 | Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution |  |
XVIII.—THE MECHANIC HERO OF BRANDYWINE.
Near Dilworth corner, at the time of the Revolution, there stood a quiet
cottage, somewhat retired from the road, under the shade of a stout chesnut
tree. It was a quiet cottage, nestling away there in one corner of the forest
road, a dear home in the wilderness, with sloping roof, walls of dark grey
stone, and a casement hidden among vines and flowers.
On one side, amid an interval of the forest trees, was seen the rough
outline of a blacksmith's shop. There was a small garden in front, with a
brown gravelled walk, and beds of wild flowers.
Here, at the time of the Revolution, there dwelt a stout blacksmith, his
young wife and her babe.—What cared that blacksmith, working away there
in that shadowy nook of the forest, for war? What feared he for the peril
of the times, so long as his strong arm, ringing that hammer on the anvil,
might gain bread for his wife and child!
Ah, he cared little for war, he took little note of the panic that shook the
valley, when some few mornings before the battle of the Brandywine, while
shoeing the horse of a Tory Refugee, he overheard a plot for the surprise
and capture of Washington. The American leader was to be lured into the
toils of the tories; his person once in the British camp, the English General
might send the “Truitor Washington” home, to be tried in London.
Now our blacksmith, working away there, in that dim nook of the forest,
without caring for battle or war, had still a sneaking kindness for this Mister
Washington, whose name rung on the lips of all men. So one night, bidding
his young wife a hasty good-bye, and kissing the babe that reposed on
her bosom, smiling as it slept, he hurried away to the American camp, and
told his story to Washington.
It was morning ere he came back. It was in the dimness of the autumnal
morning, that the blacksmith was plodding his way, along the forest
road. Some few paces ahead there was an aged oak, standing out into the
road—a grim old veteran of the forest, that had stood the shocks of three
hundred years. Right beyond that oak was the blacksmith's home.
With this thought warming his heart, he hurried on. He hurried on,
thinking of the calm young face and mild blue eyes of that wife, who, the
night before, had stood in the cottage door, waving him out of sight with a
beckoned good-bye—thinking of the baby, that lay smiling as it slept upon
her bosom, he hurried on—he turned the bend of the wood, he looked upon
his home.
Ah! what a sight was there!
Where, the night before, he had left a peaceful cottage, smiling under a
green chesnut tree, in the light of the setting sun, now was only a heap of
black and smoking embers and a burnt and blasted tree!
This was his home!
And there stood the blacksmith gazing upon that wreck of his hearth-stone;—there
he stood with folded arms and moody brow, but in a moment
a smile broke over his face.
He saw it all. In the night his home had taken fire, and been burned to
cinders. But his wife, his child had escaped. For that he thanked God.
With the toil of his stout arm, plying there on the anvil, he would build
a fairer home for wife and child; fresh flowers should bloom over the
garden walks, and more lovely vines trail along the casement.
With this resolve kindling over his face, the blacksmith stood there, with
a cheerful light beaming from his large grey eyes, when—a hand was
laid upon his shoulder.
He turned and beheld the face of a neighbor.
It was a neighbor's face; but there was an awful agony stamping those
plain features—there was an awful agony flashing from those dilating eyes
—there was a dark and a terrible mystery speaking from those thin lips,
that moved, but made no sound.
For a moment that farmer tried to speak the horror that convulsed his
features.
At last, forcing the blacksmith along the brown gravelled walk, now strewn
with cinders, he pointed to the smoking embers. There, there—amid that
heap of black and smoking ruins, the blacksmith beheld a dark mass of
burnt flesh and blackened bones.
“Your wife!” shrieked the farmer, as his agony found words. “The
British they came in the night they”—and then he spoke that outrage,
which the lip quivers to think on, which the heart grows palsied to tell—
that outrage too foul to name—“Your wife,” he shrieked, pointing to that
hideous thing amid the smoking ruins; “the British they murdered your
wife, they flung her dead body in the flames—they dashed your child
against the hearthstone!”
This was the farmer's story.
And there, as the light of the breaking day fell around the spot, there
stood the husband, the father, gazing upon that mass of burned flesh and
blackened bones—all that was once his wife.
Do you ask me for the words that trembled from his white lips? Do
you ask me for the fire that blazed in his eye?
I cannot tell you. But I can tell you that there was a vow going up to
Heaven from that blacksmith's heart; that there was a clenched hand, upraised,
in the light of the breaking day!
Yes, yes, as the first gleam of the autumnal dawn broke around the spot,
as the first long gleam of sunlight streamed over the peeled skull of that
fair young wife—she was that last night—there was a vow going up to
Heaven, the vow of a maddened heart and anguished brain.
How was that vow kept? Go there to Brandywine, and where the carnage
gathers thickest, where the fight is most bloody, there you may see a
falls, it kills—where that hammer strikes, it crushes! It is the blacksmith's
form. And the war-cry that he shouts? It is a mad cry of vengeance—half
howl, half hurrah? Is it but a fierce yell, breaking up from
his heaving chest?
Ah no! Ah no!
It is the name of—Mary! It is the name of his young wife!
Oh, Mary—sweetest name of women—name so soft, so rippling, so musical—name
of the Mother of Jesus, made holy by poetry and religion—
how strangely did your syllables of music ring out from that blacksmith's
lips, as he went murdering on!
“Mary!” he shouts, as he drags that red-coated trooper from his steed:
“Mary!” he shrieks, as his hammer crashes down, laying that officer in
the dust. Look! Another officer, with a gallant face and form—another
officer, glittering in tinsel, clasps that blacksmith by the knees, and begs
mercy.
“I have a wife—mercy! I have a wife yonder in England—spare
me!”
The blacksmith, crazed as he is, trembles—there is a tear in his eye.
“I would spare you, but there is a form before me—the form of my
dead wife! That form has gone before me all day! She calls on me to
strike!”
And the hammer fell, and then rang out that strange war-cry—“Mary!”
At last, when the battle was over, he was found by a wagoner, who had
at least shouldered a cartwhip in his country's service—he was found sitting
by the roadside, his head sunken, his leg broken—the life blood welling
from his many wounds.
The wagoner would have carried him from the field, but the stout blacksmith
refused.
“You see, neighbor,” he said, in that voice husky with death, “I never
meddled with the British till they burned by home, till they—” he could
not speak the outrage, but his wife and child were there before his dying
eyes—“And now I've but five minutes' life in me. I'd like to give a shot
at the British afore I die. D'ye see that cherry tree? D'ye think you
could drag a man of my build up thar? Place me thar; give me a powder-horn,
three rifle balls an' a good rifle; that's all I ask.”
The wagoner granted his request; he lifted him to the foot of the cherry
tree; he placed the rifle, the balls, the powder-horn in his grasp.
Then whipping his horses through the narrow pass, from the summit of
a neighboring height, he looked down upon the last scene of the blacksmith's
life.
There lay the stout man, at the foot of the cherry tree, his head, his
broken leg hanging over the roadside bank. The blood was streaming from
his wounds—he was dying.
Suddenly he raised his head—a sound struck on his ears. A party of
British came rushing along the narrow road, mad with carnage and thirsting
for blood. They pursued a scattered band of Continentals. An officer led
the way, waving them on with his sword.
The blacksmith loaded his rifle; with that eye bright with death he took
the aim. “That's for Washington!” he shouted as he fired. The officer
lay quivering in the roadside dust. On and on came the British, nearer and
nearer to the cherry tree—the Continentals swept through the pass. Again
the blacksmith loaded—again he fired. “That's for mad Anthony Wayne!”
he shouted as another officer bit the sod.
The British now came rushing to the cherry tree, determined to cut
down the wounded man, who with his face toward them, bleeding as he
was, dealt death among their ranks. A fair-visaged officer, with golden
hair waving on the wind, led them on.
The blacksmith raised his rifle; with that hand stiffening in death, he
took the aim—he fired—the young Briton fell with a sudden shriek.
“And that,” cried the blacksmith, in a voice that strengthened into a
shout, “and that's for—”
His voice was gone! The shriek died on his white lips.
His head sunk—his rifle fell.
A single word bubbled up with his death groan. Even now, methinks I
hear that word, echoing and trembling there among the rocks of Brandywine.
That word was—Mary!
| Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution | |