——“despair itself grew strong And vengeance fed its torch from wrong”
On the same day, and near the same hour, on which Bart so singularly and luckily effected his escape from his vindictive enemies, the bereft Woodburn left his lonely residence and walked to the graveyard, to shed another tear over the freshly-laid turf that covered the remains of his sainted mother. Here, as, standing over her grave, he reflected on the many excellences of her character, recalled the many acts of her kindness and love towards him, never before justly appreciated, and, at the same time, thought of the circumstances under which she had sickened and died, his tears flowed fast and bitterly. While he was still lingering near the sacred spot, immersed in these painful reflections, two ladies, from a neighboring cottage, came, unperceived by him, along the road leading by the graveyard; when the younger of the two, wholly unconscious that any one was within the enclosure, left the other to pass on to the next house, and entered the yard to amuse herself there till her companion returned. Now pausing to read an inscription, and now to pluck a wild violet, she slowly wandered towards that part of the yard where Woodburn, still screened from her view by a clump of intervening evergreens, was pensively reclining against a tomb stone in the vicinity of his mother's grave. And here, taking a turn round the shrubbery, she came suddenly upon him; and, stopping short in her course, she stood mute and confused before him, while her cheeks were mantled with a deep blush at the awkwardness of the position in which she unexpectedly found herself.
“Miss Haviland!” exclaimed Woodburn, looking up in equal surprise. “Excuse me if I am wrong, but, as little as I was expecting it, I think it is Miss Haviland whom I am addressing?”
“It is, sir,” she replied, in a slightly tremulous voice; “but trust you will not think this an intentional intrusion.”
“No intrusion, fair lady. You do not rightly interpret my expression, which was one of surprise at seeing you here, when I had supposed you to be in another part of the country. When I last saw you, I supposed you on your return to Bennington.”
“I was so at that time. But having recently come over with my father, who was journeying to Connecticut, I am now tarrying with a sister in this neighborhood till he returns. Your allusion to our parting, however, cannot but bring to mind the circumstances connected with our meeting, nor fail to admonish me of my great obligations to you, sir, which I have never before found a suitable opportunity of personally acknowledging. But be assured, Mr. Woodburn, I shall never forget that fearful hour; yet sooner far the hour, than the hand that snatched me from my seemingly inevitable doom.”
“We both may have cause to remember the incidents attendant on that journey to Westminster, Miss Haviland; and I, though I did but a common duty in assisting you, shall remember them, on more accounts than one, I fear but too long.”
“If you allude to your difficulties on that journey, and subsequently with one with whom we were in company, I can only say, sir, that I have heard of them, and all your consequent misfortunes, with the deepest regret, scarcely less on account of the author than the victim.”
“I could have submitted to my pecuniary losses with a good degree of resignation; but, when I think of the crowning act, and the consequences that followed it—when I look on that grave,” continued the speaker, pointing to the fresh mound, with an effort to master his emotions, “it is hard to endure.”
“Such misfortunes,” responded Miss Haviland, visibly touched at his distress; “such misfortunes,—injuries, perhaps, I should call them,—I am sensible, are not easily forgotten; and I have sometimes feared that it too often might be my fate to be associated with them in your mind.”
“O, no, lady, no,” said Woodburn, promptly; “though it were better for my happiness, perhaps, if I could,” he added, more gloomily; “for who will care what may be the feelings of one who is now an outcast, without property, family, or friends?”
“Think not thus of yourself, Mr. Woodburn,” replied the other, while a scarcely perceptible tinge appeared on her fair cheek; “feel not thus. You do to yourself, and I doubt not to many others, great injustice; certainly to one who can only think of you with the warmest gratitude.”
“O, if all were like you, Miss Haviland!” returned Woodburn, with much feeling; “so just, so generous, so pure, so beautiful! But I have already said too much,” he continued checking himself. “I intended not to have intimated aught of the thoughts and feelings which have obtruded themselves upon me, even before I heard these kind expressions. And though what I have said cannot be recalled, yet I have no thought of pressing any questions upon you under the accidental advantage which your gratitude—other things being the same—might give me. I ask for no corresponding impressions—I expect none. Being aware of your position, as well as my own, I shall not drive you to the unpleasant task of repulsing me. I will repulse my self. I will conquer this new enemy, though planted in my own bosom, lest it prove more dangerous to my peace than the one with whom I have so vainly contended in another rivalry.”
