University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
CAPRICES OF FORTUNE.

We have omitted, in the proper place, to record certain
events that happened, during the progress of the
conflict, in order that nothing should retard the narrative
of that event. But, ere it had reached its termination,
and while its results were in some measure doubtful, a
new party came upon the scene, who deserves our attention
and commanded that of the faithful woodman. A
cry—a soft but piercing cry—unheard by either of the
combatants, first drew the eye of the former to the neighbouring
wood from which it issued; and simultaneously,
a slender form darted out of the cover, and hurried forward
in the direction of the strife. Bannister immediately
put himself in readiness to prevent any interference between
the parties; and, when he saw the stranger pushing
forward, and wielding a glittering weapon in his
grasp, as he advanced, he rushed from his own concealment,
and threw himself directly in the pathway of the
intruder. The stranger recoiled for an instant, while
Bannister commanded him to stand.

“Back!” said the latter, “back, my lad, 'till it's all
over. It won't be long now, I warrant you. They'll
soon finish it, but until they've done—”

He drew a pistol from his belt which he cocked, presented,
and thus closed the sentence. The stranger
shrunk back at this sudden and sturdy interruption, but,
recovering a moment after, appeared determined to press
forward. The second warning of the scout was more
imperative than the first.

“Stand back, I tell you,” cried the resolute woodman,
“or by blazes, I'll send daylight and moonlight both
through you with an ounce bullet. I ain't trifling with
you, stranger; be sarten, I'm serious when I take pistol
in hand. Back, I tell you, 'till the tug's over, and then
you may see and be seen. Move another step and I'll
flatten you.”

“No, no, no!” was the incoherent response,—“let
me pass. I will pass!”

The sounds which assured the woodman of the determination
of the stranger, were so faintly and breathlessly
articulated, that, at any other time, Jack Bannister would
have only laughed at the obstinate purpose which they
declared; but the moment was too precious for his friend,
and he was too earnest in securing fair play for all parties,
not to regard their tenor rather than their tone.

“If you do, I'll shoot you, as sure as a gun!” was
his answer.

“They will kill him!” murmured the stranger in accents
of utter despondency. He struck his head with his
palm in a manner of the deepest wo; then, as if seized
with a new impulse, waved a dagger in the air and darted
upon the woodman. So sudden was the movement and
unexpected, that Bannister never thought to shoot, but
clubbing his pistol, he dealt the assailant a blow upon the
skull, which laid him prostrate. A faint cry escaped the
lips of the stranger in falling; and Bannister fancied that
his own name formed a part of its burden. He was also
surprised when he recollected that the enemy, though
rushing on him with a dagger, had yet forborne to use it,
although sufficient opportunity had been allowed him to

do so, had such been his purpose, in the surprise occasioned
by his first onslaught. But the moment was not
one favourable to reflection. Clarence had now overcome
his enemy, who was prostrate and insensible, and, faint
himself, was bending over him in a fruitless effort to
stanch the blood which issued from a deep wound on
the side. Bannister approached him with the inquiry—

“God be thanked, Clarence, that you are uppermost.
How is it with him? Is he dead?”

“I hope not. He pants. There is motion in his
heart.”

“I'm sorry for it, Clarence. I ain't sorry that you
han't killed him, for I'd rather you shouldn't do it;—but
I'm mighty sorry he's not dead. It'll be all the better
for him if he is. 'Twould save a neck smooth to the last.
But come—there's a great stir at the house. I can hear
the voices.”

“But we cannot leave him here, Jack. Something
must be done for him. Would to God I had never seen
him, for I feel most wretched, now that it's all over.”

“'Taint a time to feel such feelings. You couldn't
help it, Clarence. He would force it upon you. Didn't
I hear him myself? But it's no use talking here. We
must brush up and be doing. I've given a knock to a
chap here that's laid him as quiet as you laid him—a
small chap he was,—I might have stopped him, I'm
thinking, with a lighter hand; but I hadn't time to think,
he jumped so spry upon me.”

“Who is he?” demanded Clarence.

“I don't know; a friend to Edward Conway, looking
after him, I reckon. I'll see all about him directly, when
once you're off. But you must trot at once. There's a
mighty stir all about the house, and I'm thinking, more
than once, that I've hearn a whoo-whoop-halloo, below
there in the direction of the flats. 'Twas a mighty suspicious
sort of whoop for an owl to make, and I'm dub'ous
'twan't one that had a good schoolmaster. 'Twasn't
altogether nateral.”

“What are we to do with him?” demanded Clarence
as he gazed with an aspect of complete bewilderment,

now at the body of his kinsman, and now at the distant
mansion.

