A Story of the Revolution.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER XIII.
"RICHARD BLOUNT," OF ALBANY.
It was a dark, murky night when George reached the headquarters at West Point. He had been delayed often in the journey, having been forced to hide in the woods to avoid meeting stragglers from the guerilla forces, and once he saw a man ride to the top of a hill behind him and shadow his eyes with his hat. His horse was almost worn out when he had reached the American outposts. Here, however, there was no detention. He had passports that would take him across the river, where the forces that were making feints of threatening the British defences above the city were stationed.
After leaving the protection of the American arms he was to proceed on foot and enter the British lines as best he could, and there demand to be brought before the officials to whom he had despatches.
It is a strange thing that even the strongest and frankest natures often have the gift of dissembling when confronted with danger or necessity. A half-dozen times as George had ridden through the woods he had thought of giving up the project. General Washington knew nothing of it, he felt sure, and Colonel Hewes was known more for his brilliancy and dash than for his caution. It seemed hardly possible that any scheme of such tremendous importance as the capture of the British General could be successful; the plotting could not go on under the very eyes of the English; they would surely suspect something, and he knew what the fate of a spy would be. He remembered the brave Nathan Hale, but was animated none the less by the memory of this hero's last words, and the sorrow that he had expressed at having "but one life to give for his country." The question of right or wrong involved George did not weigh long in his mind, and, to tell the truth, the mystery of the adventure had strongly tempted him from the first.
No one would have recognized our young Lieutenant as he stepped from the boat into the glare of a lantern on the eastern shore of the Hudson—for he had been ferried across the river, the very night of his arrival at West Point. His brown hair was dyed black and straggled about his shoulders. Instead of his long blue coat, he wore a gray jacket and a short plum-colored waistcoat buttoned tightly to the throat; his legs were encased in heavy riding-breeches, and stiff leather gaiters came up to his knees. The big pouch in his pocket was filled with the precious English guineas, and sewed on the inside lining of his waistcoat were the despatches.
The story of supposed hardships that he had faced in coming down from Albany he had learned by heart, but it was hard for George to change the soldierly carriage of his shoulders. He was stamped with the imprint of military service. However, by placing a button in the sole of his left boot, he reminded himself of the limp which Richard Blount was supposed to have.
The next day, at early dawn, he began his trip, and late in the afternoon he rested at a farm-house, keeping out of sight as much as possible. When darkness came on, under the guidance of a Lieutenant Peck of a Connecticut regiment, he rode away once more southward toward the city.
It was almost four o'clock in the morning when Lieutenant Peck stopped. The latter, out of delicacy, had asked no questions, and George had felt in no mood for conversation. Their journey had been made in silence.
"Here is the lone oak," said the Lieutenant, "and here I am to leave you and take back the horses. This road will carry you to the British lines. I wish you all success in your dangerous enterprise, for I can guess, sir, what hardships and sacrifices you will have to make. God speed you."
George had dismounted. He shook the other's hand, thanked him, and hastened down the road. The papers that were sewed inside his clothes crinkled as he walked. He almost felt as if his courage would give out. What was he going to face? Was he not being made the victim of a wild, reckless enthusiast?
Nevertheless he would not back out. It was not in the Frothingham blood to turn. The family motto was "Onward." He would be true to it.
As he walked ahead he kept making up his mind what he would say and how he would appear. He was supposed not to be a country bumpkin, but a youth of some education and appearance. He was not to go into hiding when he reached the city, but to live openly, and to spend money lavishly on the soldiers. He was not to talk overly much, but to listen carefully, and to await the orders that he would receive, and act, when the time came, with promptness and fearlessness. He had been going over for the hundredth time the tale of his imaginary and wonderful passage through the American lines; and had traversed perhaps eight or ten miles from the spot where he had separated from Lieutenant Peck, when he saw some men with guns on their shoulders crossing from the woods to the left of the road.
