“Stand or die.”
Dunwoodie turned in amazement, and beheld the figure of a man placed at a little distance above him on a shelving rock, with a musket in his hands that was levelled at himself. The light was not yet sufficiently powerful to reach the recesses of that gloomy spot, and a second look was necessary before he discovered, to his astonishment, that it was the pedlar who stood before him. Comprehending in an instant the danger of his situation, and disdaining to implore mercy or to retreat, had the latter been possible, the youth cried firmly--
“If I am to be murdered, fire; for I will never become your prisoner.”
“No, Major Dunwoodie,” said Birch, lowering his musket, “it is neither my intention to capture nor to slay.”
“What then would you have, mysterious being,” said Dunwoodie, hardly able to persuade himself that the form he saw was not a creature of the imagination.
“Your good opinion,” answered the pedlar with emotion; “I would wish all good men to judge me with lenity.”
“To you it must be indifferent what may be the judgement of men on your actions,” said the Major, gazing around him in continued surprise; “for you seem to be beyond the reach of their sentence.”
“God spares the lives of his servants to his own time,” said the pedlar solemnly: “ ’Tis but a few hours and I was your prisoner, and threatened with the gallows; now you are mine; but, Major Dunwoodie, you are free. There are those abroad who would treat you less kindly. Of what service would that sword be to you against my weapon and a steady hand? Take the advice of one who has never harmed you, and who never will. Do not trust yourself in the skirts of any wood, unless in company and mounted.”
“And have you comrades who have assisted you to escape,” said Dunwoodie, “and who are less generous than yourself?”
“No--no”--cried Harvey, clasping his hands wildly, and speaking with bitter melancholy, “I am alone truly--none know me but my God and Him.”
“And who?” asked the Major, with an interest he could not control.
“None,” continued the pedlar, recovering his composure. “But such is not your case, Major Dunwoodie; you are young and happy; there are those that are dear to you, and such are not far away--danger is near them you love most--danger within and without;--double your watchfulness--strengthen your patroles--and be silent-- with your opinion of me, should I tell you more you would suspect an ambush. But remember and guard those you love best.”
The pedlar discharged the musket in the air, and threw it at the feet of his astonished auditor; and when the surprise and smoke suffered Dunwoodie to look again on the rock where he had stood, the spot was vacant.
The youth was aroused from the stupor which had been created by this strange scene, by the trampling of horses and the sound of the bugles. A patrole was drawn to the spot by the report of the musket, and the alarm had been given to the corps. Without entering into any explanation with his men, the Major returned quickly to his quarters, where he found the whole squadron under arms, in battle array, impatiently awaiting the appearance of their leader. The officer, whose duty it was to superintend such matters, had directed a party to lower the sign of the Hotel Flannagan, and the post was already arranged for the execution of the Spy. On hearing from the major that the musket was discharged by himself, and was probably another dropped by the Skinners, (for by this time Dunwoodie had learnt the punishment inflicted by Lawton, but chose to conceal his interview with Birch,) his officers suggested the propriety of executing their prisoner before they marched. Unable to believe all he had seen was not a dream, Dunwoodie, followed by many of his officers, and preceded by Sergeant Hollister, went to the place which was supposed to contain this mysterious pedlar.
“Well, sir,” said the major, sternly, to the sentinel who guarded the door, “I suppose you have your prisoner in safety.”
“He is yet asleep,” replied the man, “and makes such a noise I could hardly hear the bugles sound the alarm.”
“Open the door and bring him forth,” said Dunwoodie to the sergeant.
The order was obeyed, so far as circumstances would allow; but, to the utter amazement of the honest veteran, he found the room in no little disorder--the coat of the pedlar was where his body ought to have been, and part of the wardrobe of Betty was scattered in disorder on the floor. The washerwoman herself occupied the pallet in a profound mental oblivion, in all her clothes excepting the little black bonnet, which she so constantly wore, that it was commonly thought she made it perform the double duty of both day and night cap. The noise of their entrance, and the exclamations of the party, awoke the woman, and rising, she exclaimed hastily--
“Is it the breakfast that’s wanting? Well, faith, you look as if you would ate myself--but patience a little, darlings, and you’ll see sich a fry as never was.”
Fry!” echoed the sergeant, forgetful of his religious philosophy and the presence of his officers, “we’ll have you roasted, you jade--you’ve helped that damn’d pedlar to escape.”
“Jade, back again in your teeth, and damn’d pedlar too, Mister Sargeant,” cried Betty, who was easily roused; “what have I to do with pedlar’s or escapes. I might have been a pedlar’s lady and worn my silks, if I’d had Sawny M‘Twill, instead of tagging at the heels of a parcel of dragooning rapscallions, who don’t know how to trate a lone body with dacency.”
“The fellow has left my bible,” said the veteran, taking the book from the floor; “in place of spending his time in reading it to prepare for his end, like a good Christian, he has been busy in labouring to escape.”
“And who would stay and be hung like a dog,” cried Betty, beginning to comprehend the case; “ ’Tis’nt every one that’s born to meet with sich an ind--like yourself, Mister Hollister.”
“Silence!” said Dunwoodie, “this must be inquired into closely, gentlemen; there is no outlet but the door, and there he could not pass, unless the sentinel connived at his escape or was asleep on his post--call up all the guard?”
As these men were not paraded, curiosity had already drawn them to the place, and they all denied that any person had passed out, excepting one, and he acknowledged that Betty had gone by him, but pleaded his orders in justification.
“You lie, you thief--you lie!” shouted Betty, who had impatiently listened to his exculpation; “would you slanderize a lone woman, by saying she walks a camp at midnight?--Here have I been sleeping the long night as sweetly as the sucking babe.”
“Here, sir,” said the sergeant, turning respectfully to Dunwoodie, “is something written in my bible that was not in it before; for having no family to record, I would never suffer any scribbling in the sacred book.”
One of the officers read aloud--“These certify, that if suffered to get free, it is by God’s help alone, to whose divine aid I humbly recommend myself. I’m forced to take the woman’s clothes, but in her pocket is a recompense. Witness my hand--Harvey Birch.”
“What!” roared Betty, in consternation, “has the thief robbed a lone woman of her all--hang him--catch him and hang him, major, if there’s law or justice in the land.”
“Examine your pocket,” said one of the youngsters, who was enjoying the scene, careless of the cause or its consequences.
“Ah! faith,” cried the washerwoman, producing a guinea; “but he is a jewel of a pedlar-- long life and a brisk trade to him say I--he is welcome to the duds--and if he is ever hung, many a bigger rogue will go free.”
Dunwoodie turned to leave the apartment, and saw Captain Lawton standing with folded arms, contemplating the scene in profound silence. His manner, so different from his usual impetuosity and zeal, struck his commander as singular --their eyes met, and they walked together for a few minutes in close conversation, when Dunwoodie returned and dismissed the guard to their place of rendezvous. Sergeant Hollister, however, continued alone with Betty, who having found none of her vestments disturbed but such as the guinea more than paid for, was in high good-humour for
the interview. The washerwoman had for a long time looked on the veteran with the eyes of affection, and had secretly determined within herself to remove the dangers from a lone woman, by making the sergeant the successor of her late husband. For some time the trooper had seemed to flatter her preference, and Betty conceiving that her violence had mortified the feelings of her lover, was determined to make him all the amends in her power. Besides, rough and uncouth as she was, the washerwoman had still enough of her sex to know that the moments of reconciliation were the moments of her power. She, therefore, poured out a glass of her morning beverage, and handed it to her companion as she observed--
“A few warm words between friends are a trifle, you must be knowing, sargeant. It was Michael Flannagan that I ever calumnated the most when I was loving him the best.”
“Michael was a good soldier and a brave man,” said the warrior, finishing the glass; “our troop was covering the flank of his regiment when he fell, and I rode over his body myself more than once during the day--poor fellow, he lay on his back, and looked as composed as if he had died a natural death after a year’s consumption.”
“Oh! Michael was a great consumer, and be sartain,” said the disconsolate widow; “two like us make dreadful inroads in the stock, sargeant. But you’re a sober, discrate man, Mister Hollister, and would be a help-mate indeed.”
“Why, Mrs. Flannagan,” said the veteran with great solemnity, “I’ve tarried to speak on a subject that lies heavy at my heart, and will now open my mind, if you’ve leisure to listen.”
“Is it listen?” cried the impatient woman; “and I’d listen to you, sargeant, if the officers never ate another mouthful--but take another drop, dear--and it will incourage you to spake freely.”
“I am already bold enough in so good a cause,” returned the veteran, rejecting her bounty; “but, Betty, do you think it was really the Pedlar-Spy that I placed in this room the last night?”
“And who should it be else, darling?”
“The evil-one.”
“What, the divil?”
“Ay, even Belzebub, disguised as the pedlar, and those fellows we thought to be Skinners were his imps,” said the sergeant, with a most portentous gravity in his countenance.
“Well sure, sargeant, dear,” said Betty, “you are but little out this time, any way--for if the divil’s imps go at large in the county West-Chester, sure it is the Skinners themselves.”
“No, but Mrs. Flannagan,” interrupted her companion, “I mean in their incarnate spirits--the evil one knew that there was no one we would arrest sooner than the pedlar, Birch, and took on his appearance to gain admission to your room.”
“And what should the divil be wanting of me,” cried Betty, tartly, “and isn’t there divils enough in the corps already, without one’s coming from the bottomless pit to frighten a lone body.”
“ ’Twas, ’twas in mercy to you, Betty, that he came. You see he vanish’d through the door in your form, which is a symbol of your fate, unless you mend your life. Oh! I noticed how he trembled when I gave him the good book. Would any christian, think you, my dear Betty, write in a bible in this way; unless it might be the matter of births and deaths, and such like chronicles?”
The washerwoman was pleased with the softness of her lover’s manner, but dreadfully scandalized at his insinuation: she, however, preserved her temper, and, with the quickness of her own country’s people, rejoined--
“And would the divil have paid for the clothes, think ye. Aye! and overpaid.”
“Doubtless, the money is base,” said the sergeant, a little staggered at such an evidence of honesty in one he thought so meanly of. “He tempted me with his glittering coin, but the Lord gave me strength to resist.”
“The goold looks well,” said the washerwoman, “But I’ll change it, any way, with Captain Jack, the day--he is nivir a bit afeard of any divil of them all.”
“Betty, Betty,” said her companion, “do not speak so disreverently of the evil spirit, he is ever at hand, and will owe you a grudge for your language.”
“Pooh! if he has any bowels at all, he won’t mind a fillip or two from a poor lone woman,” returned the washerwoman. “I’m sure no other christian would.”
“But the dark one has no bowels, except to devour the children of men,” said the sergeant, looking around him in horror, “and it’s best to make friends every where; for there is no telling what may happen ’till it comes. But, Betty, no man could have got out of this place, and passed all the sentinels, without being known--take awful warning from the visit, therefore.”
Here the dialogue was interrupted by a summons to the suttler to prepare her mornings repast, and they were obliged to separate, the woman secretly hoping that the interest the sergeant manifested for her was more earthly than he imagined, and the man, bent on saving a soul from the fangs of the dark spirit, that was prowling through their camp, in quest of victims.
