4 Supper and Song

The horses looked jealously at our supper. I was sorry for them, especially Old Put, whose great, intelligent eyes said in the purest English, “I too am hungry, master.” But I could do nothing. I had no provender for horses, and so I told him to wait as best he could until morning and I would find something for him, if I had to rob a patriot farmer to do it. He bowed his head in resignation like the wise horse he was, while the brown hack, not so well bred, tugged at his bridle-rein and thrashed about until I threatened him with a big stick.

After the chicken the girl served the cold ham and drank from the canteen again. I did likewise. Moreover, I urged her to wet her lips at the flask a second time as a further precaution against cold, which she did literally and no more. I was liberal rather than literal, for I was a soldier and knew its value. I took my blanket from my saddlebow and urged her to wrap it around herself, but she said “No;” that her heavy cloak was sufficient, and she would not deprive me, even if I was a misguided rebel. I saw that she spoke truly, as her cloak was of the most ample character, and so, having no further compunction, I wrapped the blanket around me, Indian style, and, sitting down on the dry leaves in front of the fire, leaned my head against the log. She sat on the log at the other end, leaning her head against a dead bough which was thrust straight up in the air. I had put the remains of the provisions back in my saddle-bags.

Triumphant, warm, well fed, my cheerfulness, my satisfaction with myself, increased. I stared into the bed of red coals and saw figures, pictures, there. Near the centre of the bed the coals had fallen into such shape that I could trace distinctly the epaulets of a general, and I knew that those epaulets were for me. The coals crumbled into new shapes and built the house which was to be mine when the war was victoriously over and I was ready to retire to it with my honors. She too seemed to be engaged in the same business, for she was staring with half-closed eyes into the dreamy coals.

“Why are you a rebel?” she asked. “Is it from pure perverseness? They say all you Americans are so.”

“They tell many things about us in England that are not true,” I replied, “and this is one of them. The English themselves have often been rebels, and their present royal family, one of the worst they have ever had,—and they have had the Stuarts,—was placed on the throne by a just rebellion.”

“You must know,” she replied, “that in England the character of the sovereign is nothing. It is the sovereign principle. The worse the sovereign, the better the court likes him.”

We relapsed into silence and our study of the red coals. Old Put whinnied gently, raised his head, and looked beyond the fire, as if he saw something in the darkness impenetrable to all but horse eyes.

“I’d better look to that,” I said. “Old Put is not going to give a warning for nothing. He has a character to lose.”

“A wild-cat, maybe,” she suggested.

“Perhaps, but I’ll see.”

I rose, still keeping my blanket wrapped around me, and ordered her to stay where she was under pain of being bound again. She promised, and I believed that she would not stir from her position on the log. The darkness and the desolation were not inviting.

I walked out into the black bank of the night, but could neither see nor find anything. I made a complete circuit around the oasis of light from the fire, and all was peaceful and quiet. I returned to the log, ready to scold Old Put for giving a false alarm, but refrained, reflecting that he might be nervous and irritable, owing to his lack of food.

“What did you find?” asked the girl, looking at me with bright eyes.

“Nothing.”

“I thought you wouldn’t find anything. It was a wild-cat, or maybe a harmless little squirrel.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the wild animals?”

“Not with such a brave rebel as you near me.”

I opened my eyes a little wider and looked at her. It was the first time that she had complimented me, even in that half-handed way, and I was surprised.

“I thought you did not allow me the possession of any desirable quality whatsoever,” I said.

“You are improving,” she replied. “Perhaps it is due to my society. I may yet make you a loyal follower of King George and save you from the hangman.”

I had my doubts about the “loyalty,” which is a term devised for the protection of sovereigns in their crimes, but I said nothing just then. She too relapsed into silence. The heap of coals grew and glowed in the depths with deep crimsons and scarlets, throwing out a generous heat and wooing me to sleep. Despite my sense of caution and the efforts of my will, my eyelids drooped. The castles in the coals became more indistinct and wavered as if they were made of red mist.

Old Put whinnied again and raised his head high in the air, like one who listens. I was wide awake in an instant and on my feet again.

