CHAPTER XXVII
My report but confirmed rumors of the approach of Cornwallis which had already reached Governor Jefferson, and I found him wide awake to Virginia's danger, against which he was taking every precaution his exhausted resources allowed. He received me with flattering remembrance of our former meeting, and an unaffected cordiality. Still more, he pleased me by the letter of introduction he gave me to General Lafayette, together with certain dispatches in which he spoke of me in terms of personal friendship. Among the dispatches was my special commission to raise reënforcements in the valley, with which I was to join Lafayette's command as promptly as possible.
This was my first meeting with the gallant and elegant Frenchman, under whom I was to serve during the remainder of our struggle. Morgan, Clark, Greene, and Lafayette were the four great leaders whom I followed during my eight years of military life. They were as different as four great souled men of war-like genius could well be – though between Morgan and Clark there was the kinship of spirits cast in primitive heroic mold, a like resemblance to Achilles, Priam, Alexander and other heroes of an earlier time – yet each of the four I could honor and love sincerely, serving him with exulting sense of privilege.
For this last emergency, recruiting was not needful. I did not find it necessary, indeed, to cross the mountain, for at its foot I met the grim militiamen of the valley, swarming to meet Tarleton. I had only to form them into a company, and march them to join Lafayette before he began his strategical retreat toward Fredricksburg, with the double object of protecting the manufactory of arms near Falmouth, and effecting a junction with the troops under General Wayne, ordered southward to reënforce us. Cornwallis followed Lafayette, taking a parallel course to the eastward of ours. Often not more than twenty miles separated us, and we dared not slacken our march for heat or storm while the winged Cornwallis gave chase. The junction with Wayne before a battle was forced upon us was General Lafayette's one hope of escape. And now, once more, it was the privilege of the Scotch Irish to render signal service to the cause. To my company, and that of Captain Mercedes, fell the posts of honor and danger. We were the scouts, the pickets, the couriers, and the rear guard on this skillfully conducted retreat.
We had nearly reached the ford on the Pamunkey we had been pushing for, when a force of the enemy overtook us and pressed upon our rear. General Lafayette halted and formed line of battle with the determination to make a desperate stand. I had been sent for to reconnoiter, on the first report of the enemy's advance, and soon discovered that it was only a patrolling force, and that the main body of the British was yet some distance in the rear of us. Hastening with this good news to General Lafayette, I found it more expeditious to travel for several miles along the road recently gone over by Cornwallis' reconnoitering force, and between that force and the British army. As was my rule when on scout service, my squad marched in close column, with detail of two in front, and two in rear, as special lookouts. The front lookout stopped suddenly, and seemed to listen; we approached quickly and heard also the confused sounds, with screaming, and hoarse wrangling, which had arrested their attention. Convinced that the force in front, whatever its uniform and purpose, could be but a small one, I ordered my men to advance at double quick, and, putting spurs to my horse, I came immediately around the bend in the road to the scene of action.
A squad of fifteen or more British soldiers surrounded an overturned post chaise, from the tangled harness of which, four frightened and struggling horses were being extricated by trembling postilions. In the midst of the group were two female figures, one dressed in black, and heavily veiled, the other in the costume of a lady's maid. It was she who continued to utter piercing screams, throwing her hands about in the most tragic manner, and paying no heed to her mistress' low spoken commands. We were within fifty yards of the group before the thud of our horses hoofs upon the sandy soil was loud enough to rise above this confusion of clamors; and before the mounted British could turn, or the dismounted leap upon their horses, we had surrounded them.
"Stack arms: You are my prisoners!" I called, "and what means this cowardly attack upon a lady's traveling carriage?"
"You Americans have a trick of using women as your spies and couriers, and then crying shame upon us if we arrest them, and foil you! This pretended widow or orphan is doubtless stuffed like a pin cushion beneath her black robes with spies' reports, and warnings to Jefferson!" replied the officer in charge of the squad, as he angrily stacked his gun beside the rest, and cast scornful glances upon the veiled figure, who, until then, had stood haughtily erect and silent among them.
