Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman

"Father," I said, before he had time to express astonishment, "I am going with Colonel Lewis to whip the Indians."

The day after the next, my father accompanied me to the mustering, and gave full consent to my enlistment for the campaign.

The long march we made through an almost trackless wilderness, and the effectual check we gave Cornstalk and his warriors, are, now, facts of history, and since they in no way serve to help on my story, I must resist the temptation to dwell upon our brief campaign. I cannot even stop to point out convincingly the far reaching and most important consequences to the cause growing out of this victory. But this much of a digression must be forgiven me – though my story halts while I say it.

Had not the strength and confidence of the Shawnees, and the tribes confederated with them, been shaken at Point Pleasant, and the prestige and influence of the brave and capable Cornstalk destroyed, the Indians would, doubtless months before, have made impossible that intrepid defiance of Washington, the memory of which we Scotch Irish cherish with so much pride: – that he would never surrender but if driven to bay would make a last stand in the mountain fastnesses of Augusta; and, rallying to his aid those brave pioneers, yet bid defiance to the enemy and hope to pluck victory from apparent defeat. Nor, had there been no battle of Point Pleasant, would a dauntless rifle company have been available for service under the gallant Morgan, to march to Quebec, to win the decisive battle at Freeman Farm, and the telling victories of King's Mountain and of Cowpens.

Returned from the Ohio, I went back to my books, but I could not settle down contentedly to Latin odes and Greek classics. The excitement of the march, the battle, and the victory, had aroused within me a sleeping aptitude for the life of a soldier, and I chafed at the prospect of a safe and uneventful career.

At Christmas I had two weeks' holiday, and what time I was not tracking game in the snow, was spent breaking the colts to the cutter, or coasting on a plank down the steepest hills to be found, with Jean and Ellen O'Niel behind me. My grandmother, who did not share the universal disapproval of the Irish child's "defiant spirit," had persuaded my mother to have Ellen over to spend the holidays with Jean, using the adroit argument, with both my mother and Aunt Martha, that Jean's gentle and tractable spirit might have a good influence over the untamed Ellen. She had come, but not very graciously, and sat silent among us, for the first day and evening, looking sullen and unhappy.

Few could resist, however, the contagion of our kindly home atmosphere, and by the second morning, Ellen had melted sufficiently to smile at grandmother's quaint jokes and stories of Ireland. By dinner time she was ready to listen with interest to some of my father's pioneer experiences, and that night when mother bade me give her a relation of my fight with the panther, she listened with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. We were by this time drawn in the usual family circle about the glowing fireplace, from which roasting apples and chestnuts were sending forth a rich odor. Mother sat in her special corner, her head resting against the panther's skin, and father sat beside her, grandmother opposite, and I near her on the settle, while Jean nestled close to me. Thomas, who occupied the other end of the settle, wore a radiant face, for he enjoyed the absence of restraint which he found nowhere but with us, and all the sullen reserve was gone from Ellen's countenance.

Presently Ellen, who so far had deigned only to answer us, began to talk. At first she barely asked a question into which interest or surprise had betrayed her, or made an occasional impulsive remark. But, as her reserve melted in the genial and sympathetic atmosphere, the sluice gates of pent up memories seemed suddenly to open, and she talked freely, relating anecdotes and reminiscences of her childhood, and showing a depth and warmth of emotion which surprised us. These led her on to repeat some of the stories her father had read or told to her. They were chiefly tales from Shakespeare's "Tempest," "Winter's Tale," "Hamlet," and others of the more fantastical and tragic of these dramas. None of her listeners had read them, then, though I had heard of Shakespeare, the great English playwright. We were all charmed, as much, perhaps, by the flashing expressions of intelligence and feeling which transformed Ellen's face into one almost of beauty, as by the stories themselves. Moreover that emotional quality of her voice, so prone to subtle vibrations, added a special charm to all she said.

"Now, Donald," said my father, when Ellen seemed to have spent her present memories, and had lapsed into her usual quiet, "get your fiddle, and let's have a tune."

Jean ran at once to bring my violin, and I did my best to add my share of entertainment to the evening's innocent pleasures.

"Ellen can sing sweeter than a lark, or a red bird," said Thomas, as I paused to rest my arm.

