| | 1 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Spy  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The officer to whose keeping Dunwoodie had
committed the pedlar, 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 unaccountably taken possession of
objects before his eyes, gave him warning of the
necessity of recruiting nature by sleep. After
admonishing the non-commissioned 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, sought,
and 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,
occasoned its being stript of every thing of any
value, and the searching eyes of Betty Flannagan
selected this spot, on her arrival, as the store house
for her moveables, and a withdrawing-room 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 guardian to the
rear of the head quarters. A second warrior,
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 deposite his charge,
until the moment of his execution. There were
several inducements that urged Sergeant Hollister
to this determination, among which was the absence
of the washerwoman, who lay before the
kitchen fire, dreaming that the corps were attacking
a party of the enemy, and mistaking the noise
which 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 had borne arms as a profession.
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 trust-worthy
soldier in his troop.—Captain Lawton had rewarded
his fidelity by making him its orderly. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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