University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
THE VALLEY OF THE WISSAHIKON.

When Harry Heft left the farm-house of the
Quaker, in obedience to the invisible signal, the new
moon, with its delicate crescent of silver, poised in
the clear azure of the western horizon, was shedding
around over the woods and stream of the Wissahikon,
a shower of softened light, which danced
on the prominent points of the foliage, sparkled
along the rivulet, and waved in threads of radiance
through the open glades and shadowed recesses of
the forest.

Having passed through the small garden, around
the farm-house, the young soldier brushed aside
the grass of the meadow heavy with dew, and pursued
his way toward the Wissahikon, which rolled
along the vale, with the soft musical murmur of
water, sweeping along a pebbled bottom, and gave
its thousand tiny ripples, and delicate wavelets to
the brightening kiss of the moonbeams.

“Well, may I die the death of a spy”—exclaimed
Harry as he reached the banks of the stream,
and gazed around—“May I die the death of a riglar
built renegate, if this aint purty. I never did see
my native stream look so nice afore—and now that

I think of it, I'd like to visit my old folks; but I
haint got time. I must git that purty gal out of
the clutches o' them Britishers at Major Tracy's,
and then I kin sit down and play if I like, but not
afore. But where in the name of the Continental
Congress is that feller Dennis? Dennis O'Dougherty,
McDermott, McDonough, McDaniel, Mac
—”

“Mac Divil!” answered a voice from a clump of
elder bushes, within arm's-reach of Heft. “And is
it callin' a man, dacent and civil, out o' his name,
at this solemn hour of the night, ye are, ye spalpayn?
Is this yer pe'liteness, Harry Heft”—continued
the voice, as the bushes rustled, and a small
round face, with a very small, and very bright pair
of gray eyes, long upper lip and short nose,
emerged from the foliage. Is this yer pe'liteness I
say? I'm ashamed of ye, Harry Heft.”

The face gradually rose from among the bushes,
and presently a tall, stout figure, clad in the uniform
of the Black Rangers, leaped out on the turf, and
in an instant was at the side of Harry Heft.

“I'm ashamed of ye, Harry Heft”—said the Irishman,
with a grave look, and with a merry sparkle
in his eye. “By the ghost of Fin-ma-coul, of St.
Patrick, St. Pater, and a half dozen more of the
rispictible old jontlemen, who raised petaties in ould
Erin afore the curse of Cromwell and King George
was put upon her sod, I'm ashamed of ye, Harry

Heft—there now ye pesky critter,” he continued,
for long residence among the people of the northern
Provinces had spiced the brogue of Dennis McDermott,
with a little dash of the Yankee dialect.
“There now ye pesky critter ye, are ye satisfied?”

Harry burst into a peal of laughter, and exclaimed
between the bursts of merriment—

“Look here, Irish, somebody must a-been drying
your primin' before a hickory fire—you go off at
sich very short notice. Why you explode at about
the eighth fraction of half-cock. Why, Irish,
you're gitting quite animated—if you'd only take
a'ter me something might be made out of you. You
are a reg'lar old boy!”

“Jest call me by me christen name, Dennis, will
ye? Or pr'aps ye'd like yer picter spilt?”

“No, thank'ee, not jist now,” replied Harry,
catching the quiet twinkle of the warm-hearted
Irishman's eye. “But come along, Dennis. Let's
ford the creek and pass on; we've got about a mile
to go, and the sooner we're movin' the better.”

The Rangers waded the stream, which was not
more than breast high, at this point, and taking a
beaten track on the western side, proceeded southward
at as rapid a pace as might be. After about
five minutes walking under the shade of the wood,
the path emerged into an open field, covered with
blackberry bushes, brambles, and wild vines, trailing
along the ground, with heaps of newly cut

timber, scattered along the surface of the uncultivated
earth. The field was passed and the Rangers
arrived at a spot of singular beauty.

