[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

The possessions of Mr. Wharton extended to
some distance on each side of the house in which
he dwelt, and most of his land was unoccupied.
A few scattering dwellings were to be seen in different
parts of his domains, but they were fast falling
to decay, and untenanted. The proximity of
the country to the contending armies had nearly
banished the pursuits of agriculture from the land.
It was useless for the husbandman to devote his
time, and the labour of his hand, to obtain overflowing
garuers, that the first foraging party would
empty. None tilled the earth with any other
view than to provide the scanty means of subsistence,
except those who were placed so near to
one of the adverse parties as to be safe from the
inroads of the light troops of the other. To these
the war offered a golden harvest, more especially
to such as enjoyed the benefits of an access to the
Royal Army. Mr. Wharton did not require the
use of his lands for the purposes of subsistence,
and willingly adopted the guarded practice of the
day, and limited his attention to such articles as
were soon to be consumed within his own walls,
or could be easily secreted from the prying looks
of the foragers. In consequence, the ground on
which the action was fought, had not a single inhabited
building, besides the one belonging to the

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

father of Harvey Birch—This stood between the
places where the cavalry had met and the charge
had been made on the party of Wellmere.

To Katy Haynes, it had been a day fruitful in incidents
to furnish an inexhaustible theme to her after
life. The prudent housekeeper had kept her
political feelings in a state of rigid neutrality; her
own friends had espoused the cause of the country,
but the maiden never lost sight of the moment
when she herself was to be espoused to Harvey
Birch. She did not wish to fetter the bonds of Hymen
with any other clogs than those with which nature
had already so amply provided them. Katy
could always see enough to embitter the marriage
bed, without calling in the aid of political contention;
and yet, at times, the prying spinster had
her doubts, of which side she should be, to escape
this dreaded evil. There was so much of practised
deception in the conduct of the pedlar, that
the housekeeper frequently arrested her own
words when most wishing to manifest her sympathies.
His lengthened absences from home, had
commenced immediately after the hostile armies
had made their appearance in the county; previously
to that event, his returns had been regular
and frequent.

The battle of the Plains had taught the cautious
Washington the advantages possessed by his
enemy, in organization, arms, and discipline.
These were difficulties to be mastered by his own
vigilance and care. Drawing off his troops to the
heights, in the northern part of the county, he bid
defiance to the attacks of the Royal Army, and
Sir William Howe fell back to the enjoyments of
his barren conquests, a deserted city and the adjacent
islands. Never afterwards did the opposing
armies make the trial for success within the
limits of West-Chester; yet hardly a day passed,

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

that the partisans did not make their inroads, or a
sun rise, that the inhabitants were spared the relation
of the excesses, that the preceding darkness
had served to conceal. Most of the movements
of the pedlar through the county, were made at
the hours which others allotted to repose. The
evening sun would frequently leave him at one
extremity of the district, and the morning find
him at the other. His pack was his never-failing
companion, and there were those who closely
studied him in his moments of traffic, who thought
his only purpose was the accumulation of gold.
He would be often seen near the Highlands with
a body bending under the weight it carried—and
again near the Harlaem river, travelling, with
lighter steps, with his face towards the setting
sun. But these glances at him were uncertain
and fleeting. The intermediate time no eye could
penetrate. For months he disappeared, and no
traces of his course were ever known.

Strong parties held the heights of Harlaem, and
the northern end of Manhattan Island was bristled
with the bayonets of the English sentinels, yet the
pedlar glided among them unnoticed and uninjured.
His approach to the American lines were
also frequent; but generally so conducted as to
baffle pursuit. Many a sentinel, placed in the
gorges of the mountains, spoke of a strange figure
that had been seen gliding by them in the mists of
the evening. The stories reached the ears of the
officers, and, as we have related, in two instances
the trader fell into the hands of the Americans.
The first time he escaped from Lawton, shortly
after his arrest; but the second he was condemned
to die. On the morning of his intended execution
the cage was opened, but the bird had flown.
This extraordinary escape had been made from
the custody of a favorite officer of Washington,

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

and sentinels who had been thought worthy to
guard the person of the commander-in-chief.
Bribery and treason could not approach the characters
of men so well esteemed, and the opinion
gained ground among the common soldiery, that
the pedlar had dealings with the dark one. Katy,
however, always repelled this opinion with indignation;
for within the recesses of her own bosom,
the housekeeper, in ruminating on events, concluded
that the evil spirit did not pay in gold—
Nor, continues the wary spinster in her cogitations,
does Washington—paper and promises were
all that the leader of the American troops could
dispense to his servants, until after the receipt of
supplies from France; and even then, although the
scrutinizing eyes of Katy never let any opportunity
of examining into the deer-skin purse, pass
unimproved, she was never able to detect the
image of Louis, intruding into the presence of
the well known countenance of George III.