"Can she?" from Jean with eager delight. "I do love singing; sing for us, Ellen."

"I can sing only the Irish and Scotch ballads, and the Catholic hymns my mother used to sing," answered Ellen, flushing. "I do not know the solemn songs you people sing, and I shall never learn them" – the last said in a defiant tone which the occasion scarcely called for.

"Our psalms are vera sweet an' sacred to us, my dear," remarked my grandmother, with no apparent recognition of the challenge in Ellen's voice, yet choosing her words with a precision that was evidence of slight displeasure, "but we like aither sangs too, an' sing them except on the Sabbath. I love the Scotch and Irish ballads, an' though you hae already done your share aboot making the evening go by pleasantly for us a', we'd greatly like a sang or twa, if ye dinna mind to pleasure us further."

"It's a delight to please you, grandma," said Ellen impulsively, and she rose from her chair, slipped behind the settle and dropped upon the floor beside grandmother, kissing as she did so, one of the soft, wrinkled hands folded in her lap. Then, resting her head against grandmother's knee, she fixed her eyes upon the dancing flames, and began to sing somewhat unsteadily, but with more fullness and confidence, as she continued. Her voice did indeed soar and swell like a redbird's, and she threw all her heart into her singing, while the quaint words of the old ballads slipped meltingly from her lips, as drops of dew from the petals of a flower.

"Why, my dear, I hae na' been up sae late for years," remarked grandmother, in a tone of alarm as the clock struck midnight; then stroking Ellen's hair, which was growing out in loose curls, "You g'ie us mouch pleasure, dear, but it's bedtime now, for a'. Come, Jean and Ellen! Good night a', and a merry Christmas to you."

Not only were cider and persimmon beer drawn from the full barrels in the cellar, but a big bowl of apple toddy was concocted early Christmas morning, and flanked by plates of doughnuts, and ginger bread, raisin and spiced cake, apples, and nuts, sat upon the long table in the big room, all day, every one being free to eat and drink his fill. This custom of my father, which usually drew to our house most of the men within a ten mile ride, always scandalized my Aunt Martha, and but for Uncle Thomas' backing we would never have gotten Ellen and Thomas to our house until after Christmas day. Uncle Thomas himself always came, however, and on this occasion Aunt Martha broke her rule and came with him, bringing too their younger son, John.

I observed a change come over Ellen's face as soon as Aunt Martha appeared in the doorway; she seemed to draw within herself, and her face took on the sullen expression which so marred its comeliness, and presently when I looked about for her, she was nowhere to be found.

"Ah, Rachael," said Aunt Martha, glancing toward the laden table between the two southern windows, and shaking her head in solemn disapproval, "I see you have not yet been able to persuade William of the sinfulness of this habit of his, of offering the intoxicating cup to all comers, at this season. Strange perversion, that this holy Christ festival should be turned into an occasion for gluttony and rioting."

"William has his own ideas, Martha, and I do not set mine against him," I heard my mother answer, from the doorway, as she followed my aunt into the bedroom. "The neighbor gentlemen will all be in presently, and a warming cup will be needed by those who do not stay to dinner."

"You are too meek with William, Rachael, and so fail of due influence. Wifely obedience is commanded in the Bible, it is true, but I do not think the sacrifice of our principles is required."

"Preaching still, eh, Martha – " called my father's cheery voice from the big room, having come in to put another log upon the roaring pile; "well, you'll have to stop now, for I see Justices McDowell and Willson riding up, and, as you know, we like not solemn faces in this house on Christmas day," and he hurried out again to meet his guests, before Aunt Martha was sufficiently recovered from her indignant surprise to make him proper answer.

The ensuing hour brought a dozen others, the most substantial freeholders in the community, nearly all of them members of the church, as well as men of influence in public affairs. A few drank only cider or beer, but most of them quaffed full cups of the spiced, apple-seasoned toddy with evident appreciation, and ate the cakes, apples and nuts without stint.

