hn
Ramsay, to which, it may be imagined, Mildred and Henry listened with
the most absorbed attention.

This tale of the recapture of Butler, so unexpected, and communicated at
a moment when Mildred's heart beat high with the joyful hopes of
speedily seeing her lover again in safety, now struck upon her ear with
the alarm that seizes upon a voyager who, fearing no hidden reef or
unknown shoal, hears the keel of his ship in mid ocean crash against a
solid rock. It seemed at once to break down the illusion which she had
cherished with such fond affection. For the remainder of the evening the
intercourse of the party was anxious and thoughtful, and betrayed the
unhappy impression which the intelligence just communicated had made
upon the feelings of Mildred and her brother. Musgrove, after the
travellers had been refreshed by food, and invigorated by the kind and
hearty hospitality of the good man under whose roof they were sheltered,
proceeded to give the sergeant a history of what had lately befallen in
the neighborhood of the Ennoree. Some days after the escape of Butler,
the miller's own family had drawn upon themselves the odium of the
ruling authority. His mill and his habitation had been reduced to ashes
by a party of Tories who had made an incursion into this district, with
no other view than to wreak their vengeance against suspected persons.
In the same inroad, the family of David Ramsay had once more been
assailed, and all that was spared from the first conflagration was
destroyed in the second. Many other houses through this region had met
the same fate. The expedition had been conducted by Wemyss, who, it is
said, carried in his pocket a list of dwellings to which the torch was
to be applied, and who, on accomplishing each item of his diabolical
mission--so still runs the tradition--would note the consummated work by
striking out the memorandum from his tablets.

In this general ravage, the desolated families fled like hunted game
through the woods, and betook themselves with a disordered haste to the
more friendly provinces northward. Musgrove had sent his wife and
younger children, almost immediately after the assault upon him, to the
care of a relative in Virginia, whither they had been conducted some
days previous to the date of his present meeting with Horse Shoe by
Christopher Shaw; whilst he and Mary had remained behind, for a short
space, to render assistance to the family of Ramsay, to whom they felt