She raised her eyes with a look full of maidenly embarrassment, indeed, but with an expression more resembling that of sorrow than resentment, as she gently replied,—
“I feel additionally grateful to you, Mr. Woodburn, for your delicate and generous course under the circumstances in which, as you seem to be aware, I am placed. But as I now perceive my companion approaching in the road, you will excuse my departure.”
“Certainly,” said Woodburn; “and you will forgive what has been said by one who is so truly the prey of conflicting emotions?”
“O, yes, sir,” she answered, looking up with a witching smile, as she bowed her adieu; “that is, I will when you do any thing worthy of my forgiveness.”
Woodburn stood mutely gazing after his lovely visitor till her small and graceful figure, floating on in its devious course through the diversified grounds in almost fairy lightness, receded from his enraptured sight; when he turned away with a sigh to commune with himself, try to analyze his feelings, weigh consequences, give Reason her rightful sway, and follow her dictates. After a long and deep struggle with his feelings, he appeared to come to some determination, and, resolutely bringing down a foot on the ground, he exclaimed,—
“No, never! I will not give way to feelings which can only end in disappointment and mortification. Begone, enticing vision, begone! I will harbor you no longer.” And under the impulse of his freshly-formed resolution, he abruptly left the spot, and hastened through the enclosure to take his way homeward. As he was about to pass out into the road, his attention was attracted by the barking of a small dog, that, having followed the ladies, and tarried behind on their return, seemed to be intent on dragging out something from under a broad, flat stone, lying in one corner of the graveyard. Feeling some inclination to know what discoveries the dog was making in a spot so unpromising of any game that would be likely to attract him, Woodbury walked to the spot; when he perceived the animal to be eagerly tugging away at some object, which presented the appearance of the corners of some old leather-bound book, buried beneath the stone. His curiosity being now excited, he stood by and patiently waited to see the result. In a few minutes the dog succeeded in dragging out the object in question, which proved to be an old record-book, or rather the remains of one, for a part of it had been converted by the mice into a nest, and the rest was mutilated and falling to pieces. Leaving the dog to pursue his object, which was now sufficiently explained, Woodburn gathered up the remains of the book and stepped aside to examine them. On beating off the dirt and opening the unmutilated parts, he soon, and to his great surprise, discovered it to be a volume of the town records; the very volume, the loss of which, as he believed, had caused his defeat in his lawsuit with Peters. And hurriedly running over the leaves, his eye, the next moment, fell on the record of his own deed, with the dates precisely as he had contended, and standing in a connection which would have proved the priority of his title, furnished him a complete defence, and saved him from ruin!
The previous suspicions of Woodburn, respecting the disappearance of these records through the agency of Peters, were now confirmed in the mind of the former, as certainly as if he had witnessed the act; and this aggravating discovery, coming as it did too late to be of any benefit to him, and at a moment, too, when his feelings, notwithstanding his recent declarations to Miss Haviland, and his subsequent resolves, were sore from the insidious workings of jealousy, and the revolting thought of the pretensions of his hated foe to her hand—this discovery, we say, wrought up his mind, already embittered to the last degree of endurance, to a state little short of absolute frenzy. And clinching the fragments of the book, which contained the proof of the black transaction, in one hand, and flourishing the heavy oak cane he had with him in the other, he rushed out of the enclosure, and, with a disturbed air and hurrying step, took his way towards his desolate home, resolved, that in case he found, as he feared, that all chance of legal redress had passed by, he would, at least, unsparingly make use of the means, now in his power, in trumpeting the villainy of Peters to the world.
In this state of exasperation, after proceeding a short distance he unexpectedly and unfortunately encountered the very object of his pent indignation, the haughty and hated Peters, who, on horseback, was coming up a cross-road on his way to the Tory Tavern, where, as the reader has been already apprised, his tools and partisans were anxiously awaiting his arrival.
“Ha! here? Then he shall be the first to hear it,” muttered Woodburn, as with a flashing eye he suddenly turned and sternly confronted the other in his path.
“What now, sir?” said Peters, reigning up with a look of surprise not unmingled with uneasiness.
“I will tell you what, now, sir,” replied Woodburn, in a voice quivering with suppressed passion; “your frauds are exposed! Here are the remains of those very records you or your tools purloined to enable you to accomplish your unhallowed triumph over me, and now just found buried in yonder graveyard!”
