3 The Merit of a Good Horse

I paused, not to swear this time, but for a momentary reflection on the vanity of man and the deceitfulness of woman in taking advantage of it, and then I sprang upon the back of that old brown hack—confound him for an army mule without the ears!—and gave chase. I had no switch or whip, but I rowelled him and kicked him in the sides until I frightened him into a greater speed than he or anyone else believed to dwell within his long frame. He gave a wild snort, and we plunged after the fleet girl, rocking and swaying like a boat in a stormy sea, but even with such exertion he could not compare with Old Put. Despite the anxiety of the moment, I noted his inferiority with some pride, but then I remembered how much depended upon the success of the pursuit, and continued to urge on my own mount.

Strive and strain as we could and ride and thump as I would with all my arms and legs, we lost ground rapidly. The girl turned her head once to look at me, and I thought I saw a look of triumph on her face, but I suppose it was my imagination, which was industriously tormenting me just then. I groaned at the certainty of her escape, and then hope seized me, for I remembered suddenly that I too had a trick to play. Old Put and I possessed a common language in which we often talked with perfect understanding. I put two fingers to my lips and blew between them a long, shrill whistle, which cut the air and travelled like the scream of a fife. It was a request, a command even, to him to stop and wait for me. He twisted his long neck in the manner of one listening, looking back at me to see what I meant, but he went on, though with slightly diminished speed, his manner indicating that he was uncertain what I had said.

The girl was belaboring him with the switch, for she must have noticed his decreasing gait. I whistled again, and as Old Put’s pace sank to a trot she beat him fiercely. A third whistle, and Old Put, now in perfect accord with me, stopped stock still; not only that, but he faced about and neighed joyously. The girl threw the remains of her switch upon the ground and began to cry, not pitifully, but angrily, fiercely. I rode up slowly and held out my hand to Old Put, who rubbed his nose against it. He knew his master and best friend. Never had I beaten him, and now there were stripes and welts on his side where she had pounded him.

“Why did you not tell me what sort of a horse he was,” she cried, “and then I would not have made myself look so ridiculous, sitting here as if I had been tied and waiting for you to come up?”

“Miss Howard,” I replied in some astonishment, “do you expect me to show you the way to escape?”

“I do not expect anything from you, a rebel,” she said, “Do not speak to me again.”

All right; that suited me. I did not wish to talk to her. She used words only to inveigle me into some incautious mood. But it was necessary for me to tell her to dismount in order that I might change saddles again, as I did not intend to give her another such opportunity. I did not offer to assist her, having had enough of that, but stood beside the brown hack, watching her with a look that was now strictly military.

“Why don’t you help me down?” she said angrily. “Have you no courtesy for a lady?”

“You have declined such assistance from a rebel before,” I replied to her unexpected question.

“And I decline again. You needn’t offer it,” she said abruptly, springing to the ground, when I had no thought of offering it.

As soon as she was off his back Old Put showed the greatest distrust of her and aversion. He shied as far away from her as my hold on his bridle would let him, and his big, dark eyes shone with wrath. I was glad that he had come back to his senses, and he, like I, should have known her thoroughly from the first and always.

“We don’t intend to be deceived by her again, do we, old comrade?” said I to him.

He nodded his head in emphatic fashion, and his big eye winked intelligently. Her face flushed a little, but she took no other notice.

“Look well at this lady, Put,” I said. “Do you note her?”

He nodded.

“She’s English, we’re Americans, and therefore she’s an enemy and not to be trusted. Watch her well,” I continued.

He nodded violently.

“Now, Miss Howard,” I said severely, “I’ve changed those saddles, and they are ready for our use when we need them, but meanwhile we’ll walk again, as we’ve tired our horses out for the second time, and all your fault too.”

She said nothing, but walked on in the way which I had indicated, keeping eight or ten feet from me. She had ceased to cry and had given her features a fixed and angry set.

I was troubled greatly. We had wasted so much time over her futile efforts to escape that the problem of a night’s shelter had grown more difficult and pressing, and I intended that my attention should not be diverted from it again. Therefore I would take precautions. I drew from my pocket a long silk handkerchief, a trophy of the Monmouth campaign, which I had preserved with great care.

“Hold out your hands,” I said.

“What would you do?” she asked, turning upon me a look of fire.

But I was firm. My experience had been too great.

“Hold out your hands,” I repeated. “I intend to bind them together. You play too many tricks.”

“You are not a gentleman.”

“You have told me that three or four times already. It won’t bear further repetition.”

“I will not submit to such a thing.”

“Then I will have to use force, which will make it much more unpleasant for you.”

I hated to do what I had planned. It was rude and severe, but then there are few who have had women prisoners like mine, and consequently there are few who are in a position to judge me. I prefer greatly to deal with the regular forces, but in this case I had no choice, and so I strengthened my will and proceeded.

