University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

“Speak—who and what are you? and what
seek you here?” said the harsh voice of the conqueror.

The intruder looked up in his face with some
wonder, and beheld the features of a man of middle
age, very dark and fierce of aspect, with long
black locks of hair hanging from his temples, wild,
Indian-looking eyes, and a mouth expressive of as
much inherent ferocity as was ever betrayed by
the visage even of a red-man.

“Speak,” repeated the apparition, impatiently,
“or never speak more!”

To this the prisoner replied with less confusion
of mind than difficulty of articulation,—

“Hark ye, Mr. Green, or Gray, or Black,—for a
deuced black face you have!—or, if you like that
better, Mr. Hawk-of-the-Hollow Gilbert, `what is
the reason that you use me thus?' `I would be
friends with you, and have your love;'—but not
while I am on my back, to be sure. `Call you
this backing of your friends?' `Slife, sir, take
away your fingers, and let me up: I am Iago, the
`honest, honest' man. At any rate, be so civil as

to consider, that, though your knee may find its
cushion agreeable enough, my lungs do not.”

“And what will they think of a knife in them?'
cried the fierce captor, without relaxing his hold.
“You were among the hounds that were hunting
me!”

“Ay; and had they caught you, I should have
been among the hunters that were hanging you,—
provided they had not tucked me up first. Hark
ye, friend Hawk, I should have known you better,
had you stuck to the gray whig; I remember you
of old, Mr. Green, the trader. I am an honest
man; ask Sir Guy Carleton else; if he don't know
Ephraim Patch, who is just as honest as myself,
why then ask him about one Leonidas Sterling, an
old friend and correspondent of his worship at Philadelphia.
'Slife, sir, I tell you I am a true man.”

“Give me some proof, and I will release you.
Trifle with me, and you are a dead man.”

“Put your hand into the right pocket of my
vest,” cried the prostrate sufferer, “and you will
find it.”

The conqueror did as directed, and drew forth
a guinea.

“You asked for proof,” said the other, with a
grin, “and there you have it! Were I a rebel, you
would have found naught but a roll of beggarly
continentals; had there been more, I should have
been an honest quaker, and neither rebel nor tory.
Are you satisfied? I came here to seek you, and
save my neck, which is in danger. There are
men among the rebel officers that know me; and
to be known, sir,—`by these pickers and stealers,'
'tis true!—'twere as good as a word to Jack
Ketch, under the sign and seal of a State governor!
Captain Gilbert, I come to volunteer my services
under your command; and the sooner you
introduce me to your rascals the better.”

“Rise, and behold them!” said the refugee,
leaping to his feet; and friend Ephraim Patch, or
Mr. Leonidas Sterling, as he had called himself,
looking up, beheld to his extreme surprise, for he
knew not how they got there, two men standing
hard by, in green hunting shirts, with each a
hatchet in his hand, as if ready to use them, and
countenances grimly forbidding.

“ `The earth hath bubbles, as the water has!' ”
he cried,—“ `Peas-blossom! Cobweb! Moth! and
Mustard-seed!' `I cry your worships' mercy!'
Your hands, gentlemen: I am as honest a scoundrel
as any of you, though somewhat more unfortunate.”

“Honest or false,” said the refugee, giving a
sign with his hand, on which the two instantly
stepped from the den, and were concealed among
the bushes, “it signifies but little to me. You are
among friends, if you speak true; otherwise, among
hangmen.—Your name is Poke?”

“ `That's he that was Othello'—a poor servant
of the word, an expounder of the book, a sower
of good seed on the way-side,” said the Proteus,
in the tones of the quondam Nehemiah.

“You are Tapes, the pedler, caught stealing
through the American lines at Morristown, and in
good hopes of dying on an oak-tree?”

“True for you, captain Gilbert!” cried the
other, with a stare; “but where did you learn
that? Hah! I see! the roguish refugee that assailed
young Asgill's guards, while he was riding
out on parole, and would have plucked him out of
the bonds of Egypt, had not the fool gripped tight
to his honour, very much as a drowning man hugs
a ship's anchor, at the bottom of a river, and so
remained in captivity.—What, captain! was that
one of your clap-traps?”