“Away, sir!” exclaimed Peters, recovering his usual assurance. “I know nothing of your crazy jargon: stand aside and let me pass.”
“Not till you have looked at the proof of what I assert, or acknowledged its correctness,” persisted the other, extending his cane before the horse with his right hand, and thrusting forward the open book with his left. “Here it is; here is the record of my deed—dates and all, as I and you, too, sir, well knew them to be. Look at it, sir, and restore me my property, or confess yourself a villain!”
At this juncture Peters, who had covertly reversed the loaded whip he carried in his hand that he might strike more effectually, suddenly rose in his stirrups, and aimed a furious blow at the head of his accuser. But as sudden and unexpected as was the dastardly movement, Woodburn threw up his cane in time to arrest and parry the descending implement, when, quick as thought, he paid back the intended blow with a force, of which, in the madness of the moment, he was little conscious, full on the exposed head of his antagonist, who, curling like a struck bullock beneath the fearful stroke, rolled heavily from his saddle to the ground. The exclamation of triumph that rose to the lips of the victor died in his throat, as he took a second glance at the motionless form and corpse-like aspect of the victim; and, recoiling a step, he stood aghast at the thought of what he had done. After standing a minute with his eyes rivetted on the face of his prostrate foe Woodburn, arousing himself, hurried forward, and, raising the head, chafed the temples and wrists a moment, and then felt for the pulse, when, finding no signs of life, he suddenly relinquished his hold, and with a look of horror and unutterable distress, hastily fled from the spot, muttering as he went, “A murderer!—to crown the host of misfortunes—a murderer!”
Soon striking off into a deep glade, diverging from the public way, he continued his course, with a rapid step and troubled brow, on through the woods and back pastures, till he gained, unobserved, the rear of his own cabin, when, entering, he threw himself into a chair, and, burying his face in his hands, sat many minutes motionless and silent, apparently engaged in deep and anxious thought, At length, he arose with a more composed look, and proceeded to make up a pack of his wardrobe, with such valuables as could be conveniently carried, including his mother's Bible. He then fitted his pack to his shoulders, took down his gun and ammunition, and, throwing a sorrowful farewell glance round the lonely apartment, left the house, and bent his course for the woods, in a northerly direction.
After travelling in the woods and unfrequented fields about two miles, he came in sight of the point of intersection between the road near which he had been holding his course, and a road coming into it from the central parts of the town. Here, concluding to pause till the approaching darkness should more perfectly screen him, before going out into the main thoroughfare leading up the Connecticut, he sat down on a log within the border of the woods, and again gave way to the remorseful feelings and moody reflections that still painfully oppressed him. His meditations, however, were soon disturbed by the quick, heavy tread of some animal, which seemed to be approaching in the woods, at no great distance behind him. Instantly peering out through the thicket in which he had ensconced himself, he soon, to his great surprise, descried a horseman descending a difficult ledge, leaping old windfalls, and making his way through all the opposing obstacles of the forest with wonderful facility, directly towards the spot where he stood concealed in the thicket. Knowing that whatever might be the object of the person approaching, it would be his wisest course to remain in his covert, from which he could not move unobserved, and his curiosity being excited by the appearance of a horseman in a spot that would have scarcely been deemed passable for a wild deer, he kept his stand; and continued to regard the advancing figure with the most lively interest. But owing to the thickness of the now full-leaved undergrowth, and the duskiness that by this time had gathered in the forest, he could only catch occasional glimpses of either horse or rider, which enabled him to ascertain nothing more than that they both were quite diminutive, and as it struck him, rather oddly accoutred. They continued to advance directly towards him till within fifty yards of his covert, when the horse, in emerging from a clump of bushes, which still enveloped the rider, stopped short, and, looking keenly into the thicket, gave a quick, significant snort.
“What's in the wind now, Lightfoot?” said the rider to his horse, as, parting the obstructing foliage with his hands, he thrust out his head, and disclosed to the surprised and gratified Woodburn the well-known visage of his trusty friend, Barty Burt.
“This is, indeed, unexpected, Bart,” said Woodburn, stepping out into plain view.
“Harry!” exclaimed the other, agreeably surprised in turn; “but are you sure there are no more of you there in the bush?” he added, with a cautious glance at the thicket.
“Yes, I am alone here,” answered the former.
“Well, I vags now!” resumed Bart, drawing a long breath, and riding forward—“I vags, if I didn't begin to feel rather ticklish when Lightfoot give me that hint to look out for snakes, just now. But the case aint quite what it might have been, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“I know.”
