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- Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Book online «The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (top ebook reader TXT) 📖». Author James Fenimore Cooper
“’Tis not the will of God to call a soul so hastily to His presence,” said the peddler with solemnity.
“You speak truth,” said Dunwoodie; “and a few brief hours shall be added to your life. But as your offense is most odious to a soldier, so it will be sure to meet with the soldier’s vengeance. You die to-morrow.”
“’Tis as God wills.”
“I have spent many a good hour to entrap the villain,” said the Skinner, advancing a little from his corner, “and I hope you will give me a certificate that will entitle us to the reward; ’twas promised to be paid in gold.”
“Major Dunwoodie,” said the officer of the day, entering the room, “the patrols report a house to be burned near yesterday’s battle ground.”
“’Twas the hut of the peddler,” muttered the leader of the gang. “We have not left him a shingle for shelter; I should have burned it months ago, but I wanted his shed for a trap to catch the sly fox in.”
“You seem a most ingenious patriot,” said Lawton. “Major Dunwoodie, I second the request of this worthy gentleman, and crave the office of bestowing the reward on him and his fellows.”
“Take it; and you, miserable man, prepare for that fate which will surely befall you before the setting of to-morrow’s sun.”
“Life offers but little to tempt me with,” said Harvey, slowly raising his eyes, and gazing wildly at the strange faces in the apartment.
“Come, worthy children of America!” said Lawton, “follow, and receive your reward.”
The gang eagerly accepted the invitation, and followed the captain towards the quarters assigned to his troop. Dunwoodie paused a moment, from reluctance to triumph over a fallen foe, before he proceeded.
“You have already been tried, Harvey Birch; and the truth has proved you to be an enemy too dangerous to the liberties of America to be suffered to live.”
“The truth!” echoed the peddler, starting, and raising himself in a manner that disregarded the weight of his pack.
“Aye! the truth; you are charged with loitering near the continental army, to gain intelligence of its movements, and, by communicating them to the enemy, to enable him to frustrate the intentions of Washington.”
“Will Washington say so, think you?”
“Doubtless he would; even the justice of Washington condemns you.”
“No, no, no,” cried the peddler, in a voice and with a manner that startled Dunwoodie. “Washington can see beyond the hollow views of pretended patriots. Has he not risked his all on the cast of a die? If a gallows is ready for me, was there not one for him also? No, no, no, no—Washington would never say, ‘Lead him to a gallows.’”
“Have you anything, wretched man, to urge to the commander in chief why you should not die?” said the major, recovering from the surprise created by the manner of the other.
Birch trembled, for violent emotions were contending in his bosom. His face assumed the ghastly paleness of death, and his hand drew a box of tin from the folds of his shirt; he opened it, showing by the act that it contained a small piece of paper. On this document his eye was for an instant fixed—he had already held it towards Dunwoodie, when suddenly withdrawing his hand he exclaimed,—
“No—it dies with me. I know the conditions of my service, and will not purchase life with their forfeiture—it dies with me.”
“Deliver that paper, and you may possibly find favor,” cried Dunwoodie, expecting a discovery of importance to the cause.
“It dies with me,” repeated Birch, a flush passing over his pallid features, and lighting them with extraordinary brilliancy.
“Seize the traitor!” cried the major, “and wrest the secret from his hands.”
The order was immediately obeyed; but the movements of the peddler were too quick; in an instant he swallowed the paper. The officers paused in astonishment; but the surgeon cried eagerly,—
“Hold him, while I administer an emetic.”
“Forbear!” said Dunwoodie, beckoning him back with his hand. “If his crime is great, so will his punishment be heavy.”
“Lead on,” cried the peddler, dropping his pack from his shoulders, and advancing towards the door with a manner of incomprehensible dignity.
“Whither?” asked Dunwoodie, in amazement.
“To the gallows.”
“No,” said the major, recoiling in horror at his own justice. “My duty requires that I order you to be executed, but surely not so hastily; take until nine to-morrow to prepare for the awful change.”
Dunwoodie whispered his orders in the ear of a subaltern, and motioned to the peddler to withdraw. The interruption caused by this scene prevented further enjoyment around the table, and the officers dispersed to their several places of rest. In a short time the only noise to be heard was the heavy tread of the sentinel, as he paced the frozen ground in front of the Hotel Flanagan.
There are, whose changing lineaments
Express each guileless passion of the breast;
Where Love, and Hope, and tender-hearted Pity
Are seen reflected, as from a mirror’s face;
But cold experience can veil these hues
With looks, invented shrewdly to encompass
The cunning purposes of base deceit.
—Duo.
