The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (english reading book .txt) 📗
- Author: James Fenimore Cooper
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Mr. Wharton turned in consternation, and saw some of the recent purchases scattered about the room.
The two subalterns struggled to conceal their smiles; but the captain resumed his breakfast with an eagerness that created a doubt, whether he ever expected to enjoy another. The necessity of a supply from the dominion of Dinah soon, however, afforded another respite, of which Lawton availed himself.
“I had a wish to break this Mr. Birch of his unsocial habits, and gave him a call this morning,” he said. “Had I found him within, I should have placed him where he would enjoy life in the midst of society, for a short time at least.”
“And where might that be, sir?” asked Mr. Wharton, conceiving it necessary to say something.
“The guardroom,” said the trooper, dryly.
“What is the offense of poor Birch?” asked Miss Peyton, handing the dragoon a fourth dish of coffee.
“Poor!” cried the captain. “If he is poor, King George is a bad paymaster.”
“Yes, indeed,” said one of the subalterns, “his Majesty owes him a dukedom.”
“And congress a halter,” continued the commanding officer commencing anew on a fresh supply of the cakes.
“I am sorry,” said Mr. Wharton, “that any neighbor of mine should incur the displeasure of our rulers.”
“If I catch him,” cried the dragoon, while buttering another cake, “he will dangle from the limbs of one of his namesakes.”
“He would make no bad ornament, suspended from one of those locusts before his own door,” added the lieutenant.
“Never mind,” continued the captain; “I will have him yet before I’m a major.”
As the language of the officers appeared to be sincere, and such as disappointed men in their rough occupations are but too apt to use, the Whartons thought it prudent to discontinue the subject. It was no new intelligence to any of the family, that Harvey Birch was distrusted and greatly harassed by the American army. His escapes from their hands, no less than his imprisonments, had been the conversation of the country in too many instances, and under circumstances of too great mystery, to be easily forgotten. In fact, no small part of the bitterness expressed by Captain Lawton against the peddler, arose from the unaccountable disappearance of the latter, when intrusted to the custody of two of his most faithful dragoons.
A twelvemonth had not yet elapsed, since Birch had been seen lingering near the headquarters of the commander in chief, and at a time when important movements were expected hourly to occur. So soon as the information of this fact was communicated to the officer whose duty it was to guard the avenues of the American camp, he dispatched Captain Lawton in pursuit of the peddler.
Acquainted with all the passes of the hills, and indefatigable in the discharge of his duty, the trooper had, with much trouble and toil, succeeded in effecting his object. The party had halted at a farmhouse for the purposes of refreshment, and the prisoner was placed in a room by himself, but under the keeping of the two men before mentioned; all that was known subsequently is, that a woman was seen busily engaged in the employments of the household near the sentinels, and was particularly attentive to the wants of the captain, until he was deeply engaged in the employments of the supper table.
Afterwards, neither woman nor peddler was to be found. The pack, indeed, was discovered open, and nearly empty, and a small door, communicating with a room adjoining to the one in which the peddler had been secured, was ajar.
Captain Lawton never could forgive the deception; his antipathies to his enemies were not very moderate, but this was adding an insult to his penetration that rankled deeply. He sat in portentous silence, brooding over the exploit of his prisoner, yet mechanically pursuing the business before him, until, after sufficient time had passed to make a very comfortable meal, a trumpet suddenly broke on the ears of the party, sending its martial tones up the valley, in startling melody. The trooper rose instantly from the table, exclaiming,—
“Quick, gentlemen, to your horses; there comes Dunwoodie,” and, followed by his officers, he precipitately left the room.
With the exception of the sentinels left to guard Captain Wharton, the dragoons mounted, and marched out to meet their comrades.
None of the watchfulness necessary in a war, in which similarity of language, appearance, and customs rendered prudence doubly necessary, was omitted by the cautious leader. On getting sufficiently near, however, to a body of horse of more than double his own number, to distinguish countenances, Lawton plunged his rowels into his charger, and in a moment he was by the side of his commander.
The ground in front of the cottage was again occupied by the horse; and observing the same precautions as before, the newly arrived troops hastened to participate in the cheer prepared for their comrades.
And let conquerors boast
Their fields of fame—he who in virtue arms
A young warm spirit against beauty’s charms,
Who feels her brightness, yet defies her thrall,
Is the best, bravest conqueror of them all.
—MOORE.
The ladies of the Wharton family had collected about a window, deeply interested in the scene we have related.
Sarah viewed the approach of her countrymen with a smile of contemptuous indifference; for she even undervalued the personal appearance of men whom she thought arrayed in the unholy cause of rebellion. Miss Peyton looked on the gallant show with an exulting pride, which arose in the reflection that the warriors before her were the chosen troops of her native colony; while Frances gazed with a singleness of interest that absorbed all other considerations.
The two parties had not yet joined, before her quick eye distinguished one horseman in particular from those around him. To her it appeared that even the steed of this youthful soldier seemed to be conscious that he sustained the weight of no common man: his hoofs but lightly touched the earth, and his airy tread was the curbed motion of a blooded charger.
The dragoon sat in the saddle, with a firmness and ease that showed him master of himself and horse,—his figure uniting the just proportions of strength and activity, being tall, round, and muscular. To this officer Lawton made his report, and, side by side, they rode into the field opposite to the cottage.
