University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.

By eleven o'clock at night, Butler and the party from Ramsay's
arrived at the woodman's cabin. Winter and his comrades had
been busy in making preparations for the funeral. The body had
been laid out upon a table, a sheet thrown over it, and a pine torch
blazed from the chimney wall close by, and flung its broad, red
glare over the apartment. An elderly female, the wife of the woodman,
and two or three children, sat quietly in the room. The
small detachment of troopers loitered around the corpse, walking
with stealthy pace across the floor, and now and then adjusting
such matters of detail in the arrangements for the interment as
required their attention. A rude coffin, hastily constructed of such
materials as were at hand, was deposited near the table. A solemn
silence prevailed, which no less consisted with the gloom of the
occasion than with the late hour of the night.

When the newly arrived party had dismounted and entered the
apartment, a short salutation, in suppressed tones, was exchanged,
and without further delay, the whole company set themselves to
the melancholy duty that was before them. David Ramsay approached
the body, and, turning the sheet down from the face,
stood gazing on the features of his son. There was a settled
frown upon his brow that contrasted signally with the composed
and tranquil lineaments of the deceased. The father and son presented
a strange and remarkable type of life and death—the countenance
of the mourner stamped by the agitation of keen, living emotion,
and the object mourned bearing the impress of a serene, placid,
and passionless repose:—the one a vivid picture of misery, the other
a quiet image of happy sleep. David Ramsay bent his looks upon

the body for some minutes, without an endeavor to speak, and at
last retreated towards the door, striking his hand upon his forehead
as he breathed out the ejaculation, “My son, my son, how willingly
would I change places with you this night!”

Allen Musgrove was less agitated by the spectacle, and whilst he
surveyed the features of the deceased, his lips were moved with the
utterance of a short and almost inaudible prayer. Then turning to
Drummond, he inquired: “Has the grave been thought of? Who
has attended to the preparations?”

“It has been thought of,” replied the woodman; “I sent two
of my people off to dig it before I went with Major Butler to see
David. We have a grave-yard across in the woods, nigh a mile
from this, and I thought it best that John Ramsay should be buried
there.”

“It was kindly thought on by you, Gabriel,” replied Musgrove.
“You have your father and others of your family in that spot.
David Ramsay will thank you for it.”

“I do, heartily,” said Ramsay, “and will remember it, Gabriel,
at another time.”

“Let the body be lifted into the coffin,” said Musgrove.

The order was promptly executed by Harry Winter and the
other troopers. In a few minutes afterwards, the rough boards
which had been provided to close up the box or coffin, were laid in
their appropriate places, and Winter had just begun to hammer
the nails into them, when from the outside of the cabin was heard
a wild and piercing scream, that fell so suddenly upon the ears
of those within as to cause the trooper to drop the hammer from
his hand. In one moment more, Mary Musgrove rushed into the
room and fell prostrate upon the floor. She was instantly followed
by Andrew.

“God of heaven!” exclaimed Butler, “here is misery upon
misery. This poor girl's brain is crazed by her misfortune. This
is worst of all!”

“Mary, Mary, my child!” ejaculated Musgrove, as he raised his
daughter into his arms. “What madness has come upon you,
that you should have wandered here to-night!”

“How has this happened, Andrew?” said David Ramsay, all
speaking in the same breath.

“When Mary heard,” replied Andrew, in answer to his father's
question, “that you had all come to Gabriel Drummond's to bury
my brother, she couldn't rest content; and she prayed so pitifully
to come after you, and see him before they put him in the ground,
that I thought it right to tell her that I would come with her.
And if I hadn't, she would have come by herself; for she had got
upon her horse before any of us were aware.”

“I couldn't stay at home, father,” said Mary, reviving and
speaking in a firm voice. “I should have died with a broken
heart. I couldn't let you come to put him in the earth without
following after you. Where is he? I heard them nailing the
coffin; it must be broken open for me to see him!”

