HOTEL FLANAGAN AND ITS INTRUDERS.
The position held by the corps of dragoons, we have already said, was
a favorite place of halting with their commander.
A cluster of some half-dozen small and dilapidated[79] buildings
formed what, from the circumstances of two roads intersecting each
other at right angles, was called the Four Corners. As usual, one of
the most imposing of these edifices had been termed, in the language
of the day, "a house of entertainment for man and beast." On a rough
board, suspended from the gallows-looking post that had supported the
ancient sign, was written in red chalk, "Elizabeth Flanagan, her
hotel," an ebullition[80] of the wit of some of the idle wags of the
corps. The matron was the widow of a soldier who had been killed in
the service, and who, like herself, was a native of a distant island,
and had early tried his fortune in the colonies of North America. She
constantly migrated with the troops, and it was seldom that they
became stationary for two days at a time but the little cart of the
bustling woman was seen driving into the encampment, loaded with some
articles she conceived would make her presence welcome. With a
celerity[81] that seemed almost supernatural, Betty took up her ground
and commenced her occupation. Sometimes the cart itself was her shop;
at others the soldiers made her a rude shelter of such materials as
offered. But on the present occasion she seized on a vacant building
and formed what she herself pronounced to be "most illigant lodgings."
The men were quartered in the adjacent barns, and the officers
collected in the "Hotel Flanagan," as they facetiously[82] called
headquarters. Betty was well known to every trooper in the corps,
could call each by his Christian or nickname, as best suited her
fancy; and although absolutely intolerable to all whom habit had not
made familiar with her virtues, was a general favorite with these
partisan warriors. Her faults were, a trifling love of liquor,
excessive filthiness, a total disregard of all the decencies of
language; her virtues, an unbounded love for her adopted country,
perfect honesty when dealing on certain known principles with the
soldiery, and a great good-nature. Added to these, Betty had the merit
of being the inventor of that beverage which is so well known, at the
present hour, to all the patriots who make a winter's march between
the commercial and the political capitals of this great State, and
which is distinguished by the name of "cock-tail." Such then was the
mistress of the mansion, who, reckless of the cold northern blasts,
showed her blooming face from the door of the building to welcome the
arrival of her favorite, Captain Lawton, and his companion, her master
in surgery.
[Footnote 79: falling into decay.]
[Footnote 80: outburst.]
[Footnote 81: quickness.]
[Footnote 82: jocosely.]
Lawton and his companion now entered the building. A long table, made
from boards torn from the side of an out-building, was stretched
through the middle of the largest apartment, or the bar-room, and on
it was a very scanty display of crockery ware. The steams of cookery
arose from an adjoining kitchen, but the principal attraction was a
demijohn of fair proportions, which had been ostentatiously placed on
high by Betty as the object most worthy of notice.
Lawton soon learned that it was teeming with the real amber-colored
juice of the grape, and had been sent from the Locusts, as an offering
to Major Dunwoodie, from his friend Captain Wharton, of the royal
army.
The group within were all young men and tried soldiers; in number they
were about a dozen, and their manners and their conversation were a
strange mixture of the bluntness of the partisan with the manners of
gentlemen. Some were endeavoring to sleep on the benches which lined
the walls, some were walking the apartments, and others were seated in
earnest discussion on subjects connected with the business of their
lives. All this time Dunwoodie sat by himself, gazing at the fire, and
lost in reflections which none of his officers presumed to disturb.
A loud summons at the door of the building, and the dragoons
instinctively caught up their arms to be prepared for the worst.
The door was opened and the Skinners entered, dragging the peddler,
bending beneath the load of his pack.
"Which is Captain Lawton?" said the leader of the gang, gazing around
him in some little astonishment.
"He waits your pleasure," said the trooper, dryly.
"Then here I deliver to your hands a condemned traitor; this is Harvey
Birch, the peddler spy."
Lawton started as he looked his old acquaintance in the face, and
turning to the Skinner with a lowering look, he asked:
"And who are you, sir, that speak so freely of your neighbors? But,"
bowing to Dunwoodie, "your pardon, sir; here is the commanding
officer; to him you will please address yourself."
