A POLITICAL RETROSPECT.—BUTLER ENTERS SOUTH CAROLINA.
It was the misfortune of South Carolina, during the revolutionary war, to possess a numerous party less attached to the union or more tainted with disaffection than the inhabitants of any of the other states. Amongst her citizens the disinclination to sever from the mother country was stronger, the spread of republican principles more limited, and the march of revolution slower, than in either of the other colonies, except, perhaps, in the neighbor state of Georgia, where the people residing along the Savannah river, were so closely allied to the Carolinians in sentiment, habits, and pursuits, as to partake pretty accurately of the same political prejudices, and to unite themselves in parties of the same complexion. Upon the first invasion of Georgia, at the close of the year 1778, the city of Savannah was made an easy conquest, and a mere handful of men, early in 1779, were enabled to penetrate the interior as far as Augusta, and to seize upon that post. The audacity with which Prevost threatened Charleston in the same year, the facility of his march through South Carolina, and the safety which attended his retreat, told a sad tale of the supineness of the people of that province. The reduction of Charleston in the following year, by Sir Henry Clinton, was followed with singular rapidity by the conquest of the whole province. A civil government was erected. The most remote posts in the mountains were at once occupied by British soldiers or provincial troops, mustered under the officers of the royal army. Proclamations were issued to call back the wandering sheep to the royal fold; and they, accordingly, like herds that had been scattered from beneath the eye of the shepherd by some rough incursion of wolves, flocked in as soon as they were aware of the retreat of their enemy. Lord Cornwallis, upon whom the command devolved after the return of Sir Henry Clinton in June to New York, recruited his army from these repentant or unwilling republicans; and the people rejoiced at what they thought the end of strife and the establishment of law. The auxiliaries who had marched from Virginia and North Carolina under Colonel Buford, to assist in the defence of the southern capital, were informed of its surrender as they journeyed thither, and soon found themselves obliged to fly through a country they had come to succor;—and when even at the distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the city, were overtaken by the ruthless troopers of Tarleton, and butchered under circumstances peculiarly deplorable.
In truth, a large proportion of the population of South Carolina seem to have regarded the revolution with disfavor, and they were slow to break their ancient friendship for the land of their forefathers. The colonial government was mild and beneficent in its action upon the province, and the people had a reverence for the mother country deeper and more affectionate than was found elsewhere. They did not resent, because, haply, they did not feel the innovations of right asserted by the British crown, so acutely as some of their neighbors; to them it did not seem to be so unreasonable that taxation should be divorced from representation. They did not quarrel with the assumption of Great Britain to regulate their trade for them in such manner as best suited her own views of interest; nor did they see in mere commercial restrictions the justification of civil war and hot rebellion;—because, peradventure, (if I may hazard a reason) being a colony of planters whose products were much in demand in England, neither the regulations of their trade nor the restrictions upon commerce, were likely to be so adjusted as to interfere with the profitable expansion of their labors.
Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the State at the time of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. To this common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions; and the more brilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderating mass of public judgment. There is no trial of courage which will bear comparison with that of a man whose own opinions stand in opposition, upon fearful questions of passion, to those of the "giddy-paced" and excited multitude, and who, nevertheless, carries them "into act." That man who can stand in the breach of universal public censure, with all the fashions of opinion disgracing him in the thoughts of the lookers on, with the tide of obloquy beating against his breast, and the fingers of the mighty, combined many, pointing him to scorn; nay, with the fury of the drunken rabble threatening him with instant death; and, worse than all, having no present friend to whisper a word of defence or palliative, in his behalf, to his revilers, but bravely giving his naked head to the storm, because he knows himself to be virtuous in his purpose; that man shall come forth from this fierce ordeal like tried gold; philosophy shall embalm his name in her richest unction, history shall give him a place on her brightest page, and old, yea, hoary, far-off posterity shall remember him as of yesterday.
There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with the best spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to it hearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong as ever, in any clime, worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission to their conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prisons, rather than the yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times, retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighbors together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier-government that now professed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in the woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen, exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and by rapid movements of their woodland cavalry and brave blows, accomplished more than thrice their numbers would have achieved in ordinary warfare.