The Wissahikon entered a deep ravine or glen, if
either of these names are appropriate, where the
banks arose by an ascent in some places gradual, in
other points abrupt, into high and massive hills,
clothed from the sparkle of the ripple, to the deep
blue of the sky, with most luxuriant trees, with
foliage faintly dyed by autumn, of every gradation
of fantastic outline of form, every variety of light
and shade. Here swelling into pyramids of leaves,
silvered by the moonbeams; there sloping away
into shady nooks: at one point sweeping down to
one brooklet by a gentle descent of chestnut trees,
in all the towering height of a century's growth,
succeeded by tender saplings, whose leaves were
interwoven with those of many a green shrub and
verdant bush growing by the water side, and dashing
their verdure in the waves of the deep, clear,
mirror-like flood; at another point, circuling around
some perpendicular mass of rock, whose clefts were
green with many a wild vine, the foliage sank suddenly
down, with a leaf here and there touched by
the moonlight, while all the rest was dark and indistinct.

The stream, winding through the glen, with its
deep and rippleless waters of glassy clearness, reflected
the ascending steeps on either side, and the

small space of the clear blue sky which these
heights, viewed from the vale below, permitted to
be seen, with so faithful an outline, and such a delicate
mass of hues and tints, lights and shades, that
it seemed as though the landscape beneath the waters
was an ideal and spiritual copy of the real and
living landscape above.

The path which our Rangers pursued, led along
the water's edge, and wound among the colossal
trunks of wide-branching oaks, whose roots had
been striking deep, and whose limbs had been
growing stronger for hundreds of years. As they
wended along with the silver murmur of the stream
filling the air, and the soft moonlight floating amid
the waving foliage, the Rangers for a time, under
the influence of the holy silence of the hour,
ceased all conversation, and with their footfalls
echoing along the wood, and the occasional rustling
of leaves as they brushed through a mass of
shrubbery opposing their path, they pursued their
way, until the murmuring of a waterfall told them
of their vicinity to Rittenhouse's mill, a massive
stone building, which rose in strong relief with its
grey walls, standing boldly out against the background
of verdure, while a number of cottages
barns and outhouses were scattered around it on the
eastern side of the artificial cascade.

The Rangers paused for a moment upon a shelving
rock, and looked back into the lovely glen,
which they were about to leave.

“Och, comrid, Harry Heft,” said the Irishman,
breaking the silence which had lasted for a quarter
of an hour. “Sure this beautiful spot, with its
feathery trees, and soft moonlight, and its quietness
and sulemnity, brings to mind the place ov me
birth, wid the little hut, and its green turf on the
bank of the Lake Killarney! The curse o' God be
on the tyrant who driv me frum me home! Is it
blubberin' ye are, Harry Heft?”

The young American Ranger certainly showed
no signs of weeping, but Dennis merely meant the
insinuation as an excuse for the tear which stole
from his own eyelid, and washed his scarred and
sunburnt cheek.

“What did the British drive you from your
home for?” exclaimed Harry, participating in the
Irishman's outburst of long-hidden sympathies.

“Ye've seen a tear in my eye, Harry Heft, and
you may as well make a note ov it; for none 'ill
you iver see there agin. The why and wharefore
I left me native country is a long story, Harry Heft;
but ye must know Harry, that meself and me mother,
and the wife and the childer, (not forgetting
the pig, be jabers,) lived in the nate little shealing
on the banks of the Killarney, and not a care did
we know, mair be token we had plenty of petaties,
until the red coated Britishers came and meddled
wid a little still of me own—”

“Still? Whiskey still?” inquired Henry.

“The same. A little bit ov a hand machine to
manyfactur' the poteen, ye know. The sodjers
came, and we hade a taste ov a ruction, and I giv
one of the rascals the `unlucky blow,' not maneing
it at all, at all; but flattened out he was, and it was
I that did it.”

“You sarved him right! Confound the Britishers,
I say!”

“Amen to that. And then they gave me the
choice of the gallows or the dragoon's saddle, for
they saw I was a stout, tall felley (fellow) of me
inches, and I chosed the gallows. But the wife
clung to my bosom, and the childer clung to me
knees, and pursuaded wid their tears that sed so
much more than words, to 'list, sooner than be
hanged, and 'list I did, sorrow to me soul! And I've
never seen wife or childer since.”

The Irishman brushed a tear from his eye, and
Harry was seized with a sudden fit of whistling.

