The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter Part 22

"Yes; no horse but mine probably could overtake him before he reaches his a.s.sociates; besides, since it was hinted to me that he would seek my life I am willing to give him a chance to take it, where neither he nor I shall have help or witness."

"Are you armed?"

"With dirk and pistols, as he only is."

"A rather hazardous push, Harry. But go, and G.o.d prosper you to take him, and with him that mischievous doc.u.ment. And one thing more: if you live to reach Manchester, tell that Council of Safety, that if they don't do something soon, we, the people, will set up for ourselves in war-making. I, for one, don't believe I can keep my hands off my rifle three days longer."

"Ay, ay," said Woodburn, springing into his saddle. "And now, Lightfoot, here is a loose rein for you. Go!" he added, striking with his heels the body, and with his hands the mane of the impatient animal, that, at these well-understood signs, gave an irregular plunge or two ahead, and then shot off like an arrow up the road.

CHAPTER III.

"What heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh-awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung.

And to the work of warfare strung The yeoman's iron hand!"

Leaving Woodburn to the hot and eager pursuit that patriotism and private animosity had prompted him to undertake, we will now precede him a few miles on the road, for the purpose of introducing and accompanying another old acquaintance, who was also destined to become an actor in the wild and stirring adventures of the night.

Near the southern confines of Manchester, about nine o'clock, the same evening, a youth of the probable age of twenty, of a sandy complexion, and of a rather slight, but evidently tough, wiry frame, with a short rifle on his shoulder, and powder-horn and ball-pouch slung at his back, was making his solitary way on foot along the main road towards the town just mentioned. As he now reached the Batenkill, where the stream, here first beginning to find a more peaceful flow, after its headlong descent from the Green Mountains, intersected the road, he suddenly paused and began to muse, with the air of one who has been struck by some new thought tending to divert him from his settled purposes; and, slowly pa.s.sing on to the bridge, which, after the rude construction of the times, had been thrown across the river at this place, he took a seat on one of the side-timbers, or binders, as they were usually termed, and, in accordance with an old and inveterate habit, generated probably by the peculiar circ.u.mstances of his early life, began to commune with himself aloud.

"I wonder what this new business is they want you should do Bart?

Harry said it was a secret matter when he handed over the paper," he continued, pulling out and abstractedly unrolling a small wad of white paper, "a kinder private commission, or something, which he would explain about, after I had gone and got his letter to the girl, as he met me on my way back. But why don't he meet me fore this time? It's pesky strange he should hang back in a woman affair so! Why, he would go--like enough has gone--but then how could he miss me? O Lord, Bart, what a stupid pup! He pa.s.sed you when you was napping it in the bushes at that cool spring! I'll bet my old hat on't! Well, we shan't see much more of him to-night, likely, seeing it is love he's doing, and such a moon as this holds the candle; and we may as well be trying to find out this business without him. So let's be digging out what the paper says. Harry and the rest of 'em don't know I can read writing; but I can, when driv to it; though I think we won't let 'em know that, Bart; for no knowing what cunning things we may find out if they don't mistrust it. Now let's look. Why, I can see as plain as day!' he added, holding up the writing to the bright moonlight, and beginning to spell out the well-known bold and distinct characters of the secretary of the council, as follows:--

"TO BARTHOLOMEW BURT:--

"You are hereby appointed by the Council of Safety to go through this and the neighboring towns, bordering on the British line of march; to spy out the resorts of the tories; to mark and identify all inimical persons; to gain all the information that can be obtained respecting the movements of the enemy at large; and make report, from time to time, to this council or some field officer of our line.

"IRA ALLEN, _Secretary_." [Footnote: Those who may doubt the probability that such a commission would be issued by this body, would do well to consult that part of the journal of their proceedings, at this period, which has been preserved and published, in which will be found several similar ones, to serve as specimens of the many contained in the part that was lost, and to show how searching were the operations of these vigilant guardians of the cause of liberty in Vermont, and how various the instruments they made use of to effect their objects.]

"Good! grand!" exclaimed the excited soliloquist, starting up and snapping his fingers in high glee. "This will be a great thing for you, Bart. Yes, and then how gentlemanly and respectful-like it sounds to be called Bartholomew, in that way! Bart, we'll go it for them; and have a touch of the trade this very night, if you please. But where shall we begin? Let's see, now. Why, there's old mother Rose's haunt up the great road here, where, I do think, she must hatch out tories, same as a hen does chickens, they are so thick about there. Then there's Josh Rose courting that up and a coming sort of girl you saw at Howard's t'other day, when you called with Harry for a drink of water. Now wouldn't the fellow be apt to let out secrets there that we could get hold of, and put us on some good scent? Ah! that's it; so now up the river for Howard's, as a beginning, hit or miss, Bart."