“Do!—I take it, it's just the reasonable time to hearken
to the words of Scripture. `Let the dead bury their
dead;' and though I can't exactly see how they're to set
about it, yet when people's hard pushed as we are, it's
very well to put upon Holy Book all such difficult matters
as we can't lay straight by our own hands. I'm
thinking, we'd best lay him quietly in the vault and leave
him.”

“But he's not dead, Bannister, and with care might
recover.”

“More's the pity. It's better for you and me, and
himself, too, if he don't recover; and it seems to me
very onnatural that you should take pains first to put him
to death, and the next moment worry yourself to bring
him to life again.”

“I took no such pains, Bannister. I would not have
struck him, if I could have avoided the necessity, and I
strove to avoid making his wounds fatal.”

“I'm sorry for that agen. But this ain't no time for
palavering. You'll soon have these dragoons of Coffin
scouring the grounds of the barony, and Rawdon's too
good a soldier not to have his scouts out for three good
miles round it. Them trumpets that we hear are talking
some such language now; and we must ride pretty soon
or we'll be in a swamp, the waters rising, the dug-out
gone, and a mighty thick hurricane growing in the
west.”

“I cannot think of leaving the body thus, Bannister.”

“And you risk your own body and soul,—or your
own body, which is pretty much the soul of the `Congaree
Blues,' if you stop to take care of him,” replied the
woodman.

“What are we to do?”

“Clarence, trust to me. Take your horse—you'll find
him in that hollow; and get to the head of the troop before
Coffin's hoofs tread upon its tail. I'll be mighty
soon after you; but before I start, I'll give 'em a blast of
my horn, and a scare from my puppy-dog here”—meaning

his pistol—“which 'll be pretty sure to bring a
dozen of 'em on my track. When they come here,
they'll find the body of Mr. Conway, and this lad that I
flattened; and they can do for 'em all that's needful. I'm
a hoping that this here person”—pointing to the chief of
the Black Riders—“is out of his misery for ever, and
won't trouble the surgeont with much feeling of his hurts.
As for the other lad, I don't think I could ha' hurt him
much with the butt only, though I struck him mighty
quick and without axing how much or how little he
could stand. Trust to me, Clarence, and go ahead.”

Obviously, this was the only course to be pursued in
order to reconcile the duties and desires which the partisan
entertained. He took not a single farther look at
his enemy, whose grim and ghastly features, turned up-wards
in the moonlight, presented an aspect far more
fearful than any which the simple appearance of death
presented; and, with a few words of parting direction to
the woodman, he hurried away to the hollow where his
horse had been concealed. In a few moments after, the
sturdy Bannister rejoiced, as his ear caught the slow
movement of his departing hoofs.

The bold fellow then, before putting his design in execution,
of alarming the British at the mansion and bringing
them down upon the spot, true to the business of the
scout stole forward in the direction of the dwelling, in
order to ascertain what he could, as to the disposition
and strength of the force which had come, and was still
advancing. A perfect knowledge of the place, its points
of retreat and places of shelter, enabled him to reach a
station where he saw quite as much as he desired. The
cavalry, a small body of men, were evidently drawn up
as a guard along the avenue, for the reception of the
commander in chief; and while Bannister admired their
array, and noted the stealthy caution which marked their
movements, he was also enabled to count their numbers
with tolerable certainty.

“More than they told me,” he muttered to himself,
“but a good ambushment will make up the difference,
by thinning them a little.”

Having satisfied his curiosity, and perceiving that the
main body of the British army was at hand, he contented
himself with observing, with soldierly admiration, the
fine appearance of the troops—a body consisting chiefly
of the Irish regiments, then newly arrived from Europe
—and the excellent order of their march; and then stole
away, as quietly as he approached, to the place where he
had left the wounded. Returning with as stealthy a
movement as at his departure, he was surprised to discover
that the body of the stranger whom he had knocked
down was no longer where he had left it. A considerable
curiosity filled his bosom to discover who this person
was. His conduct had been somewhat singular, and
Bannister was almost sure that when he inflicted the
blow which had laid him prostrate, the stranger had
uttered his own name in falling; and that too, in tones
which were neither strange nor those of an enemy. His
first impression was that this person had feigned unconsciousness,
but had taken advantage of his momentary
absence to steal off into the contiguous woods. To seek
him there under present circumstances and with so little
time as was allowed him, would be an idle attempt; and
the woodman, with some disappointment, turned once
more to the spot where the outlaw was lying. To his
surprise he found a second person with him, whom a
nearer glance discovered to be the very person whose
absence he had regretted. The stranger was lying upon
the body of Edward Morton, and seemingly as lifeless
as himself; but he started up when he heard the footsteps
of Bannister, made a feeble attempt to rise from the
ground, but fell forward with an expression of pain, and
once more lay quiescent upon the body of the outlaw.
The scout drew nigh and addressed the youth with an
accent of excessive kindness, for the milk of a gentle as
well as a generous nature, flowing in his heart from the
beginning, had not been altogether turned by the cruel
necessities of the warfare in which he was engaged.
But, though he spoke the kindest words of consolation
and encouragement known to his vocabulary, and in the
kindest tones, he received no answer. The youth lay in

