University of Virginia Library

6. BOOK SIXTH.
ROMANCE OF THE REVOLUTION.

MICHAEL XXX,

I.—A TRADITION OF THE TWO WORLDS.

One dark and stormy night, in the year 1793, a soldier was returning
home—

Home—after the toil and bloodshed of many a well-fought battle; home
—to receive his father's blessing—Home, to feel the kiss of his bride upon
his lips; home, for the second time in fourteen long years!

It was where the winding road looked forth upon the broad bosom of the
Chesapeake, that we first behold him.

On the summit of a dark grey rock, which arose above the gloomy
waves, he reined his steed. All was dark above—the canopy of heaven,
one vast and funeral pall, on which the lightning ever and anon, wrote its
fearful hieroglyph—below, the waves rolled heavily against the shore, their
deep murmur mingling with the thunder-peal.

The same lightning flash that traced its strange characters upon the pall
of a darkened universe, revealed the face and form of the warrior, every
point and outline of his war-steed.

For a moment, and a moment only, that lurid light rushed over the
waves and sky, and then all was night and chaos again.

Let us look upon the warrior by the glare of that lightning flash.

A man of some thirty years; his form massive in the chest, broad in the
shoulders, enveloped in a blue hunting frock faced with fur. From his right
shoulder a heavy cloak falls in thick folds over the form of his steed.

At this moment he lifts the trooper cap from his brow. Bathed in the
lightning glare you behold that high, straight forehead, shadowed by a mass
of short thick curls, and lighted by the soul of his large grey eyes. The
broad cheek bones, fair complexion, darkened into a swarthy brown, by the
toil of fourteen long years, firm lips, and square chin, all indicate a bold and
chivalrous nature.

His grey eye lights up with wild rapture, as he gazes far beyond upon
the Chesapeake, its surface now dark as ink, and now ruffled into one
white sheet of foam. And the noble horse which bears his form, with his
snow-white flanks seared with the marks of many a battle-scar, arches his

neck, tosses his head aloft, and with quivering nostrils and glaring eye,
seems to share the fiery contest of the elements.

It is an impressive picture which we behold; the white horse and his
rider, drawn by the lightning glare on the canvass of a darkened sky.

The rain beats against the warrior's brow, it turns to hail, and scatters its
pearls upon the snowy mane of his steed, among his thickly clustered locks,
yet still he sits uncovered there.

The gleaming eye and heaving chest, betoken a soul absorbed in memories
of the past.

Yes, he is thinking of fourteen long years of absence from home, years
spent in the charge of battle, or the terror of the forlorn hope, or far away
in the wild woods, where the tomahawk gleams through the green leaves
of old forest trees.

He speaks to his horse, and calls him by name.

“Old Legion!”

The horse quivers, starts, as with a thrill of delight, and utters a long and
piercing neigh.

He knows that name.

He has heard it in many a bloody fight; yes, swelling with the roar of
Brandywine, echoing from the mists of Germantown, whispered amid the
thunders of Monmouth; that name has ever been to the brave white horse,
the signal-note of battle.

Fourteen years ago, on this very rock, a boy of sixteen with long curling
hair, and a beardless cheek, reined in the noble white horse which he rode,
and while the moonlight poured over his brow, gave one last look at his
childhood's home, and then went forth to battle.

That white horse has now grown old. The marks of Germantown and
Valley Forge, and Camden, are written in every scar that darkens over
his snowy hide. The boy has sprung into hardy manhood; beard on his
chin, scars on his form, the light of resolution in his full grey eye, a sword
of iron in its iron sheath, hanging by his side.

Only a single year ago the white horse and his rider halted for a moment
on the summit of this rock, a mild summer breeze tossing the mane of the
steed, and playing with the warrior's curls. Then he had just bidden farewell
to his betrothed, her kiss was yet fresh upon his lips. On his way to
the Indian wars, he resolved to return after the fight was over, and wed his
intended bride.

One year had passed since he beheld her, one year of peril far away
among the Alleghanies, or in the wood-bound meadows of the Miami.

Now covered with scars, his name known as the bravest among the
brave, he was returning—HOME.

“Old Legion!” the souldier speaks to his steed, and in a moment you
see the gallant war-horse-who
is named in memory of the Legion, commanded

by the Partizan Lee—spring with a sudden bound from the rock,
and disappear in the shadows of the inland road.

Seven miles away from the Chesapeake, and the soldier would stand
upon the threshhold of his home.

Seven miles of a winding road, that now plunged into the shadows of
thick woods, now crossed some quiet brook, surmounted by a rude bridge,
now ascended yonder steep hill, with rocks crowned by cedars, darkening
on either side. Then came a long and level track with open fields, varied
by the tortuous “Virginia fence,” stretching away on either side.

While the rain freezing into hail, dashed against his brow, our soldier
spoke cheerily to his steed, and trees, and rocks, and fields, passed rapidly
behind him.

He was thinking of home—of that beautiful girl—Alice!

Ah, how the memory of her form came smiling to his soul, through the
darkness, and hail, and rain of that stormy night. Look where he might,
he saw her—yes, even as he left her one year ago. In the dark rocks
among the sombre pines, on the pall of the sky, or among the shadows of
the wood—look where he might—her image was there.

And this was the picture that memory with a free, joyous hand, and
colors gathered from the rainbow—Hope—sketched on the canvass of the
past.

A young girl, standing on the rustic porch of her home, at dead of night
—her form blooming from girlhood into woman—enveloped in the loose
folds of a white gown—while her bared arm holds the light above her head.
The downward rays impart a mild and softened glow to her face. Saw
you ever hair so dark, so glossy as that which the white 'kerchief lightly
binds? Eyes, so large and dark, so delicately fringed with long tremulous
lashes, as these which now gleam through the darkness of the night? Lips
so red and moist? A cheek so rounded and peach-like in its bloom? A
form—neither majestic in its stature, nor queenly in its walk—but warm in
its hues, swelling in its outlines, lovable in its virgin freshness.

So rose the picture of his betrothed, to the imagination of the soldier.
So he beheld her one year ago—even now, closing his eyes in a waking
dream, which the thunder cannot dispel, he seems to hear her parting
words:

“Good bye, Michael! Come back from the wars; O, come back soon
—may God grant it! Then, Michael, as I have pledged a woman's truth
to you, we will be married!”

A tear starts from the soldier's eye-lid. He has seen men fall in battle,
their skulls crushed by the horses' hoofs, and never wept. They were his
friends, his comrades, but his eye was tearless.—This game of war hardens
the heart into iron.

But now, as the thought of his young and loving bride steals mildly over
his soul, he feels the tear-drop in his eye.

Dashing through the swollen waters of a brook, Michael the soldier,
begins to ascend the last hill. Look—as it darkens above him, look upon
its summit, by the lightning glare. You behold a group of oak trees—three
rugged, ancient forms—standing on the sod near the summit of the hill, their
branches spreading magnificently into the sky.

By the lightning flash Michael beholds the oaks, and knows that his
home is near. For looking from the foot of these old trees, you may behold
that home.

How his heart throbs, as Old Legion dashes up the hill!

In order to conceal his agitation, he talks aloud to his war-horse. Smile
at the hardy soldier if you will, but ere you sneer, learn something of that
strange companionship which binds the warrior and his steed together.
Even as the sunburnt sailor talks to the good old ship which bears him,
even as the hollow eyed student talks to the well-used volumes, which have
been Love and Home to him, in many an hour of poverty and scorn, so
talks the soldier of Lee's Legion to his gallant horse.

“Soh—Old Legion! We've had many a tough time together, but soon
all our trials will be past! Many a tough time, old boy—d'ye remember
Germantown? How we came charging down upon them, before the break
of day?

“Or Monmouth—that awful day—when the sun killed ten, where the
bayonet and cannon-ball only killed one?

“Or Camden, where we fled like whipped dogs? But I led the forlorn
hope, in the attack of Paulus Hook, on foot—without you—my Old
Legion?

“Or d'ye remember the fights among the Injins? Mad Anthony Wayne
leading the charge, right into the thickest of the red-skins? Many a battle,
many a fight by day, any fray by night, we've had together, Old Legion—
we've shared the last crust—slept on the same hard ground—haven't we
old boy? And now we're going home—home to rest and quietness! I'll
settle down, beneath the roof of the old homestead; and as for you—there's
the broad meadow for you to ramble by day, and the clean straw for your
bed by night! I should like to see the man that would dare harness you
to a plough, my brave old war-horse—no! no! No one shall ever mount
your back but your old master, or”—and a grim smile lighted the young
soldier's face—“or, perhaps—Alice!”

As he spoke—the rain beating beneath the steel front of his cap, all the
while—he attained the summit of the hill. All was very dark around, all
was like a pall above, yet there—stretching far to the north, over a dimly
defined field—the soldier beheld a long straight line of locust trees, their
green leaves crowned with snowy blossoms. Those trees, whose fragrance
imbued the blast which rushed against the soldier's brow, the very rain
which fell upon his cheek—those glorious trees, so luxuriant in foliage and
perfume—overarched the lane which led to—Home!

That home he could not see, for all was dark as chaos—but yonder from
over the level field, afar, there came a single quivering ray of light.

By that light—it was the fireside light of home—his father watched, and
Alice—Ah! she was there, toiling over some task of home, her thoughts
fixed upon her absent lover. For Alice, you will understand me, was that
most to be pitied of all human creatures—an orphan child. She had been
reared in the homestead of the Meadows; reared and protected from tenderest
childhood by the old man, even Michael's father.

How the thought that SHE was waiting for him, stirred the fire-coals at
the soldier's heart!

Leaning from his steed, Michael the Soldier of Lee's Legion, unfastened
the rustic gate which divided the lane from the road, and in a moment—Do
you hear the sound of the horse's hoofs under the locust trees?

Ah, that fragrance from the snowy flowers, how it speaks Home!

Near and nearer he drew. Now he sees the wicket fence, that surrounds
the old brick mansion—now, the tall poplars that stand about it, like grim
sentinels—and now! There is a thunder peal shaking the very earth, a
lightning flash illumining the universe, and then the clouds roll back, and as
a maiden from her lattice, so looks forth the moon from her window in
the sky.

There it lies, in the calm clear light of the moon. A mansion of dark
brick, surrounded by a wicket fence painted white, with straight poplars encircling
it on every side.

A whispered word to his horse, and the soldier dashes on!

He reaches the wicket fence, flings the rein on the neck of his steed,
clears the palings at a bound, approaches yonder narrow, old-fashioned
window, and looks in —

An old man, in a farmer's dress, with sunburnt face and white hair, sits
alone, leaning his elbow on the oaken table, his cheek upon his hand. Near
him the candle, flinging its beams over the withered face of the old man,
around the rustic furniture of the uncarpeted room.

The old man is alone. Alice is not there. Michael the soldier, gazes
long and earnestly, and gasps for breath. For, in one brief year, his father
sunk into extreme old age—his grey eyes, dim with moisture, his hair,
which was grey, has taken the color of snow, his mouth wrinkled and
fallen in.

Michael felt a dim, vague, yet horrible foreboding cross his heart.

Not daring to cross the threshhold, he gazed for a moment upon a window
on the opposite side of the door. The shutters were closed, but it was her
room, the chamber of Alice. See slept there—ah! He laughed at his fears,
smiled that horrible foreboding to scorn. She slept there, dreaming of him,
her lover, husband. He placed his finger on the latch, his foot upon the
threshhold.

At this moment he felt a hand press his own, a knotted, toil-hardened

hand. He turned and beheld the form of a Negro, clad in coarse homespun;
it was one of his father's slaves; his own favorite servant, who had
carried him in his brawny arms when but a child, thirty years ago.

“De Lor bress you, Masa Mikel! Dis ole nigga am so glad you am
come home!”

A rude greeting, but sincere. Michael wrung the negro's hand, and uttered
a question with gasping breath:

“Alice—she is well? Alice, I say—do you hear Tony—she is well?”

In very common, but very expressive parlance—which I hope your critic
will pick to pieces with his claw, even as an aged but eccentric hen picks
chaff from wheat—the old slave showed the whites of his eyes.

“Eh—ah!” he exclaimed, with a true African chuckle—“Do Massa
Mikel ax de old nigga, `Miss Alice well?' Lor! Ef you had only see,
yisserday, singin' on dis berry porch, like a robin in a locus' tree!”

Michael did not pause to utter a word, but dashed his hand against the
latch, and crossed the threshhold of home.

At the same moment the old negro leaned his arms upon the banisters
of the porch, bowed his head, and wept aloud.

It was for joy. No doubt. Yes, with the true feeling of one of those
faithful African hearts, which share in every joy and sorrow of the master,
as though it were their own, the negro wept for joy.

Meanwhile, Michael rushed forward, and flung his arms about the old
man's neck.

“Father, I am come home! Home for good—home for life! You
know, some fourteen years ago, I left this place a boy, I came back a man,
a Soldier! A year ago, I left you for my last campaign—it is over—we've
beat the Injins—and now I'm goin' to live and die by your side!”

The old man looked up, and met the joyous glance of those large grey
eyes, surveyed the high, straight forehead, and the muscular form, and then
silently gathered the hands of his boy within his own.

“God bless you, Michael!” he said, in a clear, deep voice, yet with a
strong German accent.

“But what's the matter, father? You don't seem well—ain't you glad
to see me? Look here—I've brought this old sword home as a present for
you. Not very handsome, you'll say, but each of those dents has a story
of its own to tell. You see that deep notch? That was made by the cap
of a Britisher, at Paulus Hook, and this—but God bless me! Father, you
are sick—you—”

The old man turned his eyes away, and pressed with a silent intensity
the hands of his son.

“Sit down Michael, I want to talk with you.”

Michael slid into a huge oaken arm chair; it was placed before the
hearth, and opposite a dark-panelled door, which opened into the next
chamber—the chamber of Alice.

The old man was silent. His head had sunken on his breast: his hands
relaxed their grasp.

Michael gazed upon him with a vague look of surprise, and then his eyes
wandered to the dark-panelled door.

“She is asleep, Father?—Shall I go to the door and call her, or will you?
Ah, the good girl will be so glad to see me!”

Still the old man made no answer.

“Ah! I see how it is—he's not well—glad to see me, to be sure, but old
age creeps on him.” Thus murmuring, Michael sprang to his feet, seized
the light, and advanced to the dark-panelled door. “You see, father, I'll go
myself. It will be such a surprise to her! I'll steal softly to her bed-side,
bend over her pillow—ha! ha! The first news she will have of my return,
will be my kiss upon her lips!”

He placed his fingers on the latch.

The old man raised his head, beheld him, and started to his feet. With
trembling steps, he reached the side of his son.

“My son,” he cried, invoking the awful name of God, “do not enter
that room!”

You can see Michael start, his chivalrous face expanding with surprise,
while the light in his hand falls over the wrinkled features of his father.
Those features wear an expression so utterly sad, woe-begone, horror-stricken,
that Michael recoils as though a death-bullet had pierced his heart. His
hand, as if palsied, shrinks from the latch of the door.

For a moment there was a pause like death. You can hear the crackling
of the slight fire on the hearth—the hard breathing of the old man—but all
beside is terribly still.

