The Spy

by James Fenimore Cooper

It was neither the intention nor the policy of the English commander to pursue his success, for he well knew that strong parties of the Americans would soon arrive; accordingly he only tarried to collect his wounded, and forming in a square, he commenced his retreat towards the shipping. Within twenty minutes of the fall of Lawton, the ground was deserted by both English and Americans. When the inhabitants of the country were called upon to enter the field, they were necessarily attended by such surgical advisers as were furnished by the low state of the profession in the interior at that day. Dr. Sitgreaves entertained quite as profound a contempt for the medical attendants of the militia as the captain did of the troops themselves. He wandered, therefore, around the field, casting many a glance of disapprobation at the slight operations that came under his eye; but when, among the flying troops, he found that his comrade and friend was nowhere to be seen, he hastened back to the spot at which Hollister was posted, to inquire if the trooper had returned. Of course, the answer was in the negative. Filled with a thousand uneasy conjectures, the surgeon, without regarding, or indeed without at all reflecting upon any dangers that might lie in his way, strode over the ground at an enormous rate, to the point where he knew the final struggle had been. Once before, the surgeon had rescued his friend from death in a similar situation; and he felt a secret joy in his own conscious skill, as he perceived Betty Flanagan seated on the ground, holding in her lap the head of a man whose size and dress he knew could belong only to the trooper. As he approached the spot, the surgeon became alarmed at the aspect of the washerwoman. Her little black bonnet was thrown aside, and her hair, which was already streaked with gray, hung around her face in disorder.

“John! dear John!” said the doctor, tenderly, as he bent and laid his hand upon the senseless wrist of the trooper, from which it recoiled with an intuitive knowledge of his fate. “John! where are you hurt?—can I help you?”

“Ye talk to the senseless clay,” said Betty, rocking her body, and unconsciously playing with the raven ringlets of the trooper’s hair; “it’s no more will he hear, and it’s but little will he mind yeer probes and yeer med’cines. Och hone,” och hone!—and where will be the liberty now? or who will there be to fight the battle, or gain the day?”

“John!” repeated the surgeon, still unwilling to believe the evidence of his unerring senses. “Dear John, speak to me; say what you will, that you do but speak. Oh, God! he is dead; would that I had died with him!”

“There is but little use in living and fighting now,” said Betty. “Both him and the baste! see, there is the poor cratur, and here is the master! I fed the horse with my own hands, the day; and the last male that he ate was of my own cooking. Och hone! och hone!—that Captain Jack should live to be killed by the rig’lars!”

“John! my dear John!” said the surgeon, with convulsive sobs, “thy hour has come, and many a more prudent man survives thee; but none better, nor braver. O John, thou wert to me a kind friend, and very dear; it is unphilosophical to grieve; but for thee I must weep, in bitterness of heart.”

The doctor buried his face in his hands, and for several minutes sat yielding to an ungovernable burst of sorrow; while the washerwoman gave vent to her grief in words, moving her body in a kind of writhing, and playing with different parts of her favorite’s dress with her fingers.

“And who’ll there be to encourage the boys now?” she said. “O Captain Jack! ye was the sowl of the troop, and it was but little we knowed of the danger, and ye fighting. Och! he was no maly-mouthed, that quarreled wid a widowed woman for the matter of a burn in the mate, or the want of a breakfast. Taste a drop, darling, and it may be, ’twill revive ye. Och! and he’ll niver taste ag’in; here’s the doctor, honey, him ye used to blarney wid, waping as if the poor sowl would die for ye. Och! he’s gone, he’s gone; and the liberty is gone with him.”

A thundering sound of horses’ feet came rolling along the road which led near the place where Lawton lay, and directly the whole body of Virginians appeared, with Dunwoodie at their head. The news of the captain’s fate had reached him, for the instant that he saw the body he halted the squadron, and, dismounting, approached the spot. The countenance of Lawton was not in the least distorted, but the angry frown which had lowered over his brow during the battle was fixed even in death. His frame was composed, and stretched as in sleep. Dunwoodie took hold of his hand, and gazed a moment in silence; his own dark eye kindled, and the paleness which had overspread his features was succeeded by a spot of deep red in either cheek.

“With his own sword will I avenge him!” he cried, endeavoring to take the weapon from the hand of Lawton; but the grasp resisted his utmost strength. “It shall be buried with him. Sitgreaves, take care of our friend, while I revenge his death.”