"It is a false charge!" she now answered, spiritedly; "I bear no dispatches, convey no messages. I but go to seek my only brother, late a British officer, now a wounded prisoner, yet treated by the courteous enemy who harbor him, I doubt not, with more gentleness than I am receiving from those who should be most prompt to succor and defend me!" Then, turning to me, she continued in tones less scornful: "Will you be so good as to inform me, sir, whose prisoner I have now the honor to be? – The fortune of war may change, it seems, with such magic swiftness, that one finds it difficult to be sure of one's present or one's prospective situation."
"You are no one's prisoner, madam," I replied, stirred suddenly by familiar tones in her voice; "you are under the protection, however, of Virginia troops commanded by Colonel McElroy, and will be conveyed to some place of safety acceptable to you as soon as possible." I had dismounted, meantime, and stood near her.
"Can it be Captain Donald McElroy, of Virginia?" she said in lowered and tremulous voice, at the same moment throwing back her veil, and revealing the face of Nelly Buford – fairer than ever in its setting of rich hair and banded crepe.
Does a man ever quite forget his first love? Has its remembrance always power to thrill him, even though the once lively sentiment be supplanted, or outlived? That the sound of Nelly's voice, and the touch of her hand, could yet thrill me, was, just now, a disturbing revelation. I felt myself disloyal to Ellen and so scorned myself for this fresh evidence of weakness, that I fear my manner to her was almost haughty.
Having dispatched a courier with my comforting news to General Lafayette, and sent my prisoners after him, under sufficient escort, I ordered the postilions, and some of my men, to right the carriage, and make the harness safe. Then I joined Nelly, and relieved her mind of all anxiety about her brother by telling her of his whereabouts, and the news I had had recently that he was convalescent, and would completely recover. Nelly's thanks were fervently expressed after which she proceeded to explain her present situation, and to give me her double reason for leaving the shelter her generous Quaker friends had for some months afforded her – the longing to find her brother, and the wish to relieve her host of the inconvenience and possible danger of harboring one of a family well-known to be strong Tory adherents.
The carriage having been made ready, Nelly and her maid were shut within, and, preceded and followed by mounted escort, Miss Buford was conveyed in state to General Lafayette's late headquarters. We found the army gone, and camp deserted, and I surmised, that, upon receipt of my courier's message, the general, seeing yet a chance to escape, had ordered an immediate advance. We followed, but did not overtake the hastily bivouacked army until past midnight.
No other accommodation than that Nelly's carriage offered was procurable, and so I regretfully informed her, to be cheerfully assured that she asked nothing better, if she might have cessation from jolting, and sense of security. The rest of the hot night I stood guard, watching the languid stars blink one by one to sleep, and waging lively warfare with the swarms of greedy mosquitoes, who constituted themselves surety for my vigilance. As soon as the first flush of morning tinged the eastern sky, I woke one of my men, and left him to guard the carriage while I sought General Lafayette. He was sound asleep under a tree with a gnarled root for pillow, his face and hands covered by his blanket to protect them from the swamp pests. Awakened by my step, he threw off his blanket, looked up at the sky, and muttered sleepily some unintelligible words in his own language.
"General Lafayette?" I said, stepping in front of him, and saluting, "I am Colonel McElroy, at present in command of a company of Virginia militiamen. Will you grant me a few moments of your time while the camp is getting ready to march?"
"Most certainly, Colonel McElroy," then, in the precise English of the cultivated foreigner, and with agreeable accent – "when I have thanked you for this valuable information sent me last evening. Ah, if fortune continues to favor us, we'll yet escape the bold Cornwallis, Colonel McElroy! But we must march unceasingly, till we meet the reinforcements of General Wayne. Then we'll give Cornwallis the fight he seems so much to wish, and show him what may be done by the united gallantry of America and France! But I retard your story, sir; command, now, my attention."
