CHAPTER XXIX.

CHESTNUT NECK

“The sky Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder.” —Byron.

“I heard the wrack, As earth and sky would mingle.” —Milton.

The Neck was a tongue of land, which, jutting out into the tide, and surrounded on two sides by salt marshes, formed the last piece of solid ground as the voyager descended the river. As the crow flies, this point was but a few miles from the bay. But the navigator, after leaving the Neck, practically had to conquer many a weary league before he reached the Atlantic, the stream winding, in sinuous turns, in and out among the low meadows, before it finally attained its destination.

On this bit of fast land a few scattering houses had been built, the principal one being about a hundred yards from the water’s edge. Corn-fields extended for some distance inland, where they were met by dense woods, which stretched on both sides, wherever there was solid ground, as far as the eye could see. A few fine old chestnut trees, growing in a clump near the extreme end of the point, made the spot a land-mark, visible for miles up and down the stream.

The neck of land formed, on its upper side, a little bay, in which were now disposed about thirty dismantled merchant vessels. Bales of goods were piled upon the shore, as if just unloaded; while others were being hurried into the neighboring store-houses. At least five hundred men were already collected, when Major Gordon reached the rendezvous. They were all busy, for those who were not engaged in securing the cargos of the prizes, were occupied in throwing up a rude earthen breastwork for the defence of the place.

Among the first to welcome our hero was the old waterman, Mullen, whom the reader will recollect as having been with him, when Kate was rescued from the wreck. Charley Newell was also there, but came forward more coyly, and blushed like any girl when the Major complimented him for his conduct on that occasion.

From these old comrades our hero learned that the express rider had preceded him several hours; that intelligence had already reached the settlements on both sides of the river; and that the privateers had made good their escape. Nothing, as yet, had been seen of the British. Meantime, the whole country was rising, and Mullen predicted that, before four and twenty hours, a thousand men would rendezvous at the Neck.

“There’s no danger of surprise?” said Major Gordon, interrogatively.

“We know the cut of every sail on the river,” said Mullen, “and can tell a strange one miles off. There isn’t a child even, hereabouts, who can’t say whether a craft is ours or not, a’most as soon as he can pint out a gray-back or a millet. The river makes a wide sweep, as maybe you may remember, just below here, so that what’s but a mile right across the mash hereaway, is a matter of three miles as the water runs. You can see a sail an hour or more before she can reach the Neck.”

Satisfied on this point, and having posted sentinels at every proper point, so as to provide against being surprised in the darkness, Major Gordon dismissed his command to their quarters soon after night-fall; and directly hundreds of men, fatigued by a hurried march, or a day of severe labor in storing goods, were fast asleep, bivouacking around him. Slumber was not, however, for his eyes. Though he scarcely expected an attack before the following day, even if then, the anxiety natural to his position kept him awake. He paced slowly up and down, hour after hour, under the shadows of the chestnut trees, now listening to the sentry’s cry of “all’s well,” and now to the low plash of the tide as it swept past the point. Or he stood, with folded arms, cooling his heated brow in the night air, or gazing dreamily over the vast and silent expanse of salt meadows between him and the ocean, as they were vaguely seen in the starlight. Occasionally he went the rounds personally. At other times, he leaned against one of the old chestnuts, and gave himself up to reflection, Kate dividing his thoughts nearly equally with the responsibilities of his command.

The morning dawned, close and misty. The fog hung low and thick over the marshes, or lay packed, like aerial fleeces, upon the stream. Now and then a faint breeze would wave it gently, as when a light curtain is stirred by the wind; and here and there it eddied and undulated, apparently without cause. The atmosphere was warm, almost stifling.

“An enemy might steal on us now, like a thief in the night,” was Uncle Lawrence’s morning salutation to Major Gordon. “The fog’s so thick it looks as if one might cut it with a knife.”

“It’s a’most as bad as the fogs off Newfoundland,” put in Mullen, coming up, “where the Marblehead fishermen have a saying they can make steps in ‘em, as if they were rock. Ha! ha!”

“When I was at Newport,” remarked Major Gordon, joining in the humor of the moment, “in the beginning of the war—and Newport’s famous for its fogs, you know—they told me the girls used to hang their heads out of the windows, whenever there was a fog, to bleach their complexions; and certainly the ladies there look almost like wax-work.” And thus speaking, he laughingly passed on.

“Like wax-work!” said Mullen, contemptuously. “Give me an honest tan on the face. A woman ain’t good for much that can’t dig potatoes, or maybe hold a plough a bit, while her husband’s out a fishin’. In these parts, at any rate, a man don’t want a wife that he has to keep in a glass case.”

“Every one to his taste,” interposed Uncle Lawrence. “Now there’s Miss Aylesford would stand but a poor chance digging potatoes with them white little hands of hern, yet she’s a brave gal for all that, as you know, Mr. Mullen.”

“Ay, ay, that do I. Lord A’mighty, how beautiful she looked, when she ran for’ard on that ere wreck to cast off the cable. What a pictur she’d a made. There’s nothing in my old woman’s family Bible as fine.”

