 | CHAPTER XVI.
DICK OF TOPHET'S LATER MOVEMENT. The forayers, or, The raid of the dog-days |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
DICK OF TOPHET'S LATER MOVEMENT.
“By the way, sir,” said the major to his father, as the party
sat at lunch, “you have been honored with a visit from Lord
Rawdon and his suite.”
“Yes, sir, I was so honored. His lordship took the Barony
in his route upward, and passed the night with us, as did several
of his suite. His army was cantoned in the old indigo-field.”
“I was aware of it. Once or twice during the night, I was
within a short half-mile of the house, and I made the circuit of
his whole encampment.”
“Indeed, sir, you were bold. The sight was hardly satisfactory.
You saw some splendid troops, sir, fresh from Ireland;
two thousand brave fellows at least, and some of the finest looking
chaps I ever saw. And, by the way, sir, your sister Carrie
there made a conquest of one of the young Irishmen.”
“Ah, indeed! who?” and the major looked archly at his sister's
face. “But why should I ask. I know already.”
“How's that, sir?” and both the veteran and Carrie looked
curious.
“We are well supplied with birds of the wood and an that
bring us tidings in a moment from all quarters. The attentions
of my Lord Edward Fitzgerald, to her sly ladyship, did not fail
to be fully reported in camp.”
“Why, Willie! he paid me no attention.”
“Fie, Carrie, my child, you know he did. Ask Lottie,
Willie; she can tell you all. The child was quite curious, I
assure you; and was particularly mortified at being put to bed
an hour or two before the usual time.”
“Nay, father, not a minute.”
“She certainly felt it a great hardship to be packed off and
put away when she was.”
“Yes, indeed, papa. And so many handsome officers.”
“Tell Willie about the young lord, Lottie.”
Carrie looked a little uneasy, and lifted her finger at the
child, who smiled with a pretty little malice at her elder sister,
and prattled out a mischievous reply
“Oh! Lord Edward did talk a great deal with you, Carrie;
you know he did; and he did watch you with all his eyes; and
he sat with you a long time upon the sofa; and when papa was
talking with the other lord, he got you to play for him upon
the harpsichord; and Carrie sang for him, brother Willie, and
he did seem so pleased to hear her sing; and it was a song
about Ireland too; about `the green isle of the ocean,' you
know.”
“A pretty case of michin-malico, and clearly all true, Carrie.”
Carrie was no simple country-girl. She had seen a good
deal of society, and exhibited no rustic emotions. Still, there
was a heightened color upon her cheeks, as she laughingly answered—
“Every syllable, Willie; and that she remembers so well,
and reports so truly, is only in proof that she was put to bed
not a moment too soon. I shall have to indulge in more caution
hereafter.”
“You see, Willie, she is obliged to confess everything!” said
the old man.
“Is it a full confession? I fancy from the color on her
cheeks that something has been kept back. At all events,
what is revealed is enough to make a lover jealous, and I
must look up one of my friends and put him on the trail,
Carrie.”
The girl looked at her brother with an anxious warning in
her eye, and continued to lift a finger to him, as she had done
to Lottie. It was evidently a dangerous progress that the dialogue
was taking toward a tabooed precinct, and the veteran
turned suspiciously, and with a very decided change in his
voice, said:—
“What is that, sir? — of whom are you speaking?”
“Nay, I am speaking of no one especially; but there is
jealous.”
“But there is no other, sir — none!”
“I am then really to understand, sir, that Lord Edward Fitzgerald
is Carrie's lover?” answered the brother evasively.
“I said not that, sir — no, sir, I do not mean that. The
young lord was certainly very attentive, and I was sorry to
think that Carrie was not so well pleased with his attentions as
she might have been. She played and sang for him, it is true,
and behaved as graciously as any lady could do in her own
house, sir.”
“What more would you have, sir, unless you really desired
her union with this young Irishman?”