I sat about the fire with the men, proud of my privilege, but mother and Aunt Martha, after ceremonious greetings were exchanged, retired, as was customary for women when several men were met together. The talk was animated, and at times exciting, though there was but small difference of opinion among them. The Boston massacre, and recent unjust restrictions upon our commerce, were indignantly condemned, and the determined spirit of the colonists of Massachusetts warmly commended. Presently it was proposed by Justice Willson, and warmly seconded by my father, that the citizens of Augusta County, or a committee elected by them, should draw up resolutions to be sent to the Virginia assembly, expressing with no uncertain sound their fixed determination not to submit to tyranny, and to sustain Massachusetts in her noble stand against injustice and oppression at every hazard. In truth the leaders of the New England "Town Meeting," could not have shown more fervor nor more determination than these representative men of this Scotch Irish settlement in the Virginia mountains. The discussion was unabated still, and not a man had suggested returning home, when my mother announced dinner. The table had been lengthened to its utmost, by raising all its "wings" and putting the side tables at either end; but there was still no seat for me, so I wandered into my mother's room, and then across the yard to the kitchen to look for Jean and Ellen. Jean, and John Mitchell I found, eating turkey livers, gravy and potatoes before the embers, over which hung the now idle cranes, and Thomas was mending John's sled at the work bench in the back kitchen. But Ellen was not to be found, and no one had seen her for two hours. Returning to the house, I mounted the steps to the room under the gable, where grandma and Jean slept, and there found Ellen, wrapped in a blanket, and lying prone on the floor in the stream of sunshine pouring through the western window. Her chin was supported by her hands and an open book lay before her.

"Are you hiding from Aunt Martha, Ellen?" I asked teasingly.

"I slipped away while she was helping your mother set table," she answered, "and stole up here to read. I don't often get a chance; your Aunt Martha keeps me at work from sun up till dark, and then sends me to bed. She says it is a wicked waste of time to read anything but one's Bible – and the holy father in Baltimore told me that the way Protestants presumed to read the sacred book, and determine for themselves its sacred meaning is blasphemous."

"What book are you reading?" I asked.

"One of the Shakespeare books my father gave me. I have six more like it," and she held up to my view a small leather bound volume, a good deal the worse for wear. "I slipped it into my satchel when Aunt Martha sent me up stairs to get my things, the morning you came for us, but please don't tell her, Cousin Donald – she said she'd take the books away from me if she saw me reading them again, for they were not fit reading for me, and I had no time to waste on them."

"How did she know they were not fit reading for you?" I asked, curious to learn if Aunt Martha had stopped work long enough to examine a book.

"She made Uncle Thomas read some out of one of the volumes to her," answered Ellen, smiling in response to my thought. "And she said, at breakfast table next morning, that a great deal of it had neither sense nor meaning, and the part she could understand was about fighting and killing, or else foolish love stuff – all of it unfit for any young person to hear. She wanted to burn my books, as she did my crucifix, but I ran and hid them, and cried so, all day, that Uncle Thomas said 'Let the child's books alone, Martha; her father gave them to her; if they harm her it's no fault of yours.'"

"Is the reading as good as your telling of the stories, Ellen?"

"Oh, so much nicer. There are beautiful things I could never say; listen," and she read me a passage from "Romeo and Juliet." "Isn't that like music? The very words have a tune to them without thinking of the meaning even."

"Could you lend me the book to read while you are here, Ellen? or to-morrow, if you will, we'll come up here and you shall read aloud to me."

"But your mother and father might find out, and tell Aunt Martha."

"We need not conceal our reading from them; they will make no objection if I tell them the book is harmless – and I suppose it is, even for girls. I know it is a famous book and counted among the English classics. I've always meant to read it some day."

"And I'll lend you the other volumes, one by one, if you'll take me bear hunting the next time you find a track," added Ellen.

"That's a bargain, if my mother will let you go. How old are you, Ellen?"

"I shall be sixteen my next birthday."

"And when is that?"

"Next November."

"Then you are just fifteen."

"Fifteen and two months," she corrected.

"That is young for you to have read Shakespeare, and to be capable of appreciating him. Your father taught you so carefully, and read to you so much because he had no sons, I suppose."

"Perhaps; he used often to wish I were a boy. He used to say I was so strong, and tall, and had more sense than most women; and when he was taken sick, after mother's death, he said every few hours – 'Oh if you were only a boy, Ellen, I would not mind so much leaving you alone in the world; you could soon be independent then, and make your own way!'"

