Eliot, after securing a “sleeping privilege” for Kisel, received from our friend Coit the best unoccupied blanket and pillow the house afforded; and giving his fellow-lodgers, in seamen’s phrase, the best berth the width of the room admitted, 195he was soon lost in the deep refreshing sleep compounded of youth, health, and a good conscience.
Our host was left to his own musings, which, as he fixed his eye on Eliot’s fine face, marked with nature’s aristocracy, were somewhat in the following strain:—“‘Not of the born quality!’—hum—well, he has that that is quality in the eye of God, I guess. How he looked after his dumb beast, and this poor creater here, that seems not to have the wit of a brute; he’s had the bringing up of a gentleman, any how. I see it in his bearing, his speech, his voice. Well, I guess my children will live to see the day when the like of him will be the only gentlemen in the land. The Almighty must furnish the material, but the forming, polishing, and currency, must be the man’s own doings; not his father’s, or grandfather’s, or the Lord knows who.”
While Coit pursues his meditations, destined soon to be roughly broken, we offer our readers some extracts from a letter which fortunately has fallen into our hands, to authenticate our veritable history. It was written by Mrs. Archer, of Beech Hill, to her niece, Isabella Linwood.
“No, no, my dear Belle, I cannot remove to the city—it must not be; and I am sorry the question is again mooted. ‘A woman, and naturally born to fears,’ I may be; but because I have that in convenient inheritance, I see no reason why I should cherish and augment it. Your imagination, which is rather an active agent, has magnified the terrors of the times; and it seems just now to be unduly excited by the monstrous tales circulated in the city, of the atrocities the Yankees have committed on the tories. I see in Rivington’s Gazette, which you wrapped around the sugarplums that you sent the children (thank you), various precious anecdotes of Yankee tigers and tory lambs, forsooth! that are just about as true as the tales of giants and ogres with which your childhood was edified. The Yankees are a civilized 196race, and never, God bless them! commit gratuitous cruelties. If they still ‘see it to be duty’ (to quote their own Puritan phrase), they will cling to this contest till they have driven the remnant of your Israel, Belle, every tory and Englishman, from the land; but they will commit no episodical murders: it is only the ignorant man that is unnecessarily cruel. They are an instructed, kind-hearted, Christian people; and of this there will be abundant proof while the present war is remembered. Remember, Belle, these people have unadulterated English blood in their veins, which to you should be a prevailing argument in their favour; and believe me, they have a fair portion of the spirit of their freedom-loving and all-daring ancestors. Our English mother, God bless her, too, should have known better than to trammel, scold, and try to whip her sons into obedience, when they had come to man’s estate, and were fit to manage their own household. Thank Heaven, I have outlived the prejudices against the people of New-England which my father transmitted to his children. ‘There they come,’ he used to say, when he saw these busy people driving into the manor; ‘every snow brings them, and, d—n them, every thaw too!’
“What a pander to ignorance and malignity is this same prejudice, Belle! How it disturbs the sweet accords of nature, sacrilegiously severs the bonds by which God has united man to man, and breaks the human family into parties and sects! How it clouds the intellect and infects the heart with its earthborn vapours; so that the Englishman counts it virtue to scorn the American, and the true American cherishes a hatred of the Englishman. Our generous friends in the south look with contempt on the provident, frugal sons of the Puritans; and they, blinded in their turn, can see nothing but the swollen pride of slave-owners and hard-heartedness of slave-drivers in their brethren of the south. Even you, dear Belle, have not escaped this atmospheric influence. After a general denunciation of the rebels, as you term the country’s troops, you say, in the letter now before 197me, ‘of course, you have nothing to fear from the British regulars;’ and I reply, like the poor brute in the fable, ‘Heaven save me from my friends!’ The British soldiers are aliens to the soil; they have neither ‘built houses nor tilled lands’ here; and they cannot have the same kindly and home feeling that a native extends to the denizens of his own land. Besides, they are, for the most part, trained to the inhuman trade of war; and though I have all due respect for English blood, and know many of their officers to be most amiable and accomplished men, I never see a detachment of their troops, with their colours flying (and such often pass within sight of us), without a sudden coldness creeping over me. Then there are the Jagers and other mercenaries that our friends have brought over to fight out this family quarrel—is this right, Belle? You will suspect me of having turned whig—well, keep your suspicion to yourself. The truth is, that living isolated as I do, I have a fairer point of view than you, surrounded as you are by British officers and tories devoted to the royal cause, and to you, my beautiful niece, their elected sovereign.
