Chapter X: As the Lion Woos His Bride

So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her, he sprung.—SCOTT.

One amazed and startled look assured the party that the guerrillas were upon them.

Some of the young ladies fell upon their faces, screaming with terror.

Others turned to fly, but were met and opposed by the bayonets of the guerrillas, who fenced them on all sides.

Only Elfie stood her ground. She placed her back against the bole of a pine tree and called those frantic girls around her, saying:

“Stand fast! Stand firm! it is the best way—it is the only way!”

“To arms! gentlemen all! Let us die in defence of the ladies!” shouted valiant little Mr. Mim, drawing his slender sword from his cane and throwing himself before the group of young ladies who had now gathered, frightened and trembling, around Elfie as their queen.

Not another man followed his example.

“Surrender, you blasted Yankees, before we make crows’ meat of you!” shouted a gigantic guerrilla, who seemed to be the leader of the hand, leaping into the centre of the area, followed by many of his men.

Elfie stooped and whispered to her chivalric little champion.

“Mr. Mim, resistance is quite vain! You will only get yourself cut to pieces by these wretches! Throw down your sword!”

“Miss Fielding, I will be cut into ten thousand flinders before they shall come at you and the other ladies!” cried the little hero.

“These are Goldsborough’s guerrillas; and the giant who is leading them is the savage Mutchison, his second in command. I know him by his picture in the illustrated papers. Give me your dirk to defend myself, and then surrender, Mr. Mim.”

“My dirk! Certainly, if you want it, Miss Fielding; but I will never surrender!” said the little knight, beginning to disengage the required weapon from its resting-place. Then he had to let it go in a hurry, and throw himself upon his guard; for the colossus whom Elfie had called Mutchison was leaping towards him, brandishing his sabre.

Little Mim met and parried the stroke that was aimed at him.

And then followed several rapid passes. But the combat was very unequal. Mim and Mutchison, as to their respective sizes, were like David and Goliath. And poor tiny Mim had no miraculous sling! When they had crossed swords several times, Mutchison sang out:

“Yield, you little fool!”

“Never!” shouted Mim, parrying the strokes as well as he could, and watching for a chance to run his gigantic antagonist through the body.

“Surrender, you blamed idiot! I don’t want to kill such a midge as you!” cried the guerrilla, without ceasing to lay on.

“Then you needn’t; but take care of yourself, for I want to kill _you_!—Ah, ha!” exclaimed Mim, as he found his opportunity and ran his rapier an inch or two into the guerrilla’s flesh.

“Here goes then, blame you! I was only playing at first; I am fighting now!” exclaimed the angry guerrilla.

There were a few more rapid passes, and then Mutchison sent the rapier flying from Mim’s hand, and with a sweeping back stroke struck him under the knees, and brought him suddenly to the ground.

For the first time Elfie screamed, and covered her eyes.

“Now beg for quarter, you cursed little idiot!” roared the guerrilla, with his foot upon the small hero’s chest.

“Never! I’ll die before I’ll ask my life from you!” answered Mim, defiantly.

“Well, you’re a spirited little gnat, that’s certain! And I’ll give you your life. Get up!” laughed Mutchison, removing his foot from Mim’s chest, and turning away to look after his men.

Elfie stooped to raise her fallen champion.

“Oh Mim! Mim, dear, are you hurt?” she said, giving him her hand to assist him in rising.

“No—I’m furious! Let me up and at him!” exclaimed the mite, struggling to his feet and looking about for his rapier.

“But, dear Mim, you can’t—you mustn’t! You stand in the position of a paroled prisoner now. The man spared your life!”

“I didn’t ask him! and I’ll cut off his head!”

“So you shall the minute you are at liberty to do so; but now you must keep your implied parole,” said Elfie, holding him fast; for she was really fond of the brave little fellow, in a sisterly sort of fashion, and she could not bear that he should recklessly and uselessly fling away his life.

Meanwhile Mutchison turned to his band, who now filled the whole area.

