The Continental Dragoon Part 30

Elizabeth withdrew the key from the locked door, just as the pursuing soldier arrived at that door. The man, in his excitement, violently tried to open the door. Colden, who was wrapping a handkerchief around his wounded hand, shouted to the man:

"You fool, she has the key! Take it from her!"

"You shall kill me first!" she cried, and ran from the man towards the open window, stepping over the prostrate bodies of Sam and Williams as she went.

"After her! She'll throw it into the snow!" cried Colden.

This much Harry heard through the door, and heard also the heavy tread of the soldier's feet in pursuit of the girl. His mind imaged forth a momentary picture of the fellow's rough hands laid on the delicate arms of Elizabeth, of her body clasped by the man in a struggle, her white skin reddened by his grasp. The spectacle, imaginary and lasting but an instant, maddened Peyton beyond endurance, made him a giant, a Hercules. He threw himself against the door repeatedly, plied foot and body in heavy blows. Meanwhile Elizabeth had reached the window, and thrown the key far out on the snow-heaped lawn. She had no sooner done so than the man laid his clutch on her arm.

"Fly, Peyton, for G.o.d's sake! For my sake!" she shouted.

"You shall pay for aiding the enemy, if he does!" cried Colden. "Don't let her escape, Thompson!"

At that instant the locked door gave way, and in burst Harry, having broken, to save Elizabeth from a rude contact, the barrier she had closed to save his life. That life, which he had once saved by callously a.s.sailing her heart, he now risked, that her body might not suffer the touch of an ungentle hand. So swift and sudden was his entrance, that he had crossed the room, and floored Elizabeth's captor, with a deep gash down the side of the head, ere Colden made a step towards him.

The man who had been under the fallen spinet had now extricated himself, and regained his feet, and he and Colden rushed on Peyton at once. Elated by having so speedily wrought Elizabeth's release, and reduced the number of his able adversaries to two, Peyton bethought himself of a new plan. He fled through the deep doorway to the east hall, and took position on the staircase. He turned just in time to parry Colden's sword, which the major had picked up and made shift to hold in his wrapped-up, wounded hand. Harry saw that an opportune stroke might send the sword from his enemy's numb and weakening grasp, and his heart swelled with antic.i.p.ated triumph, until he heard Colden's hoa.r.s.e cry:

"Shoot him, James, while I keep him occupied!"

This order was now the more practicable from Harry's being on the stairs, above Colden, a great part of his body exposed to an aim that could not endanger his antagonist. Breathing heavily, his eyes afire with hatred, Colden repeated his attacks, while Harry saw the other's musket raised, the barrel looking him in the eyes. He leaped a step higher, swung his broken sword against the pendent chandelier, knocked the only burning candle from its socket, and threw the hall into darkness. A moment later the gun went off, giving an instant's red flame, a loud crack, and a smell of gunpowder smoke. Harry heard a swift singing near his right ear, and knew that he was untouched.

Lest Colden's sword, thrust at random, might find him in the dark, Harry instantly bestrode the stair-rail, and dropped, outside the bal.u.s.trade, to the floor of the hall. He grasped his half-sword in both hands, so as to put his whole weight behind it, and made a lunge in the direction of a muttered curse. The curse gave way to a roar of pain and rage, and Colden's second follower dropped, spurting blood in the darkness, his shoulder gashed horribly by the blunt end of Peyton's imperfect weapon. Harry now ran back to the parlor, to deal with Colden in the light, the latter's greater length of weapon giving a greater searching-power in the darkness. In the parlor Elizabeth stood waiting in suspense. Sam was sitting on the floor and staring stupidly at Williams, who was now awake and rubbing his head, and the Tory first fallen was still senseless. Harry had no sooner taken this scene in at a glance, than Colden was upon him.

The major's eyes seemed to stand out like blazing carbuncles from the face of some deity of rage.

"G--d d----n your soul!" he screamed, and thrust. The point went straight, and Elizabeth, seeing it protrude through the back of Harry's coat, near the left side of his body, uttered a low cry, and sank half-fainting to her knees. Colden shouted with triumphant laughter. "Die, you dog! And when you burn in h.e.l.l, remember I sent you there!"

But the evil joy suddenly faded out of Colden's face, for Harry Peyton, smiling, took a forward step, grasped near the hilt the sword that seemed to be sheathed in his own body, forced it from Colden's hand, and then drew it slowly from its lodgment. No blood discolored it, and none oozed from Harry's body.

The Virginian's quick movement to escape the thrust had left only a part of his loose-fitting coat exposed, and Colden's sword had pa.s.sed through it, leaving him unhurt. Colden's momentary appearance of victory had been the means of actual defeat.

The Tory major saw his cup of revenge dashed from his lips, saw himself deprived of sword and sweetheart, neither chance left of living nor motive left for life. His rage collapsed; his hate burst like a bubble.

"Kill me," he said, quietly, to Peyton.

His look, innocent of any thought to draw compa.s.sion, quite disarmed Harry, who stood for a moment with moistening eyes and a kind of welling-up at the throat, then said, in a rather unsteady voice:

"No, sir! G.o.d knows I've taken enough from you," and he looked at Elizabeth, who had risen and was standing near him. Softened by the triumphant outcome for her love, she, too, was suddenly sensible of the defeated man's unhappiness, and her eyes applauded and thanked Harry.

"You've taken what I never had," said Colden, with a chastened kind of bitterness, "yet without which the life you give me back is worthless."

"Make it worth something with this," and Peyton held Colden's sword out to him.

"What! You will trust me with it?" said Colden, amazed and incredulous, taking the sword, but holding it limply.

"Certainly, sir!"

