University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.

In the confusion that ensued upon the defeat of Innis, James
Curry succeeded in conducting Butler from the field. His orders
were to retreat with the prisoner to Blackstock's; and he had
accordingly set out with about a dozen troopers, by a private
path that led towards a quarter secure from the molestation
of the enemy, when the attack commenced. Butler was mounted
behind one of the men, and in this uneasy condition was borne along
the circuitous by-way that had been chosen, without a moment's
respite from the severe motion of the horse, nearly at high speed,
until, having accomplished three miles of the retreat, the party
arrived at the main road that extended between Innis's camp and
Blackstock's. Here Curry, conceiving himself to be out of danger
of pursuit, halted his men, with a purpose to remain until he could
learn something of the combat. Butler was in a state of the most
exciting bewilderment as to the cause of this sudden change in his
affairs. No explanation was given to him by his conductors; and
although, from the first, he was aware that an extraordinary
emergency had arisen from some assault upon Innis's position, no
one dropped a word in his hearing to give him the slightest clue
to the nature of the attack. The troopers about him preserved a
morose and ill-natured silence, and even manifested towards him a
harsh and resentful demeanor. He heard the firing, but what
troops were engaged, by whom led, or with what chances of success,
were subjects of the most painfully interesting doubt. He could
only conjecture that this was a surprise accomplished by the Whigs,
and that the assailants must have come in sufficient force to justify
the boldness of the enterprise. That Horse Shoe was connected

with this irruption he felt fully assured; and from this circumstance
he gathered the consolatory and cheerful prognostic of a better
issue out of his afflictions than, in his late condition, seemed even
remotely possible. This hope grew brighter as the din of battle
brought the tidings of the day to his ear. The first few scattered
shots that told of the confusion in which the combat was begun,
were, after an interval, succeeded by regular volleys of musketry
that indicated an orderly and marshalled resistance. Platoon after
platoon fired in succession—signifying, to the practised hearing of
the soldier, that infantry was receiving the attacks of cavalry, and
that as yet the first had not faltered. Then the firing grew more
slack, and random shots were discharged from various quarters—
but amidst these were heard no embodied volleys. It was the
casual and nearly overpowered resistance of flying men.

At this juncture there was a dark frown on the brow of Curry,
as he looked at his comrades, and said, in a low and muttered
tone, “That helter-skelter shot grates cursedly on the ear. There's
ill-luck in the sound of it.”

Presently a few stragglers appeared at a turn of the road, some
quarter of a mile in the direction of the battle, urging their horses
forward at the top of their speed. These were followed by groups
both of infantry and cavalry, pressing onwards in the utmost
disorder—those on horseback thrusting their way through the
throng of foot-soldiers, seemingly regardless of life or limb; the
wounded with their wounds bleeding afresh, or hastily bandaged
with such appliances as were at hand. All hurried along amidst
the oaths, remonstrances, and unheeded orders of the officers, who
were endeavoring to resume their commands. It was the flight
of men beset by a panic, and fearful of pursuit; and the clouds of
dust raised by the press and hurry of this career almost obscured
the setting sun.

During the first moments of uncertainty, Curry, no less anxiously
than Butler, remained stationary by the roadside, reading the
distant signs of the progress of the fight; but now, when the
disastrous issue was no longer doubtful, he commanded his cavalcade
to move forward, and from that moment prosecuted his journey
with unabated speed until he arrived at Blackstock's.

Butler was unceremoniously marched to his former place of

confinement in the barn, where a rigorous guard was set over his
person. In the confusion and insubordination that prevailed
amongst the crowd, that, during the night, was continually
increasing in the little hamlet, the common rites of humanity
towards the prisoner were forgotten, and he was left to pass the
weary hours till morning, on a shock of hay, without food or other
refreshment than a simple draught of water. From the unreserved
murmurs of those who frequented the place, and the querulous
upbraidings of the soldiery against each other, Butler was enabled
to glean the principal incidents of the day. The supposed death
of Innis reached him through this channel, and, what was scarcely
a subject of less personal interest to him, the certain end of Hugh
Habershaw. It was with a silent satisfaction at the moral or
poetical justice—as it has been called—of the event, that he heard
the comrades of the late self-conceited captain describe his death
in terms of coarse and unpitying ribaldry—a retribution due to
the memory of a cruel and cowardly braggart.

When the morning was fully abroad, the disarranged and broken
remnants of the Tory camp began gradually to be reduced to a
state of discipline. The day was spent in this occupation. Orders
were every moment arriving from the higher officers of the late
camp, or from the nearest British posts. Videttes bore the tidings
of the different military operations from the neighborhood of the
enemy. The fragments of companies were marshalled into squads
and subdivisions; and, successively, one party after another was seen
to leave the hamlet, and take a direction of march that led towards
the main British army, or to the garrisons of the lower districts.