“My only substantial fear, after all, is of the cowboys and skinners, more especially the last, who have done some desperate deeds in my neighbourhood. I have taken care to have it well known that I have sent all my plate and valuables to the city, and I hope and believe they will not pay me a visit. Should they, however, a widow and two blind children have little to dread from creatures who are made in the image of God, defaced as that image may be. Defenceless creatures have a fortress in every human heart. No, I repeat it, I cannot go to the city. You say I am afraid of the shackles of city life! I confess, that with my taste for freedom, and my long indulgence in it, they would be galling to me. I could, however, bear them without wincing to be near you, but my children, Belle—my blind children! my paramount duty is to them, and is prescribed and absolute. In the city they are continually reminded of their privation, and 198the kinder their friends the more manifold are the evidences of it; there they feel that they are merely objects of compassion, supernumeraries in the human family, who can only receive, not give. Here they have motives to exertions, dependants on their care. Their fruits and flowers, doves, rabbits, chickens, ducks, dogs, and kittens, live and thrive by them. Nature is to them a perpetual study and delight. I have just been walking with them over the hill behind my house. You remember the hill is fringed with beech-trees, and crowned by their superior forest brethren, the old tory oak, the legitimate sovereign by the grace of God; the courtier elm (albeit American!), that bows its graceful limbs to every breeze; the republican maple, that resists all hostility; and the evergreen pine, a loyalist—is it, Belle? well, be it so; it always wears the same coat, but they say its heart is not the soundest!—Pardon me, we fall so naturally into political allusions in these times.
“My children have learned so accurately to discriminate sounds, that as we walked over the hill, they made me observe the variations of sound when the breezes whispered among the light beech-leaves, when they stole through the dense masses of the maple foliage, fluttered over the pendent stems of the elm, rustled along the polished oak-leaves, and passed in soft musical sighs, like the lowest breath of the Æolian harp, over the bristled pines. Do you remember the lively little stream that dashes around the rear of this hill, and winding quietly through the meadow at its base, steals into the Hudson? They, in their rambles, unattended and fearless, have worn a footpath along the margin of this stream, and wherever there is a mossy rock, or fallen trunk of a tree, they may be seen tying up wild flowers, or the arm of each around the other, singing hymns and songs. I have seen men with hard features and rough hands arrested by the sound of their voices, and as they listened, the tears trickling down their weather-beaten faces. Can I fear for them, Belle? They both delight in gardening; they love none but 199flowers of sweet odour; no unperfumed flower, however beautiful, is tolerated; but the lawn, the borders of the walks, all their shady haunts, are enamelled with mignionette, violets, lilies of the valley, carnations, clove-pinks, and every sweet-breathed flower. The magnificent
view of the Hudson from the piazza they cannot see; but they have wreathed the pillars with honeysuckles and sweet-briers, and there they sit and enjoy the southwest breezes, the chief luxury of our climate. Could I pen them up in a city, where they will never walk into the fresh air but to be a spectacle, and where they must be utterly deprived of the ministration of nature through which God communes with their spirits? I am sure you will acquiesce in my decision, my dear Isabella. You need not try to convince your father of my rationality; the reasonableness of any woman is a contradiction in terms to him. Whatever may happen, your mother will not reproach me: she will only say again what she has so often said before, ‘that she expected it, poor sister Mary was always so odd.’ This letter is all about myself. I have anxieties too about you, but for the present I keep them to myself. The bright empyrean of hope is for youth to soar in, and your element shall not be invaded by croakings from the bogs of experience.
