The Raid of the Guerilla | Page 7

cringing old man, as if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
"It's accordin' to the articles o' war and the law of nations," he averred. "People take advantage of age and disability"--he glanced at the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of his right arm--"as if that could protect 'em in acts o' treason an' treachery;" then with a blast of impatience, "Where's the man?"
To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration--the task before the primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
"Cap'n--ef ye'd listen ter what I gotter say," began the miller.
"I'll listen arterward!" exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
"Cap'n," remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste, hurried by the commander's gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had no need to be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he would. "Cap'n--Cap'n--bear with us--we-uns don't know!"
Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks a yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had never divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his gauntleted right hand on his right side, and held his head erect, looking over the wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field, and the fodder in the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the wooded autumn mountains glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting his vengeance with some keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils dilating as sensitively as the nostrils of his high-couraged charger now throwing up his head to sniff the air, now bending it down as he pawed the ground.
"Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o' country here, and good crops, too--which is a credit to you, seeing that the conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers that wouldn't volunteer--damn 'em! But I swear by the right hand of Jehovah, I'll burn every cabin in the Cove an' every blade o' forage in the fields if you don't produce the man who guided Tol-hurst's cavalry out'n the trap I'd chased 'em into, or give me a true and satisfactory account of him." He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the air. "So help me God!"
There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein, then desisted. A certain noli me tangere influence about the fierce guerilla affected even supplication, and the "Squair" resorted to logic as the more potent weapon of the two.
"Cap'n, Cap'n," he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, "be pleased to consider my words. I'm a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run the law clean out o' the kentry. We dun'no' the guide--we never seen the troops." Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: "If ye'll cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye'll view how it happened. Thar's the road "--he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the foliage that marked the descent into the vale--"an' down this e-end o' the Cove thar's nex' ter nobody livin'."
The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue; only the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the nostrils, showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
"Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove 'lowed afterward they hearn a hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin' of the ground like the trompin' of horses--but them troops mus' hev passed from the foot o' the mounting acrost the aidge of the Cove."
"Scant haffen mile," put in the blacksmith, "down to a sort of cave, or tunnel, that runs under the mounting--yander--that lets 'em out into Greenbrier Cove."
"Gawd!" exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched, gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight the course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of their triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the intonation was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and rare opportunity thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all the chaotic chances of the Civil War he could hardly hope for its repetition. It was part of a crack body of regulars--Tolhurst's squadron--that he had contrived to drive into this trap, this cul-de-sac, surrounded by the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky Mountains. It had been a running fight, for Tolhurst