“Hoi, my men! No bloodshed! Disarm these dainty gentlemen without hurting them! afterwards we will know what to do with them!” roared the guerrilla leader.

No need to caution the men against bloodshed! There was nothing to provoke the most wanton to it! Little Mim, to his everlasting honor and glory, had been the only man to show fight. The others had not even made a pretence of resistance. Where would have been the use?

“What could they ’gainst the shock of hell?”

The picnic party numbered about thirty-five persons, of whom eighteen were ladies. There were, then, but seventeen gentlemen; and against them two hundred fierce guerrillas!

Successful resistance was clearly impossible, and the picnickers yielded without a blow!

“Come!” said Mutchison, striding into the midst of the area and gazing around upon his “ragged rascals.” “Come! I think the first thing to be done is to exchange clothing with these well-dressed gentlemen, as far as they will go; and those among you, my brave boys, who don’t get a nice garment, shall have its equivalent in money or jewelry, of which I suppose there is no lack among the company present.”

A shout of approbation from the band responded to this speech.

“I think I see a gentleman there whose elegant holiday attire seems to have been made especially for me!” said Mutchison, indicating the tall, athletic form of Mr. Montgomery Fitz Smithers, who, not feeling elated by this distinguished notice, retired behind his companions and squatted down out of sight.

“But the ladies must withdraw while we make our toilet. Here, Carter, you and Gates march these girls to the other end of the woods and guard them; and, hark you! if any man of you attempts to kiss one of them until I give the word—dash him! I’ll hang him as high as Haman!”

Two guerrillas stepped out from the crowd, and, with fixed bayonets drove the young ladies, like a flock of sheep, to the opposite edge of the pine woods.

No one resisted, not even Elfie; for she had no desire to remain and witness the interchange of good offices between the guerrillas and the gentlemen of her party.

“And now to business! I don’t like to inconvenience you, my young friends, but necessity has no law! and really our necessities are very great—none of us having had a change of linen for two months past!” said Mutchison.

Again I say that successful resistance was clearly impossible.

The guerrillas began to strip and throw their foul rags in a nauseous heap in the middle of the ring.

And the unlucky young men had to divest themselves of their elegant festive dresses. Their fine black broadcloth coats and trousers, their glossy satin vests, their pure white linen shirts, their hats, shoes, socks, neckties, pocket handkerchiefs, gloves, scarf pins, studs, watches, chains and purses were all taken from them and distributed among the guerrillas.

And then they were ordered to clothe themselves with the wretched slough just cast by these bandits.

And it was at once ludicrous and lamentable to see these unhappy youths poking and picking about with sticks in the heap of rank rags, in search of the least objectionable, where, upon examination, every one seemed worse than the others.

“Come, come,—don’t be so hard to please or you will take cold! These clothes were worn by us long enough without complaint! Thunderation! why don’t you make haste and dress yourselves?” roared Mutchison.

And the miserable young men had no alternative but to obey, and clothe themselves from the odoriferous mound before them.

The greater number of the poor fellows submitted ruefully enough to this degrading transformation.

Only Mr. Allison bore the mischance with philosophy.

“There are worse misfortunes at sea!” he said, as he invested himself in a nondescript garment of which it was almost impossible to tell the original form or material, and which now hung about him like sea-weed. “‘A little water clears us from this deed!’ In other words, when we get back home, a warm bath and a change of dress will make us all right!” he added.

“Come you! brother giant, I’m waiting for you!” impatiently cried Mutchison to Fitz Smithers, who, with Billingcoo was putting off the evil hour of undressing as long as possible.

“Come! Blazes, men! will you make haste, or shall I help you?”

Fitz Smithers sprang a yard from the ground in his fright, and then began nervously to strip himself.

“And you, sir! what are _you_ about? Here are several of my poor fellows waiting for your clothes! Off with them instantly!” thundered Mutchison, addressing himself to the afflicted dandy, who would rather have died than disrobe.

