University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.

It was in the state of painful expectation described in the last
chapter, that Mildred now rode out, daily, upon the highways, in
the feeble hope of hearing something of importance from the casual
wayfarers who, in the present excited condition of the country,
were thronging the roads. On the morning to which our narrative
refers, she had charged Henry to procure the attendance of Stephen
Foster, to whom, as it was known that he was about to accompany
his troop towards the scene of hostilities, she was anxious to intrust
a letter for Butler, as well as to communicate to him some
instructions relating to it.

Stephen was, accordingly, now in attendance. A sleek, full-blooded
roan, of an active, deer-like figure, and showing by his
mettlesome antics the high training of a pampered favorite, stood
in the care of the groom at the door; and Mildred, aided by her
brother, sprang into her saddle with the ease and confidence of
one familiarized to the exploit. When mounted, she appeared to
great advantage. She was an expert rider, and managed her horse
with a dexterous grace. The very position of command and authority
which her saddle gave her, seemed to raise her spirits into a
happier elevation.

“Follow me, Mister Stephen,” she said, “I have service for you.
And it will not be out of the fashion of the time that a lady should
be 'squired by an armed soldier. We take the road down the
river. Have a care, brother, how you bound off at the start—the
hill is steep, and a horse's foot is not over sure when pressed too
rapidly on the descent.”

The cavalcade descended the hill, crossed the ford, and then
took a direction down the stream, by the road that led beneath the

Fawn's Tower. Mildred sighed as she gazed around her, and saw
the spot of her last meeting with Butler. The little skiff by which
her lover had glided across the water, now lay upon a dry bed of
rock, in the same position, perhaps, where a month ago he had
left it. The summer drought had reduced the stream, and deprived
the light boat (whose tackle kept it prisoner to the root of the
sycamore) of the element on which it had floated. This spectacle
suggested to Mildred's thoughts a melancholy image. “Even
thus,” she muttered to herself, “have I been left by him. He has
gone to obey the calls of honor and duty, and I, fettered to my
native woods, have seen the stream of happiness roll by, one while
swollen to a torrent, and again dried up by the fervid heat of war,
until, like this sun-withered bark, I have been left upon the shore,
without one drop of that clear current on which alone I hoped to
live. Come hither, Stephen,” she said, as she slackened the rein
of her horse: and the obedient attendant was immediately at her
side.

“You set out southwards, with your comrades of the troop, in a
few days?”

“Orders may come to-morrow,” replied Foster.

“It is no holiday game that you are going to play,” continued
the lady.

“When Congress cut out this here war for us, Miss Mildred,”
answered the hunter, “they didn't count upon settling of it without
making some tall fellows the shorter. And it is my opinion
that it is a p'int of conscience that every man should take his
spell of the work.”

“You go to it with a good heart,” said Mildred. “We women
can only pray for you, lieutenant.”

“I shall pull trigger with a steadier hand, ma'am, when I think
that your father's daughter is praying for me.”

“Stephen,” continued Mildred, “you may chance to see some
one whose duty may lead him further south than, perhaps, you
may be required to travel: I will give you a letter to a friend of
mine, who, I fear, is in distress. If such traveller be trusty and
willing to do me a service, as perhaps he may for your sake,
I must beg you to put the letter in his charge, and tell him to seek
out Major Butler, and contrive to have it delivered to him.”

“If it concerns you, Miss Mildred, I will take upon myself to
hunt Major Butler, or I will make as sure of the letter reaching
him as I may have a chance.”

“Many thanks, Stephen. There is a purse containing some few
pieces of gold for you. Do not spare the use of it to perform my
wish.”

Stephen looked bashfully at the lady as she held the proffered
purse in her hand.

“Take it, Mr. Foster. It is money to be employed in my service,
and it may stand you in good stead when better friends are
absent.”

The hunter uttered an awkward laugh. “If you would allow
me to take the smallest piece of money, it would more than hire a
man express.”

“Take it all, Stephen, it is but a trifle. They call this the sinew
of war,” said Mildred, smiling.

“It's an utter, moral, and resolute impossibility,” answered Foster,
“for me to take all that money. Bless your soul, Miss Mildred,
my pocket arn't used to such company.”

“Pshaw, Steve,” ejaculated Henry, “you are the greenest soldier
in these hills, to be playing boy about this money. Take it, man,
and none of your nonsense; precious little gold you'll see before
you get back!”

“Well, I'll not be ticklish about it,” said Foster. “Empty the
bag, Miss Mildred, into my hand.”

“I mean that you shall have the purse with it,” added
Mildred.

“No, no; that's too valuable a piece of fine silk net-work for
me.”

“There again, Lieutenant Foster,” said Henry; “if you were not
my own superior officer, I would say you were a fool.”

