“Swear not, Major Dunwoodie,” interrupted the maiden, her fine countenance lighting up with all the lustre of womanly pride; “the time is gone by for me to credit oaths.”
“Miss Wharton, would you have me a coxcomb,” said her lover, “make me contemptible in my own eyes, to boast of what may raise me in your estimation?”
“Flatter not yourself that the task is so easy, sir,” returned Frances, moving towards the cottage; “we converse together, in private, for the last time;--but my father would gladly welcome my mother’s kinsman.”
“No, Miss Wharton, I cannot enter his dwelling now: I should conduct in a manner unworthy of myself. You drive me from you, Frances, in despair. I am going on desperate service, and may not live to return. Should fortune prove severe to me, at least do my memory justice; remember that the last breathing of my soul, will be for your happiness.” So saying he had already placed his foot in the stirrup, but his mistress turning on him a face that was pallid with emotion, and an eye that pierced his soul with its thrilling expression, arrested the action, and he paused.
“Peyton--Major Dunwoodie,” she said, “can you ever forget the sacred cause in which you are enlisted? Your duty both to your God and to your country, forbid your doing any thing rashly. The latter has need of your services; besides”-- but her voice became choked, and she was unable to proceed.
“Besides what?” echoed the youth, springing to her side, and offering to take her hand in his own. Frances having, however, recovered herself, coldly repulsed him, and continued her walk homeward.
“Miss Wharton, is this our parting!” cried Dunwoodie, in agony; “am I a wretch, that you treat me so cruelly? You have never loved me, and wish to conceal your own fickleness by accusations against me that you will not explain.”
Frances stopped short in her walk, and turned on her lover a look of so much purity and feeling, that, heart-stricken, Dunwoodie would have knelt at her feet for pardon; but motioning him for silence, she once more spoke--
“Hear me, Major Dunwoodie, for the last time; it is a bitter knowledge when we first discover our own inferiority; but it is a truth that I have lately learnt. Against you I bring no charges--make no accusations--no: not willingly in my thoughts. Were my claims to your heart just, I am not worthy of you. It is not a feeble, timid girl like me, that could make you happy. No, Peyton, you are formed for great and glorious actions, deeds of daring and renown, and should be united to a soul like your own: one that can rise above the weakness of her sex. I should be a weight to drag you to the dust; but with a different spirit in your companion, you might soar to the very pinnacle of earthly glory. To such an one, therefore, I resign you freely, if not cheerfully; and pray, oh! how fervently, that with such an one you may be happy.”
“Lovely enthusiast,” cried Dunwoodie, “you know not yourself nor me. It is a woman, mild, gentle, and dependant as yourself that my very nature loves--deceive not yourself with visionary ideas of generosity, which will only make me miserable.”
“Farewell, Major Dunwoodie,” said the maid, pausing for a moment to gasp for breath; “forget that you ever knew me--remember the claims of your bleeding country and be happy.”
“Happy!” repeated the youthful soldier bitterly, as he saw her light form gliding through the gate of the lawn, and disappearing behind its shrubbery; “Oh! yes, I am now happy indeed.”
Throwing himself into the saddle, he plunged his spurs into his horse and soon overtook his squadron, which was marching slowly over the hilly roads of the county to gain the banks of the Hudson.