The disaffected abounded in the upper country, and here Cornwallis maintained some strong garrisons. The difficulties that surrounded the republican leaders may well be supposed to have been appalling in this region, where regular posts had been established to furnish the Tories secure points of union, and the certainty of prompt assistance whenever required. Yet notwithstanding the numerical inferiority of the friends of independence, their guarded and proscribed condition, their want of support, and their almost absolute destitution of all the necessaries of military life, the nation was often rejoiced to hear of brilliant passages of arms, where, however unimportant the consequences, the display of soldiership and bravery was of the highest order. In such encounters, or frays they might almost be called, from the smallness of the numbers concerned and the hand-to-hand mode of fighting which they exhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others, had won a fame that in a nation of poetical or legendary associations would have been reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse: but, alas! we have no ballads: and many men, who as well deserve to be remembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, have sunk down without even a couplet-epitaph upon the rude stone, that in some unfenced and unreverenced grave-yard still marks the lap of earth whereon their heads were laid.
One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds, and, not unfrequently, brother took up arms against brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might trust to the rites of hospitality; and many a man laid his head upon his pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger, or he with whom he had broken bread at his last meal, might not invade him in the secret watches of the night and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the blaze of their farm-yards to which the incendiary torch had been applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading the confident into the toils of war; nor is it possible to imagine a state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity.
Such was the condition of the country to which my tale now makes it necessary to introduce my reader. Butler's instructions required that he should report himself to General Gates, and, unless detained for more pressing duty, to proceed with all the circumspection which the enterprise might require, to Colonel Clarke, who, it was known, was at that time in the upland country of South Carolina, raising troops to act against Augusta and other British posts. He accordingly arrived at head-quarters, on the borders of the two Carolinas, in about a week after leaving the Dove Cote. The army of the brave and unfortunate De Kalb, which had been originally destined for the relief of Charleston, had been increased, by reinforcements of militia from Virginia and the adjoining States, to double the computed strength of the British forces; and Gates, on taking command of it, was filled with the most lofty presentiments of victory. Vainglorious and unadvisable, he is said to have pushed forward with an indiscreet haste, and to have thrown himself into difficulties which a wiser man would have avoided. He professed himself to stand in no need of recruits to his army, and Butler, therefore, after the delay of a few days, was left at liberty to pursue his original scheme.
The wide-spread disaffection of the region through which our adventurers were about to pass, inculcated the necessity of the utmost vigilance to avoid molestation from the numerous parties that were then abroad hastening to the seat of war. Under the almost entire guidance of Robinson, who was familiar with every path in this neighborhood, Butler's plan was to temporize with whatever difficulties might beset his way, and to rely upon his own and his comrade's address for escape.
The sergeant's first object was to conduct his superior to his own dwelling, which was situated on the Catawba, a short distance above the Waxhaws. This was safely accomplished on the second day after they had left Gates. A short delay at this place enabled Butler to exchange the dress he had hitherto worn, for one of a more homely and rustic character, a measure deemed necessary to facilitate his quiet passage through the country. With these precautions he and the trusty sergeant resumed their expedition, and now shaped their course across the region lying between the Catawba and Broad rivers, with the intention of reaching the habitation of Wat Adair, a well known woodsman who lived on the southern side of the latter river, somewhat above its confluence with the Pacolet. The route they had chosen for this purpose consisted of such circuitous and unfrequented paths as were least likely to be infested by the scouts of the enemy, or by questioners who might be too curious regarding the object of their journey.
The second week of August had half elapsed when, towards the evening of a day that had been distinguished for the exhilarating freshness of the atmosphere, such as is peculiar to the highlands of southern latitudes at this season, our travellers found themselves descending through a long and shady defile to the level ground that lay along the margin of the Broad river. The greater part of the day had been spent in threading the mazes of a series of sharp and abrupt hills covered with the native forest, or winding through narrow valleys, amongst tangled thickets of briers and copse-wood, by a path scarce wide enough to permit the passage of a single horse. They had now emerged from the wilderness upon a public highway, which extended across the strip of lowland that skirted the river. The proximity of the river itself was indicated by the nature of the ground, that here retained vestiges of occasional inundations, as also by the rank character of the vegetation. The road led through a swamp, which was rendered passable by a causey of timber, and was shaded on either side by a mass of shrubbery, composed of laurel, magnolia, and such other plants as delight in a moist soil, over whose forms a tissue of creeping plants was woven in such profusion as to form a fastness or impregnable retreat for all kinds of noxious animals. Above this wilderness, here and there, might be seen in the depths of the morass, the robust cypress or the lurid pine, high enough for the mast of the largest ship, the ash, and gum, and, towering above all, the majestic poplar, with its branchless trunk bound up in the embraces of a huge serpent-like grapevine.
