"The Southern temper is quick and fiery," continued Miss Peyton; "and your brother, feeble and weak as he is, has looked the whole afternoon flushed and angry."
"Good heaven!" cried Isabella, with difficulty supporting herself on the couch of Sarah; "he is gentle as the lamb by nature, though the lion is not his equal when roused."
"We must interfere: our presence will quell the tumult, and possibly save the life of a fellow creature."
Miss Peyton, excited to attempt what she conceived a duty worthy of her s.e.x and nature, advanced with the dignity of injured female feeling, to the door, followed by Isabella. The apartment to which Sarah had been conveyed was in one of the wings of the building, and it communicated with the princ.i.p.al hall of the cottage by a long and dark pa.s.sage. This was now light, and across its termination several figures were seen rushing with an impetuosity that prevented an examination of their employment.
"Let us advance," said Miss Peyton, with a firmness her face belied; "they must respect our s.e.x."
"They shall," cried Isabella, taking the lead in the enterprise. Frances was left alone with her sister. A few minutes were pa.s.sed in silence, when a loud crash, in the upper apartments, was succeeded by a bright light that glared through the open door, and made objects as distinct to the eye as if they were placed under a noonday sun. Sarah raised herself on her bed, and staring wildly around, pressed both her hands on her forehead, endeavoring to recollect herself.
"This, then, is heaven-and you are one of its bright spirits. Oh! how glorious is its radiance! I had thought the happiness I have lately experienced was too much for earth. But we shall meet again; yes-yes-we shall meet again."
"Sarah! Sarah!" cried Frances, in terror; "my sister-my only sister-Oh! do not smile so horridly; know me, or you will break my heart."
"Hush," said Sarah raising her hand for silence; "you may disturb his rest-surely, he will follow me to the grave. Think you there can be two wives in the grave? No-no-no; one-one-one-only one."
Frances dropped her head into the lap of her sister, and wept in agony.
"Do you shed tears, sweet angel?" continued Sarah, soothingly. "Then heaven is not exempt from grief. But where is Henry? He was executed, and he must be here too; perhaps they will come together. Oh! how joyful will be the meeting!"
Frances sprang on her feet, and paced the apartment. The eye of Sarah followed her in childish admiration of her beauty.
"You look like my sister; but all good and lovely spirits are alike. Tell me, were you ever married? Did you ever let a stranger steal your affections from father, and brother, and sister? If not, poor wretch, I pity you, although you may be in heaven."
"Sarah-peace, peace-I implore you to be silent," shrieked Frances, rushing to her bed, "or you will kill me at your feet."
Another dreadful crash shook the building to its center. It was the falling of the roof, and the flames threw their light abroad, so as to make objects visible around the cottage, through the windows of the room. Frances flew to one of them, and saw the confused group that was collected on the lawn. Among them were her aunt and Isabella, pointing with distraction to the fiery edifice, and apparently urging the dragoons to enter it. For the first time she comprehended their danger; and uttering a wild shriek, she flew through the pa.s.sage without consideration, or object.
A dense and suffocating column of smoke opposed her progress. She paused to breathe, when a man caught her in his arms, and bore her, in a state of insensibility, through the falling embers and darkness, to the open air. The instant that Frances recovered her recollection, she perceived that she owed her life Lo Lawton, and throwing herself on her knees, she cried,-
"Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! save my sister, and may the blessing of G.o.d await you!"
Her strength failed, and she sank on the gra.s.s, in insensibility. The trooper pointed to her figure, motioned to Katy for a.s.sistance, and advanced once more to the building. The fire had already communicated to the woodwork of the piazzas and windows, and the whole exterior of the cottage was covered with smoke. The only entrance was through these dangers, and even the hardy and impetuous Lawton paused to consider. It was for a moment only, when he dashed into the heat and darkness, where, missing the entrance, he wandered for a minute, and precipitated himself back, again, upon the lawn. Drawing a single breath of pure air, he renewed the effort, and was again unsuccessful. On a third trial, he met a man staggering under the load of a human body. It was neither the place, nor was there time, to question, or to make distinctions; seizing both in his arms, with gigantic strength, he bore them through the smoke. He soon perceived, to his astonishment, that it was the surgeon, and the body of one of the Skinners, that he had saved.
"Archibald!" he exclaimed, "why, in the name of justice, did you bring this miscreant to light again? His deeds are rank to heaven!"
The surgeon, who had been in imminent peril, was too much bewildered to reply instantly, but wiping the moisture from his forehead, and clearing his lungs from the vapor he had inhaled, he said piteously,-
"Ah! it is all over! Had I been in time to have stopped the effusion from the jugular, he might have been saved; but the heat was conducive to hemorrhage; life is extinct indeed. Well, are there any more wounded?"
His question was put to the air, for Frances had been removed to the opposite side of the building, where her friends were collected, and Lawton had once more disappeared in the smoke.
By this time the flames had dispersed much of the suffocating vapor, so that the trooper was able to find the door, and in its very entrance he was met by a man supporting the insensible Sarah. There was but barely time to reach the lawn again, before the fire broke through the windows, and wrapped the whole building in a sheet of flame.