“Hold out your wrists,” I repeated. “I shall not hurt you. I merely wish to keep you out of further mischief.”

“I shall never forgive you,” she said.

I could afford to laugh at such a threat.

“I trust that nobody will forgive me until I ask it,” I replied.

She looked at me, her eyes full of rebellion. I thought she was going to raise her hand to strike me, but women are so changeable and uncertain. Instead she held out her hands meekly.

I bound her wrists together and noticed that they were white and well moulded. The handkerchief was soft and could not pain her at all, and, besides, her hands were bound in front of her and not behind her. She need feel no inconvenience, but she must realize that her opportunities for mischief were diminished vastly. Old Put looked at her with an air of triumph, as much as to say, “Now, miss, you are being punished, and punished deservedly, for beating me so much.” That seemed to be her own understanding of herself.

We resumed our march, the horses walking behind us. The rim of the sun was now meeting the rim of the earth, and the western skies were tinged with ruddy fire. In the east the misty gray of twilight was descending on field and forest, and the chill of night was creeping over everything. Even in our South Carolina latitudes the nights are cold in midwinter, and I shivered as a twilight wind, with a raw edge to it, swept over the plain.

There was a heavy cloak hanging at her saddle-horn, for she had not ventured upon her journey unprepared. I took it off and threw it over her shoulders. It fell below her waist like a greatcoat, and I buttoned it securely around her neck.

“You are a barbarian,” she said.

“I know it,” I replied, “but I do not intend to let you suffer more than is necessary for your own good. That is the kind of barbarians we are in this country.”

The land was lone and desolate, for we were on the sterile slopes of the hills. It was thinly peopled at the best of times, but now, raided incessantly by Tarleton’s Legion, which knew no mercy to anything, whether animate or inanimate, and plundered too by wild bands which claimed to belong to either army, as the occasion served, and perhaps belonged to neither, the people had fled to securer regions, where one side or the other was master. Only those who have seen it know the sufferings of a country harried by opposing armies and predatory bands. I had hoped to find some friendly farmer bolder than the rest with whom my prisoner and I could obtain shelter, or if not that, at least an abandoned house which would give us a roof, but I saw no sign of a human face except our own, and no roof appeared either in the fields or among the trees. It was a solitude bleak and cold, and the declining sun, now half-way behind the earth, warned me that it would soon be time to stop. The darkness would be upon us, and in a land of hills, gullies, and no roads we could not travel well without light.

Despairing of such shelter as I had expected, I turned our course towards a thick grove of trees rising like a great castle on the left. When we entered it, the shadows already made darkness there, and the night-wind moaned among the dry branches of the trees. I saw the girl shiver, and again I felt pity for her in spite of all that she had tried to do, though I lost none of my distrust and caution.

Almost in the centre of the grove was a small open space, sheltered from the rush of cold air by the great trees which grew so thickly around it. It seemed to me the likeliest spot we could find for a camp. I hitched the horses to boughs of the trees and took from my pocket a small flask of that cheer which a good soldier seldom neglects. I drew the stopper and handed it to the girl.

“Take a little of this,” I said. “You must if you do not expect to catch your death of cold.”

“I would if I could,” she replied, “but I cannot while my hands are tied.”

“I had forgotten the handkerchief,” I continued, “but I don’t think we’ll need it any longer. You have been warned sufficiently.”

I unbound her wrists and replaced the handkerchief in my pocket.

“But don’t forget,” I said, “that this handkerchief is an evidence that I have put my mark upon you and that you belong to me—that is, you are my prisoner until such time as I choose to give you up.”

Her face flushed.

“I will not endure such talk,” she replied, “from a rebel who within six months may be hanged by his outraged King for treason.”

“You can’t escape it,” I said, “and the King can’t hang me before he catches me. It’s a long way from London to South Carolina, and I hear the King is fat and lazy and suffers from seasickness.”

But she drank the whiskey, just a little of it, though enough to put more sparkle in her eye, and handed the flask to me without a word of thanks. Then she sat down on a fallen tree and looked idly in front of her, as if she had no interest whatever in anything.

I gathered up armfuls of the dry brushwood and tossed them into a heap, which I ignited with the flint and steel I always carried. The fire blazed up rapidly and snapped as it bit through the wood. Its merry crackling drowned the desolate moan of the wind, and the long red ribbons of flame and the fast-forming bed of live coals threw out a kindly heat that fended off the chill of the night. Even the girl, angry and humiliated as she seemed to be, felt the influence of the light and warmth, and edged along the log until she was much closer and the fire could shine directly upon her face. Old Put was frank in his appreciation, coming to the full length of his tether and wagging his head in a manner which said to me as plain as day, “You have done well.” Even the stupid brown hack understood and imitated Old Put’s example.

