The Spy, James Fenimore Cooper [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

“Colonel Wellmere!” cried young Wharton in astonishment as they entered, “has the fortune of war been thus cruel to you also? But you are welcome to the house of my father, although I could wish the introduction to have taken place under more happy circumstances.”

Mr. Wharton received this new guest with the guarded caution that distinguished his manner, and Dunwoodie left the room to seek the bedside of his friend. Everything here looked propitious, and he acquainted the surgeon that another patient waited his skill in the room below. The sound of the word was enough to set the doctor in motion, and seizing his implements of office, he went in quest of this new applicant. At the door of the parlor he was met by the ladies, who were retiring. Miss Peyton detained him for a moment, to inquire into the welfare of Captain Singleton. Frances smiled with something of natural archness of manner, as she contemplated the grotesque appearance of the bald-headed practitioner; but Sarah was too much agitated, with the surprise of the unexpected interview with the British colonel, to observe him. It has already been intimated that Colonel Wellmere was an old acquaintance of the family. Sarah had been so long absent from the city, that she had in some measure been banished from the remembrance of the gentleman; but the recollections of Sarah were more vivid. There is a period in the life of every woman when she may be said to be predisposed to love; it is at the happy age when infancy is lost in opening maturity—when the guileless heart beats with those anticipations of life which the truth can never realize—and when the imagination forms images of perfection that are copied after its own unsullied visions. At this happy age Sarah left the city, and she had brought with her a picture of futurity, faintly impressed, it is true, but which gained durability from her solitude, and in which Wellmere had been placed in the foreground. The surprise of the meeting had in some measure overpowered her, and after receiving the salutations of the colonel, she had risen, in compliance with a signal from her observant aunt, to withdraw.

“Then, sir,” observed Miss Peyton, after listening to the surgeon’s account of his young patient, “we may be flattered with the expectation that he will recover.”

“’Tis certain, madam,” returned the doctor, endeavoring, out of respect to the ladies, to replace his wig; “’tis certain, with care and good nursing.”

“In those he shall not be wanting,” said the spinster, mildly. “Everything we have he can command, and Major Dunwoodie has dispatched an express for his sister.”

“His sister!” echoed the practitioner, with a meaning look. “If the major has sent for her, she will come.”

“Her brother’s danger would induce her, one would imagine.”

“No doubt, madam,” continued the doctor, laconically, bowing low, and giving room to the ladies to pass. The words and the manner were not lost on the younger sister, in whose presence the name of Dunwoodie was never mentioned unheeded.

“Sir,” cried Dr. Sitgreaves, on entering the parlor, addressing himself to the only coat of scarlet in the room, “I am advised you are in want of my aid. God send ’tis not Captain Lawton with whom you came in contact, in which case I may be too late.”

“There must be some mistake, sir,” said Wellmere, haughtily. “It was a surgeon that Major Dunwoodie was to send me, and not an old woman.”

“’Tis Dr. Sitgreaves,” said Henry Wharton, quickly, though with difficulty suppressing a laugh. “The multitude of his engagements, to-day, has prevented his usual attention to his attire.”

“Your pardon, sir,” added Wellmere, very ungraciously proceeding to lay aside his coat, and exhibit what he called a wounded arm.

“If, sir,” said the surgeon dryly, “the degrees of Edinburgh—walking your London hospitals—amputating some hundreds of limbs—operating on the human frame in every shape that is warranted by the lights of science, a clear conscience, and the commission of the Continental Congress, can make a surgeon, I am one.”

“Your pardon, sir,” repeated the colonel stiffly. “Captain Wharton has accounted for my error.”

“For which I thank Captain Wharton,” said the surgeon, proceeding coolly to arrange his amputating instruments, with a formality that made the colonel’s blood run cold. “Where are you hurt, sir? What! is it then this scratch in your shoulder? In what manner might you have received this wound, sir?”

“From the sword of a rebel dragoon,” said the colonel, with emphasis.

“Never. Even the gentle George Singleton would not have breathed on you so harmlessly.” He took a piece of sticking plaster from his pocket, and applied it to the part. “There, sir; that will answer your purpose, and I am certain it is all that is required of me.”

“What do you take to be my purpose, then, sir?”

“To report yourself wounded in your dispatches,” replied the doctor, with great steadiness; “and you may say that an old woman dressed your hurts—for if one did not, one easily might!”

“Very extraordinary language,” muttered the Englishman.

Here Captain Wharton interfered; and, by explaining the mistake of Colonel Wellmere to proceed from his irritated mind and pain of body, he in part succeeded in mollifying the insulted practitioner, who consented to look further into the hurts of the other. They were chiefly bruises from his fall, to which Sitgreaves made some hasty applications, and withdrew.

The horse, having taken their required refreshment, prepared to fall back to their intended position, and it became incumbent on Dunwoodie to arrange the disposal of his prisoners. Sitgreaves he determined to leave in the cottage of Mr. Wharton, in attendance on Captain Singleton. Henry came to him with a request that Colonel Wellmere might also be left behind, under his parole, until the troops marched higher into the country. To this the major cheerfully assented; and as all the rest of the prisoners were of the vulgar herd, they were speedily collected, and, under the care of a strong guard, ordered to the interior. The dragoons soon after marched; and the guides, separating in small parties, accompanied by patrols from the horse, spread themselves across the country, in such a manner as to make a chain of sentinels from the waters of the Sound to those of the Hudson.[7]

Dunwoodie had lingered in front of the cottage, after he paid his parting compliments, with an unwillingness to return, that he thought proceeded from his solicitude for his wounded friends. The heart which has not become callous, soon sickens with the glory that has been purchased with a waste of human life. Peyton Dunwoodie, left to himself, and no longer excited by the visions which youthful ardor had kept before him throughout the day, began to feel there were other ties than those which bound the soldier within the rigid rules of honor. He did not waver in his duty, yet he felt how strong was the temptation. His blood had ceased to flow with the impulse created by the battle. The stern expression of his eye gradually gave place to a look of softness; and his reflections on the victory brought with them no satisfaction that compensated for the sacrifices by which it had been purchased. While turning his last lingering gaze on the Locusts, he remembered only that it contained all that he most valued. The friend of his youth was a prisoner, under circumstances that endangered both life and honor. The gentle companion of his toils, who could throw around the rude enjoyments of a soldier the graceful mildness of peace, lay a bleeding victim to his success. The image of the maid who had held, during the day, a disputed sovereignty in his bosom, again rose to his view with a loveliness that banished her rival, glory, from his mind.

The last lagging trooper of the corps had already disappeared behind the northern hill, and the major unwillingly turned his horse in the same direction. Frances, impelled by a restless inquietude, now timidly ventured on the piazza of the cottage. The day had been mild and clear, and the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky. The tumult, which so lately disturbed the valley, was succeeded by the stillness of death, and the fair scene before her looked as if it had never been marred by the passions of men. One solitary cloud, the collected smoke of the contest, hung over the field; and this was gradually dispersing, leaving no vestige of the conflict above the peaceful graves of its victims. All the conflicting feelings, all the tumultuous circumstances of the eventful day, appeared like the deceptions of a troubled vision. Frances turned, and caught a glimpse of the retreating figure of him who had been so conspicuous an actor in the scene, and the illusion vanished. She recognized her lover, and, with the truth, came other recollections that drove her to the room, with a heart as sad as that which Dunwoodie himself bore from the valley.

[7] The scene of this tale is between these two waters, which are but a few miles from each other.