Читать книгу Gleaner Tales - Robert Sellar - Страница 7

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When Morton recovered consciousness he found he was in a large apartment, the sides formed of heavy logs, and surrounded by American soldiers, who were talking excitedly of the discovery of the dead body of Major Slocum. On seeing their prisoner was restored to his senses, they plied him with questions, in the hope of clearing up the mystery, but he felt so languid that he made no reply, and simply begged for water. On the arrival of two ox-carts, the corpse was lifted into one and the wounded man into the other. On being carried into the air, Morton saw that the building he had been in was a small blockhouse, so placed as to command the road which led to Canada. The jolting of the cart during the short drive was agony to him, and he was thankful when the log shanties of the village of Four Corners came in sight and the rows of tents of the camp. The cart halted at the door of a tavern, where he assumed the general must be, and soon an orderly came out and directed the driver to an outhouse, into which two soldiers carried him. It was a small, low-roofed stable, and in one of the stalls they laid Morton. Closing the door, he was left in darkness, and so remained until it reopened to admit what proved to be a surgeon. He examined the wound, picked it clean, put in a few stitches, bound a wet-bandage round it, and had a pail of water placed near. “You keep that cloth wet,” he said to Morton, “and drink all you please, it will keep down the fever, and you will be well in a week. You have only a flesh-cut; had it been on the inside of the leg instead of the front you would have been a dead man in five minutes.”

“I am very weak.”

“Yes; from loss of blood; I will send you some whisky and milk.”

When the attendant appeared with the stimulant, Morton sickened at the smell of the whisky, but drank the milk. The man approved of the arrangement and disposed of the whisky. Having placed clean straw below Morton, he left him, barring the door. The soothing sensation of the wet bandage lulled him to sleep, and he slumbered soundly until awakened by the sound of voices at the door.

“Now, mem, you’d better go home and leave Jim alone.”

“You tell me he’s wounded, and who can nurse him better than his old mother?”

“Be reasonable; the doctor said he was not to be disturbed.”

“Oh, I will see him; look what I have brought him—a napkin full of the cakes he liked and this bottle of syrup.”

“Leave them, my good woman, with me and he will get them.”

“No, no, I must see my handsome boy in his uniform; my own Jimmy that never left my side until he listed the day before yesterday. The sight of me will be better than salve to his hurt.”

“I can’t let you in; you must go to the colonel for an order.”

“An order to see my own son! Jimmy, don’t you hear me; tell the man to let me in to you. (A pause.) Are you sleeping, Jimmy? It’s your mother has come to see you. (Here she knocked). Are you much hurt? Just a scratch, they tell me; perhaps they will let you go home with me till it heals. O, Jimmy, I miss you sorely at home.”

Again the woman knocked and placing her ear to a crack in the door listened.

“He ain’t moving! Soger man, tell me true, is my Jimmy here?”

“He is, mem; you must go to the colonel. I cannot let you in; I must obey orders.”

“If Jimmy is here, then he must be worse than they told me.”

“Very likely, mem; it is always best to be prepared for the worst.”

“He may be dyin’ for all you know. Do let me in.”

“There is the captain passing; ask him.”

“What’s wanted, Bill?”

“This is Jimmy’s mother and she wants to see him. Come and tell her.”

“That I won’t,” answered the captain, with an oath, “I want to have a hand in no scene; do as you like to break it to the old woman,” and on the captain passed.

“What does he mean? Jimmy ain’t to be punished, is he? He would not do wrong. It was just Tuesday week he went to the pasture for the cows and as he came back, there marched a lot of sogers, with flags aflying and drums and fifes playin’ beautiful. ‘O, mother,’ says he, ‘I would like to join em,’ an he kept acoaxin an aworryin me until I let him come up to the Corners an take the bounty, which he brings back to me, dressed in his fine clothes, the lovely boy.”

“Now, good woman, you go home an’ I will send you word of him.”

“That I won’t; if Jimmy is here I see him. Word came this morning that the Injuns had sprang on to the camp an’ there was a soger killed, stone dead, an’ two taken prisoners. An’, says I, lucky Jimmy ain’t one of them, for so they told me, an’ I will hurry up my chores an’ go and see him this evenin’, an’ here I am. An’ at the camp they tells me he is over here, and won’t you let me see him?”

