CHAPTER XVIII.
MR. HARPER IS SOUGHT BUT NOT FOUND.
The sentence of the court was communicated with proper tenderness to the prisoner, and after giving a few necessary instructions to the officer in command, and despatching a courier to headquarters with their report, the remaining judges mounted and rode to their own quarters.
A few hours were passed by the prisoner, after his sentence was received, in the bosom of his family.
Dunwoodie, from an unwillingness to encounter the distress of Henry’s friends, and a dread of trusting himself within its influence, had spent the time walking by himself, in keen anxiety, at a short distance from the dwelling. To him the rules of service were familiar, and he was more accustomed to consider his general in the capacity of a ruler than as exhibiting the characteristics of the individual.
While pacing with hurried step through the orchard, laboring under these constantly recurring doubts, Dunwoodie saw the courier approaching; leaping the fence, he stood before the trooper.
“What news?” cried the major, the moment the soldier stopped his horse.
“Good!” exclaimed the man; and feeling no hesitation to trust an officer so well known as Major Dunwoodie, he placed the paper in his hands, as he added: “But you can read it, sir, for yourself.”
Dunwoodie paused not to read, but flew, with the elastic spring of joy, to the chamber of the prisoner. The sentinel knew him, and he was suffered to pass without question.