"'Tis a pity, Ellen; you'd make a good man, I'm sure. You are as strong now as a boy of your age is likely to be, and half a head taller than John who is but six months younger."

"I dared John to a wrestle, one day in the barn, and threw him," laughed Ellen, "but I promised not to tell, and you must not twit him about it."

"All right, I won't; but were I John I'd keep on challenging you till I had proved my superior strength; no girl should throw me! Does Aunt Martha know?"

"Of course not, Donald. Already she calls me a hoyden, and an untamed Irish girl – which I am, the last I mean, and proud of it. Did she hear of my wrestling with John, the bread and water she threatens me with would be my only diet for a week."

"You'll not have bread and water diet while you are here, at any rate. But there's my mother calling now; my mouth waters for her Christmas dinner, for there's no better served in the neighborhood to-day, I warrant you. Come on; let's go down," and I put the little book in my pocket, seized Ellen by the hand and pulled her after me, pell-mell down the stairway where we ran straight into Aunt Martha.

"Ellen O'Niel!" she stopped to say, fixing a stern eye upon her – "you are the greatest hoyden I have ever seen. I thank a merciful Providence you are not my daughter."

"Amen, and so do I," said Ellen, in my ear, and as Aunt Martha passed into the next room, she turned toward me, and pulled her face down into the most comical imitation of Aunt Martha's solemn countenance. I laughed heartily, though in truth I did not approve of Ellen's flippancy. Reverence for religion and respect for our elders were among the virtues earliest and most faithfully instilled into the breasts of Scotch Irish children.

CHAPTER V

"Two of the pigs are gone, and I see fresh bear's tracks behind the barn, Ellen. If you want to go after the beast with Thomas and me, put on your heaviest boots, get a rifle from the rack, and come on," and I spoke with a degree of animation which turned upon me the gaze of the entire family, assembled at the breakfast table. I was not then so sated a huntsman that the prospect of big game could fail to excite me.

"Why, Donald, you are not thinking of taking Ellen bear hunting with you?"

"And why not, mother? She wishes to go, she handles a rifle well enough, and there's no danger with three guns against one poor bear."

"Oh, Aunt Rachael, please let me go; I have never seen a bear, and it must be beautiful in the forest to-day."

"Might as well let her go, mother," put in my father; "the boys will take care of her, and it will be an experience she will like to tell when she is an old woman. Besides, it is well enough for her to learn courage and coolness in facing danger – the women in this valley may need such qualities in the future, as they have in the past."

"I can't see why you care to go," said little Jean, shuddering involuntarily, her brown eyes fixed in amazement upon Ellen's eager countenance.

"May I go, Aunt Rachael?" urged Ellen.

"Well, child, I suppose so, since your heart seems set upon it. Do be careful, Donald, and get back before sundown."

We followed the print of the bear's feet across the meadow behind the barn, and then around the curve of a low range of hills to the edge of the forest, walking Indian file, Ellen between us, and stepping, as I bade her, in my tracks. The air was so crisp and buoyant that we were half intoxicated by long, full breaths of it, and went skimming over the frozen surface as if, like fabled Mercury, we had wings to our heels. The meadows gleamed and scintillated, and the edge of the hill's undulating outline shone in opalescent lines, as if the prying rays of the sun, forcing their way through the thin snow clouds at the eastern horizon, were disclosing a ledge of hidden jewels. The world all about us was downy soft, radiantly pure, and familiar fields and hills took on a strange newness, in which perspective was confused and outlines blurred; white fields melted into white hills, hills merged into white sky, and one might, it seemed, walk out of this world into the next without noting the point of transition.

The forest was stranger still, and even more beautiful. There was but little snow on the ground, and the dry leaves under it rustled beneath one's feet with homely, cheerful sound, but overhead stretched a marvelous canopy of graceful feather laden branches, each giant of the forest being powdered as carefully as any court dame, and, like her, gaining a sort of distinction for its beauty by this emphasis to its height and grace.

"Am I walking too fast for you, Ellen?" I asked soon after we had started.

