University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

The rendezvous of the sky-larking party, was at a
house standing apart from the post road, in a retired
valley, commonly called Hungry Hollow, and sometimes
Hard Scramble Hole, a name aptly indicative
of the place and its inhabitants. In almost every district
of country, and every town, of any considerable
magnitude, there will be found some peculiar spot,
where the idle, the dissipated and the worthless, as it
were instinctively, or by some irresistible sympathy,
congregate together, to prey upon the neighbourhood
and each other. This was the case with Hungry Hollow,
into whose sheltering bosom had crept some
dozen families of children of the night, who, as was
said of them, slept while others worked, and worked
while others slept. All day, they might be found
lounging in bed, or sunning themselves in summer,
and in winter crouching in the chimney corner, by a
fire of such decayed wood as they could procure without
the labour of cutting down trees. But to make up
for thus killing time in the day, report said that they
laboured hard at night, when, like animals of prey, they
sallied forth to the infinite annoyance of the surrounding
country, committing various petty depredations,

hardly aspiring to the dignity of crimes. Whether
they deserved all that was said of them, is doubtful.
But, certain it is, they had a bad name, which is enough
to bring both dog and man into perpetual trouble.

Hungry Hollow, was, moreover, infamous for its
ghosts, goblins, and all the dire array of rural superstition,
partly, in all probability, from its situation, and
partly from a disposition in the occupants to discourage
interlopers from coming among them, to spy out the
nakedness of the land. It was a lonely place, and
solitude is the nurse of terror. A ruined church, with
broken windows, decayed doors, without hinges,
weather-beaten sides, and moss-grown roof, stood nodding
to its fall, in the midst of a few old gray-beard
hemlocks, under whose melancholy shade was the
burial place, designated here and there by a rough
unsculptured stone, most ingenously diverging from
the perpendicular. Not one of these bore letter or
epitaph; for, such was the character of most of those
buried in this unconsecrated spot, that Zoroaster Fisk,
the stone-cutter, could never bring himself to prostitute
his muse to the celebration of their virtues. We
mention this, as a fact honourable to his integrity,
and deserving the imitation of all those whose vocation
it is to immortalize the dead. A lie on a tomb-stone,
is the worst of lies. It endures for a century,
and furnishes perpetual encouragement to rogues,
by affording ocular demonstration that he who has
lived a life of worthlessness and crime, may yet leave
behind him a good name. The grave, and those who
speak in its name, should tell nothing but the honest
truth, or else be silent. The upper extremity of Hungry

Hollow, that is, the part most distant from the
high road, was especially infested with the airy creations
of fear and fancy, and avoided by all honest
people. Once in a great while, you might persuade
a couple of strapping country lads, of the strongest
nerves, to venture through it by night, but then you
may be sure they always carried a great piece of
fox-fire, to light them on their way, and, instead of
talking, sung or whistled with all their might, “my
name was Captain Kyd,” or “in Scarlet Town, where
I was born,” or some other equally inspiring ditty, to
keep up their courage.

It was indeed a gloomy vale, through which a lazy
brook, of dark brown water, meandered silent and slow.
Shaded with tangled foliage, and bordered beyond by
precipices of mouldering rocks, that seemed to have got
the start of the rest of the world, in the race of swift
decay. A score of awful legends, which we may one
day collect for the edification of this story-loving age,
were about the only product of this barren spot, where
neither squirrel, fox, weazel, or pole-cat, was ever
known to abide. No cricket, it was said, ever chirped
there; no honey-bee ever gathered its tribute from the
coarse, unfragrant flowers; nor did the capricious
butterfly, in all its vagrant excursions, ever tarry a
moment there. At that time, the interior of this valley
was as little known, as that of New Holland or
Japan.

