, now in the agonies of death; let me go to him, receive his
blessing, and close his eyes, and you shall have all--aye, all."

"Answer me as I put the questions, or this musket shall send you to
keep the old driveller[69] company; where is your pack?"

[Footnote 69: fool.]

"I will tell you nothing, unless you let me go to my father," said the
peddler resolutely.

His persecutor raised his arm with a malicious sneer and was about to
execute his threat when one of his companions checked him.

"What would you do?" he said; "you surely forget the reward. Tell us
where are your goods, and you shall go to your father."

Birch complied instantly, and a man was despatched in quest of the
booty; he soon returned, throwing the bundle on the floor, swearing it
was as light as a feather.

"Aye," cried the leader, "there must be gold somewhere for what it did
contain. Give us your gold, Mr. Birch; we know you have it; you will
not take continental,[70] not you."

[Footnote 70: notes issued by the Continental Congress,
worth but little.]

"You break your faith," said Harvey.

"Give us your gold," exclaimed the leader furiously, pricking the
peddler with his bayonet until the blood followed his pushes in
streams. At this instant a slight movement was heard in the adjoining
room, and Harvey cried, imploringly:

"Let me--let me go to my father, and you shall have all of it."

"I swear you shall go then," said the Skinner.

"Here, take the trash," cried Birch, as he threw aside the purse,
which he had contrived to conceal, notwithstanding the change in his
garments.

The robber raised it from the floor with a fiendish laugh.

"Aye, but it shall be to your father in heaven."

"Monster! have you no feeling, no faith, no honesty?"

"To hear him, one would think there was not a rope around his neck
already," said the other laughing. "There is no necessity for your
being uneasy, Mr. Birch; if the old man gets a few hours the start of
you in the journey, you will be sure to follow him before noon
to-morrow."

This unfeeling communication had no effect on the peddler, who
listened with gasping breath to every sound from the room of his
parent, until he heard his own name spoken in the hollow, sepulchral
tones of death. Birch could endure no more, but shrieking out:

"Father! hush--father! I come--I come!" he darted by his keeper, and
was the next moment pinned to the wall by the bayonet of another of
the