"No; but you step too far," she called back merrily. So I shortened my stride a little, and again insisted on carrying her rifle, getting this time her consent.

"The forest is like a place enchanted," said Ellen with rapt face, as we waited at the edge of the woods for Thomas to catch up. "How warm and snug one could sleep under that low boughed pine, yonder; I'd like to live in the forest were there no panthers, wolves, or bears."

"But the beasts have possession, and sometimes I almost wonder if we have a right to drive them with gun and knife out of their inherited haunts."

"As we do the Indians."

"I have more sympathy for wild beasts than for the red savages; the beasts are not treacherous, nor cruel for sport."

"Have you lost the bear's track, Don?" interrupted Thomas; "if not, what are you stopping for?"

"We are admiring the forest – but I have kept my eye on the track, all right. There it goes off to the left; we'll find him, I suspect, fast asleep in some hollow log."

My surmise was correct, for the track led us to a large fallen tree a mile within the forest. The bear, having gorged himself on the pigs, was curled within for a good nap.

"We'll have to smoke him out," said Thomas, beginning to look about for dried leaves and twigs. We piled them into the smaller end of the log, and then lit them with our tinder-boxes, after which we stood about the larger opening and waited watchfully.

"You shall have the first shot, Ellen," I said. "Stand a little to one side, and aim either at his throat, or behind one of his ears."

The bear could not stand long the stifling smoke of the pungent leaves, and with a muffled roar, interrupted by a wheezing cough, he backed awkwardly out of the tree, then turned to look about him for an avenue of escape. But his captors, with ready rifles, stood in close range around him, and behind him burned the log, its murky smoke and lapping blaze limning weirdly the beast's shaggy bulk, against the white forest.

"Shoot, Ellen!" I called, for she stood as if spellbound, her eyes fixed upon the crouching, growling animal. She pulled her trigger then, but with nerveless fingers, and her ball whizzed just above the bear's head, cutting off one-half of his right ear. With a roar of pain the furious animal was upon her, the weight of his huge body throwing her down, and half burying her in the snow. For an instant my brain rocked with horror; I dared not shoot, for I could not distinguish Ellen's form from the bear's in the cloud of flying snow which surrounded them, and every instant I feared to hear a cry of agony, and the crunching of Ellen's skull between the creature's iron jaws.

"I must risk it," I swiftly concluded; and with quick intake of my breath, I raised my rifle to my shoulder, stepped back a pace, and took the aim of my life. Providence guided the ball, which severed the beast's spinal column just at the base of his brain. In another instant I was dragging his shuddering bulk from Ellen's body, lest he crush her in the death struggle.

Ellen was as pallid as the snow she lay upon, and as motionless. Her long lashes made a light shadow on the waxen cheeks, and the dark ringlets dropping over the brow were like charcoal by contrast with its marble. When I lifted her head upon my arm, I saw a ragged wound upon her neck, just behind her right ear, and from it ran trickling a crimson rill, down the soft throat to the still bosom. Her clothes were torn from her right shoulder, and there the flesh showed marks of the animal's teeth in the midst of an ugly bruise.

Thomas had dropped white and limp upon a log, and, great boy as he was, began to cry.

"She's dead, Don, she's dead! Oh, why did we let her come – what shall we do?"

"Hush," I said angrily; "she's not dead, only stunned, I hope," and I gathered handfuls of snow, which I rubbed gently upon her forehead and cheek, and then forced between her lips a few drops of gin from my pocket flask. Seeing that she swallowed the gin mechanically, I poured a good spoonful upon her tongue, and chafed her hands vigorously till she opened her eyes and recognized the faces bending over her.

"Where's the bear, Donald?" she asked, as quietly as if she had just wakened from a vivid dream.

"Dead," I answered cheerfully; "you shall have the skin for a rug."

"But I didn't kill him," in disappointed tones. "I got frightened and aimed badly – I'd never do for a man, after all."

"You'd make a better man than Thomas; he began to cry as soon as he saw you were hurt, and you haven't yet complained of the scratches the bear gave you."

"They sting some," she said with a grimace, putting her hand to her wound, and sliding it down to her shoulder. "Why, Donald, my clothes are torn," and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, while she tried to sit up and to pull her shredded garment together.