The house where our sky-larkers were to meet, being
just at the entrance of Hungry Hollow, was presumed
to be out of the sphere of diabolical influence.
It was erewhile the abode of one Case—or Cornelius

Boshin, who, some few years before, had decamped,
no one knew whither, with some half a dozen strapping
night-walkers, leaving only his wife and youngest
boy in possession of the premises. The widow,
as she called herself, and the son, now full grown,
lived after the manner of their forefathers; young
Case, being religiously brought up to “nothing,” according
to country phrase, and his mother still despising
labour, from the bottom of her heart. Tradition
has preserved an anecdote, highly illustrative
of their character. A neighbour, passing one
day, and seeing Mrs. Boshin sitting in all her glory,
sunning herself under an old tottering piazza, shaped
like a cocked hat, cried out, “well widow, as usual,
nothing to do, I see.” To which she replied—“no, the
Lord be praised, we have nothing to eat, and no fire
to cook it with.” On another occasion, a strnager had
been driven to take shelter there for the night, and rising
early in the morning, indulged in a ramble about the
house before breakfast. On his return, he took the
liberty of expressing his wonder how people could live
in such a place as Hungry Hollow. “Why,” replied the
widow, “when we have nothing else to live on, we live
upon each other—and when we can't live upon each
other, we live on strangers, like you.” To make good
her words, she charged a hundred dollars, continental
money, for his night's lodging and breakfast. Events
hereafter to be detailed, render it proper to state, that
John had once given young Case a most exemplary
drubbing, for affirming that Jane Hammond was no
beauty, and the old continental a tory. Case never
forgave him.

The path which led from Hungry Hollow, towards
the south, passed down a long sloping descent to the
high road, which here ran close to the Hudson. The
retired situation of the house, rendered it a safe place
for the party to arrange their operations, and there was
a high peaked hill close by, which commanded the
country round, a distance of several miles. By the time
it grew dark, a party of some eight or ten, all belonging
to the neighbourhood, and all well known to
each other, was collected, waiting the arrival of John.
There was Brom Vanderlip, who had once outrun a
party of Yagers, though they were mounted, and he on
foot. There was Barnabas Pudney, of Buttermilk Hill,
who had been a prisoner in the old sugar-house, Liberty-street,
now so called, whence he escaped, by becoming
so thin, through a process, well understood by
old Cunningham, the provost, that as he affirmed, he
had escaped through a rat hole. There was Billy Sniffen,
who could find his way, blindfold, as he often boasted,
from Peekskill to Kingsbridge. There was Ira
Root, commonly called Bitter Root, from being somewhat
quick on the trigger. There was a tough gray
headed farmer, whose nickname was Nighthawk, which
originated from a famous exploit performed during a
dark night against a band of Skinners. And lastly,
there was Zoroaster Fisk, A. M., a composer and
cutter of inscriptions, and various affecting devices, with
which the pride or affection of the living loves to
decorate the memorials of the dead. He excelled all
men of his time, in Dutch cherubs, with narrow foreheads
and chubby cheeks; his weeping willows often
brought tears to the eyes of sentimental explorers of

church yards; and for an urn, or a monumental pillar,
he was reckoned inimitable. It was credibly, moreover,
reported by his surviving cotemporaries, that he
composed epitaphs in prose and rhyme, one of which
is still extant in the burial ground of the little church
erected by the ancient family of the Phillipses, and
reads as follows:

We are aware that this has been claimed as the
joint production of the mayor and corporation of some
city, whose name we have forgotten, but there is positive
evidence that it belongs to our friend, Zoroaster.
But, alas! what now availed his skill in Dutch cherubs,
weeping willows, urns and pillars, or monumental
inscriptions! Othello's occupation was gone. At the
time of which we are speaking, people died or were
killed by the red coats, the Yagers, the Tories, the
Skinners and the Cow Boys, but it was lucky if they
found a grave, much less an epitaph.

Others of lesser name and note, completed the party
which had thus volunteered to serve their country
without the prospect of fame or reward. There were
many, very many such men in these times; and it is to
the sentiment by which they were inspired, that all
succeeding generations will be indebted for the freedom
they enjoy. The armies of the United States
would have little availed in the struggle, had the
yeomanry been disaffected. These rustic adventurers
had neither commander, nor any distinctions of rank
other than personal qualities; each man fought his
own fight, and was his own master on all ordinary

occasions; but in times of great peril, instinct pointed
out a leader, and the master spirit was always found to
be the man. The party was anxiously waiting for John,
whose long interview with the old continental, had
delayed him somewhat beyond the hour appointed.

“What can have become of John?” at length exclaimed
Billy Sniffen; “he is not commonly always
Jack-come-last.”

“Why,” replied, Barnabas Pudney, who spoke most
particularly through his nose, and with great deliberation:
“Why, I rather calculate I saw him just about
sundown—or it might be—yes, I calculate it might be,
if I don't mistake, somewhere thereabouts, more or
less—I wont be quite positive, though, but I believe—I
rather calculate it might have been him.”

“Barnabas, my son,” quoth old Nighthawk, with
much gravity, “where did you larn to talk? I reckon
it must have been of a snail, for you speak for all the
world as if you were on a snail's gallop. You should
never go for a soldier, for you'd have your head cut off
before you could cry quarter.”

“No—no,” said Brom Vanderlip, “his speech came
with a dead march, or a slow-match; I don't know
which. He was seven years old before he could say
mammy.”

“I'll swear he must have larned of a conch shell,”
cried Joe Satchell.

“Pooh!” rejoined Dick Widgery, “he would out-talk
a rifle bullet, if he could only git his words to come out
of his mouth stead of his nose. It's got such a darnation
way to go round, its a great while a coming.”

Barnabas cut short the joke, by offering to wager a

drink, that he could repeat the first lines of the declaration
of independence in less time than any man in company.
The wager was taken, and Barnabas distanced,
the first round, amid a shower of dry jokes. Accordingly,
Mrs. or Miss Boshin, as they called her—was
roused from her usual inactivity, to give an account of
the contents of her cellar, which proved to be nothing
but the remains of a barrel of hard cider, a liquor
since become classical. It was first handed to old
Nighthawk, who tasted it, smacked his lips, and pronounced
it emphatically, “man's cider, real red
streak.”

“Come—come,” exclaimed Barnabas—“no preaching
over your liquor, daddy—pass round the mug, will
you?” Barnabas took a pull, whereupon his eyes nearly
started out of his head, and the liquor spirted out of
his nostrils incontinently.

“Red streak!” cried he—“I swan, a feller might
jist as well try to swallow a sword with two edges
It must be real crab-apple, it bites so. Is this the best
youv'e got, Miss Boshin?”

“The very best—I bought it of old Squire Day, and
gin him two hundred continental dollars for it. But
the money is not worth much more than half what it
was then, and that's some little comfort for being
cheated.”

“Consarn continental money,” rejoined Barnabas:
“Its going down hill like a run-away wagon, and
the farther it goes the faster it runs. I don't believe
Nighthawk could have overtaken it the time he ran
away from the Yagers.

“You got ahead of me, for all that, though,” replied

the other; “and as for Brom Vanderlip, he ran me out
of sight in less than no time.”

“I'll swear pine blank to that,” quoth Bitter Root—
“I'll bet ten to one on Brom when the Yagers are behind,
stead of before. He's jist like your full-blooded
colt, that always wins the race if she can only once
git ahead.

“Well, well,” replied Brom, “see who goes ahead tonight.
If I don't put my nose in the enemy's lines before
the cock crows, you may tell me on't when I'm
dead, that's all.”

“You'll never get your nose anywhere but where it
is now, right in the middle of your face, only a little
on one side;” which joke, though on the whole rather
an indifferent one, turned the tide against Brom, who
was fated to endure a tempest of horse-laughter, reinforced
by half a dozen curs without, who began barking
furiously. The merriment of the party ceased in
a moment, for in these times the barking of the watch-dogs
was too often the signal of plunder, outrage, and
murder. Each man seized his gun, and stood on the
defensive with grim and silent determination, for they
were inured to dangers, and feared nothing but ghosts
and hobgoblins. After a pause of a few moments,
footsteps were heard approaching; the barking of the
dogs gradually lapsed into a growl of doubtful recognition,
and the latch was slowly lifted. The door had,
however, been fastened inside, and the attempt was
followed up by a loud, quick knocking with the butt
end of a gun.

“Who are you?” cried old Nighthawk.

“I'll tell you directly, if you don't open the door,”
answered a hoarse voice with a foreign accent.

“It's the bloody infernal Yagers,” whispered old
Nighthawk. “Now, my boys, stand to your arms.
Let them break in, if they dare, and I'll be blamed if
we don't give them a grist.” All followed his directions,
and an anxious pause ensued, during which, the
landlady, who was not unused to such scenes, occupied
herself very deliberately in hiding a paper of pins,
a few pewter spoons, and other valuables, under a
loose plank of the floor.

