"Remove the stone underneath the woman,' cried the pedler, eagerly-' remove the stone.' The Spy, p. 60. bed, and his fixed eye and haggard face gave him | spot; and, as the spinster had sagaciously placed the appearance of a being from another world. Even Katy and Cæsar 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 pedler, 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 pedler. 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 and truly discharged the sacred offices of filial love. The retreat of Cæsar 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: "O Cæsar, 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 neber t'ink Johnny Birch hab such a big eye!" said the African, his teeth yet chattering with the fright. herself in the line of the retreat of the Skinners, every stone was examined in the progress in search of the abandoned gold. But, although the suddenness of the alarm and the cry of Cæsar had impelled the freebooters to so hasty a retreat, they grasped the hoard with a hold that death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving every thing to be quiet within, Katy at length mustered resolution to enter the dwelling, where she found the pedler, 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 Cæsar continued to his dying day to astonish the sable inmates of the kitchen with learned dissertations on spookes, and to relate how direful was the appearance of that of Johnny Birch. The danger compelled the pedler 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. Cæsar 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 panicstricken 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 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!" "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-strick-scoundrel, and receive the reward." en wretch. I wonder who he thinks would be even his house-keeper?" "We follow our captain." "Then follow me back, and let us secure the "Maybe a spooke take away Harvey, too," observed Cæsar, 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 Cæsar, they determined to venture back, and ascertain this important fact, and if possible learn what had been the fate of the pedler. Much time was spent in cautiously approaching the dreaded "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 Cow-Boys 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 one from Old England?" "Ay, 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 pedler 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. CHAPTER XI. "O wo! O woful, woful, woful day! Most lamentable day: most woful day, That ever, ever, I did yet behold! O day! O day! O day! O hateful day! Never was seen so black a day as this: O woful day! O woful day!" SHAKESPEARE. THE family at the Locusts had slept or watched through all the disturbances at the cottage of Birch, in perfect ignorance of their occurrence. The attacks of the Skinners were always made with so much privacy as to exclude the sufferers, not only from succor, but frequently, through a dread of future depredations, from the commiseration of their neighbors also. Additional duties had drawn the ladies from their pillows at an hour somewhat earlier than usual; and Captain Lawton, notwithstanding the sufferings of his body, had risen in compliance with a rule, from which he never departed, of sleeping but six hours at a time. This was one of the few points, in which the care of the human frame was involved, on which the trooper and the surgeon of horse were ever known to agree. The doctor had watched during the night by the side of the bed of Captain Singleton, without once closing his eyes. Occasionally he would pay a visit to the wounded Englishman, who, being more hurt in the spirit than in the flesh, tolerated the interruptions with a very ill grace; and once, for an instant, he ventured to steal softly to the bed of his obstinate comrade, and was near succeeding in obtaining a touch of his pulse, when a terrible oath, sworn by the trooper in a dream, startled the prudent surgeon, and warned him of a trite saying in the corps, that "Captain Lawton always slept with one eye open." This group had assembled in one of the parlors as the sun made its appearance over the eastern hill, dispersing the columns of fog which had enveloped the low land. Miss Peyton was looking from a window in the direction of the tenement of the pedler, and was expressing a kind anxiety after the welfare of the sick man, when the person of Katy suddenly emerged from the dense covering of an earthly cloud, whose mists were scattering before the cheering rays of the sun, and was seen making hasty steps toward the Locusts. There was that in the air of the house-keeper which bespoke distress of an unusual nature, and the kindhearted mistress of the Locusts opened the door of the room, with the benevolent intention of soothing a grief that seemed so overwhelming. A nearer view of the disturbed features of the visitor confirmed Miss Peyton in her belief; and, with the shock that gentle feelings ever experience at a sudden and endless separation from even the meanest of their associates, she said, hastily: "Katy, is he gone?" 