“Put,” I said, “if I find that you have given a false alarm a second time you shall have nothing to eat in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t bother about it,” said the girl. “It’s only a squirrel or a rabbit. Any horse would notice the passing of such an animal. Their senses are keener than ours.”

She was growing very considerate of me!

But I searched the wood again, and finding nothing returned to my comfortable place. Old Put was restless and shuffled about; but, angry at his idle alarms, I commanded him roughly to keep quiet, and he obeyed.

The girl was humming softly to herself, as if she were thinking of her far-away English home. I supposed she was lonely and homesick, and again some pity for her crept into my heart.

“Are you singing of your sweetheart?” I asked, meaning to cheer her up.

“I have none,” she replied.

“Not now, perhaps, but you will have some day.”

“That is a different matter.”

“What kind of a sweetheart would you choose?”

“A soldier, a gallant English soldier, one loyal to his King through all.”

She continued to hum her little song, whatever it was. Something stirred in the wood, and Old Put, despite my previous command, whinnied and stamped his feet.

“Confound that beast, whatever it may be!” I said. “It must be a wild-cat attracted by the light of our fire.”

“Let the wild-cat go,” she said. “Listen and I will sing you a song that will tell you what my future betrothed and husband shall be. It’s an old Scotch song of devotion and loyalty, but we English sing it too, and like it as well as the Scotch. ‘Dumbarton’s Drums’ we call it.”

“Sing,” I said.

Then she sang:

Her voice was deep and true, and the old war ballad was music in my ears. As the melody rose and fell in the lonely night my eyes drooped again and my brain became dim with advancing slumbers, like a child soothed to sleep by the song of his mother. I was tired as a dog, I had ridden long and far and had worked much, and every nerve and muscle in me cried aloud for rest. But I roused myself as she finished and the last note of her song died in the darkness.

“That is a proper military song,” I said, “and nobly sung, but I object to the sentiments of your hero. He minds no other thing but the ladies or the King. The ladies are all right, but no King. Leave the King out!”

Old Put was stamping his feet again.

“That’s right, Put,” I said. “Applaud the song, for it was well sung, though you and I, who are good Americans, don’t altogether like the sentiments. That, I take it, is an old song of loyalty to the Stuarts. It is a singular thing to me how wholesome-minded English people can invest the Stuarts, whom they kicked out of their country, with so much romance and charm when all history shows they were an utterly debased lot, and nobody knows it better than the English themselves.”

“The sentiments of the song, King and all, are perfectly correct, and I’ll sing that verse to you again.”

She looked at me with a look half of defiance, half a smile, and sang:

She sang it still more softly and gently than before, and, though my eyelids drooped again, I turned my gaze from the bed of coals to her face. The firelight played ruddily over her eyes and cheeks, and the expression there seemed tender and far-away, as if her thoughts had gone from this dark night and the war-torn fields of South Carolina to the green English meadows and peaceful sunshine.

When she finished, I raised my hands and clapped them together.

“Well done!” I said. “Well done!”

“Done well enough for us,” said someone, and strong hands reached over the log and grasped me by the wrists. My languor and my sleepiness were gone in an instant, and I made a powerful effort to wrench myself loose, but I had been taken too suddenly. Three or four men flung themselves upon me, and I was crushed under a great weight, while the firm grip was still on my wrists. I managed to deal somebody a heavy kick and heard a grunt of pain, but in a few seconds I was overpowered, and, like a wise man, ceased to struggle further.

Singularly enough, one of my early thoughts in that moment was of relief that Old Put should prove to be a true prophet, having enjoyed such a good character in that respect so long. I had been a fool not to take his warning more seriously. Then I wondered why the girl did not cry out at the sight of struggling men and the sound of oaths and blows, a violent medley usually very terrifying to women. I caught one glimpse of her, and she was sitting on the log, her back against the upthrust bough, leaning upon it as lazily as if she were in a rocking-chair in a parlor. The firelight still played over her face and eyes, but the soft and tender expression which had pleased me was gone. Instead the look that she turned upon me was a mixture of dislike, malice, and triumph.

After meeting such a glance it was a relief to me to look another way and see who had captured me.

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