“Fluel.—Is it not lawful, an’ please your majesty,
To tell how many is killed.”
WHILE A STRONG party of the royal troops took post on the height which commanded the approach to their position, the remainder penetrated deeper into the peninsula, or were transported by the boats of the fleet to the town of Boston.* Lionel and Polwarth passed the strait with the first division of the wounded, the former having no duty to detain him any longer with the detachment, and the latter stoutly maintaining that his corporeal sufferings gave him an undoubted claim to include his case among the casualties of the day. Perhaps no officer in the army of the king felt less chagrin at the result of this inroad than Major Lincoln; for notwithstanding his attachment to his Prince, and adopted country, he was keenly sensitive on the subject of the reputation of his real countrymen; a sentiment that is honourable to our nature, and which never deserts any that do not become disloyal to its purest and noblest impulses. Even while he regretted the price at which his comrades had been taught to appreciate the characters of those whose long and mild forbearance had been misconstrued into pusillanimity, he rejoiced that the eyes of the more aged would now be opened to the truth, and that the mouths of the young and thoughtless were to be for ever closed in shame. Although the actual losses of the two detachments were probably concealed from motives of policy, it was early acknowledged to amount, on the part of the army, to about one-sixth of the whole number employed.
On the wharf, Lionel and Polwarth separated; the latter agreeing to repair speedily to the private quarters of his friend, where he promised himself a solace for the compulsory abstinence and privations of his long march, and the former taking his way towards Tremont-street, with a view to allay the uneasiness which the secret and flattering whisperings of hope taught him to believe his fair young kinswoman would feel in his behalf. At every corner he encountered groups of townsmen, listening with greedy ears to the particulars of the contest, a few walking away dejected at the spirit exhibited by that country they had villified to its oppressors, but most of them regarding the passing form of one whose disordered dress announced his participation in the affair, with glances of stern satisfaction. As Lionel tapped at the door of Mrs. Lechmere, he forgot his fatigue; and when it opened, and he beheld Cecil standing in the hall, with every lineament of her fine countenance expressing emotion, he no longer remembered those trying dangers he had so lately escaped.
“Lionel!” exclaimed the young lady, clasping her hands with joy—“himself, and unhurt!” The blood rushed from her heart across her face to her forehead, and burying her shame in her hands, she burst into a flood of tears, and fled his presence.
Agnes Danforth received him with undisguised pleasure, nor would she indulge in a single question to appease her burning curiosity, until thoroughly assured of his perfect safety. Then, indeed, she remarked, with triumph—
“Your march has been well attended, Major Lincoln; from the upper windows I have seen some of the honours which the good people of the Massachusetts have paid their visiters.”
“On my soul, if it were not for the dreadful consequences which must follow, I rejoice as well as yourself, in the events of the day,” said Lincoln; “for a people are never certain of their rights, until they are respected.”
“Tell me then all, cousin Lincoln, that I may know how to boast of my parentage.”
The young man gave her a short, but distinct and impartial account of all that had occurred, to which his fair listener attended with undisguised interest.
“Now, then,” she exclaimed, as he ended, “there is an end for ever of those biting taunts that have so long insulted our ears! But you know,” she added, with a slight blush, and a smile most comically arch, “I had a double stake in the fortunes of the day—my country and my true love!”
“Oh! be at ease; your worshipper has returned, whole in body, and suffering in mind only through your cruelty—he performed the route with wonderful address, and really showed himself a soldier in danger.”
“Nay, Major Lincoln,” returned Agnes, still blushing, though she laughed, “you do not mean to insinuate that Peter Polwarth has walked forty miles between the rising and setting of the sun.”
“Between two sun-sets he has done the deed, if you except a trifling promenade à cheval, on my own steed, whom Jonathan compelled me to abandon, and of whom he took, and maintained the possession, too, in spite of dangers of every kind.”
“Really,” exclaimed the wilful girl, clasping her hands in affected astonishment, though Lionel thought he could read inward satisfaction at his intelligence—“the prodigies of the man exceed belief! one wants the faith of father Abraham to credit such marvels! though, after the repulse of two thousand British soldiers by a body of husbandmen, I am prepared for an exceeding use of my credulity.”
“The moment is then auspicious for my friend,” whispered Lionel, rising to follow the flitting form of Cecil Dynevor, which he saw gliding into the opposite room, as Polwarth himself entered the apartment—“credulity is said to be the great weakness of your sex, and I must leave you a moment exposed to the failing, and that, too, in the dangerous company of the subject of our discourse.”