Towards the close of the day one detachment only was left; and
Butler was given to understand that this was intrusted with his
especial keeping. It was composed of a few regular soldiers of
the garrison of Ninety-Six, and a small number of the country
militia,—making, in all, about twenty men, commanded by
Lieutenant Macdonald, of the regular army.

Butler remained in his present state of seclusion four or five
days, during which he experienced much mitigation of the rigors
of his captivity. Macdonald was a careful and considerate soldier,
and demeaned himself towards his prisoner with such kindness as
the nature of his trust allowed. He removed him into a comfortable

apartment in the dwelling-house, and supplied him with the
conveniences his situation required; he even made him occasional
visits, which were attended with more than the mere observances
of courtesy and respect, and expressed a sympathy in his sufferings.

These unexpected tones of comfort, from a quarter in which
Butler had hitherto heard nothing but fierce hatred and harsh
rebuke, fell gratefully upon his ear, and gave a brighter color to
his hopes for the future. But he could not help observing, that no
hint was dropped by Macdonald which might furnish him the
slightest ground of surmise as to the vicissitudes that yet awaited
him. The reported fall of Innis seemed to afford a natural foundation
for the belief, that the malice of his enemies might hereafter
be less active,—as he attributed much of the persecution he had
suffered to the secret machinations of that individual. He no
longer saw around his person those agents who first pursued him
with such bitter hostility. He seemed to have fallen into entirely
new combinations, and had reason to augur, from all he saw, that
their purposes against him were less wicked. And first, above
all other topics of consolation and comfort, was the conviction that
a brave and efficient party of friends were in the field, intent upon
his liberation. Still, his situation was one in which it required all
his manhood to sustain himself. A young soldier of an ardent
temper, and zealously bent upon active and perilous service, can ill
brook the tedious, dull delays of captivity, even in its mildest form:
but if this thraldom befal in a period of universal agitation, when
“great events are on the gale,” of which the captive is only a witness
to the pervading interest they excite, without being permitted to
know their import; if moreover, as in the case of Butler, an impenetrable
veil of mystery hang over the purpose of his captivity,
behind which the few short glimpses afforded him, open upon his
view nothing but death in its most frightful forms; and if to these
are added, by far the bitterest of its qualities, the anxieties, cares, and
pains of a devoted, plighted lover, separated from the heart that
loves him, we may well conjecture that the most gallant spirit may
find in it, even amidst occasional gleams of sunshine, that sinking
of hope which the philosophic king of Israel has described as
making “the heart sick,”—that chafing of the soul that, like the
encaged eaglet, wearies and tears its wing against the bars of its

prison. Even so fared it with Arthur Butler, who now found himself
growing more and more into the shadow of a melancholy
temper.

It was soon ascertained that Williams had abandoned the field
he had won, and had retreated beyond the reach of immediate
pursuit. And as the post at Musgrove's mill afforded many advantages,
in reference to the means of communicating with the garrisons
of the middle section of the province, and was more secure
against the hazard of molestation from such parties of Whigs as
might still be out-lying, an order was sent to Macdonald to remove
with his prisoner to the habitation of the miller, and there to detain
him until some final step should be taken in his case.

In pursuance of this requisition, Butler was conducted, after the
interval of the few days we have mentioned, to Allen Musgrove's.
The old man received his guest with that submission to the domination
of the military masters of the province, which he had prescribed
to himself throughout the contest,—secretly rejoicing that
the selection made of his house for this purpose, might put it in
his power to alleviate the sufferings of a soldier, towards whose
cause he felt a decided though unavowed attachment. This selection
furnished evidence to the miller, that nothing had transpired
to arouse the distrust of the British authorities in the loyalty of
any part of his family,—and to Butler, it inferred the consolatory
fact, that the zealous devotion of Mary Musgrove to his service had
as yet passed without notice; whilst to the maiden herself, it was
proof that her agency in the delivery of the letter, which she had
so adroitly put within the reach of the officers of the court, had
not even excited a suspicion against her.

The best room in the house was allotted to the prisoner; and
the most sedulous attention on the part of the family, so far as it
could be administered without inducing mistrust, was employed in
supplying him with whatever was needful to his condition. On the
part of the commanding officer, the usual precautions known to
military experience for the safe keeping of a prisoner were adopted.
The privates of the guard occupied the barn, whilst Macdonald
and one or two subordinate officers took up their quarters in the
dwelling-house: sentinels were posted at the several avenues leading
to the habitation, and a sergeant had the especial care of the

prisoner, who, under this supervision, was occasionally allowed the
range of the garden. The usual forms of a camp police were observed
with scrupulous exactness;—and the morning and the
nightly drum, the parade, the changing of sentries, the ringing of
ramrods in the empty barrels of the muskets, and the glitter of weapons,
were strangely and curiously associated with the rural and
unwarlike features of the scenery around.