'No, ma'am," replied the disturbed damsel, with great bitterness, "he is not yet gone, but he may go as soon as he pleases now, for the worst is done. I do verily believe, Miss Peyton, they haven't so much as left him money enough to buy him another suit of clothes to cover his nakedness, and those he has on are none of the best, I can tell you." "How," exclaimed the other, astonished, "could any one have the heart to plunder a man in such distress?" "Hearts!" repeated Katy, catching her breath; “men like them have no bowels at all. Plunder and distress, indeed! Why, ma'am, there were in the iron pot, in plain sight, fiftyfour guineas of gold, besides what lay underneath, which I couldn't count without handling; and I didn't like to touch it, for they say that another's gold is apt to stick-so, judging from that in sight, there wasn't less than two hundred guineas, besides what might have been in the deerskin purse. But Harvey is little better now than a beggar; and a beggar, Miss Jeanette, is the most awfully despisable of all earthly creatures." "Poverty is to be pitied, and not despised," said the lady, still unable to comprehend the extent of the misfortune that had befallen her neighbor during the night. "But how is the old man? and does this loss affect him much?” The countenance of Katy changed, from the AN IMPORTANT QUESTION. natural expression of concern, to the set form of melancholy, as she answered: "He is happily removed from the cares of the world; the chinking of the money made him get out of his bed, and the poor soul found the shock too great for him. He died about two hours and ten minutes before the cock crowed, as near as we can say "-she was interrupted by the physician, who, approaching, inquired with much interest the nature of the disorder. Glancing her eye over the figure of this new acquaintance, Katy, instinctively adjusting her dress, replied: "Twas the troubles of the times and the loss of property that brought him down; he wasted from day to day, and all my care and anxiety were lost; for now Harvey is no better than a beggar, and who is there to pay me for what I have done?" 63 "I suppose, sir, a woman has no dower in her husband's property, unless they be actually married?" It was a maxim with Dr. Sitgreaves, that no species of knowledge was to be despised; and, consequently, he was an empiric in every thing but his profession. At first, indignation at the irony of his comrade kept him silent; but, suddenly changing his purpose, he answered the applicant with a good-natured smile: "I judge not. If Death has anticipated your nuptials, I am fearful that you have no remedy against his stern decrees." To Katy this sounded well, although she understood nothing of its meaning, but "death" and "nuptials." To this part of his speech, then, she directed her reply. "I did think he only waited the death of the old gentleman before he married," said the house"God will reward you for all the good you keeper, looking on the carpet; "but now he is have done," said Miss Peyton, mildly. "Yes," interrupted the spinster, hastily, and with an air of reverence that was instantly succeeded by an expression that denoted more of worldly care; "but then I have left my wages for three years past in the hands of Harvey, and how am I to get them? My brothers told me, again and again, to ask for my money; but I always thought accounts between relations were easily settled." nothing more than despisable, or, what's the same thing, a pedler without house, pack, or money. It might be hard for a man to get a wife at all in such a predicary-don't you think it would, Miss Peyton ? " "I seldom trouble myself with such things," said the lady, gravely. During this dialogue Captain Lawton had been studying the countenance and manner of the house-keeper with a most ludicrous gravity; "Were you related, then, to Birch?” asked and, fearful the conversation would cease, he inMiss Peyton, observing her to pause. "Why," returned the house-keeper, hesitating a little, "I thought we were as good as so. I wonder if I have no claim on the house and garden; though they say, now it is Harvey's, it will surely be confisticated;" turning to Lawton, who had been sitting in one posture, with his piercing eyes lowering at her through his thick brows, in silence, "perhaps this gentleman knows seems to take an interest in my story." -he "Madam," said the trooper, bowing very low, "both you and the tale are extremely interesting "-Katy smiled involuntarily" but my humble knowledge is limited to the setting of a squadron in the field, and using it when there. I beg leave to refer you to Dr. Archibald Sitgreaves, a gentleman of universal attainments, and unbounded philanthropy; the very milk of human sympathies, and a mortal foe to all indiscriminate cutting." The surgeon drew up, and employed himself in whistling a low air, as he looked over some phials on a table; but the house-keeper, turning to him with an inclination of the head, continued: quired, with an appearance of great interest: "You think it was age and debility that removed the old gentleman at last?" "And the troublesome times. Trouble is a heavy pull-down to a sick-bed; but I suppose his time had come, and when that happens it matters but little what doctor's stuff we take." 66 "Let me set you right in that particular," interrupted the surgeon; we must all die, it is true, "but it is permitted us to use the lights of science, in arresting dangers as they occur, until—” "We can die secundum artem," cried the trooper. To this observation the physician did not deign to reply; but, deeming it necessary to his professional dignity that the conversation should continue, he added: "Perhaps, in this instance, judicious treatment might have prolonged the life of the patient. Who administered to the case?" "No one yet," said the house-keeper, with quickness; "I expect he has made his last will in the testament." The surgeon disregarded the smile of the ladies, and pursued his inquiries. |