“Now would you give half your hopes of promotion, and all your hopes of a war, captain Polwarth, to know in what manner your character has been treated in your absence,” cried Agnes, blushing, slightly. “I shall not, however, satisfy the cravings of your curiosity, but let it serve as a stimulant to better deeds than have employed you since we met last.”
“I trust Lincoln has done justice to my service,” returned the good-humoured captain, “and that he has not neglected to mention the manner in which I rescued his steed from the rebels.”
“The what, sir,” interrupted Agnes, with a frown—“how did you style the good people of Massachusetts-Bay?”
“I should have said the excited dwellers in the land, I believe. Ah! Miss Agnes, I have suffered this day as man never suffered before, and all on your behalf—”
“On my behalf! your words require explanation, captain Polwarth.”
“’Tis impossible,” returned the captain—“there are feelings and actions connected with the heart that will admit of no explanation. All I know is, that I have suffered unutterably on your account, to-day; and what is unutterable is in a great degree inexplicable.”
“I shall set this down for what I understand occurs regularly in a certain description of tête-à-têtes—the expression of an unutterable thing! Surely, Major Lincoln had some reason to believe he left me at the mercy of my credulity!”
“You slander your own character, fair Agnes,” said Polwarth, endeavouring to look piteously; “you are neither merciful nor credulous, or you would long since have believed my tale, and taken pity on my misery.”
“Is not sympathy a sort—a kind—in short, is not sympathy a dreadful symptom in a certain disease?” asked Agnes, resting her eyes on the floor, and affecting girlish embarrassment.
“Who can gainsay it! ’tis the infallible way for a young lady to discover the bent of her inclinations. Thousands have lived in ignorance of their own affections until their sympathies have been awakened. But what means the question, fair tormentor? May I dare to flatter myself that you at length feel for my pains!”
“I am sadly afraid ’tis but too true, Polwarth,” returned Agnes, shaking her head, and continuing to look grave.
Polwarth moved, with something like animation, nigher to the amused girl; and attempted to take her hand, as he said—
“You restore me to life with this sweet acknowledgment—I have lived for six months like a dog under your frowns, but one kind word acts like a healing balm, and restores me to myself!”
“Then my sympathy is evaporated!” returned Agnes. “Throughout this long and anxious day have I fancied myself older than my good, staid, great-aunt; and whenever certain thoughts have crossed my mind, I have even imagined a thousand of the ailings of age had encircled me—rheumatisms, gouts, asthmas, and numberless other aches and pains, exceedingly unbecoming to a young lady of nineteen. But you have enlightened me, and given relief to my apprehensions, by explaining it to be no more than sympathy. You see, Polwarth, what a wife you will obtain, should I ever, in a weak moment, accept you, for I have already sustained one-half your burthens!”
“A man is not made to be in constant motion, like the pendulum of that clock, Miss Danforth, and yet feel no fatigue,” said Polwarth, more vexed than he would permit himself to betray; “yet I flatter myself there is no officer in the light-infantry—you understand me to say the light-infantry—who has passed over more ground within four-and-twenty hours, than the man who hastens, notwithstanding his exploits, to throw himself at your feet, even before he thinks of his ordinary rest.”
“Captain Polwarth,” said Agnes, rising, “for the compliment, if compliment it be, I thank you; but,” she added, losing her affected gravity in a strong natural feeling that shone in her dark eye, and illuminated the whole of her fine countenance, as she laid her hand impressively on her heart—“the man who will supplant the feelings which nature has impressed here, must not come to my feet, as you call it, from a field of battle, where he has been contending with my kinsmen, and helping to enslave my country. You will excuse me, sir, but as Major Lincoln is at home here, permit me, for a few minutes, to leave you to his hospitality.”
She withdrew as Lionel re-entered, passing him on the threshold.
“I would rather be a leader in a stage-coach, or a running footman, than in love!” cried Polwarth—“’tis a dog’s life, Leo, and this girl treats me like a cart-horse! But what an eye she has! I could have lighted my segar by it—my heart is a heap of cinders. Why, Leo, what aileth thee! throughout the whole of this damnable day, I have not before seen thee bear so troubled a look!”
“Let us withdraw to my private quarters,” muttered the young man, whose aspect and air expressed the marks of extreme disturbance—“’tis time to repair the disasters of our march.”
“All that has been already looked to,” said Polwarth, rising and limping, with sundry grimaces, in the best manner he was able, in a vain effort to equal the strides of his companion. “My first business on leaving you was to borrow a conveyance of a friend, in which I rode to your place; and my next was to write to little Jimmy Craig, to offer an exchange of my company for his—for from this hour henceforth I denounce all light-infantry movements, and shall take the first opportunity to get back again into the dragoons, as soon as I have effected which, major Lincoln, I propose to treat with you for the purchase of that horse—after that duty was performed, for, if self-preservation be commendable, it became a duty, I made out a bill of fare for Meriton, in order that nothing might be forgotten; after which, like yourself Lionel, I hastened to the feet of my mistress—Ah! Major Lincoln, you are a happy man; for you, there is no reception but smiles—and charms so”—
“Talk not to me sir, of smiles,” interrupted Lionel, impatiently, “nor of the charms of woman. They are alike capricious and unaccountable.”
“Bless me!” exclaimed Polwarth, staring about him; “there is then favour for none, in this place, who battle for the King! There is a strange connexion between Cupid and Mars, love and war; for here did I, after fighting all day like a Saracen, a Turk, Jenghis Khan, or, in short, any thing but a Christian, come with full intent to make a serious offer of my hand, commission, and of Polwarth-Hall, to that treasonable vixen, when she repulses me with a frown and a sarcasm as biting as the salutation of a hungry man. But what an eye the girl has, and what a bloom, when she is a little more seasoned than common! Then you, too, Lionel, have been treated like a dog!”
“Like a fool, as I am,” said Lionel, pacing over the ground at a rate that soon threw his companion too far in the rear to admit of further discourse until they reached the place of their destination. Here, to the no small surprise of both gentlemen, they found a company collected that neither was prepared to meet. At a side-table, sat M’Fuse, discussing, with singular relish, some of the cold viands of the previous night’s repast, and washing down his morsels with deep potations of the best wine of his host. In one corner of the room, Seth Sage was posted, with the appearance of a man in duresse, his hands being tied before him, from which depended a long cord that might, on emergency, be made to serve the purpose of a halter. Opposite to the prisoner, for such in truth he was, stood Job, imitating the example of the Captain of Grenadiers, who now and then tossed some fragment of his meal into the hat of the simpleton. Meriton and several of the menials of the establishment were in waiting.
“What have we here!” cried Lionel, regarding the scene with a curious eye; “of what offence has Mr. Sage been guilty, that he wears these bonds?”
“Of the small crimes of tr’ason and homicide,” returned M’Fuse, “if shooting at a man, with a hearty mind to kill him, can make a murder.”
“It can’t,” said Seth, raising his eyes from the floor, where he had hitherto kept them in demure silence; “a man must kill with wicked intent to commit murder”—
“Hear to the blackguard, datailing the law as if he were my Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench!” interrupted the grenadier; “and what was your own wicked intention, ye skulking vagabond, but to kill me! I’ll have you tried and hung for the same act.”
“It’s ag’in reason to believe that any jury will convict one man for the murder of another that a’nt dead,” said Seth—“there’s no jury to be found in the Bay-colony, to do it.”
“Bay-colony! ye murdering thief and rebel!” cried the Captain; “I’ll have ye transported to England; ye shall be both transported and hung. By the Lord, I’ll carry ye back to Ireland with me, and I’ll hang ye up in the green Island itself, and bury ye, in the heart of winter, in a bog”—
“But what is the offence,” demanded Lionel, “that calls forth these threats?”
“The scoundrel has been out”—
“Out!”
“Ay, out—damn it, sir, has not the whole country been like so many bees in search of a hive! Is your memory so short that ye forget, already, Major Lincoln, the tramp the blackguards have given you over hill and dale, through thick and thin?”
“And was Mr. Sage found among our enemies to-day?”—
“Didn’t I see him pull trigger on my own stature, three times within as many minutes!” returned the angry captain; “and didn’t he break the handle of my sword? and have not I a bit of lead he calls a buckshot in my shoulder as a present from the thief?”
“It’s ag’in all law to call a man a thief,” said Job, “unless you can prove it upon him; but it an’t ag’in law to go in and out of Boston as often as you choose.”
