Read Ebook: The American Practical Brewer and Tanner by Coppinger Joseph

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Ebook has 830 lines and 52759 words, and 17 pages

"Virginians," he replied. "I know their stride. I've served with 'em. Each step they take is exactly two inches longer than ours. They got it hunting 'possums at night."

They were in loose order like men who have marched far, but their faces were eager, and they were well armed. We halted them, as our duty bade us, and asked who they were.

"Re-enforcements for the Northern army," said the captain at their head. He showed us an order from our great commander-in-chief himself.

"Where is Burgoyne?" he asked as soon as I had finished the letter. "Is he still coming south?"

"He is but a few miles beyond you," I replied, "and he will come no farther south. There has been a great battle and we held him fast."

They gave a cheer, and some threw up their hats. To understand our feelings one must remember that we had been very near the edge of the ice, and more than once thought we would go over.

All their weariness gone, these long-legged Southerners shouldered their rifles and marched on to join the great belt of strong arms and stout hearts that was forming around the doomed Burgoyne and his army. As they passed, Sergeant Whitestone took his pipe out of his mouth and said:

"Good boys!"

Which was short, but which was much for him.

I watched their dusty backs as they tramped up the valley.

"You seem to admire them," said some one over my shoulder.

"It is they and their fellows who will take Burgoyne, Mistress Catherine," I replied.

"They can't stand before the British bayonet," she said.

"Sorry to dispute the word of so fair a lady," I replied, meaning to be gallant, "but I was at the last battle."

She laughed, as if she did not think much of my words. She said no more, but watched the marching Virginians. I thought I saw a little glow as of pride come in her face. They curved around a hill and passed out of sight.

"Good-by!" said Mistress Kate. "That's all I wanted to see here."

She went back to the house and we resumed our tedious watch. Whitestone had full warrant for his seeming apathy. After the passage of the Virginians there was naught to stir us in the slightest. Though born and bred a countryman, I have never seen anything more quiet and peaceful than that afternoon, although two large armies lay but a short distance away, resting from one bloody battle and waiting for another.

No one moved at the house. Everybody seemed to be asleep there. Some birds chattered undisturbed in the trees. The air had the crisp touch of early autumn, and faint tokens of changing hues were appearing already in the foliage. I felt a sleepy languor like that which early spring puts into the blood. In order to shake it off I began a thorough search of the country thereabouts. I pushed my way through the bushes, and tramped both to the north and to the south as far as I dared go from my post. Then I visited the guards who adjoined my little detachment on either side. They had to report only the same calm that prevailed at our part of the line. I went back to Sergeant Whitestone.

"Better take it easy," advised he. "When there's nothing to do, do it, and then be fresh to do it when there's something to do."

I took his advice, which seemed good, and again made myself comfortable on the ground, waiting for the coming of the night. It was still an hour to set of sun when we saw a mounted officer coming from the north where our army lay. We seemed to be his destination, as he rode straight toward us. I recognized Captain Martyn at once. I did not like this man. I had no particular reason for it, though I have found often that the lack of reason for doing a thing is the very strongest reason why we do it. I knew little about Captain Martyn. He had joined the Northern army before I arrived, and they said he had done good service, especially in the way of procuring information about the enemy.

Whitestone and I sat together on the grass. The other men were on guard at various points. Captain Martyn came on at a good pace until he reached us, when he pulled up his horse with a smart jerk.

"Your watch is over," he said to me without preliminary. "You are to withdraw with your men at once."

I was taken much aback, as any one else in my place would have been also. I had received instructions to keep faithful guard over that portion of the line for the long period of twenty-four hours--that is, until the next morning.

"But this must be a mistake," I protested. "There is nobody to relieve us. Surely the general can not mean to leave the line broken at this point."

"If you have taken the direction of the campaign, perhaps you had best notify our generals that they are superseded," he said in a tone most ironical.

He aroused my stubbornness, of which some people say I have too much, and I refused to retire until he showed me a written order to that effect from the proper officer. Not abating his ironical manner one whit, he held it toward me in an indifferent way, as much as to say, "You can read it or not, just as you choose; it does not matter to me."

It was addressed to me, and notified me briefly to withdraw at once with my men and rejoin my company, stationed not less than ten miles away. Everything, signature included, was most proper, and naught was left for me to do but to obey. The change was no affair of mine.