“Oh lor! oh dear! I can’t—indeed I can’t! I——” whimpered Billingcoo.

“Oh! you can’t, can’t you? Here, Covington—here’s a young gentleman not used to waiting on himself—wants his valet. Come and help him to undress,” shouted Mutchison.

A short, stout, bull-necked, black-muzzled guerrilla came forward to execute the order, and looked around for the victim.

“There, that dainty darling with the rose stuck in his button-hole,” said the leader.

“Oh, don’t! Oh, pleathe don’t! I’ll pay for them. I’ll ranthom them. I will indeed. My monthly pay will be due in two or three dayth, and when I get it, I will thend you the money from Wathington. Indeed I will, general. I’m a man of honor,” pleaded Billingcoo.

“Take off his coat!” roared Mutchison.

“Oh, don’t touch me with thuch thocking dirty handth; I’ll let you have my coat,” said the poor fellow, carefully removing the tea-rose from his button-hole, and handing over the garment, “but leave me the retht of my clotheth, do, now, general, and I’ll thend you lotht of money from Wathington.”

“Take off his trousers! You see he can’t do it for himself!” thundered Mutchison.

The black-muzzled approached to obey.

“No, don’t! don’t come too near me! You are thuch a thocking nuithanth!” cried the exquisite, shrinking in disgust. “I will give you my panth, and they are quite new—bought for thith occathon. But leave me my under garmenth. Do, general. Do leave me my under garmenth. For dethenthy’s sake, you know. Do, now, general!” pleaded the poor fellow, with tears in his eyes.

“I am no more a general than you are a man, you nincompoop. I am one of Colonel Goldsborough’s captains, that’s all. Here, Covington, peel him—peel him!”

“Oh, no, no, no! don’t touch me with thothe awful handth! Take all—take everything, mitherable man that I am!” wept the dandy, throwing off one garment after another, to the great amusement of his companions, who, having completed their exchange of dress, now forgot their own miseries in watching the ludicrous distress of Billingcoo.

When, with shivering frame and chattering teeth, he at length approached the mound of rags to clothe himself, and began to poke about in it with a stick to find something possible to put on, suddenly burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming:

“I wouldn’t mind their being tho wagged, but they are tho thockingly unclean, and tho—tho—_inthecty_!”

“Never mind their being _insecty_, Billingcoo. There are worse misfortunes at sea,” repeated Allison.

While the miserable youth was investing his dainty person in these revolting garments, there was a shout among the guerrillas near, and one of them exclaimed:

“There is another fellow who hasn’t peeled himself, Captain!”

Mutchison turned and saw little Mim standing at the foot of the great pine tree where Elfie had ordered him to remain, for this champion would no more have disobeyed his queen than would the renowned Knight of La Mancha the fair lady of Toboso.

“Oh, my plucky pigmy! Let him alone, I say! I won’t have him touched! He deserves to keep his clean clothes for showing so much spirit. And dash me if I don’t hang the first man that lays a finger on him!” roared the giant.

Then turning about, he shouted, until his voice reached the other end of the wood:

“HOI! Carter! Gates! march the ladies back again! We’re dressed to receive them!”

And as the young ladies, driven before the fixed bayonets of the two guerrillas, approached the scene, they gazed upon their late companions with ludicrous consternation.

Scarcely a gentleman of the party was recognizable. All were in rags that hung about them in shreds like strings, fringes, tags—anything but clothes. Some had hats with a rim, but no crown, others crowns, but no rim; no one had a whole tile, and even those who were favored with half a one had no shoes, and those who had shoes had no hats. Some had trousers whose ragged legs dangled just below their knees, but no coats; others had apologies for coats, but nether garments of which the less said the better. And all pervaded with an atmosphere that would have driven away any set of ladies not marched in at the point of the bayonet.

Some of these victims shrunk out of sight in the crowd, as their fair friends drew near; others turned the mischance into a joke. Poor Billingcoo, who was in the worst plight of all, because he had had the last pickings of the rags, tried to hide himself from Elfie’s laughing eyes, but could not succeed.