“Of course you do, as well as what brought you here with a horse, in so strange a place for a horseback excursion.”
“Just so, Harry; same as you know what brought you here with a pack on your back, in so queer a route for a journey, when a smooth road is so near you.”
Well knowing Bart's peculiarities, and that it would be useless to try to draw from him the secret of his appearance here until he chose to reveal it, Woodburn, while the other dismounted and told his pony to be cropping the bushes in the mean time, related all that had transpired between himself and the victim of his deeply regretted paroxysm of passion, adding, at the close of his gloomy and self-accusing recital,—
“I first thought, after reaching my house, that I would return and give myself up to the authorities; but knowing, whether Peters should live or die, that I should be a doomed man in this part of the country, I at length brought myself, perhaps wrongly, to try to get out of it undiscovered. And I have now set my course for Boston, to join those there gathering for the approaching struggle for liberty. And Heaven knows with what pleasure I shall now sacrifice my life in her battles.”
“Good! that's grand!” warmly responded Bart, who had listened to the other with many a whew! of surprise at his accompanying expressions of self-condemnation for killing an antagonist who struck the first blow—“that's grand! Here is what goes with you, Harry; for, between us here, I and Lightfoot are clipping it from a predicament, as well as you.”
“So I suspected. But what is it? Let us have your story now.”
“Well, Harry, in the first place, do you know this critter I call Lightfoot?”
“No; at least I don't now remember to have noticed the animal before.”
“Well, it is the colt old skin-flint Turner cheated me out of, last year.”
“I think you told me something about it, but don't recollect the particulars; though I had then no doubt, I believe, but the old man wronged you, as I understood you worked very hard for him through the season.”
“I did, like a niggar—cause he promised to give me this colt, then a little snubby three-year-old, for my summer's work, if I would stay and work well for him, which I did, as I said. Well, supposing the colt was to be mine, without any mistake, I made a sight of her, named her Lightfoot, fed her, got her as tame as a dog, then trained her to understand certain words and signs, which I at last got her to obey; and whether it was to trot, run, or jump fences, she would do it as no other critter could. But just as I had got her to mind and love me, as I did her, my time was out; and I went to settle off matters with the old man, and tell him I was going to take her off with me, when—rot his pictur!—he pretended he had forgot all about his promise to let me have her, and forbid my touching her, saying he had paid me all I earnt in the old clothes which he urged on to me, against my will, and which were not worth one week's work, as true as the book, Harry. Well, I couldn't help crying, to be cheated so, and, what was worse, to lose Lightfoot. But it did no good. I had to come away without her, or any other pay; and, from that time, I haven't seen her till to-day.”
“But you have not now stole and run away with her, I trust Bart?”
“No; she run away with me,” replied Bart, roguishly, “as I can prove; for I hollered whoa all the time, as loud as I could yell.”
“But how came you mounted upon her at all?”
“Well, Harry, that brings me to the worst and best part of my story, all in one; and here goes for it.”
Bart, in his own peculiar manner, then related, with great accuracy, the particulars of his arrest and escape from the tories, as we have already described them in the preceding chapter, merely explaining, in addition, that Lightfoot well understood the game, and knew she was to obey the signs he secretly gave her with his feet and hands, however loud he, or others, might cry whoa or any of the terms usually addressed to horses. He then proceeded:—
“Well, you see, as soon as I got over the hill, out of sight, I looked out for a hard, stony place, where Lightfoot couldn't be tracked; and, soon finding one, I leaped her over the fence, and made full speed for the woods, which I luckily reached jest in time to wheel round in safety, and see them thundering along by, in the road, after me. I then took it leisurely off in this direction, contriving to keep mostly in the woods, where I had learnt Lightfoot, in riding after the cows, last summer, to be as much at home in as in the road.”
“And what do you propose to do with this horse now?” asked Woodburn.
“Take her along with me, to be sure, Harry.”
“And so make yourself, in law, a horse-thief, eh? Do you expect me to join company with such a character?”
“Well, now, Harry, I didn't expect the like of that from you, any how,” observed Bart, evidently touched at the remark. “The creature is honestly mine; and I supposed I had a right to get what was mine away, if I could, without going to law, which would help me about as much as it has you, I reckon. But supposing that to be law which aint right and justice, and so make me out a thief, as you say, how much boot could I afford to give you, Harry, to swap predicaments with me? You have just called yourself a murderer, which you aint, and me a horse-thief, which I aint, any more than you the other. Now, how will you swap characters?”
“Bart, you have silenced me. Injustice and oppression have made us both outlaws, but not intentionally wrong-doers. Let us still abstain from all intentional wrong, however trifling. And that leads me to observe, that whatever justification you may have for taking away the horse, you probably have none for carrying off the bridle.”
“There you are out again, Harry. That bridle, which queerly happened to be put on Lightfoot to-day, (as if it was kinder ordered I should get the beast,) is the very one I bought last fall, to take her off with; but being so worked up, when I left, I forgot to bring it away.”
“Upon my word, Bart, you are successful to-day in making defences.”
“Always mean to be able to do so, Harry. Nobody has any honest claims on me in Guilford, now, nor I any on them. I leave 'em with every thing squared, according to my religion.
“Except in the matter of your gun, which you leave—not exactly won by your opponent—behind you; do you not?”
“They are welcome to it; much good may it do 'em. It has gone pretty much where I calkerlated to get it off—among those who used me the worst; though I'd some rather it had gone to Fitch, who hunts some, and would be sure to try it.”
“That is queer reasoning, Bart.”
“Well, there is a head and tail to it, for all that, Harry.”
“What are they?”
“Why, the head, or cause, is, that the last time I shot the piece, I overloaded it, being for black ducks, and the charge raised a seam, in a flaw underside the barrel, which I could blow through. And the tail, or consequence, is, that the next man who shoots it will wish he'd never seen it, I reckon.”
“Ah, Bart, Bart, your religion, as you term it, is a strange one! But let us now dismiss the past, and think of the future. If you join me for the army, what do you propose to do with your horse—sell her?”
“Sell her? why, I'd as soon sell my daddy, if I had one. No, we'll keep her between us. You, and Tom Dunning, and Lightfoot are the only friends I have in the world, Harry; and I want we should kinder stick together. So I've been thinking up the plan, that we ride and tie, or keep along together and foot it by turns, to-night, till we get to Westminster, when we will beat up Dunning, and leave Lightfoot with him, who can take her to some of his sly places over the mountain, and have her kept for us. Then, if one of us gets killed, or any thing, so as never to come back, let the other take her; and if both fail to come, then let Tom have her for his own.”
And Bart's plan being adopted, our two humble, friendless, and nearly penniless adventurers left the wood, and entering the northern road, set forth on their destination, Woodburn first mounting the pony and keeping some hundred yards in advance, and Bart forming the rear-guard, under the agreement that the latter, on hearing any bounds of pursuit, should utter the cry of the raccoon, when both were to plunge into the woods, and remain till the danger had passed by.
After travelling in this manner, and at a rapid rate, about two hours, without encountering any thing to excite their apprehension or delay their progress, they entered a long reach of unbroken forest, which neither of them remembered ever to have passed through. But not being able to conceive where they could have turned off from the river road, which was their intended route, they continued to move doubtingly onwards some miles farther, till the increasing obstructions and narrowness of the path, together with the absence of the settlements which they knew they must have found before this time on the road up the Connecticut, fully convinced Woodburn they had lost their way. And he was on the point of proposing to retrace their steps, when, descrying a light some distance ahead, emanating, as he supposed, from the hut of a new settler, he at once concluded to push on towards it, for the purpose of making inquiries of the occupants to ascertain their situation. In making for the light, of which, for a while, only feeble and occasional glimmerings could be obtained through the dense foliage that overhung the devious path, they at length came to an apparently well-cultivated opening, containing about a dozen acres, on one side of which stood a small, snug-looking stone house, built against or near a boldly projecting ledge of rocks. As they approached the house, their attention was arrested by the loud and earnest voice of a man within, engaged, evidently, in prayer. Concluding that the man was at his family evening devotions, which they had no thought of disturbing, they left the horse at a little distance from the house, and silently drawing near to the door, paused and reverently listened. A confused recollection of the supplicant's voice, together with his deep and fervid tones, his bold language, and especially the subject that seemed then mostly to engross his thoughts, at once awakened the interest and rivetted the attention of Woodburn. The great burden of his soul was, obviously, the political condition of his country. And, after vividly painting the many wrongs she had suffered from her haughty oppressors, and warmly setting forth her claims to divine assistance, he broke forth, in conclusion,—
“My country! O my injured, oppressed, and down-trodden country! shall the cry of thy wrongs go up in vain to Heaven? Will not the God of battles hear and help thee, in this the hour of thy peril and of thy need? O, wilt thou not, Lord, extend Thy mighty arm in her defence? O, teach the proud Britons, now thronging our shores—teach them, scoffing Goliahs as they are, that there are young Davids in our land! O, bring their counsels to nought! Scatter their fleets by thy tempests at sea, and destroy their armies on land! Sweep them off by bullet and plague! and—and”—suddenly checking himself, he meekly added, “and save their souls; and this, Lord, is all that in conscience I can ask for them. Amen.”
