Champe

“ We had crawled safely through the archway, and into a roomy underground passage beyond it, before we heard a squeaking of pulleys betokening a lifting of the kitchen trap-door by means of a block and tackle. Champe was for hurrying, having an outdoor man’s horror of being forced to fight in an underground burrow, but while I shared this reluctance with him to the full, I delayed long enough to close the weighted door for the halt it might impose upon our pursuers. When he saw what I was about, Champe quickly lent a hand, and what was still more to the purpose, his mechanical head. ”

“ I’ll kill you for this night’s work, if it’s the last thing I ever live to do!” was his closing volley.
“Just as much of a ‘deserting traitor’ as you are, Sergeant Champe; no more and no less,” I retorted, curbing a mighty desire to laugh at him again.
“What’s that?” he growled suspiciously. “I tell you I am a deserter; Middleton saw me come off.”
“No one saw me, as it happened,” I rejoined, “though Captain Seytoun’s watchboat chased and fired upon me. Yet I say it again, John Champe: I am just as good a deserter as you are, and neither better nor worse. ”

“ Think, Sergeant—think hard. Surely there must have been some noticeable thing about him that would serve to place him for me.”
Champe put his head in his hands and appeared to be making the mental effort of a lifetime. After a long minute he looked up to say: “I’ve got it, Captain Dick, I’ve got it. Come to think of it, I’m almost sure he wore a scratch-wig like a farmer’s.”
I shook my head in despair. Half the men in America wore scratch-wigs. Yet the edge of the necessity was in no wise dulled by Champe’s inability to visualize the spy for me. ”

“ Champé had the advance of his pursuers scarcely one hour.
"He will be overtaken," exclaimed Lee. "I have destroyed a brave, and honourable man."
"Securing the entrance of his tent, he threw himself upon the earth, in bitterness of soul. Groans burst from his manly bosom, and deeply he execrated the perfidy of Arnold, which had been the cause of all this woe. ”

“ I said, I have known Champé from his youth. He will not shrink from danger. It seems I was mistaken. Since you are more moved by the semblance of present evil, than the prospect of immense good, you are released from all obligation, save that of secrecy. Leave my tent. I will seek for another, who shall clear innocence from suspicion, bring treason to punishment, fulfil the wishes of Washington, and merit the thanks of his country. ”

“ Champe sleeps next to me, and we are always shouting through the wall for Big Abel. I tell you, he has to step lively now.
“The night after we came, we went to supper at Professor Ball's. There was a Miss Ball there who had a pair of big eyes, but girls are so silly. Champe talked to her all the evening and walked out to the graveyard with her the next afternoon. I don't see why he wants to spend so much of his time with young ladies. It's because they think him good-looking, I reckon.
“We are the only men who have horses here, so I am glad you made me bring Prince Rupert, after all. ”

“ I can call no man in America my friend," replied the stranger. That stranger Arnold.
Champe foiled.—Taken by Arnold to Virginia.—Escapes and rejoins his Legion in the Carolinas.—Ramapo Valley.
778gion was to be employed, and poor Champe, who had enlisted in it to carry out his plans, was in a sad dilemma. Instead of crossing the Hudson that night, with the traitor his prisoner, he found himself on board of a British transport, and that traitor his commander! December 16, 1780 The expedition sailed, and Champe was landed on the shores of Virginia. ”

“ His breakfast despatched, Champe next wished to know how he was to get out of the tavern unhalted to go upon the boat-seeking quest; and here the contents of my portmanteau came into play. In a little time we had him out of his Loyal American regimentals and into the civilian’s clothes I had purchased to replace my patriot homespun. He made a better-looking gentleman of elegance than I had hoped he would, and when he was well-muffled in the cloak that went with the outfitting, I thought he might pass without curious question. ”

