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 ashea, live their wonted fires.
—— GrayThe possessions of Mr. Wharton extended to some distance on each side of the house in which he dwelt, and most of his land was unoccupied. A few scattering dwellings were to be seen in different parts of his domains, but they were fast falling to decay, and untenanted. The proximity of the country to the contending armies had nearly banished the pursuits of agriculture from the land. It was useless for the husbandman to devote his time, and the labour of his hand, to obtain overflowing garuers, that the first foraging party would empty. None tilled the earth with any other view than to provide the scanty means of subsistence, except those who were placed so near to one of the adverse parties 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 as enjoyed the benefits of an access to the Royal Army. Mr. Wharton did not require the use of his lands for the purposes of subsistence, and willingly adopted the guarded practice of the day, and limited his attention to such articles as were soon to be consumed within his own walls, or could be easily secreted from the prying looks of the foragers. In consequence, the ground on which the action was fought, had not a single inhabited building, besides the one belonging to thefather of Harvey Birch——This stood between the places where the cavalry had met and the charge had been made on the party of Wellmere.
To Katy Haynes, it had been a day fruitful in incidents to furnish an inexhaustible theme to her after life. The prudent housekeeper had kept her political feelings in a state of rigid neutrality; her own friends had espoused the cause of the country, but the maiden never lost sight of the moment when she herself was to be espoused to Harvey Birch. She did not wish to fetter the bonds of Hymen with any other clogs than those with which nature had already so amply provided them. Katy could always see enough to embitter the marriage bed, without calling in the aid of political contention; and yet, at times, the prying spinster had her doubts, of which side she should be, to escape this dreaded evil. There was so much of practised deception in the conduct of the pedlar, that the housekeeper frequently arrested her own words when most wishing to manifest her sympathies. His lengthened absences from home, had commenced immediately after the hostile armies had made their appearance in the county; previously to that event, his returns had been regular and frequent.
The battle of the Plains had taught the cautious Washington the advantages possessed by his enemy, 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 the county, he bid defiance to the attacks of the Royal Army, and Sir William Howe fell back to the enjoyments of his barren conquests, a deserted city and the adjacent islands. Never afterwards did the opposing armies make the trial for success within the limits of West-Chester; yet hardly a day passed, that the partisans did not make their inroads, or a sun rise, that the inhabitants were spared the relation of the excesses, that the preceding darkness had served to conceal. Most of the movements of the pedlar through the county, were made at the hours which others allotted to repose. The evening sun would frequently leave him at one extremity of the district, and the morning 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, who thought his only purpose was the accumulation of gold. He would be often seen near the Highlands with a body bending under the weight it carried——and again near the Harlaem river, travelling, with lighter steps, with his face towards the setting sun. But these glances at him were uncertain and fleeting. The intermediate time no eye could penetrate. For months he disappeared, and no traces of his course were ever known.
Strong parties held the heights of Harlaem, and the northern end of Manhattan Island was bristled with the bayonets of the English sentinels, yet the pedlar glided among them unnoticed and uninjured. His approach to the American lines were also frequent; but generally so conducted as to baffle pursuit. Many a sentinel, placed in the gorges of the mountains, spoke of a strange figure that had been seen gliding by them in the mists of the evening. The stories reached the ears of the officers, and, as we have related, in two instances the trader fell into the hands of the Americans. The first time he escaped from Lawton, shortly after his arrest; but the second he was condemned to die. On the morning of his intended execution the cage was opened, but the bird had flown. This extraordinary escape had been made from the custody of a favorite officer of Washington,and sentinels who had been thought worthy to guard the person of the commander-in-chief. Bribery and treason could not approach the characters of men so well esteemed, and the opinion gained ground among the common soldiery, that the pedlar had dealings with the dark one. Katy, however, always repelled this opinion with indignation; for within the recesses of her own bosom, the housekeeper, in ruminating on events, concluded that the evil spirit did not pay in gold—— Nor, continues the wary spinster in her cogitations, does Washington——paper and promises were all that the leader of the American troops could dispense to his servants, until after the receipt of supplies from France; and even then, although the scrutinizing eyes of Katy never let any opportunity of examining into the deer-skin purse, pass unimproved, she was never able to detect the image of Louis, intruding into the presence of the well known countenance of George III.