“You are the impudent scoundrel who has been

cutting throats, and laying them at honest men's
doors?” cried the other, without regarding the
question.

“Softly, captain—a mere matter of accident.”

“And, moreover,” said the refugee, sternly,
“you are the masking, blundering meddler, who
has twice drawn the hue and cry after myself?”

“Verily, so it appears,” cried Sterling; “but
now that we have met at last, we shall play no
longer at cross-purposes.”

“What seek you here? Why have you returned
to a place where your life is in danger?”

“Zounds, sir!” cried Sterling, stoutly, “you ask
questions enough to puzzle a regiment. But here
is my whole story,—the history of my deeds, dangers,
and desires. I am a gentlemanly scoundrel
and unfortunate man, like others that shall be
nameless; and after seeking my fortune in divers
parts of the world, and making a grand sensation
on the boards of the regimental theatre among
Howe's officers at Philadelphia, I e'en consented
to take service under the King, and therefore staid
behind, when he ran away, and have been ever
since a particular confidential correspondent of
the royal generals at New York.”

“That is to say, a spy?”

“Why, if you like the word better, e'en use it;
the more elegant word is, correspondent. I am
told, you have an excellent friend in Congress, a
certain Colonel Richard Falconer”—The refugee's
brow grew as black as midnight—“Well,
sir, this gentleman is e'en an excellent friend of
mine also; and having somewhat of the cunning
of the devil in him, became busy, one morning,
and entirely ruined my fortune and reputation together;
in other words, he discovered and denounced
me, threw me into prison, and volunteered
to help me to paradise. I broke jail, concealed

myself for a time; until, one night, accident drove
me into his presence. I found the good-natured
gray-beard alone, studying my case as hard as he
could, and out of my own papers! I am quite a
peaceable man, captain, `yet have I in me something
dangerous;' I became choleric, and finding
a sword hanging up just at my hand, I took the
liberty of thrusting it into his gizzard.”

“Fool!” said the refugee, grasping him by the
arm, “the throat is the only true place!—But, hark
ye,” he added, abating the wolfish sneer that accompanied
his words, “you robbed as well as
murdered?”

“Ay, `by St. Paul,' I did,” said Sterling, with
infinite composure; “having declared war, I made
free with the spoils of victory; and the Colonel's
purse has lasted very well, all circumstances considered;
though, wo's me, that say it! besides the
guinea in my waistcoat pocket, there are but two
more remaining, and they on the back of White
Surrey. Concerning White Surrey, you must
know, he is a devil born, like yourself,—I mean to
say, myself; fleet of foot, untiring of spirit, and
nothing against him but his ugliness and starved
appearance, and, by the lord, some touch of the
Marplot, especially in times of trouble. I could
not think of leaving him behind me; and I was on
my way to the rogue he called master, with a
whole theatrical property-room on my back, when
I stumbled in the dark on my friend Falconer. You
must know, I had a woodman's dress on”—

“Hah!” muttered the refugee: “it was not all
conscience, then?” Then changing his tone, he
continued, “You have said enough. You have
sought to escape, and find yourself unable?”

“Ay; and hearing the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow
were out again, I even took counsel from despair,
painted White Surrey's legs over again, and came

hither to throw myself among them. Faith, I
knew Hawk-Hollow would be the fairest place to
seek them in. I volunteer, captain, I volunteer;
but I hope you have a stronger force than Moth
and Mustard-seed? I volunteer, and, by the lord,
I am ready to go into action as soon as you order.
But would to the lord I could catch White Surrey.
—Harkee, captain, can you hide a man, at a moment's
warning, out of the sight of a gallows?”

“Ay: there are dens hereabout deep and dark
enough for a royal refugee to take his rest in.”