a condition of equal stillness with him whose body he
seemed resolved to cover with his own. Bannister readily
conceived that he had swooned. He advanced accordingly,
stooped down, and turned the face to the
moonlight. It was a fair face and very pale, except
where two livid streaks were drawn by the now clotted
blood, which had escaped from beneath the black fur cap
which he wore. This, upon examination, the scout found
to be cut by the pistol-blow which he had given; and it
was with a shivering sensation of horror, to him very
unusual, that, when he pressed lightly with his finger
upon the skull below, it felt soft and pulpy.

“Lord forgive me!” was the involuntary ejaculation
of the woodman,—Lord forgive me, if I have hit the
poor lad too hard a blow.”

His annoyance increased as he beheld the slight and
slender person of the youth.

“There was no needcessity to use the pistol, poor fellow.
A fist blow would have been enough to have kept
him quiet;”—and, muttering thus at intervals, he proceeded
to untie the strings which secured the cap to the
head of the stranger. These were fastened below the
chin; and, in his anxiety and haste, the woodman, whose
fingers may readily be supposed to have been better fitted
for any less delicate business, contrived to run the slip
into a knot, which his hunting knife was employed to
separate. The cap was removed, and in pressing the
hair back from the wound, he was surprised at its smooth,
silk-like fineness, and unusual length. This occasioned
his increased surprise, and when, looking more closely,
he saw in the fair light of the moon, the high narrow
white forehead in connection with the other features of
the face, a keen and painful conjecture passed through his
mind, and with tremulous haste and a convulsive feeling
of apprehension, he tore open the jacket of dismal sable
which the unconscious person wore, and the whole
mournful truth flashed upon his soul.

“God ha' mercy, it is a woman!—it is she,—it is
poor Mary. Mary—Mary Clarkson! Open your eyes,
Mary, and look up. Don't be scared—it's a friend—it's

me, Jack Bannister! Your old friend, your father's
friend.—God ha' mercy! She don't see, she don't hear,
—she can't speak. If I should ha' hit too hard! If I
should ha' hit too hard!” The anxiety of the honest fellow
as he addressed the unconscious victim of his own
unmeditated blow would be indescribable. He sat down
on the sward and took her head into his lap, and clasped
her brows, and laid his ear to her heart to feel its beatings,
and when, with returning consciousness, she murmured
a few incoherent words, his delight was that of
one frantic. He now laid her down tenderly, and ran
off to a little spring which trickled from the foot of the
hill, with the position of which he was well acquainted.
A gourd hung upon the slender bough of a tree that
spread above the basin. This he hastily scooped full of
the water, and ran back to the unfortunate girl. She
had somewhat recovered during his absence—sufficiently
to know that some one was busy in the work of restoration
and kindness.

“No, no,” she muttered—“mind not me—go to him
—him! Save him before they kill him.”

“Him, indeed! No! Let him wait. He can afford
to do it, for I reckon it's all over with him. But you,
Mary, dear Mary,—tell me, Mary, that you are not
much hurt—tell me that you know me—it was I who
hurt you; I—your old friend John Bannister, Mary,—
but it's a God's truth I didn't know you then. I'd ha'
cut off my right arm first, Mary, before it should ever
have given pain to you.”

“Leave me, if you have mercy,—I didn't want your
help;—you can't help me—no! no!—Go to him. He
will bleed to death while you are talking.”

“Don't tell me to leave you, Mary; and don't trouble
yourself about him. He'll have all the help he needs—
all he deserves—but you! look up, dear Mary, and tell
me if you know me. I am still your friend, Mary—your
father's friend.”

The mention of her father seemed to increase her
sufferings.