These words, uttered with a bitter vehemence, were followed by
a quick movement towards the coffin, which was yet unclosed;
and the maiden, with more composure than her previous gestures
seemed to render it possible for her to acquire, paused before the
body with a look of intense sorrow, as the tears fell fast from her
eyes.

“It is true—it is too true—he is dead! Oh, John, John!” she
exclaimed, as she stooped down and kissed the cold lips, “I did
not dream of this when we parted last night near the willows.
You did not look as you do now, when I found you asleep under
the rock, and when you promised me, John, that you would be
careful and keep yourself from danger, if it was only to please me.
We were doing our best for you then, Major Butler—and here is
what it has come to. No longer than last night he made me
the promise. Oh me, oh me! how wretched—how miserable I
am!”

“Daughter, dear,” said Allen Musgrove, “rise up and behave
like a brave girl as, you know, I have often told you you were,
We are born to afflictions, and young as you are, you cannot hope
to be free from the common lot. You do yourself harm by this
ungoverned grief. There's a good and a kind girl—sit yourself
down and calm your feelings.”

Musgrove took his daughter by the hand, and gently conducted
her to a seat, where he continued to address her in soothing language,
secretly afraid that the agony of her feelings might work
some serious misfortune upon her senses.

“You are not angry with me, father, for following you to-night?”
said Mary, for a moment moderating the wildness of her
sorrow.

“No, child, no. I cannot be angry with you; but I fear this
long night-ride may do you harm.”

“I can but die, father; and I would not step aside from that.”

“Recollect yourself, Mary; your Bible does not teach you to
wish for death. It is sinful to rebel under the chastisements of
God. Daughter, I have taught you in your day of prosperity, the
lessons that were to be practised in your time of suffering and trial.
Do not now turn me and my precepts to shame.”

“Oh, father, forgive me. It is so hard to lose the best, the dearest!”
Here Mary again gave way to emotions which could only
relieve themselves in profuse tears.

In the meantime the body was removed to the outside of the
cabin, and the coffin was speedily shut up and deposited upon a light
wagon-frame, to which two lean horses were already harnessed, and
which waited to convey its burden to the grave-yard.

“All is ready,” said Winter, stepping quietly into the house,
and speaking in a low tone to Musgrove. “We are waiting only
for you.”

“Father,” said Mary, who, on hearing this communication, had
sprung to her feet, “I must go with you.”

“My child!”

“I came all this way through the dark woods on purpose,
father—and it is my right to go with him to his grave. Pray,
dear father, do not forbid me. We belonged to each other, and
he would be glad to think I was the last that left him—the very
last.”

“The poor child takes on so,” said the wife of Drummond, now
for the first time interposing in the scene; “and it seems natural,
Mr. Musgrove, that you shouldn't hinder her. I will go along, and
maybe it will be a comfort to her, to have some woman-kind beside
her. I will take her hand.”

“You shall go, Mary,” said her father; “but on the condition
that you govern your feelings, and behave with the moderation of
a Christian woman. Take courage, my child, and show your
nurture.”

“I will, father—I will; the worst is past, and I can walk quietly
to John's grave,” replied Mary, as the tears again flowed fast, and
her voice was stifled with her sobs.

“It is a heavy trouble for such a young creature to bear,” said
Mistress Drummond, as she stood beside the maiden, waiting for
this burst of grief to subside; “but this world is full of such
sorrows.”

Musgrove now quitted the apartment. He was followed by his
daughter and the rest of the inmates, all of whom repaired to the
front of the cabin, where they awaited the removal of the body.

A bundle of pine faggots had been provided, and each one of
the party was supplied from them with a lighted torch. Some
little delay occurred whilst Harry Winter was concluding his
arrangements for the funeral.

“Take your weapons along, boys,” said the trooper to his comrades,
in a whisper. “John Ramsay shall have the honors of war
—and mark, you are to bring up the rear—let the women walk
next the wagon. Gabriel Drummond, bring your rifle along—we
shall give a volley over the grave.”

