"If I am recognized--yes. But the night is dark, and a brush with the outpost need not betray me."
At this he consented grudgingly, and we pushed on to the crossing. Now since this fording place of Master Macgowan"s has marched into our history, you will like to know what the historians do not tell you: namely, how it was but a makeshift wading place, armpit deep over a muddy bottom from the western bank to the bar above an island in mid-stream, and deflecting thence through rocky shallows to a point on the eastern bank some distance below the island. "Twas here that Lord Cornwallis got entangled some months later--but I must not antic.i.p.ate.
We made the crossing of the main current in safety and were a-splash in the rocky shallows beyond the island when we sighted the camp-fires of the outpost. To ride straight upon the patrol was to invite disaster, and though Jennifer was for a charging dash, a hurly-burly with the steel, and so on to freedom beyond, he listened when I pointed out that our beasts were too nearly outworn to charge, and that the noise we must make would rouse the camp and draw the fire of every piece in it long before we could reach the bank and come to blade work.
"What for it, then?" he asked, impatiently. "My courage is freezing whilst we wait."
"There is nothing for it but to hold straight on across," I said.
"That we can not; "twill be over the horses" ears. The beasts will drown themselves and us as well."
How we should have argued it out I do not know, for just then Jennifer"s horse, scenting the troop mounts on the farther sh.o.r.e, c.o.c.ked tail and ears, let out a squealing neigh, and fell to curveting and plunging in a racket that might have stood for the splashings of an advancing army.
In a twinkling the outpost camp was astir and a bellowing hail came to us across the water. Having no answer, the troopers began to let off their pieces haphazard in the darkness; and with the singing _zip_ of the first musket ball, Richard went battle-mad, as he always did in the face of danger.
"At them!" he thundered, clapping spurs to his jaded beast and whipping out the great claymore; and so we charged, the forlornest hope that ever fell upon an enemy.
How we came ash.o.r.e alive through the gun-fire is one of those mysteries to which every battle adds its quota; but the poor beasts we rode were not so lucky. Jennifer"s horse went down while we were yet some yards from the bank; and mine fell a moment later. To face a score of waiting enemies afoot was too much for even Richard"s rash courage; so when we were free of the struggling horses we promptly dove for shelter under the up-stream bank.
Here the darkness stood our friend; and when the redcoat troopers came down to the river"s edge with torches to see what had become of us, we took advantage of the noise they made and stole away up-stream till a shelving beach gave us leave to climb to the valley level above.
Richard shook himself like a water-soaked spaniel and laughed grimly.
"Well, here we are, safe across, horseless, and well belike to freeze to death," he commented. "What next?"
I made him a bow. "You are on my demesne of Appleby Hundred, Captain Jennifer, and it shall go hard with us if we can not find a fire to warm a guest and a horse to mount him withal. Let us go to the manor house and see what we can discover."
He entered at once into the spirit of the jest, and together we trudged the scant mile through the stubble-fields to my old roof-tree. As you would guess, we looked to find the manor house turned into an outpost headquarters; but now we were desperate enough to face anything.
Howbeit, not to rush blindly into the jaws of a trap, we first routed out the old black majordomo at the negro quarters; and when we learned from him that the great house was quite deserted, we took possession and had the black make us a rousing fire in the kitchen-arch. Nay, more; when we had steamed ourselves a little dry, we had old Anthony stew and grill for us, and fetch us a bottle of that madeira of my father"s laying in.
"A toast!" cried Richard, when the bottle came, springing to his feet with the gla.s.s held high. "To the dear lady of Appleby Hundred, and may she forgather with the man she loves best, be it you, or I, or another, Jack Ireton!"
We drank it standing; and after would sit before the fire, havering like two love-sick school-boys over the charms of that dear lady to whom one of us was less than naught, and to whom the other could be but naught whilst that first one lived.
You will smile, my dears, that we should come to this when, but a short hour before, one of us had been bent upon slaying the other for Mistress Margery"s sake. But the human heart is many-sided; notably that heart the soldier carries. And though I looked not to live beyond the setting of another sun, I was glad to my finger-tips to have this last loving-cup with my dear lad. I thought it would nerve me bravely for what must come--and so it did, though not as I prefigured.
We were still sitting thus before the kitchen-arch when the dawn began to dim the firelight, and the work of the new day confronted us. Pinned down, old Anthony confessed that some two or three horses of the Appleby Hundred stables had escaped the hands of the foragers of both sides; and two of these he fetched for us. Of the twain one chanced to be Blackstar, the good beast which had carried me from New Berne in the spring; and so I had my own horse betwixt my knees when I set d.i.c.k a mile on the road to Salisbury, and bade him farewell.