“Do you hear the rascals! They know every angle of the law as well, or better than I do myself, who am the son of a Cork counsellor. I dare to say, you were among them too, and that ye deserve the gallows as well as your commendable companion, there.”
“How is this!” said Lionel, turning quickly away from Job, with a view to prevent a reply that might endanger the safety of the fool; “did you not only mingle in this rebellion, Mr. Sage, but also attempt the life of a gentleman who may be said, almost, to be an inmate of your own house?”
“I conclude,” returned Seth, “it’s best not to talk too much, seeing that no one can foretell what may happen.”
“Hear to the cunning reprobate! he has not the grace to acknowledge his own sins, like an honest man,” interrupted M’Fuse; “but I can save him that small trouble—I got tired, you must know, Major Lincoln, of being shot at like noxious vermin, from morning till night, without making some return to the compliments of those gentlemen who are out on the hills; and I took advantage of a turn, ye see, to double on a party of the uncivilized demons; this lad, here, got three good pulls at me, before we closed and made an end of them with the steel, all but this fellow, who having a becoming look for a gallows, I brought him in, as you see, for an exchange, intending to hang him the first favourable opportunity.”
“If this be true we must give him into the hands of the proper authorities,” said Lionel, smiling at the confused account of the angry captain—“for it remains to be seen yet what course will be adopted with the prisoners in this singular contest.”
“I should think nothing of the matter,” returned M’Fuse, “if the reprobate had not tr’ated me like a beast of the field, with his buckshot, and taking his aim each time, as if I had been a mad-dog. Ye villain, do you call yourself a man, and aim at a fellow-creature as you would at a brute?”
“Why,” said Seth, sullenly, “when a man has pretty much made up his mind to fight, I conclude it’s best to take aim, in order to save ammunition and time.”
“You acknowledge the charge, then!” demanded Lionel.
“As the major is a moderate man, and will hear to reason, I will talk the matter over with him rationally,” said Seth, disposing himself to speak more to the purpose. “You see I had a small call to Concurd early this morning”—
“Concord!” exclaimed Lionel—
“Yes, Concurd,” returned Seth, laying great stress on the first syllable, and speaking with an air of extreme innocence—“it lies here-away, say twenty or one-and-twenty miles”—
“Damn your Concords and your miles too,” cried Polwarth; “is there a man in the army who can forget the deceitful place! Go on with your defence, without talking to us of the distance, who have measured the road by inches.”
“The captain is hasty and rash!” said the deliberate prisoner—“but being there, I went out of the town with some company that I happened in with; and after a time we concluded to return—and so, as we came to a bridge about a mile beyond the place, we received considerable rough treatment from some of the king’s troops, who were standing there—”
“What did they?”
“They fired at us, and killed two of our company, besides other threatening doings. There were some among us that took the matter up in considerable earnest, and there was a sharp toss about it for a few minutes; though finally the law prevailed.”
“The law!”
“Certain—’tis ag’in all law, I believe the major will own, to shoot peaceable men on the public highway!”
“Proceed with your tale in your own way.”
“That is pretty much the whole of it,” said Seth, warily. “The people rather took that, and some other things that happened at Lexington, to heart, and I suppose the major knows the rest.”
“But what has all this to do with your attempt to murder me, you hypocrite?” demanded M’Fuse—“confess the whole, ye thief, that I may hang you with an aisy conscience.”
“Enough,” said Lionel; “the man has acknowledged sufficient already to justify us in transferring him to the custody of others—let him be taken to the main guard, and delivered as a prisoner of this day.”
“I hope the major will look to the things,” said Seth, who instantly prepared to depart, but stopped on the threshold to speak—“I shall hold him accountable for all.”
“Your property shall be protected, and I hope your life may not be in jeopardy,” returned Lionel, waving his hand for those who guarded him to proceed. Seth turned, and left his own dwelling with the same quiet air which had distinguished him throughout the day; though there were occasional flashes from his quick, dark eyes, that looked like the glimmerings of a fading fire. Notwithstanding the threatening denunciation he had encountered, he left the house with a perfect conviction, that if his case were to be tried by those principles of justice which every man in the Colony so well understood, it would be found that both he and his fellows had kept thoroughly on the windy side of the law.
During this singular and characteristic discourse, Polwarth, with the solitary exception we have recorded, had employed his time in forwarding the preparations for the banquet.
