University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.

Our story once more brings us back to the Dove Cote. During
the first week that followed her interview with Arthur Butler under
the Fawn's Tower, Mildred was calm and thoughtful, and even
melancholy: her usual custom of exercise was foregone, and her
time was passed chiefly in her chamber. By degrees, however, her
firm and resolute temper predominated over the sadness of her
fortunes, and she began to resume that cheerfulness which circumstances
can never long subdue in a strong and disciplined mind.
She had grown more than ever watchful of the public events, and
sought, with an intense avidity, to obtain information in regard to
the state of things in the south. She now felt herself closely
allied to the cause in which Arthur Butler had embarked, and,
therefore, caught up the floating rumors of the day, in what
regarded the progress of the American arms in the southern expedition,
with the interest of one who had a large stake depending
on the issue.

She had received several letters from Butler, which detailed the
progress of his journey from the Dove Cote to Gates's camp, and from
thence to Horse Shoe's cottage. They were all written in the confident
and even jocular tone of a light-hearted soldier who sought
to amuse his mistress; and they narrated such matters of personal
history as were of a character to still her fears for his safety. Their
effect upon Mildred was to warm up her enthusiasm, as well as to
brighten her anticipations of the future, and thus to increase the returning
elasticity of her spirits. Up to this period, therefore, she grew
every day more buoyant and playful in her temper, and brought
herself to entertain a more sanguine reckoning of the eventual determination
of affairs. She was now frequently on horseback, attended

by her brother, with whom she scarcely ever failed to make a
visit to the good Mistress Dimock, where she either found a letter
from Butler, or heard some of the thousand tidings which report
was for ever busy in propagating or exaggerating in regard to the
movements of the army.

“I'll warrant you, Arthur is a man for the pen as well as for the
spur and broadsword, my pretty lady,” was one of the landlady's
comments, as she handed to Mildred the eighth or ninth epistle that
had fallen into her hands since Butler's departure; “there scarcely
comes trotting by a soiled traveller with his head set northwards,
but it is—`Good woman, is this Mistress Dimock's?' and when I say,
`aye,' then `here's a letter, madam, for you, that comes from the army:'
and so, there's Arthur's own hand-writing to a great pacquet, `for
Mistress Dimock of the Rockfish inn, of Amherst,' and not even,
after all, one poor line for me, but just a cover, and the inside for
Miss Mildred Lindsay of the Dove Cote. Ha, ha! we old bodies
are only stalking-horses in this world. But God bless him!—he is
a fine and noble gentleman.” And Mildred would take the pacquet
and impatiently break the seal; and as she perused the close-written
contents the color waxed and waned upon her cheek, and
her eye would one instant sparkle with mirth, and in the next grow
dim with a tear. And when she had finished reading, she would
secretly press the paper to her lips, and then bestow it away in her
bosom, evincing the earnest fondness of a devoted and enthusiastic
nature.

Mildred and Henry were inseparable; and, in proportion as his
sister's zeal and attachment to the cause of independence became
more active, did Henry's inclination to become a partisan grow
apace. Hers was a character to kindle the spirit of brave adventure.
There was in it a quiet and unostentatious but unvarying
current of resolution, that shrank before no perils. Her feelings,
acute and earnest, had given all their warmth to her principles; and
what she once believed her duty commanded, was pursued with
the devout self-dedication of a religious obligation. To this temper,
which, by some secret of its constitution, has a spell to sway the
minds of mankind, there was added the grace of an exquisitely
feminine address. The union of these two attributes rendered Mildred
Lindsay an object of conspicuous interest in such a time as that of

the revolutionary struggle. Her youth, her ready genius, her
knowledge and her habits of reflection, much in advance of her
years, enhanced the impression her character was adapted to produce,
and brought upon her, even in her secluded position, a considerable
share of public observation. It was not wonderful that a
mind so organized and accomplished should have acquired an
unlimited dominion over the frank, open-hearted, and brave temper
of her brother, now just stepping beyond the confines of mere boyhood.
Her influence over Henry was paramount and unbounded:
her affections were his, her faith was his, her enthusiasm stole
into and spread over his whole temper.

