James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “The adjutant is an uneasy man, but that, I suppose, is so much the better for a light-infantry officer. Captain Polwarth must find it considerable jading to keep the step, now the General has ordered these new doings with the soldiers.”

  “And what may be your opinion of these doings, as you call them, Mr Sage,” asked M’Fuse; “you who are a man of observation, should understand your own countrymen; will they fight?”

  “A rat will fight if the cats pen him,” said Seth, without raising his eyes from his occupation.

  “But do the Americans conceive themselves to be penned?”

  “Why, that is pretty much as people think, captain; the country was in a great toss about the stamps and the tea, but I always said such folks as didn’t give their notes-of-hand, and had no great relish for any thing more than country food, wouldn’t find themselves cramped by the laws, after all.”

  “Then you see no great oppression in being asked to pay your bit of a tax, master Sage,” cried the grenadier, “to maintain such a worthy fellow as myself in a dacent equipage to fight your battles.”

  “Why, as to that captain, I suppose we can do pretty much the whole of our own fighting, when occasion calls; though I don’t think there is much stomach for such doings among the people, without need.”

  “But what do you think the Committee of Safety, and your ‘Sons of Liberty,’ as they call themselves, really mean, by their parades of ‘minute-men,’ their gathering of provisions, carrying off the cannon, and such other formidable and appalling preparations—ha! honest Seth, do they think to frighten British soldiers with the roll of a drum, or are they amusing themselves, like boys in the holy days, with playing war.”

  “I should conclude,” said Seth, with undisturbed gravity and caution, “that the people are pretty much engaged, and in earnest.”

  “To do what?” demanded the Irishman; “to forge their own chains, that we may fetter them in truth?”

  “Why, seeing that they have burnt the stamps, and thrown the tea into the harbour, and since that have taken the management into their own hands, I should rather conclude that they have pretty much determined to do what they think best.”

  Lionel and Polwarth laughed aloud, and the former ob­served—

  “You appear not to come to conclusions with our host, captain M’Fuse, notwithstanding so much is determined. Is it well understood, Mr. Sage, that large reinforcements are coming to the colonies, and to Boston in particular?”

  “Why yes,” returned Seth, “it seems to be pretty generally contemplated on.”

  “And what is the result of all these contemplations?”

  Seth paused a moment, as if uncertain whether he was master of the other’s meaning, before he replied—

  “Why, as the country is considerably engaged in the business, there are some who think if the ministers don’t open the Port, that it will be done without much further words by the people.”

  “Do you know,” said Lionel, gravely, “that such an attempt would lead directly to a civil war?”

  “I suppose it is safe to calculate that such doings would bring on disturbances,” returned his phlegmatic host.

  “And you speak of it, sir, as a thing not to be deprecated, or averted by every possible means in the power of the nation!”

  “If the Port is opened and the right to tax given up,” said Seth, calmly, “I can find a man in Boston who’ll engage to let them draw all the blood that will be spilt, from his own veins, for a charge little worth naming.”

  “And who may that redoubtable individual be, master Sage?” cried M’Fuse; “your own plethoric person?—How now, Doyle, to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?”

  This sudden question was put by the captain of grenadiers to the orderly of his own company, who at that instant filled the door of the apartment with his huge frame, in the attitude of military respect, as if about to address his officer.

  “Orders have come down, sir, to parade the men at half an hour after tattoo, and to be in readiness for active service.”

  The three gentlemen rose together at this intelligence, while M’Fuse, exclaimed—“A night march! Pooh! We are to be sent back to garrison-duty I suppose; the companies in the line grow sleepy, and wish a relief—Gage might have taken a more suitable time, than to put gentlemen on their march so soon after such a feast as this of yours, Polly.”

  “There is some deeper meaning to so extraordinary an order,” interrupted Lionel; “there goes the tap of the tattoo, this instant! Are no other troops but your company ordered to parade?”

  “The whole battalion is under the same orders, your honour, and so is the battalion of Light Infantry; I was commanded to report it so to Capt. Polwarth, if I saw him.”

  “This bears some meaning, gentlemen,” said Lionel, “and it is necessary to be looked to—if either corps leaves the town to-night, I will march with it as a volunteer, for it is my business, just now, to examine into the state of the country.”

  “That we shall march to-night, is sure, your honour,” added the sergeant, with the confidence of an old soldier; “but how far, or on what road, is known only to the officers of the Staff; though the men think we are to go out by the colleges.”

  “And what has put so learned an opinion in their silly heads?” demanded his captain.

  “One of the men who has been on leave, has just got in, and reports that a squad of gentlemen from the army dined near them, your honour, and that as night set in they mounted and began to patrole the roads in that direction. He was met and questioned by four of them as he crossed the flats.”

  “All this confirms my conjectures,” cried Lionel—“there is a man who might now prove of important service—Job—where is the simpleton, Meriton?”