The house of Harvey had been watched at different times by the Americans, with a view to his arrest, but never with success; the reputed spy possessed a secret means of intelligence that invariably defeated their schemes. Once, when a strong body of the Continental Army held the four corners for a whole summer, orders had been received from Washington himself, never to leave the door of Harvey Birch unwatched; the command was rigidly obeyed, and during this long period the pedlar was unseen——the detachment was withdrawn, and the next night Birch re-entered 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 old man, no fact could be substantiated against him to his injury, and his property was too small to keepalive the zeal of professed patriots——its confiscation and purchase would not reward them for their trouble. Age and sorrow were now about to spare him from further molestation, for the lamp of life had begun to be drained of its oil. The separation of the father and son had been painful, but in obedience to what both thought a duty. The old man had kept his situation a secret from the neighbourhood, in order that he might have the company of his child in his last moments. The confusion of the past day, and his increasing dread that Harvey might be too late, helped to hasten the event he would fain arrest for yet a little while. As night set in, his illness increased to such a degree that the dismayed housekeeper had sent a truant boy, who had been shut up with them for the day rather than trust himself in the presence of the combatants, to the Locusts, in quest of a living soul to cheer her desolate situation. Cæsar was the only one who could be spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by the kind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been despatched on this duty. The dying man was past the use of such articles, and his chief anxiety seemed to centre in a meeting with his absent child.
The noise of the chase had been heard by the group in the house, but its cause not understood; and as both the black and Katy were apprised of the detachment of American horse being below them, with its discontinuance all apprehension from this disturbance ceased. They heard the dragoons as they moved slowly by the building, but in compliance with the prudent injunction of the black, the housekeeper forbore to indulge her curiosity by taking a view of the pageant. The old man had closed his eyes, and his attendants supposed him to be asleep. Thehouse contained two large rooms, and as many small ones. One of the former served for kitchen and parlor——in the other lay the father of Birch: of the latter, one was the sanctuary of the vestal, and the other contained the provisions for subsistence. A huge chimney of stone rose in the centre of the building, serving, of itself, for a partition between the larger rooms, and fire-places of corresponding dimensions were in each apartment. A bright fire was burning in that of the common room, and within the very jambs of its monstrous jaws sat Cæsar and Katy at the time of which we speak. The African was impressing his caution on the maiden to suppress an idle curiosity that might prove dangerous.
"Best neber tempt a Satan," said Cæsar, rolling up his eyes significantly, till the whites glistened by the glare of the fire——"I like to lose an ear—— only for carrying a little bit of a letter——But I wish Harvey get back."
"It is very disregardful in him to be away at such times," said Katy imposingly. "Suppose now his father wanted to make his last will in the testament, who is there to do such a thing for him. Harvey is a very wasteful and a very disregardful man."
"Perhaps he make him before," said the black inquiringly.
"It would not be a wonderment if he had," returned the housekeeper eagerly; "he is whole days looking into the Bible."
"Then he read a good book," said the black solemnly. "Miss Fanny read him to Dinah berry often."
"Yes," continued the inquisitive spinster; "but he would not be forever studying it, if it didn't hold something more as common."
She rose from her seat, and stealing softly to achest of drawers in the room where lay the sick, took from it a large Bible, heavily bound, and secured with strong clasps of brass, with which she returned to the expecting African. The volume was opened, and she proceeded instantly to the inquiry. Katy was far from an expert scholar, and to Cæsar the characters were absolute strangers. For some time the housekeeper was occupied with finding out the word Matthew, which she at last saw in large Roman letters crowning one of the pages, and instantly announced her discovery to the attentive Cæsar.
"Berry well, now look him all through:" said the black, peeping over the damsel's shoulder, as he held a long, lank, candle of yellow tallow in his hand, in such a manners as to throw its feeble light on the volume.
"Yes, but I must begin with the book," replied the other, turning the leaves carefully back, until, moving two at once, she lighted upon a page covered with the labours of a pen. "Here," said the housekeeper with impatience, and shaking with the eagerness of expectation, "here is the very words themselves; now I would give the world to know who he has left them big silver shoe buckles to."
"Read him," said Cæsar laconically.
"And the black walnut drawers, for Harvey could never want them."
"Why no want 'em as well as his father?' asked the black drily."
"And the six silver table spoons; for Harvey always uses the iron."
"I guess he say," continued the African, pointing significantly to the writing, and listening eagerly, as the other thus opened the store of the elder Birch's wealth.
Thus repeatedly advised, and impelled by herown curiosity, Katy commenced her task; anxious to come to the part which most interested herself, she dipped at once into the centre of the subject.
"Chester Birch, born September 1st, 1755;" read the spinster with great deliberation.
"Well," cried the impatient Cæsar, "what he give him?"
"Abigail Birch, born July 12th, 1757; continued the housekeeper in the same tone.
"I guess he give her the spoons," observed the black hastily.
"June 1st, 1760. On this awful day the judgment of an offended God lighted on my house"—— a heavy groan from the adjoining room made the spinster instinctively close the book, and Cæsar, for a moment, shook with fear——neither possessed sufficient resolution to go and see what was the condition of the sufferer, but his heavy breathings continued as usual——Katy dared not, however, reopen the Bible, and carefully securing its clasps, it was laid on the table in silence. Cæsar took his chair again, and, after looking timidly round the room, remarked——
"No," said Katy solemnly, "he will live till the tide is out, or the first cock crows in the morning."
"Poor man!" continued the black, nestling still farther into the chimney corner; "I hope he lay quiet after he die."
"'Twould be no astonishment to me if he didn't," returned Katy, glancing her eyes around the room, and speaking in an under voice, "for they say an unquiet life makes an uneasy grave."
"Johnny Birch a berry good man," said the black quite positively.
"Ah! Cæsar," said the housekeeper in the same voice, "he is good only who does good——can you tell me, Cæsar, why honestly gotten gold should be hidden in the bowels of the earth?"
"If he know where he be, why don't he dig him up?" asked the black promptly.
"There may be reasons not comprehendible to you," said Katy, moving her chair so that her clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath which lay the secret treasures of the pedlar—— unable to refrain speaking of what she would have been very unwilling to reveal; "but a rough outside often holds a smooth inside." Cæsar stared around the building unable to fathom the hidden meaning of the damsel, when his roving eye suddenly became fixed, and his teeth chattered with affright. The change in the countenance of the black was instantly perceived by Katy, and turning her face, she saw the pedlar himself standing within the door of the room.
"Is he alive?" asked Birch tremulously, and seemingly afraid to receive an answer to his own question.
"Surely," said the maiden, rising hastily, and officiously offering her chair to the pedlar, "he must live till day or the tide is down."
Disregarding all but her assurance, the pedlar stole gently to the room of his dying parent. The tie which bound this father and son together was one of no ordinary kind. In the wide world they were all to each other. Had Katy but have read a few lines farther in the record, she would have seen the sad tale of their misfortunes. At one blow competence and kindred had been swept from before them, and from that day to the present hour, persecution and distress had followed their wandering steps. Approaching the bed side, Harvey leaned his body forward, and said, in a voice nearly choked by his feelings——
The parent slowly opened his eyes, and a smile of satisfaction passed over his pallid features, leaving behind it the impression of death in still greater force from the contrast. The pedlar gave a restorative he had brought with him to the parched lips of the sick man, and for a few minutes new vigor seemed to be imparted to his frame. He spoke, but slowly and with difficulty. Curiosity kept Katy silent; awe had the same effect on Cæsar; and Harvey seemed hardly to breathe, as he listened to the language of the departing spirit.
