Seventy-Six (1840)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
What steed to the desert flies fast and afar?
*****
——— ——— ——— no rider is there;
And the bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Never, in all my life, did I pass such a night as that which followed the conversation that I have just related. I know not whether I was know not whether I was born with a more timorous heart than other men, but I have been ready to believe, when I have seen their indifference to matters of life and death, where we have stood together, ankle deep in blood: their cold, phlegmatic habitual disregard of what made my heart feel sometimes as if it were turning to stone within me, and my flesh crawl: that they were fashioned originally, and by constitution, of sterner material than myself; and yet, I have seen Archibald too, pale as death, in the awful stillness that preceded the first shot, while they went on, immoveable and solid as a phalanx of machinery, with no sweat upon their foreheads, no prayers upon their lips, no knocking at their ribs. What, then, should I think ? His courage was indisputable, and yet he was abundantly more agitated than myself. However, not to anticipate, there were a thousand apprehensions, natural to an inexperienced country lad, like myself, about to abandon the roof of his father, mingled and dashed, too, with some pleasant and adventurous feeling, common, I dare say, to the high in blood, whatever may be their courage: but there were some perils—some, that the terror of would not let me sleep. The smallpox was in the American army, and its ravages were tremendous, as we were told, and believed: add to this that Cornwallis had just moved upon our frontiers, with the design of effecting a junction between his army and that of Sir Henry Clinton, then in possession of New York. Their forces, exceeding fifty-five thousand men, were well known to be admirably appointed, and altogether superior to ours. Arnold had been beaten, and we had just lost the command of the lakes; and Fort Pitt, too, had fallen; several perilous changes had been made in the staff; General Schuyler and Gates were at loggerheads—Washington himself was losing a part of his popularity; and they were intriguing to set him aside, not by dismissal, but by passing a vote of censure upon him, which they knew the great man would not brook; the army had dwindled to nothing, by the folly and madness of short enlistments, and, literally, nothing at all had been done, on our part, during the campaign—nothing experienced but a series of defeat and humiliation, which no human being could have held up against, except George Washington.
Such was the state of affairs at this time; and if you add to these facts, which were painful and disheartening enough to intimidate and bow the bravest, the ten thousand rumours and exaggerations perpetually afloat; the fact that we were safer under the protection of the enemy than of our own countrymen; the different appearance of our tatterdemalions, half naked, half armed, and half starved, from their invaders, a gallant and dazzling army with banners and trumpets, and the offer pardon and mercy, just made by Sir William Howe, at the head of thirty thousand veterans—offers which were not only made to, but were accepted, far and near, by the dastardly of gentry (for the poor held out, in their nakedness and poverty, to their last breath); and the threat, constantly reiterated, that all the prisoners of war would be hung for rebels and traitors, and never exchanged; you will not wonder that my heart was heavy at the thought of what I was about to encounter.
However, the night wore away at last, and never did the morning light break in upon me with such influence; my blood danced in my body: and before I had been out in the wind an hour—a fine frosty air, with a few stars yet visible, and the bluest sky that I ever saw above me, I do believe that I could have gone into battle with less terror than I had heard the proposal to go ten or twelve hours before. Such is the steadying effect of contemplation; such is to be prepared—and such the strengthening of God's breath, when it blows down from the mountain upon us, before sunrise. It would revive a dead man, I have sometimes thought, when I was galloping away before it, for life and death almost:—but Arthur appeared the same frank, cordial, careless fellow in the morning, that I had always found him. He was one of them that take whatever happens, in this world of commotion and trial, as a sort of thing not to be troubled about.
"Well, John," said he, clapping me on the shoulder, retreating about forty yards, and levelling his rifle at my head, "let me see if you can stand fire?"
I started, in good earnest, for it went off, and the ball whistled through my head, I thought, for a moment—but it certainly passed very near me.
"Better than you cousin, I am sure!" said I, forgetting my consternation, in looking at the sudden change and rightful expression of his face.
"Gad a mercy!" he cried, "whew!" stopping a moment to see if I would fall, and then running up to me and feeling all about my head, like a delirious creature, for a minute or two—"bless my heart and soul!—whew! well, how do you feel! ——d———n that rifle, it goes off without touching the trigger, it only jarred in my hand."
