Erskine Dale—Pioneer

The two years in the wilderness had left their mark on Erskine. He was tall, lean, swarthy, gaunt, and yet he was not all woodsman, for his born inheritance as gentleman had been more than emphasized by his association with Clark and certain Creole officers in the Northwest, who had improved his French and gratified one pet wish of his life since his last visit to the James – they had taught him to fence. His mother he had not seen again, but he had learned that she was alive and not yet blind. Of Early Morn he had heard nothing at all. Once a traveller had brought word of Dane Grey. Grey was in Philadelphia and prominent in the gay doings of that city. He had taken part in a brilliant pageant called the “Mischianza,” which was staged by André, and was reported a close friend of that ill-fated young gentleman.

After the fight at Piqua, with Clark Erskine put forth for old Jerome Sanders’s fort. He found the hard days of want over. There was not only corn in plenty but wheat, potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, melons. They tapped maple-trees for sugar and had sown flax. Game was plentiful, and cattle, horses, and hogs had multiplied on cane and buffalo clover. Indeed, it was a comparatively peaceful fall, and though Clark plead with him, Erskine stubbornly set his face for Virginia.

Honor Sanders and Polly Conrad had married, but Lydia Noe was still firm against the wooing of every young woodsman who came to the fort; and when Erskine bade her good-by and she told him to carry her love to Dave Yandell, he knew for whom she would wait forever if need be.

There were many, many travellers on the Wilderness Road now, and Colonel Dale’s prophecy was coming true. The settlers were pouring in and the long, long trail was now no lonesome way.

At Williamsburg Erskine learned many things. Colonel Dale, now a general, was still with Washington and Harry was with him. Hugh was with the Virginia militia and Dave with Lafayette.

Tarleton’s legion of rangers in their white uniforms were scourging Virginia as they had scourged the Carolinas. Through the James River country they had gone with fire and sword, burning houses, carrying off horses, destroying crops, burning grain in the mills, laying plantations to waste. Barbara’s mother was dead. Her neighbors had moved to safety, but Barbara, he heard, still lived with old Mammy and Ephraim at Red Oaks, unless that, too, had been recently put to the torch. Where, then, would he find her?

XXIII

Down the river Erskine rode with a sad heart. At the place where he had fought with Grey he pulled Firefly to a sudden halt. There was the boundary of Red Oaks and there started a desolation that ran as far as his eye could reach. Red Oaks had not been spared, and he put Firefly to a fast gallop, with eyes strained far ahead and his heart beating with agonized foreboding and savage rage. Soon over a distant clump of trees he could see the chimneys of Barbara’s home – his home, he thought helplessly – and perhaps those chimneys were all that was left. And then he saw the roof and the upper windows and the cap of the big columns unharmed, untouched, and he pulled Firefly in again, with overwhelming relief, and wondered at the miracle. Again he started and again pulled in when he caught sight of three horses hitched near the stiles. Turning quickly from the road, he hid Firefly in the underbrush. Very quietly he slipped along the path by the river, and, pushing aside through the rose-bushes, lay down where unseen he could peer through the closely matted hedge. He had not long to wait. A white uniform issued from the great hall door and another and another – and after them Barbara – smiling. The boy’s blood ran hot – smiling at her enemies. Two officers bowed, Barbara courtesied, and they wheeled on their heels and descended the steps. The third stayed behind a moment, bowed over her hand and kissed it. The watcher’s blood turned then to liquid fire. Great God, at what price was that noble old house left standing? Grimly, swiftly Erskine turned, sliding through the bushes like a snake to the edge of the road along which they must pass. He would fight the three, for his life was worth nothing now. He heard them laughing, talking at the stiles. He heard them speak Barbara’s name, and two seemed to be bantering the third, whose answering laugh seemed acquiescent and triumphant. They were coming now. The boy had his pistols out, primed and cocked. He was rising on his knees, just about to leap to his feet and out into the road, when he fell back into a startled, paralyzed, inactive heap. Glimpsed through an opening in the bushes, the leading trooper in the uniform of Tarleton’s legion was none other than Dane Grey, and Erskine’s brain had worked quicker than his angry heart. This was a mystery that must be solved before his pistols spoke. He rose crouching as the troopers rode away. At the bend of the road he saw Grey turn with a gallant sweep of his tricornered hat, and, swerving his head cautiously, he saw Barbara answer with a wave of her handkerchief. If Tarleton’s men were around he would better leave Firefly where he was in the woods for a while. A jay-bird gave out a flutelike note above his head; Erskine never saw a jay-bird perched cockily on a branch that he did not think of Grey; but Grey was brave – so, too, was a jay-bird. A startled gasp behind him made him wheel, pistol once more in hand, to find a negro, mouth wide open and staring at him from the road.