“ Why, good heavens, man! what has the poor devil done that we should treat him as if we were red Indians? He may be one of our friends, for aught we know!”
“He’s a Dutchman, and he builds small-boats for the king’s ships,” growled Champe stubbornly; but he took up the candle and piloted the way to a room in the rear, a bare shed of a place, with fire-wood stacked along two sides of it, a dismantled baking oven buttressing the chimney of the fore-room, and a great pile of the bricks heaped upon a huge square trap-door leading to the cellar. ”

“ None the less, there was a thing to be done, and done quickly. Champe had no such scruples as these I had so lately admitted, and I must swiftly invent a way to stop him from putting his neck solus, as you might say, into the hangman’s halter. For I made no doubt that, lacking my help or countenance at the pinch, my dour-faced sergeant would thrust me aside, with a saber slash if no other means offered, and fling himself madly into the kidnapping breach single-handed and alone. ”

“ He’s much like other men, neither very big nor very little; less tall than the tallest, and by no means as short as the shortest. You can’t well miss him.”
Sharp as our peril was, I had to laugh at Champe’s notion of a description. But time was pressing.
“Try it again, Sergeant,” I encouraged. “This time I’ll help you. Just answer my questions one at a time and we’ll have him. First, how old would you take him to be?”
Champe knitted his brows thoughtfully. “By grabs, Captain Dick, I never thought to ask him!” ”

“ What is it he says about the girls; they are real beauties aren't they? By the way, Champe, why don't you marry one of them and settle down?”
“Why don't you?” retorted Champe, as Dan got up and called to Big Abel to bring his riding clothes. “Oh, I'm not a lady's man,” he said lightly. ”

“ This was readily given; "they fired upon our horse" writes Lee "and sent a boat to meet Champe, who was taken in and carried on board, and conveyed to New York with a letter from the captain of the galley, stating the circumstances he had seen." Escape had been achieved by the narrowest of margins and in the gravest danger; but it had created a realistic background for Champe's introduction to the British, difficult indeed to have bettered. Not the slightest doubt [149] was entertained by either group that it had witnessed a daring desertion most narrowly achieved. ”

“ Adjoining the house in which Arnold resided, and in which it was designed to seize and gag him, Champe had taken out several of the palings and replaced them, so that they might be readily removed, and open a way to the neighboring alley. Into this alley he meant to have conveyed his prisoner, aided by his companions, one of two associates who had been introduced by the friend to whom Champe had been originally made known by letter from the commander-in-chief, and with whose aid and counsel he had so far conducted the enterprise. ”

“ The fate of Andre, hastened by himself, deprived the enterprise committed to Champe of a feature which had been highly prized by the projector, and which had engaged the heart of the individual selected for its execution. Washington ordered Major Lee to communicate what had passed to the sergeant, with directions to encourage him to prosecute with vigor the remaining objects of his instructions. Champe bitterly deplored the fate of Andre, and confessed that the hope of saving the unfortunate young man had been his main inducement in undertaking his dangerous enterprise. ”

“ Work your brain with that end in view, John Champe: our lives are but a means to an end, which is to drag the greatest villain of his time back to justice. Don’t lose sight of that if we have to fight for it; but we’ll not fight if we can help it. Back to that dodge-door again, and we’ll see if we can’t hit upon some way to force it.”
[205] XV
IN THE FOG CHAMPE nodded and we passed together behind the row of casks concealing the low arched doorway. Wedging the candle in a niche of the stone wall we made another examination of the mysteriously fastened door. ”

“ When Champe sees us she’ll—”
Mention of Champe stiffened Ross’s spine. If it had been glorious to call upon her, how very terrible she would make it should they attempt calling, fail, and the failure come to her knowledge! Some things were easier to endure than others; he resolved to stay till the call was made.
For half an hour the boys sat with drooping heads, and the old gentleman read aloud, presumably to Aunt Missouri and themselves. Finally their restless eyes discerned the two Claiborne girls walking serene in Sunday trim under the trees at the edge of the lawn. ”