"Yes!" said I, rising forty-fold in my own estimation to find that I was so little discomposed by an accident, that had well nigh settled the campaign with me for ever and ever, and shaken poor Arthur's courage into dust—"yes,—but if you do not aim better than that, when you get among the Virginia riflemen—Morgan's men—they'll——"
"Don't talk to me—don't talk," cried Arthur, choking with joy and terror, while his black eyes actually ran over, and he trembled from head to foot.
"Well," said Archibald, "joining us with a prouder step than common, "you are harnessing for the war, I see, my brave brother; and you, too, cousin Arthur. Have you made up your minds never to return, never to lay down your arms—never! never! till—ha! what's all this—by heaven, it cannot be (catching Arthur by the arm, and turning him partly round, for he was stooping as if to tighten the girth of his horse, but had remained there rather too long a time for the impatient temper of Archibald)—tears! tears upon the face of Arthur Rodman.
"Yes," cried Arthur, "and tears had well nigh been upon your face, too, my lad."
Archibald shook his head, and smiled.
"Oh! you may smile—anybody can smile; but, if you had seen your brother shot through the head, I am inclined to think that—"
"What were you firing at?" said my father, leaping over the fence near where we stood, and standing all at once by our side.
Arthur, though I attempted to avoid him, immediately told him, and as he did I could perceive the under lip of Archibald violently compressed, and his brow knitting with emotion, but my father did not change countenance.
"And how did he bear it?" said he.
"Like a lion," cried Arthur, striking his hands together; "he only turned upon me and chided me for my bad shot."
"Not so bad a shot, neither," said Archibald, putting his hand to my face; "an inch or two more, and the ball would have done your business. You will have to get a lock shorn on the other side of your head."
It was very true: my hair was loose and flying in the wind, and the ball, diverted from its aim by the jar of the piece as it fell into Arthur's hand, had cut away one of the heaviest locks, as if it had been shorn with a razor. My blood thrilled, and I felt sick at the heart for a moment: and, if I had been alone, I should have fainted, I dare say, while I thought of my narrow escape; but eventually it was a happy thing for me, perhaps—one of the happiest, for it gave others a great opinion of my self-command, and finally produced a like opinion in myself. Nay, to this very incident, in a great measure, I believe, may be attributed the reputation that I subsequently obtained of being one of the most intrepid fellows in our regiment; for I have always observed that, when a report has once gone abroad, people rarely think of inquiring into the origin or authority of it: so that it would be no difficult matter, I believe, for any man to put his own character, in what form he pleases, out into the world, and, after a time, they that were vociferous in defence of his virtues, would forget that he himself was the author and origin of all that related to them. "Say that you are not afraid of the devil," said Arthur to our sergeant one day, and, by and by, it will become your general reputation. Every body will swear that you are not afraid of the devil, and forget who told him so—nay, fight to prove it for, such is man's nature, enlist him to report a doubtful affair, and it is ten to one that he exaggerates in proportion as he is distrusted, until at last he is willing to spill his blood in proof of it. Another good effect is, that the man himself, at last, begins to believe that other people know him better than he knows himself, and he really becomes what they say he is—not afraid of the devil!"
At last we breakfasted together, my dear mother at my right hand. A mournful, but manly and noble sorrow was in the countenance of my father; a more tender and passionate one in the light, hazel eyes of my mother and in all the rest, that kind of unwillingness to be either silent or talkative which characterises young hearts when they are among them that mourn, without being able to understand or comfort them. We swallowed our milk (for coffee was unknown to us then), but left the food untasted; and then, with an occasional word or two, that sounded abruptly upon the ear, as if spoken in a wrong place, unpreparedly, as in a sick chamber, or house of prayer we mounted our horses.
"You will beat up for recruits," said my father, "during the day, and return to us at night. To-morrow we shall try to set you both off in good earnest."
Archibald came to me, and took the bridle in his hand for a moment, as I was turning away, and then let it go again reluctantly, as if he had intended to bid me a farewell, but his heart had failed him.
"But Archy, how is this?" said my father. "Do you not go with them?"
"No, sir," said Archibald, throwing down his eyes, "my horse might run away with me, you know." My father laughed. "No, my boy, you are the better horseman of the three, if not the best of the county, and I would trust you to break a colt that I would not trust many a rider to cross after you had subdued him. I did not mean to mortify you, I only desired to make you feel that you were comparatively helpless.
"I did feel it, father," said Archibald, walking away.