"My son," said the father in a hollow voice, "God is as merciful as he is just——if I threw the cup of salvation from my lips when a youth, he graciously offers it to me in mine age. He chastiseth to purify, and I go to join the spirits of our lost family. In a little while, my child, you will be alone. I know you too well not to foresee you will be a lone pilgrim through life. The bruised reed may endure, but it will never rise. You have that within you, Harvey, that will guide you aright; persevere as you have begun, for the duties of life are never to be neglected——and"—— A noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dying man, and the impatient pedlar hastened to learn the cause, followed by Katy and the black. The first glance of his eye on the figure in the door-way told the trader but too well both his errand, and the fate that probably awaited himself. The intruder was a man still young in years, but his lineaments bespoke a mind long agitated by evil passions. His dress was of the meanest materials, and so ragged and unseemly, as to give him the appearance of studied poverty. His hair was prematurely whitened, and his sunken, lowering eye avoided the bold, forward look of innocence. There was a restlessness in his movements, and agitation in his manner, that proceeded from the workings of the foul spirit within him, and which was not less offensive to others than distressing to himself. This man was a well known leader of one of those gangs of marauders who infested the county with a semblance of patriotism, and, were guilty of every grade of offence, from simple theft up to murder. Behind him stood several other figures clad in a similar manner, but whose countenances expressed nothing more than the callous indifference of brutal insensibility. They were all well armed with muskets and bayonets, and provided with the usual implements of foot soldiers. Harvey knew resistance to be vain, and quietly submitted to their directions. In the twinkling of an eye both he and Cæsar were stripped of their decent garments, and made to exchange clothes with two of the filthiest of the band. They were then placed in separate corners of the room, and under the muzzles of the muskets, required faithfully to answer such interrogatories as were put to them.
"Where is your pack?" was the first question to the pedlar.
"Hear me," said Birch, trembling with agitation; "in the next room is my father now in the agonies of death; let me go to him, receive his blessing, 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 keep the old driveller company——where is your pack?"
"I will tell you nothing unless you let me go to my father," said the pedlar resolutely.
His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious sneer, and was about to execute his threat, when one of his companions checked him, and cried——
"What would you do? you surely forget thereward. Tell us where are your goods, and you shall go to your father."
Birch complied instantly, and a man was despatched in quest of the booty: he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing it was as light as feathers.
"Ay," cried the leader, "there must be gold somewhere for what it did contain; give us your gold, Mr. Birch; we know you have it; you will not take continental, not you."
"You break your faith," said Harvey sullenly.
"Give us your gold," exclaimed the other furiously, pricking the pedlar with his bayonet until the blood followed his pushes in streams. At this instant a slight movement was heard in the adjoining room, and Harvey cried imploringly——
"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, which he had contrived to conceal, notwithstanding the change in his garments.
The robber raised it from the floor with a hellish laugh, as he said coolly——
"Ay, but it shall be to your father in heaven."
"Monster!" exclaimed Birch, "have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?"
"Why, to hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neck already," said the other malignantly. There is no necessity of your being uneasy, Mr. Birch; if the old man gets a few hours the start of you in the journey, you will be sure to follow him before noon to-morrow.'
This unfeeling communication had no effect on the pedlar, who listened with gasping breath to every sound from the room of his parent, until he heard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchraltones of death. Birch could endure no more, but shrieking out——
"Father, hush, father, I come——I come:" he darted by his keeper, and was the next moment pinned to the wall by the bayonet of another; fortunately his quick motion had caused him to escape a thrust aimed 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 for a slippery rascal to trust you out of sight——your gold——your gold."
"You have it," said the pedlar, writhing with the agony of his situation.
"Ay, we have the purse; but you have more purses. King George is a prompt 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 pedlar eagerly——"remove the stone."
"He raves——he raves," said Katy, instinctively moving her position to another stone than the one on which she had been standing; in a moment it was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was seen under it.
"He raves; you have driven him from his right mind," continued the trembling spinster; "would any man in his senses think of keeping gold under a hearth-stone?"
"Peace, babbling fool," cried Harvey——"lift the corner stone, and you will find what will make you rich, and me a beggar."
"And then you will be despiseable," said the housekeeper bitterly. "A pedlar without goods and without money——is sure to be despiseable."
"There will be enough left to pay for his halter," cried the skinner, as he opened upon a storeof English guineas. These were quickly transferred to a bag, notwithstanding the declarations of the spinster, that her dues were unsatisfied, and that of right ten of the guineas should be her property.
Delighted with a prize that greatly exceeded their expectations, the band prepared to depart, intending to take the pedlar with them in order to give him up to some of the American troops above, and claim the reward offered for his apprehension. Every thing was ready, and they were about to lift Birch in their arms, as he refused to move an inch; when a figure entered the room, that appalled the group——around his body was thrown the sheet of the bed from which he had risen, and his fixed eye and haggard face gave him the appearance of a being from another world. Even Katy and Cæsar thought it was the spirit of the elder Birch, and they both fled the house, followed by the alarmed skinners.
