an Ingen way, and it's jist as bad as any
murder I've ever hearn tell of their doing. No, no,
Airnest; there's a time coming! as I may say, the day of
judging them's at hand; for here, you see, is this chap,
going down now, snug and easy, with a small handful
of troops, to take possession of Keddipah. Let him set
down quietly till the `fox' gits up his men, and I'll lay
you what you please we git our satisfaction out of him
by fair fight. We'll smoke him out of his hole 'fore
Sunday next, if I'm not monstrous wide in my calkilation.”

“And where is the difference between shooting him
now and shooting him then? I see none. Release me,
Mr. Witherspoon,” cried the other, his anger now beginning
to turn upon the tenacious Thumbscrew, who
held upon his body with a grasp that set at defiance all
his efforts. In the next moment he was released as he
had desired, and, with a deference of manner, a subdued

and even sadder visage, the countryman addressed the
youth—

“You're gitting into a mighty passion, Airnest, and,
what's worse, you're gitting in a passion with me, that
was your friend and your father's friend ever since I
know'd you both, though, to be sure, I never could do
much for either of you in the way of friendship.”

“I am not angry with you, Witherspoon—only, I am
no child to be restrained after this fashion. I know you
are my friend, and, God knows! I have too few now to
desire the loss of any one of them—and particularly of
one who, like yourself, has clung to me in all trials; but
there is a certain boundary beyond which one's best
friend has no right to go.”

“Oh, yes! I understand all that, Airnest. I'm your
friend so long as I don't think or act contrary to your
thinking and acting. Now, to my thinking, that's a bargain
that will only answer for one side, and I never yet
made a bargain in my life under them sort of tarms. If I
sells a horse or buys one, I does it because I thinks there'll
be some sort of benefit or gain to myself. I don't want
to take ondue advantage of the other man, but I expects
to git as good as I gives. That's the trade for me;
whether it be a horse that I trades, or my good word
and the heart, rough or gentle, all the same, that I bring
to barter with my friend. When I makes sich a trade,
I can't stand and see the man I trade with making light
of the article I gives him. If it's my friendship and
good word, he mustn't make them a sort of plaything, to
sport which way he pleases; and, so long as I say I'm
his friend, he sha'n't butt a tree if I can keep his head
from it, though I have to take main force to hold him in.
On them same tarms, Airnest, I stood by the old 'squire
your father when he got into difficulties about the line
of his land with Hitchingham; when the two got all
their friends together, and fout, as one may say, like so
many tiger-cats, along the rice-dam, for two long hours

by sun. You've hearn tell of that excursion, I'm thinking.
That was a hard brush, and I didn't skulk like a
skunk then, as they will all tell you that seed it. But
that worn't the only time—there was others, more than
a dozen beside that, and all jist as tough, when Thumbscrew
hung on to the 'squire as if he was two other legs
and arms of the same body, and nobody could touch
the one without touching the tother. Then came that
scrape with Barsfield; and now I tell you, Airnest, it
worn't a murder, as you calls it, but a fair fight, for both
the parties was fairly out; and, though the old 'squire
your father was surprised, and not on his proper guard,
yet it was a fair-play fight, and sich as comes about, as
I may say, naturally, in all our skrimmages with the tories.
They licked us soundly, to be sure, 'cause they
had the most men; but we fout 'em to the last, and 'twas
a fair fight from the jump.”

“And what of all this, now—why do you repeat this
to me here?” said the other, with no little imperiousness.

“Why, you see, only to show you, Airnest, as a sort
of excuse and apology for what I did in trying to keep
you from going after Barsfield—”

“Apology, Witherspoon!” exclaimed the other.

“Yes, Airnest, apology—that's the very word I makes
use of. I jist wanted to show you the reason why I tuk
the liberty of trying to keep an old friend's son out of
harm's way, that's all. I promise you, Airnest, I won't
make you angry agin, though I don't see yet the harm
of liking a body so much as to do the best for 'em.”

