It was a clear starlit night, and every tree and pool sent forth a thousand notes from the busy insects and reptiles that animate the summer hours of darkness, when David Ramsay set out with Mary Musgrove for her father's house.
CHAPTER XXIV.
NEW DIFFICULTIES OPEN UPON BUTLER.
With the last notes of the reveillée everything was stirring in Innis's camp. It was a beautiful, fresh morning; a cool breeze swept across the plain, and each spray and every blade of grass sparkled with the dew; whilst above, an unclouded firmament gave promise of a rich and brilliant mid-summer's day. The surrounding forest was alive with the twittering of birds; and the neighing of horses showed that this portion of the animal creation partook of the hilarity of the season. From every little shed or woodland lair, crept forth parties of soldiers, who betook themselves to their several posts to answer at the rollcall; and by the time the sun had risen, officers, on horseback and on foot, were seen moving hurriedly across the open plain, to join the groups of infantry and cavalry, which were now forming in various quarters for the purposes of the morning drill. Companies were seen in motion, passing through the rapid evolutions of the march, the retreat, and the many exercises of service. Drums were beating, and fifes were piercing the air with their high notes, and, ever and anon, the trumpet brayed from the further extremities of the field. Picquet-guards were seen mustering on the edge of the camp—wearied and night-worn: salutes were exchanged by the small detachments on service; and, here and there, sentinels might be descried, stationed at the several outlets of the plain, and presenting their arms as an officer passed their lines.
The troops that occupied this space were mostly of the irregular kind. Some were distinguished by ill-fitted and homely uniforms; others were clad in the common dress of the country, distinguished as soldiers only by their arms and accoutrements; but amongst them was also a considerable party of British regulars, clad in the national livery of scarlet. Amongst the officers, who were in command of the subordinate departments of this mixed and parti-colored little army, were several who, from their costume, might be recognised as belonging to the regiments that had come from the other side of the Atlantic.
Colonel Innis himself was seen upon the parade, directing the movements of divisions that, under their proper officers, were practising the customary lessons of discipline. He was a tall, thin man, of an emaciated complexion, with a countenance of thoughtful severity. A keen black eye seemed almost to burn within its orb, and to give an expression of petulant and peevish excitability, like the querulousness of a sick man. A rather awkward and ungainly person, arrayed in a scarlet uniform that did but little credit to the tailor-craft employed in its fabrication, conveyed to the spectator the idea of a man unused to the pride of appearance that belongs to a soldier by profession; and would have suggested the conclusion, which the fact itself sustained, that the individual before him had but recently left the walks of civil life to assume a military office. His demeanour, however, showed him to be a zealous if not a skilful officer. He gave close attention to the duties of his command, and busied himself with scrupulous exactitude in enforcing the observances necessary to a rigorous system of tactics.
This officer, as we have before hinted, had been an active participator in the proceedings of the new court of sequestrations at Charleston; and had rendered himself conspicuous by the fierce and unsparing industry with which he had brought to the judgment of that tribunal, the imputed delinquencies of some of the most opulent and patriotic citizens of the province.
Amongst the cases upon which he had been called into consultation was that of Arthur Butler, whose possessions being ample, and whose position, as a rebellious belligerent, being one of "flagrant delict," there was but little repugnance, on the part of the judges and their adviser, to subject him to the severest law of confiscation. The proceedings, however, had been delayed, not from any tenderness to the proprietor, but, as it was whispered in the scandal of the day, on account of certain dissensions, amongst a few prominent servants of the British crown, as to which of them the privilege of a cheap purchase should be extended. The matter was still in suspense, with a view (as that busybody, common rumor, alleged) to reward a particular favorite of the higher powers with the rich guerdon of these good lands, in compensation for private and valuable secret services, rendered in a matter of great delicacy and hazard—no less a service than that of seducing into the arena of politics and intrigue, an opulent and authoritative gentleman of Virginia, Mr. Philip Lindsay.