“Your Jimmy, mem, yes, your Jimmy is——By God, I can’t speak the word. Here, take the key and go in; you’ll find him right in front o’ the door.”

The door opened and Morton saw a tidy little woman, poorly dressed, step in. She looked wonderingly around, glancing at him in her search for her son. Not seeing him, she stepped lightly towards a heap covered with an army blanket, of which she lifted a corner, gave a pitiful cry, and fell sobbing on what lay beneath. To his horror and pity, Morton perceived it was the corpse of a youth, the head with a bloody patch on the crown, from having been scalped. “This is what Perrigo’s men did,” he thought, “and this is war.” Here two women, warned by the sentry of what was passing, entered and did what they could to soothe the inconsolable mother. The succeeding half hour, during which preparations were made for burial, was accounted by Morton the saddest in his life, and when the detachment arrived with a coffin to take the body away, and he saw it leave, followed by the heart-broken mother, he breathed a sigh of relief and took a mental oath that it would go ill with him if he did not help the poor woman to the day of her death.

Some biscuit were brought to him, the bucket refilled with spring-water, the door closed, and barred, and he was left for the night. Weakness from loss of blood made him drowsy, and forgetting his miserable situation, he slept soundly until next morning, when he woke feeling more like himself than he could have believed possible. His wound felt easy and he was glad to find he could move without much pain. The doctor looked in, nodded approval of his condition, and said he would send him breakfast, after partaking of which Morton turned his attention to his personal appearance, and with the aid of water, which the sentry got him as wanted, improved it somewhat. The day passed without incident, no one interrupting the monotony of his imprisonment. From the sound of wagon-wheels and the hurrying of messengers to and from the tavern, he surmised the army was preparing to move, and that in the bustle he was forgotten. The following morning his vigor had returned to such a degree that he fell to examining his prison-house and so far as he could, by peeping through crevices in its walls of logs, his surroundings, with a view to endeavoring to escape. He had finished breakfast, when an officer appeared, who introduced himself as Captain Thomas of the staff and announced that the General wished to see him. By leaning rather heavily on the American, who proved to be a gentlemanly fellow, Morton managed to hobble the short distance to Smith’s tavern, and was led directly to the General’s room. On entering, Morton saw a fine-looking old gentleman of dignified bearing, whom he recognized as the one he saw inspecting the troops on the evening of the surprise. He sat in a rocking-chair and before him stood a rough-looking farmer, with whom he was speaking. Waving Morton to take a seat, he went on with his conversation.

“You tell me your name is Jacob Manning and that you are acquainted with every inch of the country between here and Montreal. I will give you a horse from my own stud, which no Canadian can come within wind of, and you will go to the British camp and bring me word of its strength?”

“No, sir,” replied the backwoodsman.

“You will be richly rewarded.”

“That’s no inducement.”

“Fellow, you forget you are my prisoner, and that I can order you to be shot.”

“No, I don’t, but I’d rather be shot than betray my country.”

“Your country! You are American born. What’s Canada to you?”

“True enough, General, I was brought up on the banks of the Hudson and would have been there yet but for the infernal Whigs, who robbed us first of our horses, then of our kewows, and last of all of our farms, and called their thievery patriotism. If we Tories hadn’t had so much property, there wouldn’t a ben so many George Washington-Tom Jefferson patriots. When we were hunted from our birthplace for the crime of being loyal to the good King we were born under, we found shelter and freedom in Canada, and, by God, sir, there ain’t a United Empire loyalist among us that wouldn’t fight and die for Canada.”

“You rude boor,” retorted Gen. Hampton hotly, “we have come to give liberty to Canada, and our armies will be welcomed by its down-trodden people as their deliverers. I have reports and letters to that effect from Montreal and, best of all, the personal report of one of my staff, now dead, sent on a special mission.”

“Don’t trust ’em, General. We who came from the States know what you mean by liberty—freedom to swallow Whigery and persecution if you refuse. The Old Countrymen are stiff as hickory against you, and the French—why, at heart, they are against both.”

“It is false, sir. I have filled up my regiments since I came to this frontier with French.”

“It wa’nt for love of you; it was for your $40 bounty.”

The General rose and throwing open the shutter, closed to exclude the sunshine, revealed the army in review; masses of infantry moving with passable precision, a long train of artillery, and a dashing corps of cavalry. Proudly turning to the farmer he said,

“What can stop the sweep of such an army? England may well halt in her guilty career at the sight of these embattled sons of liberty and loosen her bloody clutch upon this continent of the New World.”

Neither the sight of the army nor the pompous speech of the General appalled the stout farmer, who replied, “The red-coats will make short work of ’em, and if you don’t want to go to Halifax you’d better not cross the lines.”

General Hampton made no reply, his good-sense apparently checking his pride, by suggesting the folly of arguing with a backwoodsman, who had chanced to be taken prisoner in a foray. Summoning an orderly, he commanded that Manning be taken back to prison and not released until the army moved.

“And now, Lieutenant Morton, for so I understand you are named, you are the latest arrival from Canada; and what did they say of the Army of the North when you left?”

“They were wondering when they would have the pleasure of seeing it,” replied Morton.

“Ha! it is well to so dissemble the terror our presence on the frontier has stricken into the mercenaries of a falling monarchy. They will see the cohorts of the Republic soon enough: ere another sun has risen we may have crossed the Rubicon.”

“The wonder expressed at every mess-table has been the cause of your tarrying here.”

“So I am the topic of the conversation of your military circles,” said Hampton, with a pleased expression. “And what was their surmise as to the cause of my tarrying here.”

“That you were awaiting orders from General Wilkinson.”

The General sprung to his feet in anger and excitement. “What! Do they so insult me? Look you, young man, are you telling the truth or dare come here to beard me?”

“On my honor, General Hampton, I only repeat what I have heard a hundred times.”

“Then, when you hear it again, that I await the orders of that impudent pill-maker who masquerades at Oswego as a general, say it is a lie! General Hampton takes no orders from him; he despises him as a man and as a soldier—a soldier, quotha! A political mountebank, a tippler and a poltroon. Here I have been, ready to pluck up the last vestige of British authority on this continent for two months past, and been hindered by the government entrusting the Western wing of my army to a craven who refuses to recognize my authority and who lets I would wait on I dare not.”

“I meant no offence by my statement,” said Morton, as the General paused in striding the room.

“It is well for you that you did not, for I brook no aspersion upon my independence or my reputation as a veteran who has done somewhat to deserve well of his country, and that is implied in alleging, I take my orders from Wilkinson.”

Morton reiterated his regret at having unwittingly given offence and would assure the General that he had entertained so high an opinion of him that he did not attribute to him the harsh treatment he had received since taken prisoner. Asked of what he complained, he told of his having been thrust into a miserable stable and having received no such attention as is universally accorded to a wounded officer in camp.

The General smiled somewhat grimly as he said: “Lieut. Morton, your treatment is no criterion of our hospitality to those whom the fortunes of war throw into our hands. You forget that you were made prisoner under most suspicious circumstances. You were found lying wounded beside the mutilated corpse of that influential citizen who, I may so express it, stepped from the political into the military arena, the late Major Slocum, and everything points to your having been associated with those who slew him and violated his remains. Apart from that grave circumstance, the mere fact of your being found on the territory of the United States government would justify my ordering your execution as a spy.”

“Sir,” indignantly interrupted Morton, “I am no spy. My uniform shows I am an officer of the King’s army and I came upon American soil engaged in lawful warfare, declared not by King George but by your own government. I am a prisoner-of-war but no spy.”

“It is undoubted that you consorted with Indians, that you were present with them in the childish attempt to surprise my army the other evening, and that you were with one or more redskins when Major Slocum offered up his life on the altar of his country in a manner that befitted so celebrated a patriot, who to his laurels as a statesman had added those of a soldier. You must understand, for you appear to be a man of parts and education, that Indians and those who associate with them are not recognized as entitled to the rights of war. They are shot or hung as barbarous murderers without trial.”

“If that is your law, General, how comes it that you have Indians in your army?”

The General looked nonplussed for a moment. “Our Indians,” he answered, “are not in the same category. They have embraced the allegiance of a free government; yours are wild wretches, refugees from our domain and fugitives from our justice, and now the minions of a bloody despotism.”

“I do not see that if it is right for your government to avail themselves of the skill of Indians as scouts and guides that it can be wrong for His Majesty’s government to do the same. Between the painted savages I perceived in your camp and those in the King’s service, I could distinguish no difference.”

“Keep your argument for the court martial which, tho’ I do not consider you entitled, I may grant. Leaving that aside, sir, and reminding you of your perilous position, I would demand whether you are disposed to make compensation, so far as in your power, to the government of the United States by giving information that would be useful in the present crisis? As an officer, you must know much of the strength and disposition of the British force who stand in my onward path to Montreal.”

Morton’s face, pale from his recent wound and confinement, flushed. “If you mean, sir, that you offer me the choice of proving traitor or of a rope, you know little of the honor of a British soldier or of his sense of duty. It is in your power to hang me, but not to make me false to my country and my King.”

“Come, come young man; do not impute dishonor to a Southerner and a gentleman who bore a commission in the Continental army. Leave me, who am so much older and, before you were born, saw service under the immortal Washington, to judge of what is military ethics. We are alone, and as a gentleman speaking to a gentleman, I demand whether you are going to give me information useful in the movement I am about to make upon Montreal?”

“You have had my answer.”

The General took up a pen, wrote a few lines, and then rang a bell. Captain Thomas entered. “Take this and conduct the prisoner away,” said the General handing him a folded paper. Morton bowed and left the room, fully believing that the missive was an order for his execution. Conducted back to the stable, he threw himself on his straw-heap, indignant and yet mortified at being treated as a spy. He thought of his relations, of his comrades, of his impending disgraceful death, and then clenched his teeth as he resolved he would not plead with his captors but die without a murmur.

The marching of a body of men was heard without. They halted and the door was thrown open. The officer in command said he had come to escort him to the court-martial. Morton gave no sign of surprise and limped as firmly as he could, surrounded by the files of men, to the tent where the court was awaiting him. The clerk read the charges, which were, that he was a spy, that he had associated himself with Indian marauders in an attack on the camp and, that he had been an accomplice in the murder of Major Slocum. In reply to the usual question of guilty or not guilty, Morton answered that he scorned to plead to such charges, that his uniform was the best reply to his being a spy and if they doubted his right to wear it, he referred them to Major Stovin at Camp la Fourche; that he had made war in a lawful way and with men regularly enrolled in the British service, and, before God, he protested he had no hand in the killing of Major Slocum. “That,” said the presiding officer, “is equivalent to your pleading not guilty. The prosecutor will now have to adduce proof of the charges.”

The only witnesses were the soldiers who had found him lying in the bush beside the corpse of Major Slocum. Morton peremptorily refused to answer questions. “You place us in a painful position, Lieutenant Morton, by refusing to answer, for we must conclude that you can give no satisfactory explanation of the circumstances under which you were captured. A foul, a diabolical murder has been committed, and everything points to you as being, at least, a party to it. Your wound in itself is witness against you that you assailed our late comrade-in-arms.”

Morton rose to his feet, and holding up his hand said: “Gentlemen, I stand before you expecting to receive sentence of death and to be shortly in presence of my Maker. At this solemn moment, I repeat my declaration, that I had no part in the death of Major Slocum, that I did not consent to it and that if it had been in my power I would have saved him.”

“I submit, Mr President,” said a member of the court, “that the statement we have just heard is tantamount to Lieutenant Morton’s declaring he knows how and by whom Major Slocum came to his death. As one who has practised law many years, I assert that the statement just made is a confession of judgment, unless the defendant informs the court who actually committed the murder and declares his willingness to give evidence for the state. If a man admits he was witness to a murder and will not tell who did it, the court may conclude he withholds the information for evil purpose, and is justified in sentencing him as an abettor at least. In this case, the wound of the accused points to his being the principal. Before falling, Major Slocum, in his heroic defence, deals a disabling wound to this pretended British officer who thereupon leaves it to his associated red-skins to finish him and wreak their deviltry on the corpse.”

“The opinion you have heard,” said the presiding-officer, “commends itself to this board. What have you to say in reply?”

“Nothing,” answered Morton.

“We will give you another chance. We cannot pass over the murder of a brother officer. Only strict measures have prevented many citizens in our ranks, who esteemed Major Slocum as one of their political leaders and of popular qualities, from taking summary vengeance upon you. We make this offer to you: make a clean breast of it, tell us who committed the murder, give us such assistance as may enable us to track the perpetrator, and, on his capture, we will set you free.”

“And if I refuse,” asked Morton, “what then?”

“You will be hanged at evening parade.”

“With that alternative, so revolting to a soldier, I refuse your offer. What the circumstances are which bind me to silence, I cannot, as a man of honor, tell, but I again affirm my innocence.”

“Lieutenant Morton, what say you: the gallows or your informing us of a cruel murderer: which do you choose?”

“I choose neither; I alike deny your right to take my life or to extort what I choose not to tell.”

“Withdraw the prisoner,” ordered the presiding-officer, “while the court consults,” and Morton was led a few yards away from the tent. He could hear the voice of eager debate and one speaker in his warmth fairly shouted, “He must be made to tell; we’ll squeeze it out of him,” and then followed a long colloquy. An hour had passed when he was recalled.

“We have deliberated on the evidence in your case, Lieutenant Morton; and the clerk will read the finding of the court.”

From a sheet of foolscap the clerk read a long minute, finding the prisoner guilty on each count.

Standing up and adjusting his sword, the presiding officer said, “It only remains to pronounce sentence: it is, that you be hanged between the hours of five and six o’clock this day.”

Morton bowed and asked if the sentence had been confirmed by the commanding-officer. “It has been submitted and approved,” was the reply.

“In the brief space of time that remains to me,” said Morton in a firm voice, “may I crave the treatment that befits my rank in so far that I may be furnished with facilities for writing a few letters?”

“You may remain here and when done writing, the guard will conduct you back whence you came, there to remain until execution.” With these words he rose, and the others followed, leaving Morton alone with the clerk and the captain of his guard. He wrote three letters,—to Major Stovin, to his colonel, and the longest to his relatives across the Atlantic,—being careful in all to say nothing about Hemlock, for he suspected the Americans would read them before sending. When done, he was taken back to the stable, and left in darkness. He had abandoned all hope: his voyage across life’s ocean was nearly ended, and already he thought the mountain-tops of the unknown country he was soon to set foot upon loomed dimly on his inward eye. The hour which comes to all, when the things of this life shrink into nothingness, was upon him, and the truths of revelation became to him the only actualities. The communings of that time are sacred from record: enough to say, they left a sobering and elevating influence on his character. He was perfectly composed when he heard the guard return, and quietly took his place in the centre of the hollow square. On the field used as a parade ground he saw the troops drawn up in double line. At one end were the preparations for his execution, a noose dangling from the limb of a tree and a rough box beneath to serve as his coffin. There was not a whisper or a movement as he passed slowly up between the lines of troops. It seemed to him there was unnecessary delay in completing the arrangements; and that the preliminaries were drawn out to a degree that was agonizing to him. At last, however, his arms were pinioned and the noose adjusted. The officer who had presided at his trial approached “By authority of the General,” he whispered, “I repeat the offer made you: assist us to secure the murderer of Major Slocum and you get your life and liberty.”

Morton simply answered, “Good friend, for Jesu’s sake, leave me alone.”

The word was not given to haul the tackle and Morton stood facing the assembled ranks for what seemed to him to be an age, though it was only a few minutes. The bitterness of death was passed and the calmness of resignation filled his soul. Again the officer spoke, “What say you, Lieutenant Morton?” Morton merely shook his head. Presently a horseman was seen to leave the General’s quarters and an orderly rode up. “By command of the General, the execution is postponed.” Morton’s first feeling was that of disappointment.

As he was hurried back to the stable, the order dismissing the troops was given. As they broke up, a soldier remarked to his comrade, “They’d sooner have him squeal than stretch his neck.”