“Father, what mean you? I tell you, I can face the bloodiest charge of
bayonets that ever mowed a battlefield of its living men, but this—I know
not what to call it—this silence, this mystery, it chills, yes, it frightens, me!”

Still the old man breathed in hollow tones, marked with a deep guttural
accent, the name of God, and whispered—

“My son, do not enter that room!”

“But it is the room of Alice. She is to be my wife to-morrow—no! she
is my wife, plighted and sworn, at this hour! It is the room of Alice.”

The voice sunk to a whisper, at once deep and pathetic, as he spoke the
last words.

“Come, Michael, sit by me; when I have a little more strength, I will
tell you all.”

The old man motioned with his right hand, toward a seat, but Michael
stood beside the dark-panelled door, his sun-burnt face grown suddenly pale
as a shroud.

At last, with measured footsteps, he approached the door, grasped the
latch, and pushed it open. The light was in his hand. Her room lay open
to his gaze, the chamber of Alice, yet he was afraid to—look.

Do you see him standing on the threshhold, the light extended in one hand,
while the other supports his bowed head, and veils his eyes?

“Father,” he groaned, “her room is before me, but I cannot look—I
stand upon the threshhold, but dare not cross it. Speak”—and he turned
wildly toward the old man—“Speak! I implore ye—tell me the worst!”

The old man stood in the shadows, his hands clasped, his eyes wild and
glassy in their vacant stare, fixed upon the face of his son. No word passed
his lips; the horror painted on his countenance seemed too horrible for
words.

Michael raised his eyes and looked.

It was there—the same as in the olden time—that chamber in which his
mother had once slept—now the Chamber of Alice.

Behold a small room, with the clean oaken floor, covered by a homespun
carpet; two or three high-backed chairs, placed against the white-washed
walls; a solitary window with a deep frame and snowy curtain.

Holding the light above his head, Michael advanced. In the corner,
opposite the door, stood a bed, encircled by hangings of plain white—those
hangings carefully closed, descending in easy folds to the floor.

The fearful truth all at once rushed upon the soldier's soul. She was
dead. Her body enveloped in the shroud, lay within those hangings; he
could see the white hands, frozen into the semblance of marble, folded stiffly
over her pulseless bosom. He could see her face,—so pale and yet so
beautiful, even in death, and the closed eyelids, the lashes darkening softly
over the cheek, the hair so glossy in its raven blackness, descending gently
along the neck, even to the virgin breast.

The curtains of the bed were closed, but he could see it all!

Afraid to look, and by a look confirm his fancy, he turned aside from the
bed, and gazed toward the window. Here his heart was wrung by another
sight. A plain, old-fashioned bureau, covered with a white cloth, and surmounted
by a small mirror oval in form, and framed in dark walnut.

That mirror had reflected her face, only a day past. Beside lay the
Bible and Book of Prayer, each bearing on their covers the name of Alice
—sacred memorials of the Dead Girl.

This man Michael was no puling courtier. A rude heart, an unlettered
soul was his. His embrowned hand had grasped the hand of death a thousand
times. Yet that rude heart was softened by one deep feeling—that
unlettered soul, which had read its lessons of genius in the Book of Battle,
written by an avalanche of swords and bayonets, on the dark cloud of the
battlefield—bowed down and worshipped one emotion. His love for Alice!
Next to his belief in an all-paternal God, he treasured it. Therefore, when
he beheld these memorials of the Dead Girl, he felt his heart contract, expand,
writhe, within him. His iron limbs trembled; he tottered, he fell
forward on his kness, his face resting among the curtains of the bed.

He dashed the curtains aside—holding the light in his quivering hand,
he gazed upon the secret of the bed—the dead body of Alice? No!

The white pillow, unruffled by the pressure of a finger—the white coverlet,
smooth as a bank of drifted snow, lay before him.

Alice was not there.

