James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  The poor fellow, in whom long service had created a deep attachment to his master, which had been greatly increased by the solicitude of a nurse, was compelled to cease his unconnected expressions of joy, while he actually wept. Lionel was too much affected by this evidence of feeling, to continue the dialogue, for several minutes; during which time he employed himself in putting on part of his attire, assisted by the gulping valet, when, drawing his robe-de-chambre around his person, he leaned on the shoulder of his man, and took the seat which the other had so recently quitted.

  “Well, Meriton, that will do,” said Lionel, giving a deep hem, as if his breathing was obstructed; “that will do, silly fellow; I trust I shall live to give you many a frown, and some few guineas, yet.—I have been shot, I know”—

  “Shot, sir!” interrupted the valet—“you have been downright and unlawfully murdered! you were first shot, then baggoneted, after which a troop of horse rode over you.—I had it from one of the royal Irish, who lay by your side the whole time, and who now lives to tell of it—a good honest fellow is Terence, and if such a thing was possible that your honour was poor enough to need a pension, he would cheerfully swear to your hurts at the King’s Bench, or War-office; Bridewell, or St. James’, it’s all one to the like of him.”

  “I dare say, I dare say,” said Lionel, smiling, though he mechanically passed his hand over his body, as his valet spoke of the bayonet—“but the poor fellow must have transferred some of his own wounds to my person—I own the bullet, but object to the cavalry and the steel.”

  “No, sir, I own the bullet, and it shall be buried with me in my dressing-box, at the head of my grave,” said Meriton, exhibiting the flattened bit of lead, in the palm of his hand—“it has been in my pocket these thirteen days, after tormenting your honour for six long months, hid in the what d’ye call ’em muscles, behind the thingumy artery. But snug as it was, we got it out! he is a miracle is the great Lon’non surgeon!”

  Lionel reached over to his purse, which Meriton had placed regularly on the table, each morning, in order to remove again at night, and dropping several guineas in the hand of his valet, said—

  “So much lead must need some gold to sweeten it. Put up the unseemly thing, and never let me see it again!”

  Meriton coolly took the opposing metals, and after glancing his eyes at the guineas, with a readiness that embraced their amount in a single look, he dropped them carelessly into one pocket, while he restored the lead to the other with exceeding attention to its preservation. He then turned his hand to the customary duties of his station.

  “I remember well to have been in a fight on the heights of Charlestown, even to the instant when I got my hurt,” continued his master—“and I even recollect many things that have occurred since; a period which appears like a whole life to me. But after all, Meriton, I believe my ideas have not been remarkable for clearness.”

  “Lord, sir, you have talked to me, and scolded me, and praised me a hundred and a hundred times over again; but you have never scolded as sharp like as you can, nor have you ever spoken and looked as bright as you do this morning!”

  “I am in the house of Mrs. Lechmere, again,” continued Lionel, examining the room—“I know this apartment, and those private doors too well to be mistaken.”

  “To be sure you are, sir; Madam Lechmere had you brought here from the field to her own house, and one of the best it is in Boston, too: and I expect that Madam would some how lose her title to it, if any thing serious should happen to us?”

  “Such as a bayonet, or a troop of horse! but why do you fancy any such thing?”

  “Because, sir, when Madam comes here of an afternoon, which she did daily, before she sickened, I heard her very often say to herself, if you should be so unfortunate as to die, there would be an end to all her hopes of her house.”

  “Then it is Mrs. Lechmere who visits me daily,” said Lionel, thoughtfully; “I have recollections of a female form hovering around my bed, though I had supposed it more youthful and active than that of my aunt.”

  “And you are quite right, sir—you have had such a nurse the whole time as is seldom to be met with. For making a posset or a gruel, I’ll match her with the oldest or the ugliest woman in the wards of Guy’s; and, to my taste, the best bar-keeper at the Lon’non is a fool to her at a negus.”

  “These are high accomplishments! who may be their mistress?”

  “Miss Agnus, sir; a rare good nurse is Miss Agnus Danforth! though in point of regard to the troops, I shouldn’t presume to call her at all distinguishable.”

  “Miss Danforth,” repeated Lionel, dropping his eyes in disappointment—“I hope she has not sustained all this trouble on my account alone. There are women enough in the establishment—one would think such offices might be borne by the domestics—in short, Meriton, was she without an assistant in all these little kindnesses?”

  “I helped her, you know, sir, all I could; though my neguses never touch the right spot, like Miss Agnus’s.”

  “One would think, by your account, that I have done little else than guzzle port wine, for six months,” said Lionel, pettishly.

  “Lord, sir, you wouldn’t drink a thimblefull from a glass, often; which I always took for a bad symptom; for I’m certain ’twas no fault of the liquor, that it wasn’t drunk.”

  “Well, enough of your favourite beverage! I sicken at the name already—but, Meriton, have not others of my friends called to inquire after my fate?”

  “Certainly, sir—the commander-in-chief sends an aid or a servant every day; and Lord Percy left his card more than”—

  “Poh! these are calls of courtesy; but I have relatives in Boston—Miss Dynevor, has she left the town?”

  “No, sir,” said the valet, coolly resuming the duty of arranging the phials on the night-table; “she is not much of a moving body, is that Miss Cecil.”

  “She is not ill, I trust?”

  “Lord, it goes through me, part joy and part fear, to hear you speak again so quick and brisk, sir! No, she isn’t downright ailing, but she hasn’t the life and knowledge of things, as her cousin, Miss Agnus.”

  “Why do you think so, fellow?”

  “Because, sir, she is mopy, and don’t turn her hand to any of the light lady’s work in the family. I have seen her sit in that very chair, where you are now, sir, for hours together, without moving; unless it was some nervous start when you groaned, or breathed a little upward through your honour’s nose—I have taken it into my consideration, sir, that she poetizes; at all events, she likes what I calls quietude!”

  “Indeed!” said Lionel, pursuing the conversation with an interest that would have struck a more observant man—“what reason have you for suspecting Miss Dynevor of manufacturing rhymes?”

  “Because, sir, she has often a bit of paper in her hand; and I have seen her read the same thing over and over again, till I’m sure she must know it by heart; which your poetizers always do with what they writes themselves.”

  “Perhaps it was a letter?” cried Lionel, with a quickness that caused Meriton to drop a phial he was dusting, at the expense of its contents.

  “Bless me, master Lionel, how strong, and like old times you speak!”

  “I believe I am amazed to find you know so much of the divine art, Meriton.”

  “Practice makes perfect, you know, sir,” said the simpering valet—“I can’t say I ever did much in that way, though I wrote some verses on a pet pig, as died down at Ravenscliffe, the last time we was there; and I got considerable eclaw for a few lines on a vase which lady Bab’s woman broke one day, in a scuffle when the foolish creature said as I wanted to kiss her; though all that knows me, knows that I needn’t break vases to get kisses from the like of she!”

  “Very well,” said Lionel; “some day when I am stronger, I may like to be indulged with a perusal—go now, Meriton, to the larder, a
nd look about you; I feel the symptoms of returning health grow strong upon me.”

  The gratified valet instantly departed, leaving his master to the musings of his own busy fancy. Several minutes passed away before the young man raised his head from the hand that supported it, and then it was only done when he thought he heard a light footstep near him. His ear had not deceived him, for Cecil Dynevor herself, stood within a few feet of the chair, which concealed, in a great measure, his person from her view. It was apparent, by her attitude and her tread, that she expected to find the sick where she had seen him last, and where, for so many dreary months, his listless form had been stretched in apathy. Lionel followed her movements with his eyes, and as the airy band of her morning cap waved aside at her own breathing, he discovered the unnatural paleness of her cheek. But when she drew the folds of the bed curtains, and missed the invalid, thought is not quicker than the motion with which she turned her person towards the chair. Here she encountered the eyes of the young man, beaming on her with delight, and expressing that animation and intelligence to which they had so long been strangers. Yielding to the surprise and the gush of her feelings, Cecil flew to his feet, and clasping one of his extended hands in both her own, she cried—

  “Lionel, dear Lionel, you are better! God be praised, you look yourself again!”

  Lionel gently extricated his hand from the warm and unguarded pressure of her soft fingers, and drew forth a paper which she had unconsciously committed to his keeping.

  “This, dearest Cecil,” he whispered to the blushing maiden, “this is my own letter, written when I knew life to be at imminent hazard, and speaking the purest thoughts of my heart—tell me, then, it has not been kept for nothing?”

  Cecil dropped her face between her hands for a moment, in burning shame, and then, as all the emotions of the moment crowded around her heart, she yielded as a woman, and burst into tears. It is needless to dwell on those consoling and seducing speeches of the young man, which soon succeeded in luring his companion not only from her sobs, but even from her confusion, and permitted her to raise her beautiful countenance to his ardent gaze, bright and confiding as his fondest wishes could have made it.

  The letter of Lionel was too direct, not to save her pride, and it had been too often perused for a single sentence to be soon forgotten. Besides, Cecil had watched over his couch too fondly and too long to indulge in any of those little coquetries which are sometimes met with in similar scenes. She said all that an affectionate, generous, and modest female would say on such an occasion; and it is certain, that well as Lionel looked on waking, the little she uttered had the effect to improve his appearance ten-fold.

  “And you received my letter on the morning after the battle?” said Lionel, leaning fondly over her, as she still kneeled by his side.

  “Yes—yes—it was your order that it should be sent to me only in case of your death; but for more than a month you were numbered as among the dead by us all.—Oh! what a month was that!”

  “’Tis past, my sweet friend, and, God be praised, I may now look forward to health and happiness.”

  “God be praised, indeed,” murmured Cecil, the tears again rushing to her eyes—“I would not live that month over again, Lionel, for all that this world can offer!”

  “Dearest Cecil,” he replied, “I can only repay this kindness and suffering on my account, by shielding you from the rude contact of the world, even as your father would protect you, were he again in being.”

  She looked up in his face with a woman’s confidence beaming in her eyes.

  “You will, Lincoln, I know you will—you have sworn it, and I should be a wretch to doubt you.”

  He drew her unresisting form into his arms, and folded her to his bosom. In another moment a noise, like one ascending the stairs, was heard. Cecil sprung on her feet, and hardly allowing time to the delighted Lionel to note the burning tints that suffused her face, she darted from the room with the rapidity and lightness of an antelope.

  * It will be recollected that the battle of Bunker’s Hill, actually took place on Breed’s Hill. The misnomer arises from the fact that the Americans intended to take possession of the former position, but they mistook their ground. [1832]

  Chapter XVIII

  “Dead, for a ducat, dead.”

  Hamlet.

  * * *

  WHILE LIONEL was in the confusion of feeling produced by the foregoing scene, the intruder, after a prelude of singularly heavy and loud steps, as if some one approached on crutches, entered by a door opposite to the one through which Cecil had vanished. At the next moment the convalescent was saluted by the full, cheerful voice of his visiter—

  “God bless you, Leo, and bless the whole of us, for we need it,” cried Polwarth, advancing to grasp the extended hands of his friend. “Meriton has told me that you have got the true mark of health—a good appetite, at last. I should have broken my neck in hurrying up to wish you joy on the moment, but I just stepped into the kitchen, without Mrs. Lechmere’s leave, to show her cook how to broil the steak they are warming for you—a capital thing after a long nap, and full of nutriment—God bless you, my dear Leo; the look of your bright eye is as stimulating to my spirits as West-India pepper to the stomach.”

