The Linwoods Read online

  Eliot returned to his post. The stars had come out, and looked down coldly and dimly through a hazy atmosphere. The night was becoming obscure. A mist was rising; and shortly after a heavy fog covered the surface of the river. Eliot wondered that Kisel had not made his appearance; for, desultory as the fellow was, he was as true to his master as the magnet to the pole. Darkness is a wonderful magnifier of apprehended danger; and, as it deepened, Eliot felt as if enemies were approaching from every quarter. Listening intently, he heard a distant sound of oars. He was all ear. 117“Thank Heaven!” he exclaimed, “it is Kisel—a single pair of oars, and his plashy irregular dip!” In a few moments he was discernible; and nearing the shore, he jumped upon the rock where Eliot stood, crying out exultingly, “I’ve dodged ’em, hey!”

  “Softly, Kisel; who have you dodged?”

  “Them red birds in their borrowed feathers. Cheat me? No. Can’t I tell them that chops, and reaps, and mows, and thrashes, from them that only handles a sword or a gun, let ’em put on what ev’yday clothes they will?”

  “Tell me, Kisel, plainly and quickly, what you mean.”

  A command from Eliot, uttered in a tone of even slight displeasure, had a marvellous effect in steadying Kisel’s wits; and he answered with tolerable clearness and precision:—“I was cutting ’cross lots before sunset with a mess of trout, long as my arm—shiners! when I stumbled on a bunch of fellows squatted ’mong high bushes. They held me by the leg, and said they’d come down with provisions for Square Ruthven’s folks; and they had not got a pass, and so must wait for nightfall; and they’d have me stay and guide ’em across, for they knew they might ground at low water if they did not get the right track. I mistrusted ’em. I knew by their tongues they came from below; and so I cried, and told ’em I should get a whipping if I didn’t get home afore sundown; and one of ’em held a pistol to my head, loaded, primed, and cocked, and told me he’d shoot my brains out if I didn’t do as he bid me. ‘Lo’d o’ massy!’ says I, ‘don’t shoot—’twon’t do any good, for I hant got no brains, hey!’”

  “Never mind what you said or they said; what did you do?”

  “I didn’t do nothing. They held me fast till night; and then they pushed their boat out of a kind o’ hiding-place, and come alongside mine, and put me into it, and told me to pilot ’em. You know that sandy strip a bit off t’other shore? I knew 118my boat would swim over it like a cob,—and I guessed they’d swamp, and they did; diddle me if they didn’t!”

  “Are they there now?”

  “There! not if they’ve the wit of sucking turkeys. The river there is not deep enough to drown a dead dog, and they might jump in and pull the boat out.”

  A slight westerly breeze was now rising, which lifted and wafted the fog so that half the width of the river was suddenly unveiled, and Eliot descried a boat making towards the glen. “By Heaven! there they are!” he exclaimed; “follow me, Kisel;” and without entering the house, he ran to the stable close by. Fortunately, often having had occasion, during his visits at the glen, to bestow his own horse, he was familiar with the “whereabouts;” and in one instant General Washington’s charger was bridled and at the door, held by Kisel; while Eliot rushed into the house, and in ten words communicated the danger and the means of escape. General Washington said not a word till, as he sprang on the horse, Ruthven, on whose astounded mind the truth dawned, exclaimed, “I am innocent.” He replied, “I believe you.”

  Washington immediately galloped up the steep imbowered road to the Point. Eliot hesitated for a moment, doubting whether to attempt a retreat or remain where he was, when Mr. Ruthven grasped his arm, exclaiming, “Stay, for God’s sake, Mr. Lee; stay, and witness to my innocence.” The imploring agony with which he spoke would have persuaded a more inflexible person that Eliot Lee. In truth, there was little use in attempting to fly, for the footsteps of the party were already heard approaching the house. They entered, five armed men, and were laying their hands on Eliot, when Mr. Ruthven’s frantic gestures, and his shouts of “He’s safe—he’s safe—he’s escaped ye!” revealed to them the truth; and they perceived what in their impetuosity they had overlooked, that they held an unknown young man in their grasp instead 119of the priceless Washington! Deep were the oaths they swore as they dispersed to search the premises, all excepting one young man, whose arm Mr. Ruthven had grasped, and to whom he said, “Harry, you’ve ruined me—you’ve made me a traitor in the eyes of Washington—the basest traitor! He said, God bless him! that he believed me innocent; but he will not when he reflects that it was I who invited him—who pressed him to come here this evening—the conspiracy seems evident—undeniable! Oh, Harry, Harry, you and your mad sister have ruined me!”