With these means of influence she had sedulously applied herself
to infuse into Henry's mind her own sentiment in regard to
the war; and this purpose had led her to interest herself in subjects
and pursuits, which, in general, are very foreign from her sex.
Her desire to enlist his feelings in aid of Butler, and her conviction
that a time was at hand when Henry might be useful, gave
rise to an eager solicitude to see him well prepared for the
emergencies of the day, by that necessary mode of education
which, during the period of the revolution, was common
amongst the young gentlemen of the country. He was a most
willing and ready pupil; and she delighted to encourage him in
his inclination for military studies, however fanciful some of his
conceptions in regard to them might be. She, therefore, saw,
with great satisfaction, the assiduous though boyish devotion
with which he set himself to gain a knowledge of matters relating
to the duties of a soldier. However little this may fall within
the scope of female perception in ordinary times, it will not appear
so much removed from the capabilities or even the habits of the
sex, when we reflect that in the convulsions of this great national
struggle, when every resource of the country was drained for service,
the events of the day were contemplated with no less interest
by the women than by the men. The fervor with which the
American women participated in the cares and sacrifices of the
revolutionary war, has challenged the frequent notice and warmest
praises of its chroniclers. Mildred but reflected, in this instance,
the hues of the society around the Dove Cote, which consisted of
many families, scattered along the country side, composed of persons

of elevated character, easy circumstances, and of the staunchest
Whig politics, with whom she held an uninterrupted and familiar
intercourse.

Another consideration may serve to explain the somewhat masculine
character of Mildred's pursuits. Her most intimate companion,
at all times, and frequently for weeks together her only
one, was her brother. These two had grown up together in all the
confidence of childhood; and this confidence continued still unabated.
Their pursuits, sports, exercises, thoughts, and habits
were alike, with less of the discrimination usual between the sexes,
than is to be found between individuals in larger associations.
They approximated each other in temper and disposition; and
Henry might, in this regard, be said to be, without disparagement
to his manly qualities, a girlish boy; and Mildred, on the other
hand, with as little derogation, to be a boyish girl. This homebred
freedom of nurture produced, in its development, some grotesque
results, which my reader has, doubtless, heretofore observed
with a smile; and it will, likewise, serve to explain some of the
peculiar forms of intercourse which may hereafter be noticed
between the brother and sister.

The news of the battle of Camden had not yet reached the
neighborhood of the Dove Cote; but the time drew nigh when all
the country stood on tiptoe, anxious to receive tidings of that interesting
event. A week had elapsed without bringing letters from
Butler; and Mildred was growing uneasy at this interval of silence.
There was a struggle in her mind; an unpleasant foreboding
that she was almost ashamed to acknowledge, and yet which she
could not subdue. The country was full of reports of the hostile
operations, and a thousand surmises were entertained, which
varied according to the more sanguine or desponding tempers of
the persons who made them. Mildred was taught by Butler to
expect defeat, yet still she hoped for victory; but the personal
fate of her lover stole upon her conjectures, and she could not
keep down the misgiving which affection generally exaggerates,
and always renders painful. In this state of doubt, it was observable
that her manners occasionally rose to a higher tone of playfulness
than was natural to her; and by turns they sank to a
moody silence, showing that the equipoise of the mind was disturbed,

and that the scales did not hang true: it was the struggle
of mental resolution with a coward heart—a heart intimidated
by its affections.

Such was the state of things when, in the latter fortnight of
August, the morning ushered in a day of unsurpassed beauty. The
air was elastic; the cool breeze played upon the shrubbery, and
stole the perfume of a thousand flowers. The birds sang with
unwonted vivacity from the neighboring trees; and the sun lighted
up the mountains with a golden splendor, the fast drifting clouds
flinging their shadows upon the forest that clothed the hills around,
and the eagle and the buzzard sailing in the highest heavens, or
eddying around the beetling cliffs with a glad flight, as if rejoicing
in the luxuries of the cool summer morning. Breakfast was scarcely
over before Henry was seen upon the terrace, arrayed in his hunting
dress. His bugle was daintily suspended by a green cord across
his shoulders; it was a neat and glittering instrument, whose garniture
was bedizened with the coxcombry of silken tassels, and was
displayed as ostentatiously as if worn by the hero of a melodrame.

Like St. Swithin in the ballad, he had “footed thrice the wold,”
when he put the bugle to his mouth and “blew a recheate both
loud and long.”

“How now, good master Puff,” said Mildred, coming up playfully
to her brother, “what means this uproar? Pray you, have
mercy on one's ears.”

Henry turned towards his sister, without taking the bugle from
his lips, and continued the blast for a full minute; then, ceasing
only from want of breath, he said, with a comic earnestness—

“I'm practising my signals, sister; I can give you `to Horse,'
and `Reveillee,' and `Roast Beef,' like a trained trumpeter.”

“Truly you are a proper man, master,” replied Mildred. “But
it is hardly a time,” she continued, half muttering to herself, “for
you and me, Henry, to wear light hearts in our bosoms.”

“Why, sister,” said Henry, with some astonishment in his looks,
“this seems to me to be the very time to practise my signals. We
are at the very tug of the war, and every man that has a sword, or
bugle either, should be up and doing.”

“How come on your studies, brother?” interrupted Mildred,
without heeding Henry's interpretation of his duty.

“Oh, rarely! I know most of the speeches of Coriolanus all by
heart:—

he spouted, quoting from the play, and accompanying his recitation
with some extravagant gestures.

“This is easy work, Henry,” said Mildred laughing, “there is
too much of the holiday play in that. I thought you were studying
some graver things, instead of these bragging heroies. You
pretended to be very earnest, but a short time ago, to make a
soldier of yourself.”

“Well, and don't you call this soldiership? Suppose I were to
pounce down upon Cornwallis—his lordship, as that fellow Tyrrel
calls him—just in that same fashion. I warrant they would say
there was some soldiership in it! But, sister, haven't I been studying
the attack and defence of fortified places, I wonder? And
what call you that? Look now, here is a regular hexagon,” continued
Henry, making lines upon the gravel walk with a stick,
“here is the bastion,—these lines are the flank,—the face,—the
gorge: here is the curtain. Now, my first parallel is around here,
six hundred paces from the counterscarp. But I could have taken
Charleston myself in half the time that poking fellow, Clinton, did
it, if I had been there, and one of his side, which—thank my stars
—I am not.”

“You are entirely out of my depth, brother,” interrupted Mildred.

“I know I am. How should women be expected to understand
these matters? Go to your knitting, sister: you can't teach me.”

“Have you studied the Military Catechism, Henry? that, you
know, Baron Steuben requires of all the young officers.”

“Most,” replied Henry. “Not quite through it. I hate this
getting prose by heart. Shakspeare is more to my mind than
Baron Steuben. But I will tell you what I like, sister; I like the
management of the horse. I can passage, and lunge, and change
feet, and throw upon the haunches, with e'er a man in Amherst or
Albemarle either, may be.”

“You told me you had practised firing from your saddle.”

“To be sure I did: and look here,” replied the cadet, taking off
his cap and showing a hole in the cloth. “Do you see that, Mildred?
I flung the cap into the air, and put a ball through it before
it fell—at a gallop.”

“Well done, master; you come on bravely!”

“And another thing I have to tell you, which, perhaps, Mildred,
you will laugh to hear:—I have taken to a rough way of sleeping.
I want to harden myself; so, I fling a blanket on the floor and
stretch out on it—and sleep like—”

“Like what, good brother; you are posed for a comparison.”

“Like the sleeping beauty, sister.”

“Ha! ha! that's a most incongruous and impertinent simile!”

“Well, like a Trojan, or a woodman, or a dragoon, or like Stephen
Foster, and that is as far as sleeping can go. I have a notion
of trying it in the woods one of these nights—if I can get Stephen
to go along.”

“Why not try it alone?”