The woodman turned away as he spoke, lifted his rifle,
and seemed busy in rubbing the stock of it with the
sleeve of his hunting-shirt. The youth seemed touched
by this simple exhortation. Without a word he approached
his unsophisticated companion, whose face
was turned from him, and placing his hand affectionately,
with a gentle pressure, upon his shoulder, thus addressed
him:—

“Forgive me, Jack—I was wrong. Forgive me,
and forget it. I am rash, foolish, obstinate—it's my
fault, I know, to be so, and I try to control my disposition,
always, when I'm with you. You know I wouldn't
hurt your feelings for the world. I know you love me,
Jack, as if I were your own brother; and, believe me,
my old friend—my father's friend—believe me, I love
you fully as much. Say, now, that you forgive me—do
say!”

“Dang my eyes! Airnest, but, by the powers! you
put it to me too hard sometimes. Jist when I'm doing
the best, or trying to do the best, you plump head over
heels into my teeth, and I'm forced to swallow my own
doings. It ain't right—it ain't kind of you, Airnest; and,
dang it, boy, I don't see why I should keep trying to do
for you, to git no thanks, and little better than curses for
it. I'm sure I gits nothing by sticking to you through
thick and thin.”

Half relenting, and prefacing his yielding mood only
by this outward coating of obduracy, the woodman thus
received the overtures of his companion, who was as
ready to melt with generous emotion as he was to seek
for strife under a fierce and impetuous one. The youth
half turned away as the latter reply met his ears, and,
removing his hand from the shoulder where it had rested,
with a freezing tone and proud manner, he replied, while
appearing to withdraw—

“It is indeed time, Mr. Witherspoon, that company
should part, when one reproaches the other with his poverty.
You certainly have said truly, that you have nothing
to gain by clinging to me and mine.”

“Oh, Airnest, boy—but that's too much,” he cried,
leaping round and seizing the youth's hands, while he
pressed his eyes, now freely suffused, down upon them.
“I didn't mean that, Airnest—I'm all over foolish to-day,
and done nothing but harm. It was so from morning's
first jump; I've been fooling and blundering like a

squalling hen in an old woman's cupboard. Push me on
one side, I'm sure to plump clear to the other end, break
all the cups and dishes, and fly in the old wife's face,
before I can git out. It's your turn to forgive me, Airnest,
and don't say that we must cut each other. God
help me, Airnest, if I was to dream of sich a thing, I'm
sure your father's sperrit would haunt me, with his white
hair sticking all fast with blood, and—”

“No more, Jack, old fellow—let us talk no more of
that, but sit down here, and say what we are to do now
about that reptile, Barsfield.”

“Bless you, Airnest, what can we do till the `fox'
whistles? We'll have news for him to-morrow, and
must only see where Barsfield goes to-night, and larn
what we can of what he's going to do. I suspect that
them wagons have got a plenty of guns and bagnets,
shot and powder for the tories; and if so, there'll be a
gathering of them mighty soon in this neighbourhood.
We shall see some of the boys to-morrow—Humphries
and `Roaring Dick' ride on this range, and we may hear
their whistle in the `Bear Brake' before morning.”

“We must meet them there, then, one or other of us,
certainly. In the meantime, as you say, we must trail
this Barsfield closely, and look where he sleeps, since
you will not let me shoot him.”

“And where's the use? I could ha' put the bullet
through his scull to-day, but the next moment the dragoons
would have made small work of a large man.
They'd ha' chopped me into mince-meat. There's no
difficulty in killing one, but small chance to git away
after it, when there's so many of them upon you; and,
as I said afore, this shooting a man from the bush onawares,
when he's travelling in quiet, looks too much like
cold-blooded Ingin murder. It's like scalping and tomahawk.
Give the enemy a fair field, says I, though it
be but a bow-legged nigger that's running from you in
the swamp.”

And, thus conferring, the two followed the route pursued
by Barsfield and his party, until the shades of evening
gathered heavily around them.