Various

Grave men there are by broad Santee,

Grave men with hoary hairs,

Their hearts are all with Marion,

With Marion are their prayers.

Bryant.

The period of which we write was one that will ever be memorable in the annals of our country. Never had the fortunes of the patriots been at so low an ebb in the south, as between the defeat of Gates, at Camden, and the inroad of Cornwallis into North Carolina. After the fall of Charleston no time had been lost in overrunning the colony. All organized resistance being at an end, a proclamation was published, inviting the citizens to return to his majesty’s government, and stipulating for little more on their part than neutrality. Large numbers, even of the Whigs, accepted these terms: and had Cornwallis adhered to his promises, then indeed might liberty have been despaired of. But the royal leader soon threw off the mask, and required all who had accepted the protection, as it was called, to declare themselves openly on the royal side, in the further prosecution of the war. Finding themselves thus basely deceived, many flew to arms; but such, whenever captured, were executed as rebels. The fate of Col. Hayne, who was put to death at Charleston under these circumstances, was but a type of that of hundreds of lesser note, who perished often without a trial.

The war, meanwhile, was carried on with savage ferocity against the Whigs. Their plantations were laid waste, their negroes carried off, their houses given to the flames. The seven vials of wrath were literally poured out on South Carolina. Instances of cruelty without number are left on record. One may suffice. An innocent Quaker who took care of a sentry’s musket for a few minutes, while the soldier went on an errand, was seized for this pretended crime and thrown into prison. His wife hurried to the jail to see him. She was told to wait a few minutes and she should be conducted to him. With this brutal jest on their lips, the royal myrmidons hurried to the man’s cell, dragged him forth and hung him at the jail window: then, returning to his wife, they led her into the yard, and showed her husband to her quivering in the agonies of death. But God at last raised up an avenger for these and other atrocities. Suddenly, in the very heart of the oppressed district, there arose a defender, bitter, sleepless, unforgiving—seemingly endowed with miraculous powers of intelligence—whose motions were quick as lightning—who dealt blows now here, now there, at points least expected—and who, by a series of rapid and brilliant successes, soon made his name a terror to the British. Volunteers flocked in crowds to his standard. His boldness and gallantry filled the colony with astonishment and rejoicing. Wherever a surprise took place—wherever a convoy was cut off—wherever a gallant deed was unexpectedly done, men said that Marion had been there.

Preston had succeeded in raising a troop, for his name was an influential one in his neighborhood, and he was soon one of Marion’s most trusted adherents. A man who is willing to throw his life away on every occasion, speedily acquires the reputation of daring and bravery. The country around the Santee, which was the chief scene of his exploits, rung with the name of our hero. Nor was his foster-brother, now a serjeant in Preston’s troop, and one of Marion’s acutest scouts, without his share of renown.

Meantime the gay society of Charleston had suffered considerable diminutions. Many of the royal officers were absent with their commands, and a large portion of the gentry had retired to their estates. Among these was Mr. Mowbray, who secretly meditated joining the continental side again. Kate, too, was absent with her aunt, at the estate of the latter.

To this place the course of our story now carries us. Mrs. Blakeley’s mansion had heretofore escaped the visitation of war, but within a few days a detachment under Col. Watson had halted there on its march to Camden. With him came Major Lindsay, still an eager suitor for Kate. But scarcely had Col. Watson encamped on the plantation, when a body of Marion’s men, conspicuous among whom was Capt. Preston, made their appearance, and daily harassed the British officer, by cutting off his communications, assailing his pickets, and sometimes even beating up his camp.

One evening Kate was sitting sewing with her aunt in the parlor, conversing with Col. Watson, and several of his officers, who were their guests, when the servant came in to light the candles. Old Jacob, as he was called, filled the office of butler in the family, and was quite a character. He was a Whig at heart, and cordially disliked his mistress’s compulsory visiters. Having been his deceased master’s personal servant, he had thus acquired a footing of familiarity which allowed him to have his joke even at the table where he waited. He piqued himself moreover on what he thought his breeding and fine diction. He was a source of constant amusement to the British officers, who, however, found him sometimes their overmatch in repartee.

