University of Virginia Library

14. CHAP. XIV.

Julius Caesar

During this period of feverish excitement,
while the appearance and privations of war existed
with so little of its danger or its action, Lionel
had not altogether forgotten his personal feelings,
in the powerful interest created by the state
of public affairs. Early on the morning succeeding
the night of the scene between Mrs. Lechmere
and the inmates of the warehouse, he had
repaired again to the spot, to relieve the intense
anxiety of his mind, by seeking a complete explanation
of all those mysteries which had been the
principal ligament that bound him to a man,
little known, except for his singularities.

The effects of the preceding day's battle
were already visible in the market-place, where,
as Lionel passed, he saw few, or none of the
countrymen who usually crowded the square at
that hour. In fact, the windows of the shops
were opened with caution, and men looked out
upon the face of the sun, as if doubting of its
appearance and warmth, as in seasons of ordinary

quiet; jealousy, and distrust, having completely
usurped the place of security within the
streets of the town. Notwithstanding the hour,
few were in their beds, and those who appeared
betrayed by their looks that they had passed the
night in watchfulness. Among this number was
Abigail Pray, who received her guest in her little
tower, surrounded by every thing as he
had seen it on the past evening, nothing altered,
except her own dark eye, which at times
looked like a gem of price sat in her squalid
features, but which now appeared haggard and
sunken, participating more markedly than common,
in the general air of misery that pervaded
the woman.

“I have intruded at a somewhat unusual hour,
Mrs. Pray,” said Lionel, as he entered; “but
business of the last moment requires that I should
see your lodger—I suppose he is above; it will
be well to announce my visit.”

Abigail shook her head with an air of solemn
meaning, as she answered in a subdued voice,
“he is gone!”

“Gone!” exclaimed Lionel—“whither, and
when?”

“The people seem visited by the wrath of
God, sir,” returned the woman—“old and young,
the sick and well, are crazy about the shedding
of blood; and it's beyond the might of man to
say where the torrent will be stayed!”

“But what has this to do with Ralph! where is
he? Woman, you are not playing me false!”

“I! heaven forbid that I should ever be false
again! and to you least of all God's creatures!
No, no, Major Lincoln; the wonderful man, who
seems to have lived so long that he can even read
our secret thoughts, as I had supposed man could

never read them, has left me, and I know not
whether he will ever return.”

“Ever! you have not driven him by violence
from under your miserable roof?”

“My roof is like that of the fowls of the air—
'tis the roof of any who are so unfortunate as to
need it.—There is no spot on earth, Major Lincoln,
that I can call mine—but one day there
will be one—yes, yes—there will be a narrow
house provided for us all; and God grant that
mine may be as quiet as the coffin is said to be!
I lie not, Major Lincoln—no, this time I am
innocent of deceit—Ralph and Job have gone
together, but whither, I know not, unless it be to
join the people without the town—they left me
as the moon rose, and he gave me a parting and
a warning voice, that will ring in my ears until
they are deafended by the damps of the grave!”

“Gone to join the Americans, and with Job!”
returned Lionel, musing, and without attending
to the closing words of Abigail.—“Your boy will
purchase peril with this madness, Mrs. Pray, and
should be looked to.”

“Job is not one of God's accountables, nor
is he to be treated like other children,” returned
the woman. “Ah! Major Lincoln, a healthier,
and a stouter, and a finer boy was not to be
seen in the Bay-Province, till the child had reached
his fifth year! then, then it was that the judgment
of heaven fell on mother and son—sickness
made him what you see, a being with the
form, but without the reason of man, and I have
grown the wretch I am. But it has all been foretold,
and warnings enough have I had of it all!
for is it not said, that he “will visit the sins of
the fathers upon the children until the third and
fourth generation!” Thank God, my sorrows and

sins will end with Job, for there never can be a
third to suffer!”

“If,” said Lionel, “there be any sin which
lies heavy at your heart, every consideration,
whether of justice or repentance, should induce
you to confess your errors to those whose happiness
may be affected by the knowledge, if any
such there be?”

The anxious eye of the woman raised itself
to meet the look of the young man; but quailing
before the piercing gaze it encountered, she
quickly turned it upon the litter and confusion
of her disordered apartment. Lionel waited
some time for a reply, but finding that she remained
obstinately silent, he continued—

“From what has already passed, you must be
eonscious that I have good reason to believe
that my feelings are deeply concerned in your
secret; make, then, your confession of the guilt
which seems to bear you down so heavily; and
in return for the confidence, I promise you my
forgiveness and protection.”

As Lionel pressed thus directly the point so
near his heart, the woman shrunk away from her
situation near him, and her countenance lost, as
he proceeded, its remarkable expression of compunction,
in a forced look of deep surprise, that
showed she was no novice in dissimulation, whatever
might be the occasional warnings of her
conscience.

“Guilt!” she repeated, in a slow and tremulous
voice; “we are all guilty, and would be
lost creatures, but for the blood of the Mediator.”

“Most true; but you have spoken of crimes
that infringe the laws of man, as well as those
of God.”

“I! Major Lincoln—I, a disorderly law-breaker!”
exclaimed Abigail, affecting to busy
herself in arranging her apartment—“it is not
such as I, that have leisure or courage to
break the laws! Major Lincoln is trying a
poor lone woman, to make his jokes with the
gentlemen of his mess this evening—'tis certain,
we all of us have our burthens of guilt to answer
for—surely Major Lincoln couldn't have
heard minister Hunt preach his sermon, the last
Sabbath, on the sins of the town!”

Lionel coloured highly at the artful imputation
of the woman, that he was practising on
her sex and unprotected situation; and greatly
provoked, in secret, at her duplicity, he became
more guarded in his language, endeavouring to
lead her on, by kindness and soothing, to the desired
communications. But all his ingenuity was
met by more than equal abilities on the part of
Abigail, from whom he only obtained expressions
of surprise that he could have mistaken her
language for more than the usual acknowledgment
of errors, that are admitted to be common
to our lost nature. In this particular the woman
was in no respect singular; the greater number
of those who are loudest in their confessions and
denunciations on the abandoned nature of our
hearts, commonly resenting, in the deepest manner,
the imputation of individual offences. The
more earnest and pressing his inquiries became,
the more wary she grew, until disgusted with her
pertinacity, and secretly suspecting her of foul
play with her lodger, he left the house in anger,
determining to keep a close eye on her movements,
and, at a suitable moment, to strike such
a blow as should bring her not only to confession,
but to shame.

Under the influence of this momentary resentment,
and unable to avoid harboring the most
unpleasant suspicions of his aunt, the young
man determined, that very morning, to withdraw
himself entirely, as a guest, from her
dwelling. Mrs. Lechmere, who, if she knew at all
that Lionel had been a witness of her intercourse
with Ralph, must have received the intelligence
from Abigail, received him, at breakfast,
with a manner that betrayed no such consciousness.
She listened to his excuses for removing,
with evident concern; and more than
once, as Lionel spoke of the probable nature of
his future life, now that hostilities had commenced—the
additional trouble his presence
would occasion to her habits and years—of his
great concern in her behalf—and, in short, of all
that he could devise in the way of apology for
the step, he saw her eyes turned anxiously on
Cecil, with an expression which, at another time,
might have led him to distrust the motives of her
hospitality. The young lady herself, however,
evidently heard the proposal with great satisfaction,
and when her grandmother appealed to her
opinion, whether he had urged a single good reason
for the measure, she answered with a vivacity
that had been a stranger to her manner of late—

“Certainly, my dear grandmama—the best of
all reasons—his inclinations. Major Lincoln tires
of us, and of our hum-drum habits, and, in my
eyes, true politeness requires that we should suffer
him to leave us for his barracks, without a word
of remonstrance.”

“My motive must be greatly mistaken, if a
desire to leave you—”

“Oh! sir, the explanation is not required.
You have urged so many reasons, cousin Lionel.
that the true and moving motive is yet kept behind

the curtain. It must, and can be no other
than ennui.”

“Then I will remain,” said Lionel; “for any
thing is better than to be suspected of insensibility.”

Cecil looked both gratified and disappointed—
she played with her spoon a moment in embarrassment,
bit her beautiful lip with vexation, and
then said, in a more friendly tone—

“I must then exonerate you from the imputation—go
to your own quarters, if it be agreeable,
and we will believe your incomprehensible
reasons for the change—besides, as a kinsman,
we shall see you every day, you know.”

