University of Virginia Library

1. THE SPY;
A TALE OF
THE NEUTRAL GROUND.

1. CHAPTER I.

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.

Followed by Birch, the sergeant proceeded in
silence to the door of the intended prison, and
throwing it open with one hand, held a lantern
with the other to light the pedlar as he entered.
Seating himself on a cask that contained some of
Betty's favorite beverage, the sergeant motioned
to Birch to occupy another in the same manner.
The lantern was placed on the floor, and the
dragoon, after looking his prisoner steadily in the
face, observed—

“You look as if you would meet death like a
man, and I have brought you to a spot where you
can fix things to suit yourself, and be quiet and
undisturbed.”

“'Tis a fearful place to prepare for the last
change in,” said Harvey, shuddering, and gazing
around his little prison with a vacant eye.

“Why, for the matter of that,” returned the veteran,
“It can reckon but little in the great account
where a man parades his thoughts for the last review,
so that he finds them fit to pass the muster
of another world.—I have a small book here
which I make it a point to read a little in, whenever
we are about to engage, and I find it a great
strength'ner in time of need.” While speaking
he took a bible from his pocket and offered it to
the acceptance of the pedlar. Birch received
the volume with habitual reverence, but there
was an abstracted air about him, and a wandering
of the eye, that induced his companion to think
that alarm was getting the mastery over the pedlar's
feelings—accordingly, he proceeded in what
he conceived to be the offices of consolation.

“If there's any thing that lies heavy on your
mind, now is the best time to get rid of it—if you
have done wrong to any one, I promise you, on

the word of an honest dragoon, to lend you a
helping hand to see them righted.”

“There are few who have not done so,” said
the pedlar, turning his vacant gaze once more on
his companion.

“True—'tis natural to sin—but it sometimes
happens that a man does, what at other times he
may be sorry for.—One would not wish to die
with any very heavy sin on his conscience, after
all.”

Harvey had by this time thoroughly examined
the place in which he was to pass the night, and
saw no means of escape. But hope is ever the last
feeling to desert the human breast, and the pedlar
gave the dragoon more of his attention, fixing on
his sun-burnt features such searching looks, that
Sergeant Hollister lowered his eyes before the
wild expression which he met in the gaze of his
prisoner.

“I have been taught to lay the burden of my
sins at the feet of my saviour,” replied the pedlar.

“Why, yes—all that is well enough,” returned
the other; “but justice should be done while
there is opportunity.—There have been stirring
times in this county since the war began, and
many have been deprived of their rightful goods.
I often times find it hard to reconcile my lawful
plunder to a tender conscience.”

“These hands,” said the pedlar, stretching
forth his meagre bony fingers, and speaking with
an unusual pride, “have spent years in toil, but
not a moment in pilfering.”

“It is well that it is so,” said the honest-hearted
soldier; “and no doubt, you now feel it a
great consolation—there are three great sins that
if a man can keep his conscience clear of—why,
by the mercy of God, he may hope to pass muster

with the saints in Heaven—they are stealing,
murdering, and desertion.”

“Thank God!” said Birch with fervor, “I
have never yet taken the life of a fellow creature.”

“As to killing a man in lawful battle, why that
is no more than doing one's duty,” interrupted
the sergeant, who was a close imitator of Captain
Lawton in the field. “If the cause is wrong, the
sin of such a deed you know falls on the nation,
and a man receives his punishment here with the
rest of the people—but murdering in cold blood
stands next to desertion, as a crime, in the eye of
God.”

“I never was a soldier, therefore never could
desert,” said the pedlar, resting his face on his
hand in a melancholy attitude.

“Why, desertion consists of more than quitting
your colours, though that is certainly the worst
kind,” continued the dragoon, speaking slowly,
and with some emphasis—“A man may desert his
country in the hour of her utmost need.”

Birch buried his face in both his hands, and his
whole frame shook with violent agitation; the
sergeant regarded him closely, but good feelings
soon got the better of his antipathies, and he
continued more mildly—

“But still that is a sin which I think may be
forgiven if sincerely repented of; and it matters
but little when or how a man dies, so that he dies
like a christian and a man.—I recommend you to
say your prayers, and then get some rest, in order
that you may do both. There is no hope of your
being pardoned, as Colonel Singleton has sent
down the most positive orders to take your life
whenever we met you. No—no—nothing can
save you.”

“You say the truth,” cried Birch. “It is now

too late—I have destroyed my only safeguard.
But He will do my memory justice at least.”

“What safeguard?” asked the sergeant, with
awakened curiosity.

“'Tis nothing,” replied the pedlar, recovering
his natural manner, and lowering his face to
avoid the earnest looks of his companion.

“And who is he?”

“No one,” added Harvey, evidently anxious to
say no more.

“Nothing and no one, can avail but little now,”
said the sergeant, rising to go; “lay yourself on
the blanket of Mrs. Flannagan, and get a little
sleep—I will call you betimes in the morning,
and from the bottom of my soul, I wish I could be
of some service to you, for I dislike greatly to see
a man hung up like a dog.”