The officer to whose keeping Dunwoodie had committed the peddler transferred his charge to the custody of the regular sergeant of the guard. The gift of Captain Wharton had not been lost on the youthful lieutenant; and a certain dancing motion that had taken possession of objects before his eyes, gave him warning of the necessity of recruiting nature by sleep. After admonishing the noncommissioned guardian of Harvey to omit no watchfulness in securing the prisoner, the youth wrapped himself in his cloak, and, stretched on a bench before a fire, soon found the repose he needed. A rude shed extended the whole length of the rear of the building, and from off one of its ends had been partitioned a small apartment, that was intended as a repository for many of the lesser implements of husbandry. The lawless times had, however, occasioned its being stripped of everything of value; and the searching eyes of Betty Flanagan selected this spot, on her arrival, as the storehouse for her movables and a sanctuary for her person. The spare arms and baggage of the corps had also been deposited here; and the united treasures were placed under the eye of the sentinel who paraded the shed as a guardian of the rear of the headquarters. A second soldier, who was stationed near the house to protect the horses of the officers, could command a view of the outside of the apartment; and, as it was without window or outlet of any kind, excepting its door, the considerate sergeant thought this the most befitting place in which to deposit his prisoner until the moment of his execution. Several inducements urged Sergeant Hollister to this determination, among which was the absence of the washerwoman, who lay before the kitchen fire, dreaming that the corps was attacking a party of the enemy, and mistaking the noise that proceeded from her own nose for the bugles of the Virginians sounding the charge. Another was the peculiar opinions that the veteran entertained of life and death, and by which he was distinguished in the corps as a man of most exemplary piety and holiness of life. The sergeant was more than fifty years of age, and for half that period he had borne arms. The constant recurrence of sudden deaths before his eyes had produced an effect on him differing greatly from that which was the usual moral consequence of such scenes; and he had become not only the most steady, but the most trustworthy soldier in his troop. Captain Lawton had rewarded his fidelity by making him its orderly.
Followed by Birch, the sergeant proceeded in silence to the door of the intended prison, and, throwing it open with one hand, he held a lantern with the other to light the peddler to his prison. Seating himself on a cask, that contained some of Betty’s favorite beverage, the sergeant motioned to Birch to occupy another, in the same manner. The lantern was placed on the floor, when the dragoon, after looking his prisoner steadily in the face, observed,—
“You look as if you would meet death like a man; and I have brought you to a spot where you can tranquilly arrange your thoughts, and be quiet and undisturbed.”
“’Tis a fearful place to prepare for the last change in,” said Harvey, gazing around his little prison with a vacant eye.
“Why, for the matter of that,” returned the veteran, “it can reckon but little in the great account, where a man parades his thoughts for the last review, so that he finds them fit to pass the muster of another world. I have a small book here, which I make it a point to read a little in, whenever we are about to engage, and I find it a great strengthener in time of need.” While speaking, he took a Bible from his pocket, and offered it to the peddler. Birch received the volume with habitual reverence; but there was an abstracted air about him, and a wandering of the eye, that induced his companion to think that alarm was getting the mastery of the peddler’s feelings; accordingly, he proceeded in what he conceived to be the offices of consolation.
“If anything lies heavy on your mind, now is the best time to get rid of it—if you have done any wrong to anyone, I promise you, on the word of an honest dragoon, to lend you a helping hand to see them righted.”
“There are few who have not done so,” said the peddler, turning his vacant gaze once more on his companion.
“True—’tis natural to sin; but it sometimes happens that a man does what at other times he may be sorry for. One would not wish to die with any very heavy sin on his conscience, after all.”
Harvey had by this time thoroughly examined the place in which he was to pass the night, and saw no means of escape. But as hope is ever the last feeling to desert the human breast, the peddler gave the dragoon more of his attention, fixing on his sunburned features such searching looks, that Sergeant Hollister lowered his eyes before the wild expression which he met in the gaze of his prisoner.
“I have been taught to lay the burden of my sins at the feet of my
Savior,” replied the peddler.
“Why, yes—all that is well enough,” returned the other. “But justice should be done while there is opportunity. There have been stirring times in this country since the war began, and many have been deprived of their rightful goods I oftentimes find it hard to reconcile even my lawful plunder to a tender conscience.”
“These hands,” said the peddler, stretching forth his meager, bony fingers, “have spent years in toil, but not a moment in pilfering.”
“It is well that it is so,” said the honest-hearted soldier, “and, no doubt, you now feel it a great consolation. There are three great sins, that, if a man can keep his conscience clear of, why, by the mercy of God, he may hope to pass muster with the saints in heaven: they are stealing, murdering, and desertion.”
“Thank God!” said Birch, with fervor, “I have never yet taken the life of a fellow creature.”
“As to killing a man in lawful battle, that is no more than doing one’s duty. If the cause is wrong, the sin of such a deed, you know, falls on the nation, and a man receives his punishment here with the rest of the people; but murdering in cold blood stands next to desertion as a crime in the eye of God.”
“I never was a soldier, therefore never could desert,” said the peddler, resting his face on his hand in a melancholy attitude.
“Why, desertion consists of more than quitting your colors, though that is certainly the worst kind; a man may desert his country in the hour of need.”
Birch buried his face in both his hands, and his whole frame shook; the sergeant regarded him closely, but good feelings soon got the better of his antipathies, and he continued more mildly,—
“But still that is a sin which I think may be forgiven, if sincerely repented of; and it matters but little when or how a man dies, so that he dies like a Christian and a man. I recommend you to say your prayers, and then to get some rest, in order that you may do both. There is no hope of your being pardoned; for Colonel Singleton has sent down the most positive orders to take your life whenever we met you. No, no—nothing can save you.”
“You say the truth,” cried Birch. “It is now too late—I have destroyed my only safeguard. But he will do my
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