"G.o.d be praised!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the preserver of Sarah. "It would have been a dreadful death to die."
The trooper turned from gazing at the edifice, to the speaker, and to his astonishment, instead of one of his own men, he beheld the peddler.
"Ha! the spy," he exclaimed; "by heavens, you cross me like a specter."
"Captain Lawton," said Birch, leaning in momentary exhaustion against the fence, to which they had retired from the heat, "I am again in your power, for I can neither flee, nor resist."
"The cause of America is dear to me as life," said the trooper, "but she cannot require her children to forget grat.i.tude and honor. Fly, unhappy man, while yet you are unseen, or it will exceed my power to save you."
"May G.o.d prosper you, and make you victorious over your enemies," said Birch, grasping the hand of the dragoon with an iron strength that his meager figure did not indicate.
"Hold!" said Lawton. "But a word-are you what you seem?-can you-are you-"
"A royal spy," interrupted Birch, averting his face, and endeavoring to release his hand.
"Then go, miserable wretch," said the trooper, relinquishing his grasp.
"Either avarice or delusion has led a n.o.ble heart astray!"
The bright light from the flames reached a great distance around the ruins, but the words were hardly past the lips of Lawton, before the gaunt form of the peddler had glided over the visible s.p.a.ce, and plunged into the darkness beyond.
The eye of Lawton rested for a moment on the spot where he had last seen this inexplicable man, and then turning to the yet insensible Sarah, he lifted her in his arms, and bore her, like a sleeping infant, to the care of her friends.
CHAPTER XXIII
And now her charms are fading fast, Her spirits now no more are gay: Alas! that beauty cannot last!
That flowers so sweet so soon decay!
How sad appears The vale of years, How changed from youth"s too flattering scene!
Where are her fond admirers gone?
Alas! and shall there then be none On whom her soul may lean?
-Cynthia"s Grave.
The walls of the cottage were all that was left of the building; and these, blackened by smoke, and stripped of their piazzas and ornaments, were but dreary memorials of the content and security that had so lately reigned within. The roof, together with the rest of the woodwork, had tumbled into the cellars, and a pale and flitting light, ascending from their embers, shone faintly through the windows. The early flight of the Skinners left the dragoons at liberty to exert themselves in saving much of the furniture, which lay scattered in heaps on the lawn, giving the finishing touch of desolation to the scene. Whenever a stronger ray of light than common shot upwards, the composed figures of Sergeant Hollister and his a.s.sociates, sitting on their horses in rigid discipline, were to be seen in the background of the picture, together with the beast of Mrs. Flanagan, which, having slipped its bridle, was quietly grazing by the highway. Betty herself had advanced to the spot where the sergeant was posted, and, with an incredible degree of composure, witnessed the whole of the events as they occurred. More than once she suggested to her companion, that, as the fighting seemed to be over, the proper time for plunder had arrived, but the veteran acquainted her with his orders, and remained inflexible and immovable; until the washerwoman, observing Lawton come round the wing of the building with Sarah, ventured amongst the warriors. The captain, after placing Sarah on a sofa that had been hurled from the building by two of his men, retired, that the ladies might succeed him in his care. Miss Peyton and her niece flew, with a rapture that was blessed with a momentary forgetfulness of all but her preservation, to receive Sarah from the trooper; but the vacant eye and flushed cheek restored them instantly to their recollection.
"Sarah, my child, my beloved niece," said the former, folding the unconscious bride in her arms, "you are saved, and may the blessing of G.o.d await him who has been the instrument."
"See," said Sarah, gently pushing her aunt aside, and pointing to the glimmering ruins, "the windows are illuminated in honor of my arrival.
They always receive a bride thus-he told me they would do no less.
Listen, and you will hear the bells."
"Here is no bride, no rejoicing, nothing but woe!" cried Frances, in a manner but little less frantic than that of her sister. "Oh! may heaven restore you to us-to yourself!"
"Peace, foolish young woman," said Sarah, with a smile of affected pity; "all cannot be happy at the same moment; perhaps you have no brother, or husband, to console you. You look beautiful, and you will yet find one; but," she continued, dropping her voice to a whisper, "see that he has no other wife-"tis dreadful to think what might happen, should he be twice married."
"The shock has destroyed her mind," cried Miss Peyton; "my child, my beauteous Sarah is a maniac!"
"No, no, no," cried Frances, "it is fever; she is lightheaded-she must recover-she shall recover."
The aunt caught joyfully at the hope conveyed in this suggestion, and dispatched Katy to request the immediate aid and advice of Dr. Sitgreaves. The surgeon was found inquiring among the men for professional employment, and inquisitively examining every bruise and scratch that he could induce the st.u.r.dy warriors to acknowledge they had received. A summons, of the sort conveyed by Katy, was instantly obeyed, and not a minute elapsed before he was by the side of Miss Peyton.
"This is a melancholy termination to so joyful a commencement of the night, madam," he observed, in a soothing manner. "But war must bring its attendant miseries; though doubtless it often supports the cause of liberty, and improves the knowledge of surgical science."
Miss Peyton could make no reply, but pointed to her niece.