was
therefore almost exclusively distinguished by the sobriquet of Horse
Shoe Robinson. This familiar appellative had followed him into the army.

The age of Horse Shoe was some seven or eight years in advance of that
of Butler--a circumstance which the worthy senior did not fail to use
with some authority in their personal intercourse, holding himself, on
that account, to be like Cassius, an elder, if not a better soldier. On
the present occasion, his dress was of the plainest and most rustic
description: a spherical crowned hat with a broad brim, a coarse grey
coatee of mixed cotton and wool, dark linsey-woolsey trowsers adhering
closely to his leg, hob-nailed shoes, and a red cotton handkerchief tied
carelessly round his neck with a knot upon his bosom. This costume, and
a long rifle thrown into the angle of the right arm, with the breech
resting on his pommel, and a pouch of deer-skin, with a powder horn
attached to it, suspended on his right side, might have warranted a
spectator in taking Robinson for a woodsman, or hunter from the
neighboring mountains.

Such were the two personages who now came "pricking o'er the hill." The
period at which I have presented them to my reader was, perhaps, the
most anxious one of the whole struggle for independence. Without falling
into a long narrative of events which are familiar, at least to every
American, I may recall the fact that Gates had just passed southward, to
take command of the army destined to act against Cornwallis. It was now
within a few weeks of that decisive battle which sent the hero of
Saratoga "bootless home and weather-beaten back," to ponder over the
mutations of fortune, and, in the quiet shades of Virginia, to strike
the balance of fame between northern glory and southern discomfiture. It
may be imagined then, that our travellers were not without some share of
that intense interest for the events "upon the gale," which every where
pervaded the nation. Still, as I have before hinted, Arthur Butler did
not journey through this beautiful region without a lively perception of
the charms which nature had spread around him. The soil of this district
is remarkable for its blood-red hue. The side of every bank glowed in
the sun with this bright vermillion tint, and the new-made furrow,
wherever the early ploughman had scarred the soil, turned up to view the
predominating color. The contrast of this with the luxuriant grass and
the yellow stubble, with the grey