The heart of Frances beat with a pulsation nearly stifling, as he paused for a moment, and took a survey of the building, with an eye whose dark and sparkling glance could be seen, notwithstanding the distance. Her color changed, and for an instant, as she saw the youth throw himself from the saddle, she was compelled to seek relief for her trembling limbs in a chair.
The officer gave a few hasty orders to his second in command, walked rapidly into the lawn, and approached the cottage. Frances rose from her seat, and vanished from the apartment. The dragoon ascended the steps of the piazza, and had barely time to touch the outer door, when it opened to his admission.
The youth of Frances, when she left the city, had prevented her sacrificing, in conformity to the customs of that day, all her native beauties on the altar of fashion. Her hair, which was of a golden richness of color, was left, untortured, to fall in the natural ringlets of infancy, and it shaded a face which was glowing with the united charms of health, youth, and artlessness; her eyes spoke volumes, but her tongue was silent; her hands were interlocked before her, and, aided by her taper form, bending forward in an attitude of expectation, gave a loveliness and an interest to her appearance, that for a moment chained her lover in silence to the spot.
Frances silently led the way into a vacant parlor, opposite to the one in which the family were assembled, and turning to the soldier frankly, placing both her hands in his own, exclaimed,—
“Ah, Dunwoodie! how happy, on many accounts, I am to see you! I have brought you in here, to prepare you to meet an unexpected friend in the opposite room.”
“To whatever cause it may be owing,” cried the youth, pressing her hands to his lips, “I, too, am happy in being able to see you alone. Frances, the probation you have decreed is cruel; war and distance may separate us forever.”
“We must submit to the necessity which governs us. But it is not love speeches I would hear now; I have other and more important matter for your attention.”
“What can be of more importance than to make you mine by a tie that will be indissoluble! Frances, you are cold to me—me—from whose mind, days of service and nights of alarm have never been able to banish your image for a single moment.”
“Dear Dunwoodie,” said Frances, softening nearly to tears, and again extending her hand to him, as the richness of her color gradually returned, “you know my sentiments—this war once ended, and you may take that hand forever—but I can never consent to tie myself to you by any closer union than already exists, so long as you are arrayed in arms against my only brother. Even now, that brother is awaiting your decision to restore him to liberty, or to conduct him to a probable death.”
“Your brother!” cried Dunwoodie, starting and turning pale; “your brother! explain yourself—what dreadful meaning is concealed in your words?”
“Has not Captain Lawton told you of the arrest of Henry by himself this very morning?” continued Frances, in a voice barely audible, and fixing on her lover a look of the deepest concern.
“He told me of arresting a captain of the 60th in disguise, but without mentioning where or whom,” replied the major in a similar tone; and dropping his head between his hands, he endeavored to conceal his feelings from his companion.
“Dunwoodie! Dunwoodie!” exclaimed Frances, losing all her former confidence in the most fearful apprehensions, “what means this agitation?” As the major slowly raised his face, in which was pictured the most expressive concern, she continued, “Surely, surely, you will not betray your friend—my brother—your brother—to an ignominious death.”
“Frances!” exclaimed the young man in agony, “what can I do?”
“Do!” she repeated, gazing at him wildly. “Would Major Dunwoodie yield his friend to his enemies—the brother of his betrothed wife?”
“Oh, speak not so unkindly to me, dearest Miss Wharton—my own Frances. I would this moment die for you—for Henry—but I cannot forget my duty—cannot forfeit my honor; you yourself would be the first to despise me if I did.”
“Peyton Dunwoodie!” said Frances, solemnly, and with a face of ashy paleness, “you have told me—you have sworn, that you love me——”
“I do,” interrupted the soldier, with fervor; but motioning for silence she continued, in a voice that trembled with her fears,—
“Do you think I can throw myself into the arms of a man whose hands are stained with the blood of my only brother!”
“Frances, you wring my very heart!” Then pausing, to struggle with his feelings, he endeavored to force a smile, as he added, “But, after all, we may be torturing ourselves with unnecessary fears, and Henry, when I know the circumstances, may be nothing more than a prisoner of war; in which case, I can liberate him on parole.”
There is no more delusive passion than hope; and it seems to be the happy privilege of youth to cull all the pleasures that can be gathered from its indulgence. It is when we are most worthy of confidence ourselves, that we are least apt to distrust others; and what we think ought to be, we are prone to think will be.
The half-formed expectations of the young soldier were communicated to the desponding sister, more by the eye than the voice, and the blood rushed again to her cheek, as she cried,—
“Oh, there can be no just grounds to doubt it. I know—I knew—Dunwoodie, you would never desert us in the hour of our greatest need!” The violence of her feelings prevailed, and the agitated girl found relief in a flood of tears.
The office of consoling those we love is one of the dearest prerogatives of affection; and Major Dunwoodie, although but little encouraged by his own momentary suggestion of relief, could not undeceive the lovely girl, who leaned on his shoulder, as he wiped the traces of her feeling from her face, with a trembling, but reviving confidence in the safety of her brother, and the protection of her lover.
Frances, having sufficiently recovered her recollection to command herself, now eagerly led the way to the opposite room, to communicate to her family the pleasing intelligence which she already conceived so
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