I related briefly the capture of the British stragglers, the rescue of the young lady, and added an account of my previous acquaintance with Miss Buford, and the debt of gratitude I felt myself under to her family. He listened with courteous attention, and responded with true French understanding of such obligation:
"You can do nothing less, Colonel McElroy, than escort the young woman in safety to her brother. Later I shall gladly detail such force to guard you as you may think necessary, but for the present it is safer that she remain with the army."
"Then you have no objection, General Lafayette, to her carriage and its escort traveling between the main army and my company – at present the van guard?"
"None, sir – under the circumstances."
"I have still another favor to ask, General" – somewhat embarrassed by my own boldness – "that you will grant Miss Buford the honor of an introduction. Such attention from you as a brief visit to her carriage would avoid all danger of familiar acts, words, or surmise from any of the troops while she must be with us; she would become your guest, and be under your personal protection."
"A shrewd thought, Colonel, worthy of your Scotch name," General Lafayette gayly replied, "and for gallantry of conception not unworthy one of my own countrymen! I consent, with pleasure, and while awaiting your orderly shall make such toilet as my very limited facilities permit."
Nelly had managed in some mysterious way to remove all traces of her tiresome journey and broken rest, and stood ready to receive the general, under the canopy of a blooming magnolia, meeting him with the ease of a society queen, and responding to his gallant speeches with grace and vivacity. The susceptible young Frenchman at once proclaimed himself her captive, lingering to talk with her until the troops in front were moving, and the rear guard falling into line of march.
Twice during the day he rode back to exchange a few words with her, and to assure himself of her comfort. He was so attentive, indeed, and so solicitous for her, that I think I felt almost a pang of jealousy at being deprived of the full credit of being the fair Nelly's rescuer and protector.
Our junction with Wayne was effected near the ford of the Rapidan a few days later. Already Cornwallis had given over the pursuit, and turned back to rejoin Tarleton. It was now possible for me to accept General Lafayette's offer of a furlough and escort, with fair prospect of safe journey to the valley by circuitous northeastern route. It seemed my fate, by some claim upon my private sentiments or some untoward accident, again and again to be withdrawn from active service at critical periods of our struggle. As willingly as I now rendered this service to one to whom I owed perhaps my life, I sighed inwardly to leave General Lafayette at a time when we might speedily expect some chance to strike a telling blow. To the General I expressed my regret, and was gratified by the warmth with which he assured me he would welcome my return as soon as I should have placed my fair charge in safety.
Not many hours before we reached home, when indeed we were entering the valley, I told Nelly of an amusing conceit that had been running in my head, namely – that I was destined for a rescuer of fair damsels, using this as an introduction to the story, I had been casting about for an excuse to relate, of Ellen O'Neil, and her journey to the west with Clark. But the presence of the maid kept back a full confession, and Nelly's suspicions did not seem to be aroused by my warm championship. Evidently she thought I but framed elaborate apologies for a kinswoman.
Miss Nelly's bearing, in truth, had been a source of disturbance to me for several days. She was so confiding, so almost affectionate in her manner, and seemed to appropriate me with such joyous confidence, that it was difficult not to meet her in like spirit. Not unto this day have I been able to determine the true meaning of her conduct during that journey. Did she believe that I was yet a captive to her charms? or, was it but the natural overflowing of grateful, friendly affection? Or – but even as it came I reproached myself for such thought – did she wish to make me again her slave, that she might have revenge for my single defiance of her power? Such reflections and uncertainties disturbed me more and more as we neared home; and mixed with the gratification of uniting Nelly and her brother, and the happiness I could but feel in the near prospect of seeing Ellen, was a sense of vague uneasiness, of shadowy foreboding.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Seldom have my forebodings gone unverified – possibly because I am not superstitious, and they are usually founded upon some more or less clearly realized cause. I had not been home a quarter of an hour till I felt that something had gone wrong; that the usual sweet and serene home atmosphere was impregnated with an illusive element of discord. Every one capable of the finer shades of feeling has experienced, doubtless, the subtle influence of an atmosphere, surcharged with carefully hidden emotion that yet jars each soul, and sets all nerves a-quiver. Not always, however, is there present a serene, commanding spirit, which can dissipate the threatened storm, by tact and the sunshine of genial graciousness.