“Then you might save me from this ignominious
death,” said Birch, springing on his feet, and
catching the dragoon by the arm—“And, oh!
what will I not give you in reward.”

“In what manner?” asked the sergeant, looking
at him in surprise.

“See,” said the pedlar, producing several guineas
from his person; “these are but as nothing
to what I will give you, if you will assist me to
escape.”

“Was you the man whose picture is on the
gold, I would not listen to such a crime,” said
the trooper, throwing the money on the floor with
cool contempt. “Go—go—poor wretch, and
make your peace with God; for it is he only that
can be of service to you now.”

The sergeant took up the lantern, and, with
some indignation in his manner, left the pedlar to
his sorrowful meditations on his approaching fate.
Birch sunk in momentary despair on the pallet of
Betty, while his guardian proceeded to give the

necessary instructions to the sentinels for his safe
keeping.

“Suffer no one to speak to your prisoner, and
your life will depend on his not escaping,” Hollister
concluded his injunctions with, to the man
in the shed.

“But,” said the trooper, “my orders are, to let
the washerwoman pass in and out, as she pleases.”

“Well let her then, but be careful that this
wily pedlar does not get out in the folds of her
petticoats.” He then continued his walk, giving
similar orders to all of the sentinels near the
spot.

For some time after the departure of the sergeant,
silence prevailed within the solitary prison
of the pedlar, until the dragoon at his door heard
his loud breathings, which soon rose into the regular
cadence of one in a deep sleep; and the
man continued walking his post, musing on the indifference
to life which could allow nature its
customary rest, even on the threshold of the
grave. Harvey Birch had, however, been too
long a name held in detestation by every man in
the corps, to suffer any feelings of commiseration
to mingle with these reflections of the sentinel,
and notwithstanding the consideration and kindness
manifested by the sergeant, there was not
probably another man of his rank in the whole
party who would have discovered equal benevolence
to the prisoner, or who would not have imitated
the veteran in rejecting the bribe, although
probably from a less worthy motive. There was
something of disappointed vengeance in the feelings
of the man who watched the door of the
room, on finding his prisoner enjoying a sleep that
he himself was deprived of, and at his exhibiting
such obvious indifference to the utmost penalty
that military rigor could inflict on all his treason

to the cause of liberty and America. More than
once he felt prompted to disturb this unwonted
repose of the pedlar by taunts and revilings,
but the discipline he was under, and a secret
sense of shame at its brutality, held him in subjection.

His meditations were, however, soon interrupted
by the appearance of the washerwoman, who
came staggering through the door that communicated
with the kitchen, muttering execrations
against the servants of the officers who, by their
waggery, had disturbed her slumbers before the
fire. The sentinel understood enough of her maledictions
to comprehend the case, but all his efforts
to enter into conversation with the enraged woman
were useless, and he suffered her to enter
her room without explaining that it contained
another inmate. The noise of her huge frame
falling on the bed, was succeeded by a silence that
was soon interrupted by the renewed breathing
of the pedlar, and within a few minutes Harvey
continued to breathe aloud as if no interruption
had occurred. The relief arriving at this moment,
the fellow who felt excessively nettled at
the contempt of the pedlar, after communicating
his orders, exclaimed to the other as he returned to
the guard-room—

“You may keep yourself warm by dancing,
John; the pedlar-spy has tuned his fiddle you
hear, and it will not be long before Betty will
strike up in her turn.”

The joke was followed by a general laugh from
the party, who marched on in the performance of
their duty. At this instant the door of the prison
was opened, and Betty re-appeared, staggering
back again towards her former quarters.

“Stop,” said the sentinel, catching her by her

clothes; “are you sure the Spy is not in your
pocket?”

“Can't you hear the rascal snoring in my room,
you dirty blackguard,” sputtered Betty, her whole
frame shaking with the violence of her rage,
“and is it so you would sarve a dacent famale
that a man must be put to sleep in the room with
her, you rapscallion.”

“Pooh! what do you mind a man who's to
be hung in the morning for; you see he sleeps
already; to-morrow he'll take a longer nap.”

“Hands off, you villain,” cried the washerwoman,
relinquishing a small bottle that the fellow
had succeeded in wresting from her. “But
I'll go to Captain Jack, and know if it's his orders
to put a hang-gallows spy in my room, ay even in
my widow'd bed, you thief.”

“Silence, you old Jezebel,” said the fellow
with a laugh, taking the bottle from his mouth
to breathe, “or you will wake the gentleman—
would you disturb a man in his last sleep?”

“I'll awake Captain Jack, you riprobate villain,
and bring him here to see me righted—he
will punish you all for imposing on a dacent
widow'd body, you marauder.”

With these words, which only extorted a laugh
from the sentinel, Betty staggered round the end
of the building, and made the best of her way towards
the quarters of her favourite, Captain John
Lawton, for redress. Neither the officer nor the
woman, however, appeared during the night, both
being differently employed, and nothing further
occurred to disturb the repose of the pedlar, who,
to the astonishment of the sentinel, continued apparently,
by his breathing, to manifest how little
the gallows could affect his slumbers.