Well, well; never mind it, son. The stud is your own. Take your choice, and follow them, if you will—or go with me to the muster,—or take your own way, and, if you think you can succeed, go among the lads of the neighbourhood, and see how many you can bring in."
His eyes flashed fire, I remember, as we set off at full gallop for the high road, and in less than twenty minutes we saw him stretching like a hunter over a distant elevation after which—for he only took off his hat, stood up in the stirrups for a moment, and waved it without stopping—after which we saw no more of him till about nine that evening, when he came suddenly upon us with nearly twenty well-mounted young fellows, upon the best horses in the country, rattling at his heels like so many mad devils. They almost rode us down, for, with all our efforts, we had been able to muster but five.
"How he sits!" cried Arthur, pointing to him as he rode leisurely about, while we were all trying to form. The moon shone gallantly upon us, and really, had there been a trumpet there, and an enemy, we should have given a good account of him, notwithstanding our inexperience and wretched equipment. Indeed, there is a natural feeling of the heart, a proud pulse, about men always, who ride well, and are well mounted, though they are alone in the daylight; but when there are thirty more of them, thundering along at full gallop, under a broad blue sky, and a clear starlight, though they were day-labourers on foot, lucre would be a swelling of the heart, warlike and hazardous, I am sure, like banditti at least, if not like well-trained cavalry.
"I am thinking," said Archibald, leaping his horse at full speed over a ditch where all the others halted and boggled, and joining us—"I am thinking that if we ride over to the plain yonder, the muster-ground, that we may spend an hour or two profitably in manœuvring against to-morrow."
Arthur smiled, but, in that spirit of fellowship which all men have under excitement, we rode on, renewing our acquaintance with some of the horsemen about us, and making it with such as -were strangers. They were fine fellows, indeed; and when we were afterwards counted off into fours and sixes, and the order was given to gallop, I thought that I had never seen so handsome a troop of yeomanry.
Archibald had ridden hard, I am sure, that day, for the mettlesome creature that he rode kept throwing down her head and snorting continually when she stopped, as if hurt in her wind.
"My friends," said Archibald the moon shone full upon his white forehead as he uncovered it, and wiped away the sweat—"it is now time to separate. Let us meet to-morrow, at twelve, on this spot, each prepared to return no more or to return victorious. I said us—I do not mean it. It is not in my power to be with you, except, perhaps, as I have already told you to bid you God speed. But before we part, if you are willing to spend half an hour, and your horses are not fatigued, I will show you what little I know of the cavalry exercise, so that you will be enabled, at least, to enter the camp with an air of respectability".
The proposition was agreed to, and he threw us into line, counted us off into sections, wheeled in and out, galloped, and charged. I was truly astonished at the result. Before we parted, our horses would rein as steadily into line, and wheel with as much precision, almost of themselves, as they took a pride in it; and subsequent experience to me that they do, for many I seen broken to the line in a single drilling.
We then separated, all to our different homes, for the night;—when Arthur, who had been riding at our side, in silence, for about half an hour, suddenly wheeled from the road, with a laugh, leaped a low stone wall, and dashed away to our left.
"At twelve precisely," said I, calling after him.
"Aye! aye, at twelve!" he answered, flourishing his sword in the starlight.
Archibald reined up for a moment, and looked after him in surprise—"not the way to his uncle's?" said he.
"No," I replied, well knowing where he had gone. "I believe not."
Archibald looked at me for a moment, as if about to speak, but he did not, and then put ahead for some time.
"What say you," said he, abruptly, "shall we ride over to Arnauld's?"
"By all means," I cried, leaping forward and abreast of him; "it is only a mile or two, and I should like to see Lucia before I go."
"Lucia! yes," said Archibald, stooping over the neck of his horse and feeling the curb; "it would be well. You are a favourite there, brother and it would be rather unfriendly to go away for so long a———brother, your stirrups are too long—shorten them—you can never sit firmly in that way—throw your feet home."
"Pho, pho! how should you know better than I?"
"I do know better than you, brother and it matters not how I know it. If you do not ride with short stirrups, and your feet home, you are perpetually in danger of losing your seat, and your stirrup."
"But suppose I should be thrown?"
"You cannot be thrown. You must not look to such an event as possible. I was never thrown."
"I beg your pardon," said I.
"Never!" he replied, warmly. "Once or twice the horse fell with me."
"And suppose that your feet had been home then, what would have become of you?"
"They were. I grant, brother, if you are thrown, that it is more dangerous; but then you are not the hundredth part so likely to be thrown as———ah! music!"
