"How far off," he inquired, "is the nearest Tory post, Mr. Musgrove?"
"Colonel Innis has some light corps stationed within two miles. If you had been a little earlier you would have found some of them at my mill."
"Innis!" repeated Horse Shoe, "I thought Floyd had these parts under command?"
"So he has," replied the miller, "but he has lately joined the garrison at Rocky Mount."
"Ha! ha! ha!" ejaculated Robinson, "that's a pot into which Sumpter will be dipping his ladle before long. All the land between Wateree and Broad belongs to Tom Sumpter, let mad-cap Tarleton do his best! We Whigs, Mr. Musgrove, have a little touch of the hobgoblin in us. We travel pretty much where we please. Now, I will tell you, friend, very plainly what I am after. I don't mean to leave these parts till I see what is to become of Major Butler. Innis and Floyd put together sha'n't hinder me from looking after a man that's under my charge. I'm an old sodger, and they can't make much out of me if they get me."
"The country is swarming with troops of one kind or another," said the miller; "and a man must have his wits about him who would get through it. You are now, Mr. Robinson, in a very dangerous quarter. The fort at Ninety-Six on one side of you, and Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock on the other—the road between the three is full of loyalists. Colonel Innis is here to keep the passage open, and, almost hourly, his men are passing. You should be careful in showing yourself in daylight. And as for your poor friend, Major Butler, there is not likely to be much good will shown towards him. I greatly fear his case is worse than it seems to you."
"There is somewhere," said Robinson, "in that book that lies open on the table—which I take to be the Bible—the story of the campaigns of King David; and as I have hearn it read by the preacher, it tells how David was pushed on all sides by flying corps of the enemy, and that, seeing he had no sword, he came across a man who gave him victuals and the sword of Goliath—as I got my dinner and a sword this morning from the tavern-keeper at Blackstock's; and then he set off on his flight to some strange place, where he feigned himself crazy and scrabbled at the gate, and let the spit run down on his beard—as I have done before now with Tarleton, Mr. Musgrove; and then King David took into a cave—which I shouldn't stand much upon doing if there was occasion; and there the King waited, until he got friends about him and was able to drub the Philistians for robbing the threshing-floors—as I make no doubt these Tories have robbed yours, Allen Musgrove. But you know all about it, seeing that you are able to read, which I am not. Now, I don't pretend to say that I nor Major Butler are as good men as David—not at all; but the cause of liberty is as good a cause as ever King David fought for, and the Lord that took his side in the cave, will take the side of the Whigs, sooner or later, and help them to beat these grinding, thieving, burning, and throat-cutting Tories. And, moreover, a brave man ought never to be cast down by such vermin; that's my religion, Mr. Musgrove, though you mought hardly expect to find much thought of such things left in a rough fellow like me, that's been hammered in these here wars like an old piece of iron that's been one while a plough coulter, and after that a gun-barrel, and finally that's been run up with others into a piece of ordnance—not to say that it moughtn't have been a horse shoe in some part of its life, ha! ha! ha! There's not likely to be much conscience or religion left after all that hammering."
"'He shall keep the simple folk by their right,'" said Musgrove, quoting a passage from the Psalms, "'defend the children of the poor and punish the wrong-doer.' You have finished your supper, Mr. Robinson," he continued, "and before we retire to rest you will join us in the conclusion of our family worship, which was interrupted by your coming into the house. We will sing a Psalm which has been given to us by that man whose deliverance has taught you where you are to look for yours."
"If I cannot help to make music, Allen," said Horse Shoe, "I can listen with good will."
The miller now produced a little book in black-letter, containing a familiar and ancient version of the Psalms, and the following quaint and simple lines were read by him in successive couplets, the whole family singing each distich as soon as it was given out—not excepting Horse Shoe, who, after the first couplet, having acquired some slight perception of the tune, chimed in with a voice that might have alarmed the sentinels of Innis's camp: