The Spy & Lionel Lincoln

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “He’s an honest divil, any way; as I was saying before, the guinea was pure. But then the sargeant thinks him amiss, and it’s no want of larning that Mister Hollister has.”

  “He’s a fool,” said Katy tartly. “Harvey might be a man of substance, were he not so disregardful. How often have I told him, that if he did nothing but peddle, and would put his gains to use, and get married, so that things at home could be kept within doors, and leave off his dealings with the rig’lars, and all incumberments, that he would soon be an excellent liver. Sargeant Hollister would be glad to hold a candle to him, indeed.”

  “Pooh!” said Betty, in her philosophical way; “yee’r no thinking that Mister Hollister is an officer, and stands next the cornet, in the troop. But this pedlar gave warning of the brush, the night, and it’s no sure, that Captain Jack would have got the day, but for the rinforcement.”

  “How say you, Betty,” cried the trooper, bending forward on his saddle, “had you notice of our danger from Birch?”

  “The very same, darling; and it’s hurry I was till the boys was in motion—not but I knew yee’r enough for the Cow-Boys, any time. But wi’d the divil on your side, I was sure of the day. I’m only wondering there’s so little plunder, in a business of Beelzeboob’s contriving.”

  “I’m obliged to you for the rescue, and equally indebted to the motive.”

  “Is it the plunder? But little did I think of it, till I saw the moveables on the ground, some burnt and some broke, and other some as good as new. It would be convanient to have one feather bed in the corps, any way.”

  “By heavens, ’twas timely succour! Had not Roanoke been swifter than their bullets, I must have fallen. The animal is worth his weight in gold.”

  “It’s continental you mane, darling. Goold weighs heavy, and is no plenty in the States. If the nagur had’nt been staying and frighting the sargeant with his copper-coloured looks, and a matter of blarney ’bout ghosts, we should have been in time to have killed all the dogs, and taken the rest prisoners.”

  “It is very well as it is, Betty,” said Lawton; “a day will yet come, I trust, when these miscreants shall be rewarded—if not in judgments upon their persons, at least in the opinions of their fellow citizens. The time must arrive when America will learn to distinguish between a patriot and a robber.”

  “Speak low,” said Katy; “there’s some who think much of themselves, that have doings with the Skinners.”

  “It’s more they are thinking of themselves then, than other people thinks of them,” cried Betty; “a tief’s a tief, any way; whether he stales for King George or for Congress.”

  “I know’d that evil would soon happen,” said Katy; “the sun set to-night behind a black cloud, and the house-dog whined, although I gave him his supper with my own hands; besides, it’s not a week sin I dreamed the dream about the thousand lighted candles, and the cakes being burnt in the oven.”

  “Well,” said Betty, “it’s but little I drame, any way—jist keep an asy conscience and a plenty of the stuff in yee, and yee’l sleep like an infant. The last drame I had was when the boys put the thistle-tops in the blankets, and then I was thinking that Captain Jack’s man was currying me down, for the matter of Roanoke: but it’s no trifle I mind either in skin or stomach.”

  “I’m sure,” said Katy, with a stiff erection that drew Lawton back in his saddle, “no man should ever dare to lay hands on bed of mine—it’s undecent and despisable conduct.”

  “Pooh! pooh!” cried Betty; “if you tag after a troop of horse, a small bit of a joke must be borne: what would become of the states and liberty if the boys had never a clane shirt or a drop to comfort them? Ask Captain Jack there, if they’d fight, Mrs. Beelzeboob, and they no clane linen to keep the victory in.”

  “I’m a single woman, and my name is Haynes,” said Katy, “and I’d thank you to use no disparaging terms when speaking to me.”

  “You must tolerate a little license in the tongue of Mrs. Flan­a­gan, madam,” said the trooper; “the drop she speaks of is often of an extraordinary size, and then she has acquired the freedom of a soldier’s manner.”

  “Pooh! captain, darling,” cried Betty, “why do you bother the woman—talk like yeerself, dear, and it’s no fool of a tongue that yee’ve got in yee’r own head. But it’s here away that the sargeant made a halt, thinking there might be more divils than one stirring, the night. The clouds are as black as Arnold’s heart, and deuce the star is there a twinkling among them. Well, the mare is used to a march after night-fall, and is smelling out the road like a pointer slut.”

  “It wants but little to the rising moon,” observed the trooper. He called a dragoon who was riding in advance, issued a few orders and cautions relative to the comfort and safety of Singleton, and speaking a consoling word to his friend himself, gave Roanoke the spur, and dashed by the cart, at a rate that again put to flight all the philosophy of Katharine Haynes.

  “Good luck to yee, for a free rider and a bold,” shouted the washerwoman, as he passed, “if yee’r meeting Mister Beelzeboob, jist back the baste up to him and show him his consort that yee’ve got on the crupper. I’m thinking it’s no long he’d tarry to chat. Well, well, it’s his life that we saved, he was saying so himself—though the plunder is nothing to signify.”

  The cries of Betty Flanagan were too familiar to the ears of Captain Lawton to elicit a reply. Notwithstanding the unusual burden that Roanoke sustained, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and the distance between the cart of Mrs. Flanagan and the chariot of Miss Peyton, was passed in a manner that, however it answered the intentions of the trooper, in no degree contributed to the comfort of his companion. The meeting occurred but a short distance from the quarters of Lawton, and at the same instant the moon broke from behind a mass of clouds, and threw its light upon objects.

  Compared with the simple elegance and substantial comfort of the “Locusts,” the “Hotel Flanagan” presented but a dreary spectacle. In the place of carpeted floors and curtained windows, were the yawning cracks of a rudely constructed dwelling, and boards and paper were ingeniously applied to supply the place of the green glass in more than half the lights. The care of Lawton had anticipated every improvement that their situation would allow, and blazing fires were made before the party arrived. The dragoons who had been charged with this duty, had conveyed a few necessary articles of furniture, and Miss Peyton and her companions on alighting, found something like habitable apartments prepared for their reception. The mind of Sarah had continued to wander during the ride, and, with the ingenuity of the insane, she accommodated every circumstance to the feelings that were uppermost in her own bosom.

  “It is impossible to minister to a mind that has sustained such a blow,” said Lawton to Isabella Singleton; “time and God’s mercy can alone cure it; but something more may be done towards the bodily comfort of all. You are a soldier’s daughter and used to scenes like this;—help me to exclude some of the cold air, from these windows.”

  Miss Singleton acceded to his request, and while Lawton was endeavouring from without to remedy the defect of broken panes, Isabella was arranging a substitute, for a curtain, within.

  “I hear the cart,” said the trooper, in reply to one of her interrogatories. “Betty is tender-hearted in the main; believe me, poor George will not only be safe but comfortable.”

  “God bless her, for her care, and bless you all,” said Isabella fervently. “Dr. Sitgreaves has gone down the road to meet him, I know—what is that glittering, in the moon?”

  Directly opposite the window where they stood, were the out-buildings of the farm, and the quick eye of Lawton caught at a glance the object to which she alluded.

  “’Tis the glare of fire-arms,” said the trooper, springing from the window towards his charger, which yet remained caparisoned at the door. His movement was quick as thought, but a flash of fire was followed by t
he whistling of a bullet, before he had proceeded a step. A loud shriek burst from the dwelling, and the captain sprang into his saddle—the whole was the business of but a moment.

  “Mount—mount, and follow!” shouted the trooper, and before his astonished men could understand the cause of alarm, Roanoke had carried him in safety over the fence which lay between him and his foe. The chase was for life or death, but the distance to the rocks was again too short, and the disappointed trooper saw his intended victim vanish in their clefts where he could not follow.

