“I t’ought he time war’ come!”
“No,” said Katy solemnly, “he will live till the tide is out, or the first cock crows in the morning.”
“Poor man!” continued the black, nestling still farther into the chimney corner; “I hope he lay quiet after he die.”
“’Twould be no astonishment to me if he didn’t; for they say an unquiet life makes an uneasy grave.”
“Johnny Birch a berry good man in he way. All mankind ca’n’t be a minister, for if he do, who would be a congregation?”
“Ah! Caesar, he is good only who does good—can you tell me, why honestly gotten gold should be hidden in the bowels of the earth!”
“Grach!—I t’ink it must be to keep the Skinner from finding him: If he know where he be, why don’t he dig him up?”
“There may be reasons not comprehendible to you,” said Katy, moving her chair so that her clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath which lay the secret treasures of the pedlar—unable to refrain speaking of that which she would have been very unwilling to reveal; “but a rough outside often holds a smooth inside.” Caesar stared around the building unable to fathom the hidden meaning of his companion, when his roving eyes suddenly became fixed, and his teeth chattered with affright. The change in the countenance of the black was instantly perceived by Katy, and turning her face, she saw the pedlar himself standing within the door of the room.
“Is he alive?” asked Birch tremulously, and seemingly afraid to receive the answer.
“Surely,” said Katy, rising hastily, and officiously offering her chair; “he must live till day, or ’till the tide is down.”
Disregarding all but the fact that his father still lived, the pedlar stole gently into the room of his dying parent. The tie which bound the father and son was of no ordinary kind. In the wide world they were all to each other. Had Katy but read a few lines farther in the record, she would have seen the sad tale of their misfortunes. At one blow competence and kindred had been swept from them, and from that day to the present hour, persecution and distress had followed their wandering steps. Approaching the bed side, Harvey leaned his body forward, and, in a voice nearly choked by his feelings, he whispered near the ear of the sick,
“Father, do you know me?”
The parent slowly opened his eyes, and a smile of satisfaction passed over his pallid features, leaving behind it the impression of death more awful by the contrast. The pedlar gave a restorative he had brought with him to the parched lips of the sick man, and for a few minutes new vigor seemed imparted to his frame. He spoke, but slowly and with difficulty. Curiosity kept Katy silent; awe had the same effect on Caesar; and Harvey seemed hardly to breathe, as he listened to the language of the departing spirit.
“My son,” said the father in a hollow voice, “God is as merciful as he is just—if I threw the cup of salvation from my lips when a youth, he graciously offers it to me in mine age. He has chastised to purify, and I go to join the spirits of our lost family. In a little while, my child, you will be alone. I know you too well not to foresee you will be a pilgrim through life. The bruised reed may endure, but it will never rise. You have that within you, Harvey, that will guide you aright; persevere as you have begun, for the duties of life are never to be neglected—and”—A noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dying man, and the impatient pedlar hastened to learn the cause, followed by Katy and the black. The first glance of his eye on the figure in the door-way told the trader but too well his errand, and the fate that probably awaited himself. The intruder was a man still young in years, but his lineaments bespoke a mind long agitated by evil passions. His dress was of the meanest materials, and so ragged and unseemly, as to give him the appearance of studied poverty. His hair was prematurely whitened, and his sunken, lowering eye avoided the bold, forward look of innocence. There was a restlessness in his movements, and an agitation in his manner, that proceeded from the workings of the foul spirit within him, and which was not less offensive to others than distressing to himself. This man was a well known leader of one of those gangs of marauders who infested the county, with a semblance of patriotism, and, who were guilty of every grade of offence, from simple theft up to murder. Behind him stood several other figures clad in a similar manner, but whose countenances expressed nothing more than the indifference of brutal insensibility. They were all well armed with muskets and bayonets, and provided with the usual implements of foot soldiers. Harvey knew resistance to be vain, and quietly submitted to their directions. In the twinkling of an eye both he and Caesar were stripped of their decent garments, and made to exchange clothes with two of the filthiest of the band. They were then placed in separate corners of the room, and under the muzzles of the muskets, required faithfully to answer such interrogatories as were put to them.
“Where is your pack?” was the first question to the pedlar.
“Hear me,” said Birch, trembling with agitation; “in the next room is my father now in the agonies of death; let me go to him, receive his blessing, and close his eyes, and you shall have all—aye, all.”
“Answer me as I put the questions, or this musket shall send you to keep the old driveller company—where is your pack?”
“I will tell you nothing unless you let me go to my father,” said the pedlar resolutely.
His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious sneer, and was about to execute his threat, when one of his companions checked him—
“What would you do?” he said, “you surely forget the reward. Tell us where are your goods, and you shall go to your father.”
Birch complied instantly, and a man was despatched in quest of the booty: he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing it was as light as feathers.
