University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.

With the last notes of the reveillée everything was stirring in
Innis's camp. It was a beautiful, fresh morning; a cool breeze
swept across the plain, and each spray and every blade of grass
sparkled with the dew; whilst above, an unclouded firmament
gave promise of a rich and brilliant mid-summer's day. The
surrounding forest was alive with the twittering of birds; and the
neighing of horses showed that this portion of the animal creation
partook of the hilarity of the season. From every little shed or
woodland lair, crept forth parties of soldiers, who betook themselves
to their several posts to answer at the roll-call; and by the
time the sun had risen, officers, on horseback and on foot, were
seen moving hurriedly across the open plain, to join the groups of
infantry and cavalry, which were now forming in various quarters
for the purposes of the morning drill. Companies were seen in
motion, passing through the rapid evolutions of the march, the
retreat, and the many exercises of service. Drums were beating,
and fifes were piercing the air with their high notes, and, ever and
anon, the trumpet brayed from the further extremities of the field.
Picquet-guards were seen mustering on the edge of the camp—
wearied and night-worn: salutes were exchanged by the small
detachments on service; and, here and there, sentinels might be
descried, stationed at the several outlets of the plain, and presenting
their arms as an officer passed their lines.

The troops that occupied this space were mostly of the irregular
kind. Some were distinguished by ill-fitted and homely uniforms;
others were clad in the common dress of the country, distinguished
as soldiers only by their arms and accoutrements; but amongst
them was also a considerable party of British regulars, clad in the
national livery of scarlet. Amongst the officers, who were in

command of the subordinate departments of this mixed and parti-colored
little army, were several who, from their costume, might
be recognised as belonging to the regiments that had come from
the other side of the Atlantic.

Colonel Innis himself was seen upon the parade, directing the
movements of divisions that, under their proper officers, were
practising the customary lessons of discipline. He was a tall,
thin man, of an emaciated complexion, with a countenance of
thoughtful severity. A keen black eye seemed almost to burn
within its orb, and to give an expression of petulant and peevish
excitability, like the querulousness of a sick man. A rather
awkward and ungainly person, arrayed in a scarlet uniform that
did but little credit to the tailor-craft employed in its fabrication,
conveyed to the spectator the idea of a man unused to the pride
of appearance that belongs to a soldier by profession; and would
have suggested the conclusion, which the fact itself sustained, that
the individual before him had but recently left the walks of civil
life to assume a military office. His demeanour, however, showed
him to be a zealous if not a skilful officer. He gave close attention
to the duties of his command, and busied himself with
scrupulous exactitude in enforcing the observances necessary to a
rigorous system of tactics.

This officer, as we have before hinted, had been an active participator
in the proceedings of the new court of sequestrations at
Charleston; and had rendered himself conspicuous by the fierce
and unsparing industry with which he had brought to the judgment
of that tribunal, the imputed delinquencies of some of the most
opulent and patriotic citizens of the province.

Amongst the cases upon which he had been called into consultation
was that of Arthur Butler, whose possessions being ample,
and whose position, as a rebellious belligerent, being one of
“flagrant delict,” there was but little repugnance, on the part of
the judges and their adviser, to subject him to the severest law of
confiscation. The proceedings, however, had been delayed, not
from any tenderness to the proprietor, but, as it was whispered in
the scandal of the day, on account of certain dissensions, amongst
a few prominent servants of the British crown, as to which of them
the privilege of a cheap purchase should be extended. The matter

was still in suspense, with a view (as that busybody, common
rumor, alleged) to reward a particular favorite of the higher
powers with the rich guerdon of these good lands, in compensation
for private and valuable secret services, rendered in a matter of
great delicacy and hazard—no less a service than that of seducing
into the arena of politics and intrigue, an opulent and authoritative
gentleman of Virginia, Mr. Philip Lindsay.

In consequence of the odious nature of the duty which Colonel
Innis had assumed to perform, he became peculiarly hateful to the
Whigs; and this sentiment was in no degree abated when, relinquishing
his occupation as a counsellor to the court at Charleston,
he accepted a commission to command a partisan corps of royalists
in the upper country. He was, at the juncture in which I have
exhibited him to my reader, new in his command, and had not yet
“fleshed his maiden sword:” the day, however, was near at hand
when his prowess was to be put to the proof.

