James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “My presence disturbs you,” said Miss Peyton, rising; “I will leave you with my nephew, and offer those prayers in private that I did wish to mingle with his.”

  So saying, she withdrew, followed by the landlady; who was not a little shocked and somewhat surprised by the intemperate zeal of her new acquaintance. For although the good woman devoutly believed that Miss Peyton and her whole church were on the high road to destruction, she was by no means accustomed to hear such offensive and open avowals of their fate.

  Henry had with difficulty repressed the indignation excited by this unprovoked attack on his meek and unresisting aunt; but as the door closed on her retiring figure he gave way to his feelings—

  “I must confess, sir,” he exclaimed with heat, “that in receiving a minister of God, I thought I was admitting a Christian; and one who, by feeling his own weaknesses, knew how to pity the frailties of others. You have wounded the meek spirit of an excellent woman, and I acknowledge but little inclination to mingle in prayer, with so intolerant a spirit.”

  The minister stood erect, with grave composure, following with his eyes in a kind of scornful pity, the retiring females, and suffered the expostulation of the youth to be given, as if unworthy of his notice—A third voice, however, spoke—

  “Such a denunciation would have driven many women into fits; but it has answered the purpose well enough, as it is.”

  “Who’s that?” cried the prisoner, in amazement, gazing around the room in quest of the speaker—

  “It is I, Captain Wharton,” said Harvey Birch, removing the spectacles, and exhibiting his piercing eyes, shining under a pair of false eye-brows.

  “Good Heavens!—Harvey!”

  “Silence!” said the pedlar solemnly; “’tis a name not to be mentioned, and least of all, here, within the heart of the American army.” Birch paused, and gazed around him for a moment, with an emotion exceeding the base passion of fear—and then continued in a gloomy tone, “There are a thousand halters in that very name, and little hope would there be left me of another escape, should I be again taken. This is a fearful venture that I am making; but I could not sleep in quiet, and know that an innocent man was about to die the death of a dog, when I might save him.”

  “No,” said Henry, with a glow of generous feeling on his cheek; “if the risk to yourself be so heavy, retire as you came, and leave me to my fate. Dunwoodie is making, even now, powerful exertions in my behalf, and if he meets with Mr. Harper in the course of the night, my liberation is certain.”

  “Harper!” echoed the pedlar, remaining with his hands raised, in the act of replacing the spectacles; “what do you know of Harper? and why do you think he will do you service?”

  “I have his promise;—you remember our recent meeting in my father’s dwelling, and he then gave an unasked promise to assist me.”

  “Yes—but do you know him—that is—why do you think he has the power? or what reason have you for believing he will remember his word?”

  “If there ever was the stamp of truth, or simple, honest, benevolence, in the countenance of man, it shone in his,” said Henry; “besides, Dunwoodie has powerful friends in the rebel army, and it would be better that I take the chance where I am, than thus to expose you to certain death, if detected.”

  “Captain Wharton,” said Birch, looking guardedly around, and speaking with impressive seriousness of manner, “if I fail you, all fail you. No Harper nor Dunwoodie can save your life; unless you get out with me, and that within the hour, you die to-morrow on the gallows of a murderer—yes, such are their laws; the man who fights, and kills, and plunders, is honoured; but, he who serves his country as a spy, no matter how faithfully, no matter how honestly, lives to be reviled, or dies like the vilest criminal!”

  “You forget, Mr. Birch,” said the youth, a little indignantly, “that I am not a treacherous, lurking spy, who deceives to betray; but innocent of the charge imputed to me.”

  The blood rushed over the pale, meager features of the pedlar, until his face was one glow of fire; but it passed quickly away, and he replied—

  “I have told you truth. Caesar met me, as he was going on his errand this morning, and with him I have laid the plan, which, if executed as I wish, will save you—otherwise, you are lost; and I again tell you, that no other power on earth, not even Washington, can save you.”

