if a look might be a leven-stroke to do a man to death, i warrant you my lady's flashing eyes would have crisped me to a cinder where i stood fumbling with one hand behind me for the latch of the slammed door. scorn, indignation, outraged maiden modesty, all these thrust at me like air-drawn daggers; and it needed not her, "fie, for shame, captain ireton!—and you would call yourself a gentleman!" to set me afire with prinklings of abashment.
what could i say or do? the accursed door-latch would not find itself to let me fly; and as for excusings, i could not tell her that her own father had thrust me thus upon her. yet, had she let me be, i hope i should have had the wit to find the door fastening and the grace to run away; in truth, i had the latch in hand when she lashed out at me again, and my tingling shame began to give place to that master-devil of passion which is never more than half whipped into subjection in the best of us.
"how are you better than the man you warned me of?" she cried. and then, in a tempest of grief: "oh! you would not leave me the respect i bore you; you must even rob me of that to fling it down and trample it under foot!"
figure to yourselves, my dears, that i was wholly blameless in this unhappy breaking and entering, and so, mayhap, you may find excuse for me. for now, though i could have gone, i would not. her glorious beauty, heightened beyond compare by the passionate outburst, held me spellbound. and at my ear the master-devil whispered: she is your wedded wife; yours for better or worse, till death part you. who has a better right to look upon her thus?
so it was that the love-madness came upon me again, and that thin veneering wherewith the christian centuries have so painfully overlaid the natural man in us was cracked and riven, and the barbarian which lies but skin-deep underneath bestirred himself and winked and blinked himself awake in giant might, as did the primal man when he rose up to look about him for his mate.
before i knew what i would do, i was beside her, and honor, or what may stand therefor betwixt a man and his friend, was flung away. but when i would have crushed her sweetness in my arms she went upon her knees to me.... ah, god! she knelt to me as she had knelt to that other would-be ravisher and begged me for mine own honor's sake to bethink me of what i would do.
"oh, monsieur john! be merciful as you are strong!" she pleaded. "think what it will mean to you, and how you will loathe me and yourself as well when this madness is overpast! oh, go; go quickly, lest i, too, forget—"
and so it was that i found sudden strength to turn and leave her kneeling there; turned to grope blindly for the door with all the pains of hell aflame within me.
for now i had put honor under foot; now i knew that i had truly earned her scorn and loathing. i could no longer plead that i was the puppet of fate flung against my will between this maiden and my dear lad. i was the wilful offender; false to my love, false to my friend, a recreant to every oath wherewith i had bound myself to be true and loyal to these two.
with such a flaming sword to drive me forth, i stumbled from the room, thinking only how i should quickest rid me of myself. hastening to my garret sleeping-place i buckled on my sword, found my shako, and went straight to my lord's bed-chamber. my rap at the door went unanswered, and a broad-shouldered young fellow in a lieutenant's uniform, lounging on a settle in the clock landing of the stair, told me lord cornwallis was gone out.
i was face to face with this young lieutenant before i recognized him; being so bent upon haste i should have passed him on the landing without a second glance had he not risen to grip me by the shoulders.
"by the lord harry!" he cried, "is it thus you pass an old friend without a word, captain ireton?"
'twas my good death-watch; that lieutenant tybee of the light-horse who had sunk the british officer in the man in that trying night at appleby hundred. i returned his hearty greeting as well as i might, and would have explained my present state and standing but that i was loath to lie to him. but as to this, he saved me the shame of it.
"i could have sworn you were no rebel, captain ireton; indeed, i made bold to say as much to our colonel, after it was all over. i told him a soft word or two would have won you back to your old service. you see i knew better than the others what lay beneath all your madnesses that night."
"you knew somewhat, but not all," i said; and thereupon, lest he should involve me deeper and detain me longer when i was athirst to be gone, i hastened to ask where i might hope to find his lordship and colonel tarleton.
"'tis the hour for parade; you will find them at the camp," he replied. and then, out of the honest english heart of him: "have you made your peace, captain? do you need a friend to go with you?"
i said i had been granted a hearing by lord cornwallis but a little while before; that by my lord's appointment i was now a sort of honorary aide-de-camp.