As soon as Butler found himself extricated from the difficult path that had so much embarrassed his journey, and once more introduced upon a road that allowed him to ride abreast with his companion, he could not help congratulating himself upon the change.
"Well, here at last, Galbraith," he said, "is an end to this bridle path, as you call it. Thank heaven for it! The settlement of the account between this and the plain road would not leave much in our favor: on one side, I should have to set down my being twice unhorsed in riding up perpendicular hills; one plunge up to the belly in the mud of a swamp; a dozen times in danger of strangling from grapevines; and how often torn by briers, I leave you to reckon up by looking at my clothes. And all this is to be cast up against the chance of meeting a few rascally Tories. Faith! upon the whole, it would have been as cheap to fight."
"Whist, Major, you are a young man, and don't study things as I do. You never catch me without reason on my side. As to standing upon the trifle of a man or two odds in the way of a fight, when there was need of scratching, I wouldn't be so onaccommodating as to ax you to do that. But I had some generalship in view, which I can make appear. This road, which we have just got into, comes up through Winnsborough, which is one of the randyvoos of the Tories: now I thought if we outflanked them by coming through the hills, we mought keep our heads out of a hornets' nest. The best way, Major Butler, to get along through this world is not to be quarrelsome; that's my principle."
"Truly, it comes well from you, sergeant, who within two days past have been in danger of getting your crown cracked at least six times! Were you not yesterday going to beat a man only for asking a harmless question? A rough fellow to-boot, Horse Shoe, who might, from appearance, have turned out a troublesome customer."
"Ho, ho, ho, Major! Do you know who that character was? That was mad Archy Gibbs, from the Broken Bridge, one of the craziest devils after a fracaw on the Catawba; a tearing Tory likewise."
"And was that an argument for wishing to fight him?"
"Why, you see, Major, I've got a principle on that subject. It's an observation I have made, that whenever you come across one of these rampagious fellows, that's always for breeding disturbances, the best way is to be as fractious as themselves. You have hearn of the way of putting out a house on fire by blowing it up with gunpowder?"
"A pretty effectual method, Sergeant."
"Dog won't eat dog," continued Horse Shoe. "Ho, ho! I know these characters; so I always bullies them. When we stopped yesterday at the surveyor's, on Blair's Range, to get a little something to eat, and that bevy of Tories came riding up, with mad Archy at their head, a thought struck me that the fellows mought be dogging us, and that sot me to thinking what answer I should make consarning you, if they were to question me. So, ecod, I made a parson of you, ha, ha, ha! Sure enough, they began as soon as they sot down in the porch, to axing me about my business, and then about yourn. I told them, correspondent and accordingly, that you was a Presbyterian minister, and that I had undertook to show you the way to Chester, where you was going to hold forth. And, thereupon, mad Archy out with one of his tremengious oaths, and swore he would have a sarmint from you, for the good of his blackguards, before they broke up."
"Mad Archy and his blackguards would have profited, no doubt, by my spiritual lessons."
"Rather than let him have anything to say to you," proceeded Robinson, "for you wa'n't prepared, seeing that you didn't hear what was going on, though I spoke loud enough, on purpose, Major, for you to hear us through the window; I up and told Archy, says I, I am a peaceable man, but I'll be d——d if any minister of the gospel shall be insulted whilst I have the care of him; and, furthermore, says I, I didn't come here to interrupt no man; but if you, Archy Gibbs, or any one of your crew, says one ondecent word to the parson, they'll run the risk of being flung sprawling on this here floor, and that's as good as if I had sworn to it; and as for you, Archy, I'll hold you accountable for the good conduct of your whole squad. But, Major, you are about the hardest man to take a wink I ever knowed. There was I a motioning of you, and signifying to get your horse and be off, at least ten minutes before you took the hint."
