University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE RETURN OF THE “BLACK RIDERS.”

The reader is already familiar with the business of the
surgeon, and has probably conjectured the sort of answer
which he received from the heiress of Middleton Barony.
His dove-coloured garments, and rose-colour address,
availed him little; though, it may be added, such was the
fortunate self-complaisance of the suitor, that, when he
retired from the field, he was still in considerable doubt
of the nature of the answer which he had received. It
was still a question in his mind whether he had been
refused or not. According to his usual modes of thinking,
his doubts were reasonable enough. He had taken
more than ordinary pains to perfect himself in the form
of application which he intended to use. His fine sayings
had been conned with great circumspection, and got
by rote with the persevering perfectness of a schoolboy
or a parrot. He had prepared himself to say a hundred
handsome phrases. The colours of the rainbow and the
various odours of the flowers, had been made to mingle

in a delicate adaptation to his particular parts of speech,
in all the best graces of that Euphuism of which, among
his own clique, he had been usually recognised as the
perfect master. He knew that Lady Belle would have
turned up her eyes to heaven, in new-born ecstasies, had
he but spoken his pretty speeches to her; and those of
Lady Grace would have been filled with tears of a similar
delight. How could he bring himself to believe that they
had been thrown away on the unpractised auditories of
the maid of Congaree? The more he asked himself this
question, the more difficult became his belief, and by the
time that he reached his chamber, he was convinced that,
at the most, he had only suffered an evasion,—such an
evasion as dandies are apt to practise upon their tailors,
when they avoid, without refusing, payment;—such an
evasion as a cunning damsel might practise upon her
lover, lest a too sudden concession might cheapen the
value of her charms. So consoling was this new conviction,
that he determined, in discarding his dove-coloured
small-clothes, not to put on his “Night-shade,”—so
he called his “Despondency” or “Night-dress;” but to
select a dark orange-tinted garment—his “Pleasant-sadness”—as
more certainly expressive of mingled hope
and doubt, than any other colour. The serious examination
which took place in his mind, and of his wardrobe,
before his choice was determined, served, beneficially, to
sustain his sensibilities under the shock which they had
necessarily suffered. That evening he was pleasingly
pensive, and his eloquence was agreeably enlivened by
an occasional and long-drawn sigh.

Flora Middleton did not suffer this “Mosca” to afflict
her thoughts. Naturally of a serious and earnest character,
she had other sources of disquietude which effectually
banished so light an object from her contemplation;
and nothing could so completely have mystified the surgeon,
as the calm, unmoved, and utterly unaffected
manner with which she made the usual inquiries at the
evening table.

“Does your coffee suit you, Mr. Hillhouse. Is it
sweet enough?”

“Would all things were equally so, Miss Middleton.

We might dispense with the sweet in the coffee, could
we escape from the bitter of life.”

“I should think, Sir, that you had not been compelled
to drink much of it; or you have swallowed the draught
with wonderful resignation.”

“Alas!—have I not!” and he shook his smooth, sleek
locks mournfully, from side to side, as if nobody had
ever known such a long continued case of heartache as
his own. But Flora did not laugh. She was in no
mood for it; and though the frequent niaiseries of the
surgeon might have provoked her unbounded merriment
at another time, her heart was too full of her own doubts
and difficulties not to deprive her, most effectually, of
any such disposition now. The next day she was somewhat
startled at the sudden arrival of a man at the barony,
whom she instantly recognised as the person meant by
John Bannister when he spoke to her the day before.
His frame was like that of Bannister, and he was deficient
in one of his arms. She fancied, too, that he
watched her with a good deal of interest, as he passed
her on the staircase, making his way to the apartment of
the invalid, and his attendant, Gray. It was evident that
Bannister had some intimate knowledge of what was
going on among her inmates, and this was another reason
why her own anxieties should increase, as she remembered
the warnings to watchfulness which the worthy
scout had given her. She was well disposed to confide
in him. Strange to say, though she knew him chiefly
as the friend of Clarence Conway, and had every present
reason to believe in the faithlessness and unworthiness of
the latter, her confidence in, and esteem for, John Bannister,
remained entirely unimpaired. The wonder was
that Conway should have so entirely secured the affections
of such a creature. This wonder struck Flora
Middleton, but she had heard of such instances, and it
does not seem unnatural that there should be still some
one, or more, who, in the general belief in our unworthiness,
should still doubt and linger on, and love to the
very last. We are all unwilling to be disappointed in
our friends, not because they are so, but because it is
our judgment which has made them so. Bewildered,

and with a heavy heart, that seemed ominous of approaching
evil, Flora retired to her chamber with an
aching head, while our old acquaintance, Isaac Muggs,
the landlord, was kept in busy consultation with the
outlaw and his confidant. We pass over all such portions
of the conference as do not promise to assist us in our
narrative; and the reader may fancy for himself the long
ejaculations which the landlord made at finding his old
associate and captain reduced to his present condition;—
ejaculations which were increased in length and lugubriousness
in due proportion with the treachery which Muggs
meditated, and of which he had already been guilty.