It was growing light, and it was evident from their movements that they had detected him. Now a strange fear came into his mind. If they were English, all would be right and well; but if they were Americans, it would be hard for him to explain. It was good that this idea came to him, for it made him act as a fugitive naturally would. He walked on as if he had discovered nothing until he had placed the big trunk of a tree between himself and the strangers standing on the hill-side, two of whom were advancing toward him. Then he backed carefully away, still keeping the tree between him and the approaching figures, until he reached the stone wall at the road-side. He cleared this at a bound, and falling on his hands and knees, crawled along in the direction he had been pursuing. At last he found a patch of underbrush, and worked his way into it cautiously as a skulking Iroquois might. Peering out through the branches of a small pine he could clearly see the men that were walking toward the tree behind, which he apparently had taken shelter, up the road. He could see their surprised gestures when they found no one was there. He saw them searching the ground for footprints, as there had been a slight snow-fall, and of course his having walked backwards did not betray him at first glance. He hoped that they were Englishmen, but could not tell, for their uniform was a nondescript one like the Americans. Suddenly, as he watched the slope from his hiding-place, he saw the flash of a red coat, and then another. The man near the road shouted something back to the top of the hill. It was evident that George had come across an English outpost, and as it was now quite day-light, he could see, down the road, a number of horses being led out of a weather-beaten gray barn.
So Lieutenant Frothingham, now "Richard Blount," of Albany, stepped from his hiding-place, and walked boldly out to the road-side and seated himself on the stone wall.
For some reason the party who was searching the bushes further up had not discerned him, but the man in the red coat had, and was seen coming swiftly down the hill. The other joined him also, and soon the two were within speaking distance.
"Stand and deliver!" said the first, with his hand upon the butt of a large pistol that he carried in his belt.
"If you will pardon me," returned George, affecting a careless air, "I had just as lief sit for awhile; and as to delivering, I have come a long way to do it."
"What mean you?" said the man, stepping across the road and coming closer. The others had by this time come down also, and our young hero found himself confronted by a group of curious faces. The nondescripts had proved to be Tory irregulars.
"I mean just this," said George: "you are English—John Bulls, are you not? I am Richard Blount, of Albany. I have some letters for General Howe and his Lordship; and I have crawled, walked, and stolen through the American lines, and it is my desire to reach New York. Anything that you can do for me I am sure will be appreciated by my family and the gentlemen I wish to see."
The officer laughed and advanced. "I am happy to meet you, sir," he said. "How did you do it?"
"I kept to the woods mostly, and used some Indian tactics, doubtless," answered George.
"He knows them well," broke in a voice. "See how he escaped us up the road."
"I feared you were Yankees," was "Mr. Blount's" rejoinder. "I will be grateful to you, sir, if you will bring me to where I can get a Christian meal, for I am half famished, and no dissembling."
He descended from his perch on the stone wall and approached the officer.
"Here are my credentials, sir," he said, unbuttoning his coat and showing the letters sewed into the lining. "If you can hasten me on my way to the city and recommend me to a tailor, for I am a stranger there, I shall be greatly in your debt."
"'Twill be a pleasure, sir," said the officer, glancing at the first paper George had extended. "Will you give us the honor of breakfasting with our mess? We are quartered in the farm-house yonder."
George accepted, and the two young men walked down the road.
To his surprise, George had sunk his own individuality. He had no idea that it would be so easy or so interesting. He seemed to feel that he was Richard Blount. He limped beside the officer down the road, and chatted freely about the difficulties of his trip from Albany. There's a difference between lying and acting, and our young Lieutenant, though he did not know it, or perhaps had but discovered it, was an actor through and through.
He had caution enough not to embroider his narrative too freely, but stuck closely to the main idea that he had memorized; and he found that it was very easy to answer questions with questions—a common trick in America, the subtlety of which had not seemed to penetrate the English mind.
He found also, to his surprise, that he entertained the others by his assumption of a dry vein of humor.
"I might as well have Richard amuse them," he thought to himself, and made some remark about one of the thin horses which was being groomed in the front yard.
The officer laughed and ushered him into the little room.
A handsome young man in his shirt sleeves was bending over the open fireplace cooking something in a frying-pan. He looked over his shoulder as George and the party entered.
The young spy started. He remembered where he had seen this young man before; he had dined with him at Mr. Wyeth's.
"What have we here?" asked the officer.
George's heart beat once more quite freely.
"A hungry man," he responded, before any one could speak, "who would stand you a bottle of Madeira for your mess of pottage."
The other laughed, and soon Richard Blount was introduced. They inquired over and over again concerning the strength of the American forces, and, to tell the truth, the numbers did not suffer curtailing at George's hands.
