“Stand or die!”
Dunwoodie turned in amazement, and beheld the figure of a man placed at a little distance above him on a shelving rock, with a musket leveled at himself. The light was not yet sufficiently powerful to reach the recesses of that gloomy spot, and a second look was necessary before he discovered, to his astonishment, that the peddler stood before him. Comprehending, in an instant, the danger of his situation, and disdaining to implore mercy or to retreat, had the latter been possible, the youth cried firmly,—
“If I am to be murdered, fire! I will never become your prisoner.”
“No, Major Dunwoodie,” said Birch, lowering his musket, “it is neither my intention to capture nor to slay.”
“What then would you have, mysterious being?” said Dunwoodie, hardly able to persuade himself that the form he saw was not a creature of the imagination.
“Your good opinion,” answered the peddler, with emotion. “I would wish all good men to judge me with lenity.”
“To you it must be indifferent what may be the judgment of men; for you seem to be beyond the reach of their sentence.”
“God spares the lives of His servants to His own time,” said the peddler, solemnly. “A few hours ago I was your prisoner, and threatened with the gallows; now you are mine; but, Major Dunwoodie, you are free. There are men abroad who would treat you less kindly. Of what service would that sword be to you against my weapon and a steady hand? Take the advice of one who has never harmed you, and who never will. Do not trust yourself in the skirts of any wood, unless in company and mounted.”
“And have you comrades, who have assisted you to escape, and who are less generous than yourself?”
“No—no, I am alone truly—none know me but my God and him.”