As Seth and his train disappeared, Lionel cast a furtive look at Job, who was a quiet and apparently an undisturbed spectator of the scene, and then turned his attention suddenly to his guests, as if fearful the folly of the youth might betray his agency also in the deeds of the day. The simplicity of the lad, however, defeated the kind intentions of the major, for he immediately observed, without the least indication of fear—
“The king can’t hang Seth Sage for firing back, when the rake-helly soldiers began first.”
“Perhaps you were out too, master Solomon,” cried M’Fuse, “amusing yourself at Concord, with a small party of select friends!”
“Job didn’t go any further than Lexington, and he hasn’t got any friend, except old Nab.”
“The devil has possessed the minds of the people!” continued the grenadier—“lawyers and doctors—praists and sinners—old and young—big and little, beset us in our march, and here is a fool to be added to the number! I daresay that fellow, now, has attempted murder in his day too.”
“Job scorns such wickedness; he only shot one granny, and hit an officer in the arm.”
“D’ye hear that, Major Lincoln!” cried M’Fuse, jumping from the seat, which, notwithstanding the bitterness of his language, he had hitherto perseveringly maintained; “d’ye hear that shell of a man, that effigy, boasting of having killed a grenadier!”
“Hold”—interrupted Lionel, arresting his excited companion by the arm—“remember, we are soldiers, and that the boy is not a responsible being. No tribunal would ever sentence so unfortunate a creature to a gibbet; and in general he is as harmless as a babe—”
“The devil burn such babes—a pretty fellow is he to kill a man of six feet! and with a ducking gun I’ll engage. I’ll not hang the rascal, Major Lincoln, since it is your particular wish—I’ll only have him buried alive.”
Job continued perfectly unmoved, and the captain, ashamed of his resentment against so unconscious imbecility, was soon persuaded to abandon his intentions of revenge, though he continued muttering his threats against the provincials, and his denunciations against so “unmanly a spacies of warfare,” until the much-needed repast was ended.
Polwarth having restored the equilibrium of his system by a hearty meal, hobbled to his bed, and M’Fuse, without any ceremony, took possession of another of the apartments in the tenement of Mr. Sage. The servants withdrew to their own entertainment, and Lionel, who had been sitting for the last half hour in melancholy silence, now unexpectedly found himself alone with the idiot. Job had waited for this moment with exceeding patience, but when the door closed on Meriton, who was the last to retire, he made a movement that indicated some communication of importance, and succeeded in attracting the attention of his companion.
“Foolish boy!” exclaimed Lionel, as he met the unmeaning eye of the other, “did I not warn you that wicked men might endanger your life! how was it that I saw you in arms to-day, against the troops?”
“How came the troops in arms ag’in Job? They needn’t think to wheel about the Bay-Province, clashing their godless drums and trumpets, burning housen, and shooting people, and find no stir about it!”
“Do you know that your life has been twice forfeited within twelve hours, by your own confession; once for murder, and again for treason against your king? You have acknowledged killing a man!”
“Yes,” said the lad, with undisturbed simplicity, “Job shot the granny; but he didn’t let the people kill Major Lincoln.”
“True, true,” said Lionel, hastily—“I owe my life to you; that debt shall be cancelled at every hazard. But why have you put yourself into the hands of your enemies so thoughtlessly—what brings you here to-night?”
“Ralph told me to come; and if Ralph told Job to go into the king’s parlour, he would go.”
“Ralph!” exclaimed Lionel, stopping in his hurried walk across the room, “where is he?”
“In the old ware-’us’, and he has sent me to tell you to come to him—and what Ralph says must be done.”
“He here too! is the man crazed—would not his fears teach him—”
“Fears!” interrupted Job, with childish disdain—“you can’t frighten Ralph! The grannies couldn’t frighten him, nor the light-infantry couldn’t hit him, though he eat nothing but their smoke the whole day—Ralph’s a proper warrior!”
“And he waits me, you say, in the tenement of your mother?”
“Job don’t know what tenement means, but he’s in the old ware-’us’.”
“Come, then,” said Lionel, taking his hat, “let us go to him—I must save him from the effects of his own rashness, though it cost my commission!”
He left the room while speaking, and the simpleton followed close at his heels, well content with having executed his mission without encountering any greater difficulties.
* The peninsula of Charlestown is nearly surrounded by deep water, and is connected with the adjoining land by a neck of only a few rods in width. Bunker Hill stands like a rampart immediately before the passage. [1832]