CHAPTER XIX.

That you are rogues, And infamous base rascals, (there's the point now,) I take it, is confess'd.---- May a poor huntsman, with a merry heart, A voice shall make the forest ring about him, Get leave to live amongst ye?--true as steel, boys! BEGGARS' BUSH.

"Speak--who and what are you? and what seek you here?" said the harsh voice of the conqueror.

The intruder looked up in his face with some wonder, and beheld the features of a man of middle age, very dark and fierce of aspect, with long black locks of hair hanging from his temples, wild, Indian-looking eyes, and a mouth expressive of as much inherent ferocity as was ever betrayed by the visage even of a red-man.

"Speak," repeated the apparition, impatiently, "or never speak more!"

To this the prisoner replied with less confusion of mind than difficulty of articulation,--

"Hark ye, Mr. Green, or Gray, or Black,--for a deuced black face you have!--or, if you like that better, Mr. Hawk-of-the-Hollow Gilbert, 'what is the reason that you use me thus?' 'I would be friends with you, and have your love;'--but not while I am on my back, to be sure. 'Call you this backing of your friends?' 'Slife, sir, take away your fingers, and let me up: I am Iago, the 'honest, honest' man. At any rate, be so civil as to consider, that, though your knee may find its cushion agreeable enough, my lungs do not."

"And what will they think of a knife in them?" cried the fierce captor, without relaxing his hold. "You were among the hounds that were hunting me!"

"Ay; and had they caught you, I should have been among the hunters that were hanging you,--provided they had not tucked me up first. Hark ye, friend Hawk, I should have known you better, had you stuck to the gray whig; I remember you of old, Mr. Green, the trader. I am an honest man; ask Sir Guy Carleton else; if he don't know Ephraim Patch, who is just as honest as myself, why then ask him about one Leonidas Sterling, an old friend and correspondent of his worship at Philadelphia. 'Slife, sir, I tell you I am a true man."

"Give me some proof, and I will release you. Trifle with me, and you are a dead man."

"Put your hand into the right pocket of my vest," cried the prostrate sufferer, "and you will find it."

The conqueror did as directed, and drew forth a guinea.

"You asked for proof," said the other, with a grin, "and there you have it! Were I a rebel, you would have found naught but a roll of beggarly continentals; had there been more, I should have been an honest quaker, and neither rebel nor tory. Are you satisfied? I came here to seek you, and save my neck, which is in danger. There are men among the rebel officers that know me; and to be known, sir,--'by these pickers and stealers,' 'tis true!--'twere as good as a word to Jack Ketch, under the sign and seal of a State governor! Captain Gilbert, I come to volunteer my services under your command; and the sooner you introduce me to your rascals the better."

"Rise, and behold them!" said the refugee, leaping to his feet; and friend Ephraim Patch, or Mr. Leonidas Sterling, as he had called himself, looking up, beheld to his extreme surprise, for he knew not how they got there, two men standing hard by, in green hunting shirts, with each a hatchet in his hand, as if ready to use them, and countenances grimly forbidding.

"'The earth hath bubbles, as the water has!'" he cried,--"'Peas-blossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustard-seed!' 'I cry your worships' mercy!' Your hands, gentlemen: I am as honest a scoundrel as any of you, though somewhat more unfortunate."

"Honest or false," said the refugee, giving a sign with his hand, on which the two instantly stepped from the den, and were concealed among the bushes, "it signifies but little to me. You are among friends, if you speak true; otherwise, among hangmen.--Your name is Poke?"

"'That's he that was Othello'--a poor servant of the word, an expounder of the book, a sower of good seed on the way-side," said the Proteus, in the tones of the quondam Nehemiah.

"You are Tapes, the pedler, caught stealing through the American lines at Morristown, and in good hopes of dying on an oak-tree?"

"True for you, captain Gilbert!" cried the other, with a stare; "but where did you learn that? Hah! I see! the roguish refugee that assailed young Asgill's guards, while he was riding out on parole, and would have plucked him out of the bonds of Egypt, had not the fool gripped tight to his honour, very much as a drowning man hugs a ship's anchor, at the bottom of a river, and so remained in captivity.--What, captain! was that one of _your_ clap-traps?"

"You are the impudent scoundrel who has been cutting throats, and laying them at honest men's doors? cried the other, without regarding the question.

"Softly, captain--a mere matter of accident."

"And, moreover," said the refugee, sternly, "you are the masking, blundering meddler, who has twice drawn the hue and cry after myself?"

"Verily, so it appears," cried Sterling; "but now that we have met at last, we shall play no longer at cross-purposes."

"What seek you here? Why have you returned to a place where your life is in danger?"

"Zounds, sir!" cried Sterling, stoutly, "you ask questions enough to puzzle a regiment. But here is my whole story,--the history of my deeds, dangers, and desires. I am a gentlemanly scoundrel and unfortunate man, like others that shall be nameless; and after seeking my fortune in divers parts of the world, and making a grand sensation on the boards of the regimental theatre among Howe's officers at Philadelphia, I e'en consented to take service under the King, and therefore staid behind, when he ran away, and have been ever since a particular confidential correspondent of the royal generals at New York."

"That is to say, a spy?"

"Why, if you like the word better, e'en use it; the more elegant word is, correspondent. I am told, you have an excellent friend in Congress, a certain Colonel Richard Falconer"----The refugee's brow grew as black as midnight----"Well, sir, this gentleman is e'en an excellent friend of mine also; and having somewhat of the cunning of the devil in him, became busy, one morning, and entirely ruined my fortune and reputation together; in other words, he discovered and denounced me, threw me into prison, and volunteered to help me to paradise. I broke jail, concealed myself for a time; until, one night, accident drove me into his presence. I found the good-natured gray-beard alone, studying my case as hard as he could, and out of my own papers! I am quite a peaceable man, captain, 'yet have I in me something dangerous;' I became choleric, and finding a sword hanging up just at my hand, I took the liberty of thrusting it into his gizzard."

"Fool!" said the refugee, grasping him by the arm, "the throat is the only true place!--But, hark ye," he added, abating the wolfish sneer that accompanied his words, "you robbed as well as murdered?"

"Ay, 'by St. Paul,' I did," said Sterling, with infinite composure; "having declared war, I made free with the spoils of victory; and the Colonel's purse has lasted very well, all circumstances considered; though, wo's me, that say it! besides the guinea in my waistcoat pocket, there are but two more remaining, and they on the back of White Surrey. Concerning White Surrey, you must know, he is a devil born, like yourself,--I mean to say, myself; fleet of foot, untiring of spirit, and nothing against him but his ugliness and starved appearance, and, by the lord, some touch of the Marplot, especially in times of trouble. I could not think of leaving him behind me; and I was on my way to the rogue he called master, with a whole theatrical property-room on my back, when I stumbled in the dark on my friend Falconer. You must know, I had a woodman's dress on"----

"Hah!" muttered the refugee: "it was not all conscience, then?" Then changing his tone, he continued, "You have said enough. You have sought to escape, and find yourself unable?"

"Ay; and hearing the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow were out again, I even took counsel from despair, painted White Surrey's legs over again, and came hither to throw myself among them. Faith, I knew Hawk-Hollow would be the fairest place to seek them in. I volunteer, captain, I volunteer; but I hope you have a stronger force than Moth and Mustard-seed? I volunteer, and, by the lord, I am ready to go into action as soon as you order. But would to the lord I could catch White Surrey.--Harkee, captain, can you hide a man, at a moment's warning, out of the sight of a gallows?"

"Ay: there are dens hereabout deep and dark enough for a royal refugee to take his rest in."

"Hark ye, captain; give me a carbine, and I'll do you a service. I have heard," he added, with a shrug meant to be significant and confidential, "of that matter betwixt Falconer and your black-eyed"----

"Villain!" cried the refugee, seizing him by the arm, and giving him a look that curdled his blood, "you are venturing upon a subject that will bring the knife to your throat! Pho, you are a fool;" he added, checking his impetuosity, and grinning,

'A strange, uncomely, jawbone smile;'

"we are Christians here, and we forgive our enemies."

"Forgive?" cried Sterling, "come now, captain Gilbert, that's slippery. I know you better; and I know you have been wronged."

"You are deceived," said Oran Gilbert, laying his hand, with another ominous smile, on the volunteer's shoulder, "I am not an Indian, but a white man, and as you may have seen, forbearing and forgiving. They have told you, (for they have told the same to _me_,) that I am a wolf's whelp, an eater of men's flesh, and a drinker of blood; and that I never pardoned an injury, though I had grown gray thinking of it. Lies, lies all! I can walk by my father's house, and see the sons of his destroyer sitting in the doors; and yet carry myself like the best Christian of them all: I can be told, too, even by a foul-mouthed dolt like yourself, how shame and sorrow, came into the house, and afterwards death,--and yet feel no hotter for vengeance. All this I can do, because I have a bad memory for matters twenty years old, or more.--Look you," he continued, dropping his tone of irony, and adopting that of menace; "I can forgive treachery as old as that; but I remember a nave's trick a full year. If there be any deceit in you, look well to yourself during that time. You were better to have been hanged as a spy, than to come to me as one.--You shall see!"

"'Slife, sir!" cried Sterling, "you have no consideration for a man's honour!"

But while he spoke, the refugee had raised his finger to his lips, and drawn forth a low whistle; which was almost immediately answered by the appearance of the two individuals who had been in the covert before.

"Bring up the prisoner, and let the men follow," said Gilbert; and they immediately retired.

"Prisoner!" cried Sterling, in surprise, "Male or female?"

"You have volunteered your services among the royal refugees," said Gilbert, turning again to Sterling, and displaying a sardonic grin: "you shall be put on duty forthwith.--Have you ever killed a man?"

"Dozens of 'em!" replied the other, promptly; when seeing the tory stare in surprise, he fell into a laugh, saying, "That is, not in your barbarous, blood-thirsty way; but in the heroic, poetic, dramatic manner: in which mode I have also fought divers battles, from Bosworth Field to Dunsinane. No, captain, as to the real red-paint, as we call it on the boards, I have shed no more than a lamb, save in the matter of my friend, Colonel Falconer; but I am in the mood to learn: I have had a great appetite for war and glory come on me of a sudden. Hark ye, captain: my friend Falconer's son was one of the chasing party, and by and by he will be returning to the Hollow."

"Ay!" said the refugee; "what then?"

"I like that doctrine of the savages," said Sterling, with an amiable smile, "which teaches one who has a wrong to revenge, how unnecessary it is to be particular as to the individual he is to retaliate on. Now the son, I take it, is a good substitute for the father; and to my mind, it would be a pretty thing to lie behind a bush on the road-side, with a musket or pistol, as he passed by, and then,

'Like a rat without a tail, To do, to do, to do!'

Now, supposing, as my commander, you should order me to such a service, why,--'_sessa_, let the world slide,'--I should obey; that is, provided you stood by, to help me to one of those dens deep and dark enough for a refugee to take his rest in."

"If the young ape has done you a wrong," said Gilbert, coolly, "shoot him the first opportunity. You will have a chance by and by. You say, your horse is good and swift?"

"The best, were it not for his deviltry, ever bestridden by a gentleman in trouble. And then, captain, the ungrateful scoundrel (sure I might have escaped a dozen times, had it not been for my concern for him!) has all my munitions of war upon his back,--some six or seven coats and wigs of approved manufacture, a pair of pistols and a stage-dagger, a gold sword-hilt and two new tragedies in manuscript, a pair of green spectacles, and a horn pair uncoloured, a bottle of good brandy, a bible, a copy of Shakspeare, a fiddle, and my friend Falconer's two guineas."

"You must recover him," said the tory captain: "but now for duty. You shall see how treachery is rewarded by the royal refugees!"

As he spoke, there came into the den eight men attired like the two first, who were included in the number, all of them with green stuff shirts, edged and furbelowed with wolf, raccoon, and other skins, leather leggings and moccasins, and fur caps with hawks' feathers sticking in them. Each bore a thick rifle in his hand, and had a long knife in his pouch-belt, as well as a light axe suspended, quiver-wise, over his shoulder. They were dark, fierce-looking men, and perhaps an unusual degree of sternness was communicated to their features by the fearful duty they had now in hand. They led with them, or rather carried, for he was bound hand and foot, a ninth man, dressed in many respects like themselves, though he wore an old military hat, and was without leggings or moccasins. His countenance was as rude as those of the others; but instead of exhibiting the same cold and stern resolution, betrayed a look of dogged sullenness, mingled with anxiety.

As soon as he was brought into the little inclosure, he was tossed, with but little ceremony, at the feet of the tory captain, the band forming a circle around,--each, as if by previous concert, drawing the tomahawk from his back, and resting his left hand upon his rifle.

"Oho!" said Sterling, looking into the prisoner's face, "whom have we here? 'By this light, a most perfidious and drunken monster!' 'Most reverend seignior, do you know my voice?' 'Oho, my sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that run'st o' horseback up a hill perpendicular!' Why this rascal was he, one John Parker, a soldier on the lines, that nabbed me, being too drunk to understand the claims of my coat to better treatment. Oh, you vagabond, I knew you would come to the gallows!"

"Raise him on his feet," said the tory leader; then turning to the volunteer, he drew from his bosom a soiled and crumpled paper, which he put into Sterling's hands, saying, with a sternness that was perhaps assumed to cover the shame he felt at his own ignorance,--

"Read it.--Our merry men here can make nothing of such pothooks. Read it aloud; and then we'll proceed to judgment."