“Aye! Whistle, Harry, whistle! It's better to
whistle nor to weep, and if I didn't laugh sometimes
my heart 'ud break for the grief that's tugging at it.
Ochone, Erin Mavourneen—I'm making a judy of
meself.”

“How long is it since ye listed, Dennis!”

“Ten years or thereabouts. We came to Montreal,
and seen some service among the French and
Injins, and on one occashun, a party of us dragoons
were dispatched all the way to Detroit, and the

whole kit ov us, barrin' two others besides meself,
were riddled by the red skinned Injins. We three
survivors picked up our bones and walked off about
our business, each on his own pertikler way, for
we didn't see any necessity of our returning to Montreal
and the barracks, or pushing on to Detroit
with its wild cats and Injins.”

“And then you pushed eastward and settled
down about Germantown here?”

“And here I've lived and wrought for near five
years, until Captain Tracy, and a likely boy he is
too, tipped me the wink, and then I followed him
to the wars, and maybe I haven't been a bad thorn
in the side of the Britishers?”

“A regular splinter in their sore-foot, as one
might say. But should any of your former comrades
see you agin, think they'd know you?”

“It's difficult for meself to tell. But 'sposin'
they did see me and knew me, and had me in their
clutches at the same identical time; it's my candid
opinion they'd give me a pine coffin, and a dozen
bullets. The more shame to 'em and their king,
and the whole posse of 'em, by the blessed St.
Pathrick.”

“Well, now look here `Irish'—I call you that
'cause it sounds more sociable than Dennis—I owe
you a life for a savin' mine at the rumpus of Brandywine.
And now by the Lord above us, if the
Britishers ever catch hold of you, and I don't rescue

you, or if they harm you, and I don't avenge
you, then may I never know what it is to die a soldier's
death, but die the pitiful death of a spy!
That's swor' to, Irish—” continued the good-hearted
soldier as he grasped the Irishman's hand and
gave it a hearty shake. “And now let's be off;
You know our Captain told us to pay a visit to his
father's house, and recon'itre, and then bring him
word, but I've a notion of puttin' an end to this
marriage somehow or other, and bringin' him word
of that too, before he heard it was in progress.”

“Sure, Harry Heft, ye didn't tell me of any marriage.
Be jabers I'm all in the dark—”

“But come along. Let's ford the creek at the
falls, here, and travel down toward the Paper Mill,
and I'll tell you on the way!”

Fording the stream, they passed along a road on
the eastern side of the Wissahikon for about a quarter
of a mile, until the waters of the Paper Mill
Run came plunging into its bosom, from a height
covered with the buildings and out-houses pertaining
to a large mill. Pursuing the course of the
rivulet, which at this point takes a sudden bend to
the west on its way to the Schuylkill, after fifteen
minutes had elapsed, they arrived at a spot, where
a perpendicular wall of rocks arises from the opposite
and northern shore of the stream, clothed in
every cleft and spacious crevice with giant pines,
some growing out from the rock in a horizontal direction,

others slanting upward, others bending
crosswise, and with every giant pine, however fantastical
in form, flinging its branches out into the
moonlight, from the straight and steep ascent of the
cliff.

“Do you see that barricade of rocks, Irish?”

“Be jabers, a nateral fortriss!”

“Upon the top of that mass of rock, is concealed
as pretty a mansion as ever your eye rested upon.
That's Major Tracy's house, and we ascend to it by
a winding road. We cross over the stream on these
steppin' stones. The entrance to this road is concealed
among the bushes yonder. It begins somewhere
below this tremendous wall. I have it.”

They entered the bushes, and presently were
journeying along a road, worn by horses' feet, that
wound round the precipice, affording an easy,
though somewhat sudden ascent to the platform of
earth at the summit. Presently they emerged from
under the shade of the pine trees, and stood upon
the turf of a green lawn, fenced round the edge of
the precipice with the interlacing trunks of the
pines, forming a natural protection, against the dangers
of the steep, with their branches entwined
through each other, crossed and re-crossed, and
woven together, so thickly and densely, as to give
an observer the idea, that what he beheld was the
work of man's art, rather than a feat of nature.