“Father!” he groaned, starting to his feet, and grasping the old man by
both hands—“She is dead; I know it! Where have you buried her?”

The father turned his eyes from the face of his son, but made no answer.

“At least, give me some token to remember her! The bracelet which
was my mother's—which a year ago, I myself clasped on the wrist of
Alice!”

Then it was that the old man turned, and with a look that never forsook
the soul of his son until his death hour, gasped four brief words:

“Not dead, but—LOST!” he said, and turned his face away.

Michael heard the voice, saw the expression of his father's face, snd felt
the reality of his desolation without another word. He could not speak;
there was a choking sensation in his throat, a coldness like death, about
his heart.

In a moment the old man turned again, and in his native German, poured
forth the story of Alice—her broken vows, and flight, and shame!

“Only this day she fled, and with a stranger!”

The son never asked a question more of his father.

One silent grasp of the old man's hand, and he strode with measured
steps, from the room, from the house. Not once did he look back.

He stood upon the porch—the light of the moon falling upon his face,
with every lineament tightened like a cord of iron—the eyes cold and glassy,
the lips clenched and white.

“Here,” said he to the old negro, who beheld his changed countenance
with horror—“Here is all the gold I have in the world. I earned it by my
sword! Take it—I will never touch a coin that comes from this accursed
soil.”

He passed on, spoke to Old Legion, leaped into the saddle, and was gone.
The negro heard a wild laugh borne shrilly along the breeze. The old
man who, with his white hairs waving in the moonbeams, came out and
stood upon the porch, looked far down the lane, and beheld the white horse
and his rider. The moon shone from among the rolling clouds with a light
almost like day; the old man beheld every outline of that manly form—saw
his cap of fur and steel, and waving cloak, and iron sword in its iron sheath.

Yet never once did he behold the face of his son turned back toward his
childhood's home.

On and on! Never mind the fence, with its high rail and pointed stakes.
Clear it with a bound, Old Legion! On and on! Never mind the road;
the wood is dark, the branches intermingle above our heads, but we will

dash through the darkness, Old Legion. On, on, on! Never heed the
brook that brawls before us; it is a terrible leap, from the rock which arises
here, to the rock which darkens yonder, but we must leap it, Old Legion!
Soh, my brave old boy! Through the wood again; along this hollow, up
the hillside, over the marsh. Now the thunder rolls, and the lightning
flashes out!—hurrah! Many a battle we have fought together, but this is
the bravest and the last!

—And at last, the blood and sweat, mingling on his white flanks, the
gallant old horse stood on the Rock of the Chesepeake, trembling in every
limb.

Michael looked far along the waters, while the storm came crashing down
again, and, by the lightning glare, beheld a white sail, raking masts, and a
dark hull, careering over the waters. Now, like a mighty bird, diving into
the hollows of the watery hills, she was lost to view. And now, still
like a mighty bird, outspreading her wings, she rose again, borne by the
swell of a tremendous wave, as if to the very clouds.

A very beautiful sight it was to see, even by the light of that lurid flash—
this thing, with the long dark hull, the raking masts and the white sail!

She came bounding over the bay; the wind and waves bore her towards
the rock.

In a moment the resolution of Michael was taken. One glance toward
the white sail, one upon the darkened sky, and then he quietly drew his
pistol.

“Come, Old Legion,”—he said, laying his hand upon the mane of the
old horse—“You are the only friend I ever trusted, who did not betray me!”

The first word he had spoken since the old man whispered “Lost,” in
his ears.

“Come, Old Legion, your master is about to leave his native soil forever!
He cannot take you with him. Yonder's the sail that must bear him away
from this accursed spot forever. He cannot take you with him, Old Legion,
but he will do a kind deed for you. No one but Michael ever crossed your
back, nor shall you ever bear another! Your master is about to kill you,
Old Legion!”