  “I submit,” said the prisoner, yielding to his earnest manner, and goaded by the fears that were thus awakened anew.

  The pedlar beckoned him to be silent, and walking to the door, opened it, with the stiff, formal air, with which he had entered the apartment.

  “Friend, let no one enter,” he said to the sentinel; “we are about to go to prayer, and would wish to be alone.”

  “I don’t know that any will wish to interrupt you,” returned the soldier, with a waggish leer of his eye; “but, should they be so disposed, I have no power to stop them, if they be of the prisoner’s friends; I have my orders, and must mind them, whether the Englishman goes to heaven, or not.”

  “Audacious sinner!” said the pretended priest, “have you not the fear of God before your eyes! I tell you, as you will dread punishment at the last day, to let none of the idolatrous communion enter, to mingle in the prayers of the righteous.”

  “Whew—ew—ew—what a noble commander you’d make for Sergeant Hollister; you’d preach him dumb in a roll-call. Hark’ee, I’ll thank you not to make such a noise when you hold forth, as to drown our bugles, or you may get a poor fellow a short horn at his grog, for not turning out to the evening parade: if you want to be alone, have you no knife to stick over the door-latch, that you must have a troop of horse to guard your meeting-house?”

  The pedlar took the hint, and closed the door immediately, using the precaution suggested by the dragoon.

  “You overact your part,” said young Wharton, in constant apprehension of discovery; “your zeal is too intemperate.”

  “For a foot soldier and them eastern militia, it might be,” said Harvey, turning a bag upside down, that Caesar now handed him; “but these dragoons are fellows that you must brag down. A faint heart, Captain Wharton, would do but little here; but come, here is a black shroud for your good-looking countenance,” taking at the same time, a parchment mask and fitting it to the face of Henry. “The master and the man must change places for a season.”

  “I don’t tink he look a bit like me,” said Caesar, with disgust, as he surveyed his young master with his new complexion.

  “Stop a minute, Caesar,” said the pedlar, with the lurking drollery that at times formed part of his manner, “’till we get on the wool.”

  “He worse than ebber now,” cried the discontented African. “A tink coloured man like a sheep! I nebber see sich a lip, Harvey; he most as big as a sausage!”

  Great pains had been taken in forming the different articles used in the disguise of Captain Wharton, and when arranged, under the skilful superintendance of the pedlar, they formed together a transformation that would easily escape detection, from any but an extraordinary observer.

  The mask was stuffed, and shaped in such a manner as to preserve the peculiarities, as well as the colour, of the African visage, and the wig was so artfully formed of black and white wool, as to imitate the pepper-and-salt colour of Caesar’s own head, and to extract plaudits from the black himself, who thought it an excellent counterfeit in every thing but quality.

  “There is but one man in the American army who could detect you, Captain Wharton,” said the pedlar, surveying his work with satisfaction, “and he is just now out of our way.”

  “And who is he?”

  “The man who made you prisoner. He would see your white skin through a plank; but strip both of you; your clothes must be exchanged from head to foot.”

  Caesar, who had received minute instructions from the pedlar in their morning interview, immediat
ely commenced throwing aside his coarse garments, which the youth took up and prepared to invest himself with, unable however to repress a few signs of loathing.

  In the manner of the pedlar, there was an odd mixture of care and humour; the former was the result of a perfect knowledge of their danger, and the means necessary to be used in avoiding it; and the latter proceeded from the unavoidably ludicrous circumstances before him, acting on an indifference which sprung from habit, and long familiarity, with such scenes as the present.

  “Here Captain,” he said, taking up some loose wool, and beginning to stuff the stockings of Caesar, which were already on the leg of the prisoner; “some judgment is necessary in shaping this limb. You will have to display it on horseback and the southern dragoons are so used to the brittle-shins, that should they notice your well turned calf, they’d know at once it never belonged to a black.”

  “Golly!” said Caesar, with a chuckle, that exhibited a mouth open from ear to ear, “massy Harry breeches fit—.”