"Does that put your mind at rest?" asked Martyn.

"No, it does not," I replied, "but it takes responsibility from me."

Sergeant Whitestone called the men, and as we marched over the hill Martyn turned his horse and galloped back toward the army. When he had passed out of sight behind the trees I ordered the men to stop.

"Whitestone," said I to the sergeant, who, as I have said before, was a man of most acute judgment, "do you like this?"

"Small liking have I for it," he replied. "It is the most unmilitary proceeding I ever knew. It may be that our relief is coming, but it should have arrived before we left."

I took out the order again, and after scanning it with care passed it to Whitestone.

Neither of us could see anything wrong with it. But the sergeant's manner confirmed me in a resolution I had taken before I put the question to him.

"Sergeant," I said, "every man in our army knows of what great import it is that no messenger from the British should get through our lines. We are leaving unguarded a place wide enough for a whole company to pass. I think I'll go back there and resume guard. Will you go with me?"

He assented with most cheerful alacrity, and when I put the question to the others, stating that I left them to do as they pleased, all joined me. For what they believed to be the good of the cause they were willing to take the risks of disobedience, and I was proud of them.

I looked about me from the crest of the hill, but Martyn was out of sight. We returned to the valley and I posted my men in the same positions as before, my forebodings that it would be a night of action increased by this event.

A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW.

Two of my men were stationed near the house, but I had so placed them that they could not be seen by any one inside. I had also concealed our return from possible watchers there. I had an idea, which I confided to Whitestone, and in which, with his usual sound sense, he agreed with me. He and I remained together in the valley and watched the night come.

The sun seemed to me to linger long at the edge of the far hills, but at last his red rim went out of sight, and the heavy darkness which precedes the moonlight fell upon the earth.

"If anything happens, it will happen soon," said Whitestone.

That was obvious, because if Martyn meditated treachery, it would be important for him to carry it out before the unguarded point in the line was discovered. Officially it was unguarded, because we were supposed to have gone away and stayed away.

My suspicions were confirmed by the non-arrival of our relief. Whitestone still took his ease, stretched out on the ground in the valley. I knew he missed his pipe, but to light it would serve as a warning in the dark to any one. I visited the two men near the house and cautioned them to relax their watch in no particular.

The night was now well begun and I could see no great distance. As I turned away from the last man I chanced to look up at the house, whose shape was but a darker shadow in the darkness. At a narrow window high up, where the sloping eaves converged, I saw a light. Perhaps I would not have thought much of it, but the light was moved from side to side with what seemed to me to be regular and deliberate motion. It faced the north, where our army lay.

I walked twenty steps or so, still keeping the light in view. Its regular swinging motion from side to side did not cease, and I could not persuade myself that it was not intended as a signal to some one. The discovery caused in me a certain faintness at the heart, for until this night I had thought Kate Van Auken, despite mother, brother, and all else, was a true friend to our cause through all.

I own I was in great perplexity. At first I was tempted to enter the house, smash the light, and denounce her in my most eloquent language. But I quickly saw the idea was but folly, and would stand in the way of our own plans. I leaned against an oak tree and kept my eyes fixed on the light. Though the windows in the house were many, no other light was visible, which seemed strange to me, for it was very early. Back and forth it swung, and then it was gone with a suddenness which made me rub my eyes to see if it were not still there; nothing ailed them. The building was a huge black shadow, but no light shone from it anywhere.

I went in a mighty hurry to Whitestone and told him what I had seen. He loosened the pistol in his belt and said he thought the time for us to make discoveries had come. Once more I agreed with him.

I drew my own pistol, that it might be ready to my hand, if need be, and we walked a bit up the valley. It was very dark and we trusted more to our ears than to our eyes, in which trust we were not deceived, for speedily we heard a faint but regular thump, thump, upon the earth.

"A horse coming," I said.

"And probably a horseman, too," said Whitestone.

How glad was I that we had stayed! It was not at all likely that the man coming had any honest business there. We stepped a trifle to one side and stood silent, while the tread of the horse's hoofs grew louder. In a few moments the horseman was near enough for us to see his face even in the night, and I felt no surprise, though much anger, when I recognized Captain Martyn. He was riding slowly, in order that he might not make much noise, I supposed.

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