  The young man seemed deeply affected by his father’s emotion. He attempted to justify himself on the plea that he dared not set his filial feeling against the importance of ending the war by a single stroke; but this plea neither convinced nor consoled his father. Young Ruthven’s associates soon returned, having abandoned their search, and announced the necessity of their immediate return to the boat. “You must go with us, sir,” said Ruthven to his father; “for, blameless as you are, you will be treated by the rebels as guilty of treason.”

  “By Heaven, Harry, I’ll not go. I had rather die a thousand deaths—on the gallows, if I must—I’ll not budge a foot.”

  “He must go—there is no alternative—you must aid me,” said young Ruthven to his companions. They advanced to seize his father. “Off—off!” he cried, struggling against them. “I’ll not go a living man.”

  Eliot interposed; and addressing himself to young Ruthven, said, “Believe me, sir, you are mistaking your duty. Your father’s good name must be dearer to you than his life: and his good name is blasted for ever if in these circumstances he leaves here. But his life is in no danger—none whatever—he is in the hands of his friend, and that friend the most generous, as well as just, of all human beings. You misunderstand the temper of General Washington, if you think he would believe your father guilty of the vilest treachery without damning 120proof.” Young Ruthven was more than half convinced by Eliot, and his companions had by this time become impatient of delay. Their spirit had gone with the hope that inspired their enterprise, and they were now only anxious to secure a retreat to their vessel. They had some little debate among themselves whether they should make Eliot prisoner; but, on young Ruthven’s suggestion that Lieutenant Lee’s testimony might be important to his father, they consented to leave him—one of them expressing in a whisper the prevailing sentiment, “We should feel sheepish enough to gain but a paltry knight when we expected a checkmate by our move.”

  In a few moments more they were off; but not till young Ruthven had vainly tried to get a kind parting word from his father. “No, Harry,” he said, “I’ll not forgive you—I can’t; you’ve put my honour in jeopardy—no, never;” and as his son turned sorrowfully away, he added, “Never, Hal, till this cursed war is at an end.”

  Early next morning Eliot Lee requested an audience of Washington, and was immediately admitted, and most cordially received. “Thank God, my dear young friend,” he said, “you are safe, and here. I sent repeatedly to your lodgings last night, and hearing nothing, I have been exceedingly anxious. Satisfy me on one point, and then tell me what happened after my forced retreat. I trust in Heaven this affair is not bruited.”

  Eliot assured him he had not spoken of it to a human being—not even to Linwood; and that he had enjoined strict secrecy on Kisel, on whose obedience he could rely.

  “Thank you—thank you, Mr. Lee,” said Washington, with a warmth startling from him, “I should have expected this from you—the generous devotion of youth, and the coolness and prudence of ripe age—a rare union.”

  Such words from him who never flattered and rarely praised, might well, as they did, make the blood gush from 121the heart to the cheeks. “I am most grateful for this approbation, sir,” said Eliot.

  “Grateful! Would to Heaven I
had some return to make for the immense favour you have done me, beside words; but the importance of keeping the affair secret precludes all other return. I think it will not transpire from the enemy,—they are not like to publish a baffled enterprise. I am most particularly pleased that you went alone to the glen. In this instance I almost agree with Cardinal de Retz, who says, ‘he held men in greater esteem for what they forbore to do than for what they did.’ I now see where I erred yesterday. It did not occur to me that there could be a plot without my friend being accessory to it. I did not err in trusting him. This war has cost me dear; but, thank Heaven, it has not shaken, but fortified, my confidence in human virtue!” Washington then proceeded to inquire into the occurrences at the glen after he left there, and ended with giving Eliot a note to deliver to Mr. Ruthven, which proved a healing balm to the good man’s wounds.