But painful as were the feelings of Dunwoodie at this unexpected termination to the interview with his mistress, they were but light compared to those which were experienced by the maiden herself. Frances had, with the keen eye of jealous love, easily detected the attachment of Isabella Singleton to Dunwoodie. Delicate and retiring herself as the fairest visions of romance had ever portrayed her sex, it never could present itself to the mind of Frances, that this love had been unsought. Ardent in her own affections, and artless in their exhibition, she had early caught the eye of the youthful soldier; but it required all the manly frankness of Dunwoodie to court her favour, and the most pointed devotion to obtain his conquest. This once done--his power was durable, entire, and engrossing. But the unusual occurrences of the few preceding days, the altered mien of her lover during those events, his unwonted indifference to herself, and chiefly the romantic idolatry of Isabella, had aroused new sensations in her bosom. With a dread of her lover’s integrity had been awakened the never-failing concomitant of the purest affection--a distrust of her own merits. In the moment of enthusiasm, the task of resigning her lover to another, who might be more worthy of him, seemed easy--but it is in vain that the imagination attempts to deceive the heart. Dunwoodie had no sooner disappeared, than our heroine felt all the misery of her situation; and if the youth found some relief in the cares of his command from his anxiety of mind, Frances was less fortunate in the performance of a duty imposed on her by filial piety.--The removal of his son had nearly destroyed the little energy of Mr. Wharton, who required all the tenderness of his remaining children to convince him that he was able to perform the ordinary functions of life.
CHAPTER IV.
“Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces,
Though ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces;
That man who bath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with that tongue he cannot win a woman.”
Two Gentlemen of Verona
In making the arrangement by which Captain Lawton had been left, with Sergeant Hollister and twelve men, as a guard over the wounded and heavy baggage of the corps, Dunwoodie had consuited not only the information which had been conveyed in the letter of Col. Singleton, but the supposed bruises of his comrade’s body. It was in vain that Lawton had declared himself fit for any duty that man could perform, or that he had plainly intimated that his men would never follow Tom Mason to a charge, with the alacrity and confidence with which they followed himself; his commander was firm, and the reluctant captain was compelled to comply with as good a grace as he could assume. Before parting, Dunwoodie renewed his caution to Lawton, to keep a watchful eye on the inmates of the cottage, and especially enjoined him, if any movements of a particularly suspicious nature were noticed in the neighbourhood, to break up from his present quarters, and move down with his party, and to take possession of the domains of Mr. Wharton. A vague suspicion of danger to the family had been awakened in the breast of the major, by the language of the pedlar, although he was unable to refer it to any particular source, or understand why it was to be apprehended.
For some time after the departure of the troops, the captain was walking to and fro, before the door of the “Hotel,” inwardly cursing his fate that condemned him to an inglorious idleness, at a moment when a meeting with the enemy might be expected, and replying to the occasional queries of Betty, who from the interior of the building, ever and anon, demanded in a high tone of voice, an explanation of various points in the pedlar’s escape that as yet she could not comprehend. At this instant he was joined by the surgeon, who had hitherto been engaged among his patients in a distant building, and was profoundly ignorant of every thing that had occurred, even to the departure of the troops.
“Where are all the sentinels, John,” he inquired, as he gazed around with a look of curiosity, “and why are you here alone?”
“Off--all off, with Dunwoodie, to the river. Yon and I are left here to take care of a few sick men, and some women.”
“I am glad, however,” said the surgeon, “that Major Dunwoodie had consideration enough, not to move the wounded. Here, you Mrs. Elizabeth Flannagan, hasten with some food, that I may appease my appetite. I have a dead body to dissect, and am in a hurry.”
“And here you, Mister Doctor Archibald Sitgreaves,” echoed Betty, showing her blooming countenance from a broken window of the kitchen, “you are ever a coming too late; here
is nothing to ate but the skin of Jenny and the body you are mintioning.”
“Woman,” said the surgeon, in anger, “do you take me for a cannibal, that you address your filthy discourse to me in this manner.--I bid you hasten with such food as may be proper to be received into the stomach fasting.”
“And I’m sure its for a pop-gun that I should be taking you sooner than for a cannon-ball,” said Betty, winking at the captain, “and I tell you that its fasting you must be, unless you will let me cook you a steak from the skin of Jenny. The boys have eaten me up entirely.”
Lawton now interfered to preserve the peace, and assured the surgeon that he had already despatched the proper persons in quest of food for the party. A little mollified with this explanation, the operator soon forgot his hunger, and declared his intention of proceeding to business at once.
“And where is your subject?” asked Lawton, gravely.