Lionel had now no longer any excuse for not
abiding by his avowed determination; and notwithstanding
Mrs. Lechmere parted from her
interesting nephew with an exhibition of reluctance
that was in singular contrast with her usually
cold and formal manner, the desired removal
was made in the course of that very morning.

When this change was accomplished, week after
week slipped by, in the manner related in the
preceding chapter, during which the reinforcements
continued to arrive, and general after general
appeared in the place to support the unenterprizing
Gage in the conduct of the war. The
timid amongst the colonists were appalled as they
heard the long list of proud and boasted names recounted.
There was Howe, a man sprung from a
noble race, long known for their deeds in arms,
and whose chief had already shed his blood on
the soil of America. Clinton, another cadet of
an illustrious house, better known for his personal
intrepidity and domestic kindness, than for the
rough qualities of the warrior. And the elegant
and accomplished Burgoyne, who had already
purchased a name in the fields of Portugal and

[OMITTED] the benefit of the late exchange, and curious to
know what all the suppressed roguery he could
detect in the demure countenances of his friends
might signify, Lionel dropped his pen, and listened
to the succeeding dialogue.

“Now answer to your offences, thou silly fellow,
with a wise name,” M`Fuse commenced, in
a voice that did not fail, by its harsh cadences,
to create some of that awe, which, by the expression
of hte speaker's eye, it would seem he
laboured to produce—“speak out with the freedom
of a man, and the compunctions of a Christian,
if you have them. Why should I not send
you at once to Ireland, that ye may get your deserts
on three pieces of timber, the one being laid
cross-wise for the sake of convenience. If you
have a contrary reason, bestow it without delay,
for the love you bear your own angular daiformities.”

The wags did not altogether fail in their object,
Seth betraying a good deal more uneasiness
than it was usual for the man to exhibit even in
situations of uncommon peril. After clearing his
throat, and looking about him, to gather from the
eyes of the spectators which way their sympathies
inclined, he answered with a very commendable
fortitude—

“Because it's ag'in all law.”

“Have done with your interminable perplexities
of the law,” cried M`Fuse, “and do not
bother honest gentlemen with its knavery, as if
they were no more than so many proctors in big
wigs! 'tis the gospel you should he thinking of,
you godless reprobate, on account of that final
end you will yet make, one day, in a most indecent
hurry.”

“To your purpose, Mac,” interrupted Polwarth,

who perceived that the erratic feelings of
his friend were beginning already to lead him
from the desired point; “or I will propound
the matter myself, in a style that would do credit
to a mandamus counsellor.”

“The mandamuses are all ag'in the charter,
and the law too,” continued Seth, whose courage
increased as the dialogue bore more directly upon
his political principles—“and to my mind it's
quite convincing that if ministers calculate largely
on upholding them, there will be great disturbances,
if not a proper fight in the land; for the
whole country is in a blaze!”

“Disturbances, thou immoveable iniquity!
thou quiet assassin!” roared M`Fuse; “do ye
not call a fight of a day a disturbance, or do ye
tar'm skulking behind fences, and laying the
muzzle of a musket on the head of Job Pray,
and the breech on a mullen-stalk, while ye draw
upon a fellow-creature, a commendable method
of fighting! Now answer me to the truth, and
disdain all lying, as ye would 'ating any thing
but cod on a Saturday, who were the two men
that fired into my very countenance, from the
unfortunate situation among the mullens that I
have datailed to you?”

“Pardon me, captain M`Fuse,” said Polwarth,
“if I say that your zeal and indignation run
ahead of your discretion. If we alarm the prisoner
in this manner, we may defeat the ends of
justice. Besides, sir, there is a reflection contained
in your language, to which I must dissent.
A real dumb is not to be despised, especially when
served up in wrapper, and between two coarser
fish to preserve the steam—I have had my private
meditations on the subject of getting up a Saturday's
club, in order to enjoy the bounty

of the Bay, and for improving the cookery of
the cod!”[1]

“And let me tell you, captain Polwarth,” returned
the grenadier, cocking his eye fiercely at
the other, “that your epicurean propensities lead
you to the verge of cannibalism; for sure it may
be called that, when you speak of 'ating while the
life of a fellow cr'ature is under a discussion for
its termination—”

“I conclude,” interrupted Seth, who was greatly
averse to all quarreling, and who thought he
saw the symptoms of a breach between his
judges, “the captain wishes to know who the
two men were that fired on him a short time before
he got the hit in the shoulder?”

