"I'm a single woman, and my name is Haynes," said Katy, "and I'd thank you to use no disparaging terms when speaking to me." "You must tolerate a little license in the tongue of Mrs. Flanagan, madam," said the trooper; "the drop she speaks of is often of an extraordinary size, and then she has acquired the freedom of a soldier's manner." "Pooh! Captain, darling," cried Betty, "why do you bother the woman? talk like yourself, dear, and, it's no fool of a tongue that yee've got in yeer own head. But it's here away that the sargeant made a halt, thinking there might be more divils than one stirring, the night. The clouds are as black as Arnold's heart, and deuce the star is there twinkling among them. Well, the mare is used to a march after nightfall, and is smelling out the road like a pointer slut." "It wants but little to the rising moon," observed the trooper. He called a dragoon who was riding in advance, issued a few orders and cautions relative to the comfort and safety of Singleton, and speaking a consoling word to his friend himself, gave Roanoke the spur, and dashed by the cart, at a rate that again put to flight all the philosophy of Catherine Haynes. "Good luck to you, for a free rider and a bold!" shouted the washerwoman as he passed; "if yee're meeting Mister Beelzeboob, just back the baste up to him, and show him his consort that yee've got on the crupper. I'm thinking it's no long he'd tarry to chat. Well, well, it's his life that we saved, he was saying so himself though the plunder is nothing to signify." The cries of Betty Flanagan were too familiar to the ears of Captain Lawton to elicit a reply. Notwithstanding the unusual burden that Roanoke sustained, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and the distance between the cart of Mrs. Flanagan and the chariot of Miss Peyton was passed in a manner that, however it answered the intentions of the trooper, in no degree contributed to the comfort of his companion. The meeting occurred but a short distance from the quarters of Lawton, and at the same instant the moon broke from behind a mass of clouds, and threw its light upon objects. Compared with the simple elegance and substantial comfort of the Locusts, the "Hotel Flanagan" presented but a dreary spectacle. In the place of carpeted floors and curtained windows, were the yawning cracks of a rudely constructed dwelling, and boards and paper were ingeniously applied to supply the place of the green glass in more than half the lights. The care of Lawton had anticipated every improvement that their situation would allow, and blazing fires were made before the party arrived. The dragoons, who had been charged with this duty, had conveyed a few necessary articles of furniture, and Miss Peyton and her companions, on alighting, found something like habitable apartments prepared for their reception. The mind of Sarah had continued to wander during the ride, and, with the ingenuity of the insane, she accommodated every circumstance to the feelings that were uppermost in her own bosom. "It is impossible to minister to a mind that has sustained such a blow," said Lawton to Isabella Singleton; "time and God's mercy alone can cure it; but something more may be done towards the bodily comfort of all. You are a soldier's daughter, and used to scenes like this; help me to exclude some of the cold air from these windows." Miss Singleton acceded to his request, and while Lawton was endeavouring, from without, to remedy the defect of broken panes, Isabella was arranging a substitute for a curtain within. "I hear the cart," said the trooper, in reply to one of her interrogatories. "Betty is tender-hearted in the main; believe me, poor George will not only be safe, but comfortable." "God bless her for her care, and bless you all," said Isabella, fervently. "Dr. Sitgreaves has gone down the road to meet him, I know what is that glittering in the moon?" Directly opposite the window where they stood, were the outbuildings of the farm, and the quick eye of Lawton caught at a glance the object to which she alluded. "'T is the glare of fire-arms," said the trooper, springing from the window towards his charger, which yet remained caparisoned at the door. His movement was quick as thought, but a flash of fire was followed by the whistling of a bullet before he had pro ceeded a step. A loud shriek burst from the dwelling, and the Captain sprang into his saddle: the whole was the business of but a moment. "Mount mount, and follow!" shouted the trooper; and before his astonished men could understand the cause of alarm, Roanoke had carried him in safety over the fence which lay between him and his foe. The case was for life and death, but the distance to the rocks was again too short, and the disappointed trooper saw his intended victim vanish in their clefts, where he could not follow. "By the life of Washington," muttered Lawton, as he sheathed his sabre, "I would have made two halves of him, had he not been so nimble on the foot-but a time will come!" So saying, he returned to his quarters with the indifference of a man who knew his life was at any moment to be offered a sacrifice to his country. An extraordinary tumult in the house induced him to quicken his speed, and on arriving at the door, the panic-stricken Katy informed him that the bullet, aimed at his own life, had taken effect in the bosom of Miss Singleton. CHAPTER XXIV. Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland With love that could not die! and still his hand Gertrude of Wyoming. THE brief arrangements of the dragoons had prepared two apartments for the reception of the ladies, the one being intended as a sleeping room, and situated with the other. Into the latter Isabella was immediately conveyed at her own request, and placed on a rude bed by the side of the unconscious Sarah. When Miss Peyton and Frances flew to her assistance, they found her with a smile on her pallid lip, and a composure on her countenance, that induced them to think her uninjured. "God be praised!" exclaimed the trembling aunt; "the report of fire-arms, and your fall, had led me into an error. Surely, surely, there was enough of horror before; but this has been spared us." Isabella pressed her hand upon her bosom, still smiling, but with a ghastliness that curdled the blood of Frances, "Is George far distant?" she asked, "let him know - hasten him, that I may see my brother once again." "It is as I apprehended!" shrieked Miss Peyton; “but you smile surely you are not hurt!" "Quite well- quite happy," murmured Isabella; "here is a remedy for every pain." Sarah arose from the reclining posture she had taken, and gazed wildly at her companion. She stretched forth her own hand, and raised that of Isabella from her bosom. It was dyed in blood. "See," said Sarah, "but will it not wash away love? Marry, young woman, and then no one can expel him from your heart, unless". - she added, whispering, and bending over the other, "you find another there before you; then die, and go to heaven. there are no wives in heaven." The lovely maniac hid her face under the clothes, and continued silent during the remainder of the night. At this moment Lawton entered. Inured as he was to danger in all its forms, and accustomed to the horrors of a partisan war, the trooper could not behold the ruin before him unmoved. He bent over the fragile form of Isabella, and his gloomy eye betrayed the workings of his soul. "Isabella," he at length uttered, "I know you to possess a courage beyond the strength of women." Speak," she said, earnestly; "if you have anything to say, speak fearlessly." The trooper averted his face as he replied "None ever receive a ball there, and survive." "I have no dread of death, Lawton," returned Isabella - "I thank you for not doubting me; I felt it, from the first." "These are not scenes for a form like yours," added the trooper: "'t is enough that Britain calls our youth to the field; but when such loveliness becomes the victim of war, I sicken of my trade." The Spy. 18 "Hear me, Captain Lawton," said Isabella, raising herself with difficulty, but rejecting aid: "from early womanhood to the present hour have I been an inmate of camps and garrisons. I have lived to cheer the leisure of an aged father, and think you I would change those days of danger and privation for any ease? No! I have the consolation of knowing, in my dying moments, that what woman could do in such a cause, I have done." "Who could prove a recreant, and witness such a spirit? Hundreds of warriors have I witnessed in their blood, but never a firmer soul among them all." "T is the soul only," said Isabella; "my sex and strength have denied me the dearest of privileges. But to you, Captain Lawton, nature has been more bountiful: you have an arm and a heart to devote to the cause; and I know they are an arm and a heart that will prove true to the last. And George-and-" she paused, her lip quivered, and her eye sank to the floor. "And Dunwoodie!" added the trooper; "would you speak of Dunwoodie?" ---- "Name him not," said Isabella, sinking back, and concealing her face in her garments: "leave me, Lawton - prepare poor George for this unexpected blow." The trooper continued for a little while gazing, in melancholy interest, at the convulsive shudderings of her frame, which the scanty covering could not conceal, and withdrew to meet his comrade. The interview between Singleton and his sister was painful, and, for a moment, Isabella yielded to a burst of tenderness; but, as if aware that her hours were numbered, she was the first to rouse herself to exertion. At her earnest request, the room was left to herself, the Captain, and Frances. The repeated applications of the surgeon, to be permitted to use professional aid, were steadily rejected, and, at length, he was obliged unwillingly to retire. "Raise me," said the dying young woman, "and let me look on a face that I love, once more." Frances silently complied, and Isabella turned her eyes in sisterly affection upon George — "It matters but little, my brother, a few hours must close the scene." |