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 ashes live their wonted fires.
--GRAY.
The 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
scattered dwellings were to be seen in different parts of his domains,
but they were fast falling to decay, and were 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 labor of his hands, to obtain overflowing
garners, 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 he
willingly adopted the guarded practice of the day, limiting his
attention to such articles as were soon to be consumed within his own
walls, or could be easily secreted from the prying eyes of the
foragers. In consequence, the ground on which the action was fought had
not a single inhabited building, besides the one belonging to the father
of Harvey Birch. This house stood between the place where the cavalry
had met, and that where the charge had been made on the party
of Wellmere.
To Katy Haynes it had been a day fruitful of incidents. 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 herself never lost sight of that important moment, when, like
females of more illustrious hopes, she might be required to sacrifice
her love of country on the altar of domestic harmony. And yet,
notwithstanding all her sagacity, there were moments when the good woman
had grievous doubts into which scale she ought to throw the weight of
her eloquence, in order to be certain of supporting the cause favored by
the peddler. There was so much that was equivocal in his movements and
manner, that often, when, in the privacy of their household, she was
about to offer a philippic on Washington and his followers, discretion
sealed her mouth, and distrust beset her mind. In short, the whole
conduct of the mysterious being she studied was of a character to
distract the opinions of one who took a more enlarged view of men and
life than came within the competency of his housekeeper.
The battle of the Plains had taught the cautious Washington the
advantages his enemy possessed 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 had bidden defiance to the attacks of the royal army, and Sir
William Howe fell back to the enjoyment of his barren conquest--a
deserted city. Never afterwards did the opposing armies make the trial
of strength within the limits of Westchester; 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 excesses which the preceding
darkness had served to conceal. Most of the movements of the peddler
were made at the hours which others allotted to repose. The evening sun
would frequently leave him at one extremity of the county, 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,
and thought his only purpose was the accumulation of gold. He would be
often seen near the Highlands, with a body bending under its load; and
again near the Harlem River, traveling 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 Harlem, and the northern end of
Manhattan Island was bristling with the bayonets of the English
sentinels, yet the peddler glided among them unnoticed and uninjured.
His approaches 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. These stories reached the ears of
the officers, and, as we have related, in two instances the trader had
fallen into the hands of the Americans. The first time he had 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 be imputed to men so well esteemed, and the
opinion gained ground among the common soldiery, that the peddler 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 the events, concluded that the evil
spirit did not pay in gold. Nor, continued 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. After the
alliance with France, when silver became more abundant in the country,
although the scrutinizing eyes of Katy never let any opportunity of
examining into the deerskin 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. In short, the secret hoard of Harvey
sufficiently showed in its contents that all its contributions had been
received from the British.
The house of Birch had been watched at different times by the Americans,
with a view to his arrest, but never with success; the reputed spy
possessing 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 peddler
was unseen; the detachment was withdrawn, and the following night Birch
reentered 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 keep alive the zeal of patriots by profession.
Its confiscation and purchase would not have rewarded their trouble. Age
and sorrow were now about to spare him further molestation, for the lamp
of life had been drained of its oil. The recent separation of the father
and son had been painful, but they had submitted in obedience to what
both thought a duty. The old man had kept his dying situation a secret
from the neighborhood, in the hope that he might still have the company
of his child in his last moments. The confusion of the day, and his
increasing dread that Harvey might be too late, helped to hasten the
event he would fain arrest for a little while. As night set in, his
illness increased to such a degree, that the dismayed housekeeper sent a
truant boy, who had shut up himself with them during the combat, to the
Locusts, in quest of a companion to cheer her solitude. Caesar, alone,
could be spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by the
kind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been dispatched on his duty. The
dying man was past the use of medicines, and his chief anxiety seemed to
center in a meeting with his child. The noise of the chase had been
heard by the group in the house, but its cause was not understood; and
as both the black and Katy were apprised of the detachment of American
horse being below them, they supposed it to proceed from the return of
that party. 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. The old man had closed
his eyes, and his attendants believed him to be asleep. The house
contained two large rooms and as many small ones. One of the former
served for kitchen and sitting room; in the other lay the father of
Birch; of the latter, one was the sanctuary of the vestal, and the other
contained the stock of provisions. A huge chimney of stone rose in the
center, serving, of itself, for a partition between the larger rooms;
and fireplaces of corresponding dimensions were in each apartment. A
bright flame was burning in that of the common room, and within the very
jambs of its monstrous jaws sat Caesar and Katy, at the time of which we
write. The African was impressing his caution on the housekeeper, and
commenting on the general danger of indulging an idle curiosity.
"Best nebber tempt a Satan," said Caesar, rolling up his eyes till the
whites glistened by the glare of the fire. "I berry like heself to lose
an ear for carrying a little bit of a letter; dere much mischief come of
curiosity. If dere had nebber been a man curious to see Africa, dere
would be no color people out of dere own country; but I wish Harvey
get back."
