XLII In Which My Lord Has His Marching Orders
Though I had passed out of the British lines less than a week before in decent good odor, save for Colonel Tarleton’s ill word, I met with nothing like the welcome at the outpost camp that a king’s courier had a right to expect.
The captain in command was not the one who had passed me out. He was a surly brute of the Yorkshire breed; and when he had heard that I was an express rider from Major Ferguson, he was pleased to demand my papers.
To this I must needs make answer that I carried no written despatches; that my news was for the commander-in-chief’s private ear. This I told my Yorkshire pig, demanding to be sent, under guard if he chose, to the headquarters in Charlotte.
But Captain Nobbut would hear to no such reasonable proposal. On the contrary, he would hold me in arrest till he could report me and have instructions from his colonel.
Knowing what a stake it was I rode for, you may imagine how this day in durance ate into me like a canker. With ordinary diligence the trooper who carried the news of me should have gone to Charlotte by way of Queensborough and returned by noon. But being of the same surly breed with his captain, ’twas full three of the clock before he came ambling back with an order to set me forthwith upon the road to headquarters.
Once free of the camp of detention you may be sure I put Blackstar to his best paces; but hasten as I would it was coming on to evening when I passed the inner safety line and galloped down the high street of the town.
As luck would have it, the first familiar face I saw was that of Charles Stedman, the commissary-general. On my inquiry he directed me straight.
“My Lord is at supper at Mr. Stair’s. Have you news, Captain?”
I drew breath of relief. Happily the loss of the day had not made me the bearer of stale tidings. So I made answer with proper reticence, saying that I had news, but it was for Lord Cornwallis’s ear first of all. None the less, if the commissary-general were pleased to come with me—
He took the hint at once; and he it was who procured me instant admittance to the house, and who took on himself the responsibility of breaking in upon the party in the supper-room.
I shall not soon forget the scene that fronted us when we came into my Lord’s presence. The supper was in some sort a gala feast held in honor of my Lord’s accession to his earldom. The table, lighted by great silver candelabra which I recognized as Ireton heirlooms, was well filled around by the members of the commander-in-chief’s military family, with the earl at the head, and Mistress Margery, bedight as befitted a lady of the quality, behind the tea-urn at the foot.
At our incoming all eyes were turned upon us, but it required my Lord’s sharp question to make me leave off dwelling upon my sweet lady’s radiant beauty.
“How now, Captain Ireton? Do you bring us news from the major?”
I broke the fascinating eyehold and turned slowly to face my fate.
“I do, my Lord.”
“Well, what of him? You left him hastening to rejoin with his new loyalist levies, I hope?”
I drew my sword, reversed it and laid it upon the table.
“May all the enemies of the Commonwealth be even as he is, my Lord,” I said, quietly.
Now, truly, I had hanged my petard well and ’twas plain the shock of it had gone far to shatter the wall of confidence our enemies had builded on the field of Camden and elsewhere. Had a hand-grenade with the fuse alight been dropped upon the table, the consternation could scarce have been greater. To a man the tableful was up and thronging round me; but above all the hubbub I heard a little cry of misery from the table-foot where my lady sat.
“How is this, sir?—explain yourself!” thundered my Lord, forgetting for once his mild suavity.
“’Tis but a brief tale, and I will make it as crisp as may be in the telling,” I replied. “I came upon the major some miles this side of the crossing of the Broad. He was marching to rejoin you, in accordance with his orders. But when he had your Lordship’s command to stand and fight, he obeyed.”
“My command?—but I gave him no such order!”
“Nay, truly, you did not—neither in the original nor in the duplicate, my Lord. But when we had waylaid Lieutenant Tybee and quenched the duplicate, and had so amended the original as to make it fit our purpose, the brave major thanked you for what you had not done and made his stand to await the upcoming of the over-mountain men.”
For a moment I thought they would hew me limb from limb, but my Lord quelled the fierce outburst with a word.
“Put up your swords, gentlemen. We shall know how to deal with this traitor,” he said. And then to me: “Go on, sir, if you please; there has been a battle, as I take it?”
“There has, indeed. The mountain men came up with us in the afternoon of the Saturday. In an hour one-third of the major’s force was dead or dying, the major himself was slain, and every living man left on the field was a prisoner.”
Again a dozen swords hissed from their scabbards, and again I heard the little cry of misery from the table-foot. I bowed my head, looking momently to pay the penalty; but once more my Lord put the swords aside.
“Let us have a clean breast of it this time, Captain Ireton,” he said. “You know well what you have earned, and nothing you can say will make it better or worse for you. Was this your purpose in making your submission to me?”
“It was.”
“And you have been a rebel from the first?”
I met the cold anger in the womanish eyes as a condemned man might.
“I have, my Lord—since the day nine years agone when I learned that your king’s minions had hanged my father in the Regulation.”
“Then it was a farrago of lies you told me about your adventures in the western mountains?”
“Not wholly. It was your Lordship’s good pleasure to send succors of powder and lead to your allies, the western savages. I and three others followed Captain Falconnet and his Indians, and I have the honor to report that we overtook and exploded them with their own powder cargo.”
“And Captain Sir Francis Falconnet with them?”
“I do so hope and trust, my Lord.”
He turned short on his heel, and for a moment a silence as of death fell upon the room. Then he took the Ferara from the table and sought to break it over his knee; but the good blade, like the cause it stood for, bent like a withe and would not snap.
“Put this spy in irons and clear the room,” he ordered sharply. And this is how the little drama ended: with the supper guests crowding to the door; with my Lord pacing back and forth at the table-head; with two sergeants bearing me away to await, where and how I knew not, the word which should efface me.