While this singular genius is proceeding on his proposed destination, in the hope of accomplis.h.i.+ng something to show himself worthy of the curious trust that had been so unexpectedly reposed in him, we will occupy the breathing spot, thus afforded in our narrative, in apprising the reader, more definitely than we have yet done, of the main incidents that had marked the checkered fortunes of the two adventurers whom we have now again brought upon the scene of action, since we left them.

When Woodburn and Bart left the state, under the circ.u.mstances described in the closing chapters of our first volume, they proceeded directly to Cambridge, where the revolutionary army was then gathering for the siege of Boston, enlisted, for two years, into the continental service; and actively partic.i.p.ated in all the most important movements of the army in the campaign that immediately succeeded. They were at Bunker Hill, on that memorable day of fire and blood, so glorious for the yeoman patriots of New England, and so fearful for her foes,--

"When first, as at Thermopylae, The battle shout of freemen rose; Firm as their mountains, and as free, They n.o.bly braved encountering foes."

And in the following autumn, they, in the same company, in which Woodburn, for bravery and good conduct, had been made a subaltern officer, marched with that division of the army which Arnold, with almost unequalled energy and fort.i.tude, and amidst privation and suffering untold, led through the snow-clad wilderness of mora.s.s and mountain, to the distant Quebec. And there, in the onset, in which the high-souled Montgomery fell, they were together cut off from their company and made prisoners; when, after having, for nearly a year and a half, endured the sufferings of a British prison-s.h.i.+p, they together escaped at Halifax, wandered, half naked and starving, through the seemingly interminable forests of Brunswick and Maine, to the American settlemens, and finally reached home; not there, however, long to repose, but soon to repair, with yet unbroken spirit, to the new scene of action, at which their countrymen were beginning to rally to meet the formidable invasion of the hitherto victorious Burgoyne.

We will now resume the thread of our narrative. A walk of twenty or thirty minutes brought Bart to the log tenement of Howard, who was a soldier in the continental service, now absent on duty, having left his house and business in charge of his wife a woman no less noted, in her neighborhood, for energy in conducting her domestic affairs, than for the patriotic spirit with which she espoused the American cause.

She and her daughter, a rustic beauty of eighteen, of keen perceptions, and even rare good sense, when her frolicsome disposition would allow her to exercise it, were now the only permanent inmates of this secluded cabin, which consisted of but two rooms, with a front entrance leading through an entry into either of them, and another door at the end of the house opening into the one usually occupied by the family as both sitting-room and kitchen.

"A light in both rooms, by the pipers!" exclaimed Bart, as, after having cautiously approached, he paused to reconnoitre the house. "The fellow is there at his traps, as sure as a gun! Now what's to be done, Bart? 'Twon't do to go in and show yourself, and have that torified scamp carry away word that you are mousing round the country nights, will it? No, but I'll tell you what, if it want for the name of sneaking and evesdropping, we would creep round back of the room where they be, and hark through the cracks; like enough get a peep, and so learn something. But such things they expected of you, didn't they, Bart? Must be so, I think. Then suppose we throw the name and blame of it on the council, and try it, mister?"

Taking a wide sweep round the house, Bart soon approached that part of it, on the back side, in which he rightly conjectured the young people were sitting; and gliding up to the wall with steps as noiseless as those of a mousing fox, he discovered a crevice between the logs, from which the moss calking had fallen out so as to permit a small pencil of light to escape. Guided by this, he quickly gained, after applying his eye to the aperture, a distinct view of the couple within, and was enabled, at the same time, to catch every word of their variously modulated conversation. They were seated at different sides of a light-stand, on which a candle was burning, she a.s.siduously engaged, to all appearance, with her needle on some light sewing work, and he diligently, with his penknife, on a pine chip, which he was essaying to shape into a human profile, that of his mistress, it might be surmised from the sly glances with which he seemed occasionally to scan her features. Though now dressed in his smartest fustian, he yet appeared awkward and ill at ease; while the timid and hesitating air, with which he seemed to regard his fair companion, indicated much conscious uncertainty respecting the place he might hold in her affections. She, on the contrary, seemed quite self-possessed, and wore the air of one not particularly solicitous about pleasing, which gave her as much advantage over him in her manner as she obviously possessed in her person; for, besides a good form and a wholesome roseate bloom, she had one of those polyglot countenances which seem almost to supersede the necessity of speaking--a trait she very prettily exhibited while listening to the forced hints and innuendoes of her lover's conversation, as she occasionally lifted her head, now with a blush, now with a smile, and now with a frown, that caused his eyes to drop to the floor as quick as those of a rebuked schoolboy.