We were now passing the windows, a long row of which, with the curtains up, were all illuminated. Archibald put his hand gently upon mine for a minute, and sat listening.
"By heaven!" said I, "there never was such a voice upon earth."
But he said nothing, he only drew a long breath, and turned aside his face.
There was Lucia, lolling upon the sofa, and singing away with all her heart and soul, as if her very breath were melody, so sweet and natural was the modulation of the tone.
"How very beautiful!" said I, dazzled by her brightness, as the fire-light shone upon her eloquent countenance, and gave to the whole of it the hue of a lighted transparency.
Archibald made no reply, but threw himself from the saddle, and struck the gate with his whip handle. The sound immediately ceased, and some tokens of alarm were given; for hands were busy in letting down the curtains of the room, all around, and it was some minutes before we were admitted. But then "O!"—our welcome was that of the heart.
"Oh, my dear, dear friend," cried Lucia, running to Archibald, and putting her hands into his, "how glad I am that you are here."
"Why so?" said he, colouring a little.
"O!" she answered, "O!"—her pleasant, dark, hazel eyes, with lashes black as death, were shaded, for a moment, with embarrassment—"we have been terrified this afternoon, with some stories about a troop of horse in the neighbourhood."
"But you seem to have forgotten Mr. Oadley," said her eldest sister Clara, a remarkably pale, tall girl, with a serious cast of countenance, and very bright eyes, incessantly in motion.
Lucia coloured to the temples, and stepping forward, her superb person just losing its girlishness for the graver beauty of womanhood—"I pray Mr. Oadley to pardon me," she said. "I have always been more intimate with his brother, as he knows well, and when I see him, there are so many feelings of the old schoolfellow at my heart, that I am half inclined to forget both our ages in a game of romps!"
Her sister smiled, a little scornfully, I thought and her mother, one of the most truly beautiful women of the age, immediately set all matters right by shaking her finger at Lucia—and welcoming, with her accustomed gracefulness and ease—her "caro amico!"
"I am really glad that you have come, separate from the pleasure that your company always gives to us, on account of this report, and the absence of my husband." "Absent?" said I, but before I could say more, a look from Archibald cut me short.
There was a momentary embarrassment in all our faces—for I dreaded to mention, that I had seen him within an hour or two; and still less would I have told her where—for there was something rather mysterious—and, as my father thought, dangerous in the movements and authority of Mr. Arnauld; but it soon wore off, and we joined, pleasantly, in conversation.
"I heard your voice, I believe," said Archibald, looking at Lucia, "as we approached."
"Mine!" she answered, with surprise, a—laughing, I suppose?"
"No—singing—your favourite air."
"O no: that was Clara's"
Archibald and I exchanged a look with each other, and smiled. Here had been one of those delusions, at which men may laugh if they will, but which are strangely mortifying to them, after all. We had united, heretofore, in our condemnation of Clara's voice, chiefly, I dare say, because we had not often heard it, and when we had, only by stealth or accident; yet, to-night, in the depth of our feelings, we had mistaken it for that of her sister, which was undeniably, the richest, sweetest, and most passionate of all the country. We! no, how do I know that he was deceived?
"One song," said my brother, Miss Lucia, and we will then leave you."
"A strong temptation!" she said, softly, to me, looking through her abundant dark hair, "shall I?"
"O, certainly!" I answered, "I have on purpose to hear one more of—"
"Why, what is all this?" said her mother, glancing at Archibald, "your countenance is more than commonly serious. Has any thing happened?"
"My brother," said Archibald, "will join the army to-morrow."
"The army; gracious heaven!" said Clara, and then checked herself, while the blood darkened her whole forehead.
"And your brother," said a faint voice to me; I looked up, and saw the face of Lucia, near mine, exceedingly pale, and her white hand raised, "will he go with you?"
I shook my head, and her hand fell. Tho next moment I saw her sitting back, as far as she could, with her eyes upon a book; but occasionally they turned timidly aside, to the face of my brother, who sat, in his usual mood, studying the fire, with his under lip working, and shadows flitting, now and then, over his intensely white forehead, as if the thoughts of his heart took wing, one after the other.
His reverie was profound and undisturbed, till the clock struck, and he started upon his feet, and began buttoning up his coat to depart.
"You will not leave us to-night," said the mother. Clara walked up to me, as pallid as ever, and the book fell from Lucia s hand.