"I was near spoiling all, Galbraith, for from your familiarity with these fellows I at first thought them friends."
"They were mighty dubious, you may depend. And it was as much as I could do to keep them from breaking in on you. They said it was strange, and so it was, to see a parson riding with pistols; but I told them you was obliged to travel so much after night that it was as much as you could do to keep clear of panthers and wolves; and in fact, major, I had to tell them a monstrous sight of lies, just to keep them in talk whilst you was getting away: it was like a rare guard scrummaging by platoons on a retreat to get the advance off. I was monstrous afeard, major, you wouldn't saddle my horse."
"I understood you at last, Galbraith, and made everything ready for a masterly retreat, and then moved away with a very sober air, leaving you to bring up the rear like a good soldier. And you know, sergeant, I didn't go so far but that I was at hand to give you support, if you had stood in need of it. I wonder now that they let you off so easily."
"They didn't want to have no uproar with me, Major Butler. They knowed me, that although I wa'n't a quarrelsome man, they would'a got some of their necks twisted if I had seen occasion: in particular, I would have taken some of mad Archy's crazy fits out of him—by my hand I would, major! But I'll tell you,—I made one observation, that this here sort of carrying false colors goes against a man's conscience: it doesn't seem natural for a man, that's accustomed and willing to stand by his words, to be heaping one lie upon top of another as fast as he can speak them. It really, Major Butler, does go against my grain."
"That point of conscience," said Butler laughing, "has been duly considered, and, I believe, we are safe in setting it down as entirely lawful to use any deceit of speech to escape from an enemy in time of war. We have a dangerous trade, sergeant, and the moralists indulge us more than they do others: and as I am a minister, you know, you need not be afraid to trust your conscience to my keeping."
"They allow that all's fair in war, I believe. But it don't signify, a man is a good while before he gets used to this flat lying, for I can't call it by any other name."
"If we should be challenged on this road, before we reach Wat Adair's," said Butler, "it is your opinion that we should say we are graziers going to the mountains to buy cattle."
"That's about the best answer I can think of. Though you must be a little careful about that. If you see me put my hand up to my mouth and give a sort of a hem, major, then leave the answer to me. A gang of raw lads might be easily imposed upon, but it wouldn't do if there's an old sodger amongst them; he mought ax some hard questions."
"I know but little of this grazier craft to bear an examination. I fear I should fare badly if one of these bullies should take it into his head to cross-question me."
"If a man takes on too much with you," replied Robinson, "it is well to be a little saucy to him. If he thinks you are for a quarrel, the chances are he won't pester you. But if any of these Tories should only take it into their heads, without our telling them right down in so many words, for I would rather a lie, if it is to come out, should take a roundabout way, that we are sent up here by Cornwallis, or Rawdon, or Leslie, or any of their people to do an arrand, they will be as civil, sir, as your grandmother's cat, for, major, they are a blasted set of cringin' whelps, the best of them, and will take anything that has G. R. marked on it with thanks, even if it was a cat-o'nine tails, which they desarve every day at rollcall, the sorry devils!"
"I am completely at my wits' end, Galbraith. I have not done much justice to your appointment of me as a parson, and when I come to play the grazier it will be still worse; even in this disguise of a plain countryman I make a poor performer; I fear I shall disgrace the boards."
"If the worst comes to the worst, major, the rule is run or fight. We can manage that, at any rate, for we have had a good deal of both in the last three or four years."
"God knows we have had practice enough, sergeant, to make us perfect in that trick. Let us make our way through this treacherous ground as quickly and as quietly as we can. Get me to Clarke by the shortest route, and keep as much among friends as you know how."
"As to that, Major Butler, it is all a matter of chance, for, to tell you the plain truth, I don't know who to depend upon. A quick eye, a nimble foot, and a ready hand, will be our surest friends. Then with the pistols at your saddle, besides a pair in your pocket, and a dirk for close quarters, and my rifle here for a long shot, major, I am not much doubtful but what we shall hold our own."
"How far are we from Adair's?" asked Butler.
"Not more than a mile," replied Horse Shoe. "You may see the ferry just ahead. Wat lives upon the top of the first hill on the other side."
"Is that fellow to be trusted, sergeant?"
"Better with the help of gold, major, than without it. Wat was never over honest. But it is worth our while to make a friend of him if we can."
