Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency

by John Pendleton Kennedy

"Silence!" cried Innis, impatient at the obtrusive interruption of the gross captain. "What authority have you to ask questions? Begone, sir."

The heavy bulk of Hugh Habershaw, at this order, sneaked back into the crowd.

"I came only to sell a few apples," said Mary.

"Heaven has sent that girl to the rescue of my life," said Butler, under the impulse of a feeling which he could not refrain from giving vent to in words. "Pray allow me, sir, to ask her some questions."

"It is your privilege," was the answer from two or three of the court; and the spectators pressed forward to hear the examination.

Butler carefully interrogated the maiden as to all the particulars of his visit, and she, with the most scrupulous fidelity, recounted the scenes to which she had been a witness. When she came to detail the conversation which she had overheard between Adair and Lynch, and the events that followed it, the interest of the bystanders was wound up to the highest pitch. There was a simplicity in her recital of this strange and eventful story, that gave it a force to which the most skilful eloquence might in vain aspire; and when she concluded, the court itself, prejudiced as the members were against the prisoner, could not help manifesting an emotion of satisfaction at the clear and unequivocal refutation which this plain tale inferred against the testimony of Habershaw and his confederates. Innis alone affected to treat it lightly, and endeavored in some degree to abate its edge, by suggesting doubts as to the capacity of a young girl, in circumstance so likely to confuse her, to give an exact narrative of such a complicated train of events. Every cross-examination, however, which was directed to the accuracy of the maiden's story, only resulted in producing a stronger conviction of its entire truth. This concluded the examination on the second charge.

The court now proceeded to the third and last accusation against the prisoner.

To this there was but one witness called—James Curry. In the course of the examination this man showed great address and knowledge of the world. He gave some short account of himself. He had been a man born to a better condition of life than he now enjoyed. His education had been liberal, and his associations in life extremely various. It was to be inferred from his own relation, that he had fallen into some early indiscretion which had thrown him into the lowest stations of society, and that his original delinquency had prevented him from ever rising above them. He had served for many years in the army, and was present at the surrender of Charleston, being at that period a confidential servant, or man of business, to the young Earl of Caithness, the aide-de-camp of Sir Henry Clinton. Upon the departure of that young nobleman with the rest of Sir Henry's military family, for New York, he had remained behind, and had taken a similar service to that which he had left, with another officer of some repute. "There were state reasons," he said, "why this gentleman's name could not now be communicated to the court." That, in the month of July, he had attended his master on a visit to Mr. Philip Lindsay, in Virginia; and whilst in the immediate vicinity of that gentleman's residence, at a small country tavern, he had accidentally become privy to the design of the prisoner, and the same Horse Shoe Robinson who had been mentioned before, to seize upon the person and papers of Mr. Lindsay: that these two persons had actually arrived at the tavern he spoke of to commence operations. That he had overheard them discussing the whole plan; and he had no doubt they had allies at hand to assist in the scheme, and would have proceeded that same night to put it in execution, if he had not frustrated their design at the risk of his life. That, with the view of interrupting this enterprise, he had lured Robinson, the companion of the prisoner, to walk with him at night to the margin of a small river near the tavern, where he accused him of the treacherous design which he and his comrade had in view: that, in consequence of this, Robinson had endeavored to take his life which was only saved by a severe struggle; and that, being thus discovered in their purpose, this man, Robinson, and the prisoner had made a hasty retreat towards Gates's head-quarters.

Such was in effect the narrative of James Curry, which was solemnly given upon oath. Butler was for some moments confounded with astonishment at the audacity of this falsehood. He urged to the court the improbability of the whole story. "It would have been easy," he said, "if I had been hostile to Mr. Philip Lindsay—which, God knows, there are most cogent reasons to disprove—it would have been easy to procure his arrest without an attempt at a violent seizure by me. I had only to speak, and the whole country around him would have united in treating him as an object of suspicion, on account of his politics." He admitted that he was at Mrs. Dimock's at the time spoken of—that Robinson attended him there; but all else that had been said relating to the visit, he affirmed to be utterly false. He gave the particulars of the meeting between Horse Shoe and the witness, as he had it from Robinson; and spoke also of his knowledge of the visit of Tyrrel at the Dove Cote—"which person," he said, "he had reason to believe, came under a name not his own."

"How do you happen to be so familiar," inquired Innis, "with the affairs of Mr. Lindsay?"