“The pedlar,” said the other, gazing on the sign-post; “you see I made Hollister put a stage so high that the neck would not be dislocated by the fall, and I intend making as handsome a skeleton of him, as there is in the States of North-America --the fellow has good points, and his bones are well knit. Oh! Jack, I will make a perfect beauty of him. I have long been wanting something of the sort to send as a present to my old aunt in Virginia, who was so kind to me when a boy.”
“The devil!” cried Lawton; “would you send the old woman a dead man’s bones.”
“Why not?” said the surgeon; “what nobler object is there in nature than the figure of a man-- and a skeleton may be called his elementary parts. But what has been done with the body?”
“Off too.”
“Off!” echoed the panic stricken operator; “and who has dared to take it away without my leave.”
“Sure jist the divil,” said Betty; “and who’ll be after taking yourself away some of these times too, without asking your lave.”
“Silence, you witch,” said Lawton, with difficulty suppressing a laugh; “is this the manner in which to address an officer.”
“Who called me the filthy Elizabeth Flannagan,” cried the washerwoman, snapping her fingers contemptuously. “I can remimber a frind for a year, and don’t forgit an inimy for a month.”
But the friendship or enmity of Mrs. Flannagan were alike indifferent to the surgeon, who could think of nothing but his loss; and Lawton was obliged to explain to his friend the apparent manner in which it happened.
“And a lucky escape it was for you, my jewel of a doctor,” cried Betty, as the captain concluded. “Sergeant Hollister, who saw him face to face, as it might be, says it’s Beelzeboob, and no pedlar, unless it may be in a small matter of lies and thefts, and sich wickednesses. Now a pretty figure you would have been in cutting up Beelzeboob, if the major had hung him. I don’t think it’s very asy he would have been under your knife.”
Thus doubly disappointed in both his meal and his business, Sitgreaves suddenly declared his intention of visiting the “Locusts,” and inquiring into the state of Captain Singleton. Lawton was ready for the excursion, and mounting they were soon on the road, though the surgeon was obliged to submit to a few more jokes from the washerwoman, before he could get out of hearing. For some time the two rode in silence, when Lawton perceiving that his companion’s temper was somewhat ruffled by his disappointments and Betty’s attack, made an effort to restore the tranquillity of his feelings, by saying--
“That was a charming song, Archibald, that you commenced, last evening, when we were interrupted by the party that brought the pedlar. The allusion to Galen was extremely neat.”
“I knew you would like it, Jack, when your eyes were opened to its beauties,” returned the operator, suffering his muscles to relax into a smile; “but when the brain has become confused by the fumes of wine ascending from the stomach, intoxication is liable to ensue, and the faculties by no means continue qualified to discriminate, either in matters of taste or of science.”
“And yet your ode partook largely of both,” observed Lawton, suffering no part of him to smile but his eyes.
“Ode is by no means a proper term for the composition,” said Sitgreaves. “I should rather term it a classical ballad.”
“Very probably,” said the trooper; “hearing only one verse, it was difficult to affix a name to it.”
The surgeon involuntarily hem’d, and began to clear his throat, although by no means conscious himself to what the preparation tended. But the captain rolling his dark eye towards his companion, and observing him to be sitting with great uneasiness on his horse, continued--
“The air is still, and the road solitary--why not give me the remainder--it might correct the bad taste you accuse me of possessing, to hear it.”
“Oh! my dear John, if I thought it would correct the errors you have imbibed, from habit and indulgence, nothing could give me more pleasure.”
“Try; we are fast approaching some rocks on our left--the echo from them, I should think, must be delightful.”