Woodburn now gently rapped at the door, which, after a slight pause, was opened, and Herriot, the late prisoner of the royal court, stood before him.
“If this is Harry Woodburn,” he said, after scrutinizing the other's features a moment, “he is very welcome to my hut. But you are not alone?” he added, glancing towards Bart, who stood several paces in the background.
“No,” replied Woodburn; “I have in company a young man whom you may, perhaps, recollect as the messenger that appeared several times at the grate of our prison at Westminster, to bring us news of the progress of the rising.”
“Ah, yes, well do I recollect that goodly youth, and have ever since taken a peculiar interest in him. Invite him in. All this is opportune, very—very,” said Herriot, leading the way into the house.
After the recluse had ushered his guests into the principal room of his very simply furnished house, of which he and a servant boy, of perhaps fifteen, were the only inmates, he turned to Woodburn, and said,—
“As my retreat here in the woods, and the road that leads to it, are known to so few, I conclude that your young friend here, Mr. Woodburn, acted as your guide on the occasion.”
“O, no,” replied the other; “we had lost our way, having left the river road inadvertently, and were about to turn back, when, catching a glimpse of your light, we came on to make inquiries. We neither of us knew when we struck into the road leading hither.”
“Do you agree to that statement, without any qualification, master Bart?” asked the recluse, with a doubting and slightly puzzled air.
“Well, some of it, I reckon,” answered Bart, with a look of droll gravity.
“Why, you told me, sir,” responded Woodburn, rather sharply “that you had never travelled this road before.”
“No more I hadn't,” replied Bart, composedly; “but I didn't say I didn't know where it turned off, for Tom Dunning told me that.”
“Bart,” said Woodburn, seriously, “though I am not sorry to have fallen in with father Herriot, yet, as between you and me, this needs explanation. It looks as if you purposely led me astray.”
“Well now, Harry, no offence, I hope. The thing was kinder agreed on, somehow, that you should come this way, when you left Guilford, which was understood would happen soon. If I hadn't fell in with you as I did, it was my notion to take Lightfoot here, or at Dunning's, and then go back and skulk there somewheres till you was ready to come; but finding you and things all coming so handy like, when we got to where the road turned off, I thought I'd let you follow me into it, if you would, and say nothing till we got here.”
“I am still perfectly at a loss how to understand all this, Bart and I still wish you would more fully explain it.”
“I will take that task upon myself; for I suppose I am somewhat in the secret respecting the little plot of your friends,” said Herriot, going to a chest, and bringing forward a small bag of money. “This has been deposited with me for your use and benefit. It is the price of your cow and oxen, sold by Dunning to a drover from Rhode Island. The sum is, I believe, about fifty dollars, which I now deliver you, as your own unquestionable property.”
In the explanation that now ensued, it appeared that the cattle, which had been rescued by the friends of Woodburn, without his privity, lest the scruples it was feared he might entertain should lead him to interfere with the plan, were taken that night to the retreat of Herriot, who was made acquainted with the whole transaction; and that the next day, while Dunning went up the river in search of a purchaser, the other, who was not without his scruples, also, about sanctioning the procedure, repaired to lawyer Knights for his opinion on the subject. And the latter, having been confidentially let into the secret, and given it as his decided opinion that the judgment, to satisfy which the cattle had been seized, was an illegal and void one, and that the cattle so seized might rightfully be taken for the owner, without legal process if found out of the hands of the officer, the recluse returned and actively cooperated with the hunter; the result of which was, that a purchaser was soon found, who paid the money for the stock and immediately drove it from the country.
