“You seem a most ingenious patriot,” said Lawton. “Major Dunwoodie, I second the request of this worthy gentleman, and crave the office of bestowing the reward on him and his fellows.”
“Take it;—and you, miserable man, prepare for the fate which will surely befall you before the setting of to-morrow’s sun.”
“Life offers but little to tempt me with,” said Harvey, slowly raising his eyes and gazing wildly at the strange faces in the apartment.
“Come, worthy children of America!” said Lawton, “follow and receive your reward.”
The gang eagerly accepted the invitation, and followed the captain towards the quarters assigned to his troop.
The officer to whose keeping Dunwoodie had committed the peddler, transferred his charge to the custody of the regular sergeant of the guard. After admonishing the non-commissioned guardian of Harvey to omit no watchfulness in securing the prisoner, the youth wrapped himself in his cloak, and, stretched on a bench before a fire, soon found the repose he needed. A rude shed extended the whole length of the rear of the building, and from off one end had been partitioned a small apartment that was intended as a repository for many of the lesser implements of husbandry. The considerate sergeant thought this the most befitting place in which to deposit his prisoner until the moment of execution.
Several inducements urged Sergeant Hollister to this determination, among which was the absence of the washerwoman, who lay before the kitchen fire, dreaming that the corps was attacking a party of the enemy, and mistaking the noise that proceeded from her own nose for the bugles of the Virginians sounding the charge. Another was the peculiar opinions that the veteran entertained of life and death, and by which he was distinguished in the corps as a man of most exemplary piety and holiness of life. Captain Lawton had rewarded his fidelity by making him his orderly.
Followed by Birch, the sergeant proceeded in silence to the door of the intended prison, and, throwing it open with one hand, he held a lantern with the other to light the peddler to his prison.
Harvey thoroughly examined the place in which he was to pass the night, and saw no means of escape. He buried his face in both hands, and his whole frame shook; the sergeant regarded him closely, took up the lantern, and, with some indignation in his manner, left him to sorrowful meditations on his approaching fate. Birch sank, in momentary despair, on the pallet of Betty, while his guardian proceeded to give the necessary instructions to the sentinels for his safe-keeping.
Hollister concluded his injunctions to the man in the shed by saying, “Your life will depend on his not escaping. Let none enter or quit the room till morning.”