“Ay,” cried the leader, “there must be gold somewhere for what it did contain. Give us your gold, Mr. Birch; we know you have it; you will not take continental, not you.”
“You break your faith,” said Harvey.
“Give us your gold,” exclaimed the other furiously, pricking the pedlar with his bayonet until the blood followed his pushes in streams. At this instant a slight movement was heard in the adjoining room, and Harvey cried imploringly—
“Let me—let me go to my father, and you shall have all.”
“I swear you shall go then,” said the Skinner.
“Here, take the trash,” cried Birch, as he threw aside the purse, which he had contrived to conceal, notwithstanding the change in his garments.
The robber raised it from the floor with a hellish laugh—
“Ay, but it shall be to your father in heaven.”
“Monster! have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?”
“To hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neck already,” said the other laughing. “There is no necessity for your being uneasy, Mr. Birch; if the old man gets a few hours the start of you in the journey, you will be sure to follow him before noon to-morrow.”
This unfeeling communication had no effect on the pedlar, who listened with gasping breath to every sound from the room of his parent, until he heard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchral tones of death. Birch could endure no more, but shrieking out—
“Father! hush, father! I come—I come:” he darted by his keeper, and was the next moment pinned to the wall by the bayonet of another of the band; fortunately his quick motion had caused him to escape a thrust aimed at his life, and it was by his clothes only that he was confined.
“No, Mr. Birch,” said the Skinner, “we know you too well for a slippery rascal to trust you out of sight—your gold—your gold.”
“You have it,” said the pedlar, writhing with agony.
“Ay, we have the purse; but you have more purses. King George is a prompt paymaster, and you have done him many a piece of good service. Where is your hoard? without it you will never see your father.”
/> “Remove the stone underneath the woman,” cried the pedlar eagerly—“remove the stone.”
“He raves! he raves!” said Katy, instinctively moving her position to a different stone from the one on which she had been standing; in a moment it was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was seen beneath.
“He raves! you have driven him from his right mind,” continued the trembling spinster; “would any man in his senses keep gold under a hearth?”
“Peace, babbling fool,” cried Harvey—“lift the corner stone, and you will find that which will make you rich, and me a beggar.”
“And then you will be despiseable,” said the housekeeper bitterly. “A pedlar without goods and without money—is sure to be despiseable.”
“There will be enough left to pay for his halter,” cried the Skinner, who was not slow to follow the instructions of Harvey, soon lighting upon a store of English guineas. The money was quickly transferred to a bag, notwithstanding the declarations of the spinster, that her dues were unsatisfied, and that of right ten of the guineas were her property.
Delighted with a prize that greatly exceeded their expectations, the band prepared to depart, intending to take the pedlar with them in order to give him up to the American troops above, and to claim the reward offered for his apprehension. Every thing was ready, and they were about to lift Birch in their arms, for he resolutely refused to move an inch; when a form appeared in their midst, which appalled the stoutest heart among them. The father had arisen from his bed, and he tottered forth, at the cries of his son. Around his body was thrown the sheet of the bed, and his fixed eye and haggard face gave him the appearance of a being from another world. Even Katy and Caesar thought it was the spirit of the elder Birch, and they fled the house, followed by the alarmed Skinners, in a body.
The excitement which had given the sick man strength soon vanished, and the pedlar, lifting him in his arms, re-conveyed him to his bed. The re-action of the system which followed hastened to close the scene.
The glazed eye of the father was fixed upon the son; his lips moved, but his voice was unheard. Harvey bent down, and, with the parting breath of his parent, received his dying benediction. A life of privation, and of wrongs, embittered most of the future hours of the pedlar. But under no sufferings—in no misfortune—the subject of poverty and obloquy—the remembrance of that blessing never left him. It constantly gleamed over the images of the past, shedding a holy radiance around his saddest hours of despondency. It cheered the prospect of the future with the prayers of a pious spirit; and it brought the sweet assurance, of having faithfully and truly discharged the sacred offices of filial love.
The retreat of Caesar and the spinster had been too precipitate to admit of much calculation; yet they instinctively separated themselves from the Skinners. After fleeing a short distance, they paused, and the maiden commenced in a solemn voice—
“Oh! Caesar, was it not dreadful to walk before he had been laid in his grave! It must have been the money that disturbed him; they say Captain Kidd walks near the spot where he buried gold in the old war.”
“I nebber t’ink Johnny Birch hab such a big eye!” said the African, his teeth yet chattering with the fright.
“I’m sure ’twould be a botherment to a living soul to lose so much money. Harvey will be nothing but an utterly despiseable, poverty-stricken wretch. I wonder who he thinks would be even his housekeeper!”
