“You have spirit, it seems, despite your Quaker speech. The horse is yours for one——”
At this instant there came a shout from the soldiers who had resumed the chase of the poultry during the colloquy between their officer and the maiden. Some of their number had struck down some beehives formed of hollow gum logs ranged near the garden fence. The irritated insects dashed after the men, and at once the scene became one of uproar, confusion and lively excitement.
The officer loosed his clasp on the bridle, and turned to see the cause of the clamor. The attention of the guard was relaxed for the moment, and taking advantage of the diversion Peggy struck her pony quickly. The mare bounded forward; the captain uttered an exclamation and sprang after her just as the sharp crack of a dozen rifles sounded.
When the smoke lifted the captain and nine men lay stretched upon the ground, and Peggy was flying toward cover as fast as Star could carry her. Immediately the trumpets sounded a recall, but by the time the scattered dragoons had collected, mounted and formed, a straggling fire from a different direction into which the concealed farmers had extended showed the unerring aim of each American marksman, and increased the confusion of the surprise.
Perfectly acquainted with every foot of the ground, the farmer and his friends constantly changed their position, giving in their fire as they loaded so that it appeared to the British that they were surrounded by a large force. The alternate hilly and swampy grounds and thickets, with woods on both sides the road, did not allow efficient action to the horses of the dragoons, and after a number of the troopers had been shot down they turned and fled. The leading horses in the wagons were killed before they could ascend the hill and the road became blocked up. The soldiers in charge, frantic at the idea of being left behind, cut loose some of the surviving animals, and galloped after their retreating comrades.
“They didn’t find it so easy to get pickings up here as they did down at my house,” chuckled Henry Egan as the hidden farmers came forth after the skirmish, without the loss of a man. “I reckon, pa, you’d better get the women back here. Some of these men need attention. I wonder where Peggy went? The daring little witch! I was scared clean out of my senses when she sassed that captain. Find where she is, pa.”
It was not long before the women were back, and with them came Peggy, tearful but joyous, leading Star by the bridle.
CHAPTER XXX—AN INTERRUPTED JOURNEY
| “I still had hoped ... Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I heard, of all I saw.” —Goldsmith. |
A few days later the country was electrified by the news that the Whigs west of the Alleghanies had marched to the relief of their oppressed brethren of the Carolinas, and defeated the British at King’s Mountain. The victory fired the patriots with new zeal, checked the rising of the loyalists in North Carolina, and was fatal to the intended expedition of Cornwallis. He had hoped to step with ease from one Carolina to the other, and then proceed to the conquest of Virginia; he was left with no choice but to retreat.