“Marse Erskine!” he gasped. It was Ephraim, the boy who had led Barbara’s white ponies out long, long ago, now a tall, muscular lad with an ebony face and dazzling teeth. “Whut you doin’ hyeh, suh? Whar’ yo’ hoss? Gawd, I’se sutn’ly glad to see yuh.” Erskine pointed to an oak.

“Right by that tree. Put him in the stable and feed him.”

The negro shook his head.

“No, suh. I’ll take de feed down to him. Too many redcoats messin’ round heah. You bettah go in de back way – dey might see yuh.”

“How is Miss Barbara?”

The negro’s eyes shifted.

“She’s well. Yassuh, she’s well as common.”

“Wasn’t one of those soldiers who just rode away Mr. Dane Grey?”

The negro hesitated.

“Yassuh.”

“What’s he doing in a British uniform?”

The boy shifted his great shoulders uneasily and looked aside.

“I don’t know, suh – I don’t know nuttin’.”

Erskine knew he was lying, but respected his loyalty.

“Go tell Miss Barbara I’m here and then feed my horse.”

“Yassuh.”

Ephraim went swiftly and Erskine followed along the hedge and through the rose-bushes to the kitchen door, where Barbara’s faithful old Mammy was waiting for him with a smile of welcome but with deep trouble in her eyes.

“I done tol’ Miss Barbary, suh. She’s waitin’ fer yuh in de hall.”

Barbara, standing in the hall doorway, heard his step.

“Erskine!” she cried softly, and she came to meet him, with both hands outstretched, and raised her lovely face to be kissed. “What are you doing here?”

“I am on my way to join General Lafayette.”

“But you will be captured. It is dangerous. The country is full of British soldiers.”

“So I know,” Erskine said dryly.

“When did you get here?”

“Twenty minutes ago. I would not have been welcome just then. I waited in the hedge. I saw you had company.”

“Did you see them?” she faltered.

“I even recognized one of them.” Barbara sank into a chair, her elbow on one arm, her chin in her hand, her face turned, her eyes looking outdoors. She said nothing, but the toe of her slipper began to tap the floor gently. There was no further use for indirection or concealment.

“Barbara,” Erskine said with some sternness, and his tone quickened the tapping of the slipper and made her little mouth tighten, “what does all this mean?”

“Did you see,” she answered, without looking at him, “that the crops were all destroyed and the cattle and horses were all gone?”

“Why did they spare the house?” The girl’s bosom rose with one quick, defiant intake of breath, and for a moment she held it.

“Dane Grey saved our home.”

“How?”

“He had known Colonel Tarleton in London and had done something for him over there.”

“How did he get in communication with Colonel Tarleton when he was an officer in the American army?” The girl would not answer.

“Was he taken prisoner?” Still she was silent, for the sarcasm in Erskine’s voice was angering her.

“He fought once under Benedict Arnold – perhaps he is fighting with him now.”

“No!” she cried hotly.

“Then he must be a – ”

She did not allow him to utter the word.

“Why Mr. Grey is in British uniform is his secret – not mine.”

“And why he is here is – yours.”

“Exactly!” she flamed. “You are a soldier. Learn what you want to know from him. You are my cousin, but you are going beyond the rights of blood. I won’t stand it – I won’t stand it – from anybody.”

“I don’t understand you, Barbara – I don’t know you. That last time it was Grey, you – and now – ” He paused and, in spite of herself, her eyes flashed toward the door. Erskine saw it, drew himself erect, bowed and strode straight out. Nor did the irony of the situation so much as cross his mind – that he should be turned from his own home by the woman he loved and to whom he had given that home. Nor did he look back – else he might have seen her sink, sobbing, to the floor.

When he turned the corner of the house old Mammy and Ephraim were waiting for him at the kitchen door.

“Get Firefly, Ephraim!” he said sharply.

“Yassuh!”

At the first sight of his face Mammy had caught her hands together at her breast.

“You ain’t gwine, Marse Erskine,” she said tremulously. “You ain’t gwine away?”

“Yes, Mammy – I must.”

