The Master of Appleby Part 57

IN WHICH WE FIND WHAT WE NEVER SOUGHT

'Tis fifty miles as a bird would fly it from the grazing uplands of the Broad known as the Cowpens to the lower plantation region lying between that stream and the farther Catawba or Wateree; and Richard Jennifer and I ambled the distance leisurely, as befitted our mission and disguise, cutting the journey evenly in half for the first night's lodging, which we had at the house of one Philbrick--as hot a Tory as we pretended to be.

From our host of the night we learned that within two days the British outposts on the Wateree and the Broad had been advanced; and there were rumors in the air that Lord Cornwallis, who was hourly expecting General Leslie with two thousand of Sir Henry Clinton's men from New York, would presently move on to the long-deferred conquest of North Carolina.

"Has Cornwallis lost his wits?" d.i.c.k would say, when we were a-jog on the southward road again. "'Tis a braver lordling than I gave him credit for being--if he will put his head in a trap that will close behind him and cut him off from his line and base."

I laughed. "You may wager Jennifer House against an acre of the Cowpens that Lord Charles will do no such unsoldierly thing. If this rumor be true, we have heard only the half of it."

"And the other half will be?--"

"That my Lord Cornwallis will do his prettiest to pull the teeth of one or the other of the trap-jaws before he trusts himself within them."

Jennifer was silent for an ambling minute or two. Then he said: "'Twill be our teeth he'll try to pull, then. The Broad is nearer than the Pedee; and ours is the weaker of the two jaws."

"Right you are," said I. "And now we know what we have to discover."

"Anan?" he queried.

"We must learn by hook or crook who is to be sent against Dan Morgan, and when."

"That should be easy--if the use of it afterward be not choked out of us at a rope's end."

"We can divide the rope's-end chance of failure by two. We may work together as the opportunity offers, but once within the lines we must pa.s.s as strangers to each other, or at most as chance acquaintances of the road."

"Good," said he; and then his jaw dropped. "But what if one of us be taken? Never ask me to stand by stranger-wise and see you hanged, Jack!"

"I shall both ask it and promise to do the same by you. Your hand on it before we go a step farther, if you please."

"'Tis out of all reason," he demurred.

"'Tis the only reasonable course. Bethink you, this is no knight-errant venture; we are two of Dan Morgan's soldiers bent upon doing a thing most needful for the welfare of the country and its cause. 'Tis a duty higher than any obligation friendship lays on Richard Jennifer or John Ireton."

At this he yielded the point, though I could see that the proposal jumped little with the promptings of his generous heart.

"'Tis a scurvy trap you have set for me," he grumbled. "The risk is chiefly yours, and you know it. You are known to Lord Cornwallis, and to G.o.d knows how many more of them, and belike--"

The interruption came in the shape of a troop of redcoat hors.e.m.e.n galloping in the road to meet us, and we were shortly surrounded and put sharply to the question. We answered each for himself. d.i.c.k was a loyalist from Yorkville way, eager to be set in arms against the bandit Daniel Morgan. I was a refugee from "hornets'-nest" Mecklenburg, also bent upon revenge.

The troop officer pa.s.sed us on, something doubting, as I suspected. But we were riding in the right direction, and he was unwilling to clog himself with a pair of plain country gentlemen held in leash as prisoners.

A few miles farther down the road the same brace of lies got us safely through the loosely drawn vedette line, and by evening we were in sight of our goal.

Viewing it from the rising ground of approach, Winnsborough appeared less as a town than as a partly fortified camp. The few houses of the village were lost in the field of tents, huts and troop shelters, and measuring by the spread of these, it would seem that my Lord Cornwallis's army had been considerably augmented since I had last seen it in Charlotte. I spoke of this, but d.i.c.k was intent upon the business of the moment.

"Aye; there are enough of them, G.o.d knows. But tell me, Jack--I'm new to this game--what's to do first when we are among them?"

I laughed at him. "You are my troop commander, Captain Jennifer. 'Tis for you to make the dispositions."

"Have your joke and be hanged to you. There are no captains here."

"If you leave it to me, we shall ride boldly to the tavern, put up as travelers, and listen to the gossips, each for himself," I replied; and this is what we did.

The village tavern, servilely bearing the king's arms thinly painted over the palmetto tree of South Carolina on its swinging sign-board, was a miserable doggery, full to overflowing with a riffraff of carousing soldiery. Separating by mutual consent in the public tap-room, Richard and I presently drifted together again at a small table in a corner, with a black boy in attendance to set before us such poor entertainment as the hostelry afforded.

"Well, what luck?" asked d.i.c.k, mumbling it behind his hand, though he might safely have shouted it aloud in the din and clamor of the place.

I shook my head. "Nothing as yet, save that I overheard a tipsy corporal telling his tipsier sergeant that the officers would be holding a revel to-night at a Tory manor house situate somewhere beyond the camp confines to the northward; the house of one Master Marmaduke Harndon, if I heard the name aright." Then I added: "This rabble is too drunken to serve our purpose. 'Tis only the common soldiery, and we shall learn nothing here."

"There was at least one who was not a ranker," said d.i.c.k, and there was something akin to awe in his voice. Then he leaned across the table to whisper. "Jack, I've fair had a fright!"

I smiled. Fear, of G.o.d, man or the devil, was not one of the lad's weaknesses.

"You may grin as you please," he went on; "but answer me this; do the dead come back to life?"

"Not this side of the resurrection reveille, if we may believe the dominies."

"Then I have seen a ghost--a most horrible mask of a man we both know to our cost."

"Name him and I will tell you whether he be a ghost or no."

"'Tis the ghost of Frank Falconnet; or else it is what of the man himself the fire hath left," said d.i.c.k, and I marked his shiver at the word.

"No!" said I.

"I tell you yes."

I sprang up, but the lad reached across the table and smote me back into the chair.

"Softly, old firebrand; 'twas you who said the public matter must take precedence of the private. Moreover, if this be Francis Falconnet whom I have seen, your sweetest revenge on him will be to let him live--as he is."

"I will kill him as I would a wild beast," I raged, thinking of that midnight scene in the great forest when my sweet lady had gone on her knees to this fiend in human guise. "And so should you," I added, "if you care aught for the honor of the woman who loves you."

But now it was this hot-headed Richard I have drawn for you who saw farthest and clearest.

"All in good time," he said, coolly. "At this present we have Dan Morgan's fish to fry, and sitting here saucing this devil's mess of a supper with thoughts of private revenge will never fry it. Set your wits at work; Falconnet's ghost has put mine hopelessly out of gear. Ye G.o.ds!

but 'twas a most fearsome thing to look at!"

I did not answer him at once, and whilst I plied knife and fork for the sake of appearances, I would think upon what he had discovered. This reappearance of Francis Falconnet was not to be pa.s.sed over lightly.

What would he do, or seek to do? Nay, what devilish thing was it he might not do? If the fire had burned his pa.s.sion out, it had doubtless kindled a feller blaze of revenge. And if his thirst was for vengeance, how could he quench it in a deeper draft than by harrying the woman we both loved? 'Twas only by a mighty effort that I could drag myself back to d.i.c.k's urging and the needs of the hour.

"To have some chance of hearing gossip to our purpose, we must make shift to gain admittance to this officers' rout at the manor house," I said.

"The devil!" quoth d.i.c.k, "I venture that's easier said than done--for two plain country gentlemen."

"Never fear; there will be others there lacking fine clothes, and so the throng be great enough, we may pa.s.s current in it."