“ It now remained to arrange the mode of Champe's desertion, for, in order to be received favorably by the British, it was necessary that he should desert under circumstances which should assure them of his sincerity. To cross the numerous patrols of horse and foot, was no small difficulty, which was now increased in consequence of the swarms of irregulars, who sometimes ventured down to the very point of Paulus Hook, with the hope of picking up booty. ”

“ He fought Champe 'cause he said I didn't have as much sense as he had—an' I have, haven't I, mamma?”
“Women do not need as much sense as men, my dear,” replied Mrs. Ambler, taking a dainty stitch.
“Well, anyway, Dan fought Champe about it,” said Betty, with pride. “He'll fight about 'most anything, he says, if he jest gets roused—an' that cert'n'y did rouse him. His nose bled a long time, too, and Champe whipped him, you know. ”

“ In due time we made a landing on the Jersey side; whereupon we became as helpless as a pair of babes in the [101] wood. We had no more idea where to look for Major Lee and his troopers than we should have had if we had been born blind, the third man in Champe’s plot, the river-edge watcher who was to signal to the Nancy Jane’s dinghy, and who was afterward to guide the captors, being the only one who knew. ”

“ Champe, however, was not caught. These delays had given him an hour's start of his pursuers. It was a bright starry night and past twelve o'clock when Middleton and his men mounted their horses and spurred after him. ”

“ Pursue as far as you can with safety Sergeant Champe, who is suspected of deserting to the enemy, and has taken the road leading to Paulus Hook. Bring him alive that he may suffer in the presence of the army ”

“ What we have talked here to-night would hang a whole regiment, and it’s my notion that our spy has heard all he needs to hear and has gone for help to take us.”
“In that case,” said I, “since we can die but once, I for my part choose to die fighting rather than at the rope’s end.” So I got up and barred the door.
“Right you are, my Captain,” Champe agreed most heartily; and then we took stock of our weapons.
Fortunately we were provided with the tools we both knew best how to use. My trooper sword, which I had brought off in the boat escape from Nyack, was with my portmanteau ”

“ Of course, I refused to shake hands with him—so did Champe—and, when he wanted to fight me, I said I fought only gentlemen. I wish you could have seen his face. He looked as old Rainy-day did when he hit the free negro Levi, and I knocked him down.
“By the way, I wish you would please send me my half-year's pocket money in a lump, if you can conveniently do so. There is a man here who is working his way through Law, and his mother has just lost all her money, so, unless some one helps him, he'll have to go out and work before he takes his degree. ”

“ I myself have had narrated to me at midnight creepy hair-lifting stories of the doings of malevolent spirits doomed since ages to frequent certain old châlets around Champéry, notably those on the high plateau of Barmaz—upon which châlets I involuntarily keep one careful eye whenever I am in their neighbourhood. ”

“ Fleecy clouds driven up by the breeze, ‘shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind’, rested on the highest snows without materially restricting the view. The battlements of the Dent du Midi were free from haze, and the upper reaches of the Val d’Illiez, sadly brown, formed a satisfying contrast to the snowy slopes round Morgins. Poor Champéry! Scores of disconsolate exiles, thirsting for the real winter, deserted Champéry for Morgins during the course of the winter.
VILLARS: A PEEP OF THE DENT DE MORCLES
“Of the descent it is hard to speak with decent restraint. ”

“ Here was a vast country, capable of producing great wealth, and struggling for its possession was a body of avaricious men, while valiantly guarding its infancy, we find a single champion, the heroic Champlain. Champlain watched over the new settlement with the tender solicitude of a parent carefully protecting his offspring from danger, and ready to sacrifice his life to save it from disaster. In small vessels of sixty or eighty tons, Champlain had repeatedly exposed his life to danger in crossing the ocean. ”

“ God, who in His providence disposes of the lives of men according to His divine wisdom, directed the steps of Champlain towards the shores of the future New France. If the mother country had not completely forgotten this land of ours, discovered by one of her greatest captains, she had, at least, neglected it. The honour of bringing the king's attention to this vast country, which was French by the right of discovery, was reserved for the modest son of Brouage. ”