“A short time, ye marvellous hypocrite!—
'twas as quick as pop and slap could make it.”

“Perhaps there might be some mistake, for a
great many of the troops were much disguised—”

“Do ye insinuate that I got drunk before the
enemies of my king!” roared the grenadier—
“Harkye, Mister Sage, I ask you in a genteel way,
who the two men were that fired on me, in the
manner datailed, and remember that a man may
tire of putting questions which are never answered?”

“Why,” returned Seth, who, however expert
at prevarication, eschewed with religious horror,
a direct lie—“I pretty much conclude that
they—the captain is sure the place he means was
just beyond Menotomy?”

“As sure as men can be,” said Polwarth, “who
possess the use of their eyes.”

“Then captain Polwarth can give testimony
to the fact?”

“I believe Major Lincoln's horse carries a small
bit of your lead to this moment, Master Sage.”

Seth yielded to this accumulation of evidence
against him, and knowing, moreover, that the
grenadier had literally made him a prisoner in the
fact of renewing his fire, he sagaciously determined
to make a merit of necessity, and candidly
to acknowledge his agency in inflicting the
wounds. The utmost, however, that his cautious
habits would permit him to say, was—

“Seeing there can't well be any mistake, I seem
to think, the two men were chiefly Job and I.”

“Chaifly, you lath of uncertainty!” exclaimed
M`Fuse; “if there was any chaif in that cowardly
assassination of wounding a Christian, and of
also hurting a horse, which, though nothing but
a dumb baste, has better blood than runs in your
own beggarly veins, 'twas your own ugly proportions.
But I rejoice that you have come to the
confessional!—I can now see you hung with felicity—if
you have any thing to say, urge it
at once, why I should not embark you for Ireland
by the first vessel, in a letter to my Lord-Lieutenant,
with a request that he'll give you an
early procession, and a dacent funeral.”

Seth belonged to a class of his countrymen,
amongst whom, while there was a superabundance
of ingenuity, there was literally no joke.
Déceived by the appearance of anger which had
in reality blended with the assumed manner of the
grenadier, as he dwelt upon the irritating subject
of his own injuries, the belief of the prisoner in the
sacred protection of the laws became much shaken,
and he began to reflect very seriously on the

insecurity of the times, as well as on the despotic
nature of the military power. The little humour
he had inherited from his puritan ancestors, was,
though exceedingly quaint, altogether after a different
fashion from the off-hand, blundering wit of
the Irishman; and that manner which he did not
possess, he could not entirely comprehend, so that
as far as a very visible alarm furthered the views
of the two conspirators, they were quite successful.
Polwarth now took pity on his evident embarrassment,
and observed, with a careless manner—

“Perhaps I can make a proposal by which
Mr. Sage may redeem his neck from the halter,
and at the same time essentially serve an old
friend.”

“Hear ye that, thou confounder of men and
bastes!” cried M`Fuse—“down on your knees,
and thank Mr. Paiter Polwarth for the charity of
his insinuation.”

Seth was not displeased to hear such amicable
intentions announced; but habitually cautious in
all bargaining, he suppressed the exhibition of his
satisfaction, and said, with an air of deliberation
that would have done credit to the keenest trader
in King-street—that “he should like to hear the
terms of the agreement, before he gave his conclusion.”

“They are simply these,” returned Polwarth—
“you shall receive your passports and freedom
to-night, on condition that you sign this bond,
whereby you will become obliged to supply our
mess, as usual, during the time the place is invested,
with certain articles of food and nourishment,
as herein set forth, and according to the
prices mentioned, which the veriest Jew in
Duke's-place would pronounce to be liberal.
Here; take the instrument, and `read, and mark,'
in order that we may `inwardly digest.”'

Seth took the paper, and gave it that manner
of investigation that he was wont to bestow
on every thing which affected his pecuniary
interests. He objected to the price of every
article, all of which were altered in compliance
with his obstinate resistance, and he moreover
insisted that a clause should be inserted to exonerate
him from the penalty, provided the intercourse
should be prohibited by the authorities of
the colony; after which, he continued—

“If the captain will agree to take charge of
the things, and become liable, I will conclude
to make the trade.”