"Madam," answered my brother, "if you have any apprehension remaining, we certainly shall not; one of us (Lucia moved near to him, and Clara to me, as he continued) one of us will remain."
She shook her head.
"Well, then, both of us will remain," said Archibald, drawing up his chair to the corner, and entering into conversation, as if his thoughts were any where in this world but in that room.
"But why do you not join the army?" said Mrs. Arnauld to him.
Archibald turned slowly round, and smiled rather bitterly, I thought; and Lucia sat more erect for a while, and then leaned forward, as if to catch every word, and tone, and look.
"For two or three reasons," said Archibald, firmly. "In the first place, I am not twenty-one—not my own man; in the next place, I am to be a parson—a parson! and, finally, I am so weakly a creature, that I might be run away with by my horse, or trampled to death by the foot. Excellent reasons, madam; are they not?"
I could perceive that Mrs. Arnauld looked astonished, and Lucia terrified; and I—I confess that I should have been equally so had I not seen the late development of his character before my father; for his irony was a naked blade—it went to the heart.
Here Lucia's hair fell, and she consumed ten minutes, at least, in adjusting it, all the time keeping her beautiful eyes turned in the direction where he sat, with his fingers playing involuntarily upon the next chair, without moving a limb or uttering a sound.
On the whole, it was a melancholy evening, such as I should not desire to pass again, under any circumstances. It was saddening to my heart, oppressive to the spirits; and, when I thought of the possibility—nay, of the probability, that we might never all meet again in the same room, it was with difficulty that I could refrain from expressing a sorrow and apprehension would have been unmanly.
At last we parted. "Farewell!, madam," said I; "I shall not see you in the morning."
"Heaven bless you," she replied, cordially pressing my hand. "May God be with you, in battle and in sleep—night and day—bien bon soir."
"Amen!" said some one faintly at my side—it was Clara. I turned to offer her my hand, but unaccountable timidity took sudden possession of me, and I could not. I gave it to Lucia, who burst into tears.
I was astonished. What was there to affect her so deeply more than her sister? why at all? Might it not be that her heart was full before to running over, and that she was glad of any pretence to discharge the fountain of tears.
"Farewell," said I again; "farewell!"
Clara put her hand upon my arm as I passed her, but instantly withdrew it; and when I looked, she had turned away her face, so that I could not tell if it were designedly done or not,—but I lay awake, I know, many a long hour, sleepy as I was, that night, endeavouring to reconcile such an accident with her habitual reserve, and lofty, severe, rectitude of deportment. It could not be—no—Clara Arnauld was not a woman to feel at the heart, and least of all for such a man as I—uninformed, inexperienced, and—
*****
We were in our saddles by early daylight the next morning, and trotted slowly past the windows of the chamber where we knew that the young ladies slept. A white hand stirred the curtain—nothing more. I could have sworn that it was Clara's, but on looting into Archibald's eyes, I was sure that he thought it Lucia's.
Alas! It was the hand of neither; it was that of a man! A man!—what!—said I, half audibly, in the bedchamber of—the next moment I saw that it was Mr. Arnauld himself, evidently wishing to see us without being seen himself, for he hastily disappeared, and the next minute the curtain of another window fell suddenly, as if some one had just left it. After all then, my heart was right—it was she.
"What a charming creature she is," said I, half unwilling to interrupt the solemn stillness of our ride.
"Yes," said my brother; "full blooded." But reining his beautiful mare about so as to see her blood-red nostrils, through which her breath issued, like a bright vapour, for a whole yard upon the cold air— "But she was sadly put to it yesterday, and I feared for her wind. Not blown, I hope, but—"
"Oh! I understand you now," I replied, completely puzzled for a moment; "you are always thinking of your mare."
"Aye, brother; what else have I to think of. She knows me—see."
As he spoke he loosened the rein for a moment, the fire flashed from her wild eyes, and she shot by me like an arrow.
The road was a very dangerous one, encumbered with trees and rocks, roots, stumps, and broken all up with the feet of heavy cattle, so that I held my breath for a moment, till I saw him rein her short, as if upon a pivot, without stopping.
"By heaven, Archibald, how did you teach her that?" said I, coming up with him.
He laughed, but there was a mournfulness in the sound, as there was even in the warm flush upon his pallid front, and the arrowy brightness of his intensely blue eyes—they were not the symptoms of health or happiness.
