“’Twas partly chance,” he said.  “A redcoat troop had me in durance at Jennifer House, and while they affected to hold me at parole, I never gave consent to that, and so was kept a prisoner.  They shut me in the wine-bin with a guard, and when the fellow was well soaked and silly, I bound and gagged him and broke jail.  I took the river for it, meaning to outlie until the hue and cry was over; and just at dusk Uncanoola dropped upon me and told me of your need.  From that to helping him cut you out of your raffle with the Cherokees was but a hand’s turn in the day’s work.”

“A lucky turn for me,” I said; and then at second thought I would deny the saying, though not for him to hear.  But this was dangerous ground again, and I clawed off from it like a desperate mariner tempest-driven on a lee shore; asking him how he had learned the broadsword play, and where he got the antique claymore.

He laughed heartily, and more like my care-free Dick, this time.

“Thereby hangs a tale.  I told you how I was out with the Minute Men in ’76 at Moore’s Creek, where we fought the Scotchmen.  It was our first pitched battle, and I opine it smelled somewhat of severity on both sides—­no quarter was asked, and the Tory MacDonalds fought like fiends for King George, small cause as they had to love the House of Hanover.”

“How was that?” I would ask, being as little familiar with the low country settlements as any native-born Carolinian could be.

“They were expatriates for the Pretender’s sake, many of them.  Mistress Flora’s husband was one of the prisoners we took.  But, as I was saying, they were Tories to a man, and they fought wickedly.  When it was over, the prisoners would have fared hardly but for a woman.  In the thick of the fight, Mistress Mary Slocumb, of Dobbs, whose husband was with us, came storming down upon the field, having rode a-gallop some forty-odd miles because she dreamed her goodman was killed.  She begged for the prisoners, and so Caswell hanged only those who were blood guilty—­these and the house burners.  A raw-boned piper named M’Gillicuddy fell to my lot, and he is now my majordomo at Jennifer House; as honest a fellow as ever skirled a pibroch.”

“That was like you,” I said; “to make a friend and retainer out of your prisoner.  And so this Highland piper has been your fencing master, has he?”

“’Twas he taught me what little I know of the claymore play; and this stout old blade is his.  ’Tis as good as a woodman’s ax when you have the knack of swinging it.”

“Truly,” said I.  “Also, you seemed to have the knack, and the strength as well, in spite of the crippled arm you were carrying in a sling the night before when they haled you into Colonel Tarleton’s court at Appleby.”

“A little ruse of war,” he said, laughing and making a fist to show me his arm was strong and sound again. “’Twas M’Gillicuddy put me up to it, saying they would be like to deal the gentler with a wounded man.  But how came you to know?”