“Truly yours,
“Mary Archer.”
The same conveyance that transported this letter, so full of resolution and trust, to Isabella, carried her information of the events related in the next chapter.
201CHAPTER XVII.
“We are men, my liege.
“Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.”
Surprise has sometimes been expressed by our English friends who have travelled among us, that the Americans should cherish such lively recollections of the war that achieved their independence, when their countrymen had almost forgotten that such a contest ever existed. They seem to have forgotten, too, that while their part was enacted by soldiers by profession and foreign mercenaries, our battle was fought by our fathers, sons, and brothers; that while the scene of action was three thousand miles from them, it was in our home-lots and at our firesides; and above all, that while they fought for the preservation of colonial possessions, at best a doubtful good, we were contending for national independence—for the right and power to make the last and best experiment of popular government.
Such circumstances as it falls to our lot now to relate, are not easily forgotten; and such, or similar, occurred in some of the happiest homes of our land.
Mrs. Archer was quietly sleeping with her children, when she was awakened by unusual sounds in the room below her; and immediately her maid, who slept in the adjoining apartment, rushed in, crying out “that the house was full of men—she heard them on the stairs, in the parlour, hall, everywhere!”
202Mrs. Archer sprang from the bed, threw on her dressing-gown, bade the girl be quiet, and beware of frightening the children; and then, as they, startled by the noise, raised their heads from their pillows, she told them, in a calm and decidedly cheerful voice, that there were men in the house who she believed had come to rob it, but that they would neither do harm to them nor to her. She then ordered her maid to light the candles on the dressing-table, and again reassuring her trembling children, who had meanwhile crept to her side, she awaited the fearful visiters, whose footsteps she heard on the staircase.
A fierce-looking wretch burst into the apartment. The spectacle of the mother and her children arrested him, and he involuntarily doffed his cap. It was a moment for a painter, if he could calmly have surveyed the scene. The maid had shrunk behind her mistress’s chair, and kneeling there, had grasped her gown with both hands, as if there were safety in the touch. Poor little Lizzy’s face was hidden in her mother’s bosom, and her fair silken curls hung over her mother’s dark dressing-gown. Ned, at the sound of the opening door, turned his sightless eyeballs towards the villain. There was something manly and defying in his air and erect attitude, something protecting in the expression of his arm as he laid it over his sister, while the clinging of his other arm around his mother’s neck, indicated the defencelessness of childhood and his utter helplessness. Mrs. Archer had thrown aside her nightcap; her hair was twisted up in a sort of Madona style; but not of the tame Madona cast was her fine, spirited countenance, which blended the majesty of the ideal Minerva with the warmth and tenderness of the woman and mother.
The marauder, on entering, paid her, as we have said, an instinctive homage; but immediately recovering his accustomed insolence, he replied to her calm demand, of “what is your purpose?” “To get what we can, and keep what we 203get—my name is Hewson, which, if you’ve heard it, will be a warrant to you that I sha’n’t do my work by halves.”
The name of the skinner was too notorious not to have been heard by Mrs. Archer. Her blood ran cold, but she replied, without faltering, “Proceed to your work; the house is open to you, not a lock in your way. Abby, give him my purse off the dressing-table—there is all the money I have by me—now leave my room, I pray you.”
“Softly, mistress—catch old birds with chaff. First surrender your watch, plate, and jewels, which I take to be in this very room that you are so choice of.”
“My watch, plate, and jewels, are in New York.”
“The d—l they are!” Then emptying out and counting the gold and silver the purse contained, “this will never do,” he said—“this will not pay the reckoning—live and let live—every one to his trade.” He then proceeded, without further ceremony, to rip open beds and mattresses, emptied the contents of every box, trunk, and drawer, explored every corner and recess as adroitly as a trained dog would unearth his game, and seized on such light articles as attracted his eye, grumbling and swearing all the time at being cheated and out-manœuvred by a woman; for in this light he seemed to view the measures Mrs. Archer had taken to secure her valuables.
