CHAPTER IX.

THE UNWELCOME VISITORS.

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 The command was rigidly obeyed, and during this long period the peddler was unseen; the detachment was withdrawn, and the following night Birch reëntered his dwelling.

The father of Harvey 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[65] of a companion to cheer her solitude. Cæsar alone could be spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by the kind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been despatched on his duty. The dying man was past the use of medicines, and his chief anxiety seemed to centre in a meeting with his child.

[Footnote 65: search.]

The old man had closed his eyes, and his attendants believed him to be asleep. The house contained two large rooms and many small ones. One of the former served as 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 centre, serving of itself for a partition between the large 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 Cæsar and Katy. The African was impressing his caution on the housekeeper, and commenting on the general danger of indulging an idle curiosity, when his roving eyes suddenly became fixed, and his teeth chattered with affright. Katy, turning her face, 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 father and son was of no ordinary kind. In the wide world they were all to each other. 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?" A noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dying man, and the impatient peddler hastened to learn the cause. 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[66] 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 air 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. This man was a well-known leader of one of those gangs of marauders[67] who infested the country with a semblance of patriotism, and who were guilty of every grade of offence, 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 was in vain, and quietly submitted to their directions. In the twinkling of an eye both he and Cæsar 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[68] as were put to them.

[Footnote 66: lines of the face.]

[Footnote 67: They were known as "Skinners."]

[Footnote 68: questions.]

"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 driveller[69] company; where is your pack?"

[Footnote 69: fool.]

"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 despatched in quest of the booty; he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing it was as light as a feather.

"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,[70] not you."

[Footnote 70: notes issued by the Continental Congress, worth but little.]

"You break your faith," said Harvey.

"Give us your gold," exclaimed the leader 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, imploringly:

"Let me--let me go to my father, and you shall have all of it."

"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 fiendish 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 for a slippery rascal, to trust you out of sight--your gold, your gold!"

"You have it," said the peddler, writhing in agony.

"Aye, we have the purse, but you have more purses. King George[71] 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."

[Footnote 71: George III., King of England.]

"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 underneath.

"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 risen 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 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 peddler, lifting him in his arms, reconveyed him to his bed. The reaction of the system 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 the parting benediction.

The Skinners had fled precipitately to the wood, which was near the house of Birch, and once safely sheltered within its shades, they halted, and mustered their panic-stricken forces.