“Well, Jacob, what news?” said Major Lindsay. “Any more rebels captured?”

Old Jacob turned, bowed his head profoundly, and showing his teeth in a broad grin, said—

“Dare is no news yet, sar, dat I know on; but ’spose dare will be some afore mornin’; for, sartain, Capt. Preston will beat up your quarters as usual: and den, how de red-coats run!”

Kate looked up archly, yet colored when she caught the major’s eye. That personage bit his lip, and remarked—

“Never mind Capt. Preston, Jacob: he’ll be our prisoner very soon. Has the flag of truce come back?”

“Oh! yes, sar,” said old Jacob, his face radiant with delight. “Habn’t you heard? Dat great news, sar. ’Spose you know Sargent Macdonald?”

“What of him?” said the major, beginning to suspect he was making a ridiculous figure. “He’s a savage. Why he shot Lieut. Torriano yesterday three hundred yards off.”

“Dat he did,” said the old butler, waxing grandiloquent, “he hit de leftenant judgematically, I insure you. But dat is not de news. You knows Sargent Macdonald sent in word, toder day, dat if his baggage, took in de sally, was not recorded immediately to him again, he would kill eight of your men. You know dat? To-day de baggage was sent back, for dat sargent be de berry debbil, and now he send word dat, since his baggage be recorded punctiliousy, he will only kill four of your men!” And the speaker, though too well-bred to laugh at what he considered so good a joke, grinned from ear to ear.

“The cannibal!” said Lindsay, shrugging his shoulders, “but what can be expected of the men when their leaders countenance the firing on pickets.”

“Yet you hang them for rebels,” said Kate, with spirit.

“They shoot down officers,” continued Lindsay, not thinking it advisable to reply to her palpable hit, “as if this Mr. Marion paid for them at so much a head. I never saw such unchristian fighting. They are a set of boors; and cowards at heart, all of them, I’ll be sworn.”

“Cowards they are not,” said Kate, her eyes flashing to hear her countrymen thus stigmatized. “At least you did not seem to think them such when Capt. Preston, at the head of his troop, dashed up to your lines, and challenged you to fight singly, or otherwise. I heard myself the alarm with which the soldiers cried, ‘Here comes Preston again!’”

“He well knew no one would accept his challenge: so his bravado cost him nothing.”

“Go meet him when he comes again, and see whether he meant it for bravado!” retorted Kate; then, all at once remembering the enthusiasm into which she had been hurried, she colored, and resumed her work in some embarrassment.

Major Lindsay stifled a muttered execration on his American rival, for he began to fear, from the spirit which Kate had shown, that the chivalric exploits of Capt. Preston were making a decided impression on her heart. The desperate daring which the rebel officer had shown within the last few days, Major Lindsay had attributed, in his own mind, to a desire on the part of Preston to dazzle his mistress; but Kate’s behavior toward himself had been so flattering, in comparison to that bestowed on others, that, until this moment, he had consoled himself that these exploits had been thrown away. He sat, therefore, silent and moody; and the conversation ceased.

Gradually, one by one, the visiters thinned off and returned to their quarters, until only Col. Watson and himself were left. The Colonel and Mrs. Blakeley had sat down to a game of cards in a distant corner of the apartment. Here was an opportunity to decide his fate. It might be the last time he would find Kate alone, for the camp was expected to move in a few days. The occasion was not to be neglected, and, doubtful as he felt of the issue, he arose, and leaning over her, said, in a low voice,

“I fear, my dear Miss Mowbray, that I offended you by what I said of Capt. Preston. I forgot, for a moment, that he was an old playmate of yours. You cannot tell how pained I am that any thing I said should displease you.”

“It matters little—I am not at all displeased,” said Kate, keeping her eyes on her work, her heart beating violently. “Capt. Preston needs no defender in me, nor asks one. I but spoke generally in behalf of my countrymen.”