  “Any thing but your leg,” said the pedlar, coolly pursuing the toilet of Henry. “Slip on the coat, Captain, over all. Upon my word you’d pass well at a pinkster frolic; and here, Caesar, place this powdered wig over your curls, and be careful and look out of the window, whenever the door is open, and on no account speak, or you will betray all.”

  “I s’pose Harvey tink a color’d man an’t got a tongue like oder folk,” grumbled the black, as he took the station assigned to him.

  Every thing now was arranged for action, and the pedlar very deliberately went over the whole of his injunctions to the two actors in the scene.—The captain he conjured to dispense with his erect military carriage, and for a season to adopt the humbler paces of his father’s negro, and Caesar he enjoined to silence and disguise, so long as he could possibly maintain them. Thus prepared he opened the door, and called aloud to the sentinel, who had retired to the farthest end of the passage, in order to avoid receiving any of that spiritual comfort, which he felt was the sole property of another.

  “Let the woman of the house be called,” said Harvey, in the solemn key of his assumed character; “and let her come alone. The prisoner is in a happy train of meditation, and must not be led from his devotions.”

  Caesar sunk his face between his hands, and when the soldier looked into the apartment, he thought he saw his charge, in deep abstraction. Casting a glance of huge contempt at the divine, he called aloud for the good woman of the house. She hastened at the summons, with earnest zeal, entertaining a secret hope that she was to be admitted to the gossip of a death-bed repentance.

  “Sister,” said the minister in the authoritative tones of a master, “have you in the house ‘The Christian criminal’s last moments, or thoughts on eternity for them who die a violent death?’”

  “I never heard tell of the book!” said the matron in astonishment.

  “’Tis not unlikely; there are many books you have never heard of—it is impossible for this poor penitent to pass in peace, without the consolations of that volume. One hour’s reading in it, is worth an age of man’s preaching.”

  “Bless me, what a treasure to possess!—when was it put out?”

  “It was first put out at Geneva in the Greek language, and then translated at Boston. It is a book, woman, that should be in the hands of every Christian, especially such as die upon the gallows.—Have a horse prepared instantly for this black, who shall accompany me, to my Brother ——, and I will send down the volume yet in season.—Brother compose thy mind; you are now in the narrow path to glory.”

  Caesar wriggled a little in his chair, but he had sufficient recollection to conceal his face with hands, that were, in their turn, concealed by gloves. The landlady departed to comply with this very reasonable request, and the group of conspirators were again left to themselves.

  “This is well,” said the pedlar, “but the difficult task is to deceive the officer who commands the guard—he is lieutenant to Lawton, and has learned some of the captain’s own cunning in these things—remember, Captain Wharton,” continued he, with an air of pride, “that now is the moment when every thing depends on our coolness.”

  “My fate can be made but little worse than it is at present, my worthy fellow,” said Henry, “but, for your sake, I will do all that in me lies.”

  “And wherein can I be more forlorn and persecuted than I now am?” asked the pedlar, with that wild incoherency which often crossed his manner. “But I have promised one to save you, and to him I never yet have broken my word.”

  “And who is he?” said Henry with awakened interest.

  “No one.”

  The man soon returned and announced that the horses were at the door. Harvey gave the captain a glance, and led the way down the stairs, first desiring the woman to leave the prisoner to himself, in order that he might digest the wholesome mental food that he had so lately received.

  A rumour of the odd character of the priest, had spread from the sentinel at the door, to his comrades; so, that when Harvey and Wharton reached the open space before the building, they found a dozen idle dragoons loitering about, with the waggish intention of quizzing the fanatic, and employed in affected admiration of the steeds.

  “A fine horse!” said the leader in this plan of mischief; “but a little low in flesh; I suppose from hard labour in your calling.”

  “My calling may be laboursome to both myself and this faithful beast, but then a day of settling is at hand, that will reward me for all my out-goings and in-comings,” said Birch, putting his foot into the stirrup, and preparing to mount.