Such was the person into whose hands Arthur Butler had now
fallen.

After the morning exercises of the camp were finished, and the
men were dismissed to prepare their first repast, the principal
officers returned to the colonel's head-quarters in the farm-house,
where, it will be remembered, Butler had been delivered by the
escort that had conducted him from Blackstock's. The prisoner
had slept soundly during the whole night; and now, as the breakfast
hour drew nigh, he had scarcely awaked and put on his
clothes, before he heard an inquiry, made by some one below, of
the orderly on duty, whether the Whig officer was yet in a condition
to be visited; and, in the next moment, the noise of footsteps,
ascending the stair towards his chamber, prepared him to expect
the entrance of the person who had asked the question.

A British officer, in full uniform, of a graceful and easy carriage,
neat figure, and of a countenance that bespoke an intelligent and
cultivated mind, made his appearance at the door. He was
apparently of five or six and thirty years of age; and whilst he
paused a moment, as with a purpose to apologize for the seeming
intrusion, Butler was struck with the air of refined breeding of the
individual before him.

“Major Butler, I understand, of the Continental army?” said

the stranger. “The unpleasant nature of the circumstances in
which you are placed, I hope will excuse the trespass I have committed
upon your privacy. Captain St. Jermyn, of his Majesty's
army, and lately an aide-de-camp of Lord Rawdon.”

Butler bowed coldly, as he replied:

“To meet a gentleman, as your rank and name both import, is
a privilege that has not been allowed me of late. Without
knowing wherefore, I have been waylaid and outraged by bravoes
and ruffians. You, perhaps, sir, may be able to afford me some
insight into the causes of this maltreatment.”

“Even if it were proper for me to hold discourse with you on
such a subject, I could only speak from common report,” replied
the officer. “I know nothing of your seizure, except that, by the
common chances of war, you have fallen into the hands of the
ruling authorities of the province, and you will, doubtless, as a
soldier, appreciate my motives for declining any reference to the
circumstances in which you have been found. My visit is stimulated
by other considerations, amongst which is foremost a desire
to mitigate the peculiarly uncomfortable captivity to which I am
sorry to learn you have been subjected.”

“I thank you,” replied Butler, “for the intention with which
your good offices are proffered; but you can render me no service
that I should value so much as that of informing me why I have
been brought hither, at whose suggestion, and for what purpose.”

“I will be plain with you, Major Butler. Your situation demands
sympathy, however inexorably the present posture of our
affairs may require the decrees of stern justice, in respect to
yourself, to be executed. I feel for you, and would gladly aid you
to any extent which my duty might allow, in averting the possible
calamity that may hang over you. You are known as a gentleman
of consideration and influence in the colonies. I may further add,
as a brave and venturesome soldier. You are believed to have,
more boldly than wisely, enterprised the accomplishment of certain
schemes against the safety of his majesty's acknowledged government
in this province; besides having committed other acts in
violation of a faith plighted for you by those who had full
authority to bind you, thus bringing yourself within the penalties

appropriate to the violation of a military parole, if not within
those of treason itself.”

“He lies in his throat,” cried Butler, “who charges me with
forfeiture of plighted word or honor, in any action of my life.
That I have arrayed myself against what you are pleased to term
his majesty's acknowledged government in this province, I am
proud to confess, here in the midst of your bands, and will confess
it again at your judgment seat; but if aught be said against me
that shall be intended to attaint my honor as a gentleman, I will, in
the same presence and before God, throw the lie in the teeth of
my accuser. Aye, and make good my word, now or hereafter,
wheresoever it may be allowed me to meet the slanderer.”

“I do not condemn your warmth,” said St. Jermyn, calmly, “in
a matter that so deeply stirs your self-esteem; and only desire
now to second it in all things wherein an honorable enemy may
claim the support of those who themselves value a good name.
The authorities of this post have considerately resolved to give
you the benefit of a court of inquiry. And I hope you will take
it as it was meant, in all kindness to you, that I have come, before
the communication of an official order, to apprise you that charges
will be duly exhibited against you, and a trial be instantly had.
If you will accept of my services, feeble and inadequate as they
may be, I would gladly tender them to afford you such facilities as
the pressure of the present emergency may allow.”

