two companions had reached
the Ennoree, not far from the habitation of David Ramsay. It was fair
summer weather, and nature was as gay as in that piping time before the
blast of war had blown across her fields. All things, in the course of a
few days, seemed to have undergone a sudden change. The country
presented no signs of strife: no bands of armed men molested the
highways. An occasional husbandman was seen at his plough: the deer
sprang up from the brushwood and fled into the forest, as if inviting
again the pastime of the chase; and even when the two soldiers
encountered a chance wayfarer upon the road, each party passed the other
unquestioned--there was all the seeming quiet of a pacified country. The
truth was, the war had rolled northwards--and all behind it had
submitted since the disastrous fight at Camden. The lusty and
hot-brained portions of the population were away with the army; and the
non-combatants only, or those wearied with arms, were all that were to
be seen in this region.

Horse Shoe, after riding a long time in silence, as these images of
tranquillity occupied his thoughts, made a simple remark that spoke a
volume of truth in a few homely words.

"This is an onnatural sort of stillness, John. Men may call this peace,
but I call it fear. If there is a poor wretch of a Whig in this
district, it's as good as his life is worth to own himself. How far off
mought we be from your father's?"

The young trooper heaved a deep sigh "I knew you were thinking of my
poor father when you spoke your thoughts, Horse Shoe. This is a heavy
day for him. But he could bear it: he's a man who thinks little of
hardships. There are the helpless women, Galbraith Robinson," he
continued, as he shook his head with an expression of sorrow that almost
broke into tears. "Getting near home one thinks of them first. My good
and kind mother--God knows how she would bear any heavy accident. I am
always afraid to ask questions in these times about the family, for fear
of hearing something bad. And there's little Mary Musgrove over at the
mill"--

"You have good reason to be proud of that girl, John Ramsay,"
interrupted Robinson. "So speak out, man, and none of your stammering.
Hoot!--she told me she was your sweetheart! You hav'n't half the tongue
of that wench. Why, sir, if I was a lovable man, haw, haw!--which I'm
not--I'll be cursed if I wouldn't spark that little fusee myself."

"This fence," said Ramsay, unheeding the