Thus far, she had not opened her lips; but now, as her suitor, turning in his chair, brought a hitherto shaded arm into view, and displayed upon his sleeve a common bra.s.s pin, (usually denominated in those days the Canada pin, as this article, then almost excluded from the toilet by the war, rarely found its way into this section except through the intercourse of the tories with that province,) her attention was suddenly excited; and turning a sharp and searching look upon him, she said,--

"Where have you been lately, Josh?"

"Why?" he replied, evidently surprised at the question and manner of the girl.

"That, sir," she responded, significantly pointing to the pin. "Such articles don't get here but in one way, in these hard times, which compel us to put up with thorns for pins, and half tories for beaux,"

she added, with a meaning and roguish look.

"Won't you accept it, Vine?" he said, obviously disconcerted but pretending not to understand her allusions.

"Not unless you tell me honestly how you got it, sir," she replied, decisively.

"O, picked it up somewhere; don't remember now," he evasively answered.

"That, now, is a thumper, I know," she rejoined, with a pretty toss of the head. "But you don't put me off so. The fact is Josh, I suspect you have been among the tories to-day. Now be honest, and tell me, sir."

And for the next ten minutes the determined girl plied her reluctant and perplexed companion, by all the means which her ingenuity could invent, to accomplish her object; teasing, coaxing and threatening by turns, till, being unable to resist any longer, he replied,--

"Well, I will tell you; and it can't do any hurt either, for they will all be out of reach before morning."

"Who will be out of reach?" eagerly demanded the other.

"The men that my brother Samuel enlisted. You knew he had got a captain's commission in General Burgoyne's army, I 'spose."

"We heard so; but has Captain Samuel Rose been in town to-day?"

"Yes; for I may as well tell the whole, now I've begun. The captain has been all day at the house of brother Asa Rose, who lives out of the way, there, in the woods, over beyond the great road, you know.

Well, he had agreed to meet all he had enlisted in this section there at sunset, and lead them off to the British camp, after people were abed. I was there just before dark, and saw them; sixteen in all, besides the captain, all armed and equipped, and he in full uniform; and he looks complete in it, too, I tell you."

"But what was you amoung them there for?"

"O, I wanted to see Sam, and bid him good-by, you know, as he was going off, never to come back, for aught I knew; that was all, upon honor, now."

"Perhaps it was; but one thing I wish you to understand, Josh Rose, and that is, if you take up for that side of the question, openly or secretly, your visits here----"

"O, I shan't; no notion on't, not the least in the world; so don't worry; though candidly, Vine, I don't believe it's much use for your folks to think of standing out any longer. Why, hundreds are joining the British every day, and what will be left, in a short time, can do nothing towards stopping such an army as Burgoyne's."

"What are left will be apt to try it, I think, sir."

The subject was now dropped; and the girl, after a thoughtful pause, commenced on a theme more agreeable to her suitor, and for a short time, was unusually sociable and gracious; when she rose, and, carelessly remarking she must be excused a moment, left the room, and pa.s.sed out through the front door, with noise enough in opening and closing it to leave the other in no doubt as to the direction of her exit.

"Well, Bart, what do you think of that?" whispered our listener to himself, as now, on the departure of the girl from the room, he withdrew from his peeping-hole. "Now, I pretend to say, I wouldn't take a gold guinea for what we have got through that crack, nor two either, if our legs will carry us to the village and rally help quick enough to have that batch of tories nabbed before they are off. But let's jest edge along against the mother's room, and see if there is any discovery to be made there, before we start."

Being equally fortunate in finding an opening into the room to which his attention was now directed, Bart cautiously peered in; when his eye soon fell on the solitary occupant, a fine, resolute-looking matron, quietly employed in knitting by the light of a torch stuck in one of the stone jambs of the broad fireplace. He, however, had scarcely time to note these circ.u.mstances before the door was softly opened, and the girl who had just left the other room entered on tiptoe, and whispered in her mother's ear something that seemed to produce an instant effect on the hitherto sedate and listless countenance of the latter; for, starting to her feet, she stood gazing at the other with a flas.h.i.+ng eye, and listening with the keenest interest, as some further particulars were added to the communication.

"Are you sure he was not fooling you?" said the mother.

"Very sure," replied the daughter, significantly holding up the Canada pin.

"Well, Vine," rejoined the former, with the air of one whose resolution is taken, "you whip back to your post the same way you came; and see that you keep him here till--say about midnight," she added, exchanging a meaning glance with the daughter, whose hand was already on the latch to depart.