This, to Woodburn, was an unexpected development. And now, after hearing the explanation of Herriot, being satisfied of the propriety of the course so generously taken by his friends in his behalf, he gratefully received the money; and, in turn, while Bart and the servant were out caring for the pony, he confidentially disclosed to the recluse the painful occurrence of the afternoon which had led to his sudden flight from home, and his determination of immediately joining the army, concluding by giving the particulars of Bart's arrest and singular escape from the tories.
“You have acted wisely, Mr. Woodburn,” observed Herriot after listening with deep interest to the recital. “Peters may yet recover; but should he not, I do not view the act in so criminal a light as that in which you yourself have placed it. And in the absence of all intention of killing the man, I feel very clear that it is not a deed meriting the punishment you would be likely to receive, if you had put your fate into the hands of the corrupted witnesses who would probably have been brought against you. Yes, you have acted wisely in leaving that wicked Babel of toryism, and nobly in devoting yourself to the cause of your bleeding country. My blessing and prayers will attend you and your young friend, to whom, I trust, you will act the friend and adviser he will doubtless need. But come, Harry,” he added, taking up a light, and making a sign for the other to follow him, “some new notions have come into my head since I became acquainted with you and your young friend, at Westminster, and knowing of no two persons in whom I take greater interest, I have concluded to impart something to you in confidence.”
So saying, he led the way into the cellar, the bottom of which was flagged over with stones of various shapes and sizes; when pointing to a broad, flat stone lying near the centre of the room, he asked Woodburn to raise it. Wondering what could be the object of so unexpected a request, the latter, with considerable effort, succeeded in raising the stone to an upright position, and in so doing brought to view two small iron-bound casks, standing in a cavity beneath, and labelled, in large inky letters, “Printers Type.”
“Printing, then, was formerly your trade?” said Woodburn, inquiringly, perceiving the other not inclined to be the first to speak.
“Well, that is a respectable calling, is it not?” said the other, evasively.
“Certainly,” replied Woodburn; “but I had not looked for any immediate use for such implements in this new settlement.”
“The contents of those casks, nevertheless, are of more value than you may think them, Harry, and may soon be needed for the public, in the times now at hand. But what I wish to say to you is, in the first place, that you are not to divulge what you have seen to any one but your young friend, and not to him unless you are satisfied he can be trusted, or you are about to die. And, in the second place, if you hear of my death, both of you are to come here, take possession of these casks, and divide the contents equally between you as your own. I have now no relative that will appear to claim them. You will also find, enclosed in one of the casks, certain documents, which I have recently deposited there, explaining my wishes, as well as some secrets of my life connected with discoveries lately made by me, that interest others besides myself. This you, or the survivor of you two, if one should die, will do in case I am taken away. And even if I continue to live, my designs will probably not be altered and I shall wish to see you both again when you are permitted to return to your old homes. And still further, I would say, that should you be in want at any time, and will apply to me, I will dispose of enough of this property to supply your necessities. Now replace the stone, and let us return to the room above.”
Woodburn knew not what to make of all this mystery, or affected mystery, as he believed it. But knowing the singularities of the man, he forebore to ask any questions, and they left the cellar in silence. Soon after they had returned, Bart and the servant came in; when a frugal meal was set before the travellers. And while the latter were occupied in partaking their repast, the recluse procured his writing materials, and penning a brief letter, presented it to Woodburn, saying, “There is a letter of introduction to a former friend of mine, who, I understand, is appointed to an important command in the army now mustering at Cambridge. It may be of service to you. And now,” he added, as his guests rose to depart—“now, my young friends and fellow-sufferers from oppression, go—deserve well of your country, and desert her not till the British Dagons are all leveled to the dust, which may God speedily grant. Amen.”
In a few minutes more, our adventurers were on their way. And being now invigorated, both in body and mind, by what had occurred during their call at the retreat of their mysterious friend they pressed on so rapidly, for the next three or four hours, that they arrived at Dunning's cabin, in Westminster, just as the first faint flush of daylight appeared in the east. Here luckily finding the hunter already astir, cooking his breakfast, preparatory to any early start on some new excursion, they joined him in his delicious meal, which consisted of the rich steaks of a salmon caught the preceding evening. And having finished their breakfast, and made the contemplated arrangement with Dunning, to take charge of Lightfoot, their now common favorite, the last-named person set them across the Connecticut in his log canoe; when, looking back from the woody shore of the New Hampshire side, they bade a long farewell to the Green Mountains, whose tall, blue peaks were then beginning to grow bright in before them.
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