“You an’ Miss Barbary been quoilin’, Marse Erskine – you been quoilin’” – and without waiting for an answer she went on passionately: “Ole Marse an’ young Marse an’ Marse Hugh done gone, de niggahs all gone, an’ nobody lef’ but me an’ Ephraim – nobody lef’ but me an’ Ephraim – to give dat little chile one crumb o’ comfort. Nobody come to de house but de redcoats an’ dat mean Dane Grey, an’ ev’y time he come he leave Miss Barbary cryin’ her little heart out. ’Tain’t Miss Barbary in dar – hit’s some other pusson. She ain’t de same pusson – no, suh. An’ lemme tell yu – lemme tell yu – ef some o’ de men folks doan come back heah somehow an’ look out fer dat little gal – she’s a-gwine to run away wid dat mean low-down man whut just rid away from heah in a white uniform.” She had startled Erskine now and she knew it.

“Dat man has got little Missus plum’ witched, I tell ye – plum’ witched. Hit’s jes like a snake wid a catbird.”

“Men have to fight, Mammy – ”

“I doan keer nothin’ ’bout de war.”

“I’d be captured if I stayed here – ”

“All I keer ’bout is my chile in dar – ”

“But we’ll drive out the redcoats and the whitecoats and I’ll come straight here – ”

“An’ all de men folks leavin’ her heah wid nobody but black Ephraim an’ her ole Mammy.” The old woman stopped her fiery harangue to listen:

“Dar now, heah dat? My chile hollerin’ fer her ole Mammy.” She turned her unwieldy body toward the faint cry that Erskine’s heart heard better than his ears, and Erskine hurried away.

“Ephraim,” he said as he swung upon Firefly, “you and Mammy keep a close watch, and if I’m needed here, come for me yourself and come fast.”

“Yassuh. Marse Grey is sutn’ly up to some devilmint no which side he fightin’ fer. I got a gal oveh on the aige o’ de Grey plantation an’ she tel’ me dat Marse Dane Grey don’t wear dat white uniform all de time.”

“What’s that – what’s that?” asked Erskine.

“No, suh. She say he got an udder uniform, same as yose, an’ he keeps it at her uncle Sam’s cabin an’ she’s seed him go dar in white an’ come out in our uniform, an’ al’ays at night, Marse Erskine – al’ays at night.”

The negro cocked his ear suddenly:

“Take to de woods quick, Marse Erskine. Horses comin’ down the road.”

But the sound of coming hoof-beats had reached the woodsman’s ears some seconds before the black man heard them, and already Erskine had wheeled away. And Ephraim saw Firefly skim along the edge of a blackened meadow behind its hedge of low trees.

“Gawd!” said the black boy, and he stood watching the road. A band of white-coated troopers was coming in a cloud of dust, and at the head of them rode Dane Grey.

“Has Captain Erskine Dale been here?” he demanded.

Ephraim had his own reason for being on the good side of the questioner, and did not even hesitate.

“Yassuh – he jes’ lef’! Dar he goes now!” With a curse Grey wheeled his troopers. At that moment Firefly, with something like the waving flight of a bluebird, was leaping the meadow fence into the woods. The black boy looked after the troopers’ dust.

“Gawd!” he said again, with a grin that showed every magnificent tooth in his head. “Jest as well try to ketch a streak o’ lightning.” And quite undisturbed he turned to tell the news to old Mammy.

XXIV

Up the James rode Erskine, hiding in the woods by day and slipping cautiously along the sandy road by night, circling about Tarleton’s camp-fires, or dashing at full speed past some careless sentinel. Often he was fired at, often chased, but with a clear road in front of him he had no fear of capture. On the third morning he came upon a ragged sentinel – an American. Ten minutes later he got his first glimpse of Lafayette, and then he was hailed joyfully by none other than Dave Yandell, Captain Dave Yandell, shorn of his woodsman’s dress and panoplied in the trappings of war.

Cornwallis was coming on. The boy, he wrote, cannot escape me. But the boy – Lafayette – did, and in time pursued and forced the Englishman into a cul-de-sac. “I have given his lordship the disgrace of a retreat,” said Lafayette. And so – Yorktown!

Late in August came the message that put Washington’s great “soul in arms.” Rochambeau had landed six thousand soldiers in Connecticut, and now Count de Grasse and a French fleet had sailed for the Chesapeake. General Washington at once resorted to camouflage. He laid out camps ostentatiously opposite New York and in plain sight of the enemy. He made a feigned attack on their posts. Rochambeau moved south and reached the Delaware before the British grasped the Yankee trick. Then it was too late. The windows of Philadelphia were filled with ladies waving handkerchiefs and crying bravoes when the tattered Continentals, their clothes thick with dust but hats plumed with sprigs of green, marched through amid their torn battle-flags and rumbling cannon. Behind followed the French in “gay white uniforms faced with green,” and martial music throbbed the air. Not since poor André had devised the “Mischianza” festival had Philadelphia seen such a pageant. Down the Chesapeake they went in transports and were concentrated at Williamsburg before the close of September. Cornwallis had erected works against the boy, for he knew nothing of Washington and Count de Grasse, nor Mad Anthony and General Nelson, who were south of the James to prevent escape into North Carolina.

