with me. Father's got too much rheumatiz to ask it of him."
"Well!" said Long, after a protracted stare at Sally,—"wimmin is the oddest craft that ever sailed. I swan, when I sight 'em I don't know a main-top-sail from a flyin' jib! Goin' to take care o' George, be ye?"
"Yes," said Sally, meekly.
Long rolled the inseparable quid in his cheek, and slyly drawled out, "W-ell, if ye must, ye must! I a'n't a-goin' ter stand in the way of yer dooty!"
Sally was too far away to hear, or she might have smiled.
Uncle Zeke and Aunt Poll were to be told and coaxed into assent;—no very hard task; for George Tucker was a favorite of 'Zekiel's, and now he had turned rebel, the only grudge he had ever owed him was removed; he was only too glad to help him in any way. Aunt Poll's sole trouble was lest Sally should take cold. The proprieties, those gods of modern social worship, as well as their progenitors, the improprieties, were unknown to these simple souls; they did things because they were right and wrong. They were not nice according to Swift's definition, nor proper in the mode of the best society, but they were good and pure; are the disciples and lecturers of the 'proper' equally so?
Sally's simple preparations were quickly made. By nine o'clock she was safe on the pillion behind Long Snapps, folded in Aunt Poll's red joseph, and provided with saddle-bags full of comforts and necessaries. The night was dark, but Sally did not feel any fear; not Tam O'Shanter's experience could have shaken the honest little creature's courage, when George filled the perspective before her. The way was lonely; the hard road echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's drooping head rose erect; she listened; she laid her hand on the bridle. "Stop, Long!" said she. "I hear horses' feet, and shouts."
"Look here!" said Long, after a moment's listening, "there's breakers ahead, Sally; let's heave to in these 'ere piny bushes side o' the track; it's pitch dark, mebbe they'll go by."
He reined the horse from the road, and forced him into a group of young hemlocks, which hid them entirely from passers by. Just as he was well ensconced, a company of British cavalry rode up, broken and disorderly enough, cursing and swearing at the Yankees, and telling to unseen ears a bloody story of Concord and its men. Sally trembled, but it was with indignation, not fear, and as soon as the last hoof-beat died away, she urged Long forward; they regained the road, and made their way at once to George in Lexington.
Is it well to paint, even in failing words, such emotions as Sally fought with and conquered in that hour? Whoever has stood by the bed of a speechless, hopeless, unconscious human being, in whom their own soul lived and suffered, will know these pangs without my interpretation. Whoever knows them not need not so anticipate. If Sally had been less a woman, I might have had more to say; but she was only a woman, and loved George, so she went on in undisturbed self-control, and untiring exertion, to nurse him.
The doctor said he could not live; Long said he was booked for Davy Jones; the minister prayed for "our dying brother";—but Sally said he should live, and he did. After weeks of patient care he knew her; after more weeks he spoke,—words few, but precious; and when accumulating months brought to the battlefields of America redder stains than even patriotic blood had splashed upon their leaves,—when one nation began to hope, and another to fear, both hope and fear had shaken hands with Sally and said