  “He was called out, sir, a minute since, and has left the house.”

  “Then send in Mr. Sage,” continued the young man, musing. A moment after it was reported to him that Seth had strangely disappeared also.

  “Curiosity has led him to the barracks,” said Lionel, “where duty calls you, gentlemen. I will despatch a little business, and join you there in an hour; you cannot march short of that time.”

  The bustle of a general departure succeeded; Lionel threw his cloak into the arms of Meriton, to whom he delivered his orders, took his arms, and making his apologies to his guests, he left the house with the manner of one who saw a pressing necessity to be prompt. M’Fuse proceeded to equip himself with the deliberation of a soldier who was too much practised to be easily disconcerted. Notwithstanding his great deliberation, the delay of Polwarth, however, eventually vanquished the patience of the grenadier, who exclaimed, on hearing the other repeat, for the fourth time, an order concerning the preservation of certain viands, to which he appeared to cling in spirit, after a carnal separation was directed by fortune.

  “Poh! poh! man,” exclaimed the Irishman, “why will you bother yourself on the eve of a march, with such epicurean propensities. It’s the soldier who should show your hermits and anchorites an example of mortification; besides, Polly, this affectation of care and provision is the less excusable in yourself, you who have been well aware that we were to march on a secret expedition this very night on which you seem so much troubled.”

  “I!” exclaimed Polwarth; “as I hope to eat another meal, I am as ignorant as the meanest corporal in the army of the whole transaction—why do you suspect otherwise?”

  “Trifles tell the old campaigner when and where the blow is to be struck,” returned M’Fuse, coolly drawing his military over-coat tighter to his large frame; “have I not, with my own eyes, seen you within the hour, provision a certain captain of light-infantry after a very heavy fashion! Damn it, man, do you think I have served these five-and-twenty years, and do not know that when a garrison begins to fill its granaries, it expects a siege?”

  “I have paid no mor
e than a suitable compliment to the entertainment of Major Lincoln,” returned Polwarth; “but so far from having had any very extraordinary appetite, I have not found myself in a condition to do all the justice I could wish to several of the dishes.—Mr. Meriton, I will thank you to have the remainder of that bird sent down to the barracks, where my man will receive it; and as it may be a long march, and a hungry one, add the tongue, and a fowl, and some of the ragout; we can warm it up at any farm-house—we’ll take the piece of beef, Mac—Leo has a particular taste for a cold cut; and you might put up the ham, also; it will keep better than any thing else, if we should be out long—and—and—I believe that is all, Meriton.”

  “I am as much rejoiced to hear it as I should be to hear a proclamation of war read at Charing-Cross,” cried M’Fuse—“you should have been a commissary, Polly—nature meant you for an army suttler!”

  “Laugh as you will, Mac,” returned the good-humoured Polwarth, “I shall hear your thanks when we halt for breakfast; but I attend you now.”

  As they left the house, he continued, “I hope Gage means no more than to push us a little in advance, with a view to protect the foragers and the supplies of the army—such a situation would have very pretty advantages; a system might be established that would give the mess of the light corps the choice of the whole market.”

  “’Tis a mighty preparation about some old iron gun, which would cost a man his life to put a match to,” returned M’Fuse, cavalierly; “for my part, captain Polwarth, if we are to fight these colonists at all, I would do the thing like a man, and allow the lads to gather together a suitable arsenal, that when we come to blows it may be a military affair—as it now stands, I should be ashamed, as I am a soldier and an Irishman, to bid my fellows pull a trigger, or make a charge, on a set of peasants whose fire-arms look more like rusty water-pipes than muskets, and who have half a dozen cannon with touch-holes that a man may put his head in, with muzzles just large enough to throw marbles.”

  “I don’t know, Mac,” said Polwarth, while they diligently pursued their way towards the quarters of their men; “even a marble may destroy a man’s appetite for his dinner; and the countrymen possess a great advantage over us in commanding the supplies—the difference in equipments would not more than balance the odds.”

  “I wish to disturb no gentleman’s opinion on matters of military discretion, captain Polwarth,” said the grenadier; “but I take it there exists a material difference between a soldier and a butcher, though killing be a business common to both—I repeat, sir, I hope that this secret expedition is for a more worthy object than to deprive those poor devils, with whom we are about to fight, of the means of making good battle, and I add, sir, that such is sound military doctrine, without regarding who may choose to controvert it.”

  “Your sentiments are generous and manly; but, after all, there is both a physical and moral obligation on every man to eat; and if starvation be the consequence of permitting your enemies to bear arms, it becomes a solemn duty to deprive them of their weapons—no—no—I will support Gage in such a measure, at present, as highly military.”