“To your goodness,” the boy wrote to Washington, “I am owning the most beautiful prospect I may ever behold.”

Then came de Grasse, who drove off the British fleet, and the mouth of the net was closed.

Cornwallis heard the cannon and sent Clinton to appeal for help, but the answer was Washington himself at the head of his army. And then the joyous march.

“’Tis our first campaign!” cried the French gayly, and the Continentals joyfully answered:

“’Tis our last!”

At Williamsburg the allies gathered, and with Washington’s army came Colonel Dale, now a general, and young Captain Harry Dale, who had brought news from Philadelphia that was of great interest to Erskine Dale. In that town Dane Grey had been a close intimate of André, and that intimacy had been the cause of much speculation since. He had told Dave of his mother and Early Morn, and Dave had told him gravely that he must go get them after the campaign was over and bring them to the fort in Kentucky. If Early Morn still refused to come, then he must bring his mother, and he reckoned grimly that no mouth would open in a word that could offend her. Erskine also told of Red Oaks and Dane Grey, but Dave must tell nothing to the Dales – not yet, if ever.

In mid-September Washington came, and General Dale had but one chance to visit Barbara. General Dale was still weak from a wound and Barbara tried unavailingly to keep him at home. Erskine’s plea that he was too busy to go with them aroused Harry’s suspicions, that were confirmed by Barbara’s manner and reticence, and he went bluntly to the point:

“What is the trouble, cousin, between you and Barbara?”

“Trouble?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t go to Red Oaks and Barbara did not seem surprised. Is Dane Grey concerned?”

“Yes.”

Harry looked searchingly at his cousin:

“I pray to God that I may soon meet him face to face.”

“And I,” said Erskine quietly, “pray to God that you do not – not until after I have met him first.” Barbara had not told, he thought, nor should he – not yet. And Harry, after a searching look at his cousin, turned away.

They marched next morning at daybreak. At sunset of the second day they bivouacked within two miles of Yorktown and the siege began. The allied line was a crescent, with each tip resting on the water – Lafayette commanding the Americans on the right, the French on the left under Rochambeau. De Grasse, with his fleet, was in the bay to cut off approach by water. Washington himself put the match to the first gun, and the mutual cannonade of three or four days began. The scene was “sublime and stupendous.”

Bombshells were seen “crossing each other’s path in the air, and were visible in the form of a black ball by day, but in the night they appeared like a fiery meteor, with a blazing tail most beautifully brilliant. They ascended majestically from the mortar to a certain altitude and gradually descended to the spot where they were destined to execute their work of destruction. When a shell fell it wheeled around, burrowed, and excavated the earth to a considerable extent and, bursting, made dreadful havoc around. When they fell in the river they threw up columns of water like spouting monsters of the deep. Two British men-of-war lying in the river were struck with hot shot and set on fire, and the result was full of terrible grandeur. The sails caught and the flames ran to the tops of the masts, resembling immense torches. One fled like a mountain of fire toward the bay and was burned to the water’s edge.”

General Nelson, observing that the gunners were not shooting at Nelson House because it was his own, got off his horse and directed a gun at it with his own hand. And at Washington’s headquarters appeared the venerable Secretary Nelson, who had left the town with the permission of Cornwallis and now “related with a serene visage what had been the effect of our batteries.” It was nearly the middle of October that the two redoubts projecting beyond the British lines and enfilading the American intrenchments were taken by storm. One redoubt was left to Lafayette and his Americans, the other to Baron de Viomenil, who claimed that his grenadiers were the men for the matter in hand. Lafayette stoutly argued the superiority of his Americans, who, led by Hamilton, carried their redoubt first with the bayonet, and sent the Frenchman an offer of help. The answer was:

“I will be in mine in five minutes.” And he was, Washington watching the attack anxiously:

“The work is done and well done.”

And then the surrender:

The day was the 19th of October. The victors were drawn up in two lines a mile long on the right and left of a road that ran through the autumn fields south of Yorktown. Washington stood at the head of his army on the right, Rochambeau at the head of the French on the left. Behind on both sides was a great crowd of people to watch the ceremony. Slowly out of Yorktown marched the British colors, cased drums beating a significant English air:

“The world turned topsyturvy.”

