Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency

by John Pendleton Kennedy

Butler was a native of one of the lower districts of South Carolina, and was already the possessor, by inheritance, of what was then called a handsome fortune. He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct of her parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the seat of opulence and fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful and the rarely-gifted united in a splendid little constellation, in which wealth threw its sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and learning and eloquence were warmed by the smiles of fair women: there gallant men gave the fascinations of wit to a festive circle unsurpassed in the new world, or the old, for its proportion of the graces that embellish, and the endowments that enrich life. In this circle there was no budding beauty of softer charm than the young Mildred, nor was there amongst the gay and bright cavaliers that thronged the "little academy" of Eden, (the governor of the province,) a youth of more favorable omen than Arthur Butler.

The war was at the very threshold, and angry men thought of turning the ploughshare into the sword. Amongst these was Butler; an unsparing denouncer of the policy of Britain, and an unhesitating volunteer in the ranks of her opposers. It was at this eventful time that he met Mildred. I need hardly add that under these inauspicious circumstances they began to love. Every interview afterwards (and they frequently saw each other at Williamsburg and Richmond) only developed more completely the tale of love that nature was telling in the heart of each.

Butler received from Congress an ensign's commission in the continental army, and was employed for a few months in the recruiting service at Charlottesville. This position favored his views and enabled him to visit at the Dove Cote. His intercourse with Mildred, up to this period, had been allowed by Lindsay to pass without comment: it was regarded but as the customary and common-place civility of polite society. Mildred's parents had no sympathy in her lover's sentiments, and consequently no especial admiration of his character, and they had not yet doubted their daughter's loyalty to be made of less stern materials than their own. Her mother was the first to perceive that the modest maiden awaited the coming of the young soldier with a more anxious forethought than betokened an unoccupied heart. How painfully did this perception break upon her! It opened upon her view a foresight of that unhappy sequence of events that attends the secret struggle between parental authority and filial inclination, when the absorbing interests of true love are concerned: a struggle that so frequently darkens the fate of the noblest natures, and whose history supplies the charm of so many a melancholy and thrilling page. Mrs. Lindsay had an invincible objection to the contemplated alliance, and immediately awakened the attention of her husband to the subject. From this moment Butler's reception at the Dove Cote was cold and formal, and Mr. Lindsay did not delay to express to his daughter a marked aversion to her intimacy with a man so uncongenial to his own taste. I need not dwell upon the succession of incidents that followed: are they not written in every book that tells of young hearts loving in despite of authority? Let it suffice to say that Butler, "many a time and oft," hied stealthily and with a lover's haste to the Dove Cote, where, "under the shade of melancholy boughs," or sometimes of good Mistress Dimock's roof, he found means to meet and exchange vows of constancy with the lady of his love.

Thus passed the first year of the war. The death of Mrs. Lindsay, to which I have before adverted, now occurred. The year of mourning was doubly afflictive to Mildred. Her father's grief hung as heavily upon her as her own, and to this was added a total separation from Butler. He had joined his regiment and was sharing the perils of the northern campaigns, and subsequently of those which ended in the subjugation of Carolina and Georgia. During all this period he was enabled to keep up an uncertain and irregular correspondence with Mildred, and he had once met her in secret, for a few hours only, at Mistress Dimock's, during the autumn immediately preceding the date of the opening of my story.

Mrs. Lindsay, upon her death-bed, had spoken to her husband in the most emphatic terms of admonition against Mildred's possible alliance with Butler, and conjured him to prevent it by whatever means might be in his power. Besides this, she made a will directing the distribution of a large jointure estate in England between her two children, coupling, with the bequest, a condition of forfeiture, if Mildred married without her father's approbation.

I have now to relate an incident in the life of Philip Lindsay, which throws a sombre coloring over most of the future fortunes of Mildred and Arthur, as they are hereafter to be developed in my story.

The lapse of years, Lindsay supposed, would wear out the first favorable impressions made by Arthur Butler upon his daughter. Years had now passed: he knew nothing of the secret correspondence between the parties, and he had hoped that all was forgotten. He could not help, however, perceiving that Mildred had grown reserved, and that her deportment seemed to be controlled by some secret care that sat upon her heart. She was anxious, solicitous, and more inclined, than became her youth, to be alone. Her household affections took a softer tone, like one in grief. These things did not escape her father's eye.

It was on a night in June, a little more than a year before the visit of Butler and Robinson which I have narrated in a former chapter, that the father and daughter had a free communion together, in which it was his purpose to penetrate into the causes of her disturbed spirit. The conference was managed with an affectionate and skilful address on the part of the father, and "sadly borne" by Mildred. It is sufficient to say that it revealed to him a truth of which he was previously but little aware, namely, that neither the family afflictions nor the flight of two years had rooted out the fond predilection of Mildred for Arthur Butler. When this interview ended Mildred retired weeping to her chamber, and Lindsay sat in his study absorbed in meditation. The object in life nearest to his heart was the happiness of his daughter; and for the accomplishment of this what sacrifice would he not make? He minutely recalled to memory all the passages of her past life. What error of education had he committed, that she thus, at womanhood, was found wandering along a path to which he had never led her, which, indeed, he had ever taught her to avoid? What accident of fortune had brought her into this, as he must consider it, unhappy relation? "How careful have I been," he said, "to shut out all the inducements that might give a complexion to her tastes and principles different from my own! How sedulously have I waited upon her footsteps from infancy onward, to shield her from the influences that might mislead her pliant mind! And yet in this, the most determinate act of her life, that which is to give the hue to the whole of her coming fortune, the only truly momentous event in her history—how strangely has it befallen!"

In such a strain did his thoughts pursue this harassing subject. The window of his study was open, and he sat near it, looking out upon the night. The scene around him was of a nature to awaken his imagination and lead his musings towards the preternatural and invisible world. It was past midnight, and the bright moon was just sinking down the western slope of the heavens, journeying through the fantastic and gorgeous clouds, that, as they successively caught her beam, stood like promontories jutting upon a waveless ocean, their rich profiles tipped with burnished silver. The long black shadows of the trees slept in enchanted stillness upon the earth: the night-wind breathed through the foliage, and brought the distant gush of the river fitfully upon his ear. There was a witching harmony and music in the landscape that sorted with the solitary hour, and conjured up thoughts of the world of shadows. Lindsay's mind began to run upon the themes of his favorite studies: the array of familiar spirits rose upon his mental vision; the many recorded instances of what was devoutly believed the interference of the dead in the concerns of the living, came fresh, at this moment, to his memory, and made him shudder at his lonesomeness. Struggling with this conception, it struck him with an awe that he was unable to master: "some invisible counsellor," he muttered, "some mysterious intelligence, now holds my daughter in thrall, and flings his spell upon her existence. The powers that mingle unseen in the affairs of mortals, that guide to good or lead astray, have wafted this helpless bark into the current that sweeps onward, unstayed by man. I cannot contend with destiny. She is thy child, Gertrude," he exclaimed, apostrophizing the spirit of his departed wife. "She is thine, and thou wilt hover near her and protect her from those who contrive against her peace: thou wilt avert the ill and shield thy daughter!"

Excited almost to phrensy, terrified and exhausted in physical energy, Lindsay threw his head upon his hand and rested it against the window-sill. A moment elapsed of almost inspired madness, and when he raised his head and looked outward upon the lawn, he beheld the pale image of the being he had invoked, gliding through the shrubbery at the farthest verge of the level ground. The ghastly visage was bent upon him, the hand steadily pointed towards him, and as the figure slowly passed away the last reverted gaze was directed to him. "Great God!" he ejaculated, "that form—that form!" and fell senseless into his chair.