orders were given to some of the troop, and horsemen left the valley, at full speed, by its various roads.

The suspense of the party within, who were all highly interested witnesses of this scene, was shortly terminated; for the heavy tread of the dragoon soon announced his second approach. He bowed again politely 10 as he reëntered the room, and walking up to Captain Wharton, said, with comic gravity,

"Now, sir, my principal business being done, may I beg to examine the quality of that wig?"

The British officer imitated the manner of the other, as he deliberately uncovered his head, and handing him the wig, observed, "I hope, sir, it is 20 to your liking."

"I cannot, without violating the truth, say it is," returned the dragoon; "I prefer your ebony hair, from which you seem to have combed the powder with great industry. But that must have been a sad hurt you have received under this enormous black patch."

"You appear so close an observer of things, I should like your opinion of 30 it, sir," said Henry, removing the silk, and exhibiting the cheek free from blemish.

"Upon my word, you improve most rapidly in externals," added the trooper, preserving his muscles in inflexible gravity. "If I could but persuade you to exchange this old surtout for that handsome blue coat by your side, I think I never could witness a 40 more agreeable metamorphosis, since I was changed myself from a lieutenant to a captain."

Young Wharton very composedly did as was required; and stood an extremely handsome, well-dressed young man. The dragoon looked at him for a minute with the drollery that characterized his manner, and then continued

"This is a newcomer in the scene; 50 it is usual, you know, for strangers to be introduced; I am Captain Lawton, of the Virginia horse."

"And I, sir, am Captain Wharton, of his Majesty's 60th regiment of foot," returned Henry, bowing stiffly, and recovering his natural manner.

The countenance of Lawton changed instantly, and his assumed quaintness vanished. He viewed the figure of 60 Captain Wharton, as he stood proudly swelling with a pride that disdained further concealment, and exclaimed, with great earnestness,

"Captain Wharton, from my soul I pity you!"

"Oh! then," cried the father in agony, "if you pity him, dear sir, why molest him? He is not a spy; nothing but a desire to see his friends prompted 70 him to venture so far from the regular army in disguise. Leave him with us; there is no reward, no sum, which I will not cheerfully pay."

"Sir, your anxiety for your friend excuses your language," said Lawton, haughtily; "but you forget I am a Virginian and a gentleman." Turning to the young man, he continued, "Were you ignorant, Captain Whar- 80 ton, that our pickets have been below you for several days?"

"I did not know it until I reached them, and it was then too late to retreat," said Wharton, sullenly. "I came out, as my father has mentioned, to see my friends, understanding your parties to be at Peekskill, and near the Highlands, or surely I would not have ventured."

"All this may be very true; but the affair of André has made us on the alert. When treason reaches the grade of general officers, Captain Wharton, it behooves the friends of liberty to be vigilant."

Henry bowed to this remark in distant silence, but Sarah ventured to

90

urge something in behalf of her brother. The dragoon heard her politely, and apparently with commiseration; but willing to avoid useless and embarrassing petitions, he answered mildly,

"I am not the commander of the party, madam; Major Dunwoodie will decide what must be done with your 10 brother; at all events, he will receive nothing but kind and gentle treatment."

"Dunwoodie!" exclaimed Frances, with a face in which the roses contended for the mastery with the paleness of apprehension; "Thank God! then Henry is safe!"

Lawton regarded her with a mingled expression of pity and admiration; 20 then shaking his head doubtingly, he continued,

"I hope so; and with your permission, we will leave the matter for his decision."

The color of Frances changed from the paleness of fear to the glow of hope. Her dread on behalf of her brother was certainly greatly diminished; yet her form shook, her breathing became 30 short and irregular, and her whole frame gave tokens of extraordinary agitation. Her eyes rose from the floor to the dragoon, and were again fixed immovably on the carpet-she evidently wished to utter something, but was unequal to the effort. Miss Peyton was a close observer of these movements of her niece, and advancing with an air of feminine dignity, 40 inquired,

"Then, sir, we may expect the pleasure of Major Dunwoodie's company shortly?"

"Immediately, madam," answered the dragoon, withdrawing his admiring gaze from the person of Frances; "expresses are already on the road to announce to him our situation, and

the intelligence will speedily bring him to this valley; unless, indeed, some 50 private reasons may exist to make a visit particularly unpleasant.' "We shall always be happy to see Major Dunwoodie."

"Oh! doubtless; he is a general favorite. May I presume on it so far as to ask leave to dismount and refresh my men, who compose a part of his squadron?"

There was a manner about the 60 trooper that would have made the omission of such a request easily forgiven by Mr. Wharton, but he was fairly entrapped by his own eagerness to conciliate, and it was useless to withhold a consent which he thought would probably be extorted; he, therefore, made the most of necessity, and gave such orders as would facilitate the wishes of Captain Lawton.