Lord Cornwallis was sick. General O’Hara bore my lord’s sword. As he approached, Washington saluted and pointed to General Lincoln, who had been treated with indignity at Charleston. O’Hara handed the sword to Lincoln. Lincoln at once handed it back and the surrender was over. Between the lines the British marched on and stacked arms in a near-by field. Some of them threw their muskets on the ground, and a British colonel bit the hilt of his sword from rage.

As Tarleton’s legion went by, three pairs of eyes watched eagerly for one face, but neither Harry nor Captain Dave Yandell saw Dane Grey – nor did Erskine Dale.

XXV

To Harry and Dave, Dane Grey’s absence was merely a mystery – to Erskine it brought foreboding and sickening fear. General Dale’s wound having opened afresh, made travelling impossible, and Harry had a slight bayonet-thrust in the shoulder. Erskine determined to save them all the worry possible and to act now as the head of the family himself. He announced that he must go straight back at once to Kentucky and Captain Clark. Harry stormed unavailingly and General Dale pleaded with him to stay, but gave reluctant leave. To Dave he told his fears and Dave vehemently declared he, too, would go along, but Erskine would not hear of it and set forth alone.

Slowly enough he started, but with every mile suspicion and fear grew the faster and he quickened Firefly’s pace. The distance to Williamsburg was soon covered, and skirting the town, he went on swiftly for Red Oaks.

Suppose he were too late, but even if he were not too late, what should he do, what could he do? Firefly was sweeping into a little hollow now, and above the beating of her hoofs in the sandy road, a clink of metal reached his ears beyond the low hill ahead, and Erskine swerved aside into the bushes. Some one was coming, and apparently out of the red ball of the sun hanging over that hill sprang a horseman at a dead run – black Ephraim on the horse he had saved from Tarleton’s men. Erskine pushed quickly out into the road.

“Stop!” he cried, but the negro came thundering blindly on, as though he meant to ride down anything in his way. Firefly swerved aside, and Ephraim shot by, pulling in with both hands and shouting:

“Marse Erskine! Yassuh, yassuh! Thank Gawd you’se come.” When he wheeled he came back at a gallop – nor did he stop.

“Come on, Marse Erskine!” he cried. “No time to waste. Come on, suh!”

With a few leaps Firefly was abreast, and neck and neck they ran, while the darky’s every word confirmed the instinct and reason that had led Erskine where he was.

“Yassuh, Miss Barbary gwine to run away wid dat mean white man. Yassuh, dis very night.”

“When did he get here?”

“Dis mawnin’. He been pesterin’ her an’ pleadin’ wid her all day an’ she been cryin’ her heart out, but Mammy say she’s gwine wid him. ‘Pears like she can’t he’p herse’f.”

“Is he alone?”

“No, suh, he got an orficer an’ four sojers wid him.”

“How did they get away?”

“He say as how dey was on a scoutin’ party an’ ‘scaped.”

“Does he know that Cornwallis has surrendered?”

“Oh, yassuh, he tol’ Miss Barbary dat. Dat’s why he says he got to git away right now an’ she got to go wid him right now.”

“Did he say anything about General Dale and Mr. Harry?”

“Yassuh, he say dat dey’s all right an’ dat dey an’ you will be hot on his tracks. Dat’s why Mammy tol’ me to ride like de debbil an’ hurry you on, suh.” And Ephraim had ridden like the devil, for his horse was lathered with foam and both were riding that way now, for the negro was no mean horseman and the horse he had saved was a thoroughbred.

“Dis arternoon,” the negro went on, “he went ovah to dat cabin I tol’ you ‘bout an’ got dat American uniform. He gwine to tell folks on de way dat dem udders is his prisoners an’ he takin’ dem to Richmond. Den dey gwine to sep’rate an’ he an’ Miss Barbary gwine to git married somewhur on de way an’ dey goin’ on an’ sail fer England, fer he say if he git captured folks’ll won’t let him be prisoner o’ war – dey’ll jes up an’ shoot him. An’ dat skeer Miss Barbary mos’ to death an’ he’p make her go wid him. Mammy heah’d ever’ word dey say.”

Erskine’s brain was working fast, but no plan would come. They would be six against him, but no matter – he urged Firefly on. The red ball from which Ephraim had leaped had gone down now. The chill autumn darkness was settling, but the moon was rising full and glorious over the black expanse of trees when the lights of Red Oaks first twinkled ahead. Erskine pulled in.