As the day wore on, the fog lifted, and Major Gordon’s anxiety was relieved by discovering no signs of the foe. Aware of his as yet insufficient means of defence, he wished to postpone the struggle as long as possible. For though he had several hundred men under his command, and though the number was hourly being augmented, they were wholly undisciplined, and the breastwork, which might have aided him materially, was still unfinished.

Meantime, he urged forward the construction of the fortification, often personally assisting the laborers. He hoped, by another day, to have the defences finished, in which case he thought he could make good his post, even if Pulaski should fail to come up. Nevertheless, he was not over-sanguine. For the thousand disciplined soldiers, marines, and sailors, whom the British were despatching against him, were not to be despised by a brave and prudent commander. Two-thirds of his men had never seen fire; and though their patriotism was unquestionable, no leader, he well knew, could count certainly on such troops.

When, at last, noon arrived, and the fortifications were pronounced half-finished, and when, having swept the river below with his glass, no enemy was seen, Major Gordon went to his meal with something like relief.

Clouds had been hovering all day, however, around the horizon, portending rain; and more than once low growls of thunder had come up faintly from the distance. While the men were at dinner, the threatening vapors culminated, and a storm, as sudden as it was violent, broke upon the little camp. The Major was seated at his meal, in the “best parlor” of the principal dwelling, when his attention was aroused by the unexpected darkness that fell across the room. Almost immediately there came a rush of wind, which dashed the sand against the window-pane like showers of fine shot, while the enormous chestnuts were heard swaying and moaning as if twisted and tortured almost beyond their powers of endurance. Rushing to the casement he saw the air filled with a ghastly dust, through which the light looked lurid, as if the Judgment Day had come. The young saplings were bending like reeds; while some cattle, which had been driven into the camp to be slaughtered, had broken loose, and now ran wildly about, tearing up the loose soil and bellowing in affright: and overhead, the birds, scared from their noontide shelter, flew hither and thither blindly.

All at once a dead silence fell upon the scene. The wind ceased as if by the command of some fell magician. This quiet was, however, even more awful than the preceding turmoil. It was, indeed, as if all things had come to their last gasp, and earth wanted but the word to dissolve forever. Suddenly this ominous stillness was broken by a terrific clap of thunder bursting almost overhead. Simultaneously a vivid streak of lightning, that filled the whole room with dazzling light, and blinded Major Gordon for a moment, shot to the ground just in front of the garden fence; the earth opened, ploughed up for yards on either side by the red bolt, and then, while a dense smoke rose, or seemed to the dizzy eyesight to rise from the spot, the house apparently rocked to its foundations, and the firmament shook, while peal on peal reverberated into the distance, as if thousands of artillery wagons were jolting at full gallop down the pavement of heaven.

Involuntarily Major Gordon sprang back from the window, while the servant girl, who had been waiting on him, ran screaming from the room, crying that the end of the world had come. Then a rushing sound was heard, and a burst of rain followed, as if the windows of the sky had been opened, the rain dancing on the road in huge drops, and hissing as though it fell on a furnace. Hail was soon mixed with the descending water, which now poured down in sheeted cataracts, and with the roar of an avalanche. The icy particles, as big as hazel-nuts, rattled on the roof like buckshot, cracked the frail glass of the window-panes, and heaped themselves up in the ruts, like pebbles left by a mountain torrent. The trees once more bent in the driving gale, and the rain, swept almost horizontally along, smoked over the fast land and vanished in clouds of gray mist across the distant marshes.

For more than an hour, the rain continued to fall. The fury of the tempest, however, began to subside long before that period had elapsed. At last Major Gordon ventured out. The storm had crossed the country diagonally, and was now moving towards the Atlantic, its gloomy mass extending along the eastern horizon and far up towards the zenith, black as a funeral hearse and procession. No sable pall could have descended more wall-like, over the salt marshes and river below the Neck, than did the ebon clouds of the tempest. Continually, down this inky curtain, crinkled the zig-zag lightning, its white-heat blaze irradiating all around for an instant, and then leaving it seemingly duskier than before. Wherever the storm came down, in this way, on the river, a murky glare fringed its lower edge, diffusing a ghostly reflection on the troubled waves in front of it. Every few minutes the thunder boomed from out of this black ominous mass, sounding fainter as the storm receded, however, until at last it subsided into a low, sullen growl, as when a baffled lion retires reluctantly into the night before the hunters.

Suddenly, around the nearest bend of the river, a fleet of boats was seen advancing towards the Neck. The rowers were evidently men-of-wars men; while intermingled among them were the red coats of British soldiers and the caps of British marines. The whole number of the boats was not less than thirty, and Major Gordon, at a hasty glance, estimated the entire force of the assailants at nearly a thousand.

The enemy had approached undetected, under cover of the tempest, and in consequence of having no sails; and was now within a quarter of a mile. Not a minute was to be lost in preparing for defence. Our hero, therefore, hurriedly ordered the alarm to be sounded, and began to marshal his men, eager to do the best he could to avert the consequences of this surprise.