Higher rose the fire and drove back the shadows, but the darkness was now rolling up to the circle of light, and beyond the sparkle of the flames began to rise like a wall. The sun was gone, and a faint, fading pink tint in the west marked the way his flight had taken him. Over all the world the twilight drooped, and the winter wind mourned the dead day.

“Are there ghosts in the forest?” suddenly asked the girl.

“None that I ever heard of,” I said.

“It is so unlike England.”

“How?”

“So much wilder.”

I had heard of their forests there, or rather what they call forests, —some acres of trees, with the undergrowth cut away and the lawns shaven, every rod patrolled by keepers or workmen, a mere plaything of a forest,—but here in America are the real forests, just as nature made them, the desolate wilderness through which the wild animals howl, while the lone wind plays its song on the branches or leaves of the trees. This is the real forest, a place in which man becomes about as big as a cork on the sea. Never the lone hunter, though fifty years his home, fails to feel its immensity and desolation. The girl drew the edges of her cloak a little more tightly and moved as close to the fire as the end of the log would allow her.

“If you will permit me,” I said, “I will give you a better seat by the fire than that.”

She rose without a word, and I rolled the log well within the warmth of the blaze. She resumed her seat, and the firelight flickered and played over her face, tinting her cheeks with deep red and spangling her bronze-gold hair with patches of scarlet and crimson. The little red cap had been pulled securely down on her head, and, sitting there in the alternate light and darkness, her figure lithe and strong, she looked like some Saxon wood-nymph.

But I did not cease my good deeds. I call myself a forethoughtful trooper, and from the saddle-bags I carried across my saddle-bow I took a cold chicken, a piece of cold boiled ham, and some hard biscuits, a dinner fit for a prince, or rather an honest American citizen, which was better, in these hard times of war. To this royal collation I added a canteen well filled with water, remembered the stout little flask in my breast-pocket, and the repast was complete, all but the serving.

Her eyes sparkled at the sight of the good things. Wood-nymphs, Saxon or other, must eat.

“Let me carve the chicken,” she said.

“You have neither a table, plates, nor a knife,” I said.

“This log will serve as a table, some of those clean dry leaves as plates, and you can lend me a knife.”

“How could I lend you a knife, a weapon, after all the tricks you have tried to play upon me? You don’t forget this, do you?”

I took the little toy pistol with which she had tried to shoot me out of my pocket and held it up before her, but she laughed. Women don’t seem to have any conscience, or at least they forget their crimes, which is convenient for their peace of mind.

“Give me the knife,” she said, “and don’t waste time. I’m hungry.”

I distrusted her as much as ever, even more, but I opened the blade of my clasp-knife and handed it to her.

“A very good knife,” she said, “but I have no doubt it was stolen from an Englishman. Ah, here it is—the name of an English maker on the blade!”

“It was not stolen!” I exclaimed indignantly. “I took it from him fairly at the battle of Monmouth, where he fell into my hands.”

“That, I suppose, is a good enough title for a rebel,” she said, and began to carve the chicken.

It was a fine, fat chicken, beautifully roasted, and she showed that she knew how to carve, for she deftly clipped off a leg, which she held up before me.

“That looks fat and good to eat,” she said, “and it’s a fine chicken, but I’ve no doubt it was stolen from a loyal subject of King George.”

“It’s not true!” I exclaimed in some wrath. “He was a Tory farmer, I admit, but I did not steal the chicken. I took it before his eyes, and he never said a word.”

“Afraid, I suppose; but it doesn’t make any difference to you. It will taste just as good to a rebel. Here, take your piece on this big, clean leaf, and eat.”

I obeyed. She carved off a portion for herself too, and ate with a good appetite. Then I handed her the canteen of water and told her to drink.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I took that water out of a clear brook in the wilderness, and the land through which it flowed belonged to God, not to any Englishman or Tory.”

“But how about the canteen?” she asked. “Did you steal that from any English soldier or take it by violence, which is worse?”

I showed her the name of the maker, a Boston man, upon it.

“A vile rebel town, the worst of them all,” she said.

But she took a good drink out of it, and when she handed it back to me I imitated her example. Then, while the fire crackled and blazed higher and the circle of light widened and the darkness beyond it thickened, we ate and drank, and I grew cheerful. I had defeated all her attempts, and to-morrow I would find Morgan and give her into other hands and be rid of all my troubles; yet I was compelled to admit once again that she was very beautiful with the firelight flickering and playing over her face and hair, but all the world knows, as I have said, that the handsome women are most dangerous, the most cunning, and I was on my guard against any new attempt of hers to escape. Still, when I looked around at the blackness of the night and heard the sigh of the cold wind above the crackling of the fire, I did not think that she would dare to attempt it. I knew no woman would venture alone on a winter night into that uncanny wilderness, and, knowing it, I felt easy.

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