The house of Harvey had been watched at different
times by the Americans, with a view to his
arrest, but never with success; the reputed spy possessed
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
pedlar was unseen—the detachment was withdrawn,
and the next night Birch re-entered his
dwelling. The father of Harvey had been greatly
molested in consequence of the suspicious character
of the son. But, notwithstanding the most
minute scrutiny into the conduct of the old man,
no fact could be substantiated against him to his
injury, and his property was too small to keep

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

alive the zeal of professed patriots—its confiscation
and purchase would not reward them for their
trouble. Age and sorrow were now about to
spare him from further molestation, for the lamp
of life had begun to be drained of its oil. The
separation of the father and son had been painful,
but in obedience to what both thought a duty.
The old man had kept his situation a secret from
the neighbourhood, in order that he might have
the company of his child in his last moments.
The confusion of the past day, and his increasing
dread that Harvey might be too late, helped to
hasten the event he would fain arrest for yet a
little while. As night set in, his illness increased
to such a degree that the dismayed housekeeper
had sent a truant boy, who had been shut up
with them for the day rather than trust himself
in the presence of the combatants, to the Locusts,
in quest of a living soul to cheer her desolate
situation. Cæsar was the only one who could be
spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by
the kind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been
despatched on this duty. The dying man was
past the use of such articles, and his chief anxiety
seemed to centre in a meeting with his absent
child.

The noise of the chase had been heard by the
group in the house, but its cause not understood;
and as both the black and Katy were apprised
of the detachment of American horse being
below them, with its discontinuance all apprehension
from this disturbance ceased. They
heard the dragoons as they moved slowly by the
building, but in compliance with the prudent injunction
of the black, the housekeeper forbore to
indulge her curiosity by taking a view of the pageant.
The old man had closed his eyes, and his
attendants supposed him to be asleep. The

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

house contained two large rooms, and as many
small ones. One of the former served for kitchen
and parlor—in the other lay the father of Birch:
of the latter, one was the sanctuary of the vestal,
and the other contained the provisions for subsistence.
A huge chimney of stone rose in the
centre of the building, serving, of itself, for a partition
between the larger rooms, and fire-places of
corresponding dimensions were in each apartment.
A bright fire was burning in that of the common
room, and within the very jambs of its monstrous
jaws sat Cæsar and Katy at the time of which we
speak. The African was impressing his caution
on the maiden to suppress an idle curiosity that
might prove dangerous.

“Best neber tempt a Satan,” said Cæsar, rolling
up his eyes significantly, till the whites glistened
by the glare of the fire—“I like to lose an ear—
only for carrying a little bit of a letter—But I wish
Harvey get back.”

“It is very disregardful in him to be away at
such times,” said Katy imposingly. “Suppose
now his father wanted to make his last will in the
testament, who is there to do such a thing for
him. Harvey is a very wasteful and a very disregardful
man.”

“Perhaps he make him before,” said the black
inquiringly.

“It would not be a wonderment if he had,” returned
the housekeeper eagerly; “he is whole days
looking into the Bible.”

“Then he read a good book,” said the black
solemnly. “Miss Fanny read him to Dinah berry
often.”

“Yes,” continued the inquisitive spinster; “but
he would not be forever studying it, if it didn't
hold something more as common.”

She rose from her seat, and stealing softly to a

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

chest of drawers in the room where lay the sick,
took from it a large Bible, heavily bound, and secured
with strong clasps of brass, with which she
returned to the expecting African. The volume
was opened, and she proceeded instantly to the
inquiry. Katy was far from an expert scholar,
and to Cæsar the characters were absolute strangers.
For some time the housekeeper was occupied
with finding out the word Matthew, which
she at last saw in large Roman letters crowning
one of the pages, and instantly announced her discovery
to the attentive Cæsar.

“Berry well, now look him all through:” said
the black, peeping over the damsel's shoulder, as
he held a long, lank, candle of yellow tallow in his
hand, in such a manners as to throw its feeble light
on the volume.

“Yes, but I must begin with the book,” replied
the other, turning the leaves carefully back,
until, moving two at once, she lighted upon a page
covered with the labours of a pen. “Here,”
said the housekeeper with impatience, and shaking
with the eagerness of expectation, “here is
the very words themselves; now I would give the
world to know who he has left them big silver
shoe buckles to.”

“Read him,” said Cæsar laconically.

“And the black walnut drawers, for Harvey
could never want them.”

“Why no want 'em as well as his father?'
asked the black drily.”

“And the six silver table spoons; for Harvey
always uses the iron.”

“I guess he say,” continued the African, pointing
significantly to the writing, and listening
eagerly, as the other thus opened the store of
the elder Birch's wealth.

Thus repeatedly advised, and impelled by her

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

own curiosity, Katy commenced her task; anxious
to come to the part which most interested herself,
she dipped at once into the centre of the subject.

“Chester Birch, born September 1st, 1755;”
read the spinster with great deliberation.

“Well,” cried the impatient Cæsar, “what he
give him?”

“Abigail Birch, born July 12th, 1757; continued
the housekeeper in the same tone.

“I guess he give her the spoons,” observed the
black hastily.

“June 1st, 1760. On this awful day the judgment
of an offended God lighted on my house”—
a heavy groan from the adjoining room made the
spinster instinctively close the book, and Cæsar,
for a moment, shook with fear—neither possessed
sufficient resolution to go and see what was the
condition of the sufferer, but his heavy breathings
continued as usual—Katy dared not, however, reopen
the Bible, and carefully securing its clasps,
it was laid on the table in silence. Cæsar took
his chair again, and, after looking timidly round
the room, remarked—

“I thought he 'bout to go.”

“No,” said Katy solemnly, “he will live till
the tide is out, or the first cock crows in the morning.”

“Poor man!” continued the black, nestling
still farther into the chimney corner; “I hope he
lay quiet after he die.”

“'Twould be no astonishment to me if he
didn't,” returned Katy, glancing her eyes around
the room, and speaking in an under voice, “for
they say an unquiet life makes an uneasy grave.”

“Johnny Birch a berry good man,” said the
black quite positively.

“Ah! Cæsar,” said the housekeeper in the
same voice, “he is good only who does good—

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

can you tell me, Cæsar, why honestly gotten gold
should be hidden in the bowels of the earth?”

“If he know where he be, why don't he dig
him up?” asked the black promptly.

“There may be reasons not comprehendible to
you,” said Katy, moving her chair so that her
clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath
which lay the secret treasures of the pedlar—
unable to refrain speaking of what she would have
been very unwilling to reveal; “but a rough outside
often holds a smooth inside.” Cæsar stared
around the building unable to fathom the hidden
meaning of the damsel, when his roving eye suddenly
became fixed, and his teeth chattered with
affright. The change in the countenance of the
black was instantly perceived by Katy, and turning
her face, she saw the pedlar himself standing
within the door of the room.

“Is he alive?” asked Birch tremulously, and
seemingly afraid to receive an answer to his own
question.

“Surely,” said the maiden, rising hastily, and
officiously offering her chair to the pedlar, “he
must live till day or the tide is down.”

Disregarding all but her assurance, the pedlar
stole gently to the room of his dying parent. The
tie which bound this father and son together was
one of no ordinary kind. In the wide world
they were all to each other. Had Katy but have
read a few lines farther in the record, she would
have seen the sad tale of their misfortunes. At one
blow competence and kindred had been swept
from before them, and from that day to the present
hour, persecution and distress had followed
their wandering steps. Approaching the bed side,
Harvey leaned his body forward, and said, in a
voice nearly choked by his feelings—

“Father, do you know me?”

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

The parent slowly opened his eyes, and a smile
of satisfaction passed over his pallid features, leaving
behind it the impression of death in still greater
force from the contrast. The pedlar gave a restorative
he had brought with him to the parched
lips of the sick man, and for a few minutes new
vigor seemed to be imparted to his frame. He
spoke, but slowly and with difficulty. Curiosity
kept Katy silent; awe had the same effect on Cæsar;
and Harvey seemed hardly to breathe, as he
listened to the language of the departing spirit.

“My son,” said the father in a hollow voice,
“God is as merciful as he is just—if I threw the
cup of salvation from my lips when a youth, he
graciously offers it to me in mine age. He chastiseth
to purify, and I go to join the spirits of our
lost family. In a little while, my child, you will
be alone. I know you too well not to foresee
you will be a lone pilgrim through life. The
bruised reed may endure, but it will never rise.
You have that within you, Harvey, that will guide
you aright; persevere as you have begun, for the
duties of life are never to be neglected—and”—
A noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dying
man, and the impatient pedlar hastened to
learn the cause, followed by Katy and the black.
The first glance of his eye on the figure in the
door-way told the trader but too well both his errand,
and the fate that probably awaited himself.
The intruder was a man still young in years, but
his lineaments 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 appearance 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
agitation in his manner, that proceeded from the

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

workings of the foul spirit within him, and which
was not less offensive to others than distressing to
himself. This man was a well known leader of
one of those gangs of marauders who infested the
county with a semblance of patriotism, and, 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
callous indifference of brutal insensibility. They
were all well armed with muskets and bayonets,
and provided with the usual implements of foot
soldiers. Harvey knew resistance to be 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 as
were put to them.

“Where is your pack?” was the first question
to the pedlar.

“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
company—where is your pack?”

“I will tell you nothing unless you let me go
to my father,” said the pedlar resolutely.