  Polwarth ceased shaking the hands of his reanimated friend, as with a husky voice he concluded, and turning aside under the pretence of reaching a chair, he dashed his hand before his eyes, gave a loud hem, and took his seat in silence. During the performance of this evolution, Lionel had leisure to observe the altered person of the captain. His form, though still rotund and even corpulent, was much reduced in dimensions, while in the place of one of those lower members with which nature furnishes the human race, he had been compelled to substitute a leg of wood, somewhat inartificially made, and roughly shod with iron. This sad alteration, in particular, attracted the look of Major Lincoln, who continued to gaze at it with glistening eyes, for some time after the other had established himself, to his entire satisfaction, in one of the cushioned seats of the apartment.

  “I see my frame-work has caught your eye, Leo,” said Polwarth, raising the wooden substitute, with an air of affected indifference, and tapping it lightly with his cane. “’Tis not as gracefully cut, perhaps, as if it had been turned from the hands of master Phidias, but in a place like Boston, it is an invaluable member, inasmuch as it knows neither hunger nor cold!”

  “The Americans press the town,” said Lionel, glad to turn the subject, “and maintain the siege with vigour?”

  “They have kept us in horrible bodily terror, ever since the shallow waters toward the main-land have been frozen, and opened a path directly into the heart of the place. Their Virginian generalissimo, Washington, appeared a short time after the affair over on the other peninsula, (a cursed business that, Leo!) and with him came all the trimmings of a large army. Since that time they have worn a more military front, though little else has been done, excepting an occasional skirmish, but cooping us up like so many uneasy pigeons in our cage.”

  “And Gage chafes not at the confinement?”

  “Gage!—we sent him off like the soups, at the end of the first course. No, no—the moment the ministry discovered that we had done with spoons, and come to our forks, in good earnest, they chose black Billy to preside: and now we stand at bay with the rebels, who have already learnt that our leader is not a child at the grand entertainment of war.”

  “Yes, seconded by such men as Clinton and Burgoyne, and supported by the flower of our troops, the position can be easily maintained.”

  “No position can be easily maintained, Major Lincoln, in the face of starvation, internal and external.”

  “And is the case so desperate?”

  “Of that you shall judge yourself, my friend. When Parliament shut the port of Boston, the colonies were filled with grumblers; and now we have opened it, and would be glad to see their supplies, th
e devil a craft enters the harbour willingly—ah! Meriton, you have the steak, I see; put it here, where your master can have it at his elbow, and bring another plate—I breakfasted but indifferently well this morning. So we are thrown completely on our own resources. But the rebels do not let us enjoy even them in peace. This thing is done to a turn—how charmingly the blood follows the knife!—They have gone so far as to equip privateers, who cut off our necessaries, and he is a lucky man who can get a meal like the one before us.”

  “I had not thought the power of the Americans could have forced matters to such a pass.”

  “What I have mentioned, though of vital importance, is not half. If a man is happy enough to obtain the materials for a good dish—you should have rubbed an onion over these plates, Mr. Meriton—he don’t know where he is to find fuel to cook it withal.”

  “Looking at the comforts with which I am surrounded, my good friend, I cannot but fancy your imagination heightens the distress.”

  “Fancy no such silly thing, for when you get abroad, you will find it but too exact. In the article of food, if we are not reduced, like the men of Jerusalem, to eating one another, we are, half the time, rather worse off, being entirely destitute of any wholesome nutriment. Let but an unlucky log float by the town, among the ice, and go forth and witness the struggling and skirmishing between the Yankees and our frozen fingers for its possession, and you will become a believer! ’Twill be lucky if the water-soaked relic of some wharf should escape without a cannonade! I don’t tell you these things as a grumbler, Leo; for thank God, I have only half as many toes as other men to keep warmth in; and as for eating, little will suffice for me, now my corporeal establishment is so sadly reduced.”