In this humour he rejoined his comrades in the dining-room; who he found, with the exception of a few dozen silver spoons and forks, had had an equally bootless search, and were now regaling themselves with cold meats, etc., from the pantry.
“Hey, boys—always after the provender before you’ve done your work.”
“There’s no work to be done, captain—we can’t carry off chairs and tables—so what’s the use of bothering? we’ve done our best, and nobody can do better.”
204“Your best—maybe, Pat—but your and my best are two. We shall have whigs, tories, and reg’lars at our heels for this flash in the pan.” He strided up and down the room, kicking out of his way whatever obstacle was in it, and muttering to himself a plan he was revolving: “Madam must turn out the shiners,” he concluded aloud.
“Ay, captain—but how’s the bird that won’t sing to be made to sing—she is a cunning old one, I’m thinking.”
“Old!—Time has never made a track on her yet—cunning she may be, but I don’t believe she lied to me—she seems high as the stars above that—but if she has not got the money, boys, she can get it—I’ll make her, too—I’ll wager your soul on that, Pat.”
“Wager your own, honey, that’s forfeit to the devil long ago.”
A little more time was wasted in similar retorts, well shotted, in their own phrase, with oaths, and washed down with plentiful draughts of wine, when the captain returned to Mrs. Archer’s apartment. “I say, mistress,” he began, his flushed face and thickened voice indicating she had fresh cause for alarm, “I say we can’t be choused—so if you want to save what’s choicer than money,” he shook his fist with a tiger-like expression at the children, “you must have two hundred guineas put under ground for me, on the north side of the big oak, at the bridge, and that before Saturday night; nobody to know it but you—no living soul but you and that gal there—no false play, remember. Come, strike while the iron’s hot, or we’ll say three hundred.”
Mrs. Archer reflected for a moment. She would have given a bond for any sum by which she could relieve herself of the presence of the outlaws. They had already produced such an effect on little Lizzy, a timid, susceptible creature, that she expected every moment to see her falling into convulsions; and with this dread each moment seemed an hour. 205She replied, that the money should, without fail, be placed in the appointed spot.
“That is not quite all, madam; I must have security. I know how the like of you
look on promises made to the like of me. I got a rope as good as round my neck by trusting to them once, and no thanks to them that I slipped it. I’ll clinch the nail this time—I’ll have security.”
“What security?” demanded Mrs. Archer, the colour for the first time forsaking her cheeks and lips; for by the ruffian’s glance, and a significant up and down motion of his head, she guessed his purpose.
“A pawn—I must have a pawn—one of them young ones. You need not screech and hold on so, you little fools. If you behave, I’ll not hurt a hair of your head. The minute I handle the money you shall have ’em back; but as sure as my name’s Sam Hewson, I’ll make ’em a dead carcass if you play me false.”
“You shall not touch my children—any thing else—ask all—take all—any thing but my children.”
“Take all!—ay, that we shall—all we can take; and as to asking, we mean to make sure of what we ask—‘a bird in the hand,’ mistress.”
“Oh, take my word, my oath—spare my children!”
“Words are breath, and oaths breath peppered. Your children are your life; and, one of them in our hands, our secret is as safe with you as with us—we’ve no time to chaffer—make one of them ready.”
“Oh, mother!—mother!” shrieked Lizzy, clinging round her mother’s waist.
“Hush, Lizzy—I’ll go,” said Edward.
“Neither shall go, my children—they shall take my life first.”
The outlaw had advanced with the intention of seizing one of them; but, awed by the resolution of the mother, or 206perhaps touched by the generosity of the boy, he paused and retreated, muttering to himself, “It’s a rough job—Pat shall do it.” He once more left the apartment and returned to his comrades.
A sudden thought occurred to Mrs. Archer; a faint hope dawned upon her. “Bring me the horn from the hall-table,” she said to her servant. The girl attempted to obey, but her limbs sunk under her. Mrs. Archer disengaged herself from the children, ran down the stairs, returned with the horn, threw open her window, and blew three pealing blasts. The outlaws were engaged in packing their spoil.
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