Our travellers had now reached the river, which was here a smooth and deep stream, though by no means so broad as to entitle it to the distinction by which, in its lower portion, it has earned its name. It here flowed sluggishly along in deep and melancholy shade.
Butler and his companion were destined to encounter a difficulty at this spot which less hardy travellers would have deemed a serious embarrassment. The boat was not to be seen on either side of the river, having been carried off a few hours before, according to the information given by the inmates of a negro cabin, constituting the family of the ferryman, by a party of soldiers.
Robinson regarded this obstacle with the resignation of a practised philosopher. He nodded his head significantly to his companion upon receiving the intelligence, as he said,
"There is some mischief in the wind. These Tories are always dodging about in gangs; and when they collect the boats on the river, it is either to help them forward on some house-burning and thieving business, or to secure their retreat when they expect to have honest men at their heels. It would be good news to hear that Sumpter was near their cruppers, which, by the by, is not onlikely neither. You would be told of some pretty sport then, major."
"Sumpter's means, sergeant," replied Butler, "I fear, are not equal to his will. There are heavy odds against him, and it isn't often that he can venture from his hiding-place. But what are we to do now, Galbraith?"
"Ha, ha! do as we have often done before this, launch our four-legged ships, and take a wet jacket coolly and dispassionately, as that quare devil Lieutenant Hopkins used to tell us when he was going to make a charge of the bagnet. We hav'n't no time to lose, major, and if we had, I don't think the river would run dry. So, here goes."
With these words Robinson plunged into the stream, and, with his rifle resting across his shoulder, he plied his voyage towards the opposite bank with the same unconcern as if he had journeyed on dry land. As soon as he was fairly afloat he looked back to give a few cautions to Butler.
"Head slantwise up stream, major, lean a little forward, so as to sink your horse's nose nearer to the water, he swims all the better for it. Slacken your reins and give him play. You have it now. It isn't oncomfortable in a day's ride to get a cool seat once in a while. Here we are safe and sound," he continued, as they reached the further margin, "and nothing the worse for the ferrying, excepting it be a trifle of dampness about the breeches."
The two companions now galloped towards the higher grounds of the adjacent country.
By the time that they had gained the summit of a long hill that rose immediately from the plain of the river, Robinson apprised Butler that they were now in the vicinity of Adair's dwelling. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the varied lustre of early twilight tinged the surrounding scenery with its own beautiful colors. The road, as it wound upwards gradually emerged from the forest upon a tract of open country, given signs of one of those original settlements which, at that day, were sparsely sprinkled through the great wilderness. The space that had been snatched from the ruggedness of nature, for the purpose of husbandry, comprehended some three or four fields of thinly cultivated land. These were yet spotted over with stumps of trees, that seemed to leave but little freedom to the course of the ploughshare, and bespoke a thriftless and slovenly tillage. A piece of half cleared ground, occupying the side of one of the adjacent hills, presented to the eye of our travellers a yet more uncouth spectacle. This spot was still clothed with the native trees of the forest, all of which had been death-stricken by the axe, and now heaved up their withered and sapless branches towards the heavens, without leaf or spray. In the phrase of the woodman, they had been girdled some years before, and were destined to await the slow decay of time in their upright attitude. It was a grove of huge skeletons that had already been bleached into an ashy hue by the sun, and whose stiff and dry members rattled in the breeze with a preternatural harshness. Amongst the most hoary of these victims of the axe, the gales of winter had done their work and thrown them to the earth, where the shattered boles and boughs lay as they had fallen, and were slowly reverting into their original dust. Others, whose appointed time had not yet been fulfilled, gave evidence of their struggle with the frequent storm, by their declination from the perpendicular line. Some had been caught in falling by the boughs of a sturdier neighbor, and still leaned their huge bulks upon these supports, awakening the mind of the spectator to the fancy, that they had sunk in some deadly paroxysm into charitable and friendly arms, and, thus locked together, abided their tardy but irrevocable doom. It was a field of the dead; and the more striking in its imagery from the contrast which it furnished to the rich, verdurous, and lively forest that, with all the joyousness of health, encompassed this blighted spot. Its aspect was one of unpleasant desolation; and the traveller of the present day who visits our western wilds, where this slovenly practice is still in use, will never pass through such a precinct without a sense of disgust at the disfiguration of the landscape.