  “By the life of Washington!” muttered Lawton, as he sheathed his sabre, “I would have made two halves of him, had he not been so nimble on the foot—but a time will come!” So saying, he returned to his quarters with the indifference of a man who knew his life was at any moment to be offered a sacrifice to his country. An extraordinary tumult in the house induced him to quicken his speed, and on arriving at the door, the panic-stricken Katy informed him that, the bullet, aimed at his own life, had taken effect in the bosom of Miss Singleton.

  Chapter XXIV

  “Hush’d were his Gertrude’s lips! but still their bland

  And beautiful expression seem’d to melt

  With love that could not die! and still his hand

  She presses to the heart no more that felt.”

  Gertrude of Wyoming.

  * * *

  THE BRIEF arrangements of the dragoons had prepared two apartments for the reception of the ladies, the one being intended as a sleeping room and situated within the other. Into the latter, Isabella was immediately conveyed at her own request, and placed on a rude bed, by the side of the unconscious Sarah. When Miss Peyton and Frances flew to her assistance, they found her with a smile on her pallid lip, and a composure in her countenance, that induced them to think her uninjured.

  “God be praised,” exclaimed the trembling aunt; “the report of fire-arms, and your fall, had led me into an error. Surely, surely, there was enough of horror before, but this has been spared us.”

  Isabella pressed her hand upon her bosom, still smiling, but with a ghastliness that curdled the blood of Frances—

  “Is George far distant?” she asked. “Let him know—hasten him, that I may see my brother, once again.”

  “It is as I apprehended!” shrieked Miss Peyton; “but you smile—surely you are not hurt!”

  “Quite well—quite happy,” murmured Isabella; “here is a remedy for every pain.”

  Sarah arose from the reclining posture she had taken, and gazed wildly at her companion. She stretched forth her own hand, and raised that of Isabella from her bosom. It was dyed in blood.

  “See,” said Sarah, “but will it not wash away love! Marry, young woman, and then no one can expel him from your heart, unless,” she added, whispering and bending over the other, “you find another there before you—then die and go to heaven—there are no wives in heaven.”

  The lovely maniac hid her face under the clothes, and continued silent during the remainder of the night. At this moment Lawton entered. Inured as he was to danger in all its forms, and accustomed to the horrors of a partisan war, the trooper could not behold the ruin before him unmoved. He bent over the fragile form of Isabella, and his gloomy eye betrayed the workings of his soul.

  “Isabella,” he at length uttered, “I know you to possess a courage beyond the strength of women.”

  “Speak,” she said earnestly, “if you have any thing to say, speak fearlessly.”

  The trooper averted his face as he replied—“none ever receive a ball there, and survive.”

  “I have no dread of death, Lawton,” returned Isabella—“I thank you for not doubting me; I felt it, from the first.”

  “These are not scenes for a form like yours,” added the trooper; “’tis enough that Britain calls our youth to the field, but when such loveliness becomes the victim of war, I sicken of my trade.”

  “Hear me, Captain Lawton,” said Isabella, raising herself with difficulty, but rejecting aid; “from early womanhood to the present hour have I been an inmate of camps and garrisons. I have lived to cheer the leisure of an aged father, and think you I would change those days of danger and privation for any ease. No! I have the consolation of knowing in my dying moments, that what woman could do in such a cause, I have done.”

  “Who could prove a recreant and witness such a spirit! Hundreds of warriors have I witnessed in their blood, but never a firmer soul among them all!”

  “’Tis the soul only,” said Isabella; “my sex and strength have denied me the dearest of privileges.—But to you, Captain Lawton, nature has been more bountiful: you have an arm and a heart to devote to the cause; and I know they are an arm and a heart that will prove true to the last. And George—and—” she paused, her lip quivered, and her eye sunk to the floor.

  “And Dunwoodie!” added the trooper; “would you speak of Dunwoodie?”

  “Name him not,” said Isabella, sinking back, and concealing her face in her garments; “leave me, Lawton, prepare poor George for this unexpected blow.”