“Oh, Mith Fielding,” he cried, with the tears running down his face, “don’t look at me! Turn away your eyeth, for they break my heart!”

At this Elfie burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter, in which she was joined by all her companions, whose sense of the ludicrous, for the time being, overcame their terrors.

“Oh, grandma! thee how they laugh at me! And who can blame them? for only thee what a guy fox the wretcheth have made of me!” wept Billingcoo.

“Don’t be a simpleton, Lew. And don’t call bad names. Thank Providence that you’ve saved your life with the loss of your clothes,” said the old lady.

Here the voice of Mutchison roared above all other noises:

“Hoi! Grinnel! Have the dinner dished up! we’ll dine sumptuously on the fare provided by our entertainers, the picnic party! And afterwards we’ll have a dance, for I see they’ve got a band here. HOI! you nigger minstrels! Tune up your instruments. We’ll march to our meals to the sound of music! Come! strike up!”

The terrified darkies, either knowing no better or forgetting in their fright all they ought to have remembered, struck up—“Hail Columbia.”

“Not that! Not that! dash you! What do you mean, burn you? ‘Dixie!’ play ‘Dixie!’” thundered Mutchison.

The panic-stricken musicians obeyed as well as they could, and struck up “Dixie,” though in rather a quavering and uncertain style.

“Come, gentlemen and ladies, now to dinner, and afterwards to the dance. Boys, you who are in evening dresses, each select the lady of his choice and lead her gallantly. And that reminds me! My brave little knight of the pigmies, take the lady you would have died to defend—you see no harm has happened to her—and conduct her to dinner!

‘_None_ but the brave,
None _but_ the brave,
None but the BRAVE deserve the fair!’”

Before Mim could reply, Elfie, to keep him out of mischief and also to escape the escort of any of the guerrilla hand, seized his hand firmly and drew it through her arm.

“Age before beauty! And I would not be remiss in courtesy. I have a grandmamma of my own somewhere down in Dixie!” exclaimed Mutchison, dancing up to the old lady, tucking her under his arm and leading the way to the dinner table, followed by Elfie and Mim, and members of the guerrilla band leading young ladies, who were too much frightened to offer any sort of opposition.

“Now don’t be scared, girls. Take it coolly as you can. Bless your hearts, these men aint agoing to hurt a hair of your heads. And this adventure with guerrillas will be something for you to talk about to your grandchildren when your hair is as gray as mine is now,” said the lively old lady, as she settled herself comfortably upon a little hillock of dry grass that Mutchison had found for her, near the table-cloth where the feast was spread. And such a feast!

There were oysters, fish and game; baked and boiled meats; poultry; pastry; canned fruits; confectionary; ale, wine and brandy.

Such “gentlemen” as had ladies on their arms gathered around the outer edge of the “spread”—a gentleman and lady sitting alternately.

Before seating himself, Mutchison looked about and thought he saw great discontent among the famished members of his band who were left outside of this favored circle around the table-cloth, and so he sang out:

“Boys! there are provisions enough in the hampers, boxes and barrels over there around the cooking fires, to feed the whole band. Away with you and help yourselves!”

The starved ragamuffins needed no second bidding, but started off en masse for the reserved stores.

The dinner at which Mutchison presided, went off very merrily for the guerrillas; not so very much so for the picnickers.

Mutchison drank a great deal more of Allison’s choice brandy than was good for him; and towards the last of the feast he lost his temper, and began to swear at the waiters and bully the musicians; and then he apologized to the ladies for forgetting their presence, laying the blame on his camp life, deprived of their refining influence.

The feast was very prolonged, and Mutchison and his boon companions chose to linger still longer over their wine; but he would on no account permit the ladies to retire. He had been too long debarred from their delightful society to give it up easily, he said.

Meanwhile the sun had set; and Mutchison ordered some of his men to light pine knots and hold them aloft, to illuminate the scene.

