 | City legends |  |
Scene I.
suburbs of the city of Quebec, in the early morning of December 31, 1775. The air is full of falling snow. Wind whirls the flakes drearily, and piles them into drifts. A band of American soldiers are waiting to storm a barrier thrown across the street. They have sustained a heroic march through the forests and mountain passes of Maine and Canada, to make this fight. Colonel Benedict Arnold, their leader, addresses them.Benedict Arnold.
Men of the Western world, you stand before
The mighty throne of England; that pursues
Its conquests o'er the heights of ocean hills,
And through the depths of your own forest waves;
That offers peace, if you will but accept
Handcuffs and shackles with it; that perhaps
May let you live within your wilderness,
If you will crouch in cabins of disgrace,
And feed their foreign lordships. You have come
Through all the dangers Nature could invent,
Through all the suffering cruelty could ask,
And fought, meanwhile, a constant, marching war,
With rocks and hills—with forests and with floods;
But all that you thus far have done, has been
The sowing of a seed, whose harvest now
Stands nodding just before you. Will you reap
This field of glory?
Voices
(with a hoarse cheer).
We will follow you
Through death, and anything that lies beyond!
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Riches await you if you win this fight,
Honor awaits you if you win this fight,
Glory awaits you if you win this fight—
Soldier
(aside, shivering as he grasps his snow-covered musket).
I did not leave my well-loved forest home,
I did not leave my wife and mother weeping,
I did not leave my blue-eyed baby sleeping,
Through these vast forest solitudes to roam,
For honor or for glory or for gold.
In three great words my motto can be told:
God, Liberty, and Right!
For these I fight.
Arnold
(continuing).
Now let me say a word to any one
Not friendly to this contest: if one's here
Whose craven heart is still as yet untuned
To the wild concert-pitch of war, I say
Get out! go back! no bridges have been burned;
Safe hospitals and beds upon the way
Will take your puny, worthless bodies in.
I shall be at the front! I can not stay
Behind, to spur a coward to his duty.
Go back—weak woman by all women scorned!
But if there be those here who do not know
What life means, without glory; those whose hearts
Find mountain air, even, poisoned, when it floats
Above a land disgraced, come on with me!
And if you live, the world shall crown you heroes;
And if you die, though we've no Westminster
Where you can be entombed in marble, yet
Your names will bivouac in the nation's heart.
Hoarse Voices.
Give us the word to charge!
Arnold.
Now charge, and conquer!
[They fight their way fiercely through the first barrier; Arnold is wounded and disabled, and led to the rear, his soldiers still fighting.
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(as he is carried bleeding past his soldiers).
Fight on, my men, for glory—riches—fame!
Soldier
(grasping more tightly his musket).
God, Liberty, and Right—direct my aim!
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