“No! no!—not that!”—she muttered bitterly; and

writhing about with an effort that seemed to exhaust all
her remaining strength, she turned her face upon the
ground, where she lay insensible. Never was mortal
more miserable or more bewildered than our worthy
scout. He now suffered from all the feelings, the doubt
and indecision which had beset his commander but a
little while before. To remain was to risk being made a
prisoner, yet to leave the poor victim of his own random
blow, in her present condition, was as painful to his own
sense of humanity as it was unendurable by that tender
feeling which, we have already intimated, possessed his
heart in an earlier day for the frail victim of another's
perfidy; and which her subsequent dishonour had not
wholly obliterated. He gazed with a sort of stupid sorrow
upon the motionless form before him, until his big,
slow gathering tears fell thick upon her neck, which his
arm partially sustained, while his fingers turned over the
long silken hair, portions of which were matted with her
blood, in a manner which betrayed something of a mental
self-abandonment on the part of one of the hardiest scouts
in the whole Congaree country. How long he might
have lingered in this purposeless manner, had not an
interruption from without awakened him to a more resolute,
if a less humane course, may not be conjectured.
In that moment the resources of the strong man were
sensibly diminished. The hopes and loves of his early
youth were busy at his heart. Memory was going over
her tears and treasures, and wounds which had been
scarred by time and trial were all suddenly re-opened.
In this musing vein he half forgot the near neighbourhood
of his enemies, and the dangers which awaited him in the
event of captivity. It was not then the mere prospect of
restraint which threatened the rebel if taken prisoner.
The sanguinary rage of party had to be pacified with
blood; and it is strongly probable that the merciless executions
of which the British commanders were so frequently
guilty in the south, were sometimes prompted
by a desire to conciliate the loyalists of the same region
who had personal enmities to gratify, and personal revenges
to wreak, which could be satisfied in scarcely
any other way. Of these dangers the sturdy woodman
was made most unexpectedly conscious by hearing the
tones and language of military command immediately
behind him. A guard was evidently approaching, sentries
were about to be placed, and the sounds which
startled him on one side were echoed and strangely answered
by a sudden clamour of a most unmilitary character
which rose, at nearly the same instant, from the
swamps and flats which lay along the river a few hundred
yards below. Mary Clarkson could have explained
the mystery of the latter noises, were she conscious
enough to hear; but such was not the case. Her consciousness
was momentary, and when obvious, betrayed
itself in expressions which now denoted a wandering intellect.
A stern agony filled the heart of the scout as
he rose to his feet, lifted her tenderly in his arms, and
bore her towards the tomb, before the entrance of which
he laid her gently down, in a spot which he knew would
make her conspicuous to the eyes of the first person
approaching. He had barely disengaged her from his
arms, and was still bending over her with a last look, the
expression of which, though unseen by any, spoke more
effectually the anguish which he felt, than could ever
have been conveyed by the rude and simple language of
his lips, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder—a quick,
firm grasp—followed by the sounds of a voice, which it
soon appeared that he knew.

“Oh! Ha! Caught at last, Supple Jack;—Supple,
the famous! Your limbs will scarcely help you now,
You are my prisoner.”

“Not so fast, Watson Gray—I know you!” replied
the scout as he started to his feet and made an effort to
turn; but his enemy had grappled him from behind, had
pinioned his arms by a grasp from limbs as full of muscle
as his own, and was in fact fairly mounted upon his
back.

“And feel me too, Jack Bannister, I think. There's
no getting loose, my boy, and your only way is to keep
quiet. There are twenty Hessians at my back to help
me, and as many Irish.”

“More than enough, Watson Gray, for a poor Congaree
boatman. But you're rather vent'rous, I'm thinking,
you are, to begin the attack. You're rather a small
build of a man, if my memory sarves me rightly—you
ha'nt half of my heft, and can't surely think to manage
me.”

“I do. If I'm light, you'll find me strong—strong
enough to keep your arms fast till my wild Irish come
up, and lay you backward.”

“Well, that may be, Watson. But my arms ain't my
legs, my lad. Keep them, if you can”—and grasping
with his hands the arms of his asssilant, with a hold as
unyielding as his own, he set off at a smart canter down
the hill, in spite of the fierce and awkward struggles of
the other to rescue himself from the predicament in which
his own overweening confidence had placed himself.

“It's but natural that you should kick and worry,
at riding a nag that you han't bitted, Watson Gray, but
it's of no use; you're fairly mounted, and there's no getting
off in a hurry,” was the consoling language of the
scout as he ran towards the wood with his captive.
“I see that you never hearn of the danger of shaking
hands with a black bear. The danger is that you can't
let go when you want to. A black bear is so civil an
animal, that he never likes to give up a good acquaintance,
and he'll hold on, paw for paw, with him, and
rubbing noses when he can, though it's the roughest tree
in the swamp that stands up between him and his friend.
Your arms and shoulders, I reckon, are jist as good and
strong as mine. But your body ain't got the weight, and
I could carry you all day, on a pinch, and never feel the
worse for it. You see how easy we go together!”

