The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-03-12
CHAPTER III.
WHICH KNITs UP SOME BROKEN


WHICH KNITs UP SOME BROKEN
ENDS.
1t was in the autumn of the year "a. as 1
was coming of age, that my father made
ready TO send me to England. Himself
conscience exile from Episcopal Virginia,
and descendant of those Nottingham Ire
tons whose best-known son fought stoutly
against church and King under Oliver
Cromwell, he was yet willing to humor my
bent and to use the interest of my mothers
family to enter me in the Kings service.
Accordingly, l took ship at Norfolk for
home" as we called it in those days; and
after stormy passage and overmuch wait
ing as my cousins guest in Lincolnshire
had my pair of colors in the Scots Blues
lately home from garrison duty in the Can
adas.
Or the life in barracks of young ensign
with little wit and less wisdom, and with
more guineas in his purse than was good
for him. the less said the better. But of this
you may like to know that, what with a
good fathers example, and some small
heritage of Puritan decency come down to
me from the sound-hearted old Roundhead
stock, 1 out of that DEVILS sponging
house, an army in the time of peace, with
somewhat less to my score than others had
to theirs.
1t was in this barrack life that came to
know Richard Coverdale and his evil
genius, the man Francis Falconnet. Cover
dale was an ensign in my own regiment.
and we were sworn friends from the first.
His was clean soul and brave; and it
was to him that 1 owed escape from many
of the grosser chargings on that score
above named.
AS for Falconnet, he was even then a
ruffler and bully, though he was not of
the army. He was a younger son, and at
that time there We're two lives between him
and the baronetcy but with a mothers be-
queathings to purchase idleness and to gild
his iniquities he was fair example of the
jeunesse doree of that England; a libertine,
a gamester, rakehell; brave as the tiger is
brave, and to the full as pitiless. He was a
boon companion of the officers mess; and.
for a time-and purpose-posed as Cover
dale's friend. and mine.
Since 1 would not tell my poor Dick s
story to Richard Jennifer, / may not set 1t
down in cold words here for you. 1t was the
age-old tragic comedy of false friend s
treachery and a woman's weakness; a duel,
and the wrong man slain. And you may
know this; that Falconnet's most merciful
role in it the part he played one chill
November morning when he put Richard
Coverdale to the wall and ran him through.
AS you have guessed, I was Coverdale's
next friend and second in this affair. and
but for the upsetting news of the Tryon
tyranny in Carolina-news which reached
H. a
there and then have called the slayer to his
account.
How my father who Presbyterian and
Ireton though he was. had always been of
the Kings side, came to espouse the cause
of the Regulators" as they called them
selves, 1 know not. In my youthful memo
res of him he figures as the feudal lord of
his own domain, more absolute than many
of the petty kinglings 1 came afterward to
know in the German marches. But this, too,
L remember; that while his rule at Appleby
Hundred was stern and despotic enough, he
was ever ready to lend willing ear to any
tale of oppression. And if what men say Of
the tyrant Tryon's tax-gatherers and law
court robbers be no more than half truth,
there need for any honest gentleman
to oppose them.
a tale twice told. Taken in arms against
the Governors authority, and with an es-
tate well worth receiving, my father had
little justice and less mercy accorded him.
With many others he was outlawed; his
estates were declared forfeit; and a few
days later he with njamin Merrill and
four more captivated at the Almanac.
was given some farce of a trial and hanged.
When the news of this came to me you
may we'll suppose that / had no heart to
continue in the service of the King who
could sanction and reward such villainies
as these of the butcher William Tryon. So
L threw up my lieutenant's commission in
the Blues, took ship for the continent, and
after wearing some half dozen different uni
forms in Germany, was lucky enough to
come at length to serviceable blows under
my old field marshal on the Turkish from
tier.
To you of a younger generation. born in
the day of swift mail coaches and well-kept
post roads, the slowness with which our
laggard news Travelled in that elder time
must needs seem past belief. 1t was early
in the year 70 before began to hear more
than vague campfire tales of the struggle
going on between the colonies and the
mother country; and from that to setting
foot once more upon the soil of my native
Carolina was still another year.
What found upon landing at New Berne
and saw while riding jog trot thence to
the Catawba was q province rent and torn
by partisan warfare Though / came not
upon the partisans themselves in all
that long faring, there were trampled fields
and pillaged houses enough to serve as
miiestones; and in my native Mecklenburg
a mine full charged, with slow match well
alight for its firing.
Charleston had fallen. and Colonel Tarle-
tons outposts were already widespread on
the upper waters of the Broad and the
Catawba. Thus it that the first sight
which greeted my eyes when / rode into
Queensborough was the familiar trappings
of my old service, and was made to know
that in spite of Mr.. Jefferson's boldly writ
ten Declaration of independence, and that
earlier casting of the Kings yoke by the
patriotic Mecklenburgers themselves, my
boyhood home was for the moment by
sword-right part OF his Majesty's prov
ince of North Carolina.
You are not to suppose that these things
moved me greatly. AS yet was chiefly con-
cerned with my own affair and anxious to
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He had operators waiting at every station