"No," said the man, sullenly, "it is to you I deliver the peddler, and
from you I claim my reward."
"Are you Harvey Birch?" said Dunwoodie, advancing with an air of
authority that instantly drove the Skinner to a corner of the room.
"I am," said Birch, proudly.
"And a traitor to your country," continued the major, with sternness;
"do you not know that I should be justified in ordering your execution
this night?"
"'Tis not the will of God to call a soul so hastily to his presence,"
said the peddler, with solemnity.
"You speak truth," said Dunwoodie; "but as your offence is most odious
to a soldier, so it will be sure to meet with the soldier's vengeance;
you die to-morrow."
"'Tis as God wills."
"I have spent many a good hour to entrap the villain," said the
Skinner, advancing from his little corner; "and I hope you will give
me a certificate that will entitle us to the reward; 'twas promised to
be paid in gold."
"Major Dunwoodie," said the officer of the day, entering the room,
"the patrols report a house to be burnt near yesterday's
battle-ground."
"'Twas the hut of the peddler," muttered the leader of the gang; "we
have not left him a shingle for shelter; I should have burned it
months ago, but I wanted his shed for a trap to catch the sly fox in."
"You seem a most ingenious patriot," said Lawton. "Major Dunwoodie, I
second the request of this worthy gentleman, and crave the office of
bestowing the reward on him and his fellows."
"Take it;--and you, miserable man, prepare for the fate which will
surely befall you before the setting of to-morrow's sun."
"Life offers but little to tempt me with," said Harvey, slowly raising
his eyes and gazing wildly at the strange faces in the apartment.
"Come, worthy children of America!" said Lawton, "follow and receive
your reward."
The gang eagerly accepted the invitation, and followed the captain
towards the quarters assigned to his troop.
The officer to whose keeping Dunwoodie had committed the peddler,
transferred his charge to the custody of the regular sergeant of the
guard. 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, soon
found the repose he needed. A rude shed extended the whole length of
the rear of the building, and from off one end had been partitioned a
small apartment that was intended as a repository for many of the
lesser implements of husbandry. The considerate sergeant thought this
the most befitting place in which to deposit his prisoner until the
moment of execution.
Several inducements urged Sergeant Hollister to this determination,
among which was the absence of the washerwoman, who lay before the
kitchen fire, dreaming that the corps was attacking a party of the
enemy, and mistaking the noise that 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. Captain Lawton had rewarded his fidelity
by making him his orderly.
Followed by Birch, the sergeant proceeded in silence to the door of
the intended prison, and, throwing it open with one hand, he held a
lantern with the other to light the peddler to his prison.
Harvey thoroughly examined the place in which he was to pass the
night, and saw no means of escape. He buried his face in both hands,
and his whole frame shook; the sergeant regarded him closely, took up
the lantern, and, with some indignation in his manner, left him to
sorrowful meditations on his approaching fate. Birch sank, in
momentary despair, on the pallet of Betty, while his guardian
proceeded to give the necessary instructions to the sentinels for his
safe-keeping.
Hollister concluded his injunctions to the man in the shed by saying,
"Your life will depend on his not escaping. Let none enter or quit the
room till morning."
"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 peddler does not
get out in the folds of her petticoats." He then continued his walk,
giving similar orders to each of the sentinels near the spot.
For some time after the departure of the sergeant, silence prevailed
within the solitary prison of the peddler, until the dragoon at his
door heard his loud breathings, which soon rose into the regular
cadence of one in deep sleep. The man continued walking his post,
musing on an indifference to life which could allow nature its
customary rest, even on the threshold of the grave.
His meditations were, however, soon interrupted by the approach 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 curses 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 respiration of the peddler, and within a
few minutes Harvey continued to breathe aloud, as if no interruption
had occurred. The relief[83] arrived at this moment, and at the same
time, the door of the prison was opened and Betty reappeared,
staggering back again toward her former quarters.
[Footnote 83: change of sentinel.]