His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious
sneer, and was about to execute his threat, when
one of his companions checked him, and cried—

“What would you do? you surely forget the

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

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 feathers.

“Ay,” 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, not you.”

“You break your faith,” said Harvey sullenly.

“Give us your gold,” exclaimed the other furiously,
pricking the pedlar 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.”

“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 hellish
laugh, as he said coolly—

“Ay, but it shall be to your father in heaven.”

“Monster!” exclaimed Birch, “have you no
feeling, no faith, no honesty?”

“Why, to hear him, one would think there was
not a rope around his neck already,” said the
other malignantly. There is no necessity of
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 pedlar, who listened with gasping breath to
every sound from the room of his parent, until he
heard his own name spoken in the hollow,

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

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;
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 pedlar, writhing with
the agony of his situation.

“Ay, we have the purse; but you have more
purses. King George 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.”

“Remove the stone underneath the woman,”
cried the pedlar eagerly—“remove the stone.”

“He raves—he raves,” said Katy, instinctively
moving her position to another stone than the one
on which she had been standing; in a moment it
was torn from its bed, and nothing but earth was
seen under it.

“He raves; you have driven him from his right
mind,” continued the trembling spinster; “would
any man in his senses think of keeping gold under
a hearth-stone?”

“Peace, babbling fool,” cried Harvey—“lift
the corner stone, and you will find what will make
you rich, and me a beggar.”

“And then you will be despiseable,” said the
housekeeper bitterly. “A pedlar without goods
and without money—is sure to be despiseable.”

“There will be enough left to pay for his halter,”
cried the skinner, as he opened upon a store

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

of English guineas. These were quickly transferred
to a bag, notwithstanding the declarations
of the spinster, that her dues were unsatisfied,
and that of right ten of the guineas should be her
property.

Delighted with a prize that greatly exceeded
their expectations, the band prepared to depart,
intending to take the pedlar with them in
order to give him up to some of the American
troops above, and claim the reward offered for his
apprehension. Every thing was ready, and they
were about to lift Birch in their arms, as he refused
to move an inch; when a figure entered the
room, that appalled the group—around his body
was thrown the sheet of the bed from which he
had risen, 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 both fled the house,
followed by the alarmed skinners.

The excitement which had given the sick man
strength soon vanished, and the pedlar, lifting him
in his arms, re-conveyed 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 his parting breath,
received the dying benediction of his parent. A
life of privation, of care, and of wrongs, embittered
most of the future hours of the pedlar. But
under no sufferings—in no misfortune—the subject
of poverty and biting 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 for his well-being; and

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

it brought assurance to his soul of having discharged
faithfully and truly the sacred offices of
filial love.

The retreat of Cæsar and the spinster had been
too precipitate to admit of much calculation; yet
had the former instinctively separated himself from
the skinners. After fleeing a short distance, they
paused from fatigue, and the maiden commenced
in a solemn voice—

“Oh! Cæsar, 'twas dreadful to walk before he
had been laid in his grave; but it must have been
the money that disturbed him; they say Captain
Kidd walks where he buried gold in the old war.”

“I nebber tink Johnny Birch had such big eye,”
said the African, his teeth yet chattering with the
fright.

“I'm sure 'twould be a botherment to a living
soul to lose so much money, and all for nothing,”
continued Katy, disregarding the other's remark;
“Harvey will be nothing but a despiseable, poverty-stricken
wretch. I wonder who he thinks would
marry him now.”

“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 both
determined to venture back, and ascertain this important
fact, and, if possible, learn what had been
the fate of the pedlar. Much time was spent in
cautiously approaching the dreaded spot; and as
the spinster had sagaciously placed herself in the
line of the retreat of the skinners, every stone
was examined in the progress, to see if it was not
the abandoned gold. But, although the suddenness
of the alarm, and the cry of Cæsar, had

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

impelled the freebooters to so hasty a retreat, they
grasped the hoard with an instinctive hold that
death itself would not have loosened. Perceiving
every thing to be quiet within, Katy at length
mustered resolution enough to enter the dwelling,
where she found the pedlar 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 till his dying
day to astonish the sable inmates of the kitchen,
with learned dissertations on spookes, and how
direful was the appearance of Johnny Birch.

The danger to himself compelled the pedlar 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 laid over
it with great decency, 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 panic-stricken
forces.

“What in the name of fury seized on your
coward hearts?” cried the 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,” continued the leader bitterly.

“We follow our captain.”

“Then follow me back, and let us secure the
scoundrel and receive the reward.”

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

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 does come, won't a bullet silence a
dragoon from the south as well as from old England?”

“Ay, but I don't choose a hornet's nest around
my ears; you raise 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 pedlar will stay
to see the old devil buried, and though we mustn't
touch him at the funeral, he'll wait to look after
the moveables, 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.

Previous section

Next section