“Here is a fellow who wants boot in a bargain
for his life!” cried the grenadier; “but we will
humour his covetous inelinations, Polly, and take
charge of the chattels. Captain Polwarth and
myself, pledge our words to their safe-keeping.
Let me run my eyes over the articles,” continued
the grenadier, looking very gravely at the
several covenants of the bond—“faith, Paiter,
you have bargained for a goodly larder! Baif,
mutton, pigs, turnips, potatos, melons, and other
fruits—there's a blunder, now, that would keep
an English mess on a grin for a month, if an
Irishman had made it! as if a melon was a fruit,
and a potato was not! The devil a word do I see
that you have said about a mouthful, except
aitables either! Here, fellow, clap your learning
to it, and I'll warrant you we yet get a meal out
of it, in some manner or other.”

“Wouldn't it be as well to put the last agreement
in the writings, too,” said Seth, “in case
of accidents?”

“Hear how a knave halters himself!” cried
M'Fuse; “he has the individual honour of two
captains of foot, and is willing to exchange it for
their joint bond! The request is too raisonable to

be denied, Polly, and we should be guilty of pecuniary
suicide to reject it; so place a small article
at the bottom, explanatory of the mistake the
gentleman has fallen into.”

Polwarth did not hesitate to comply, and in a
very few minutes every thing was arranged to
the perfect satisfaction of the parties, the two soldiers
felicitating themselves on the success of a
scheme which seemed to avert the principal evils
of the leaguer from their own mess; and Seth,
finding no difficulty in complying with an agreement
which was likely to prove so profitable,
however much he doubted its validity in a court
of justice. The prisoner was now declared at liberty,
and was advised to make his way out of
the place, with as little noise as possible, and under
favour of the pass he held. Seth gave the bond
a last and most attentive perusal, and then departed,
well contented to abide by its conditions, and
not a little pleased to escape from the grenadier,
the expression of whose half-comic, half-serious
eye, occasioned him more perplexity than any other
subject which had ever before occupied his astuteness.
After the disappearance of the prisoner,
the two worthies repaired to their nightly banquet,
laughing heartily at the success of their notable
invention.

Lionel suffered Seth to pass from the room,
without speaking, but as the man left his own
abode with a lingering and doubtful step, the
young soldier followed him into the street, without
communicating to any one that he had witnessed
what had passed, with the laudable intention
of adding his own personal pledge for the security
of the household goods in question. He,
however, found it no easy achievement to equal
the speed of a man who had just escaped from
a long confinement, and who now appeared

inclined to indulge his limbs freely in the pleasure
of an unlimited exercise. The velocity of Seth
continued unabated, until he had conducted Lionel
far into the lower parts of the town, where the
latter perceived him to encounter a man with
whom he turned suddenly under an arch which
led into a dark and narrow court. Lionel instantly
increased his speed, and as he entered beneath
the passage, he caught a glimpse of the lank figure
of the object of his pursuit, gliding through the
opposite entrance to the court, and, at the same
moment, he encountered the man who had apparently
induced the deviation in his route. As
Lionel stepped a little on one side, the light of a
lamp fell full on the form of the other, and he recognised
the person of the active leader of the
caucus, (as the political meeting he had attended
was called,) though so disguised and muffled, that,
but for the accidental opening of the folds of his
cloak, the unknown might have passed his nearest
friend without discovery.

“We meet again!” exclaimed Lionel, in the
quickness of surprise; “though it would seem
that the sun is never to shine on our interviews.”

The stranger started, and betrayed an evident
wish to continue his walk, as though the other
had mistaken his person; then, as if suddenly
recollecting himself, he turned and approached
Lionel, with easy dignity, and answered—

“The third time is said to contain the charm!
I am happy to find that I meet Major Lincoln,
unharmed, after the dangers he so lately encountered.”

“The dangers have probably been exaggerated
by those who wish ill to the cause of our
master,” returned Lionel, coldly.

There was a calm, but proud smile on the face
of the stranger, as he replied—

“I shall not dispute the information of one who
bore so conspicuous a part in the deeds of that
day—still you will remember, though the march
to Lexington was, like our own accidental rencontres,
in the dark, that a bright sun shone upon
the retreat, and nothing has been hid.”