“Why it's a sort of an awkward thing to be entirely by one's
self in the woods, the livelong night—it is lonesome, you know,
sister; and, to tell the truth, I almost suspect I am a little afraid
of ghosts.”

“Indeed! and you a man! That's a strange fear for a young
Coriolanus. Suppose you should get into the wars, and should
happen to be posted as a sentinel at some remote spot—far from
your comrades; on picket, I think you call it? (Henry nodded)
on a dark night, would you desert your duty for fear of a goblin?”

“I would die first, Mildred. I would stick it out, if I made an
earthquake by trembling in my shoes.”

Mildred laughed.

“And then if a ghost should rise up out of the ground,” she
continued, with a mock solemnity of manner.

“I would whistle some tune,” interrupted Henry. “That's an
excellent way to keep down fear.”

“Shame on you, to talk of fear, brother.”

“Only of ghosts, sister, not of men.”

“You must cure yourself of this childish apprehension, master.”

“And how shall I do so, Mildred? I have heard people say
that the bravest men have been alarmed by spirits.”

“You must accustom yourself to midnight hours and dark places,
all alone. Our poor mother taught you this fear.”

“I should think of her, Mildred, until my heart would burst,
and my cheek grew pale as ashes,” said Henry, with an earnest
and solemn emphasis.

“Her spirit, could it rise, would love you, brother; it would
never seek to do you harm,” replied Mildred thoughtfully.

“Sister,” said Henry, “you came here in sport, but you have
made me very sad.”

Mildred walked off a few paces and remained gazing steadfastly
over the parapet. When she looked back she saw Henry
approaching her.

“You stoop, brother, in your gait,” she said, “that's a slovenly
habit.”

“It comes, sister, of my climbing these mountains so much. We
mountaineers naturally get a stoop on the hill-sides. But if you
think,” continued Henry, reverting to the subject which had just
been broken off, “it would make me bolder to watch of nights, I
should not care to try it.”

“I would have you,” said Mildred, “walk your rounds, like a
patrole, through the woods from twelve until two, every night for
a week.”

“Agreed, sister—rain or shine.”

“And then I shall think you completely cured of this unsoldierlike
infirmity, when you are able to march as far as the church,
and serve one tour of duty in the grave-yard.”

“By myself?” inquired Henry, with concern.

“You wouldn't have me go with you, brother?”

“I should feel very brave if you did, Mildred; for you are as
brave as a general. But if Stephen Foster will keep in the neighborhood—near
enough to hear my `All's well'—I think I could
stand it out.”

“You must go alone,” said Mildred, cheerfully, “before I shall
think you fit to be promoted.”

“If you say I must, sister Mildred, why, then I must: and there's
an end of it. But your discipline is forty times more severe than

the German Baron's at Richmond. Father looks pale this morning,”
continued Henry, as he turned his eyes towards the porch,
where Mr. Lindsay was now seen walking forward and back, with
his arms folded across his breast. “Something perpetually troubles
him, Mildred. I wish that devil, Tyrrel, had been buried before
he ever found his way to the Dove Cote! See he comes this
way.”

Both Mildred and Henry ran to meet Lindsay, and encountered
him before he had advanced a dozen paces over the lawn.

“Such a day, father!” said Mildred, as she affectionately took
his hand. “It is a luxury to breathe this air.”

“God has given us a beautiful heaven, my children, and a rich
and bountiful earth. He has filled them both with blessings. Man
only mars them with his cursed passions,” said Lindsay, with a
sober accent.

“You have heard bad news, father?” said Henry, inquiringly;
“what has happened?”

Mildred grew suddenly pale.

“We shall hear glorious news, boy, before many days,” replied
Lindsay; “as yet, all is uncertain. Henry, away to your sports,
or to your studies. Mildred, I have something for your ear, and
so, my child, walk with me a while.”

Henry took his leave, looking back anxiously at his sister, whose
countenance expressed painful alarm. Mildred accompanied her
father slowly and silently to the small veranda that shaded the
door of the gable next the terrace.