Hark ye, captain; give me a carbine, and I'll
do you a service. I have heard,” he added, with
a shrug meant to be significant and confidential,
“of that matter betwixt Falconer and your blackeyed”—

“Villain!” cried the refugee, seizing him by the
arm, and giving him a look that curdled his blood,
“you are venturing upon a subject that will bring
the knife to your throat! Pho, you are a fool;” he
added, checking his impetuosity, and grinning,

“we are Christians here, and we forgive our enemies.”

“Forgive?” cried Sterling, “come now, captain
Gilbert, that's slippery. I know you better;
and I know you have been wronged.”

“You are deceived,” said Oran Gilbert, laying
his hand, with another ominous smile, on the volunteer's
shoulder, “I am not an Indian, but a white
man, and as you may have seen, forbearing and
forgiving. They have told you, (for they have
told the same to me,) that I am a wolf's whelp, an
eater of men's flesh, and a drinker of blood; and
that I never pardoned an injury, though I had
grown gray thinking of it. Lies, lies all! I can

walk by my father's house, and see the sons of his
destroyer sitting in the doors; and yet carry myself
like the best Christian of them all: I can be
told, too, even by a foul-mouthed dolt like yourself,
how shame and sorrow, came into the house, and
afterwards death,—and yet feel no hotter for vengeance.
All this I can do, because I have a bad
memory for matters twenty years old, or more.—
Look you,” he continued, dropping his tone of
irony, and adopting that of menace; “I can forgive
treachery as old as that; but I remember a
knave's trick a full year. If there be any deceit in
you, look well to yourself during that time. You
were better to have been hanged as a spy, than to
come to me as one.—You shall see!”

“Slife, sir!” cried Sterling, “you have no consideration
for a man's honour!”

But while he spoke, the refugee had raised his
finger to his lips, and drawn forth a low whistle;
which was almost immediately answered by the
appearance of the two individuals who had been
in the covert before.

“Bring up the prisoner, and let the men follow,”
said Gilbert; and they immediately retired.

“Prisoner!” cried Sterling, in surprise, “Male
or female?”

“You have volunteered your services among
the royal refugees,” said Gilbert, turning again to
Sterling, and displaying a sardonic grin: “you
shall be put on duty forthwith.—Have you ever
killed a man?”

“Dozens of 'em!” replied the other, promptly;
when seeing the tory stare in surprise, he fell into
a laugh, saying, “That is, not in your barbarous,
blood-thirsty way; but in the heroic, poetic, dramatic
manner: in which mode I have also fought
divers battles, from Bosworth Field to Dunsinane.
No, captain, as to the real red-paint, as we call it

on the boards, I have shed no more than a lamb,
save in the matter of my friend, Colonel Falconer;
but I am in the mood to learn: I have had a great
appetite for war and glory come on me of a sudden.
Hark ye, captain: my friend Falconer's
son was one of the chasing party, and by and by
he will be returning to the Hollow.”

“Ay!” said the refugee; “what then?”

“I like that doctrine of the savages,” said Sterling,
with an amiable smile, “which teaches one
who has a wrong to revenge, how unnecessary it
is to be particular as to the individual he is to retaliate
on. Now the son, I take it, is a good substitute
for the father; and to my mind, it would be
a pretty thing to lie behind a bush on the road-side,
with a musket or pistol, as he passed by, and then,

Now, supposing, as my commander, you should
order me to such a service, why,—`sessa, let the
world slide,'—I should obey; that is, provided you
stood by, to help me to one of those dens deep and
dark enough for a refugee to take his rest in.”

“If the young ape has done you a wrong,” said
Gilbert, coolly, “shoot him the first opportunity.
You will have a chance by and by. You say,
your horse is good and swift?”

“The best, were it not for his deviltry, ever bestridden
by a gentleman in trouble. And then,
captain, the ungrateful scoundrel (sure I might
have escaped a dozen times, had it not been for
my concern for him!) has all my munitions of war
upon his back,—some six or seven coats and wigs
of approved manufacture, a pair of pistols and a
stage-dagger, a gold sword-hilt and two new tragedies
in manuscript, a pair of green spectacles,
and a horn pair uncoloured, a bottle of good

brandy, a bible, a copy of Shakspeare, a fiddle,
and my friend Falconer's two guineas.”