The knocking now became louder, and the rough
demand for entrance was repeated more vociferously
in broken English. Whereupon, little Barnabas Pudney,
who came originally from down east, and was
what is called “a curious cretur,” crept slily to a front
window, through a crack in the shutters of which he
saw, by the light of the stars, something which caused
him to burst into a laugh exceedingly sonorous and
exhilarating.

“I'm a nigger,” cried he, “if it an't John.”

The whole party within set up a great shout, with
the exception of old Nighthawk, who, on opening the
door, welcomed him as follows:

“I'll tell you what, youngster, you'd best take keer
how you play these tricks upon travellers in these
times. A little more of your fun, and you'd have bin
a dead man, laughing on the wrong side of your mouth.
This is no time for playing Yager. Blame me if I
wa'nt going to set old Maple-Sugar on trigger,” so he
called his old musket, the stock of which was of maple;
“you played the Yager pretty well, and had like

to have got a Yager's bitters. It's all wrong, Johnny,
my son.”

“I know it,” replied John, but I wanted to try your
spunk.”

“Spunk! hasn't it been pretty well tried already?”
said the other.

“Only hear how the young chicken crows,” said
Bitter Root; “I'll bet a gallon of Miss Boshin's red
streak, his sneakers are up as high as the top of the
big white-wood-tree before the cock crows to-morrow
morning.”

“You will—will you?” retorted John, and his eye
kindled. But he thought of the necessity of preserving
good-fellowship, and contented himself with adding—“The
proof of game, is when the gaff sticks—
we shall see who cackles first.”

The party being now complete, sallied forth about
the hour of ten of a still, starry night, at which time
all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, except the
watchful wights of Hungry Hollow, had gone to rest.
Their course led them past the old grave-yard of the
decayed church we have noted, and as they drew nigh,
they might be seen to close their ranks and huddle together,
each essaying to get on the outer side. “I wish
you wouldn't push a fellow so,” said Billy Sniffen to
Zoroaster Fisk, in an impatient whisper, as Zoe pushed
him against a rock by the roadside. At any other
time, there would have been some joking at the expense
of the stone-cutter, but now the scene, and the
impressions to which it gave rise, impressed on all the
silence of superstitious awe. In the dim twilight of
the starry night, they could distinguish the rustic tomb-stones,

and rough-hewn slabs of mouldering wood,
which told their errand there without the aid of epitaphs,
and the sight cowed the vivacity of the gallant
sky-larkers, who, though they had often looked death
in the face, were sorely afraid of dead men, and especially
their ghosts.

“W—w—w—at in the name of goody gracious, is
that there?” suddenly exclaimed Barnabas Pudney.

“What—where?” answered half a dozen voices.

“There! just there, by the old church—don't you
see something as white as a sheet, standing, as I calculate,
right on the very spot where Sampson Mussey,
who was killed by the Skinners, is intarred?” and
thereupon Barnabas blew his nose with a sonorous
twang, in the true conch-shell style, which signal was
answered by a white cow standing right on the spot
where Sampson Mussey was interred. This discovery
drew a laugh upon Barnabas, and was followed by a
dispute about who was most frightened. It served to
raise the spirits of the party, by relieving them from
some exceeding solemn impressions which such scenes
are eminently calculated to inspire, and they gaily
pursued their way towards Kingsbridge, bantering
Barnabas about his ghost.

The night was still as death. No lights burnt in
the desolate, abandoned houses, that here and there
dotted the scene, and the surface of the expanding
river, which here presented all the features of lake
scenery, was as smooth as a glassy mirror reflecting
all the glories of the skies above. No vessel lay at
anchor, or floated lazily along with the tide, on the
surface of the melancholy wave: not a sail whitened

the dead, monotonous scene, and life and all the business
of life seemed to have reached a pause that
looked like extinction itself. The lofty outlines of
the opposite shore, waned beneath the twinkling sentinels
of night, but their sides were clothed in deep obscurity.
The peaceful Dutchmen were fast asleep,
for they could sleep in peace, since the broad river interposed
between them and their enemies, who were
carrying their devastations in other directions.

