The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (top ebook reader TXT) 📖

telling how much good you might do a set of reprobates like us, in a few words. Here, mount this horseblock, and take your text where you please.”

The men now gathered in eager delight around the peddler, who, glancing his eye expressively towards the captain, who had been suffered to mount, replied,—

“Doubtless, for such is my duty. But, Caesar, you can ride up the road and deliver the note—the unhappy prisoner will be wanting the book, for his hours are numbered.”

“Aye, aye, go along, Caesar, and get the book,” shouted half a dozen voices, all crowding eagerly around the ideal priest, in anticipation of a frolic.

The peddler inwardly dreaded, that, in their unceremonious handling of himself and garments, his hat and wig might be displaced, when detection would be certain; he was therefore fain to comply with their request. Ascending the horseblock, after hemming once or twice, and casting several glances at the captain, who continued immovable, he commenced as follows:—

“I shall call your attention, my brethren, to that portion of Scripture which you will find in the second book of Samuel, and which is written in the following words:—‘And the king lamented over Abner, and said. Died Abner as a fool dieth? Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters: as a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him.’ Caesar, ride forward, I say, and obtain the book as directed; thy master is groaning in spirit even now for the want of it.”

“An excellent text!” cried the dragoons. “Go on—go on—let the snowball stay; he wants to be edified as well as another.”

“What are you at there, scoundrels?” cried Lieutenant Mason, as he came in sight from a walk he had taken to sneer at the evening parade of the regiment of militia. “Away with every man of you to your quarters, and let me find that each horse is cleaned and littered, when I come round.” The sound of the officer’s voice operated like a charm, and no priest could desire a more silent congregation, although he might possibly have wished for one that was more numerous. Mason had not done speaking, when it was reduced to the image of Caesar only. The peddler took that opportunity to mount, but he had to preserve the gravity of his movements, for the remark of the troopers upon the condition of their beasts was but too just, and a dozen dragoon horses stood saddled and bridled at hand, ready to receive their riders at a moment’s warning.

“Well, have you bitted the poor fellow within,” said Mason, “that he can take his last ride under the curb of divinity, old gentleman?”

“There is evil in thy conversation, profane man,” cried the priest, raising his hands and casting his eyes upwards in holy horror; “so I will depart from thee unhurt, as Daniel was liberated from the lions’ den.”

“Off with you, for a hypocritical, psalm-singing, canting rogue in disguise,” said Mason scornfully. “By the life of Washington! it worries an honest fellow to see such voracious beasts of prey ravaging a country for which he sheds his blood. If I had you on a Virginia plantation for a quarter of an hour, I’d teach you to worm the tobacco with the turkeys.”

“I leave you, and shake the dust off my shoes, that no remnant of this wicked hole may tarnish the vestments of the godly.”

“Start, or I will shake the dust from your jacket, designing knave! A fellow to be preaching to my men! There’s Hollister put the devil in them by his exhorting; the rascals were getting too conscientious to strike a blow that would raze the skin. But hold! Whither do you travel, Master Blackey, in such godly company?”

“He goes,” said the minister, hastily speaking for his companion, “to return with a book of much condolence and virtue to the sinful youth above, whose soul will speedily become white, even as his outwards are black and unseemly. Would you deprive a dying man of the consolation of religion?”

“No, no, poor fellow, his fate is bad enough; a famous good breakfast his prim body of an aunt gave us. But harkee, Mr. Revelation, if the youth must die secundum arlem, let it be under a gentleman’s directions, and my advice is, that you never trust that skeleton of yours among us again, or I will take the skin off and leave you naked.”

“Out upon thee for a reviler and scoffer of goodness!” said Birch, moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the road, followed by the imaginary Caesar. “But I leave thee, and that behind me that will prove thy condemnation, and take from thee a hearty and joyful deliverance.”

“Damn him,” muttered the trooper. “The fellow rides like a stake, and his legs stick out like the cocks of his hat. I wish I had him below these hills, where the law is not over-particular, I’d——”

“Corporal of the guard!—corporal of the guard!” shouted the sentinel in the passage to the chambers, “corporal of the guard!—corporal of the guard!”

The subaltern flew up the narrow stairway that led to the room of the prisoner, and demanded the meaning of the outcry.

The soldier was standing at the open door of the apartment, looking in with a suspicious eye on the supposed British officer. On observing his lieutenant, he fell back with habitual respect, and replied, with an air of puzzled thought,—

“I don’t know, sir; but just now the prisoner looked queer. Ever since the preacher has left him, he don’t look as he used to do—but,” gazing intently over the shoulder of his officer, “it must be him, too! There is the same powdered head, and the darn in the coat, where he was hit the day we had the last brush with the enemy.”

“And then all this noise is occasioned by your doubting whether that poor gentleman is your prisoner, or not, is it, sirrah? Who the devil do you think it can be, else?”

“I don’t know who else it can be,” returned the fellow, sullenly; “but he has grown thicker and shorter, if it is he; and see for yourself, sir, he shakes all over, like a man in an ague.”

This was but too true. Caesar was an alarmed auditor of this short conversation, and, from congratulating himself upon the dexterous escape of his young master, his thoughts were very naturally beginning to dwell upon the probable consequences to his own person. The pause that succeeded the last remark of the sentinel, in no degree contributed to the restoration of his faculties. Lieutenant Mason was busied in examining with his own eyes the suspected person of the black, and Caesar was aware of the fact, by stealing a look through a passage under one of his arms, that he had left expressly for the purpose of reconnoitering. Captain Lawton would have discovered the fraud immediately, but Mason was by no means so quick-sighted as his commander. He therefore turned rather contemptuously to the soldier, and, speaking in an undertone, observed,

“That anabaptist, methodistical, quaker, psalm-singing rascal has frightened the boy, with his farrago about flames and brimstone. I’ll step in and cheer him with a little rational conversation.”

“I have heard of fear making a man white,” said the soldier, drawing back, and staring as if his eyes would start from their sockets, “but it has changed the royal captain to a black!”

The truth was, that Caesar, unable to hear what Mason uttered in a low voice, and having every fear aroused in him by what had already passed, incautiously removed the wig a little from one of his ears, in order to hear the better, without in the least remembering that its color might prove fatal to his disguise. The sentinel had kept his eyes fastened on his prisoner, and noticed the action. The attention of Mason was instantly drawn to the same object; and, forgetting all delicacy for a brother officer in distress, or, in short, forgetting everything but the censure that might alight on his corps, the lieutenant sprang forward and seized the terrified African by the throat; for no sooner had Caesar heard his color named, than he knew his discovery was certain; and at the first sound of Mason’s heavy boot on the floor, he arose from his seat, and retreated precipitately to a corner of the room.

“Who are you?” cried Mason, dashing the head of the old man against the angle of the wall at each interrogatory. “Who the devil are you, and where is the Englishman? Speak, thou thundercloud! Answer me, you jackdaw, or I’ll hang you on the gallows of the spy!”

Caesar continued firm. Neither the threats nor the blows could extract any reply, until the lieutenant, by a very natural transition in the attack, sent his heavy boot forward in a direction that brought it in direct contact with the most sensitive part of the negro—his shin. The most obdurate heart could not have exacted further patience, and Caesar instantly gave in. The first words he spoke were—

“Golly! massa, you t’ink I got no feelin’?”

“By heavens!” shouted the lieutenant, “it is the negro himself! Scoundrel! where is your master, and who was the priest?” While speaking, he made a movement as if about to renew the attack; but Caesar cried aloud for mercy, promising to tell all that he knew.

“Who was the priest?” repeated the dragoon, drawing back his formidable leg, and holding it in threatening suspense. “Harvey, Harvey!” cried Caesar, dancing from one leg to the other, as he thought each member in turn might be assailed.

“Harvey who, you black villain?” cried the impatient lieutenant, as he executed a full measure of vengeance by letting his leg fly.

“Birch!” shrieked Caesar, falling on his knees, the tears rolling in large drops over his shining face.

“Harvey Birch!” echoed the trooper, hurling the black from him, and rushing from the room. “To arms! to arms! Fifty guineas for the life of the peddler spy—give no quarter to either. Mount, mount! to arms! to horse!”

During the uproar occasioned by the assembling of the dragoons, who all rushed tumultuously to their horses, Caesar rose from the floor, where he had been thrown by Mason, and began to examine into his injuries. Happily for himself, he had alighted on his head, and consequently sustained no material damage.

[14] By “Eastern” is meant the states of New England, which, being originally settled by Puritans, still retain many distinct shades of character.