Colden was motionless a moment, then placed his arm high against the doorway, and buried his face against his arm, to hide the outlet of what various emotions were set loose by his enemy's display of pity and trust.

Harry gently drew Elizabeth to him and kissed her. Yielding, she placed her arms around his neck, and held him for a moment in an embrace of her own offering. Then she withdrew from his clasp, and when Colden again faced them she had resumed that invisible veil which no man, not even the beloved, might pa.s.s through till she bade him.

"You will find me worthy of your trust, sir," said Colden, brokenly, yet with a mixture of manly humility and honorable pride.[10]

"I am so sure of that," said Harry, "that I confide to your care for a time what is dearest to me in the world. I ask you to accompany Miss Philipse to her home in New York, when it may suit her convenience, and to see that she suffer nothing for what has occurred here this night."

"You are a generous enemy, sir," said Colden, his eyes moistening again. "One man in ten thousand would have done me the honor, the kindness, of that request!"

"Why," said Harry, taking his enemy's hand, as if in token of farewell, "whatever be the ways of the knaves, respectable and otherwise, who are so cautious against tricks like their own, thank G.o.d it's not so rotten a world that a gentleman may not trust a gentleman, when he is sure he has found one!"

Turning to Elizabeth, he said: "I beg you will leave this house at dawn, if you can. Williams and Sam, there, will be little the worse for their knocks, and can look after the fellows on the floor."

"And you," she replied, "must go at once. You must not further risk your life by a moment's waiting. Cuff shall saddle Cato for you. I sha'n't rest till I feel that you are far on your way."

He approached as if again to kiss her, but she held out her hand to stay him. He took the hand, bent over it, pressed it to his lips.

"But,--" he said, in a tone as low as a whisper, "when--"

"When the war is over," she answered, softly, "let Cato bring you back."

NOTES.

NOTE 1. (Page 41.)

"The old county historian." Rev. Robert Bolton, born 1814, died 1877.

His "History of the County of Westchester," especially the revised edition published in 1881, is a rich mine of "material." Among other works that have served the author of this narrative in a study of the period and place are Allison's "History of Yonkers," Cole's "History of Yonkers," Edsall's "History of Kingsbridge," Dawson's "Westchester County during the Revolution," Jones's "New York during the Revolution," Watson's "Annals of New York in the Olden Time," General Heath's "Memoirs," Thatcher's "Memoirs," Simcoe's "Military Journal,"

Dunlap's "History of New York," and Mrs. Ellet's "Domestic History of the Revolution." For an excellent description of the border warfare on the "neutral ground," the reader should go to Irving's delightful "Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost." Cooper's novel, "The Spy," deals accurately with that subject, which is touched upon also in that good old standby, Lossing's "Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution."

Philipse Manor-house has been carefully written of by Judge Atkins in a Yonkers newspaper, and less accurately by Mrs. Lamb in her "History of New York City," and Marian Harland in "Some Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories." Of general histories, Irving's "Life of Washington"

treats most fully of things around New York during the British occupation, and these things are interestingly dealt with in local histories, such as the "History of Queens County," Stiles's "History of Brooklyn," Barber and Howe's "New Jersey Historical Collections,"

etc., as well as in such special works as Onderdonk's "Revolutionary Incidents."

NOTE 2. (Page 47.)

Of Colonel Gist's escape, Bolton gives the following account: "The house was occupied by the handsome and accomplished widow of the Rev.

Luke Babc.o.c.k, and Miss Sarah Williams, a sister of Mrs. Frederick Philipse. To the former lady Colonel Gist was devotedly attached; consequently, when an opportunity afforded, he gladly moved his command into that vicinity. On the night preceding the attack, he had stationed his camp at the foot of Boar Hill, for the better purpose of paying a special visit to this lady. It is said that whilst engaged in urging his suit the enemy were quietly surrounding his quarters; he had barely received his final dismissal from Mrs. Babc.o.c.k when he was startled by the firing of musketry.... It appears that all the roads and bridges had been well guarded by the enemy, except the one now called Warner's Bridge, and that Captain John Odell upon the first alarm led off his troops through the woods on the west side of the Saw Mill [River]. Here Colonel Gist joined them. In the meantime Mrs.

Babc.o.c.k, having stationed herself in one of the dormer windows of the parsonage, aided their escape whenever they appeared, by the waving of a white handkerchief."

The British attack was under Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, whose journal shows that his force so far outnumbered Gist's that the latter's only sensible course was in flight. About the year 1840, trees cut down near the site of Gist's camp were found to contain b.a.l.l.s buried six inches in the wood.

NOTE 3. (Page 76.)

The three generals arrived on the _Cerberus_, May 25th. All the histories say that they arrived "with reinforcements." It is true, troops were constantly arriving at Boston about that time, but none came immediately with the three generals. The _Connecticut Gazette_ (published in New London) printed, early in June, this piece of news, brought by a gentleman who had been in Boston, May 28th: "Generals Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe arrived at Boston last Friday in a man-of-war. No troops came with them. They brought over 25 horses." It is a wonder that Frothingham, in his admirably complete history of the siege of Boston, missed even this little circ.u.mstance. Probably everybody has read the incident thus related by Irving: "As the ships entered the harbor and the rebel camp was pointed out, Burgoyne could not restrain a burst of surprise and scorn. 'What!' cried he; 'ten thousand peasants keep five thousand King's troops shut up! Well, let us get in and we'll soon find elbow room!'" I don't think Irving relates anywhere the sequel, which is that when, after his surrender, Burgoyne marched with his conquered army into Cambridge, an old woman shouted from a window to the crowd of spectators, "Give him elbow room!" This story ought to be true, if it is not.