  Our revolutionary contest, by placing men in new relations, often exhibited in new force and beauty the ties that bind together the human family. Sometimes, it is true, they were lightly snapped asunder, but oftener they manifested an all-resisting force, and a union that, as in some chymical combinations, no test could dissolve.

  123CHAPTER XI.

  “Our will we can command. The effects of our actions we

  cannot foresee.”—MONTAIGNE.

  Herbert Linwood to his Sister.

  “July 30th, 1779.

  “Dearest Belle,—I write under the inspiration of the agreeable consciousness that my letter may pass under the sublime eye of your commander-in-chief, or be scanned and sifted by his underlings. I wish to Heaven that, without endangering your bright orbs, I could infuse some retributive virtue into my ink to strike them blind. But the deuse take them. I defy their oversight. I am not discreet enough to be trusted with military or political secrets, and therefore, like Hotspur’s Kate, I can betray none. As to my own private affairs, though I do not flatter myself I have attained a moral eminence which I may challenge the world to survey, yet I’ll expose nothing to you, dear Belle, whose opinion I care more for than that of king, lords, and commons, which the whole world may not know without your loving brother being dishonoured thereby: so, on in my usual ‘streak o’ lightning style,’ with facts and feelings.

  “You have before this seen the official account of our successful attack on Stony Point, and have doubtless been favoured with the additional light of Rivington’s comments, 124your veritable editor. These thralls of party editors! The light they emit is like that of conjurers, intended to produce false impressions.

  “Do not imagine I am going to send you a regular report of the battle. With all due deference to your superior mental faculties, my dear, you are but a woman, and these concernments of ‘vile guns’ must for ever remain mysteries to you. But, Belle, I’ll give you the romance of the affair—‘thy vocation, Hal.’

  “My friend Eliot Lee has a vein of quixotism, that reminds me of the inflammable gas I have seen issuing from a cool healthy spring. Doctor Kissam, you know, used to say every man had his insanity. Eliot’s appears in his affection for a half-witted follower, one Kisel; the oddest fellow in this world. His life is a series of consecutive accidents, of good and bad luck.

  “On the 10th he had been out on the other side of the river, vagrantizing in his usual fashion, and returning late to his little boat, and, as we suspect, having fallen asleep, he drifted ashore at Stony Point. There he came upon the fort, and a string of trout (which he is seldom without) serving him as a passport, he was admitted within the walls. His simplicity, unique and inimitable, shielded him from suspicion, and a certain inspiration which seems always to come direct from Heaven at the moment of his necessity, saved him from betraying the fact that he belonged to our army, and he was suffered to depart in peace. The observations he made (he is often acute) were of course communicated to his master, and by him made available to our enterprise. Eliot and myself were among the volunteers. He, profiting by Kisel’s hints, guided us safely through some ‘sloughs of despond.’ With all his skill, we had a killing scramble over pathless mountains, and through treacherous swamps, under a burning sun, the mercury ranging somewhere between one and two hundred, so that my sal volatile blood seemed to have exhaled in vapour, and my poor body to be a burning coal, whose next state would be ashes.

  125“Our General Wayne (you will understand his temper from his nom de guerre, ‘mad Anthony’) had ordered us to advance with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets. He was above all things anxious to avoid an accidental discharge, which might alarm the garrison. At eight in the evening we were within a mile and a half of the fort, and there the detachment halted; while Wayne, with Eliot and some other officers, went to reconnoitre. They had approached within gunshot of the works, when poor Kisel, who away from Eliot is like an unweaned child, and who had been all day wandering in search of him, suddenly emerged from the wood, and in a paroxysm of joy discharged his musket. Wayne sprang forward, and would have transfixed him with his bayonet, had not Eliot thrown himself before Kisel, and turned aside Wayne’s arm: some angry words followed, but it ended in the general leaving Kisel to be managed by Eliot’s discretion. The general’s displeasure, however, against Eliot, did not subside at once.

  “When the moment for attack came, I felt myself shivering, not with fear, no, ‘franchement’ (as our old teacher Dubois used to say on the few occasions when he meant to tell the truth), franchement, not with fear, but with the recollection of my father’s last words to me. The uncertain chances of a fierce contest were before me, and my father’s curse rung in my ears like the voices that turned the poor wretches in the Arabian tale into stone. Once in the fight, it was forgotten; all men are bulldogs then, and think of nothing past or to come.