“Enough, enough of your sorrow, good Isaac,” said
the outlaw, with some impatience: “these will do for
a time when we have more leisure, and as little need of
them. Give me good news in as few words as possible.
Your good wishes I can readily understand without your
speaking them.”

Muggs professed his readiness to answer—and Watson
Gray conducted the inquiry; Morton, assisting only at
moments, when moved by a particular anxiety upon
some particular point.

“Did you meet Brydone before you separated from
Rawdon's army?”

“Yes: he joined us at Ninety-Six.”

“He told you the plan.”

“Yes.”

“You are willing? You've got the boats?”

“I can get them.”

“When—in what time?”

“Well, in four days, I reckon, if need be.”

“Are you sure?”

“I reckon, I may say so. I'm pretty sarten.”

Here Morton turned upon the couch, and half raised
himself from it.

“Look you, Muggs, you speak with only half a heart.
You seem scared at something. What's the matter with
you, man, are you not willing.”

“Yes, cap'in, I'm willing. I'll do all that you ax
me.”

“That is, you'll get the boats in readiness, here, at

the landing, within four days; but, are you willing to
fly yourself. You are not fool enough to fancy that the
rebels will let you remain here when the army's gone, to
enjoy what you've despoiled them of.”

“No great deal, cap'in, I reckon.”

“Ay, but there is, Muggs! You cannot deceive me,
though you may the rest. I know your gains, and a
word of mine would send them flying much more rapidly
than they were even brought together. Do not provoke
me, man, to speak that word.”

“Well, cap'in, I don't want to provoke you. Don't I
tell you that I'll do all you wish.”

“Ay, but you seem d—d lukewarm about it, Muggs;
and you have not said whether you are willing to join
our fortunes or not. Now, you join us, heart and soul,
body and substance, one and all, or we cut loose from
you at once. You are in our power, Muggs, and we
can destroy you at a moment's warning. But it's neither
our policy nor wish to do so. You can help us materially,
and we are willing to help you in return. Bounty
lands await you in the West Indies. You will live with
old friends and neighbours, and with your guineas—”

“Mighty few of them, I reckon, cap'in,” said Muggs.

“Few or many, you can only save them by flight.
Are you ready? Beware how you answer! Beware!
You must go with us entirely, or not at all.”

An acute observer might have seen, while the outlaw
was speaking, an expression of resistance in the face of
the landlord, which did not argue the utmost deference
for the speaker, and seemed to threaten an outbreak of
defiance. But if Muggs felt any such mood, he adopted
the wiser policy of suppressing it for the present.

“'Swounds, cap'in,” he exclaimed, with more earnestness
than he had before shown in the interview—“You
talk as if you was dub'ous of me,—as if I worn't your
best friend from the beginning. I'm willing to go with
you, I'm sure, wherever you think it safest; but you're
mistaken if you think I've got so much to lose, and so
much to carry away. Mighty little it would be, if the
rebels did find every guinea and shilling in my keeping.”

“Pshaw, Muggs, you cannot blind me with that nonsense.

Be your guineas few or many, it is enough that
you know where to carry them, and how to keep them
in safety. And now, what of Rawdon? Where did you
leave him?”

“At Ninety-Six.”

“He had beaten Greene?”

“Run him only.”

“Well: what next. Does Rawdon leave a garrison
at Ninety-Six?”

“I reckon not. There was some talk that he means
to sarve it as he sarved Camden. Burn the town, and
tear up the stockade.”

“As I thought.”

“Was the troop still with him?”

“No: they were gone after Conway, somewhere above
upon the Eunoree.”

“May they find him, and batter out each other's brains
at the meeting;” was the pious and fraternal wish of the
outlaw. “And now, Muggs,” he continued, “the
sooner you take your departure the better. Get your
boats ready, yourself, and guineas, and be at the landing
here, at midnight, four days hence.”

“So soon!” said Gray. “Do you think, captain, you'll
be able by that time?”