“Give it to me,” replied Stephen, laughing, “I have heard of
cheating money out of a man's pocket, but I never saw it cheated
into it before.”

“You shall have the letter to-morrow, Stephen,” said Mildred,
“and as you value your poor friend, who worked that purse with
her own hands, do not fail to make an effort to learn something of

Major Butler, and to have my letter delivered to him. He was
made a prisoner somewhere on his way to Georgia, and I have
heard escaped; but, perhaps, that's not true. You may find some
one who can tell you more about him. Inquire of all you meet:
and, Stephen, in my name, beg your comrades to aid you. Remember,”
added Mildred, with a smile, “this is a lady's secret. I am
sure you will keep it.”

“Most sacrilegiously and with all possible punctuation!” replied
the woodsman. “And you shall hear of the Major, Miss Mildred,
dead or alive.”

“Oh heaven!” exclaimed Mildred aloud; and then recollecting
herself, she breathed in a whisper, “that word vibrated a note of
fear. Your zeal shall have my warmest gratitude, Stephen.”

By this time the party had reached the second ford, where the
road recrossed the river, in the neighborhood of Mrs. Dimock's,
and in a few moments they were at the door of the little inn.

A brief halt, and a few words with the good hostess, furnished
Mildred neither with a letter nor with any information of moment
from the quarter, where at this time the thoughts of nearly the
whole of the American people were turned.

“Woful days, Miss Mildred,” said the landlady, shaking her
head, and wearing a face of lugubrious length, “woful indeed!
nothing but hurry-skurry, and bragging and swearing. What with
Gates's runaways, that—shame upon them!—come whipping post
haste along the road; and messengers, dragoons, and drill sergeants,
all out of breath, out of money, and out of everything but
appetites; which, mercy on me! never fail in the worst of times:
and what with musterings of volunteers, and drumming and fifing
of it, up hill and down dale, it is as much as one can do to keer
one's wits. Heaven help us, my dear! I don't know what we shall
come to. But poor Arthur,” she continued, in a mournful and lower
key, “not a word from him. It looks awfully: I could almost sit
down and weep. Nevertheless, Miss Mildred, my child, be of good
cheer, God will keep his foot from the path that leads to the snares;
we must all trust in His goodness.”

“Alas, alas!” breathed Mildred, in an accent of sorrow. “Brother,
ride forward. If a good word reaches you, Mistress Dimock, send
it to me, even if it be at midnight.”

Mildred pursued her ride, and Henry, seeing how much she was
dejected, applied himself, with the kindest assiduity, to bring back
comfort and cheerfulness to her mind. He sought to amuse her
with such fragments of the gossip of the country-side as were
likely to interest her patriotism; and he contrived to recal to her
recollection passages in the life of Butler, which related to the
perils he had heretofore encountered, and from which he had extricated
himself by his address and soldiership; and Henry told these
in such a way as to infer from them arguments of comfort that
suited the present state of his sister's feelings. As was usual in
most of the young cadet's discourses, he glided into that half-boastful
and half-waggish vein in which he delighted to refer to
his own pursuits and aspirations after military glory.

“A man naturally, sister,” he said, erecting himself in his stirrups,
and assuming the stiff carriage of a conceited young adjutant
on parade, “a man naturally feels proud on horseback. It is
what I call glorification, to have a noble beast under you, that you
can turn and wind and check and set forward as you please, as if
his limbs were your own. You feel stronger; and, in this world,
I do believe a strong man is always proud. Now, I should think
that a woman would feel even more so than a man; because,
being weak by nature, she must grow happier to think how much
muscle she can put in motion by only pulling a rein.”

“There is some philosophy in that, Henry,” replied Mildred.

“So there is, sister; and I tell you more, that when a person
has this sort of glorification, as they call it, they always get more
contented with themselves. And that's the reason, as far as I am
a judge, that you always feel in better spirits when you are on
horseback; and, especially, if it should be in front of a troop.
Hallo, Stephen!” ejaculated Henry, taken by surprise, in the midst
of his discourse, by the sight of a flock of wild turkeys that ran
across the road, some hundred paces a-head. “Did you see that?
Halt, man—here's game for us.” And, in an instant, he sprang
from his horse, which he fastened to one of the neighboring trees,
and ran off with his rifle in his hand, in pursuit of the flock.

Stephen, whose instincts were those of a keen sportsman, when
game was before him, did the same thing; and in a few moments
Mildred found herself left entirely alone in the road, half disposed

to chide and half to smile at the eager and ungallant desertion of
her attendants, who were now in quick but cautious pursuit of the
brood of turkeys. The speed with which these birds are accustomed
to run through the woods, allured their pursuers to some
distance into the depths of the forest; and Mildred patiently
awaited the return of her companions on the ground where they
had left her.

After five or ten minutes had elapsed, it was with a sensation of
some little concern that she descried, upon the road, a stranger
mounted on horseback, and coming at a brisk trot to the spot
where she had halted. The appearance of the individual was that
of one of the irregular soldiers who had accompanied Gates's
army; his dress was rustic, and his weapon, according to the
almost universal fashion of the country troops, the long rifle. The
condition of his sturdy steed showed long and fatiguing service;
whilst the bold and manly person of the rider left little room to
suppose that he was to be classed amongst the many who had fled
in panic from the field of action. As soon as the stranger became
aware of the presence of the lady, he slackened his speed and
approached with a respectful salutation.

“If I mought be so bold, ma'am, how far mought it be to a river
they call the Rockfish?”

“It is scarce two miles away, sir,” replied Mildred.

“And there, if I don't disremember,” said the traveller, “is a
house kept by the widow Dimock; the Blue Ball, I think?”

“There is, sir.”

“And no forks in the road betwixt this and the widow's?”

“It is a plain road,” replied Mildred.

“And about two miles beyont—is squire Lindsay's, at a place
they call the Dove Cote?”

“Does your business take you there?” asked Mildred, with interest;
“are you from the army?—whence come you?”

“Beg pardon, ma'am,” replied the stranger, smiling, “but I
am an old sodger, and rather warry about answering questions that
consarn myself. I suppose it is likely I mought see Mr. Lindsay?”

“Pray, sir, tell me what brings you here, and who you are? I
have special reasons for presuming so far upon your kindness. I
myself live at the Dove Cote, and”—

“Then, mayhap, you mought have hearn of one Major Arthur
Butler?”

“Oh yes, sir,—if you have any news of him, speak it to me
quickly,” exclaimed Mildred, with much agitation.

“By that sparkling of your eye, ma'am, it is no fool's guess that
you are the identical particular lady that I have rode nigh on to five
hundred miles to see. You have hearn the Major tell of Horse
Shoe Robinson?”

“And Arthur Butler.”

“He is well, madam, and in good heart, excepting some trifling
drawbacks that don't come to much account.”

“Thank God, thank God, for this news!”

“I have brought two letters, Miss Lindsay, from the Major, for
you; they will tell you, I believe, mainly, that the Major is in the
hands of the Philistians,” said Horse Shoe, rummaging through the
plaits of his dress, and getting loose the belt and leathern pouch from
which, by the help of his jack-knife, he extricated the missives; “but
they leave the story to be told pretty much by me. The long and
the short of it is, that the Major is a prisoner, and wants some assistance
from you: but there is no danger of any harm being done
him.”

Mildred eagerly tore open the letters and read them; then heaving
a sigh, she said, “He is closely watched, and galled with misfortune.
He refers to you, Mr. Robinson, and I must beg you to
tell me all.”

Horse Shoe, with a cheerful and occasionally even with a laughing
manner, adopted to reassure the lady and quell her fears,
recounted all such particulars of Butler's adventures as were necessary
to enable her to comprehend the nature of his present mission
to the Dove Cote.

Before this narrative was brought to a close, Henry and Foster
had returned, bringing with them a large turkey which Henry had
shot, and which the young sportsman was exhibiting with ostentatious
triumph.

“Huzza, here's a new turn of good luck! Horse Shoe Robinson,
the brave sergeant,” shouted Henry, as soon as he observed
the stout figure of our old friend. “Is Major Butler here too?”

he demanded, as he shook the sergeant's hand, “or have you come
alone? Now, sister, you ought to be a happy woman. You bring
us good news, Mr. Horse Shoe, I know you do.”

“The news is better than it mought have been if the Tories had
had their way,” replied Horse Shoe. “But a sodger's life has both
shade and sunshine in it; and the Major is now a little in the
shade.”

“Brother, mount quickly,” said Mildred, “we have business
before us. Mr. Robinson, ride beside me; I have much to say to
you.”

Stephen Foster, after saluting the sergeant, and reminding Mildred
of his engagement to meet his troop, took his leave of the
party.

The rest repaired, with as much expedition as they were able to
employ, to the Dove Cote, Horse Shoe detailing to the brother and
sister, as they went along, a great many particulars of the late history
of Butler.

When they reached the house, orders were given for the accommodation
of the sergeant; and the most sedulous attention was
shown to everything that regarded his comfort. Frequent conferences
were held between Mildred and Henry, and the trusty
emissary. The letters were reperused, and all the circumstances
that belonged to Butler's means of liberation were anxiously
discussed.

“How unlucky is it,” said Mildred, “that my father should be
absent at such a moment as this! Arthur's appeal to him would
convince him how wicked was Tyrrel's charge against his honor.
And yet, in my father's late mood, the appeal might have been ineffectual:
he might have refused. Sergeant, we are in great
difficulties, and I know not what to do. A letter, you say, has been
written to Lord Cornwallis?”

“Yes, ma'am, and by a man who sharpened his pen with his
sword.”

“You heard nothing of the answer of his Lordship?”

“There was not time to hear.”

“Cornwallis will be prejudiced by those around him, and he will
refuse,” said Mildred, with an air of deep solicitude.

“Not if he be the man I take him to be, young lady,” replied

Horse Shoe. “The world says he is above doing a cowardly thing;
and it isn't natural for one brave man to wish harm against another,
except in open war.”

“Did you hear of one Tyrrel, in the British camp? But how
could you?—that was an assumed name.”

“You mean the gentleman who was here when the major stopped
at Mrs. Dimock's?” said Robinson: “that was the name the landlady
spoke about—if I remember myself. I did not hear of him,
ma'am, in my travels; but his servant, James Curry, I met oftener,
I undertake to say, than the fellow wished. He was consarned in
ambushing Major Butler and me at Grindall's Ford. It was our
opinion he was hired.”

“There,” exclaimed Mildred, “that confirms what I guessed of
Tyrrel's villany. I will go to Cornwallis myself: I will expose the
whole matter to his lordship. Henry, my dear brother, it is a rash
venture, but I will essay it. You must accompany and protect me.”

“That's a sudden thought, sister, and you may count on my
hearty good will to help it along. It is a brave thought of yours,
besides,” said Henry, pondering over it—“and everybody will
praise you for it.”

Robinson listened to this resolve with an incredulous ear.

“You wouldn't venture, young madam, to trust yourself amongst
such rough and unchristian people, as you would have to go
among before you could see Cornwallis? in danger of being taken
up by outposts and pickets, or arrested by patroles, or dragged
about by dragoons and fellows that have more savagery in them
than wolves. Oh no, ma'am, you don't know what you would
have to put up with; that's onpossible. Mr. Henry, here, and me
can take a letter.”

“I may not trust to letters, I must go myself. You will protect
me, Mr. Robinson? my brother and I will form some good excuse
that shall take us through safely.”

“Sartainly, ma'am, I will stand by you through all chances, if
you go,” replied the sergeant. “But there's not many women, with
their eyes open, would set out on such a march.”

“It will be easily achieved,” said Mildred: “it is an honest and
virtuous cause that takes me away, and I will attempt it with a
valiant spirit. It cannot but come to good. My father's name will

give me free passage through the enemy's lines. And you shall
pass as my attendant.”

“If you have a heart stout enough, ma'am, for such hard fare, I
believe I mought undertake for your safe passage,” answered
Horse Shoe, “and it sartainly would do the major great good to
hear that you was stirring in this matter.”

“Sergeant, recruit yourself as long as you think necessary,” said
Mildred; “but if you can be ready to set out to-morrow, I should
like to go then, and at an early hour.”

“Don't stand upon my fatigue, young lady: I never saw the
time when I wan't ready to march at the shortest warning. With
your leave, I will go look after my horse, Captain Peter, I call him,
ma'am. A little chance of a roll, and the privilege of a good
green pasture, soon puts him in marching trim.”

The sergeant now left the room.

“Sister,” said Henry, “you never thought a better thought, and
you never contrived a better act, than just taking this matter in
hand yourself, under mine and Horse Shoe's protection. Because
Horse Shoe is as brave a man as you ever fell in with, and as for
me, I'll back the sergeant. We can finish the thing in two or
three weeks, and then, when I see you safe home, I'll go and join
the Rangers.”

“It is a perilous and uncertain journey, brother, but it is my
duty. I would rather fall beneath the calamities of war than
longer endure my present feelings. Provide yourself, brother, with
all things requisite for our journey, and give old Isaac, the gardener,
notice that he must go with us. We shall set out to-morrow.
I will write a letter to my father to-night explaining my purpose.
And one thing, Henry; you will be careful to say nothing to any
one of the route we shall travel.”

“I'll take my carbine, sister,” said Henry, “I can sling it
with a strap. And I was thinking I had better have a broadsword.”

“Leave that behind,” replied Mildred, as a smile rose on her
features.

“The bugle I will certainly take,” added Henry; “because it
might be useful in case we got separated; and I will teach you to
understand my signals. Isaac shall carry horse-pistols on his

saddle, and the sergeant shall have a great wallet of provisions.
You see I understand campaigning, Mildred. And now,” added
the eager young soldier, as he left the apartment, “hurra for
the volunteers of the Dove Cote!”