"Why, for three days," he said, "I appeared to be crawling through the midst of an army."
"You did it well," responded one of the officers; "but, by the Dragon, you look a little like an Indian."
"'Tis no disgrace, sir," George answered quickly, affecting to be angered at the other's tone. "'Tis an honor to be allied to the chiefs of our Northern tribes. Perhaps you did not know—" He stopped.
"Pardon me," said the one who had last spoken. "I did not mean it as you have taken it. It was through my ignorance I spoke, as you assume."
After the meal, which gave some excuse for shortening the conversation, George asked to be sent down to the city.
"Can't you send me with a guard of honor?" he asked. "I will pay well for it."
"I cannot spare the men," answered the first officer, politely, who appeared to be in command of the picket, "but your neighbor on the right is going to town. He will accompany you, and save you the trouble of explaining and drawing out your papers at every cross-road."
"Thank you for the offer," said George. "And can you recommend the best inn that has a good cellar and table? for it seems to me that I have lived on parched corn for the last twelvemonth."
In a short time he was mounted on a spare horse, and was plying his conductor with questions as they traversed the streets of the town of Harlem and passed over the undulating hills dotted with handsome residences that adorned Manhattan Island. As they came into the city the ravages of the fire were visible to the westward; almost one-third of the town had suffered. There appeared to be soldiers, soldiers everywhere. They were quartered in every house, barracked in every large building. They passed a gloomy-looking structure that had once been "The City Farms."
"For what do they use that?" inquired George.
"'Tis jammed to the top with 'rebel' prisoners," replied the officer. "I wish they could tow it out into the river and sink it there."
George flushed hotly, but said nothing, and they made their way from the King's Road into one of the cross streets.
"You had best stop at the 'City Arms,'" said the officer. "I will come to-morrow myself to conduct you to General Howe."
"Thank you most kindly," said George. "But I must get some clothes first. I could not appear before the honorable gentlemen in this costume."
"Do you intend seeking an appointment?" inquired his companion.
"No," answered George; "I am lame."
The officer reddened, for he was a gentleman. "I hope I shall see you to-morrow then," he said. "Good-rest to you."
They had halted before the inn with the broad verandas. The whole scene looked very natural. Some church bell struck the hour, and a finely emblazoned coach came bowling down Broadway. Red and the mark of the crown were everywhere. George walked into the inn and called for the landlord. Taking the handsomest room in the house, and kept to it, feigning fatigue, the rest of that afternoon; how odd it seemed to Mr. Richard Blount! When he came down for his dinner he noticed that the landlord was unusually polite, and called him at once by name. He could not help but smile, for he remembered how he had watched this fat palm-rubbing individual stand in his doorway when he and his brother William had gone on that well-remembered walk about the city only a few years before.
"Ah! Mr. Blount," said the landlord, "we are glad to have you here. I know your family in Albany well, and your father has often been a guest under my roof. My humble regards to him."
"Indeed!" said George. "Have you seen any of my people lately?"
"Your uncle, of course," the landlord responded.
George's heart almost stopped beating. What if this uncle were in New York at present? How foolish it was for him to have undertaken any venture so certain of detection and surrounded with so many obstacles!
"Oh, yes, yes!" went on the landlord. "He told me you were coming."
"I wish I could see him," said George—adding to himself, "From a place where he could not see me."
"He will be away for some time. He has gone to Connecticut," said his host.
"Ah! indeed!" quoth young Frothingham, with a sigh of relief. Then he added, below his breath, "I wish it were Kamchatka. I forgot that I had an uncle. This will never do." But the humor of the situation struck him, and he smiled.
Sitting near a window he watched the groups passing up and down the street. How easy it had been; no danger had confronted him as yet. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. He began to whistle softly to himself; then suddenly stopped and fairly shivered. The air he had been whistling was "The White Cockade." He remembered how that tune and "Yankee Doodle" had stirred the half-starving soldiers on the banks of the Delaware. And this reminded him of something else.
"Take care, Richard Blount, take care," he said, "or your Yankee blood will get the better of you."