“Ay! able for any thing. I must be able. This
flight of Rawdon will deprive me of my ability to stay.”

“But he has not fled yet?”

“No: but he will fly and must. He is preparing for
it now, and I have for some time past been aware of the
approaching necessity. He must not descend the country
before I do, that is certain; and if I can descend the
Santee in boats, I can endure a wagon the rest of the
way, to the head of Cooper river. The rest is easy.
The important object is to secure faithful boatmen, and
with you, Muggs, and a few others, upon whom I can
rely, I have no doubts, and no apprehensions.”

The landlord was dismissed upon his secret mission.
Watson Gray conducted him to the banks of the river,
where lay the identical boat in which our friend John
Bannister had approached the shore in seeking the interview
with Flora Middleton. It was huddled up in

the green sedges and bushes at the edge of the river
swamp, and thus concealed from the eyes of the passing
spectator. Before parting, Gray gave his final instructions
to the landlord, in which he contemplated every
matter essential to the journey, and, perhaps, conducted
the affair with less offence to the feelings of the latter
than had been the case on the part of the outlaw.
Scarcely had Watson Gray gone from sight, before Bannister
emerged from the swamp thicket and joined the
other.

“He's a cute chap, that same Watson Gray, as ever
beat about a thicket without getting into the paws of a
black bear at rutting season. I'm athinking if the man
was decent honest, I'd sooner have him in a troop of
mine, than any man I knows on. He's a raal keener for
a sarch. I'd reckon now, Isaac Muggs, from the way
he slobber'd you over in talking, that he was a meaning
to swallow you when all was done.”

“I reckon that's his meaning, Supple Jack,—I'm
dub'ous that's what both he and the cap'in are a conjuring.”

“And I'm thinking, Muggs, that he was a trying to
ease off something that he said to you before, which went
agin the grain, and made the teeth grit.”

“Twa'nt him that said it—'twas the cap'in!”

“A pair on 'em—both sarpents,—mou't-be, different
kinds of sarpent; but the bite of a rattle or a viper, is,
after all, the bite of a sarpent; and it don't matter much
which a man dies of, when both can kill. But what
made the captain graze agin your feelings?”

“Why, he's a-trying to make a scare of me about
staying here, when he's gone. He says there's no
safety for me among the rebels.”

“I reckon, Isaac Muggs, there's an easy answer for all
that. You've jest got to p'int to me, and say, “that' ere
man convarted me by strong argyment, and I reckon nobody'll
be so bold as to touch you after that.”

“He threatened me too,—and I to be the first to advise
him to make long tracks from the troop!”

“I'm mighty sorry you ever give him such advice,
Isaac,” said Bannister, rebukingly.

“Yes: but though he made b'lieve that he was angry
and all that, now, to-night, he tells me how he's been
getting ready a long time for a start.”

“I b'lieve him! Indeed, I knows as much! Well, I'm
willing that he should get away, Isaac Muggs, without
any hurt to hair or hide. For, though he desarves
hanging and quartering as much as ever man desarved it,
yet he's come of the same blood, half-way, with Clarence
Conway; and for his sake, I'm willing to let Ned Conway
get clear of the hanging. I shouldn't be so mighty
anxious to help him out of the way of a bullet, for that's
the business of a soldier, to die by shot or steel, and it
don't disgrace him, though it's hurtful to his feelings.
I'd help to find the boat for him myself, and send him on
his way, if he was content to git off with his own hide
in safety. But when he's after his villany to the last—
when I know that he wants to carry off another Congaree
gal, and, this time, agin her will—”

“I'm a-thinking, Supple, that you're clear mistaken in
that. Neither him nor Gray said a word about it.”

“Not to you, Isaac. They'd ha' been but small sodgers
if they had. No! no! They know'd better. They
know'd that twan't the way to get their business done, to
make it more difficult. They were rather dub'ous of
you, you say yourself, jest to carry off the captain.
Would it ha' made it any easier to tell you that they
wanted you to help to carry off the young woman from
her friends and family; and, as I'm thinking, to stop also
in their way down and clean the plantation of his father's
widow, of all it's niggers? No! no! Isaac! They know
how to play the game better than that. They tell you
they play for high and low, only; but watch them well,
or they'll make Jack too, and try mighty hard to count.
But, the game's in our hands now, Isaac: at least, I'm
a-thinking so. As for you and your guineas,—I don't
ax you how many you've got—but jest you do as I tell
you, and I'll answer for their safety. We'll get the boats
and the hands between us, and we'll have 'em all ready
when the time comes, and if the gal is to be whipped
off, it won't make it less pleasant to us to have the

handling of her. Do you cross the river now, and be
sure and put the boat high up in the creek. I'll keep on
this side though. I have a leetle matter of business
here.”