Our sky-larkers passed on briskly, without pausing
to admire the sober, solemn beauties of the scene, for
they had other thoughts in their heads, and other purposes
in their hearts. Anon they came opposite to
those glorious walls, bordering the western margin of
the river, and presenting an everlasting barrier to its
expansion. At this moment, a bright light shot
athwart the clear expanse of the heavens, and startled
the night-adventurers, who halted to ascertain
whence it proceeded. They saw the entire firmament
towards the north streaked with sheets of living fire,
that leaped up, and danced among the winking stars,
which seemed to grow pale at their superior brilliancy.
It could not be the lightning, for there was not a cloud
in the sky. It was an awful sight, and the whole
party stood gazing in something more than silent
wonder.

Ever and anon streams and rolling waves of living
light flashed across the starry vault of heaven, succeeded
by the gambols of what are called the Merry
Dancers, flourishing and skirring about in a thousand
fantastic vagaries, and with a speed as swift as thought
or fancy. For a while, the earth shone as if at noon-day,

or rather beneath the silver radiance of the moon;
but by degrees a rich and ruddy pink, succeeded by a
deep crimson hue, stole over the sky, tinging the
heavens and the earth with a rosy tint, which, however
rich and beautiful, smote the hearts of all but
John with awful apprehensions. They began to fancy
they could detect, in this fantastic frolic of the spheres,
various forms of terror and dismay flitting about among
the stars; and embodied in their affrighted imagination
a scene somewhat allied to the state of the country,
as well as the dangers by which they were surrounded.
They distinguished through the mists of
fearful visions, armies fighting in the air; steeds encountering
with resistless fury; columns of soldiers,
in red coats, charging like lightning athwart the fiery
heavens; and fancied all the dread array of bloody
war raging among the stars and planets, as though the
host of heaven were engaged in hot contention disputing
the empire of the upper world.

“The Highlands must be on fire!” said old Nighthawk,
at length recovering his speech.

“The sky is in a blaze,” muttered Barnabas Pudney.

“The world is coming to an end!” exclaimed Billy
Sniffen.

“It is a token and a warning,” rejoined Zoroaster
Fisk, solemnly.

“Pooh!” said John, “it is only the aurora borealis.”

“The what?” cried all at once.

“The light in the north.”

“You may call it what you will,” responded Zoroaster,
“but I say it is a token and a warning.”

“Pooh!” quoth Bitter Root, “he begins to smell
Spuyten Duyvel.”

“I reckon it's a worse devil than that. It's jist for
all the world what granny seen the year before the
war, when the sky all turned to blood, one night, and
armies were seen fighting, helter-skelter, some in red
coats and some in blue.”

“Which beat, Zoe?” asked John, jeeringly.

“I tell you it's no laughing matter, Johnny. I seed—
no, granny did—more than a hundred thousand men,
cutting and slashing at one another in the sky in a
most awful manner, till it all run with blood. You
could see the smoke of the great guns, and some people
conceited they could smell gunpowder. After the
battle was over, a voice cried out from the clouds—
`War, bloody war!' and then—”

“Did you see all this, yourself?”

“No, but granny did, for she has often told me so,
and she was as pious a woman as any man's mother,
for that matter. So I'm for going right straight hum
agin, for it stands to reason it's a token and a warning.
It's flying in the face of Scripture to go down to
Kingsbridge agin such a sky as that. There! there!
I swear—I mean, I swan—I'm a nigger if I don't think
I seed some letters there, as plain as on a head-stone.
There's a great W, as long as from here to New
York.”

“Zoe, did you ever hear of the old cow on Long
Island, that told the woman who was milking her,
we should have war soon?”

“Yes, granny told me that, too, and how an old hen

laid an egg, with W—A—R on the shell, in capital
letters three inches long.”

“It must have been a goose-egg, Zoe,” said John.
“But come, boys, this is wasting precious time. The
light in the north has no more to do with what we are
about, than the light of the stars. You that are frightened,
may run home if you please, but I am for going
on let who will follow.”

So saying, he dashed forward in a quick step, and
the whole party, not excepting Zoroaster Fisk, followed,
ever and anon looking back over their shoulders
to see how matters were going on in the sky. By degrees,
the leaping columns of light grew dimmer and
dimmer; the bloody tints faded away; the sky assumed
its ethereal hue; and the stars twinkled their
sleepy lustre alone in the heavens, leaving the party
of sky-larkers to pursue their way by their glimmering
light.

They were now ascending the high hills which command
a view of both the Hudson and East rivers, and
on arriving at the summit, halted to reconnoitre the
country round, as far as the obscurity of night would
permit.