"It is very disregardful in him to be away at such a time," said Katy,
imposingly. "Suppose now his father wanted to make his last will in the
testament, who is there to do so solemn and awful an act for him? Harvey
is a very wasteful and very disregardful man!"
"Perhap he make him afore?"
"It would not be a wonderment if he had," returned the housekeeper; "he
is whole days looking into the Bible."
"Then he read a berry good book," said the black solemnly. "Miss Fanny
read in him to Dinah now and den."
"You are right, Caesar. The Bible is the best of books, and one that
reads it as often as Harvey's father should have the best of reasons for
so doing. This is no more than common sense."
She rose from her seat, and stealing softly to a chest of drawers in the
room of the sick man, she took from it a large Bible, heavily bound, and
secured with strong clasps of brass, with which she returned to the
negro. The volume was eagerly opened, and they proceeded instantly to
examine its pages. Katy was far from an expert scholar, and to Caesar
the characters were absolutely strangers. For some time the housekeeper
was occupied in finding out the word Matthew, in which she had no sooner
succeeded than she pointed out the word, with great complacency, to the
attentive Caesar.
"Berry well, now look him t'rough," said the black, peeping over the
housekeeper's shoulder, as he held a long lank candle of yellow tallow,
in such a manner as to throw its feeble light on the volume.
"Yes, but I must begin with the very beginning of the book," replied the
other, turning the leaves carefully back, until, moving two at once,
she lighted upon a page covered with writing. "Here," said the
housekeeper, shaking with the eagerness of expectation, "here are the
very words themselves; now I would give the world itself to know whom he
has left the big silver shoe buckles to."
"Read 'em," said Caesar, laconically.
"And the black walnut drawers; for Harvey could never want furniture of
that quality, as long as he is a bachelor!"
"Why he no want 'em as well as he fader?"
"And the six silver tablespoons; Harvey always uses the iron!"
"P'r'ap he say, without so much talk," returned the sententious black,
pointing one of his crooked and dingy fingers at the open volume.
Thus repeatedly advised, and impelled by her own curiosity, Katy began
to read. Anxious to come to the part which most interested herself, she
dipped at once into the center of the subject.
"_Chester Birch, born September 1st, 1755,_"--read the spinster, with a
deliberation that did no great honor to her scholarship.
"Well, what he gib him?"
"_Abigail Birch, born July 12th, 1757,_" continued the housekeeper, in
the same tone.
"I t'ink he ought to gib her 'e spoon."
"_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 volume, and Caesar, for a moment, shook
with fear. Neither possessed sufficient resolution to go and examine the
condition of the sufferer, but his heavy breathing continued as usual.
Katy dared not, however, reopen the Bible, and carefully securing its
clasps, it was laid on the table in silence. Caesar took his chair
again, and after looking timidly round the room, remarked,--
"I t'ought he time war' come!"
"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; for they say an unquiet
life makes an uneasy grave."
"Johnny Birch a berry good man in he way. All mankind can't be a
minister; for if he do, who would be a congregation?"
"Ah! Caesar, he is good only who does good. Can you tell me why honestly
gotten gold should be hidden in the bowels of the earth?"
"Grach!--I t'ink it must be to keep t'e Skinner from findin' him; if he
know where he be, why don't he dig him up?"
"There may be reasons not comprehensible to you," said Katy, moving her
chair so that her clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath which
lay the secret treasures of the peddler, unable to refrain from speaking
of what she would have been very unwilling to reveal; "but a rough
outside often holds a smooth inside." Caesar stared around the building,
unable to fathom the hidden meaning of his companion, when his roving
eyes 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 peddler himself, standing within the
door of the room.
"Is he alive?" asked Birch, tremulously, and seemingly afraid to receive
the answer.
"Surely," said Katy, rising hastily, and officiously offering her chair.
"He must live till day, or till the tide is down."
Disregarding all but the fact that his father still lived, the peddler
stole gently into the room of his dying parent. The tie which bound the
father and son was of no ordinary kind. In the wide world they were all
to each other. Had Katy but read a few lines further in the record, she
would have seen the sad tale of their misfortunes. At one blow
competence and kindred had been swept from them, and from that day to
the present hour, persecution and distress had followed their wandering
steps. Approaching the bedside, Harvey leaned his body forward, and, in
a voice nearly choked by his feelings, he whispered near the ear of
the sick,--
"Father, do you know me?"
The parent slowly opened his eyes, and a smile of satisfaction passed
over his pallid features, leaving behind it the impression of death,
more awful by the contrast. The peddler gave a restorative he had
brought with him to the parched lips of the sick man, and for a few
minutes new vigor seemed imparted to his frame. He spoke, but slowly,
and with difficulty. Curiosity kept Katy silent; awe had the same effect
on Caesar; 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 has chastised 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 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 peddler hastened to learn the cause, followed by
Katy and the black. The first glance of his eye on the figure in the
doorway told the trader but too well 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 an 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
who were guilty of every grade of offense, 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 indifference of
brutal insensibility. They were 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 Caesar 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 peddler.