“You must recover him,” said the tory captain:
“but now for duty. You shall see how treachery
is rewarded by the royal refugees!”

As he spoke, there came into the den eight men
attired like the two first, who were included in the
number, all of them with green stuff shirts, edged
and furbelowed with wolf, raccoon, and other
skins, leather leggings and moccasins, and fur caps
with hawks' feathers sticking in them. Each bore
a thick rifle in his hand, and had a long knife in
his pouch-belt, as well as a light axe suspended,
quiver-wise, over his shoulder. They were dark,
fierce-looking men, and perhaps an unusual degree
of sternness was communicated to their features
by the fearful duty they had now in hand. They
led with them, or rather carried, for he was bound
hand and foot, a ninth man, dressed in many
respects like themselves, though he wore an old
military hat, and was without leggings or moccasins.
His countenance was as rude as those of the
others; but instead of exhibiting the same cold and
stern resolution, betrayed a look of dogged sullenness,
mingled with anxiety.

As soon as he was brought into the little inclosure,
he was tossed, with but little ceremony, at the
feet of the tory captain, the band forming a circle
around,—each, as if by previous concert, drawing
the tomahawk from his back, and resting his left
hand upon his rifle.

“Oho!” said Sterling, looking into the prisoner's
face, “whom have we here? `By this light, a
most perfidious and drunken monster!” `Most
reverend seignior, do you know my voice?' `Oho,
my sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that run'st o'
horseback up a hill perpendicular?' Why this
rascal was he, one John Parker, a soldier on the

lines, that nabbed me, being too drunk to understand
the claims of my coat to better treatment.
Oh, you vagabond, I knew you would come to the
gallows!”

“Raise him on his feet,” said the tory leader;
then turning to the volunteer, he drew from his
bosom a soiled and crumpled paper, which he put
into Sterling's hands, saying, with a sternness that
was perhaps assumed to cover the shame he felt at
his own ignorance,—

“Read it.—Our merry men here can make
nothing of such pothooks. Read it aloud; and
then we'll proceed to judgment.”

The volunteer obeyed, and succeeded in deciphering
a scrawl, of a style of composition and
penmanship so similar to that Miss Falconer had
shown the Captain's daughter, that, had he ever
seen the latter, he could have been at no loss to
identify the correspondent. It was brief, and clear,
and to the following effect:

“Honourable Madam to command—

“This here is the letter what I promised to put
under the bush; and I put it this night, the 3d of
July, in the year of our Lord, Anno Domini as
before. The rendezvous is a place called the Tarrapin
Hole, a swamp on the east of the road, six
or eight miles above Captain Loring's. You turn
off from the road at a place where a fresh blazed
beech tree grows by a rock; but the path is astonishing
twistified, and not fit for horse, but can be
surrounded. I had some thoughts of deserting, for
I reckon some of these dogs is suspicious; but that
might throw them into a panic, and so drive them
to the hills, where the devil himself (begging pardon
for swearing) could not find them. They say
the captain (that's the Hawk) is in the village, or
to be there to-morrow, when it would be easy to

take him—(remember the red hat; as for the horse,
there is no depending on that, for he has 'em scattered
all about in depots;) and then the rest is
nothing, seeing as how they are in some of a panic
already, as not knowing what is to turn up. How-somever
nevertheless, there's one thing I've found
out quite astonishing; and that is, that our lieutenant,
a most impudent chap as ever you saw,
walks about openly, and lives at the old widow
Bell's, and”—

“Hah! enough!” cried the leader, suddenly
snatching the epistle out of the volunteer's hands.
“Have we more traitors than one among us? Who
has forgotten orders, and told secrets to new men?”