70

The officers were invited to take their morning's repast at the family breakfast table, and having made their arrangements without, the invitation was frankly accepted. None of the watchfulness, which was so necessary to their situation, was neglected by the wary partisan. Patrols were seen on the distant hills, taking their protecting circuit around their com- so rades, who were enjoying, in the midst of dangers, a security that can only spring from the watchfulness of discipline and the indifference of habit.

The addition to the party at Mr. Wharton's table was only three, and they were all of them men who, under the rough exterior induced by actual and arduous service, concealed the manners of gentlemen. Consequently, 90 the interruption to the domestic privacy of the family was marked by the observance of strict decorum. The ladies left the table to their guests, who proceeded, without much superfluous diffidence, to do proper honors to the hospitality of Mr. Wharton.

At length Captain Lawton suspended for a moment his violent attacks on the buckwheat cakes, to inquire of the master of the house if there was not a peddler of the name of Birch who lived in the valley at times.

"At times only, I believe, sir," replied Mr. Wharton, cautiously; "he is seldom here; I may say I never see 10 him.”

20

20

"That is strange, too," said the trooper, looking at the disconcerted host intently, "considering he is your next neighbor; he must be quite domestic, sir; and to the ladies it must be somewhat inconvenient. I doubt not that that muslin in the windowseat cost twice as much as he would have asked them for it."

Mr. Wharton turned in consternation, and saw some of the recent purchases scattered about the room.

The two subalterns struggled to conceal their smiles; but the Captain resumed his breakfast with an eagerness that created a doubt whether he ever expected to enjoy another. The necessity of a supply from the dominion of Dinah soon, however, afforded another 30 respite, of which Lawton availed himself.

"I had a wish to break this Mr. Birch of his unsocial habits, and gave him a call this morning," he said; "had I found him within, I should have placed him where he would enjoy life in the midst of society, for a short time at least."

"And where might that be, sir?" 40 asked Mr. Wharton, conceiving it necessary to say something.

"The guardroom," said the trooper, dryly.

"What is the offense of poor Birch?" asked Miss Peyton, handing the dragoon a fourth dish of coffee.

"Poor!" cried the Captain; "if he is poor, King George is a bad paymaster."

"And Congress a halter," continued the commanding officer, commencing anew on a fresh supply of the cakes.

"I am sorry," said Mr. Wharton, "that any neighbor of mine should incur the displeasure of our rulers."

"If I catch him," cried the dragoon, while buttering another cake, “he will 60 dangle from the limbs of one of his namesakes."

"He would make no bad ornament, suspended from one of those locusts before his own door," added the Lieutenant.

"Never mind," continued the Captain; "I will have him yet before I'm a major."

As the language of these officers 70 appeared to be sincere, and such as disappointed men in their rough occupations are but too apt to use, the Whartons thought it prudent to discontinue the subject. It was no new intelligence to any of the family that Harvey Birch was distrusted, and greatly harassed, by the American army. His escapes from their hands, no less than his imprisonments, had so been the conversation of the country in too many instances, and under circumstances of too great mystery, to be easily forgotten. In fact, no small part of the bitterness expressed by Captain Lawton against the peddler arose from the unaccountable disappearance of the latter, when intrusted to the custody of two of his most faithful dragoons.

A twelvemonth had not yet elapsed since Birch had been seen lingering near the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, and at a time when important movements were expected hourly to occur. So soon as the information of this fact was communicated to the officer, whose duty it was

90

to guard the avenues of the American camp, he dispatched Captain Lawton in pursuit of the peddler.

Acquainted with all the passes of the hills, and indefatigable in the discharge of his duty, the trooper had, with much trouble and toil, succeeded in effecting his object. The party had halted at a farmhouse for the purposes 10 of refreshment, and the prisoner was placed in a room by himself, but under the keeping of the two men before mentioned; all that was known subsequently is that a woman was seen busily engaged in the employments of the household near the sentinels, and was particularly attentive to the wants of the captain, until he was deeply engaged in the employments of the 20 supper-table.

Afterwards, neither woman nor peddler was to be found. The pack, indeed, was discovered open, and nearly empty, and a small door, communicating with a room adjoining to the one in which the peddler had been secured, was ajar.

Captain Lawton never could forgive the deception; his antipathies to his 30 enemies were not very moderate, but this was adding an insult to his penetration that rankled deeply. He sat in portentous silence, brooding over the exploit of his prisoner, yet me

chanically pursuing the business before him, until, after sufficient time had passed to make a very comfortable meal, a trumpet suddenly broke on the ears of the party, sending its martial tones up the valley in startling 40 melody.