Major Lindsay saw her embarrassment, and, misinterpreting the cause, drew a favorable omen from it.

“You relieve my heart from a load,” he said. “I could bear any thing rather than your displeasure. Indeed you must long have seen how I loved you. Nay, do not rise from the table. I worship the very ground you tread on—my life itself is bound up in your smiles—all I have, heart, fortune, reputation, I lay at your feet?—”

He would have continued in the same impassioned strain, but Kate, summoning up all her self-command, rose with dignity.

“It pains me to hear this, Major Lindsay,” she said. “I will be frank. That you sought my society, I saw, but that you loved me I never believed.”

The face of Major Lindsay flushed, but he controlled his features, and detained her as she would have moved away.

“Do not bid me despair,” he said. “In time I may be allowed to hope. Let me fancy that my devotion may at last win me this fair hand.”

“No time can alter my sentiments,” said Kate, coldly.

“I will serve for you as for a second Rachel,” and the major still detained her.

“Nay! I can listen to this no more. You forget yourself!” said Kate, severely.

At this instant, and before Major Lindsay could reply, Kate saw that her aunt had finished the game of cards, and was coming toward her. The major with chagrin turned away. He would have given worlds if the tÊte-À-tÊte could have been protracted, for then he would have endeavored to discover if Kate really loved Preston, or was indifferent to all.

“Rejected, by George!” he muttered. “But I must have her, however,” he soliloquized. “She is too lovely, too charming altogether, to be sacrificed on a provincial—what a sensation she would create at court! Then she is heiress to one of the best properties in this colony, and since my cousin has married again, there is no telling how many new lives may come in between impoverished me and the earldom. By Jove! I wish this Preston had remained abroad a little longer, or that he would get knocked over in some skirmish. I wouldn’t hesitate to give him his coup de grÂce myself, if I had a chance. But he shan’t foil me. I’ll have Kate in spite of him. What a delicious creature she is! What eyes!—what an arm!”

Major Lindsay met Kate the ensuing day with an unruffled brow and without embarrassment. If there was any change in his demeanor, it was perceptible only in the assumption of greater deference toward her than before. Not Lord Orville himself, the preux chevalier of Evelina, could have shown more tact and delicacy in bestowing those thousand little attentions which go so far toward winning the female heart. Kate was annoyed. She saw that Major Lindsay, in spite of her decided language, still cherished the hope of winning her favor; but his conduct was so guarded as to forbid maiden modesty again alluding to the subject. She could only, therefore, endeavor, by a cold though polite behavior, to show that her sentiments were unchanged, hoping that in time he would tire of the pursuit. She little knew the pertinacity and unscrupulousness of the man with whom she had to deal.

Kate dared not, meanwhile, too closely to examine her own heart. She could not forget the exquisite pleasure which attended her last tÊte-À-tÊte with Preston, and her bosom thrilled whenever she thought of what might have been his words if Major Lindsay had not come in. The subsequent coldness and suspicion of Preston had piqued her, and she had resolved to punish him for his want of confidence and jealousy, by a little innocent coquetry with Major Lindsay in the evening. Fatal error! When she heard of his speedy departure from his own lips, she regretted for a moment her revenge; but her second feeling was that of anger at his conduct, and hence her assumed indifference. And yet, after the lapse of months, she felt herself the aggrieved party. Preston ought not to have been so jealous. He had no right to be offended at the show of only ordinary courtesy to a visiter. If he chose to be suspicious and proud, he ought to be taught better by neglect. He had trifled with her, else he would have called again, and sought an explanation. But perhaps he did not love her, perhaps he had meant nothing by his words. She usually ended her reveries at this point with a sigh, and a haughty resolution to discard him from her heart. She would love no one who did not love her.

In a few days Col. Watson left his encampment for Georgetown, where he arrived, harassed by constant attacks, Major Lindsay accompanying him.

——