The woodman stepped into the cabin and returned with his fire-lock.
All things being ready, the wagon, under the guidance of a
negro who walked at the horses' heads, now moved forward. The
whole party formed a procession in couples—the woodman's wife
and Mary being first in the train, the children succeeding them, and
the rest following in regular order.

It was an hour after midnight. The road, scarcely discernible,
wound through a thick forest, and the procession moved with a
slow and heavy step towards its destination. The torches lit up
the darkness of the wood with a strong flame, that penetrated the
mass of sombre foliage to the extent of some fifty paces around,
and glared with a wild and romantic effect upon the rude coffin,
the homely vehicle on which it was borne, and upon the sorrowing
faces of the train that followed it. The seclusion of the region,
the unwonted hour, and the strange mixture of domestic and military
mourning, half rustic and half warlike, that entered into the
composition of the group; and, above all, the manifestations of
sincere and intense grief that were seen in every member of the
train, communicated to the incident a singularly imaginative and

unusual character. No words were spoken, except the few orders
of the march announced by Harry Winter in a whisper; and the ear
recognised, with a painful precision, the unceasing sobs of Mary
Musgrove, and the deep groan that seemed, unawares, to escape
now and then from some of the males of the party. The dull
tramp of feet, and the rusty creak of the wagon-wheels, or the
crackling of brushwood beneath them, and the monotonous clank
of the chains employed in the gearing of the horses, all broke upon
the stillness of the night with a more abrupt and observed distinctness,
from the peculiar tone of feeling which pervaded those who
were engaged in the sad offices of the scene.

In the space of half an hour, the train had emerged from the
wood upon a small tract of open ground, that seemed to have been
formerly cleared from the forest for the purpose of cultivation.
Whatever tillage might have once existed there was now abandoned,
and the space was overgrown with brambles, through which
the blind road still struggled by a track that even in daylight it
would have been difficult to pursue. Towards the centre of this
opening grew a cluster of low cherry and peach trees, around
whose roots a plentiful stock of wild scions had shot up in the
absence of culture. Close in the shade of this cluster, a ragged
and half-decayed paling formed a square inclosure of some ten or
twelve paces broad, and a few rude posts set up within, indicated
the spot to be the rustic grave-yard. Here two negroes were seen
resting over a newly-dug grave.

The wagon halted within some short distance of the paling, and
the coffin was now committed to the shoulders of the troopers.
Following these, the whole train of mourners entered the burial-place.

My reader will readily imagine with what fresh fervor the grief
of poor Mary broke forth, whilst standing on the verge of the pit
in which were to be entombed the remains of one so dear to her.
The solemn interval or pause which intervened between the arrival
of the corpse at this spot, and its being lowered into the ground,
was one that was not signalized only by the loud sorrow of her
who here bore the part of chief mourner; but all, even to the
negroes who stood musing over their spades, gave vent to feelings

which, at such a moment, it neither belongs to humanity, nor becomes
it, to resist.

The funeral service was performed by Allen Musgrove. The
character of the miller, both physical and moral, impressed his
present employment with singular efficacy. Though his frame
bore the traces of age, it was still robust and muscular; and his
bearing, erect and steadfast, denoted firmness of mind. His head,
partially bald, was now uncovered; and his loose, whitened locks
played in the breeze. The torches were raised above the group;
and as they flared in the wind and flung their heavy volumes of
smoke into the air, they threw also a blaze of light upon the
venerable figure of the miller, as he poured forth an impassioned
supplication to the Deity; which, according to the habit of thinking
of that period, and conformably also to the tenets of the
religious sect to which the speaker belonged, might be said to have
expressed, in an equal degree, resignation to the will of Heaven
and defiance of the power of man. Though the office at the grave
was thus prolonged, it did not seem to be unexpected or wearisome
to the auditory, who remained with unabated interest until they
had chanted a hymn, which was given out by the miller, and sung
in successive couplets. The religious observances of the place
seemed to have taken a profitable hold upon the hearts of the
mourners; and before the hymn was concluded, even the voice of
Mary Musgrove rose with a clear cadence upon the air, and showed
that the inspirations of piety had already supplanted some of the
more violent paroxysms of grief.