“Maybe a spooke take away Harvey, too,” observed Caesar, moving still nearer to the side of the maiden. But a new idea had seized the imagination of the spinster. She thought it not improbable that the prize had been forsaken in the confusion of the retreat; and after deliberating and reasoning for some time with Caesar, they determined to venture back, and ascertain this important fact, and, if possible, learn what had been the fate of the pedlar. Much time was spent in cautiously approaching the dreaded spot; and as the spinster had sagaciously placed herself in the line of the retreat of the Skinners, every stone was examined in the progress, in search of the abandoned gold. But, although the suddenness of the alarm, and the cry of Caesar, had impelled the freebooters to so hasty a retreat, they grasped the hoard with a hold that death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving every thing to be quiet within, Katy at length mustered resolution to enter the dwelling, where she found the pedlar, with a heavy heart, performing the last sad offices for the dead. A few words sufficed to explain to Katy the nature of her mistake; but Caesar continued till his dying day to astonish the sable inmates of the kitchen, with learned dissertations on spookes, and to relate how direful was the appearance of that of Johnny Birch.
The danger compelled the pedlar to abridge even the short period that American custom leaves the deceased with us; and aided by the black and Katy, his painful task was soon ended. Caesar volunteered to walk a couple of miles with orders to a carpenter, and the body being habited in its ordinary attire was left with a sheet thrown decently over it, to await the return of the messenger.
The Skinners had fled precipitately to the wood, which was but a short distance from the house of Birch, and once safely sheltered within its shades, they halted, and mustered their panic-stricken forces.
“What in the name of fury seized your coward hearts?” cried their dissatisfied leader, drawing his breath heavily.
“The same question might be asked yourself,” returned one of the band sullenly.
“From your fright, I thought a party of De Lancey’s men were upon us. Oh! you are brave gentlemen at a race!”
“We follow our captain.”
“Then follow me back, and let us secure the scoundrel and receive the reward.”
“Yes; and by the time we reach the house, that black rascal will have the mad Virginian upon us; by my soul I would rather meet fifty Cow-Boys, than that single man.”
“Fool,” cried the enraged leader, “don’t you know Dunwoodie’s horse are at the Corners, full two miles from here?”
“I care not where the dragoons are, but I will swear that I saw Captain Lawton enter the house of old Wharton, while I lay watching an opportunity of getting the British colonel’s horse from the stable.”
“And if he should come, won’t a bullet silence a dragoon from the south as well as one from old England?”
“Ay, but I don’t choose a hornet’s nest about my ears; rase the skin of one of that corps, and you will never see another peaceable night’s foraging again.”
“Well,” muttered the leader, as they retired deeper into the wood, “this sottish pedlar will stay to see the old devil buried, and though we cannot touch him at the funeral, for that would raise every old woman and priest in America against us, he’ll wait to look after the moveables, and to-morrow night shall wind up his concerns.”
With this threat they withdrew to one of their usual places of resort, until darkness should again give them an opportunity of marauding on the community without danger of detection.
Chapter XI
“O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day! most woeful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woeful day! O woeful day!”
Shakspeare.
* * *
THE FAMILY at the “Locusts” had slept, or watched, through all the disturbances at the cottage of Birch, in perfect ignorance of their occurrence. The attacks of the Skinners were always made with so much privacy as to exclude the sufferer, not only from succour, but frequently, through a dread of future depredations, from the commiseration of their neighbours also. Additional duties had drawn the ladies from their pillows at an hour somewhat earlier than usual, and Captain Lawton, notwithstanding the sufferings of his body, had risen in compliance with a rule from which he never departed, of sleeping but six hours at a tim
e. This was one of the few points, in which the care of the human frame was involved, on which the trooper and the surgeon of horse were ever known to agree. The doctor had watched, during the night, by the side of the bed of Captain Singleton, without once closing his eyes. Occasionally he would pay a visit to the wounded Englishman, who, being more hurt in the spirit than in the flesh, tolerated the interruptions with a very ill grace; and once, for an instant, he ventured to steal softly to the bed of his obstinate comrade, and was near succeeding in obtaining a touch of his pulse, when a terrible oath, sworn by the trooper in a dream, startled the prudent surgeon, and warned him of a trite saying in the corps, “that Captain Lawton always slept with one eye open.” This group had assembled in one of the parlors as the sun made its appearance over the eastern hill, dispersing the columns of fog which had enveloped the low land.
Miss Peyton was looking from a window in the direction of the tenement of the pedlar, and was expressing a kind anxiety after the welfare of the sick man, when the person of Katy suddenly emerged from the dense covering of an earthly cloud, whose mists were scattering before the cheering rays of the sun, and was seen making hasty steps towards the “Locusts.” There was that in the air of the housekeeper, which bespoke distress of an unusual nature, and the kind-hearted mistress of the “Locusts” opened the door of the room, with the benevolent intention of soothing a grief that seemed so overwhelming. A nearer view of the disturbed features of the visitor, confirmed Miss Peyton in her belief, and with the shock that gentle feelings ever experience at a sudden and endless separation from even the meanest of their associates—she said hastily—
James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels Page 18