The trooper rose instantly from the table, exclaiming,

"Quick, gentlemen, to your horses; there comes Dunwoodie"; and, followed by his officers, he precipitately left the room.

With the exception of the sentinels left to guard Captain Wharton, the dragoons mounted, and marched out 50 to meet their comrades.

None of the watchfulness necessary in a war, in which similarity of language, appearance, and customs rendered prudence doubly necessary, was omitted by the cautious leader. On getting sufficiently near, however, to a body of horse of more than double his own number, to distinguish countenances, Lawton plunged his rowels into 60 his charger, and in a moment he was by the side of his commander.

The ground in front of the cottage was again occupied by the horse; and, observing the same precautions as before, the newly arrived troops hastened to participate in the cheer prepared for their comrades.

its English setting and supposedly pro-British sympathies. Cooper was an intensely patriotic man, and his reply to the criticisms was a novel in which, as he said, the theme was patriotism. The idea of the story came to the author from a tale that had been told him, years previously, by John Jay, one of the greatest Americans of the Revolutionary period. The theme of this tale was the patriotism of a humble man who would suffer even the loss of his reputation for his country's sake. Besides this suggestion, worked out by Cooper in his story of Harvey Birch, there are many incidents which reflect actual conditions in the neutral Westchester country during the Revolution. These incidents Cooper got, in many cases, from men and women who had lived through them, for The Spy was written when the nation was yet young enough for its history to be included in a single lifetime. The setting of the story, and also the scenes which it describes, may be traced to actual experience, for Cooper had lived in Westchester and knew the country. Thus The Spy, like Leatherstocking and the sea-tales, is based on the actual life of the author. He wrote from first-hand knowledge, not purely from the imagination.

The

3. The Story of Chapters I-IV. scene of The Spy is laid in Westchester county, New York, during the time of the American Revolutionary War. The British hold the city of New York. Mr. Wharton, who is striving to maintain strict neutrality until he sees which side is to be victorious, has removed his family from the city to his country home, the Locusts. His family, however, refuse to be neutral. His son Henry is a captain in the British army; his elder daughter Sarah is being courted by the British Colonel Wellmere; while the youngest, Frances, is in love with Peyton Dunwoodie, a Virginia major in the American forces; Miss Jeanette Peyton of Virginia, sister of Mr. Wharton's deceased wife, superintends the Wharton household. Near the Whartons lives the peddler, Harvey Birch, whose mysterious actions have led many to believe that he is a royal spy.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. What is the scene of the events narrated in this selection? Point out the details in the descriptions of spring and autumn in the second paragraph. Do the descriptions of these seasons fit your locality?

2. What caused the uneasiness in the Wharton family? How do you account for Lawton's inquiry about Mr. Harper? Tell briefly of the

arrest of Captain Wharton as a British spy by Lawton of the Virginia dragoons. What disguise had Captain Wharton employed? How does the American officer receive the father's offer of a bribe?

3. Explain the reference by Captain Lawton to "the affair of Andrè," page 203, line 92. How do you account for Lawton's caution and watchfulness in guarding against the escape of Captain Wharton? What do you learn from Lawton concerning the distrust in which Harvey Birch was held by the American army? What personal experience has the American officer had with the peddler? When you have finished reading this chapter of The Spy, what things have so aroused your interest that you are eager to continue the story?

4. Point out samples of quiet humor in the selection.

5. Notice the custom of Cooper and Scott of introducing their novels with quotations from well-known authors; do present-day writers follow this example?

Library Reading. Read the other chapters of The Spy and report on them in class, using the following outline. The several topics may be reported on by individuals or by groups.

(a) The meeting of the mysterious “Mr. Harper" with Captain Henry Wharton and Harvey Birch at the Locusts, country home of the Whartons (chapters I-IV). What is your guess as to the identity of "Mr. Harper"?

(b) The arrest of Captain Wharton as a British spy by Lawton, of the Virginia dragoons (chapter V).

(c) The engagement of the two armies and the retreat of the British (chapters VI-VIII).

(d) The pursuit of Birch by Lawton and his escape only to fall into the hands of a gang of bandits called "Skinners" (chapters IX-X).

(e) The fortunes of the wounded at the Locusts (chapters XI-XIII).

(f) The second visit of the "Skinners" to Harvey Birch (chapter XIV).

(g) Romance at the Locusts (chapter XV). (h) Birch in the hands of the Americans (chapters XVI-XVII).

(i) The "reward" of the "Skinners" and the escape of Birch (chapters XVIII-XIX).

(j) Mysterious warnings as to the safety of the Whartons and their guests (chapters XX-XXI).

(k) An interrupted wedding; the attack of the "Skinners" (chapter XXII).

(1) Removal of the Wharton family and guests to safety (chapters XXIII-XXV).