The field thus marred might have contained some fifty acres, and it was now occupied, in the intervals between the lifeless trunks, with a feeble crop of Indian corn, whose husky and parched blades, as they fluttered in the evening wind, added new and appropriate features to the inexpressible raggedness of the scene. The same effect was further aided and preserved by the cumbrous and unseemly worm fence that shot forth its stiff angles around the tract.
On the very apex of the hill up which our travellers were now clambering, was an inclosure of some three or four acres of land, in the middle of which, under the shade of a tuft of trees, stood a group of log cabins so situated as to command a view, of nearly every part of the farm. The principal structure was supplied with a rude porch that covered three of its sides; whilst the smoke that curled upwards from a wide-mouthed chimney, and the accompaniment of a bevy of little negroes that were seen scattered amongst the out-houses, gave an air of habitation and life to the place that contrasted well with the stillness of the neighboring wood. A well-beaten path led into a narrow ravine where might be discerned, peeping forth from the weeds, the roof of a spring house; and, in the same neighborhood, a rough garden was observable, in which a bed of broad-leaved cabbages seemed to have their ground disputed by a plentiful crop of burdock, thistles, and other intruders upon a manured soil. In this inclosure, also, the hollyhock and sunflower, rival coxcombs of the vegetable community, gave their broad and garish tribute to the beautifying of the spot.
The road approached within some fifty paces of the front of the cabins, where access was allowed, not by the help of a gate, but only by a kind of ladder or stile formed of rails, which were so arranged as to furnish steps across the barrier of the worm fence at four or five feet from the ground.
"Are you sure of entertainment here, Galbraith?" inquired Butler, as they halted at the stile. "This Wat Adair is not likely to be churlish, I hope?"
"I don't think I am in much humor to be turned away," replied Robinson. "It's my opinion that a man who has rode a whole day has a sort of right to quarters wherever the night finds him—providing he pays for what he gets. But I have no doubt of Wat, Major. Holloa! who's at home? Wat Adair! Wat Adair! Travellers, man! Show yourself."
"Who are you that keep such a racket at the fence there?" demanded a female voice. "What do you mean by such doings before a peaceable house?"
"Keep your dogs silent, ma'am," returned Horse Shoe, in a blunt and loud key, "and you will hear us. If you are Wat Adair's wife you are as good as master of this house. We want a night's lodging and must have it—and besides, we have excellent stomachs, and mean to pay for all we get. Ain't that reason enough to satisfy a sensible woman, Mrs. Adair?"
"If you come to make disturbance," said a man of a short and sturdy figure, who at this moment stepped out from the house and took a position in front of it, with a rifle in his hand—"if you come here to insult a quiet family you had best turn your horses' heads up the road and jog further."
"We might do that, sir, and fare worse," said Butler, in a conciliatory tone. "You have no need of your gun; we are harmless travellers who have come a long way to get under your roof."
"Where from?" asked the other.
"From below," said Horse Shoe promptly.
"What side do you take?"
"Your side for to-night," returned Robinson again. "Don't be obstropolous, friend," he continued, at the same time dismounting, "we have come on purpose to pay Wat a visit, and if you ha'n't got no brawlers in the house, you needn't be afraid of us."
By this time the sergeant had crossed the stile and approached the questioner, to whom he offered his hand. The man gazed for a moment upon his visitor, and then asked—
"Isn't this Galbraith Robinson?"
"They call me so," replied Horse Shoe; "and if I ain't mistaken, this is Michael Lynch. You wan't going to shoot at us, Michael?"
"A man must have sharp eyes when he looks in the face of a neighbor now-a-days," said the other. "Come in; Wat's wife will be glad to see you. Wat himself will be home presently. Who have you here, Galbraith?"
"This is Mr. Butler," answered Horse Shoe, as the Major joined them. "He and me are taking a ride across into Georgia, and we thought we would give Wat a call just to hear the news."
"You are apt to fetch more news than you will take away," replied the other; "but there is a good deal doing now in all quarters. Howsever, go into the house, we must give you something to eat and a bed besides."
After putting their horses in charge of a negro who now approached in the character of an ostler, our adventurers followed Michael Lynch into the house.