“I, captain,” said one of the men, breaking silence.
“This here John Parker and myself were
boys together in Monmouth; and so, for old companion's
sake, I was more free about the lieutenant,
and other matters, than stood in orders, not thinking
there could any harm come of it. But I knock
under to punishment, seeing the man has been betraying
us all, and am ready to do justice on him
with knife, rope, hatchet, or rifle-butt; though it
goes ag'in' my conscience to take a man that's tied
up like a shambled ewe.”

“Cut the thongs from his legs,” said Oran Gilbert,
“or slack them a little. John Parker, I give
you three minutes to pray. What, Tom Staples,
have you never a rope here that might serve the
traitor's turn?”

“I have been twisting one all the morning,”
said the man who had spoken, displaying a sort of
cable constructed of the shreds of a blanket; “for
I hoped it might be that, rather than knifing.”

“Good Lord!” cried Sterling, shocked by the
sudden preparation for such a catastrophe, “you
don't mean to hang the poor devil?”

The sound of a friendly and interceding voice
seemed to thrill the baffled traitor out of his apathy.
He stared at the pseudo-quaker, and at once displayed
the reckless hardihood of his character,
though his old friend Staples was at that very moment
forming a noose in the rope, by laughing and
saying,

“Well done, old Tapes, is that you? You're no
Johnny Raw, I see; but you'll come to the acorns
yet! Don't go for to make a fuss about the hanging;
for, you see, it's according to law, and hanging's
the word; and these here raggamuffin refugees
must have their way; and so let 'em hang
and be d—d! that's my notion. But look ye,
Mr. Captain Gilbert, and all you tories, and you
Tom Staples into the bargain, here's a notion of
mine: you see, you're come to the hanging too
late, for all the good it is to do; for the thing's
done up so cleverly already, you're just as good as
dead men, you are, damme; for I've fixed you in
a hole you can't creep out of without my assistance,
you can't, damme. Now, captain, here's a
bargain I'll make: you'll just spare my life, and
drum me out of camp in an honourable, soldierly
way; and, in return, I'll show you the way out of
the trap; for, damme, comrades, you're surrounded:
and so we'll square matters betwixt us, and
say nothing more about it.”

“Peace, rogue,” said Oran Gilbert; “were the
whole army round us, you should have your dues.
String him up to the oak tree.”

“Well now, captain,” said Parker, “that's what
I call being unreasonable. But some of you give
me a drink at a canteen, for there's no use being
strung up thirsty: and, Tom Staples, give me your
cuffers, in token there's no ill-will between us; and
let's have a quid of tobacco to chaw on.—Hark!
there captain! do you hear? The road's in a

swarm, I tell you! That, I reckon, was the squeak
of captain Caliver; you can hear him a mile, of a
clear day; and, you may depend on it, he'll have
some of you, afore I've done kicking. Won't you
hear to reason?”

The coolness of the man was, to Sterling at least,
astonishing. They were fitting the halter round
his neck, when a faint shout from the road was
heard, but whether from a new batch of pursuers,
or from the old ones now returning, could not be
determined. He took the opportunity afforded by
the sudden surprise to beg Staples `to be in no such
fool's hurry with his blanket, and slack it off a little,
for a word with the captain.'

“Harkee, captain,” said he, “it's the last offer
I can make. Now let's argue the case.”

“Up with the babbling fool!” cried Gilbert, who
had been hearkening attentively to the sounds.

“You won't?” cried the hardened desperado—
“why then here's my service to you, and the devil
take us all to supper together.—Hillo-ah-ho! Murder!
Refugees!—in the swamp here, quick!”

He elevated his voice to a yell that caused the
very leaves to shake above him; and would undoubtedly
have given the alarm he intended to
those on the road, had not the refugee captain
snatched an axe from the nearest hand, and instantly
felled him to the earth. Then, giving his
orders anew, the wretch, before he had recovered
his consciousness, shot up among the leaves of an
oak tree; and Sterling, who watched the whole
proceeding with mingled admiration and alarm,
could not trace a single writhing or quivering of
limb afterwards.