The excitement which had given the sick man strength soon vanished, and the pedlar, lifting him in his arms, re-conveyed him to his bed. The reaction of the system which followed hastened to close the scene.
The glazed eye of the father was fixed upon the son; his lips moved, but his voice was unheard. Harvey bent down, and, with his parting breath, received the dying benediction of his parent. A life of privation, of care, and of wrongs, embittered most of the future hours of the pedlar. But under no sufferings——in no misfortune——the subject of poverty and biting obloquy——the remembrance of that blessing never left him. It constantly gleamed over the images of the past, shedding a holy radiance around his saddest hours of despondency. It cheered the prospect of the future with the prayers of a pious spirit for his well-being; and it brought assurance to his soul of having discharged faithfully and truly the sacred offices of filial love.
The retreat of Cæsar and the spinster had been too precipitate to admit of much calculation; yet had the former instinctively separated himself from the skinners. After fleeing a short distance, they paused from fatigue, and the maiden commenced in a solemn voice——
"Oh! Cæsar, 'twas dreadful to walk before he had been laid in his grave; but it must have been the money that disturbed him; they say Captain Kidd walks where he buried gold in the old war."
"I nebber tink Johnny Birch had such big eye," said the African, his teeth yet chattering with the fright.
"I'm sure 'twould be a botherment to a living soul to lose so much money, and all for nothing," continued Katy, disregarding the other's remark; "Harvey will be nothing but a despiseable, poverty-stricken wretch. I wonder who he thinks would marry him now."
"Maybe a spooke take away Harvey too," observed Cæsar, moving still nearer to the side of the maiden. But a new idea had seized the imagination of the spinster: she thought it not improbable that the prize had been forsaken in the confusion of the retreat; and after deliberating and reasoning for some time with Cæsar, they both determined to venture back, and ascertain this important fact, and, if possible, learn what had been the fate of the pedlar. Much time was spent in cautiously approaching the dreaded spot; and as the spinster had sagaciously placed herself in the line of the retreat of the skinners, every stone was examined in the progress, to see if it was not the abandoned gold. But, although the suddenness of the alarm, and the cry of Cæsar, had impelledthe freebooters to so hasty a retreat, they grasped the hoard with an instinctive hold that death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving every thing to be quiet within, Katy at length mustered resolution enough to enter the dwelling, where she found the pedlar with a heavy heart performing the last sad offices for the dead. A few words sufficed to explain to Katy the nature of her mistake; but Cæsar continued till his dying day to astonish the sable inmates of the kitchen, with learned dissertations on spookes, and how direful was the appearance of Johnny Birch.
The danger to himself compelled the pedlar to abridge even the short period that American custom leaves the deceased with us; and aided by the black and Katy, his painful task was soon ended. Cæsar volunteered to walk a couple of miles with orders to a carpenter, and the body being habited in its ordinary attire was left with a sheet laid over it with great decency, to await the return of the messenger.
The skinners had fled precipitately to the wood, which was but a short distance from the house of Birch, and once safely sheltered within its shades, they halted, and mustered their panic-stricken forces.
"What in the name of fury seized on your coward hearts?" cried the dissatisfied leader, drawing his breath heavily.
"The same question might be asked yourself," returned one of the band sullenly.
"From your fright, I thought a party of De Lancey's men were upon us. Oh! you are brave gentlemen at a race," continued the leader bitterly.
"Then follow me back, and let us secure the scoundrel and receive the reward."
Yes; and by the time we reach the house, that black rascal will have the mad Virginian upon us; by my soul I would rather meet fifty Cow-boys, than that single man."
"Fool," cried the enraged leader, "don't you know Dunwoodie's horse are at the corners, full two miles from here?"
"I care not where the dragoons are, but I will swear that I saw Captain Lawton enter the house of old Wharton, while I lay watching an opportunity of getting the British colonel's horse from the stable."
"And if he does come, won't a bullet silence a dragoon from the south as well as from old England?"
"Ay, but I don't choose a hornet's nest around my ears; you raise the skin of one of that corps, and you will never see another peaceable night's foraging again."
"Well," muttered the leader, as they retired deeper into the wood, "this sottish pedlar will stay to see the old devil buried, and though we mustn't touch him at the funeral, he'll wait to look after the moveables, 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 the community without danger of detection.