"good!" said the lieutenant, gripping my hand in a way to make me wince for the lie-in-effect hidden in the simple statement of fact. then he roared at the soldier standing guard at the house door below: "a mount for captain ireton—and be swift about it!"
he held me in talk till the horse was fetched, happily doing most of the talking himself, and when i was in the saddle gave me a hearty god-speed. being so sick with self-despisings, i fear i made but a poor return for all this good comradeship; but at the time i could think of nothing but the hell that flamed within me, and of how i could soonest quench the fires of it.
the town, which i had not seen since early summer, was but little changed by the british occupation, save in the livening of it by the near-at-hand camp of an armed host. being but a halt-point en route in the northward march, it was not fortified; indeed, for the matter of that, the camp proper was a little way without the town, as i have said.
i rode slowly across the common, skirting the commissary's quarters and making mental notes of all i saw; this from soldier habit solely, for at the time i had little thought of living on to make a spy's use of them. arrived at the parade ground, i found my lord galloping through the lines on inspection, and so i must draw rein in the background and wait my opportunity.
the pause gave space for some eye-sweep of the scene, and all the soldier blood in me was stirred by the sight, the first i had had in many a day, of a well-ordered army, fit, disciplined, machine-drilled to move like the parts of a wondrous mechanism.
at the back of lord cornwallis and his galloping suite, tarleton's famous light-horse legion was drawn up; and fronting it was the infantry, rank on rank, the glittering bayonets slanting in the october sunlight as the regiments moved into place, or standing in rigid groves of steel at the command to halt and port arms.
what was there in all our poor raw land to stand against this well-trained host, armed—as we were not—with the deadly bayonet, and moving as one man at the word of command? not the bravest home guard or militia troop, i thought; and this seeing of what he had had to front on the field of camden made me think less scornfully of horatio gates.
riding presently around the field to be the nearer to the general when my time should come, i missed the mark completely. it so chanced that as the parade was ended my lord and his suite were at the extreme right; and when the regiments broke ranks i was forced to skirt the entire camp to come into the road. by this time those i sought were gone into the town, so i must needs turn about and follow, with the thing i had to say still unspoken.
i need not drag you back and forth with me on the search i made to find lord cornwallis again. 'tis enough to say that after missing him here and there, i ran him to earth at the court house, where, it was told me, my lord was sitting in council with his staff officers.
thinking it worse than useless to try to force my way into the council chamber, i waited in the raff of soldiery without, cursing the delay which gave my despairing resolution time to cool. when i had closed the door of my dear lady's chamber behind me i was resolved to fling myself upon that fate which needed but a word from me to make my calling and election to a gibbet swift and sure. had i found my lord cornwallis in his bed-room the word would have been spoken; but now the iron of resolution cooled in spite of me.
'twas not that i was less willing to pay the price of expiation; that must be done in any case. but i had seen the enemy, and all the soldier in me rebelled at the thought of dying like a noosed bullock in the shambles. could i but strike that one good blow.
the old court house of our greater mecklenburg was such as some of you may remember; a stout wooden building raised upon brick pillars to leave a story underneath. in the time of the british occupation this lower story served as a market house, and the public entrance to the court room above was reached by steps on the outside. in my boyhood days this outer stair was the only one; but now in wandering aimlessly through the market-place beneath i found another flight in a corner; the "jury stair," they called it, since it provided the means of egress from the jury box above.
the sight of this inner stair set me plotting. could i make use of it to come unseen into the council chamber of lord cornwallis and his officers?
the market-place was well thronged with venders and soldier buyers; the patriotic mecklenburgers were not averse to the turning of an honest penny upon the needs of their oppressors, as it seemed. i watched my chance, and when there were no prying eyes to mark it, made the dash up the steps.
happily for the success of the adventure there was an angle in the narrow stair to hide me whilst i lifted the trap door in the court-room floor a scant half-inch and got my bearings. as i had hoped, the trap opened behind the jury box, and i was able to raise it cautiously and so to draw myself up into the room above, unseen and unheard.
a peep around the corner of the high jury stalls showed me my lord and his suite gathered about the lawyers' table in front of the bar. of the staff i recognized only stedman, the commissary-general; tarleton, looking something the worse for his late illness; major hanger, his second in command, and the young irishman, lord rawdon.
at the moment of my espial, cornwallis was speaking, and i drew back to listen, well enough content to be in earshot. for if my good angel had timed my coming i could not have arrived at a more opportune moment.
"what we have to consider now is how best to reach ferguson with an express instantly," his lordship was saying. "this rising of the over-mountain men is likely to prove a serious matter—not only for the major, but for the king's cause in the two provinces. lacking positive orders to the contrary, ferguson will fight—we all know that; and if he should be defeated 'twill hopelessly undo his work among the border loyalists and set us back another twelvemonth."
"then your lordship will order him to come in with what he has?" said a voice which i knew for colonel tarleton's.
"instanter, had i a sure man to send."
"pshaw! i can find you a hundred amongst the late royalist recruits." 'twas young lord rawdon who said this.
