CHAPTER X
On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires, E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. --GRAY.
The possessions of Mr. Wharton extended to some distance on each side ofthe house in which he dwelt, and most of his land was unoccupied. A fewscattered dwellings were to be seen in different parts of his domains,but they were fast falling to decay, and were untenanted. The proximityof the country to the contending armies had nearly banished the pursuitsof agriculture from the land. It was useless for the husbandman todevote his time and the labor of his hands, to obtain overflowinggarners, that the first foraging party would empty. None tilled theearth with any other view than to provide the scanty means ofsubsistence, except those who were placed so near to one of the adverseparties as to be safe from the inroads of the light troops of the other.To these the war offered a golden harvest, more especially to such asenjoyed the benefits of an access to the royal army. Mr. Wharton did notrequire the use of his lands for the purposes of subsistence; and hewillingly adopted the guarded practice of the day, limiting hisattention to such articles as were soon to be consumed within his ownwalls, or could be easily secreted from the prying eyes of theforagers. In consequence, the ground on which the action was fought hadnot a single inhabited building, besides the one belonging to the fatherof Harvey Birch. This house stood between the place where the cavalryhad met, and that where the charge had been made on the partyof Wellmere.
To Katy Haynes it had been a day fruitful of incidents. The prudenthousekeeper had kept her political feelings in a state of rigidneutrality; her own friends had espoused the cause of the country, butthe maiden herself never lost sight of that important moment, when, likefemales of more illustrious hopes, she might be required to sacrificeher love of country on the altar of domestic harmony. And yet,notwithstanding all her sagacity, there were moments when the good womanhad grievous doubts into which scale she ought to throw the weight ofher eloquence, in order to be certain of supporting the cause favored bythe peddler. There was so much that was equivocal in his movements andmanner, that often, when, in the privacy of their household, she wasabout to offer a philippic on Washington and his followers, discretionsealed her mouth, and distrust beset her mind. In short, the wholeconduct of the mysterious being she studied was of a character todistract the opinions of one who took a more enlarged view of men andlife than came within the competency of his housekeeper.
The battle of the Plains had taught the cautious Washington theadvantages his enemy possessed in organization, arms, and discipline.These were difficulties to be mastered by his own vigilance and care.Drawing off his troops to the heights, in the northern part of thecounty, he had bidden defiance to the attacks of the royal army, and SirWilliam Howe fell back to the enjoyment of his barren conquest--adeserted city. Never afterwards did the opposing armies make the trialof strength within the limits of Westchester; yet hardly a day passed,that the partisans did not make their inroads; or a sun rise, that theinhabitants were spared the relation of excesses which the precedingdarkness had served to conceal. Most of the movements of the peddlerwere made at the hours which others allotted to repose. The evening sunwould frequently leave him at one extremity of the county, and themorning find him at the other. His pack was his never-failing companion;and there were those who closely studied him, in his moments of traffic,and thought his only purpose was the accumulation of gold. He would beoften seen near the Highlands, with a body bending under its load; andagain near the Harlem River, traveling with lighter steps, with his facetowards the setting sun. But these glances at him were uncertain andfleeting. The intermediate time no eye could penetrate. For months hedisappeared, and no traces of his course were ever known.
Strong parties held the heights of Harlem, and the northern end ofManhattan Island was bristling with the bayonets of the Englishsentinels, yet the peddler glided among them unnoticed and uninjured.His approaches to the American lines were also frequent; but generallyso conducted as to baffle pursuit. Many a sentinel, placed in the gorgesof the mountains, spoke of a strange figure that had been seen glidingby them in the mists of the evening. These stories reached the ears ofthe officers, and, as we have related, in two instances the trader hadfallen into the hands of the Americans. The first time he had escapedfrom Lawton, shortly after his arrest; but the second he was condemnedto die. On the morning of his intended execution, the cage was opened,but the bird had flown. This extraordinary escape had been made from thecustody of a favorite officer of Washington, and sentinels who had beenthought worthy to guard the person of the commander in chief. Briberyand treason could not be imputed to men so well esteemed, and theopinion gained ground among the common soldiery, that the peddler haddealings with the dark one. Katy, however, always repelled this opinionwith indignation; for within the recesses of her own bosom, thehousekeeper, in ruminating on the events, concluded that the evilspirit did not pay in gold. Nor, continued the wary spinster in hercogitations, does Washington; paper and promises were all that theleader of the American troops could dispense to his servants. After thealliance with France, when silver became more abundant in the country,although the scrutinizing eyes of Katy never let any opportunity ofexamining into the deerskin purse pass unimproved, she was never able todetect the image of Louis intruding into the presence of the well-knowncountenance of George III. In short, the secret hoard of Harveysufficiently showed in its contents that all its contributions had beenreceived from the British.
The house of Birch had been watched at different times by the Americans,with a view to his arrest, but never with success; the reputed spypossessing a secret means of intelligence, that invariably defeatedtheir schemes. Once, when a strong body of the continental army held theFour Corners for a whole summer, orders had been received fromWashington himself, never to leave the door of Harvey Birch unwatched.The command was rigidly obeyed, and during this long period the peddlerwas unseen; the detachment was withdrawn, and the following night Birchreentered his dwelling. The father of Harvey had been greatly molested,in consequence of the suspicious character of the son. But,notwithstanding the most minute scrutiny into the conduct of the oldman, no fact could be substantiated against him to his injury, and hisproperty was too small to keep alive the zeal of patriots by profession.Its confiscation and purchase would not have rewarded their trouble. Ageand sorrow were now about to spare him further molestation, for the lampof life had been drained of its oil. The recent separation of the fatherand son had been painful, but they had submitted in obedience to whatboth thought a duty. The old man had kept his dying situation a secretfrom the neighborhood, in the hope that he might still have the companyof his child in his last moments. The confusion of the day, and hisincreasing dread that Harvey might be too late, helped to hasten theevent he would fain arrest for a little while. As night set in, hisillness increased to such a degree, that the dismayed housekeeper sent atruant boy, who had shut up himself with them during the combat, to theLocusts, in quest of a companion to cheer her solitude. Caesar, alone,could be spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by thekind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been dispatched on his duty. Thedying man was past the use of medicines, and his chief anxiety seemed tocenter in a meeting with his child. The noise of the chase had beenheard by the group in the house, but its cause was not understood; andas both the black and Katy were apprised of the detachment of Americanhorse being below them, they supposed it to proceed from the return ofthat party. They heard the dragoons, as they moved slowly by thebuilding; but in compliance with the prudent injunction of the black,the housekeeper forbore to indulge her curiosity. The old man had closedhis eyes, and his attendants believed him to be asleep. The housecontained two large rooms and as many small ones. One of the formerserved for kitchen and sitting room; in the other lay the father ofBirch; of the latter, one was the sanctuary of the vestal, and the otherc
ontained the stock of provisions. A huge chimney of stone rose in thecenter, serving, of itself, for a partition between the larger rooms;and fireplaces of corresponding dimensions were in each apartment. Abright flame was burning in that of the common room, and within the veryjambs of its monstrous jaws sat Caesar and Katy, at the time of which wewrite. The African was impressing his caution on the housekeeper, andcommenting on the general danger of indulging an idle curiosity.
"Best nebber tempt a Satan," said Caesar, rolling up his eyes till thewhites glistened by the glare of the fire. "I berry like heself to losean ear for carrying a little bit of a letter; dere much mischief come ofcuriosity. If dere had nebber been a man curious to see Africa, derewould be no color people out of dere own country; but I wish Harveyget back."
"It is very disregardful in him to be away at such a time," said Katy,imposingly. "Suppose now his father wanted to make his last will in thetestament, who is there to do so solemn and awful an act for him? Harveyis a very wasteful and very disregardful man!"
"Perhap he make him afore?"
"It would not be a wonderment if he had," returned the housekeeper; "heis whole days looking into the Bible."
"Then he read a berry good book," said the black solemnly. "Miss Fannyread in him to Dinah now and den."
"You are right, Caesar. The Bible is the best of books, and one thatreads it as often as Harvey's father should have the best of reasons forso doing. This is no more than common sense."
She rose from her seat, and stealing softly to a chest of drawers in theroom of the sick man, she took from it a large Bible, heavily bound, andsecured with strong clasps of brass, with which she returned to thenegro. The volume was eagerly opened, and they proceeded instantly toexamine its pages. Katy was far from an expert scholar, and to Caesarthe characters were absolutely strangers. For some time the housekeeperwas occupied in finding out the word Matthew, in which she had no soonersucceeded than she pointed out the word, with great complacency, to theattentive Caesar.
"Berry well, now look him t'rough," said the black, peeping over thehousekeeper's shoulder, as he held a long lank candle of yellow tallow,in such a manner as to throw its feeble light on the volume.
"Yes, but I must begin with the very beginning of the book," replied theother, turning the leaves carefully back, until, moving two at once,she lighted upon a page covered with writing. "Here," said thehousekeeper, shaking with the eagerness of expectation, "here are thevery words themselves; now I would give the world itself to know whom hehas left the big silver shoe buckles to."
"Read 'em," said Caesar, laconically.
"And the black walnut drawers; for Harvey could never want furniture ofthat quality, as long as he is a bachelor!"
"Why he no want 'em as well as he fader?"
"And the six silver tablespoons; Harvey always uses the iron!"
"P'r'ap he say, without so much talk," returned the sententious black,pointing one of his crooked and dingy fingers at the open volume.
Thus repeatedly advised, and impelled by her own curiosity, Katy beganto read. Anxious to come to the part which most interested herself, shedipped at once into the center of the subject.
"_Chester Birch, born September 1st, 1755,_"--read the spinster, with adeliberation that did no great honor to her scholarship.
"Well, what he gib him?"
"_Abigail Birch, born July 12th, 1757,_" continued the housekeeper, inthe same tone.
"I t'ink he ought to gib her 'e spoon."
"_June 1st, 1760. On this awful day, the judgment of an offended Godlighted on my house._" A heavy groan from the adjoining room made thespinster instinctively close the volume, and Caesar, for a moment, shookwith fear. Neither possessed sufficient resolution to go and examine thecondition of the sufferer, but his heavy breathing continued as usual.Katy dared not, however, reopen the Bible, and carefully securing itsclasps, it was laid on the table in silence. Caesar took his chairagain, and after looking timidly round the room, remarked,--
"I t'ought he time war' come!"
"No," said Katy, solemnly, "he will live till the tide is out, or thefirst cock crows in the morning."
"Poor man!" continued the black, nestling still farther into the chimneycorner, "I hope he lay quiet after he die."
"'Twould be no astonishment to me if he didn't; for they say an unquietlife makes an uneasy grave."
"Johnny Birch a berry good man in he way. All mankind can't be aminister; for if he do, who would be a congregation?"
"Ah! Caesar, he is good only who does good. Can you tell me why honestlygotten gold should be hidden in the bowels of the earth?"
"Grach!--I t'ink it must be to keep t'e Skinner from findin' him; if heknow where he be, why don't he dig him up?"
"There may be reasons not comprehensible to you," said Katy, moving herchair so that her clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath whichlay the secret treasures of the peddler, unable to refrain from speakingof what she would have been very unwilling to reveal; "but a roughoutside often holds a smooth inside." Caesar stared around the building,unable to fathom the hidden meaning of his companion, when his rovingeyes suddenly became fixed, and his teeth chattered with affright. Thechange in the countenance of the black was instantly perceived by Katy,and turning her face, she saw the peddler himself, standing within thedoor of the room.
"Is he alive?" asked Birch, tremulously, and seemingly afraid to receivethe answer.
"Surely," said Katy, rising hastily, and officiously offering her chair."He must live till day, or till the tide is down."
Disregarding all but the fact that his father still lived, the peddlerstole gently into the room of his dying parent. The tie which bound thefather and son was of no ordinary kind. In the wide world they were allto each other. Had Katy but read a few lines further in the record, shewould have seen the sad tale of their misfortunes. At one blowcompetence and kindred had been swept from them, and from that day tothe present hour, persecution and distress had followed their wanderingsteps. Approaching the bedside, Harvey leaned his body forward, and, ina voice nearly choked by his feelings, he whispered near the ear ofthe sick,--
"Father, do you know me?"
The parent slowly opened his eyes, and a smile of satisfaction passedover his pallid features, leaving behind it the impression of death,more awful by the contrast. The peddler gave a restorative he hadbrought with him to the parched lips of the sick man, and for a fewminutes new vigor seemed imparted to his frame. He spoke, but slowly,and with difficulty. Curiosity kept Katy silent; awe had the same effecton Caesar; and Harvey seemed hardly to breathe, as he listened to thelanguage of the departing spirit.
"My son," said the father in a hollow voice, "God is as merciful as Heis just; if I threw the cup of salvation from my lips when a youth, Hegraciously offers it to me in mine age. He has chastised to purify, andI go to join the spirits of our lost family. In a little while, mychild, you will be alone. I know you too well not to foresee you will bea pilgrim through life. The bruised reed may endure, but it will neverrise. You have that within you, Harvey, that will guide you aright;persevere as you have begun, for the duties of life are never to beneglected and"--a noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dyingman, and the impatient peddler hastened to learn the cause, followed byKaty and the black. The first glance of his eye on the figure in thedoorway told the trader but too well his errand, and the fate thatprobably awaited himself. The intruder was a man still young in years,but his lineaments bespoke a mind long agitated by evil passions. Hisdress was of the meanest materials, and so ragged and unseemly, as togive him the appearance of studied poverty. His hair was prematurelywhitened, and his sunken, lowering eye avoided the bold, forward look ofinnocence. There was a restlessness in his movements, and an agitationin his manner, that proceeded from the workings of the foul spiritwithin him, and which was not less offensive to others than distressingto himself. This man was a well-known leader of one of those gangs ofmarauders who infested the county with a semblance of patr
iotism, andwho were guilty of every grade of offense, from simple theft up tomurder. Behind him stood several other figures clad in a similar manner,but whose countenances expressed nothing more than the indifference ofbrutal insensibility. They were well armed with muskets and bayonets,and provided with the usual implements of foot soldiers. Harvey knewresistance to be vain, and quietly submitted to their directions. In thetwinkling of an eye both he and Caesar were stripped of their decentgarments, and made to exchange clothes with two of the filthiest of theband. They were then placed in separate corners of the room, and, underthe muzzles of the muskets, required faithfully to answer suchinterrogatories as were put to them.
"Where is your pack?" was the first question to the peddler.
"Hear me," said Birch, trembling with agitation; "in the next room is myfather, now in the agonies of death. Let me go to him, receive hisblessing, and close his eyes, and you shall have all--aye, all."
"Answer me as I put the questions, or this musket shall send you to keepthe old driveler company: where is your pack?"
"I will tell you nothing, unless you let me go to my father," said thepeddler, resolutely.
His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious sneer, and was about toexecute his threat, when one of his companions checked him.
"What would you do?" he said. "You surely forget the reward. Tell uswhere are your goods, and you shall go to your father."
Birch complied instantly, and a man was dispatched in quest of thebooty; he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing itwas as light as feathers.
"Aye," cried the leader, "there must be gold somewhere for what it didcontain. Give us your gold, Mr. Birch; we know you have it; you will nottake continental, not you."
"You break your faith," said Harvey.
"Give us your gold," exclaimed the other, furiously, pricking thepeddler with his bayonet until the blood followed his pushes in streams.At this instant a slight movement was heard in the adjoining room, andHarvey cried,--
"Let me--let me go to my father, and you shall have all."
"I swear you shall go then," said the Skinner.
"Here, take the trash," cried Birch, as he threw aside the purse, whichhe had contrived to conceal, notwithstanding the change in his garments.
The robber raised it from the floor with a hellish laugh.
"Aye, but it shall be to your father in heaven."
"Monster! have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?"
"To hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neckalready," said the other, laughing. "There is no necessity for yourbeing uneasy, Mr. Birch; if the old man gets a few hours the start ofyou in the journey, you will be sure to follow him before noonto-morrow."
This unfeeling communication had no effect on the peddler, who listenedwith gasping breath to every sound from the room of his parent until heheard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchral tones of death.Birch could endure no more, but shrieking out,--
"Father! hush--father! I come--I come!" he darted by his keeper and wasthe next moment pinned to the wall by the bayonet of another of theband. Fortunately, his quick motion had caused him to escape a thrustaimed at his life, and it was by his clothes only that he was confined.
"No, Mr. Birch," said the Skinner, "we know you too well to trust youout of sight--your gold, your gold!"
"You have it," said the peddler, writhing with agony.
"Aye, we have the purse, but you have more purses. King George is aprompt paymaster, and you have done him many a piece of good service.Where is your hoard? Without it you will never see your father."
"Remove the stone underneath the woman," cried the peddler,eagerly--"remove the stone."
"He raves! he raves!" said Katy, instinctively moving her position to adifferent stone from the one on which she had been standing. In a momentit was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was seen beneath.
"He raves! You have driven him from his right mind," continued thetrembling spinster. "Would any man in his senses keep gold undera hearth?"
"Peace, babbling fool!" cried Harvey. "Lift the corner stone, and youwill find that which will make you rich, and me a beggar."
"And then you will be despisable," said the housekeeper bitterly. "Apeddler without goods and without money is sure to be despisable."
"There will be enough left to pay for his halter," cried the Skinner,who was not slow to follow the instructions of Harvey, soon lightingupon a store of English guineas. The money was quickly transferred to abag, notwithstanding the declarations of the spinster, that her dueswere unsatisfied, and that, of right, ten of the guineas wereher property.
Delighted with a prize that greatly exceeded their expectations, theband prepared to depart, intending to take the peddler with them, inorder to give him up to the American troops above, and to claim thereward offered for his apprehension. Everything was ready, and they wereabout to lift Birch in their arms, for he resolutely refused to move aninch, when a form appeared in their midst, which appalled the stoutestheart among them. The father had arisen from his bed, and he totteredforth at the cries of his son. Around his body was thrown the sheet ofthe bed, and his fixed eye and haggard face gave him the appearance of abeing from another world. Even Katy and Caesar thought it was the spiritof the elder Birch, and they fled the house, followed by the alarmedSkinners in a body.
The excitement which had given the sick man strength, soon vanished, andthe peddler, lifting him in his arms, reconveyed him to his bed. Thereaction of the system which followed hastened to close the scene.
The glazed eye of the father was fixed upon the son; his lips moved, buthis voice was unheard. Harvey bent down, and, with the parting breath ofhis parent, received his dying benediction. A life of privation, and ofwrongs, embittered most of the future hours of the peddler. But under nosufferings, in no misfortunes, the subject of poverty and obloquy, theremembrance of that blessing never left him; it constantly gleamed overthe images of the past, shedding a holy radiance around his saddesthours of despondency; it cheered the prospect of the future with theprayers of a pious spirit; and it brought the sweet assurance of havingfaithfully discharged the sacred offices of filial love.
The retreat of Caesar and the spinster had been too precipitate to admitof much calculation; yet they themselves instinctively separated fromthe Skinners. After fleeing a short distance they paused, and the maidencommenced in a solemn voice,--
"Oh! Caesar, was it not dreadful to walk before he had been laid in hisgrave! It must have been the money that disturbed him; they say CaptainKidd walks near the spot where he buried gold in the old war."
"I never t'ink Johnny Birch hab such a big eye!" said the African, histeeth yet chattering with the fright.
"I'm sure 'twould be a botherment to a living soul to lose so muchmoney. Harvey will be nothing but an utterly despisable,poverty-stricken wretch. I wonder who he thinks would even be hishousekeeper!"
"Maybe a spook take away Harvey, too," observed Caesar, moving stillnearer to the side of the maiden. But a new idea had seized theimagination of the spinster. She thought it not improbable that theprize had been forsaken in the confusion of the retreat; and afterdeliberating and reasoning for some time with Caesar, they determined toventure back, and ascertain this important fact, and, if possible, learnwhat had been the fate of the peddler. Much time was spent in cautiouslyapproaching the dreaded spot; and as the spinster had sagaciously placedherself in the line of the retreat of the Skinners, every stone wasexamined in the progress in search of abandoned gold. But although thesuddenness of the alarm and the cry of Caesar had impelled thefreebooters to so hasty a retreat, they grasped the hoard with a holdthat death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving everything to bequiet within, Katy at length mustered resolution to enter the dwelling,where she found the peddler, with a heavy heart, performing the last sadoffices for the dead. A few words sufficed to explain to Katy the natureof her mistake; but Caesar continued to his dying day to astonish thesable
inmates of the kitchen with learned dissertations on spooks, andto relate how direful was the appearance of that of Johnny Birch.
The danger compelled the peddler to abridge even the short period thatAmerican custom leaves the deceased with us; and, aided by the black andKaty, his painful task was soon ended. Caesar volunteered to walk acouple of miles with orders to a carpenter; and, the body being habitedin its ordinary attire, was left, with a sheet thrown decently over it,to await the return of the messenger.
The Skinners had fled precipitately to the wood, which was but a shortdistance from the house of Birch, and once safely sheltered within itsshades, they halted, and mustered their panic-stricken forces.
"What in the name of fury seized your coward hearts?" cried theirdissatisfied leader, drawing his breath heavily.
"The same question might be asked of yourself," returned one of theband, sullenly.
"From your fright, I thought a party of De Lancey's men were upon us.Oh! you are brave gentlemen at a race!"
"We follow our captain."
"Then follow me back, and let us secure the scoundrel, and receive thereward."
"Yes; and by the time we reach the house, that black rascal will havethe mad Virginian upon us. By my soul I would rather meet fifty Cowboysthan that single man."
"Fool," cried the enraged leader, "don't you know Dunwoodie's horse areat the Corners, full two miles from here?"
"I care not where the dragoons are, but I will swear that I saw CaptainLawton enter the house of old Wharton, while I lay watching anopportunity of getting the British colonel's horse from the stable."
"And if he should come, won't a bullet silence a dragoon from the Southas well as from old England?"
"Aye, but I don't choose a hornet's nest about my ears; rase the skin ofone of that corps, and you will never see another peaceable night'sforaging again."
"Well," muttered the leader, as they retired deeper into the wood, "thissottish peddler will stay to see the old devil buried; and though wecannot touch him at the funeral (for that would raise every old womanand priest in America against us), he'll wait to look after themovables, and to-morrow night shall wind up his concerns."
With this threat they withdrew to one of their usual places of resort,until darkness should again give them an opportunity of marauding on thecommunity without danger of detection.