“And I should not be displeased, sir, if such a thing could
take place,” retorted the veteran, quickly and rather sharply,
as if somewhat dissatisfied with the tone of voice in which the
major had spoken. He continued:—
“Lord Edward Fitzgerald, sir, is a young nobleman of the
most noble character, and the most illustrious connections. My
Lord Rawdon, who is charmed with his courage and conduct,
gave me all his history. There is no stock in the Irish peerage
superior. The Geraldines have always been famous for their
blood. Lord Edward's father was the duke of Leinster; his
mother the daughter of Charles, duke of Richmond; he himself,
sir, is worthy of his race and immediate parents.”
“You seem to have pursued the subject of Irish genealogy of
late, sir, with more sympathy and respect than formerly. There
was a time when Irish nobility, and the whole Irish race, found
but little sympathy in your thoughts.”
The veteran did not seem to relish the reminiscence.
“And for a good reason, sir — they were a rebellious people
always.”
“The ancestors of this young man especially so.”
“The fault was in his ancestors — not in him, sir. He is
making the proper atonement. But I can not expect that his
present loyalty will find favor in your eyes, as it does in mine!”
“No, indeed, sir! How should it?” exclaimed the major of
dragoons, rising from his chair and striding heavily across the
apartment — “How should it, when it betrays all the examples
should he be here, sir, with his own people in bonds at home,
fighting the battles of their oppressor! What a spectacle is it
to see the nobles of a race, who perpetually complain of their
own tyrants, seeking with naked swords to subject a foreign
people to the sway of the same tyrannies. One who calls himself
an Irish patriot fighting against the liberties of America.”
“Liberties! Fiddlesticks!”
The young man did not notice the interruption as he continued:—
“It is thus that Ireland is made to drink the bitter cup of her
own bondage — bitterness to the lips, death to the life, dishonor
to the soul. Her people serve as willing mercenaries of the
very sovereign whom they hate, and every blow which they
strike in his behalf, rivets more firmly the chain about their
own wrists.”
“Pshaw! This is all boy-declamation, Willie. Ireland
wears no chains which it is not necessary and proper that she
should wear.”
The other quickly replied:—
“On that point, sir, we are agreed. And so long as her people
are eager to fight the battles of their own tyrants, may the
chains grow and eat into the flesh, and sink into the soul, and
root out from existence every atom of life in the nature which
so foolishly and foully degrades itself.”
“Take care, sir — take care, Willie Sinclair! Do not make
me angry, sir — I am not easily made angry, sir — I am quite
quiet, quite gentle, my son — but d—n it, sir, beware how you
provoke me!”
“I have no wish to provoke or anger you, sir, and we will
dismiss the subject, if you please. I have no fear that Carrie
Sinclair will feel more sympathy for this young Irish lord than
I do. I trust that she will find a proper mate among her own
people.”
“Well, sir, but if she should — if, in obedience to my wishes,
sir—”
“I have no fear, sir, that your wishes, in such an affair as this,
will ever put on the aspect of a law, sir.”
“And why not, sir — why not?”
“Because, sir, I know that you can never become a tyrant to
your own children.”
“I know not that, sir, when they become disobedient, rebellious,
Willie Sinclair. And this reminds me to ask, sir, since
when did you become an intimate of a certain Captain Travis,
of Edisto?”
“Now comes my turn!” was the unuttered thought of the
major of dragoons, looking with a faint smile to the anxious
face of Carrie.
“I am no intimate of Captain Travis, sir.”
“Ah! I am very glad to hear it, sir. He is not the person,
sir, whom I should wish to see intimate with a son of mine.
He is a dirty fellow, sir — not a gentleman — a corrupt, selfish,
mercenary rascal. I knew him well in the Cherokee war. He
is not the person for a gentleman's intercourse. But you have
intercourse with him, sir — pray what is the nature of that intercourse?”
“It belongs wholly to my official duties. It is, accordingly,
sir, of a nature not to be communicated.”
“How, Willie Sinclair — how can that be? This man is in
the service, I am sorry to say it, of his Britannic majesty. He
is in the commissariat, I believe. I sold him a hundred head
of cattle on British account.”
“You are right, sir; he is in the commissariat.”
“Of what nature, then, is your intercourse with him if it be
official. Either he is a traitor to his king, sir—”
“Do you not see, my dear father, from your own conclusions,
that the intercourse with him is such as it would not be proper
for me to tell, or you to hear?”