“Look there! another Rory Bolus!” exclaimed Billy
Sniffen, pointing to a great light towards the east.

“No, no,” rejoined old Nighthawk, “that's another
guess sort of a light than what we saw just now. It's
a house or barn a-fire, I reckon.”

“Then the red coats, or the Yagers, or tories, or
some of the rascally Skinners are out to-night,” said
John. “Now, boys, is the time to do something for
liberty. Let us make for the spot. It is not far off,

and I know the house. It is poor old Ira Tebow's, if
I'm not mistaken. Come, follow on; follow on, boys,
and be still as mice, for ten to one we meet the rascals
on the way.”

“I told you something would happen; but howsomever,
here goes. I'm for one of you,” cried Zoroaster.

They now proceeded forward briskly, and in dead
silence, or only communed in whispers. There was
no occasion for a commander, or word of command;
each was expert in this mode of partisan warfare, and
all were left to their own discretion and experience.
A walk of some half an hour brought them to the
brow of a lesser hill, overlooking the little vale of
Sawmill river, which gave them full view of the light
proceeding from a barn, now nearly consumed to ashes.
The house was beyond the reach of conflagration, being
at some distance, and was built of red-stone, such
as is found on the western shore of Tappan bay.
They saw a light through the window, paused to consult
as to their best course of action, and the conversation
ended in deciding to dispatch one of the party
to reconnoitre the ground. John volunteered his services,
and his offer was accepted.

With the cautious silence of a cat, he approached,
and the first objects he descried were six or eight horses
tied to a fence in front of the house, which indicated
the number of visiters within. Having ascertained
that no one was on the watch without, he crept softly
to the window, and peeping in, a scene was disclosed
that set his blood on fire. A party of Yagers were
carousing at a table on the plunder of the peaceable
old man, who, with his gray-haired wife, sat looking

on in the silent acquiescence of despair, while two
grown up daughters were waiting on the plunderers,
now half-drunk with cider. One of them, at length,
on a sudden rose from the table, and seizing the elder
of the girls about the waist, rudely kissed her pallid
cheek, which in an instant reddened with the indignant
flush of maiden modesty. The old couple groaned,
and John ground his teeth and grasped his sword, as
the girl, outraged by still more unmanly indecorums,
no longer able to repress her feelings, pushed the ruffian
from her with such good-will, that he fell against
the table, overset it, and extinguished the lights. A
torrent of imprecations, in a foreign tongue, now broke
forth from the insolent intruders; they started up, and
groping about for their swords, threatened murder in
every breath, while the weak voices of the aged couple
were heard begging for mercy amid the furious
uproar. John could bear it no longer. All thought
of his comrades, himself, or his danger, evaporated in
a moment, in the heat of his rage, and leaping through
the window, in an instant he was cutting and slashing
among the ruffian crew. There was no danger of
hitting a friend, for the occupants of the house would
no doubt flee, and all the rest were fair game. Though
alone, the advantage was on his side, for he was armed;
while the Yagers, having laid aside their swords,
were groping about for them in the dark, sputtering
unintelligible imprecations.

The party of sky-larkers, who began to wonder
what had become of John, now distinguished the uproar
of voices, accompanied by the clashing of swords,
mingled with groans and imprecations, as the invisible

enemy smote one after another the stupified plunderers,
now rushed forward to the scene of action. Here
they discovered two of the Yagers just on the point
of mounting their horses, but horse they never mounted
more. They were cloven down without mercy, for
they deserved none. They warred against the helplessness
of age, the innocence of youth, the property
of men, the chastity of women, and could claim none
of the courtesies of honourable warfare. This done,
they made their way into the house, where old Nighthawk
ran plump against John, who was still seeking
his enemies, and made a blow at him which cut a
deep gash in the door-post.

“What the d—I are you hacking at?” exclaimed the
old man, “don't you see it's me?”

“See! How the plague should I? It's as dark as
pitch, and besides, my eyes are filled with blood. But
I think I have done for the rascals, for I could find no
more enemies.”

“And so you fell foul of a friend?” replied the other.
“But let us get a light and see how the land lies.
Here, Billy Sniffen, run to the barn and bring us a
Yager candle.”

