The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT) 📕

“It sounds prodigiously like the concussion on the atmosphere made by the explosion of firearms,” said the surgeon, sipping his tea with great indifference. “I should imagine it to be the troop of Captain Lawton returning, did I not know the captain never uses the pistol, and that he dreadfully abuses the saber.”

“Merciful providence!” exclaimed the agitated maiden, “he would not injure one with it, certainly.”

“Injure!” repeated the other quickly. “It is certain death, madam; the most random blows imaginable; all that I can say to him will have no effect.”

“But Captain Lawton is the officer we saw this morning, and is surely your friend,” said Frances, hastily, observing her aunt to be seriously alarmed.

“I find no fault with his want of friendship; the man is well enough if he would learn to cut scientifically. All trades, madam, ought to be allowed to live; but what is to become of a surgeon, if his patients are dead before he sees them!”

The doctor continued haranguing on the probability and improbability of its being the returning troop, until a loud knock at the door gave new alarm to the ladies. Instinctively laying his hand on a small saw, that had been his companion for the whole day, in the vain expectation of an amputation, the surgeon, coolly assuring the ladies that he would stand between them and danger, proceeded in person to answer the summons.

“Captain Lawton!” exclaimed the surgeon, as he beheld the trooper leaning on the arm of his subaltern, and with difficulty crossing the threshold.

“Ah! my dear bonesetter, is it you? You are here very fortunately to inspect my carcass; but do lay aside that rascally saw!”

A few words from Mason explained the nature and manner of his captain’s hurts, and Miss Peyton cheerfully accorded the required accommodations. While the room intended for the trooper was getting ready, and the doctor was giving certain portentous orders, the captain was invited to rest himself in the parlor. On the table was a dish of more substantial food than ordinarily adorned the afternoon’s repast, and it soon caught the attention of the dragoons. Miss Peyton, recollecting that they had probably made their only meal that day at her own table, kindly invited them to close it with another. The offer required no pressing, and in a few minutes the two were comfortably seated, and engaged in an employment that was only interrupted by an occasional wry face from the captain, who moved his body in evident pain. These interruptions, however, interfered but little with the principal business in hand; and the captain had got happily through with this important duty, before the surgeon returned to announce all things ready for his accommodation in the room above stairs.

“Eating!” cried the astonished physician. “Captain Lawton, do you wish to die?”

“I have no particular ambition that way,” said the trooper, rising, and bowing good night to the ladies, “and, therefore, have been providing materials necessary to preserve life.”

The surgeon muttered his dissatisfaction, while he followed Mason and the captain from the apartment.

Every house in America had, at that day, what was emphatically called its best room, and this had been allotted, by the unseen influence of Sarah, to Colonel Wellmere. The down counterpane, which a clear frosty night would render extremely grateful over bruised limbs, decked the English officer’s bed. A massive silver tankard, richly embossed with the Wharton arms, held the beverage he was to drink during the night; while beautiful vessels of china performed the same office for the two American captains. Sarah was certainly unconscious of the silent preference she had been giving to the English officer; and it is equally certain, that but for his hurts, bed, tankard, and everything but the beverage would have been matters of indifference to Captain Lawton, half of whose nights were spent in his clothes, and not a few of them in the saddle. After taking possession, however, of a small but very comfortable room, Doctor Sitgreaves proceeded to inquire into the state of his injuries. He had begun to pass his hand over the body of his patient, when the latter cried impatiently,—

“Sitgreaves, do me the favor to lay that rascally saw aside, or I shall have recourse to my saber in self-defense; the sight of it makes my blood cold.”

“Captain Lawton, for a man who has so often exposed life and limb, you are unaccountably afraid of a very useful instrument.”

“Heaven keep me from its use,” said the trooper, with a shrug.

“You would not despise the lights of science, nor refuse surgical aid, because this saw might be necessary?”

“I would.”

“You would!”

“Yes; you shall never joint me like a quarter of beef, while I have life to defend myself,” cried the resolute dragoon. “But I grow sleepy; are any of my ribs broken?”

“No.”

“Any of my bones?”

“No.”

“Tom, I’ll thank you for that pitcher.” As he ended his draft, he very deliberately turned his back on his companions, and good-naturedly cried, “Good night, Mason; good night, Galen.”

Captain Lawton entertained a profound respect for the surgical abilities of his comrade, but he was very skeptical on the subject of administering internally for the ailings of the human frame. With a full stomach, a stout heart, and a clear conscience, he often maintained that a man might bid defiance to the world and its vicissitudes. Nature provided him with the second, and, to say the truth, he strove manfully himself to keep up the other two requisites in his creed. It was a favorite maxim with him, that the last thing death assailed was the eyes, and next to the last, the jaws. This he interpreted to be a clear expression of the intention of nature, that every man might regulate, by his own volition, whatever was to be admitted into the sanctuary of his mouth; consequently, if the guest proved unpalatable, he had no one to blame but himself. The surgeon, who was well acquainted with these views of his patient, beheld him, as he cavalierly turned his back on Mason and himself, with a commiserating contempt, replaced in their leathern repository the phials he had exhibited, with a species of care that was allied to veneration, gave the saw, as he concluded, a whirl of triumph, and departed, without condescending to notice the compliment of the trooper. Mason, finding, by the breathing of the captain, that his own good night would be unheard, hastened to pay his respects to the ladies—after which he mounted and followed the troop at the top of his horse’s speed.