His last word to me was one of generous caution.
"Remember, Jack; "haste, haste, post haste" is your watchword. There will be other couriers in from the battle-field at King"s Mountain; and you must hang and fire your news-petard and vanish before they come to betray you."
"Trust me," said I, evasively; and so we parted, he to gallop eastward, and I to charge down peaceably upon that British outpost we had set abuzz in the small hours of the night.
XLII
IN WHICH MY LORD HAS HIS MARCHING ORDERS
Though I had pa.s.sed out of the British lines less than a week before in decent good odor, save for Colonel Tarleton"s ill word, I met with nothing like the welcome at the outpost camp that a king"s courier had a right to expect.
The captain in command was not the one who had pa.s.sed me out. He was a surly brute of the Yorkshire breed; and when he had heard that I was an express rider from Major Ferguson, he was pleased to demand my papers.
To this I must needs make answer that I carried no written despatches; that my news was for the commander-in-chief"s private ear. This I told my Yorkshire pig, demanding to be sent, under guard if he chose, to the headquarters in Charlotte.
But Captain n.o.bbut would hear to no such reasonable proposal. On the contrary, he would hold me in arrest till he could report me and have instructions from his colonel.
Knowing what a stake it was I rode for, you may imagine how this day in durance ate into me like a canker. With ordinary diligence the trooper who carried the news of me should have gone to Charlotte by way of Queensborough and returned by noon. But being of the same surly breed with his captain, "twas full three of the clock before he came ambling back with an order to set me forthwith upon the road to headquarters.
Once free of the camp of detention you may be sure I put Blackstar to his best paces; but hasten as I would it was coming on to evening when I pa.s.sed the inner safety line and galloped down the high street of the town.
As luck would have it, the first familiar face I saw was that of Charles Stedman, the commissary-general. On my inquiry he directed me straight.
"My Lord is at supper at Mr. Stair"s. Have you news, Captain?"
I drew breath of relief. Happily the loss of the day had not made me the bearer of stale tidings. So I made answer with proper reticence, saying that I had news, but it was for Lord Cornwallis"s ear first of all. None the less, if the commissary-general were pleased to come with me--
He took the hint at once; and he it was who procured me instant admittance to the house, and who took on himself the responsibility of breaking in upon the party in the supper-room.
I shall not soon forget the scene that fronted us when we came into my Lord"s presence. The supper was in some sort a gala feast held in honor of my Lord"s accession to his earldom. The table, lighted by great silver candelabra which I recognized as Ireton heirlooms, was well filled around by the members of the commander-in-chief"s military family, with the earl at the head, and Mistress Margery, bedight as befitted a lady of the quality, behind the tea-urn at the foot.
At our incoming all eyes were turned upon us, but it required my Lord"s sharp question to make me leave off dwelling upon my sweet lady"s radiant beauty.
"How now, Captain Ireton? Do you bring us news from the major?"
I broke the fascinating eyehold and turned slowly to face my fate.
"I do, my Lord."
"Well, what of him? You left him hastening to rejoin with his new loyalist levies, I hope?"
I drew my sword, reversed it and laid it upon the table.
"May all the enemies of the Commonwealth be even as he is, my Lord," I said, quietly.
Now, truly, I had hanged my petard well and "twas plain the shock of it had gone far to shatter the wall of confidence our enemies had builded on the field of Camden and elsewhere. Had a hand-grenade with the fuse alight been dropped upon the table, the consternation could scarce have been greater. To a man the tableful was up and thronging round me; but above all the hubbub I heard a little cry of misery from the table-foot where my lady sat.
"How is this, sir?--explain yourself!" thundered my Lord, forgetting for once his mild suavity.
""Tis but a brief tale, and I will make it as crisp as may be in the telling," I replied. "I came upon the major some miles this side of the crossing of the Broad. He was marching to rejoin you, in accordance with his orders. But when he had your Lordship"s command to stand and fight, he obeyed."
"My command?--but I gave him no such order!"
"Nay, truly, you did not--neither in the original nor in the duplicate, my Lord. But when we had waylaid Lieutenant Tybee and quenched the duplicate, and had so amended the original as to make it fit our purpose, the brave major thanked you for what you had not done and made his stand to await the upcoming of the over-mountain men."