  The trooper continued for a little while gazing in melancholy interest at the convulsive shudderings of her frame, which the scanty covering could not conceal, and withdrew to meet his comrade. The interview between Singleton and his sister was painful, and for a moment Isabella yielded to a burst of tenderness; but, as if aware that her hours were numbered, she was the first to rouse herself to exertion. At her earnest request the room was left to herself, the captain, and Frances. The repeated applications of the surgeon to be permitted to use professional aid were steadily rejected, and, at length, he was obliged unwillingly to retire.

  “Raise me,” said the dying young woman, “and let me look on a face that I love, once more.” Frances silently complied, and Isabella turned her eyes in sisterly affection upon George—“It matters but little, my brother—a few hours must close the scene.”

  “Live Isabella, my sister, my only sister!” cried the youth with a burst of sorrow that he could not control; “my father! my poor father—”

  “There is the sting of death; but he is a soldier and a christian—Miss Wharton I would speak of what interests you, while yet I have strength for the task.”

  “Nay,” said Frances tenderly, “compose yourself—let no desire to oblige me endanger a life that is precious to—to—so many.” The words were nearly stifled by her emotions for the other had touched a chord that thrilled to her heart.

  “Poor, sensitive girl,” said Isabella, regarding her with tender interest; “but the world is still before you, and why should I disturb the little happiness it may afford!—dream on lovely innocent! and may God keep the evil day of knowledge far distant.”

  “Oh, there is even now little left for me to enjoy,” said Frances, burying her face in the clothes; “I am heart-stricken, in all that I most love.”

  “No!” interrupted Isabella; “You have one inducement to wish for life that pleads strongly in a woman’s breast. It is a delusion that nothing but death can destroy—” Exhaustion compelled her to pause, and her auditors continued in breathless suspense until, recovering her strength, she laid her hand on that of Frances, and continued more mildly—“Miss Wharton, if there breathes a spirit congenial to Dunwoodie’s, and worthy of his love, it is your own.”

  A flush of fire passed over the face of the listener, and she raised her eyes flashing with an ungovernable look of delight to the countenance of Isabella; but the ruin she beheld recalled better feelings, and again her head dropped upon the covering of the bed. Isabella watched her emotions with a look that partook both of pity and admiration.

  “Such have been the feelings that I have escaped,” she continued; “yes, Miss Wharton, Dunwoodie is wholly yours.”

  “Be just to yourself, my sister,” exclaimed the youth; “let no romantic generosity cause you to forget your own character.”


  She heard him, and fixed a gaze of tender interest on his face, but slowly shook her head as she replied—

  “It is not romance, but truth that bids me speak. Oh! how much have I lived within an hour! Miss Wharton, I was born under a burning sun, and my feelings seem to have imbibed its warmth—I have existed for passion, only.”

  “Say not so—say not so, I implore you,” cried the agitated brother; “think how devoted has been your love to our aged father—how disinterested, how tender your affection for me.”

  “Yes,” said Isabella, a smile of mild pleasure beaming on her countenance; “that, at least, is a reflection which may be taken to the grave.”

  Neither Frances, nor her brother, interrupted her meditations, which continued for several minutes; when, suddenly recollecting herself, she continued—

  “I remain selfish even to the last; with me, Miss Wharton, America and her liberties was my earliest passion, and—” again she paused, and Frances thought it was the struggle of death that followed; but reviving, she proceeded—“Why should I hesitate, on the brink of the grave! Dunwoodie was my next and my last. But,” burying her face in her hands, “it was a love that was unsought.”

  “Isabella!” exclaimed her brother, springing from the bed, and pacing the floor in disorder.

  “See how dependent we become under the dominion of worldly pride; it is painful to George to learn that one he loves, had not feelings superior to her nature and education.”

  “Say no more,” whispered Frances; “you distress us both—say no more, I entreat you.”

  “In justice to Dunwoodie I must speak; and for the same reason, my brother, you must listen. By no act or word has Dunwoodie ever induced me to believe, he wished me more than a friend—nay—latterly, I have had the burning shame of thinking that he avoided my presence.”

  “Would he dare!” said Singleton fiercely.