Thus encouraged, and somewhat impelled by the opinion that he both sung and wrote with exquisite taste, the surgeon set about complying with the request in sober earnest. After carefully removing his spectacles from his eyes, and wiping the glasses, they were replaced with the utmost accuracy and precision; his wig was adjusted to his head with mathematical symmetry, and his voice being cleared by various efforts until at length its melody pleased the exquisite sensibility of his own ear--then, to the no small delight of the trooper, he begun anew the ditty of the preceding evening. But whether it was that his steed became enlivened by the notes of his master, or that he caught a disposition to trot from Lawton’s charger, the surgeon had not concluded his second verse, before his tones vibrated in regular cadence to the rise and fall of his own body on the saddle. Notwithstanding this somewhat inharmonious interruption, Sitgreaves resolutely persevered, until he had got through with the following words--
“Hast thou ever felt love’s dart, dearest,
Or breathed his trembling sigh-- Thought him afar, was ever nearest
Before that sparkling eye? Then hast thou known what ’tis to feel
The pain that Galen could not heal.
Hast thou ever known shame’s blush, dearest,
Or felt its thrilling smart Suffuse thy cheek, like marble, clearest,
As Damon read thy heart? Then, silly girl, thou’st blush’d to own
A pain that Harvey e’en has known.
But for each pain of thine, dearest,
Or smart of keen love’s wound, For all that, foolish maid, thou fearest,
An antidote is found. And mighty Hymen’s art can heal
Each wound that youthful lovers feel.
Hast thou ever”--
“Hush!” interrupted the trooper; “what rustling noise is that, among the rocks?”
“The echo.--
“Hast thou ever”--
“Listen,” said Lawton, stopping his horse. He had not done speaking when a stone fell at his feet, and rolled harmlessly across the path.
“A friendly shot, that,” cried the trooper, “neither the weapon, nor its force, implies much ill will towards us.”
“Blows from stones seldom produce more than contusions,” said the operator, bending his gaze in every direction in vain, in quest of the hand from which the missile had been hurled; “it must be meteoric--there is no living being in sight, except ourselves.”
“It would be easy to hide a regiment behind those rocks,” returned the trooper, dismounting, and taking the stone in his hand,--“Oh! here is the explanation, along with the mystery.” So saying, he tore a piece of paper that had been ingeniously fastened to the small fragment of rock which had thus singularly fallen before him, and opening it, the captain read the following words written in no very legible hand.
“A musket bullet will go farther than a stone, and things more dangerous than yarbs for wounded men, lie hid in the rocks of West-Chester. The steed may be good, but can he
mount a precipice?”
“Thou sayest the truth, strange man,” said Lawton: “courage and activity would avail but little against assassination, and these rugged passes.” Remounting his horse, he cried aloud-- “Thanks, unknown friend--your caution will be remembered, and it shall never be forgotten that all my enemies are not merciless.”
A meagre hand was extended for an instant over a rock, waving in the air, and afterwards nothing further was seen or heard by the soldiers.
“Quite an extraordinary interruption,” said the astonished operator, “and a letter of a very mysterious meaning.”
“Oh! ’tis nothing but the wit of some bumpkin who thinks to frighten two of the Virginians by an artifice of this kind,” said the trooper, placing the billet in his pocket; “but let me tell you, Mr. Archibald Sitgreaves, you were wanting to dissect just now, a damn’d honest fellow.”
“It was the pedlar--one of the most notorious spies in the enemy’s service,” returned the other; “and I must say, that I think it an honour to such a man to be devoted to the use of science.”
“He may be a spy--he must be one,” said Lawton, musing; “but he has a heart above enmity, and a soul that would honour a gallant soldier.”
The surgeon turned an inquiring eye on his companion as he uttered this soliloquy, while the penetrating looks of the trooper had already discovered another pile of rocks, which jutting forward, nearly obstructed the highway that wound directly around its base.
“What the steed cannot mount, the foot of man can overcome,” exclaimed the wary partisan. Throwing himself again from his saddle, and leaping a wall of stone, he began to ascend the hill at a place which would soon have given him a birds’ eye view of the rocks in question, together with all their crevices. This movement was no sooner made than Lawton caught a glimpse of the figure of a man stealing rapidly from his approach, and disappearing on the opposite side of the precipice.
The Spy, Volume 2 Page 4