  “And he is much obliged to you, sir, for your support,” returned the other—“I apprehend, captain Polwarth, whenever the Lieutenant-General Gage finds it necessary to lean on any one for extraordinary assistance, he will remember that there is a regiment called the Royal Irish in the country, and that he is not entirely ignorant of the qualities of the people of his own nation.—You have done well, captain Polwarth, to choose the light-infantry service—they are a set of foragers, and can help themselves; but the grenadiers, thank God, love to encounter men, and not cattle in the field.”

  How long the good-nature of Polwarth would have endured the increasing taunts of the Irishman, who was exasperating himself, gradually, by his own arguments, there is no possibility of determining, for their arrival at the barracks put an end to the controversy and to the feelings it was beginning to engender.

  Chapter VIII

  “Preserve thy sighs, unthrifty girl!

  To purify the air;

  Thy tears, to thread, instead of pearl,

  On bracelets of thy hair.”

  Davenant.

  * * *

  LIONEL MIGHT HAVE blushed to acknowledge the secret and inexplicable influence which his unknown and mysterious friend, Ralph, had obtained over his feelings, but which induced him, on leaving his own quarters thus hastily, to take his way into the lower parts of the town, in quest of the residence of Abigail Pray. He had not visited the sombre tenement of this woman since the night of his arrival, but its proximity to the well-known town-hall, as well as the quaint architecture of the building itself, had frequently brought its exterior under his observation, in the course of his rambles through the place of his nativity. A guide being, consequently, unnecessary, he took the most direct and frequented route to the dock-square. When Lionel issued into the street, he found deep darkness already enveloping the peninsula of Boston, as if nature had lent herself to the secret designs of the British commandant. The shrill strains of a fife were playing among the naked hills of the place, accompanied by the occasional and measured taps of the sullen drum; and, at moments, the rich notes of horns would rise from the common, and borne on the night-air, sweep along the narrow streets, causing the nerves of the young soldier to thrill with stern pleasure, as he stepped along. The practised ear, however, detected no other sounds in the music than the usual nightly signal of rest; and when the last melting strains seemed to be lost in the clouds, a stillness fell upon the town, like the deep quiet of midnight. He paused a moment before the gates of Province-house, and, examining, with an attentive eye, the windows of the building, he spoke to the grenadier, who had stopped in his short walk, to note the curious stranger.

  “You should have company within, sentinel,” he said, “by the brilliant light from those windows.”

  The rattling of Lionel’s side-arms as he pointed with his hand in the direction of the illuminated apartment, taught the soldier that he was addressed by his superior, and he answered respectfully—

  “It does not become one such as I, to pretend to know much of what his betters do, your honour, but I stood before the quarters of General Wolfe the very night we went up to the Plains of Abram; and I think an old soldier can tell when a movement is at hand, without asking his superiors any impertinent questions.”

  “I suppose, from your remark, the General holds a council to-night?” said Lionel.

  “No one has gone in, sir, since I have been posted,” returned the sentinel, “but the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 10th, that great Northumbrian Lord, and the old Major of marines; a great war-dog is that old man, your honour, and it is not often he comes to Province-house for nothing.”

  “Good-night to you, old comrade,” said Lionel, walking away; “’tis probably some consultation concerning the new exercises that you practise.”

  The grenadier shook his head, as if unconvinced, and resumed his march. A very few minutes brought Lionel before the low door of Abigail Pray, where he again stopped, struck with the contrast between the gloomy, dark, and unguarded threshold over which he was about to pass, and the gay portal he had just left. Urged, however, by his feelings, the young man paused but a moment before he tapped lightly for admission. After repeating his summons, and hearing no reply, he lifted the latch, and entered the building without ceremony. The large and vacant apartment in which he found himself, was silent and dreary as the streets he had quitted. Groping his way towards the little room in the tower, where he had met the mother of Job, as before related, Lionel found that apartment also tenantless, and dark. He was turning in disappointment, to quit the place, when a feeble ray fell from the loft of the building, and settled on the foot of a rude ladder which formed the means of communication with its upper apartments. Hesitating a moment how to decide, he yielded to his anxiety, and ascended to the floor above, with steps as
light as extreme caution could render them. Like the basement, the building was subdivided here, into a large, open ware-room, and a small, rudely-finished apartment in each of its towers. Following the rays from a candle, he stood on the threshold of one of these little rooms, in which he found the individual of whom he was in quest. The old man was seated on the only broken chair which the loft contained, and before him, on the simple bundle of straw which would seem, by the garments thrown loosely over the pile, to be intended as his place of rest, lay a large map, spread for inspection, which his glazed and sunken eyes appeared to be intently engaged in marking. Lionel hesitated again, while he regarded the white hairs which fell across the temples of the stranger, as he bowed his head in his employment, imparting a wild and melancholy expression to his remarkable countenance, and seeming to hallow their possessor by the air of great age and attendant care that they imparted.

  “I have come to seek you,” the young man at length said, “since you no longer deem me worthy of your care.”