Billy returned in a minute or two with a burning
brand, the candles were found, and the whole scene
disclosed to view. On the floor, floating in their recreant
blood, lay five lusty fellows, in whiskers, three
with their heads split open, and two only disabled with
their wounds. These, Bitter Root insinuated, had better
be put out of their misery, as he expressed it; but
John claimed them as his prisoners, and insisted their
lives should be spared, though they richly deserved

hanging. It was now proposed to search for the poor
fugitives, who had been driven from their home by the
lawless brutality of these hireling ruffians, and accordingly
the party dispersed around, calling upon
them in friendly tones, and inviting their return.
They heard with fearful tremblings, but at length distinguishing
their native tongue in its native accent,
ventured cautiously to obey the summons, and being
told what had happened, expressed their gratitude
in homely phrase, but heartfelt language.

“I wish,” said John, “some one would tie a handkerchief
over my forehead, for this blood almost blinds
me.”

“You are wounded!”—exclaimed the pretty girl,
whose lips had been profaned by the brutal soldier,
and with trembling steps sought her Sunday silk
handkerchief, which, with hasty hands, she bound over
his wound. John was a fine, manly looking fellow,
with deep blue eyes, and dark brown hair curling
about his ears; and the daughter of old Ira Tebow
often in her solitary rambles recalled to mind the
bloody brow, and thankful look of the deliverer of
herself and parents, while her gratitude sometimes
partook of a softer feeling.

After demolishing the remainder of the feast of the
barbarous Cyclops, a consultation took place as to their
future proceedings, and it was unanimously agreed that
it was now too late to procced on their original destination,
since a couple of hours would bring the dawn.
They decided, therefore, to bury the dead, mount
their horses, and carry the two wounded caitiffs to the
quarters of Colonel Courtlandt, who commanded the

nearest post, and under whose authority they acted.
Accordingly, their bodies were borne forth in silence,
and buried in one grave, without coffin, shroud, funeral
prayer, or dirge; save that of a screech-owl, which,
attracted by the light of the burning barn, sat on a
neighbouring tree quavering their parting knell. No
memorial marks the spot, for they deserved none
at the hands of those they had come so far to molest;
and there they rested, in common with thousands of
more deserving victims to the hopeless attempt to subjugate
a nation of freemen.

Their horses and military equipments were lawful
spoil of war, and divided among the sky-larkers.
A few guineas found in their pockets, were given to
the old man to pay for their supper.

“God forever bless you, my son,” said old Ira Tebow
to John, at parting. “Let us give one hurrah for liberty.
I can't fight, but my heart is for the good cause.”
And the silent night was startled by a shout that echoed
far and wide, to liberty.

“You have paid dear for it to-night,” said John, “and
I fear have yet much to pay.”

“Well, may be so, my son. But all will come right
at last. I may not live to see it, but my children, and
their children's children, will reap the harvest of the
seed of fire and blood, sown here this night. So long
as we have God and Washington on our side, none but
cowards will despair of our cause. That our country
is destined to be free and independent, I am as sure
as that I am alive at this moment, and in that belief I
shall die contented. God bless you, my son, may your

good old grandfather and grandmother, whom I know,
escape the wrongs of me and mine.”

Each man now mounted one of the good horses of
the conquered foe, and there being one to spare, it was
bestowed on the old man, with strict injunctions to
sell it, as soon as possible, somewhere out of the neighbourhood,
least it might be hereafter recognised.

“But what shall I do with your handkerchief, when
my wound is done bleeding?” said John, to the pretty
daughter, who stood looking out at the window.

“Keep it to remember me by,” answered she, with
a blush, and a smile of touching sadness. And he did
keep it, in spite of the affected poutings of Jane Hammond,
who took, on all occasions, in and out of season,
to criticise both the texture and the pattern.

The party then pursued their way homewards, first
stopping at the quarters of Colonel Courtlandt, where
they delivered up the two prisoners, and gave an account
of their expedition. After receiving the praises
of the colonel, they separated, each for his proper destination.
John lingered behind a few moments, to ask
the brave colonel for a testimonial of his good conduct,
which he gave with all his heart; complimenting him,
at the same time, on his gallantry, and assuring him
of his future friendship. He then spurred on his steed
towards the old stone house, it being yet too early in
the morning to pay his respects to Colonel Hammond.
And thus ended the pleasant sky-larking of the venturesome
boys of Westchester, who, in old times, were
the theme of more than one rustic ballad, now forgotten.