Nearer drew the white sail—nearer and nearer!—The sailors on the
deck beheld that strange sight, standing out from the background of the dark
clouds—the rocks, the white horse and the dismounted soldier, with the
pistol in his hand.

They saw the white horse lay his head against his master's breast, they
heard his long and piercing neigh, as though the old steed felt the battle
trump stir his blood once more.

They heard the report of a pistol; saw a human form spring wildly into
the waves; while the white horse, dropping on his fore-legs, with the blood
streaming from his breast, upon the rock, raised his dying head aloft, and
uttered once more that long and piercing howl.

They saw a head rising above the waves—then all was dark night again.
There was hurrying to and fro upon the vessels deck; a rope was thrown;
voices, hoarse with shouting, mingled with the thunder-peal, and at last, as
if by a miracle, the drowning man was saved.

“What would you here?” exclaimed a tall, dark-bearded man, whose
form was clad in a strangely mingled costume of sailor and bandit—“What
would you here?”

As he spoke, he confronted the form of Michael, dripping from head to
foot with spray. The lightning illumined both forms, and showed the
sailors who looked on, two men, worthy to combat with each other.

“Come you as a friend or foe?” the hand of the dark-bearded man sought
his dirk as he spoke.

The lightning glare showed Michael's face; its every lineament colored
in crimson light. There was no quailing in his bold grey eye, no fear upon
his broad, straight forehead.

Even amid the storm, an involuntary murmur of admiration escaped the
sailors.

“As a friend,”—his voice, deep and hollow, was heard above the war
of the storm. “Only bear me from yonder accursed shore!”

“But sometimes, when out upon the sea, we hoist the Black Flag, with
a Skull and Crossbones prettily painted on its folds. What say you now?
Friend or Foe? Comrade or Spy?”

“I care not how dark your flag, nor how bloody the murder which ye
do upon the sea—all I ask is this: Bear me from yonder shore, and I am
your friend to the death!”

And swelling with a sense of his unutterable wrongs, this bravest of the
brave, even Michael of Lee's gallant Legion, extended his hand and grasped
the blood-stained fingers of the Pirate Chief.

Then, the wild hurrah of the pirate-band mingled with the roar of the
thunder, and, as the vessel went quivering over the waters, the red glare of
the lightning revealed the dark-bearded face of the Pirate Chief, the writhing
countenance of the doomed soldier.

Their hands were clasped. It was a Covenant of Blood.

That night, while the Pirate-Ship went bounding over the bay, Michael
flung himself upon the deck, near the door of the Captain's cabin, and slept.
As he slept a dream came over his soul.

Not a dream of the girl who had pressed her kiss upon his lip, and then
betrayed him, not a vision of Lost Alice. No! Nor of the grey-haired
father, who stood on the porch, gazing after the form of his son, with his
white hair floating in the moonbeams.

Nor ever of that gallant horse, that white-maned old Legion, `the only
friend he had trusted, that never betrayed him!' No!

But of a battle! Not only of one battle, but a succession of battles, that
seemed to whirl their awful storm of cannon and bayonet and sword, not
merely over one country, but over a world. The heaps of dead men that
Michael saw in his sleep, made the blood curdle in his veins. It seemed
as though the People of a World had died, and lay rotting unburied in the
gorges of mountains, on the gentle slopes of far-extending plains; in the
streets of cities, too, they lay packed in horrible compactness, side by side,
like pebbles on the shore.

Many strange things Michael saw in this, his strange dream; but amid
all, he beheld one face, whose broad, expansive brow, and deep, burning
eyes, seemed to woo his soul. That face was everywhere. Sometimes
amid the grey clouds of battle, smiling calmly, while ten thousand living
men were mowed away by one battle blast. Sometimes by the glare of
burning cities, this face was seen: its calm sublimity of expression,—that
beautiful forehead, in which a soul, greater than earth, seemed to make its
home, those dark eyes which gleamed a supernatural fire—all shone in
terrible contrast, with the confusion and havoc that encircled it.