"I'll tell you, brother. I was reading some time since about the Arabian horses, and when we get to a better place I will show you that there is no such mighty matter in stopping at full speed, or mounting and dismounting at a gallop. But what were you speaking of, brother?"
"Of the most charming creature in the world," said I, feeling every word that I uttered.
"Yes, yes, brother, responded Archibald, stooping on the off side of his mare, and turning the stirrup with his foot; "yes; but I cannot well bear to talk of her now."
"But," I replied, unwilling to let the conversation die away so soon—we were just approaching the highest ground in the neighbourhood, from which we would have a view of twenty miles all about us—"I do not like her coquetry."
"What!" said Archibald, abruptly.
"No," I continued; "nor that womanish pedantry and affectation."
"Affectation!" said he, riveting his eyes upon me in astonishment; "what the devil do you mean, John."
"Oh! I do not hope to convince you of it, such a favourite as you are—(he coloured to the eyes)—and that vile habit of sprinkling all she says with a smattering of poetry, and French, and Italian—a smattering of—"
"I'll tell you what, brother," said he, riding up to me. I can't put np with this. I told you once before, that I did not like to talk upon the subject; and I tell you once more, and once for all, that I won't put up with it."
I was amazed. We stopped our horses, and faced each other for a moment upon the very summit of the elevation.
"Are you mad?" said I. "One would think that you were in love with her—(the fire streamed from his eyes). Take care what you are about. That husband is not the gentlest of men, or the most forgiving, nor will he be the more likely to treat you gently for your passionate adoration of his wife because he is the greatest profligate of the country."
"Husband! wife!" said Archibald, impatiently, and stooping from the saddle—"what are you talking about?"
"Mrs. Arnauld," I replied.
He drew a long breath, and reached me his hand, with a smile that went to my heart. "I am a little absent, I believe," said he—"you know that I am apt to be thoughtful, and just now—((he appeared to forget himself, for a moment, in another reverie,— but started again at the sound of two or three shot, that appeared to be fired in the valley below:—when the mare plunged suddenly, and had well nigh dislodged him on the spot.
"She had well nigh broken your neck then, brother," said I, looking about for the sportsmen, who, I supposed, were out after game; but I could see nothing—not even the smoke of their pieces—yet they sounded very near to us.
"I deserved it," said he, reining her up firmly, and adjusting himself to the seat; "tame as she is, I ought never to forget what she has been—a horseman will always mind his saddle, rein and stirrup, (no matter what he is upon) as if expected to be run away with every moment. Ha!—another, that!—the game must be well up this morning."
"That was a pistol shot," said I.
"O yes, I dare say it was," he answered; "our troop are amusing themselves at a mark. But you were speaking of her affectation!—I am sorry for it, on some accounts! she is so truly charming in every other respect—and then, it cannot have escaped you, that our good mother is a little sore of late in her rivalship, for I have caught her more than once throwing in, with a laughable unluckiness, some of the wretched French that she has picked up at Madam Arnauld's."
"You are severe upon Mrs. Arnauld," said I—"too severe; I only complain that she will not consent to talk her mother tongue—not that her French and Italian are wretched."
"But they are," said my brother.
"Oh, no! she has been familiar with them both—and—"
"Pho! not a word of either did she ever pronounce properly in her life."
"But how do you know?" He coloured again—I never say any body blush so readily as he could, about that time. Every emotion of his heart sent the blood all over his face, as if he had been a bashful young girl, on horseback, in male attire. "Not of knowledge, to to sure," said he—"but I have seen Lucia hold down her face a hundred times, when her mother threw in a word or two of some other language—and though I know nothing of either, yet I am persuaded that all my mother knows of French or Italian has been gathered from the daughters. Beside, how different their manner and pronunciation—they never introduce a word of either language unnecessarily; and you might live with them for a whole year, without suspecting that they knew a word of any but their own, were they not led into it by some stratagem of their mother, when strangers from the city are there—or by the accomplished elegance of their father—the profligate!—or by actual necessity: and their pronunciation, too, is so firm and neat, as if they were not conscious of speaking in any but their mother tongue. Besides, I have not forgotten the look of approbation that—that—Miss Lucia bestowed on me once, when I said that he who had any thought, could always express it; that the use of foreign phrases was a proof of poverty, rather than opulence; of ignorance rather than superiority."
"Her mother was not there, I hope," said I.
"Oh, no—Gracious God! brother, what is that?—is not that our house?"