"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 driveler company: where is your pack?"
"I will tell you nothing, unless you let me go to my father," said the
peddler, resolutely.
His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious sneer, and was about to
execute his threat, when one of his companions checked him.
"What would you do?" he said. "You surely forget the reward. Tell us
where are your goods, and you shall go to your father."
Birch complied instantly, and a man was dispatched in quest of the
booty; he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing it
was as light as feathers.
"Aye," 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.
"Give us your gold," exclaimed the other, furiously, pricking the
peddler 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,--
"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.
"Aye, but it shall be to your father in heaven."
"Monster! have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?"
"To hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neck
already," said the other, laughing. "There is no necessity for 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 peddler, who listened
with gasping breath to every sound from the room of his parent until he
heard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchral tones 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 of the
band. 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 to trust you
out of sight--your gold, your gold!"
"You have it," said the peddler, writhing with agony.
"Aye, 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 peddler,
eagerly--"remove the stone."
"He raves! he raves!" said Katy, instinctively moving her position to a
different stone from the one on which she had been standing. In a moment
it was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was seen beneath.
"He raves! You have driven him from his right mind," continued the
trembling spinster. "Would any man in his senses keep gold under
a hearth?"
"Peace, babbling fool!" cried Harvey. "Lift the corner stone, and you
will find that which will make you rich, and me a beggar."
"And then you will be despisable," said the housekeeper bitterly. "A
peddler without goods and without money is sure to be despisable."
"There will be enough left to pay for his halter," cried the Skinner,
who was not slow to follow the instructions of Harvey, soon lighting
upon a store of English guineas. The money was quickly transferred to a
bag, notwithstanding the declarations of the spinster, that her dues
were unsatisfied, and that, of right, ten of the guineas were
her property.
Delighted with a prize that greatly exceeded their expectations, the
band prepared to depart, intending to take the peddler with them, in
order to give him up to the American troops above, and to claim the
reward offered for his apprehension. Everything was ready, and they were
about to lift Birch in their arms, for he resolutely refused to move an
inch, when a form appeared in their midst, which appalled the stoutest
heart among them. The father had arisen from his bed, and he tottered
forth at the cries of his son. Around his body was thrown the sheet of
the bed, and his fixed eye and haggard face gave him the appearance of a
being from another world. Even Katy and Caesar thought it was the spirit
of the elder Birch, and they fled the house, followed by the alarmed
Skinners in a body.
The excitement which had given the sick man strength, soon vanished, and
the peddler, lifting him in his arms, reconveyed 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 the parting breath of
his parent, received his dying benediction. A life of privation, and of
wrongs, embittered most of the future hours of the peddler. But under no
sufferings, in no misfortunes, the subject of poverty and 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; and it brought the sweet assurance of having
faithfully discharged the sacred offices of filial love.
The retreat of Caesar and the spinster had been too precipitate to admit
of much calculation; yet they themselves instinctively separated from
the Skinners. After fleeing a short distance they paused, and the maiden
commenced in a solemn voice,--
"Oh! Caesar, was it not dreadful to walk before he had been laid in his
grave! It must have been the money that disturbed him; they say Captain
Kidd walks near the spot where he buried gold in the old war."
"I never t'ink Johnny Birch hab such a 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. Harvey will be nothing but an utterly despisable,
poverty-stricken wretch. I wonder who he thinks would even be his
housekeeper!"
"Maybe a spook take away Harvey, too," observed Caesar, 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 Caesar, they determined to
venture back, and ascertain this important fact, and, if possible, learn
what had been the fate of the peddler. 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 in search of abandoned gold. But although the
suddenness of the alarm and the cry of Caesar had impelled the
freebooters to so hasty a retreat, they grasped the hoard with a hold
that death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving everything to be
quiet within, Katy at length mustered resolution to enter the dwelling,
where she found the peddler, 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 Caesar continued to his dying day to astonish the
sable inmates of the kitchen with learned dissertations on spooks, and
to relate how direful was the appearance of that of Johnny Birch.
The danger compelled the peddler 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. Caesar 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 thrown decently over it,
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 your coward hearts?" cried their
dissatisfied leader, drawing his breath heavily.
"The same question might be asked of 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!"
"We follow our captain."
"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 Cowboys
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 should come, won't a bullet silence a dragoon from the South
as well as from old England?"
"Aye, but I don't choose a hornet's nest about my ears; rase 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 peddler will stay to see the old devil buried; and though we
cannot touch him at the funeral (for that would raise every old woman
and priest in America against us), he'll wait to look after the
movables, 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.