And a score or two of these primitive torches made the whole area sufficiently light.

When at length the feast came to an end, Mutchison rose from his seat, crying out;

“A dance! a dance! Strike up the Virginia reel, darkies! That is the figure that will take in an unlimited number of performers. And here is a natural hall large enough to allow a reel a quarter of a mile long. And dash me to dust if every man-jack sha’n’t join! Take your partners, gentlemen; I’ve got mine!”

And instigated by the very spirit of mischief, he seized the lively old lady, who was too wise to resist, and trotted her off to the head of the reel to open the ball.

“Come, my little miniature hero; don’t be backward! Bring the lady of your worship along!” cried Mutchison.

And Elfie, to keep her little champion out of trouble, drew him into the reel.

The guerrillas, with their unwilling partners, followed. And even the wretched youth of the picnic party were compelled to join the orgies.

And a reel commenced, wild as the dance of witches in Kirk Alloway, where old Nick was piper.

“The mirth and fun grew fast and furious!
The piper loud and louder blew!
The dancers fast and faster flew!
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they”——

Suddenly, in the midst of these orgies, a cheer was heard from the men in the back ground. And an officer, mounted, and attended by his staff, galloped up in the midst of the area.

“My traitor!” exclaimed Elfie, under her breath, as she recognized Albert Goldsborough.

A very handsome man was this guerrilla chief—this licensed brigand, who bore a colonel’s commission. He was taller and stouter than when first presented to the reader; his hair and beard were of a darker and richer auburn; his face and figure more martial and dignified than heretofore.

So Elfie thought as she covertly watched him.

He dashed into the midst of his band and raised his hand, exclaiming:

“Break up your bivouac! Boots and saddles! A squadron of the enemy’s cavalry are out in search of us, and they have struck our trail!”

A yell of defiance responded to this announcement, as the men all started to go in search of their horses, which were left tied in the pine woods.

A few men, however, remained, guarding the prisoners.

“Leave these people to find their way home as they can! We cannot be encumbered with them! And Mutchison! seize that girl and bring her along after me! that girl in the claret-colored dress!” cried Goldsborough.

“Claret?” repeated Mutchison, looking around in perplexity; for he was very considerably “fuddled.”

“Seize the girl in the red stuff gown, and bring her after me!” cried Goldsborough, as he turned and rode off.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mutchison.

And without more ado he pounced upon Elfie, threw her over his great shoulders and bore her off, she screaming and struggling violently, in the direction taken by Goldsborough.

Little Mim sprang instantly to the rescue, gave chase, overtook the giant, and attempted to stop him by seizing his leg. The act nearly threw the guerrilla down, but he quickly recovered himself, whirled around, and with the iron handle of his sword aimed a blow on the head of Mim, which struck the little hero, bleeding and senseless, to the ground.

“Oh, you villain! I’ll have you hanged for that!” screamed Elfie.

“Oh no, you won’t! I’ll give you a better sweetheart than that little fellow!” laughed Mutchison, and he continued his flight, no one else daring to stop him, until he reached a clearing in the pines where the whole cavalry force of Goldsborough’s guerrillas were preparing to mount.

Colonel Goldsborough was in the midst.

“Mutchison, set that girl on the horse behind me, and secure her to my waist with these two straps!” said Goldsborough.

And Mutchison prepared to obey.

Now had Elfie been a very dignified young lady she would have been too proud to resist where resistance was vain. But Elfie had more temper than dignity. And so she fought and kicked and scratched and bit and screamed and scolded with all her might and main, and left upon the face of Mutchison marks of her teeth and nails that he would be likely to carry to his grave.

“Thunderation! what a little tiger-cat! Look here, girl! if you leave the prints of your fingers on my face in that style, the men will be taking me for your husband, and the colonel wouldn’t like that!” laughed Mutchison.

After much difficulty Elfie was conquered, and bound upon her seat behind her captor, who put spurs to his horse and bore her off in triumph!