I turned in the direction where he pointed, and beheld a black smoke rising, as from the ruins of some farm-house, given to massacre and pillage by the damnable Hessians.
"No, brother, that is not our house—but—let us ride on—who knows what may have happened?"
"We started at full speed, and were just on the top of a second hill, where we could see a clear road before us, when we heard shot after shot fired behind us—and the next moment a horseman dashed headlong over the side of a distant hill, pursued at their topmost speed by at least a dozen men in royal uniform.
"Follow me, brother!" cried Archibald striking the rowels into his mare, and galloping directly to the spot.
"Madman!" I shouted—"come back! rein up, rein up!—where are your arms?"
He heeded me not—his hat flew off, and it was in vain for me ever to think of overtaking him. What could I do?—there were noises and shouting all about me, it appeared; and I could see, every now and then, somebody dashing out of the far wood, or down a hill, as if the whole country were in alarm.
Yet I prest on, at the top of my speed, to the brow of the hill—just in season, to see the horseman that was ahead, wheel short upon his first pursuer, and exchange a shot with him, when, it appeared to me, that, their pistols almost touched. The latter kept on, sitting bolt upright—and the former drew out his sword and came immediately upon St. George, without looking behind him—and then—finding that he was not pursued, gave a cut in the rear, and wheeled—and looked at his enemy—who passed on a hundred yards, at least, after receiving the shot and then fell dead from the saddle.
Down came his comrades then, with a loud outcry upon the conqueror but, with a presence of mind that dismayed me, he wheeled upon them, a full dozen as they were, and leaped a broad ditch, exchanging cut after cut as he passed, and giving point, with a precision that I never saw equalled at the ring. It was then that I saw his object—two only of the squadron could follow him—and there was Archibald on the other side, shouting with all his might, as if succour were at hand: "Come on, boys, come on!" The troopers reined up, and loaded their pistols—and I, desperate with apprehension, rode round to join my brother, designing to pass by the dead man and make prize of his sword, and his pistols too, if possible, for about a hundred yards from where he lay his horse had tumbled, and was yet struggling in his furniture; but I had not gone half way to the place—though the flanks of my poor horse ran down with blood, and I thought that I never should get to it when there was another shout, a clashing of swords, and a rapid discharge of pistols—and the same moment Archibald's mare darted by me—the bridle broken, and stirrups ringing. O! I never shall forget that pang. "Poor Archibald!" I cried, and the next moment I heard the trampling of hoofs at my side.
It was Arthur! pale as death—bloody—and covered with sweat.
"Your father!" said he "your father!"
"What of him!" I cried, blinded and thunderstruck with a new fear.
"Ride, for life and death, ride!" he answered, in a voice so changed that I scarcely knew it,—but I could not obey him—I could not—I threw myself from the saddle—plucked the sword from the dead hand of the horseman, and rode to the spot where I had seen Archibald last.
He was safe—thank Heaven, he was safe; his forehead was cut a little, and the blood was running down his naked arms—this is all that I remember—for a bugle sounded in our rear—the fellows halted in chase, one after the other, like a line of violettes—and seeing horsemen mustering in all directions obeyed the call and abandoned the chase.
"There!" said I, throwing a sword to Archibald as he stood over the stranger, wrapping up his wounds with the shirt that he had torn off from his own body, "there!—follow, to the farm! follow, for life and death!"
I then set off with a feeling of horror and darkness that I cannot pretend to describe. I set off for my father's—I arrived. It was a ruin! I fell from the saddle. The place that I had left but the morning before, the house, the house, it was one pile of ashes and fire. Nothing but the chimney and one of the rough-cast ends were leftstanding; the very barns and out-houses were a heap of smoking cinders—the hay and grain, at every blast of wind, sending np a rush of sparkles, with a sudden blaze like powder.
I was bewildered for some moments, unable to feel or to understand the nature of the calamity that had befallen us, till, on looking about, I saw the skeleton of two or three half-consumed bodies in the fire. I knew not what gave me the strength for such a desperate attempt, but I leaped into the burning ashes, up to my knees, and dragged out—merciful powers what I feared were the last remains of my own father and mother; but no—that horror was spared to me; they were Hessians—they were covered with leather, and I tell down upon my knees and thanked Heaven for it. But still I persisted in the search, till my boots and clothes were literally burnt from me, and I was choked and blinded by the loathsome smoke of the bodies.