“To be tried! when, and for what? If the charge is that I
carry on open war against those who are in the habit of calling
me and my compatriots rebels—I am ready to confess the charge.
What need of court or trial?”

“There are graver and more serious offences than that imputed
to you,” said St. Jermyn.

“When am I to be informed of them, and to what do they
tend?”

“You will hear them this morning; when, I am sorry to add,
the nature of our military operations also enforces the necessity of
your trial.”

“You can be of little service, if that be true,” returned Butler,
thoughtfully. “My cause can only be defended by my country,
long after I am made the victim of this unrighteous procedure.”

“There is one alternative,” said St. Jermyn, with some hesitation
in his manner, “which a mature deliberation upon your relations
as a subject,—pardon me, for I do not deem this ill-timed rebellion
to have obliterated them—may present to your mind.”

“Speak it,” said Butler, vehemently; “speak out the base
thought that is rising to your lip, if you dare. Prisoner as I am,
I will avenge the insult on the spot with the certainty of loss of
life. The alternative you suggest, is to dishonor me and all who
are dear to me by the foul opprobrium of treason to my country.
You would have me, I suppose, renounce the cause to which I have
dedicated my life, and take shelter with the recreants that have
crowded under the banner of St. George?”

“Hold! remember, sir, that you are a prisoner,” said St. Jermyn,
with great coolness; and then after a pause, he added with a sigh:
“I will not wound, by further converse, the exaggerated and delusive
sense of honor which is too fatally predominant in your breast,
and, as I have found it, in the breasts of many of your misguided
countrymen. I came to serve you, not to excite your feelings; and
I will now, even in your displeasure, serve you as far as the occasion
may afford me means: I pray you, call on me without reserve.
For the present, believe me, in pain and sorrow I take my leave.”

With these words, the officer retired.

Butler paced to and fro through his narrow chamber for some
minutes, as his mind revolved the extraordinary and unexpected
disclosures which had been made to him in this short visit. A
thousand conjectures rose into his thoughts as to the nature of the
supposed charges that were to be brought against him. He
minutely retraced all the incidents of his late adventures, to ascertain
how it was possible to found upon them an accusation of
violated faith, or to pervert them into an imputation of treason
against the present doubtful and disputed authority of the self-styled
conquerors of Carolina. If his attempt to join Clarke was
treason, it could be no less treason in the followers of Gates to
array themselves against the royal army; and, that every prisoner
hereafter taken in battle was to be deemed a traitor to the contested
power of Cornwallis, seemed to be a pretension too absurd
for the most inveterate partisans to assert. There was nothing in
this review of his actions that the most ingenious malice could pervert

into an offence punishable by the laws of war, by other rigor
than such as might be inflicted upon an ordinary prisoner taken in
arms. Still, there were unhappy doubts of some secret treachery
that rose to his reflections; the perfidy of Adair, manifestly the
effect of a bribe; the ambuscade promoted and managed by James
Curry; the bloody purpose of the brutal gang who captured him,
frustrated only by the accidental fray in which Blake was wounded.
Then the “doubtful givings out” which fell from the lips of some
of the soldiers at Blackstock's, of his case still being one of life and
death; the insinuation of the savage Habershaw, at the same place,
conveyed in the threat of twisted hemp; the knowledge which his
present keepers affected to have of his rank and consequence, of his
past life and present aims; and, above all, his being brought for
immediate trial, in a matter affecting his life, before the very man,
now in the capacity of a military commander, who had heretofore
been active in promoting the design of confiscating his estate. All
these considerations, although unconnected with any circumstance
of specific offence within his knowledge, led him into the most
anxious and melancholy forebodings as to the result of this day's
proceedings.

“I am doomed to fall,” he said, “under some secret stroke of
vengeance, and my country is to have in my case another stirring
appeal against the enormity of that iron rule that seeks to bow
her head into the dust. So be it! The issue is in the hand of
God, and my fate may turn to the account of the establishment of
a nation's liberty. Oh, Mildred, I tremble to think of thee!
Heaven grant, my girl, that thy fortitude may triumph over the
martyrdom of him that loves thee better than his life!”