Several
inducements urged Sergeant Hollister to this determination, among which
was the absence of the washerwoman, who lay before the kitchen fire,
dreaming that the corps was attacking a party of the enemy, and
mistaking the noise that proceeded from her own nose for the bugles of
the Virginians sounding the charge. Another was the peculiar opinions
that the veteran entertained of life and death, and by which he was
distinguished in the corps as a man of most exemplary piety and holiness
of life. The sergeant was more than fifty years of age, and for half
that period he had borne arms. The constant recurrence of sudden deaths
before his eyes had produced an effect on him differing greatly from
that which was the usual moral consequence of such scenes; and he had
become not only the most steady, but the most trustworthy soldier in his
troop. Captain Lawton had rewarded his fidelity by making him
its orderly.
Followed by Birch, the sergeant proceeded in silence to the door of the
intended prison, and, throwing it open with one hand, he held a lantern
with the other to light the peddler to his prison. Seating himself on a
cask, that contained some of Betty's favorite beverage, the sergeant
motioned to Birch to occupy another, in the same manner. The lantern was
placed on the floor, when the dragoon, after looking his prisoner
steadily in the face, observed,--
"You look as if you would meet death like a man; and I have brought you
to a spot where you can tranquilly arrange your thoughts, and be quiet
and undisturbed.
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