The old man paused a moment, then resumed:—
“And, on your honor, sir, you have none but an official intercourse
with him.”
“None, sir.”
“How, then, is it that this person has the audacity to come
to me, and impudently to suggest a union between his family
and mine?”
“He must answer this question for himself. I can only say
that his proposition was wholly unauthorized by me.”
“I am glad to hear you say thus much, Willie — very glad.
I tell you, Willie Sinclair, that this man Travis did more than
hint to me that you had a passion for his daughter.”
“He told you but the truth, sir — though unauthorized to do
so.”
“And why unauthorized? Who has a better right than a
father to be made aware of the disposition of a son?”
“And in proper season, sir, all the secrets of Willie Sinclair
shall be put into his father's keeping. Let this suffice for the
present. If my confidences are in anything withheld from you,
sir, or any of my family, it is only where they affect others.
When they relate to myself only, you shall know them all.
When I am permitted to speak for others, you shall hear.”
“This will not answer, sir. Who is this young woman, sir —
the daughter of this miserable commissary?—”
“Let me pray you, my dear father, to say nothing of her,
and, for the present, if you please, no more of him. In due
time, you shall know all that I can tell. Enough now that, in
a season while the storm rages without, we are a family of love
within. Will you not spare to our meeting, destined to be cut
short in a few hours” — and the major took out his watch, and
mused over the face of it for a moment — “let us, my dear
father, enjoy the two or three hours that are left to our reünion,
without another word calculated to impair its serenity.”
The old man put his hand to his brow. There was some sullenness
upon his face as he replied: —
“Be it so, Willie Sinclair. The rights of my sovereign do
not forbid that I should tolerate the presence for a few hours of
my son — and I trust that his own training has been such as
will keep him from a degrading alliance. One thing let me say,
and bear it in mind, if you please, never, while my head is hot,
will I tolerate the presence of that man, Travis, in my house,
as one who has a right to be there. Never! never.”
And the fist of the veteran thundered upon the table, as if to
register the oath. The young man's face saddened for a moment,
but he shook away the cloud, and seizing his father's
hand, he cried laughingly: —
“I doubt, my dear father, that the reception which you gave
him when he was last here, will ever encourage him to a second
auspices. But sir—”
He paused. He felt the necessity of prudence.
“Well — but what?” said the veteran.
“Nothing now, sir; — but, is it not near the dinner hour? I
confess to an amazing appetite.”
The veteran smiled grimly.
“You shall have some dinner. Meanwhile, sir, not to provoke
your appetite to a too intense degree, you shall join me in
some wine-bitters.”
And the stomachic was resorted to, and the parties smacked
their lips after it.
“To a dragoon, sir, in our service,” said the young officer,
“food and drink become primary principles. Our supplies are
served so capriciously, that it is a rule with the dragoon to eat
and drink whenever opportunity offers. If he dines with you
this hour, and another dinner offers the next, he welcomes it
without any consciousness of the feast that he has just finished.
And thus, eating inordinately one day, he will go without food
for three, yet suffer little inconvenience.”
“That is the case with the Indians. I have known a Cherokee
runner go eight days, on a trot ten hours per day, eating
nothing but a handful of browned maize, some three times a
a day, and without seeming to feel hunger, or the want of meat;
yet, put the meat before him and he will devour you ten pounds
at a sitting.”
“Ten pounds, father?” exclaimed Carrie.
“On my life, true! You must not look upon the red-skin
as a monster, Carrie. The white will do the same thing under
similar circumstances, nay, eat his grandmother, and never need
for his dishes the dressing of a Parisian cook. Nature is full
of such seeming anomalies; and you are to estimate the performance
by a regard to the previous endurance. Irregularity
of food produces a spasmodic vigor of the stomach, which makes
it capable of astonishing performances.
“But just in the same degree does the capacity for drink lessen
under the same circumstances. Your starving man can not
drink much safely, or without danger to the brain. He grows
terribly wolfish and savage from drink when famished, and is
that old Madeira does me any hurt with the gout” — filling his
glass as he spoke with the amber-hued beverage. The young
man followed his example.