“D—n you, for a cunning devil,” cried the embarrassed
Gray, kicking and floundering furiously, but vainly
striving to get loose.

“Don't you curse, Watson Gray;—it sort o' makes
you feel heavier on my quarters.”

“Let me down, Bannister, and you may go free, and
go to the devil where you came from.”

“Well, you're too good. You'll let me go free—I'm

thinking that it's you that's my prisoner, my boy. I'll
parole you as soon as I reach my critter.”

“I'll shout to the Hessians to shoot you as you run,”
vociferated the other.

“Will you, then. You don't consider that your back
will first feel the bullets. You're a cunning man, Watson
Gray. I've always said you were about the best
scout I know'd in the whole Congaree country, and it's
a long time since we've been dodging about one another.
I was a little dub'ous, I confess, that you were a better
man than myself. I was: but you made a poor fist of
this business—a poor pair of fists, I may say,” concluded
the woodman with a chuckle.

“So I did—a d—d poor business of it!” groaned the
other. “I should have put my knife into your ribs, or
had the scouts round you first.”

“The knife's a bad business, Watson,” was the reply
of the other;—“a good scout that's not onnatural, never
uses it when less hurtful things will answer. But it's
true you should ha' put your Hessians between me and
the woods before you cried out `you're my prisoner!'
If ever a man jumps into determination at all, it's jist
when he hears some such ugly words, on a sudden, in
his ears; and when I felt you, riding so snugly on my
back, I know'd I had you, and could ha' sworn it.”

A desperate effort to effect his release which Watson
Gray made at this time, put a stop to the complacent
speech of the other, and made him less indulgent.

“I'll cure your kicking, my lad,” said he, as, backing
himself against a pine tree, he subjected his involuntary
burden to a succession of the hardest thumps which he
could inflict upon him by driving his body with all its
force against the incorrigible and knotty giant of the
forests. The clasping of the captive, which ensued,
sufficiently attested the success of this measure; and an
attempt which Gray made a moment or two after to get
the ear of Supple Jack within his teeth, which was answered
by a butt that almost ruined his whole jaw, terminated
the fruitless endeavours of the former to free
himself from his awkward predicament. Meanwhile, the

stir and confusion were increasing behind the fugitives,
and it was a wonder to both that they had not been pursued.
The sounds, imperfectly heard by the woodman,
seemed to be those of actual conflict; but he felt himself
secure, and his thoughts reverted, over all, to the poor
Mary Clarkson—the victim of the outlaw with whom
she had been left, and, perhaps, his own victim. The
poor fellow regarded himself with horror when he thought
of the cruel blow his hand had inflicted. But he had no
time for these reflections; and the necessity of joining his
commander, moved him to new vigour in his progress.
He had now reached the place where his horse was
concealed. His first movement was to pitch his captive
over his head, which he did very unexpectedly to the
latter. In the next moment, his knee was upon his
breast, and with pistol presented to his mouth, he made
Watson Gray surrender his weapons. These consisted
only of two hunting knives, and an ordinary pocket
pistol. He then rifled his pockets of all which they contained,
kept his papers, but generously restored his
money.

“Now, Watson Gray, you're a Congaree man, like
myself, and if I've thumped you a little hard as we run,
put it down to the needcessity of the case and not because
I wanted to hurt you. I'll let you off now, on your
parole, that you may go back and help Ned Conway.
You've been his helper and adviser a mighty long time,
and you've done for him a precious deal of ugly business.
He'll need more help now, I'm thinking, than you can
give him. There's a poor boy there—too—a young
slender chap, that I hit with a'most too heavy a hand,
I'm afeard, and if you can do any thing for her—”

“Her!” said the other.

“Oh, yes—the truth will out—she's a gal though in
no gal's clothes. Perhaps you know her. You ought
to—you know enough of Ned Conway's wickedness to
know that. Take care of that gal, Watson Gray, and if
physic can do her good, see that she gets it. I ax it of
you as a favour. You're a stout fellow, Watson, and
I've long tried to have a turn with you. I'm thinking

you're a better scout than I am; but there's no discredit to
you to say that you want my heft and timbers. In a close
tug I'm your master; but I'm dub'ous you'd work through
a swamp better than me. See to that gal, Watson, for
the sake of the Congaree country. She's one of our
own children, I may say, seeing we're both from the
river;—and if there's any cost that you're at, in helping
her, either for food or physic, let me know of it, and you
shall have pay, if I dig the gold out of some enemy's
heart. Good by, now, Watson, and remember that you
must never take a bear by the paws till you've first made
terms with him about letting go.”