There was something of
disappointed vengeance in the feelings of the man who watched the door
of the room on finding his prisoner enjoying a sleep of which he himself
was deprived, and at his exhibiting such obvious indifference to the
utmost penalty that military rigor could inflict on all his treason to
the cause of liberty and America. More than once he felt prompted to
disturb the repose of the peddler by taunts and revilings; but the
discipline he was under, and a secret sense of shame at the brutality of
the act, held him in subjection.
His meditations were, however, soon interrupted by the appearance of
the washerwoman, who came staggering through the door that communicated
with the kitchen, muttering execrations against the servants of the
officers, who, by their waggery, had disturbed her slumbers before the
fire. The sentinel understood enough of her maledictions to comprehend
the case; but all his efforts to enter into conversation with the
enraged woman were useless, and he suffered her to enter her room
without explaining that it contained another inmate. The noise of her
huge frame falling on the bed was succeeded by a silence that was soon
interrupted by the renewed respiration of the peddler, and within a few
minutes Harvey continued to breathe aloud, as if no interruption had
occurred.
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