“Nothing need be concealed,” replied Lionel,
nettled by the proud composure of the other—
“unless, indeed, the man I address is afraid to
walk the streets of Boston in open day.”

“The man you address, Major Lincoln,” said
the stranger, advancing in his warmth a step nearer
to Lionel, “has dared to walk the streets of Boston
both by day and by night, when the bullies of
him you call your master, have strutted their
hour in the security of peace; and now a nation
is up to humble their pretensions, shall he shrink
from treading his native soil when he will!”

“This is bold language for an enemy within a
British camp! Ask yourself what course my duty
requires of me?”

“That is a question which lies between Major
Lincoln and his conscience,” returned the stranger—“though,”
he added, after a momentary
pause, and in a milder tone, as if he recollected
the danger of his situation—“the gentlemen
of his name and lineage were not apt to be
informers, when they dwelt in the land of their
birth.”

“Neither is their descendant. But let this be
the last of our interviews, until we can meet as
friends, or as enemies should, where we may discuss
these topics at the points of our weapons.”

“Amen,” said the stranger, seizing the hand of
the young man, and pressing it with the warmth
of a generous emulation—“that hour may not be
far distant, and may God smile only on the just
cause.”

Without uttering more, he drew the folds of his
dress more closely around his form, and walked
so swiftly away that Lionel, had he possessed
the inclination, could not have found an opportunity
to arrest his progress. As all expectation
of overtaking Seth was now lost, the young
soldier returned slowly and thoughtfully towards
his quarters.

The two or three succeeding days were distinguished
by an appearance of more than usual preparation
among the troops, and it became known
that officers of rank had closely reconnoitred
the grounds of the opposite peninsula. Lionel
patiently awaited the progress of events; but as
the probability of active service increased, his
wishes to make another effort to probe the secret
of the tenant of the warehouse revived, and
he took his way towards the dock-square, with
that object, on the night of the fourth day from
the preceding interview with the stranger. It
was long after the tattoo had laid the town in that
deep quiet which follows the bustle of a garrison;
and as he passed along he saw none but the
sentinels pacing their short limits, or an occasional
officer, returning at that late hour from his
revels or his duty. The windows of the warehouse
were dark, and its inhabitants, if any it
had, were wrapped in deep sleep. Restless,
and excited, Lionel pursued his walk through the
narrow and gloomy streets of the North-end,
until he unexpectedly found himself issuing upon
the open space that is tenanted by the dead, on
Copp's-hill. On this eminence the English general
had caused a battery of heavy cannon to be
raised, and Lionel, unwilling to encounter the
challenge of the sentinels, inclining a little to one
side, proceeded to the brow of the hill, and seating

himself on a stone, began to muse deeply on
his own fortunes, and the situation of the country.

The night was obscure, but the thin vapours
which appeared to overhang the place opened
at times, when a faint star-light fell from the heavens,
and rendered the black hulls of the vessels
of war that lay moored before the town, and the
faint outlines of the opposite shores, dimly visible.
The stillness of midnight rested on the
scene, and when the loud calls of “all's-well”
ascended from the ships and batteries, the momentary
cry was succeeded by a quiet as deep as
if the universe slumbered under this assurance
of safety. At such an instant, when even the
light breathings of the night air were audible,
the sound of rippling waters, like that occasioned
by raising a paddle with extreme caution, was
borne to the ear of the young soldier. He listened
intently, and then bending his eyes in the direction
of the faint sounds, he saw a small canoe gliding
along on the surface of the water, and soon
shoot upon the gravelly shore, at the foot of the
hill, with a motion so easy and uniform as scarcely
to curl a wave on the land. Curious to know who
could be moving about the harbour at this hour, in
such a secret manner, Lionel was in the act of
rising to descend, when he saw the dim figure of a
man land from the boat, and climb the hill, directly
in a line with his own position. Suppressing
even the sounds of his breath, and drawing his body
back within the deep shadow cast from a point
of the hill, a little above him, Lionel waited until
the figure had approached within ten feet of him,
when it stopped, and appeared, like himself, to
be endeavouring to suppress all other sounds and
feelings in the absorbing act of deep attention.
The young soldier loosened his sword in its
sheath, before he said—

“We have chosen a private spot, and a secret
hour, sir, for our meditations!”