The volunteer obeyed, and succeeded in deciphering a scrawl, of a style of composition and penmanship so similar to that Miss Falconer had shown the Captain's daughter, that, had he ever seen the latter, he could have been at no loss to identify the correspondent. It was brief, and clear, and to the following effect:

"Honourable Madam to command--

"This here is the letter what I promised to put under the bush; and I put it this night, the 3d of July, in the year of our Lord, Anno Domini as before. The rendezvous is a place called the Tarrapin Hole, a swamp on the east of the road, six or eight miles above Captain Loring's. You turn off from the road at a place where a fresh blazed beech tree grows by a rock; but the path is astonishing twistified, and not fit for horse, but can be surrounded. I had some thoughts of deserting, for I reckon some of these dogs is suspicious; but that might throw them into a panic, and so drive them to the hills, where the devil himself (begging pardon for swearing) could not find them. They say the captain (that's the Hawk) is in the village, or to be there to-morrow, when it would be easy to take him--(remember the red hat; as for the horse, there is no depending on that, for he has 'em scattered all about in depots;) and then the rest is nothing, seeing as how they are in some of a panic already, as not knowing what is to turn up. Howsomever nevertheless, there's one thing I've found out quite astonishing; and that is, that our lieutenant, a most impudent chap as ever you saw, walks about openly, and lives at the old widow Bell's, and"----

"Hah! enough!" cried the leader, suddenly snatching the epistle out of the volunteer's hands. "Have we more traitors than one among us? Who has forgotten orders, and told secrets to new men?"

"I, captain," said one of the men, breaking silence. "This here John Parker and myself were boys together in Monmouth; and so, for old companion's sake, I was more free about the lieutenant, and other matters, than stood in orders, not thinking there could any harm come of it. But I knock under to punishment, seeing the man has been betraying us all, and am ready to do justice on him with knife, rope, hatchet, or rifle-butt; though it goes ag'in' my conscience to take a man that's tied up like a shambled ewe."

"Cut the thongs from his legs," said Oran Gilbert, "or slack them a little. John Parker, I give you three minutes to pray. What, Tom Staples, have you never a rope here that might serve the traitor's turn?"

"I have been twisting one all the morning," said the man who had spoken, displaying a sort of cable constructed of the shreds of a blanket; "for I hoped it might be _that_, rather than knifing."

"Good Lord!" cried Sterling, shocked by the sudden preparation for such a catastrophe, "you don't mean to hang the poor devil?"

The sound of a friendly and interceding voice seemed to thrill the baffled traitor out of his apathy. He stared at the pseudo-quaker, and at once displayed the reckless hardihood of his character, though his old friend Staples was at that very moment forming a noose in the rope, by laughing and saying,

"Well done, old Tapes, is that _you_? You're no Johnny Raw, I see; but you'll come to the acorns yet! Don't go for to make a fuss about the hanging; for, you see, it's according to law, and hanging's the word; and these here raggamuffin refugees must have their way; and so let 'em hang and be d----d! that's my notion. But look ye, Mr. Captain Gilbert, and all you tories, and you Tom Staples into the bargain, here's a notion of mine: you see, you're come to the hanging too late, for all the good it is to do; for the thing's done up so cleverly already, you're just as good as dead men, you are, damme; for I've fixed you in a hole you can't creep out of without my assistance, you can't, damme. Now, captain, here's a bargain I'll make: you'll just spare my life, and drum me out of camp in an honourable, soldierly way; and, in return, I'll show you the way out of the trap; for, damme, comrades, you're surrounded: and so we'll square matters betwixt us, and say nothing more about it."

"Peace, rogue," said Oran Gilbert; "were the whole army round us, you should have your dues. String him up to the oak tree."

"Well now, captain," said Parker, "that's what I call being unreasonable. But some of you give me a drink at a canteen, for there's no use being strung up thirsty: and, Tom Staples, give me your cuffers, in token there's no ill-will between us; and let's have a quid of tobacco to chaw on.--Hark! there captain! do you hear? The road's in a swarm, I tell you! That, I reckon, was the squeak of captain Caliver; you can hear him a mile, of a clear day; and, you may depend on it, he'll have some of you, afore I've done kicking. Won't you hear to reason?"

The coolness of the man was, to Sterling at least, astonishing. They were fitting the halter round his neck, when a faint shout from the road was heard, but whether from a new batch of pursuers, or from the old ones now returning, could not be determined. He took the opportunity afforded by the sudden surprise to beg Staples 'to be in no such fool's hurry with his blanket, and slack it off a little, for a word with the captain.'