  “You work for pay, then, as we fight for’t?” cried another of the party.

  “Even so—‘is not the labourer worthy of his hire?’”

  “Come, suppose you give us a little preaching; we have a leisure moment just now, and there’s no telling how much good you might do a set of reprobates like us, in a few words; here, mount this horse-block, and take your text where you please.”

  The men now gathered in eager delight around the pedlar, who, glancing his eye expressively towards the captain, who had been suffered to mount, replied—

  “Doubtless, for such is my duty. But Caesar, you can ride up the road, and deliver the note—the unhappy prisoner will be wanting the book, for his hours are numbered.”

  “Aye—aye, go along Caesar, and get the book,” shouted half a dozen voices, all crowding eagerly around the ideal priest, in anticipation of a frolic.

  The pedlar inwardly dreaded, that, in their unceremonious handling of himself and garments, his hat and wig might be displaced, when detection would be certain; he was, therefore, fain to comply with their request. Ascending the horse-block, after hemming once or twice, and casting several glances at the captain, who continued immoveable, he commenced as follows:

  “I shall call your attention, my brethren, to that portion of scripture which you will find in the 2d book of Samuel, and which is written in the following words: ‘And the king lamented over Abner, and said, died Abner as a fool dieth—thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters; as a man falleth before wicked men, so falleth thou, and all the people wept again over him.’ Caesar, ride forward, I say, and obtain the book as directed; thy master is groaning in spirit even now for the want of it.”

  “An excellent text,” cried the dragoons. “Go on—go on—let the snow-ball stay; he wants to be edified as well as another.”

  “What are you at there, scoundrels?” cried Lieutenant Mason, who just now came in sight from a walk he had taken to sneer at the evening parade of the regiment of militia; “away with every man of you to your quarters, and let me find that each horse is cleaned and littered, when I come round.” The sound of the officer’s voice operated like a charm, and no priest could desire a more silent congregation, although he might possibly have wished for one that was more numerous. Mason had not done speaking, when
it was reduced to the image of Caesar only. The pedlar took that opportunity to mount, but he had to preserve the gravity of his movements, for the remark of the troopers upon the condition of their beasts, was but too just, and a dozen dragoon horses stood saddled and bridled at hand, ready to receive their riders, at a moment’s warning.

  “Well, have you bitted the poor fellow within,” said Mason, “that he can take his last ride under the curb of divinity, old gentleman.”

  “There is evil in thy conversation, profane man,” cried the priest, raising his hands, and casting his eyes upwards in holy horror; “so I will depart from thee unhurt, as Daniel was liberated from the lions’ den.”

  “Off with you, for a hypocritical, psalm singing, canting rogue in disguise,” said Mason scornfully; “by the life of Washington! it worries an honest fellow, to see such voracious beasts of prey ravaging a country, for which he sheds his blood. If I had you on a Virginia plantation, for a quarter of an hour, I’d teach you to worm the tobacco, with the turkeys.”

  “I leave you, and shake the dust off my shoes, that no remnant of this wicked hole may tarnish the vestments of the godly.”

  “Start, or I will shake the dust from your jacket, designing knave! A fellow to be preaching to my men! There’s Hollister put the devil in them by his exhorting—the rascals were getting too conscientious to strike a blow that would rase the skin. But hold, whither do you travel, master blackey, in such godly company?”

  “He goes,” said the minister, hastily speaking for his companion, “to return with a book of much condolence and virtue to the sinful youth above, whose soul will speedily become white, even as his outwards are black and unseemly. Would you deprive a dying man of the consolation of religion?”

  “No—no—poor fellow, his fate is bad enough—a famous good breakfast his prim body of an aunt gave us. But harkee, Mr. Revelations, if the youth must die secundum artem, let it be under a gentleman’s directions; and my advice is, that you never trust that skeleton of yours among us again, or I will take the skin off and leave you naked.”