“Our physicians, sir, you are aware, recommend the old Madeira
as beneficial in gout, and though the opinion is somewhat
questioned, I do not see with what reason. You drink a drug as
medicine, in gout, which is dissolved in the strongest alcohol.
The drug itself passes into the circulation, and must affect the
brain, and when you affect the brain, you necessarily affect the
general health always. Now, what worse can old Madeira do?
— unless, sir — and there lies the true difficulty — you drink more
than the proper dose; — a danger which is always present when
the medicine is so very palatable.”
“I faith, you're right. I suspect that is the true distinction.
There” — pushing away the bottle — “I will take no more to-day.
You must finish it for yourself, Willie.”
“As an old proverb hath it, father — `A short horse is soon
curried!' and he pointed to the greatly-diminished measure in
the decanter.”
“Oh! do not apprehend that your allowance shall be short.
There is a good supply above stairs, though my Lord Rawdon,
and the young Irishman did play a famous stick among the
bottles. They left half a dozen dead men, floored as completely
as if the shilelah had been at work. Ah! Willie, I should
like you to know Fitzgerald.”
“Not, I trust, while his sword is at the bosom of my country.
But enough of that. Ha! here is Congaree Polly.”
And the great staring negro woman made her appearance
with waiters, knives, forks, &c., all significant of preparations
for the approaching dinner.
“By the way, Polly, what do you say to Little Peter for a
husband?”
“Ki! Mass Willie, wha' I hab for say? Wha' Little Peter
wants wid me?”
“Come! come! Polly, no highflying airs with me. Will you
have Little Peter, or shall I send him over to milkwoman Lenah?”
“He kin tek [take] Lenah ef he want 'em.”
“Then I must tell him you won't have him.”
“Wha' for, Mass Willie, you bodder you' se'f wid nigger defections?
Le' de niggar look out he own wife. I spec' Little
Peter kin ten' to he own consarns.”
“Well, as you please,” said the major laughing — “you are
all hypocrites together. But hark ye, Polly, have you looked
in upon our prisoner down stairs. How does he get on?”
“He call me, leettle bit ago, when I bin guine t'rough de
passage, and beg me gee 'em some water.”
“Well, you gave him?”
“Yes, he drink de whole calabash. Den he shibber all ober,
and say he berry cole, and beg me put leetle bit o' fire in de chimbley.”
“But you did not, woman?”
“Oh! yes! De man so cole, Mass Willie, and shibber so all
ober;” and the wench suited the action to the word in very
wintry fashion.
“Fire in midsummer! Fool! fool!” exclaimed the major
of dragoons; and, whirling the astounded negro out of his way,
he dashed down into the basement with the utmost speed of
blood and limbs.
The instincts and the experience of the partisan soldier, were
not easily mistaken. His sudden apprehensions were all realized.
Dick of Tophet was nowhere to be seen, but the fragments
of the ropes which had bound him lay about, half consumed
by the fire; and the blazing torches cast upon the floor of
the apartment, were beginning to blaze and crackle very merrily.
Had the room been furnished with any inflammable material,
the discovery made by the major would not have been
in season to save the dwelling.
With one so prompt, cool, and energetic as our major of dragoons,
it required but a few moments to extinguish the fire.
Having done this, and in a close and hurried search about the
premises, seen that the outlaw was really gone, and was nowhere
lurking in the immediate precincts, Willie Sinclair hurried up
stairs.
“One is never safe,” said he, “let him be never so sure, particularly
when there are women near him, no matter what the
color. Their sympathies are so many weapons in the hands of
the cunning. This rascal is off.”
“Off! — and out of Benny's hitch!” said the old man.
“Ay! and it is difficult to say what hitch, short of that which
suspends him to a hickory, would make such a scoundrel sure.
I was a fool to trust him out of my own sight, or to suffer any
to approach him. But, it is a lesson that I will not forget.
Get to the housetop, Carrie, and look out. We must prepare
for every sort of danger! — a siege — perhaps a storm!”
| CHAPTER XVI.
DICK OF TOPHET'S LATER MOVEMENT. The forayers, or, The raid of the dog-days | |