  “They opened a tremendous fire upon us; it was the dead of night, Belle, and rather a solemn time, I assure you. Our commander was wounded by a musket ball: he fell, and instantly rising on one knee, he cried, ‘Forward, my brave boys, forward.’ The gallant shout gave us a new impulse; and we rushed forward, while Eliot Lee, with that singular blending of cool courage and generosity which marks him, paused and assisted the general’s aid in bearing him on, in compliance with the wish 126he had expressed (believing himself mortally wounded), that he might die in the fort. Thank God, he survived; and being as magnanimous as he is brave, he reported to the commander-in-chief Eliot’s gallantry and good conduct throughout the whole affair, and particularly dwelt on the aid he had given him, after having received from him injurious epithets. In consequence of all this, Eliot is advanced to the rank of captain. Luck is a lord, Belle; I would fain have distinguished myself, but I merely, like the rest, performed my part honourably, for which I received the thanks of General Washington, and got my name blazoned in the report to Congress.

  “I hear that Helen Ruthven is dashing away in New-York, not, as I expected, after her romantic departure hence, as the honourable Mrs. O—. Well! all kind vestals guard her! Heaven knows she needs their vigilance. Rumour says, too, that you are shortly to vow allegiance to my royalist friend. God bless you! my dear sister. If it were true (alas! nothing is more false) that matches are made in Heaven, I know who would be your liege-lord. Another match there was, that in my boyhood—my boyhood! my youth, my maturity, I believed Heaven had surely made. It is a musty proverb, that. Farewell, Belle; kiss my dear mother for me, and tell her I would not have her, like the old Scotch woman, pray for our side, ‘right or wrong,’ but let her pray for the right side, and then her poor son will be sure to prosper. Oh, would that I could, without violating my duty to my country, throw myself at my father’s feet. His loyalty is not truer to King George, than mine to him.

  “Dearest Belle, may Heaven reunite us all.

  “Yours, H. Linwood.

  “P. S.—Kind love, don’t forge it, to Rose.”

  A day or two after Herbert’s letter was despatched, Eliot received a summons from Washington; and on his appearing before him, the general said, “I have important business to 127be transacted in
New-York, Captain Lee. I have despatches to transmit to Sir Henry Clinton. My agent must be intrusted with discretionary powers. An expedition to New-York, even with the protection of a flag of truce, is hazardous. The intervening country is infested with outlaws, who respect no civilized usages. My emissary must be both intrepid and prudent. I have therefore selected you. Will you accept the mission?”

  “Most gratefully, sir—but—

  “But what? if you have scruples, name them.”

  “None in the world, sir; on my own account I should be most happy, but I should be still happier if the office might be assigned to Linwood. It would afford him the opportunity he pines for, of seeing his family.”

  “That is a reason, if there were no other, why Captain Linwood should not go. Some embarrassment might arise. Your friend has not the coolness essential in exigencies.”

  Eliot well knew that Washington was not a man with whom to bandy arguments, and he at once declared himself ready to discharge, to the best of his ability, whatever duty should be imposed on him; and it was settled that he should depart as soon as his instructions could be made out.

  Eliot soon after met Linwood, and communicated his intended expedition. “You are always under a lucky star,” said Linwood; “I would have given all I am worth for this appointment.”

  “And you certainly should have it if it were mine to bestow.”

  “I do not doubt it, not in the least; but is it not hard? Eliot, I am such a light-hearted wretch, for the most part, that you really have no conception how miserable my father’s displeasure makes me. I don’t understand how it is. The laws of Heaven are harmonious, and certainly my conscience acquits me, yet I suffer most cruelly for my breach of filial obedience. If I could but see my father, eye to eye, I am sure I could 128persuade him to recall that curse, that rings in my ears even now like a death-knell. Oh, one half hour in New-York would be my salvation! The sight of Belle and my mother would be heaven to me! Don’t laugh at me, Eliot,” he continued, wiping his eyes, “I am a calf when I think of them all.”