He wrinkled his forehead in a perplexed way for a minute, and placed his hand inside his coat. Yes, there it was, sewed up with the rest—the letter of poor Luke Bonsall to his mother. It would be a sad thing to break the news, but it was a trust. At last he went up stairs to his room, and ripped the letters from his waistcoat lining. He had pasted the cipher alphabet on a stiff bit of leather which hung from a cord around his neck. Tacked loosely over it, so as to hide it carefully, was a miniature of none other than Aunt Clarissa in her days of youth and beauty. It was the only one he could procure, and a safe hiding-place it would have made, for no one would have thought of looking back of a lady's portrait, and especially Aunt Clarissa's, for an important Yankee cipher. The magnifying-glass was covered with snuff in his small round snuff-box. He lit a candle, and began to write carefully and laboriously. It was late at night when he had finished. His chamber window opened upon a sloping roof which was bordered by a high stone wall. It was but the work of a moment to slip from the wall to the ground. He found himself in Waddell Lane. The despatch which he had written with the aid of the hieroglyphics was safe in his pocket, and now for the post-box of the conspirators.
A group of drunken soldiers reeled by him. One was singing at the top of his voice. From the light of a window at his elbow George saw that it was Corporal McCune, whom he remembered as the tall soldier to whom he and his beloved brother had asserted their loyalty to the King when on their first trip to the city.
What surprised George the most as he walked along was the smoothness with which everything had worked. Perhaps Colonel Hewes's reputation for rashness was entirely undeserved. Though he did not know exactly as yet what the project was in which he was to be a factor, yet, inflamed by the excitement, he could not doubt its successful accomplishment.
What the morrow would bring forth it was hard to tell. In the letter which he had written, or, better, printed, he had told his name, who had sent him, what he had come for, where he was stopping—in fact, had given an accurate description of himself and his supposed individuality. The letter added that he was waiting for his course of action to be determined upon by any orders he might receive.
It had again commenced to snow, and the board sidewalk was already covered with the downy film of white. How well he remembered everything! He knew the little shop across the way with the tops and candy jars in the window. And here was the blacksmith's, where he had stood in the doorway, with his arm around William's shoulder, and watched the sparks fly, and heard the anvil sing and clang. Oh, what good times they were! Would he ever have his arm around his brother's shoulder again, or would he ever feel the comforting touch of William's arm about his own? Thoughts began to rush through his mind, and the harder he thought the faster he walked.
But here he was at the orchard; here was the picket-fence. Now he recalled the signal, for he bent down and picked up a branch. He broke it into three pieces, and placed the first piece behind the third picket, the second behind the sixth, and the third behind the ninth. Colonel Hewes had instructed him to do this as a signal to the others of his safe arrival. Then he walked to the turn-stile and stopped for a minute, his heart beating fast. Even in the darkness, although objects at a distance were most indistinct, he could see that footprints had been lately made in the snow ahead of him. He stepped through the turn-stile, keeping his eyes on the footprints ahead of him; they ran to the second tree and stopped! Now, strange to say, the tracks ahead led directly to the trunk of the second tree, and instinctively George felt that whoever it was that made them was not far off. Without apparently raising his head, he glanced up with his eyes, stumbling at the same time in a way that might account for the slight halt. Yes, he had seen it plainly. There was a figure sitting cross-legged on the lower branch, so close that he could have touched it with a stick. On an occasion like this thoughts must be quick, and George did the best thing that he could have done, for he hastened across the orchard as if nothing had occurred. When he reached the other side and the little lane that ran from some farm buildings, he turned about the corner of a hay-stack.
It was not hard for him to work himself a little way into the damp, yielding hay. He waited patiently, and his patience was rewarded, for, following the footprints that he had made, came a thick-set, muffled figure in a voluminous cape. How a man as large as that could ever hoist himself up on the branch of an apple-tree seven feet from the ground so easily and so noiselessly he could not see, nor could he make out the stranger's features. He was muffled to the eyes. When he had passed, the young spy drew himself cautiously out of the hay, and walked after the retreating footsteps, bending over, and keeping well behind the piles of hay and fodder. But the other's hearing must have been acute, for he paused.
"What's that, I say?" came an intense voice.
George thought he detected a sharp metallic clicking. It was the cocking of the hammer of a pistol.
The only answer to the man's hail, however, was the quick, half-frightened barking of a dog.
"Get out, you beast!" said the voice, and a bit of stick struck the ground where George was crouching on all-fours.
Further down the street the man passed by a lighted window. He turned down his collar, and if George had been there, he would have been most astounded.
It was Rivington, the King's Printer!