"damn them!" said his lordship shortly; "i would sooner trust this new aide of mine. he comes straight from the major and can find his way back again."
tarleton laughed. "i fear we shall never agree upon him, my lord. i know not how he has made his peace with you, but i do assure you he is as great a rascal as ever went unhung. 'tis true, as you say, i did not go into the particulars; but were captain stuart or sir francis falconnet here, either of them would convince your lordship in a twinkling."
there was silence for a little space following the colonel's denunciation of me, and then my lord broke it to say: "i may not be so credulous as you think, colonel. rebel spy or true-blue loyalist, he is safe enough for the present. in the meantime in this matter of reaching ferguson we may make good use of him."
"in what manner, your lordship?" asked one whose voice i did not recognize.
"he has come straight from major ferguson, as i say; and, loyalist or rebel, he can find his way back to gilbert town."
"but you'll never be trusting him with despatches!" said lord rawdon.
"there is no need to trust him. he can be given the despatches with some hint of their purport, and of how much the king's cause will profit by their safe delivery."
again a silence fell upon the group around the lawyers' table, and then some one—'twas major hanger, as i thought—said: "'tis an unread riddle for me as yet, my lord."
cornwallis laughed. "where are your wits this morning, gentlemen? if he be loyal and true, the despatches will go safe enough. if, on the other hand, he be a rebel and a spy, he will doubtless tamper with them; but in that case he will none the less ride straight enough to major ferguson's headquarters in the west."
"h'm; your lordship is still too deep for me," said tarleton's second in command. "if he be a rebel and a spy, why, in god's name, should he carry your lordship's letters to any but some rag-tag colonel of his own kidney?"
my lord laughed again. "truly, major, you should go to a dame's school and learn diplomacy. if we tell him beforehand what our object is, how could any rebel of them all defeat it more surely than by going to ferguson with a garbled message that would make him stand and fight a losing battle?"
"but, my lord—the risk!" cut in the commissary-general.
"there need be none. an hour after he sets out we shall send a mounted detail after him with an indian tracker to nose out his trail. the lieutenant in command will carry duplicate despatches. at the worst, ireton will guide these followers to ferguson's rendezvous; and, so far as we know, he is the only man who knows exactly where to find the major."
i had heard enough. under cover of the chorus of bravos raised by lord cornwallis's explication of his plot within a plot, i lifted the trap-door and made my exit as noiselessly as i had come.
guessing that no time would be lost in putting the plan into action, i made haste to be found inquiring hither and yon for the commander-in-chief when my lord and his suite came down the outer stair; and when we were met i was quickly told of my assignment to courier duty.
"make your preparations to take the road within the hour, and report to me at friend stair's," said my lord, most affably. "we shall put your new-found loyalty to the test, captain ireton, by entrusting you with a most important mission. go with the commissary-general and he will find you your mount and equipment."
thus dismissed, i went with stedman, and was accorded a more gentlemanly welcome than my overhearings had given me leave to expect.
on the way to the horse paddock the commissary-general told me of his plan to write a history of the campaign; a bit of confidence which set me laughing inwardly and wondering if he would put one john ireton, sometime of the scots blues, and late captain in her apostolic majesty's hussars, between the covers of his book. 'tis small wonder that he did not. i have since had the pleasure of reading his history of the great war, and i find it curiously lacking in those incidents which did not redound to the honor and glory of the king's cause and army in the field.
not to digress, however, my makeshift mount was soon exchanged for a better; i was allowed to draw what i would of accoutrements and provender from the king's stores; and so, to cut it short, i was presently at the door of my lord's headquarters fully equipped and ready for the road.
i did hope in those last few moments that i might have a chance to exchange a word with my dear lady; might ask her forgiveness, or, failing so much grace of her, might at least have another sight of her sweet face.
but even this poor boon was denied me. i was scarce out of the saddle when an aide came to conduct me to the general, and i saw no one in the house save my lord himself.
as you would guess, my instructions conformed exactly to the plan outlined by lord cornwallis in the council. i was entrusted with a sealed packet for delivery to major ferguson, and, for safety's sake, as my lord explained, i was given the meat of the message to deliver verbally should the need arise. ferguson was to be ordered to come in instantly by forced marches, if necessary, and he was on no account to risk a battle with the over-mountain men.
you may be sure, my dears, that i scarce drew breath till i was a-horse and out of the town and galloping hard on the road to that ford of master macgowan's which afterward became famous in our history under the misspelling "cowan's ford." 'twas too good to be true that i should be thrust thus into the very gaping mouth of opportunity, and now and again i would feel the packet buttoned tight beneath my hussar jacket to make sure 'twas not a dream to vanish at a touch.
in the mad joy of it the spirit of prophecy came upon me, and i saw as if the thing were done, how at last i held the fate of the patriot cause in all our west country in the hollow of my hand.