“You're mighty venturesome, Supple.”

“It's a sort o' natur', Isaac. I was always so. A
leetle dance on the very edge of the dangerous place,
is a sort of strong drink to me, and makes my blood
warm and agreeable. I'll jest scout about the woods
here and see who's waking and who's sleeping; and
who's a-tween sleeping and waking like myself.”

The first attentions of Jack Bannister were paid to the
sleeping. He watched the progress of his comrade, until
his little barge had disappeared from sight in the distance,
then made his way with the intensity of a natural affection,
to the lonely spot where his hands had dug the
grave for Mary Clarkson, and where her body had been
laid. Here he paused a few moments in silent meditation,
then proceeded to the dense thicket to which, on the
night when she fled from the barony, he bore her inanimate
person. When he reached the spot, he kindled his
light, and drew from a hollow tree a hatchet and rude
saw which had been formed from an old sabre, the teeth
of which had been made by hacking it upon some harder
edge than its own. He then produced from another place
of concealment sundry pieces of timber, upon which he
had already spent some labour, and to which his labour
was again addressed. Gradually, a long, slender, and
not unpleasingly wrought shaft of white wood appeared
beneath his hands, into which he mortised the arms of a
cross, with a degree of neatness, and symmetry, which
would have done no discredit to the toils of a better
artist, under the more certain guidance of the daylight.
This little memento, he was evidently preparing, in
silence and seclusion, and with that solemnity which belongs
to the pure and earnest affection for the lonely
grave which he had just visited. With a fond toil, which
withheld no care, and spared no effort, he now addressed
himself—his more heavy task being finished—to a portion
of his work which, perhaps, was the most fatiguing
of his labour. This was to cut into the wood the simple

initials of the poor girl for whom the memorial was intended.
Our worthy woodman was no architect, and
the rude Gothic letters which his knife dug into the wood,
may perhaps have awakened, subsequently, the frequent
smile of the irreverent traveller, as he himself murmured
while at this work—

“It's a precious small chance for l'arning that Jack
Bannister ever got upon the Congaree; but it's the best
that I can do for poor Mary, and I'd ha' been willing to
give her the best of me from the beginning. But twa'nt
ordered so by Providence, and there's no use for further
talk about it. If I hadn't used a man's we'pon upon her,
I'd be a-mighty deal more easy now, but God knows,
'twan't meant for her—'twan't any how from the heart—
and 'twas nateral that a man should strike, hard and
quick, when he finds another jumping out upon him from
the bush. Who'd ha' thought to find a gal in man's
clothes, jest then too, in the thick of the fighting? But
the Lord's over all, and he does it for the best. It's done,
but there's a many more to come. I'll put a mark that
they can make out, though the printing mayn't be so stiff
and fine. There's a mighty ugly lean about that `M.,'
jest as if 'twas a-tumbling for'a'd upon the `C:' and I
thought I had run pretty even; but there's no mending it
now. It must stand.”

From his horn, he filled with powder the lines which
he had cut in the wood, and then ignited it. The blackened
traces made the simple inscription sufficiently distinct,
and the good fellow, shouldering his rude monument,
bore it to the grave, and drove it down at the head
of the inmate. He had not well finished this work,
before he fancied that he heard foreign sounds mingling
suddenly with the murmurs of the Congaree, as it plied
its incessant way below. He listened, and the murmurs
deepened. He went forward, cautiously, through the
wood, and it was not long before he discerned the advance
of a body of men, all well mounted, whom, upon a
nearer approach, he discerned to be the Black Riders.
John Bannister was not a man to be alarmed easily; but
he retreated, and stole into the cover of a bay, the thicket
of which he knew was not penetrable by cavalry. Here,

he crouched in silence, and the formidable band of outlaws
slowly wound along in silence, through the forest,
and on the very edge of the thicket in which he lay concealed.
A new care filled his bosom, as he beheld their
progress in the direction of the barony. He had no
means of contending with such a force, and where was
Clarence Conway? Feeling for his commander, and
sympathizing with his affections, the first thought of
Bannister had reference to the new dangers which beset
the path of Flora Middleton. He was surprised, however,
to perceive that the banditti came to a halt but a
little distance from him. They alighted, the words of
command were passed in whispers, and in ten minutes
they prepared to bivouac.