So did Ellen, being for a while my mother's guest, during Aunt Martha's absence at a famed medicinal spring. My father, strangely stern and silent, after his first hearty greeting for me, and courteous one for his latest guest, would warm into fitful geniality under Ellen's blandishments, mother's face lose its look of anxious distress, Jean dimple and brighten in the old way, and Buford relax somewhat his air of dignity and reserve.
Yet the cause of the evident gloom hanging over the household was, on the second day after my return, still a mystery; the entire family seemed to have entered into a tacit agreement to withhold it from me, and each one carefully avoided a private interview. For a while it defied guessing even; I could only surmise that Nelly's presence had complicated the situation, and was to some extent the reason for my exclusion from the family confidence. From the first hour I had seen that Ellen was surprised by Nelly's manner to me, though I alone guessed her unconscious resentment, noting the expression of it through an added flush to her cheeks, a slightly more erect attitude of her head, and a firmer tone in her voice. Mother, too, had presently observed Nelly's apparently unconscious appropriation of me, and watched us both anxiously; then Buford seemed to note it, looked annoyed, and exchanged a quick glance of mingled despair and tender assurance with Jean. That intercepted glance gave me my first hint, and I longed more than ever to get Ellen alone, and to ask the score of questions that hung upon my lips.
Through all, Nelly seemed unconscious of the false note in her welcome, and the gloom hanging over the household. After her first regret at finding that her brother, though almost as strong as ever, was yet lame, and likely to be always slightly so, she seemed to be entirely content with her new surroundings, and grew blithe as a child, putting forth all her charms to win over her new friends. I, meanwhile, was driven to despair by Ellen's manner – by disappointment, longing, and hope continually deferred. Once more she was the unapproachable Ellen of Kaskaskia – sweetly dignified, graciously charming, cousinly kind – yet the distance of the poles between us! And, continually, she found excuses to leave me alone with Nelly, constituting me her host and entertainer, while she kept herself occupied with helping mother or with entertaining Buford.
From Thomas, home for his vacation, the explanation came at last.
"Tom," I asked abruptly, "what is the matter? I have not had a moment's satisfaction since I came home. Father is stern, mother unhappy, Jean feverish, and Buford sullen. As for Ellen she avoids me as if I were a dangerous lunatic."
Tom gazed at me, astonished at my petulance, and answered with provoking calmness: "The trouble or at least their knowledge of it, is so recent that they have had no time as yet to adjust themselves to it, and they do not know how you may take it – especially since they are in doubt as to your relations with Miss Buford."
"What trouble? Speak out, lad! I'm sick of mystery."
"Jean's avowed love for Captain Buford. Neither your mother nor your father suspected their interest in each other until four days ago, though Ellen tells me she had guessed it for weeks."
"Well, it is no such grave trouble that the family need sink into despondency because of it. Buford is a Tory, and likely to be always a little lame; nevertheless he's a gentleman by birth and breeding, and lacks none of the qualities necessary to make him a good husband."
"All that may be true, and yet it is not surprising that Uncle William should object to a penniless, lame Tory, and ex-British officer, as husband for his only daughter. Your bringing his sister here just at this time complicates the situation. Buford had decided to go to Staunton, if such move were consistent with the terms of his parole, but Miss Buford's arrival brings him the double embarrassment of providing means for two to live upon, and of seeming to decline for his sister your proffered hospitality – which for himself he has so long accepted."
"I have General Morgan's permission to release Buford as soon as he is well," I said, "so his parole need not interfere with his plans. And he can sell Miss Nelly's carriage and horses if he is too proud to borrow. Perhaps General Morgan can induce Congress to restore Buford's confiscated property, so that his poverty need not influence father, if he can bring himself to forgive his Tory principles. Moreover, I have always intended to divide my western bounty lands with Jean."
