Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency

by John Pendleton Kennedy

Notwithstanding his profession, which was seen in his erect and peremptory carriage, his dress, at this time, was, with some slight exceptions, merely civil. And here, touching this matter of dress, I have a prefatory word to say to my reader. Although custom, or the fashion of the story-telling craft, may require that I should satisfy the antiquarian in this important circumstance of apparel of the days gone by, yet, on the present occasion, I shall be somewhat chary of my lore in that behalf;—seeing that any man who is curious on the score of the costume of the revolution time, may be fully satisfied by studying those most graphic "counterfeit presentments" of sundry historical passages of that day, wherewith Colonel Trumbull has furnished this age, for the edification of posterity, in the great rotunda of the Capitol of the United States. And I confess, too, I have another reason for my present reluctance,—as I feel some faint misgiving lest my principal actor might run the risk of making a sorry figure with the living generation, were I to introduce him upon the stage in a coat, whose technical description, after the manner of a botanical formula, might be comprised in the following summary:—long-waisted—wide-skirted—narrow- collared—broad-backed—big-buttoned—and large-lapelled;—and then to add to this, what would be equally outlandish, yellow small-clothes, and dark-topped boots, attached by a leather strap to the buttons at the knee,—without which said boots, no gentleman in 1780 ventured to mount on horseback.

But when I say that Captain Butler travelled on his present journey, habited in the civil costume of a gentleman of the time, I do not mean to exclude a round hat pretty much of the fashion of the present day—though then but little used except amongst military men—with a white cockade to show his party; nor do I wish to be considered as derogating from that peaceful character when I add that his saddle-bow was fortified by a brace of horseman's pistols, stowed away in large holsters, covered with bear skin;—for, in those days, when hostile banners were unfurled, and men challenged each other upon the highways, these pistols were a part of the countenance (to use an excellent old phrase) of a gentleman.

Galbraith Robinson was a man of altogether rougher mould. Nature had carved out, in his person, an athlete whom the sculptors might have studied to improve the Hercules. Every lineament of his body indicated strength. His stature was rather above six feet; his chest broad; his limbs sinewy, and remarkable for their symmetry. There seemed to be no useless flesh upon his frame to soften the prominent surface of his muscles; and his ample thigh, as he sat upon horseback, showed the working of its texture at each step, as if part of the animal on which he rode. His was one of those iron forms that might be imagined almost bullet proof. With all these advantages of person, there was a radiant, broad, good nature upon his face; and the glance of a large, clear, blue eye told of arch thoughts, and of shrewd, homely wisdom. A ruddy complexion accorded well with his sprightly, but massive features, of which the prevailing expression was such as silently invited friendship and trust. If to these traits be added an abundant shock of yellow, curly hair, terminating in a luxuriant queue, confined by a narrow strand of leather cord, my reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the person I wish to describe.

Robinson had been a blacksmith at the breaking out of the revolution, and, in truth, could hardly be said to have yet abandoned the craft; although of late, he had been engaged in a course of life which had but little to do with the anvil, except in that metaphorical sense of hammering out and shaping the rough, iron independence of his country. He was the owner of a little farm in the Waxhaw settlement, on the Catawba, and having pitched his habitation upon a promontory, around whose base the Waxhaw creek swept with a regular but narrow circuit, this locality, taken in connexion with his calling, gave rise to a common prefix to his name throughout the neighborhood, and he was therefore almost exclusively distinguished by the sobriquet of Horse Shoe Robinson. This familiar appellative had followed him into the army.

The age of Horse Shoe was some seven or eight years in advance of that of Butler—a circumstance which the worthy senior did not fail to use with some authority in their personal intercourse, holding himself, on that account, to be like Cassius, an elder, if not a better soldier. On the present occasion, his dress was of the plainest and most rustic description: a spherical crowned hat with a broad brim, a coarse grey coatee of mixed cotton and wool, dark linsey-woolsey trowsers adhering closely to his leg, hob-nailed shoes, and a red cotton handkerchief tied carelessly round his neck with a knot upon his bosom. This costume, and a long rifle thrown into the angle of the right arm, with the breech resting on his pommel, and a pouch of deer-skin, with a powder horn attached to it, suspended on his right side, might have warranted a spectator in taking Robinson for a woodsman, or hunter from the neighboring mountains.

Such were the two personages who now came "pricking o'er the hill." The period at which I have presented them to my reader was, perhaps, the most anxious one of the whole struggle for independence. Without falling into a long narrative of events which are familiar, at least to every American, I may recall the fact that Gates had just passed southward, to take command of the army destined to act against Cornwallis. It was now within a few weeks of that decisive battle which sent the hero of Saratoga "bootless home and weather-beaten back," to ponder over the mutations of fortune, and, in the quiet shades of Virginia, to strike the balance of fame between northern glory and southern discomfiture. It may be imagined then, that our travellers were not without some share of that intense interest for the events "upon the gale," which every where pervaded the nation. Still, as I have before hinted, Arthur Butler did not journey through this beautiful region without a lively perception of the charms which nature had spread around him. The soil of this district is remarkable for its blood-red hue. The side of every bank glowed in the sun with this bright vermillion tint, and the new-made furrow, wherever the early ploughman had scarred the soil, turned up to view the predominating color. The contrast of this with the luxuriant grass and the yellow stubble, with the grey and mossy rock, and with the deep green shade of the surrounding forest, perpetually solicited the notice of the lover of landscape; and from every height, the eye rested with pleasure upon the rich meadows of the bottom land—upon the varied cornfields spread over the hills; upon the adjacent mountains, with their bald crags peeping through the screen of forest, and especially upon the broad lines of naked earth that, here and there, lighted up and relieved, as a painter would say, with its warm coloring, the heavy masses of shade.

The day was hot, and it was with a grateful sense of refreshment that our wayfarers, no less than their horses, found themselves, as they approached the lowland, gradually penetrating the deep and tangled thicket and the high wood that hung over and darkened the channel of the small stream which rippled through the valley. Their road lay along this stream and frequently crossed it at narrow fords, where the water fell from rock to rock in small cascades, presenting natural basins of the limpid flood, embosomed in laurel and alder, and gurgling that busy music which is one of the most welcome sounds to the ear of a wearied and overheated traveller.

Butler said but little to his companion, except now and then to express a passing emotion of admiration for the natural embellishments of the region; until, at length, the road brought them to a huge mass of rock, from whose base a fountain issued forth over a bed of gravel, and soon lost itself in the brook hard by. A small strip of bark, that some friend of the traveller had placed there, caught the pure water as it was distilled from the rock, and threw it off in a spout, some few inches above the surface of the ground. The earth trodden around this spot showed it to be a customary halting place for those who journeyed on the road.

Here Butler checked his horse, and announced to his comrade his intention to suspend, for a while, the toil of travel.

"There is one thing, Galbraith," said he, as he discounted, "wherein all philosophers agree—man must eat when he is hungry, and rest when he is weary. We have now been some six hours on horseback, and as this fountain seems to have been put here for our use, it would be sinfully slighting the bounties of providence not to do it the honor of a halt. Get down, man; rummage your havresac, and let us see what you have there."