"Harkee, captain," said he, "it's the last offer I can make. Now let's argue the case."

"Up with the babbling fool!" cried Gilbert, who had been hearkening attentively to the sounds.

"You won't?" cried the hardened desperado--"why then here's my service to you, and the devil take us all to supper together.--Hillo-ah-ho! Murder! Refugees!--in the swamp here, quick!"

He elevated his voice to a yell that caused the very leaves to shake above him; and would undoubtedly have given the alarm he intended to those on the road, had not the refugee captain snatched an axe from the nearest hand, and instantly felled him to the earth. Then, giving his orders anew, the wretch, before he had recovered his consciousness, shot up among the leaves of an oak tree; and Sterling, who watched the whole proceeding with mingled admiration and alarm, could not trace a single writhing or quivering of limb afterwards.

"'Slife!" said he, "you killed the fellow with the hatchet! But, captain, concerning that surrounding; I don't like that"----

"Peace!" said the tory; "the first duty you are to learn is, to hold your tongue--the next, to obey." He gave the wild band a signal, and they instantly betook themselves to the bushes, or to hiding-places of which Sterling was ignorant. "This man came to me as a deserter, and was therefore trusted by one who should have been wiser: he has met his fate. You I can trust, because I know you are a doomed man like myself. You must recover your horse."

"Ay, faith; but how?--'Slife! what's the matter now?" he cried, observing his companion start suddenly at what seemed to him the whistle of a wood-robin, and look eagerly from the covert. The sound was repeated once, and once again; and then the refugee, turning to him, said,--

"You must claim him. Get you quickly to the wood-side, and follow on after the others, so as to recover him before they open your saddle-bags."

"Death and the devil! you are joking! What! run my head into the lion's jaws? and just to recover a vagabond horse, that flings me whenever the humour seizes him?"

"If you lose your horse, you lose yourself. We can be burthened by no footmen."

"Footmen? why I see no horses!"

"Ay: but away with you. Seek the men you came with, and return with them to Elsie Bell's."

"God bless my soul!" said Sterling, in alarm; "that young knave Falconer will smoke me in a moment."

"Knock him on the head then."

"And then the other lieutenant, that was so curious with the spots of White Surrey's legs! a marvellous shrewd fellow, I assure you."

"Why, do the same with him then; and stay not here babbling like a helpless boy. Protect yourself. Fear not: your present coat suits you better than the parson's. Return to Elsie Bell's, secure your horse and other property, and see that you feed him well; by midnight you will be called for, and placed in safety. Keep a firm countenance, as I think you can, and you are in no danger."

"Ay; but what excuse shall I make for leaving the road, and diving into these damnable abodes of refugees and rattlesnakes?"

"Tell them any lie you will,--your horse ran away with you into the woods, and then----Or stay," he added, looking grimly up to the body of the spy; "tell them you were seized by the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow, and that you saw them hang their tool. Bring them to the spot, and let them bury the carrion: it is good they should know what value we set on traitors. And, hark ye, tell them we mustered at least a hundred strong, and that we stole off across the road, swearing vengeance upon the village. Mind you, the village: make them believe we are marching to surprise it by night. Now, get you gone--off with you. Set your face to the west--there; walk onwards five hundred paces, without looking to the right or the left, and you will find yourself on the road. Begone, and look not behind you."

The volunteer perceiving that remonstrance with such a commander might prove as dangerous as it was really unavailing, turned to depart, but not before he had seen the refugee clap his fingers to his lips, and draw forth a whistle similar to that which had attracted his own attention. There was one injunction, however, which the retreating Sterling thought it entirely superfluous to obey. He had no sooner reached a spot proper for such a proceeding, than he came to a stand, and cast his eye backward towards the den. He beheld a light figure ascending the knoll among the bushes and under the embowering trees; and just before it vanished into the greater gloom of the grot, a sunbeam, peeping through the branches, fell brightly over it, revealing to his somewhat astonished eyes the person of that identical youth whose mysterious hints had been of such service in awaking the fears and stimulating the energies of the hard-beset Nehemiah.

"Zounds!" he cried, "have we any such gentlemanly fellows in the confederacy! Oho! I recollect now," he added, conning over the words of the letter,--"'our lieutenant, a most impudent chap as ever you saw, walks about openly, lives at the Traveller's Rest, and,'--ay, faith, there was something about that old fool, Captain Loring, and a girl. Very well, young one, you will be hanged like the rest of us!"

So saying, and murmuring other expressions of a similar nature, he made his way to the roadside, almost at the very spot where a '_blazed_' beech-tree flung its silver limbs over a rock.