"If you are to marry Miss Buford any objection to her brother as husband for your sister would be untenable."
"I have no intention, and no wish to marry Miss Buford," I responded impatiently, "nor she to marry me."
"She seems greatly interested in you, Donald, and lays open claim to you. Well, I despair of ever knowing any woman, and am thankful I have resolved to live a bachelor. Ellen never treated you as familiarly as Miss Buford, after all your months of comradeship."
"Ellen is as rare among women, as the nightingale among song birds," I answered, "but Nelly is lovable and womanly, and I owe her an unpaid debt. Look here, Tom; if you'll do me one great kindness I will consider myself under obligations to you for life. Pay Miss Nelly devoted attention for the next two days; take her for a long ride to-morrow; do anything to give me a chance for some private talk with Ellen before I go back to the army. Think of it, lad," and I laid my hand entreatingly on his shoulder. "My furlough is almost gone, and I haven't had a moment alone with Ellen! I might be killed in the next battle and never see her again! She might take a sudden resolve and immure herself before I can return! I must see her before I go!"
"I'll do all I can to help you, Don," said Thomas, with a long drawn sigh, "but you couldn't well ask a harder thing of me. Miss Buford, though pretty and gay enough, is not my style of woman; and moreover, the least I have to say to young women, now-a-days, the better pleased I am!"
I might have smiled to see Thomas, not yet twenty-six, affect to be already so blasé, and a woman scorner. But I was too feverishly engrossed with my own passionate longings, and half angry defiance of circumstances, to be greatly interested in the feelings of others – except Ellen's, upon which I knew now depended all my hopes of a life rounded and completed as God meant a man's to be.
My next confidential talk was with Jean. She poured out all her innocent heart to me, surprising me by the depth of her feelings. My sympathy seemed to comfort her and she promised, without urgence, to heed my counsel for patience and to impose like conduct upon Buford. They must wait, I told her, until the war was over and I came home for good. Then, with time and intercession, there was good hope that she would win the full consent of our parents, which meant a far better prospect of happiness than a union unblessed by their approval. I promised her, too, a last interview with Buford, before he should leave for Staunton, and she assured me that she would make him no promises I would not be likely to sanction.
A second plan had come to me, which offered, I thought, a better chance to both Buford and myself than my first one of sending Thomas and Nelly for a long ride together, which was to make up a horseback party to the big cave, that Tom and I had often explored in our boyhood and which had now become a resort for pleasure parties. It was but natural that I should wish to show our guest the greatest curiosity in the neighborhood, and also that I should desire one day's pleasuring before I should return to the stern duties of war. I boldly proclaimed my plan, therefore, at breakfast table, the next morning; it was warmly seconded by Thomas and Nelly, and met with no spoken opposition from any one.
A negro boy was sent ahead, with cart laden with skins, wraps, lunch baskets and candles, and we followed on horseback an hour later. Tom and Jean, Nelly and I, Ellen and Buford, we started out, and mother viewed the pairing with little less satisfaction than she would have an arrangement more pleasing to most of us. Freed from the suspicious eyes of our elders, we forgot our reserve and self-consciousness, and enjoyed the cool, dim ramble through the crystal studded passage ways, and also our lunch in the cool grove near by, with the light chatter afterward. When we were mounting for the homeward ride, Thomas revived my waning hopes by boldly proposing a change of partners all around, coolly sending Jean off with Buford, and himself appropriating Nelly, leaving Ellen no choice but to ride with me. Even then I was like to be checkmated, for Ellen kept close behind Thomas and Nelly. At last I grew desperate, and riding close laid a restraining hand upon her bridle, stopping her horse just as we were about to enter a beautiful strip of open forest through which the road extended for a mile.
"Ellen," I said, in firm tones, "I must have an hour alone with you. Let them ride on; we'll follow when they are out of hearing. Can you not trust yourself with me for one brief ride after all our journeying together?"