During the breakfast, several expresses arrived, one of which brought intelligence of the actual force and destination of the enemy’s expedition that was out on the Hudson, and another, orders to send Captain Wharton to the first post above, under the escort of a body of dragoons. These last instructions, or rather commands, for they admitted of no departure from their letter, completed the sum of Dunwoodie’s uneasiness. The despair and misery of Frances, were constantly before his eyes, and fifty times he was tempted to throw himself on his horse, and gallop to the Locusts, but an uncontrollable feeling of delicacy prevented him. In obedience to the commands of his superior, an officer, with a small party, was sent to the cottage to conduct Henry Wharton to the place directed, and the gentleman who was entrusted with the execution of the order, was charged with a letter from Dunwoodie to his friend, containing the most cheering assurances of his safety, as well as the strongest pledges of his own unceasing exertions in his favour. Lawton was left in charge of the few wounded, with part of his own troop, and as soon as the men were refreshed, the encampment broke up, and the main body marched towards the Hudson. Dunwoodie repeated, again and again, his injunctions to Captain Lawton--dwelt upon every word that had fallen from the pedlar, and canvassed in every possible manner that his ingenuity could devise, the probable meaning of his mysterious warnings, until no excuse remained for delaying his own departure a moment longer. Suddenly recollecting, however, that no directions had been given for the disposal of Colonel Wellmere, instead of following the rear of his column, the major yielded to his passions, and turned down the road which led to the Locusts, attended by hls own man. The horse of Dunwoodie was fleet as the wind, and scarcely a minute seem’d to have passed before he gained a sight, from an eminence, of the loney vale, and as he was plunging into the bottom lands that formed its surface, he caught a glimpse of Henry Wharton, and his escort, defiling at a distance through a pass which led to the posts above. This sight added to the speed of the anxious youth, who now turned the angle of the hill that opened to the valley, and came suddenly on the object of his search. Frances had followed the party which guarded her brother at a distance, and as they vanished from her sight she felt as if deserted by all that she most prized in this world. The unaccountable absence of Dunwoodie, with the shock of parting from Henry under such circumstances, had entirely subdued her fortitude, and she had sunk on a stone by the road-side and wept as if her heart would break. Dunwoodie sprung from his charger, bidding his man to lead him up the road, and in a moment was by the side of the weeping girl.
“Frances--my own Frances!” he exclaimed, “why this distress--let not the situation of your brother create any alarm. As soon as the duty I am now on is completed, I will hasten to the feet of Washington, and beg his release. The Father of his Country will never deny such a boon to one of his favourite pupils.”
“Major Dunwoodie, for your interest on behalf of my poor brother, I thank you,” said the maid hastily, drying her eyes, and rising with dignity. “But such language addressed to me, surely is improper.”
&nbs
p; “How! improper!” echoed her lover in amazement, “are you not mine--by the consent of your father--your aunt--your brother--nay, by your own consent, my sweet Frances.”
“I wish not, Major Dunwoodie, to interfere with the prior claims that any other lady may have to your affections,” said Frances, motioning to return.
“None other, I swear, by Heaven, none other but yourself has any claim on me,” cried Dunwoodie with fervour; “you alone are mistress of my inmost soul.”
“You have practised so much, and so successfully, Major Dunwoodie, that it is no wonder you excel in deceiving the credulity of my sex,” said the maiden bitterly, attempting a smile which the tremulousness of her muscles smothered in its birth.
“Am I a villain, Miss Wharton, that you receive me with such language--when have I ever deceived you, Frances--who has practised in this manner on your purity of heart?”
“Why has not Major Dunwoodie honoured the dwelling of his intended father with his presence lately? Did he forget it contained one friend on a bed of sickness, and another in deep distress? Has it escaped his memory that it held his intended wife? Or is he fearful of meeting more than one that can lay a claim to that title? Oh, Peyton--Peyton, how have I been deceived in you--with the foolish credulity of my youth, I thought you all that was brave, noble, generous, and loyal.”
“Frances, I see how it is that you have deceived yourself,” cried Dunwoodie, his face in a glow of fire; “you do me injustice, I swear by all that is most dear to me, that you do me injustice.”
The Spy, Volume 2 Page 3