This exercise of devotion being finished, the greater part of the
company began their retreat to the woodman's cabin. Winter
and his comrades remained to perform the useless and idle
ceremony of discharging their pistols over the grave, and when
this was accomplished they hurried forward to overtake the party
in advance.

They had scarcely rejoined their companions, before the horses
of the wagon were seized by an unknown hand; and the glare of
the torches presented to the view of the company some fifteen or
twenty files of British troopers.

“Stand, I charge you all, in the name of the king!” called out
an authoritative voice from the contiguous thicket; and before

another word could be uttered, the funeral train found themselves
surrounded by enemies.

“Hands off!” exclaimed Butler, as a soldier had seized him by
the coat. A pistol shot was heard, and Butler was seen plunging
into the wood, followed by Winter and one or two others.

The fugitives were pursued by numbers of the hostile party, and
in a few moments were dragged back to the lights.

“Who are you, sir?” demanded an officer, who now rode up to Butler,
“that you dare to disobey a command in the name of the king?
Friend or foe, you must submit to be questioned.”

“We have been engaged,” said Allen Musgrove, “in the peaceful
and Christian duty of burying the dead. What right have you
to interrupt us?”

“You take a strange hour for such a work,” replied the officer,
“and, by the volley fired over the grave, I doubt whether your service
be so peaceful as you pretend, old man. What is he that you
have laid beneath the turf to-night?”

“A soldier,” replied Butler, “worthy of all the rites that belong
to the sepulture of a brave man.”

“And you are a comrade, I suppose?”

“I do not deny it.”

“What colors do you serve?”

“Who is he that asks?”

“Captain M`Alpine of the new levies,” replied the officer. “Now,
sir, your name and character? you must be convinced of my right
to know it.”

“I have no motive for concealment,” said Butler, “since I am
already in your power. Myself and four comrades are strictly your
prisoners; the rest of this party are inhabitants of the neighboring
country, having no connexion with the war, but led hither by
a simple wish to perform an office of humanity to a deceased
friend. In surrendering myself and those under my command, I
bespeak for the others an immunity from all vexatious detention.
I am an officer of the Continental service: Butler is my name, my
rank, a major of infantry.”

After a few words more of explanation, the party were directed
by the British officer to continue their march to Drummond's

cabin, whither, in a brief space, they arrived under the escort of
their captors.

A wakeful night was passed under the woodman's roof; and
when morning came the circumstances of the recapture of Butler
were more fully disclosed. The detachment under Captain M`Alpine
were on their way to join Ferguson, who was now posted in the
upper district; and being attracted by the sound of voices engaged
in chanting the psalm at the funeral of John Ramsay, and still more
by the discharge of the volley over the grave, they had directed
their march to the spot, which they had no difficulty in reaching by
the help of the torches borne by the mourners.

The detachment consisted of a company of horse numbering
some fifty men, who had no scruple in seizing upon Butler and his
companions as prisoners of war. It was some relief to Butler
when he ascertained that his present captors were ignorant of his
previous history, and were unconnected with those who had formerly
held him in custody. He was also gratified with the assurance
that no design was entertained to molest any others of the party,
except those whom Butler himself indicated as belligerents.

Captain M`Alpine halted with his men at the woodman's cabin,
until after sunrise. During this interval, Butler was enabled to
prepare himself for the journey he was about to commence, and to
take an affectionate leave of Musgrove and his daughter, David
Ramsay, and the woodman's family.

Allen Musgrove and Mary, and their friend Ramsay, deemed it
prudent to retreat with the first permission given them by the
British officer; and, not long afterwards, Butler and his comrades
found themselves in the escort of the Tory cavalry, bound for Ferguson's
camp.

Thus, once more, was Butler doomed to feel the vexations of
captivity.