Had the figure possessed the impalpable nature
of an immaterial being, it could not have received
this remark, so startling from its suddenness, with
greater apathy than did the man to whom it was
addressed. He turned slowly towards the speaker,
and seemed to look at him earnestly, before he
answered, in a low, menacing voice—

“There's a granny on the hill, with a gun and
baggonet, walking among the cannon, and if he
hears people talking down here, he'll make them
prisoners, though one of them should be Major
Lincoln.”

“Ha! Job,” said Lionel—“and is it you I meet
prowling about like a thief at night!—on what
errand of mischief have you been sent this time?”

“If Job's a thief for coming to see the graves
on Copp's,” returned the lad sullenly, “there's
two of them.”

“Well answered boy!” said Lionel, with a
smile; “but I repeat, on what errand have you
returned to the town at this unseasonable and
suspicious hour?”

“Job loves to come up among the graves, before
the cocks grow; they say the dead walk
when living men sleep.”

“And would you hold communion with the
dead, then?”

“'Tis sinful to ask them many questions, and
such as you do put should be made in the Holy
name,” returned the lad, in a tone so solemn, that,
connected with the place and the scene, it caused
the blood of Lionel to thrill—“but Job loves
to be near them, to use him to the damps,
ag'in the time he shall be called to walk himself
in a sheet at midnight.”

“Hush!” said Lionel—“what noise is that?”

Job stood a moment, listening as intently as his
companion, before he answered—

“There's no noise but the moaning of the wind
in the bay, or the sea tumbling on the beaches of
the islands?”

“'Tis neither,” said Lionel; “I heard the
low hum of a hundred voices, or my ears have
played me falsely.”

“May be the spirits speak to each other,” said
the lad—“they say their voices are like the rushing
winds.”

Lionel passed his hand across his brow, and
endeavoured to recover the tone of his mind,
which had been strangely disordered by the solemn
manner of his companion, and walked slowly
from the spot, closely attended by the silent
changeling. He did not stop until he had reached
the inner angle of the wall that enclosed the
field of the dead, when he paused, and leaning on
the fence, again listened intently.

“Boy, I know not how your silly conversation
may have warped my brain,” he said, “but there
are surely strange and unearthly sounds lingering
about this place, to-night! By heavens! there is
another rush of voices, as if the air above the water
were filled with living beings; and then again,
I think I hear a noise as if heavy weights were
falling to the earth!”

“Ay,” said Job, “'tis the clods on the coffins;
the dead are going into their graves ag'in, and
'tis time that we should leave them their own
grounds.”

Lionel hesitated no longer, but he rather run
than walked from the spot, with a secret horror
that, at another moment, he would have blushed to
acknowledge, nor did he perceive that he was still

attended by Job, until he had descended some distance
down Lynn-street. Here he was addressed
by his companion, in his usually quiet and unmeaning
tones—

“There's the house that the governor built
who went down into the sea for money!” he
said—“he was a poor boy once, like Job, and
now they say his grandson is a great lord, and
the king knighted the grand'ther too. It's
pretty much the same thing whether a man
gets his money out of the sea or out of the
earth; the king will make him a lord for it.”

“You hold the favours of royalty cheap, fellow,”
returned Lionel, glancing his eye carelessly
at the `Phipp's house,” as he passed—“you forget
that I am to be some day one of your despised
knights!”

“I know it,” said Job; “and you come from
America too—it seems to me that all the poor
boys go from America to the king to be great
lords, and all the sons of the great lords come to
America to be made poor boys—Nab says Job
is the son of a great lord too!”

“Then Nab is as great a fool as her child,”
said Lionel; “but boy, I would see your mother
in the morning, and I expect you to let me know
at what hour I may visit her.”

Job did not answer, and Lionel, on turning
his head, perceived that he was suddenly deserted
by the changeling, who was already gliding back
towards his favourite haunt among the graves.
Vexed at the wild humours of the lad, Lionel
hastened to his quarters, and threw himself in
his bed, though he heard the loud cries of “all's
well,” again and again, before the strange phantasies
which continued to cross his mind would
permit him to obtain the rest he sought.