Over throat, cheek and brow came a sudden glow of crimson like that which was flaming in the western sky; the thick fringed lids dropped over her eyes, and the harp-like vibration I loved was in her voice, as she said:
"You cannot doubt I trust you, Cousin Donald; you saved me once from claw of wild beast, once from my own folly, and once again from a fate worse than common death, from the Indian's torture stake. I would trust my safety to you under all circumstances."
"But not your happiness, Ellen?"
"My happiness would be but too safe in your hands, dear cousin. One has not always the right to be happy."
"And it is sometimes a sacred duty to make one who loves you with every fiber of his being, one who would die to save you sorrow, miserable for life. Oh, Ellen, I know that you are true and holy beyond my understanding, yet I can see no reason in this fixed purpose of yours to divert your life from its evident destiny."
"My weakness assents to all you say, Cousin Donald," and Ellen lifted eyes to mine that were tenderly aglow with feeling, "but you have missed the true reason on which my final decision must depend. If my vow to God may be honestly broken, if I may be absolved from it, it would be only because that were true beyond question which you have so earnestly claimed – that your single hope of happiness, Donald, depends upon me – that by fulfilling my vow, I should leave you to bear the man's struggle, without hope of the man's God-appointed cheer and solace. But recently I have been convinced that no one woman circumscribes a man's possibility of happiness, that God wisely has ordained a quick healing for heart wounds. Therefore, cousin, since happiness, thank God, would still be possible to you without me, I am bound by my vow. You will find some one to devote her life to you who is not of alien faith, who has not broken sacred vows that she might come to you; and I, meantime, will be adding to your happiness by daily intercessions for you before God's holy altar."
Why it was I do not know, but a sudden anger flamed in my heart. Was I always to be answered in this absurd, illogical way, with platitudes of holy vows, and sacred consecration? Were all my protestations of devotion to be brushed aside, as not worth believing, and my life's happiness to weigh as nothing against Ellen's will, and pride, her sudden whims and conclusions? Making no attempt to conceal my anger and my bitterness, I answered her:
"Let us have no more of this cant of sacred vows, Ellen. Think you God has cared to register a disobedient girl's sick fancy that, by immolating herself, she could render Him special homage, or add one ounce to His power and His influence? You say I do not need your life, that I can find happiness without you – thus casting back my words as too light for belief, and my heart, my very soul, as of small value beside your vaunted vow. I would I could believe, Ellen, that happiness were possible for me without you. But it is too late for that, and if in perversity of stubborn superstition you condemn me to a lonely, loveless life, I can but endure it with such fortitude as I may learn to command. It would seem to me but poor reflection for quiet convent hours – that an honest man's life had been wrecked – that a noble family name had perished from the earth – all that one more nun might count her beads and offer up prayers in needless repetition to an all powerful God who has no need of such mummery to help him rule with eternal wisdom a universe of worlds."
"So far apart are we in mind and heart, Donald McElroy," answered Ellen, with flashing eyes, having reined her horse to a standstill that she might fully face me, "if these be your true sentiments, that never could we hope to be one in spirit; never would I dare to unite my life with yours," and, putting whip to her horse, she joined Thomas and Nelly, nor deigned to show consciousness of my presence again that evening.
The next day she kept her room, "with headache," said Jean. The morning after she came down only at the last moment to say good-by to our guests and me. Vainly I sought the chance to whisper my regret and repentance in her ear; she was careful to give me opportunity only for a formal farewell in the presence of them all.
To Buford and his sister I said good-by, after I had settled them comfortably in Staunton, almost with coolness. They, it seemed to me, had repaid my generous wish to more than return their kindness by a crass indifference to my feelings.
Then I faced to the scene of war, once more, with fierce satisfaction. For the first time I felt a thirst for danger. Since I had thrown away all chance for happiness, I would win a glorious death in the last glorious and successful struggle of my country for liberty!