“'Slife!” said he, “you killed the fellow with
the hatchet! But, captain, concerning that surrounding;
I don't like that”—

“Peace!” said the tory; “the first duty you

are to learn is, to hold your tongue—the next, to
obey.” He gave the wild band a signal, and they
instantly betook themselves to the bushes, or to
hiding-places of which Sterling was ignorant.
“This man came to me as a deserter, and was
therefore trusted by one who should have been
wiser: he has met his fate. You I can trust, because
I know you are a doomed man like myself.
You must recover your horse.”

“Ay, faith; but how?—`Slife! what's the matter
now?” he cried, observing his companion start
suddenly at what seemed to him the whistle of a
wood-robin, and look eagerly from the covert.
The sound was repeated once, and once again;
and then the refugee, turning to him, said,—

“You must claim him. Get you quickly to the
wood-side, and follow on after the others, so as to
recover him before they open your saddle-bags.”

“Death and the devil! you are joking! What!
run my head into the lion's jaws? and just to recover
a vagabond horse, that flings me whenever
the humour seizes him?”

“If you lose your horse, you lose yourself. We
can be burthened by no footmen.”

“Footmen? why I see no horses!”

“Ay: but away with you. Seek the men you
came with, and return with them to Elsie Bell's.”

“God bless my soul!” said Sterling, in alarm;
“that young knave Falconer will smoke me in a
moment.”

“Knock him on the head then.”

“And then the other lieutenant, that was so
curious with the spots of White Surrey's legs! a
marvellous shrewd fellow, I assure you.”

“Why, do the same with him then; and stay
not here babbling like a helpless boy. Protect
yourself. Fear not: your present coat suits
you better than the parson's. Return to Elsie

Bell's, secure your horse and other property, and
see that you feed him well; by midnight you will
be called for, and placed in safety. Keep a firm
countenance, as I think you can, and you are in
no danger.”

“Ay; but what excuse shall I make for leaving
the road, and diving into these damnable abodes
of refugees and rattlesnakes?”

“Tell them any lie you will,—your horse ran
away with you into the woods, and then—Or
stay,” he added, looking grimly up to the body of
the spy; “tell them you were seized by the Hawks
of Hawk-Hollow, and that you saw them hang
their tool. Bring them to the spot, and let them
bury the carrion: it is good they should know what
value we set on traitors. And, hark ye, tell them
we mustered at least a hundred strong, and that
we stole off across the road, swearing vengeance
upon the village. Mind you, the village: make
them believe we are marching to surprise it by
night. Now, get you gone—off with you. Set
your face to the west—there; walk onwards five
hundred paces, without looking to the right or the
left, and you will find yourself on the road. Begone,
and look not behind you.”

The volunteer perceiving that remonstrance
with such a commander might prove as dangerous
as it was really unavailing, turned to depart,
but not before he had seen the refugee clap his
fingers to his lips, and draw forth a whistle similar
to that which had attracted his own attention.
There was one injunction, however, which the retreating
Sterling thought it entirely superfluous to
obey. He had no sooner reached a spot proper
for such a proceeding, than he came to a stand,
and cast his eye backward towards the den. He
beheld a light figure ascending the knoll among
the bushes and under the embowering trees; and

just before it vanished into the greater gloom of
the grot, a sunbeam, peeping through the branches,
fell brightly over it, revealing to his somewhat astonished
eyes the person of that identical youth
whose mysterious hints had been of such service
in awaking the fears and stimulating the energies
of the hard-beset Nehemiah.

“Zounds!” he cried, “have we any such gentlemanly
fellows in the confederacy! Oho! I recollect
now,” he added, conning over the words
of the letter,—“ `our lieutenant, a most impudent
chap as ever you saw, walks about openly, lives
at the Traveller's Rest, and,'—ay, faith, there was
something about that old fool, Captain Loring, and
a girl. Very well, young one, you will be hanged
like the rest of us!”

So saying, and murmuring other expressions of
a similar nature, he made his way to the roadside,
almost at the very spot where a `blazed' beech-tree
flung its silver limbs over a rock.