Chapter 21 - Page 2

and stalked across the floor to quiet his
impatience. "A proper guard have you selected for this service: let me
see--I have to watch over the interests of a crazy, irresolute old man,
who does not know whether he belongs to us or to the enemy; four women,
three of whom are well enough in themselves, but who are not immensely
flattered by my society; and the fourth, who, good as she is, is on the
wrong side of forty; some two or three blacks; a talkative housekeeper,
that does nothing but chatter about gold and despisables, and signs and
omens; and poor George Singleton. Well, a comrade in suffering has a
claim on a man,--so I'll make the best of it."

As he concluded this soliloquy, the trooper took a seat and began to
whistle, to convince himself how little he cared about the matter, when,
by throwing his booted leg carelessly round, he upset the canteen that
held his whole stock of brandy. The accident was soon repaired, but in
replacing the wooden vessel, he observed a billet lying on the bench, on
which the liquor had been placed. It was soon opened, and he read: _"The
moon will not rise till after midnight--a fit time for deeds of
darkness."_ There was no mistaking the hand; it was clearly the same
that had given him the timely warning against assassination, and the
trooper continued, for a long time, musing on the nature of these two
notices, and the motives that could induce the peddler to favor an
implacable enemy in the manner that he had latterly done. That he was a
spy of the enemy, Lawton knew; for the fact of his conveying
intelligence to the English commander in chief, of a party of Americans
that were exposed to the enemy was proved most clearly against him on
the trial for his life. The consequences of his treason had been
avoided, it is true, by a lucky order from Washington, which withdrew
the regiment a short time before the British appeared to cut it off, but
still the crime was the same. "Perhaps," thought the partisan, "he
wishes to make a friend of me against the event of another capture; but,
at all events, he spared my life on one occasion, and saved it on
another. I will endeavor to be as generous as himself, and pray that my
duty may never interfere with my feelings."

Whether the danger, intimated in the present note, threatened the
cottage or his own party, the captain was uncertain; but he inclined to
the latter opinion, and determined to beware how he rode abroad in the
dark. To a man in a peaceable country, and in times of quiet and order,
the indifference with which the partisan regarded the impending danger
would be inconceivable. His reflections on the subject were more
directed towards devising means to entrap his enemies, than to