That face was everywhere.

And it seemed to Michael as he slept, that it came very near him, and as
these scenes passed rapidly before his eyes, that the face whispered three
words.

These words Michael never forgot; strange words they were, and these
are the scenes which accompanied them.

The first word:—A strange city where domes and towers were invested
with a splendor at once Barbaric and Oriental, with flames whirling about
these domes and towers, while the legions of an invading Host shrank back
from the burning town by tens of thousands, into graves of ice and snow.
The face was there looking upon the mass of fire—the soldiers dying in
piles, with a horrible resignation.

The second word:—He saw—but it would require the eloquence of some
Fiend who delights to picture Murder, and laugh while he fills his horrible
canvass with the records of infernal deeds,—yes, it calls for the eloquence
of a fiend to delineate this scene. We cannot do it. We can only say that
Michael saw some peaceful hills and valleys crowded as if by millions of
men. There was no counting the instruments of murder which were gathered
there; cannon, bayonets, swords, horses, men, all mingled together,
and all doing their destined work—Murder. To Michael it seemed as if
these cannons, swords, bayonets, horses, men, murdered all day, and did not
halt in their bloody communion, even when the night came on.

The Face was there!

Yes, it seemed to Michael, in this his strange dream, that the Face was
the cause of it all. For the Kings of the Earth, having (or claiming) a
Divine Commission to Murder, each one on his own account, hated fervently
this Face. Hated zealously its broad forehead and earnest eyes.

Hated it so much, that they assembled a World to cut it into pieces, and
hack its memory from the hearts of men.

Michael in his dream saw this face grow black, and sink beneath an
ocean of blood. It rose no more!

Yes, it rose again! When?

The third word was spoken, it rose again. Michael saw this face—
with its awful majesty and unutterable beauty—chained to a rock, yet
smiling all the while. Smiling, though all manner of unclean beasts and
birds were about it—here a vulture slowly picking those dark eyes;—there
a jackal with its polluted paw upon that forehead, so sublime even in this
sad hour.

And it seemed to Michael that amid all the scenes, which he had beheld
in this his terrible dream, that the last—that glorious face, smiling even
while it was chained to a rock, tortured by jackals and vultures, was most
terrible.

With a start, Michael awoke.

The first gleams of day were in the Eastern sky and over the waters.
His strange, fearful dream was yet upon his soul; those three words seemed
ringing forever in his ears.

As he arose, something bright glittered on the deck at his feet. He
stooped and gathered it in his grasp. It was his—mother's bracelet. An
antique thing; some links of gold and a medallion, set with a fragment of
glossy dark hair.

How came it there? upon the Pirate Ship, out on the waves?

Michael pressed it to his lips, and stood absorbed in deep thought.

While thus occupied, the muttered conversation of two sailors, who stood
near him, came indistinctly to his ears. Far be it from me to repeat the
horrid blasphemies, the hideous obscenities of these men, whom long days
and nights of crime, had embruted into savage beasts. Let me at once tell
you that a name which they uttered, coupled with many an oath and jest,
struck like a knell on Michael's ear. Another word—he listens—turns and
gazes on the cabin door.

These words may well turn to ice the blood in his veins.

For as they blaspheme and jest, a laugh—wild, yet musical, comes echoing
through the cabin door.

As Michael hears that laugh, he disappears in the darkness of the companion-way,
holding the bracelet in his hand.

An hour passed—day was abroad upon the waters—but Michael appeared
on deck no more.

In his stead, from the companion-way, there came a stout, muscular
man, clad in the coarsest sailor attire, his face stained with ochre, a close-fitting

skull-cap drawn over his forehead, even to the eyebrows. A rude
Pirate, this, somewhat manly in the expansion of his chest, no doubt, but
who, in the uncouth shape, before us, would recognize the Hero of the
Legion, the bravest of the brave?

He was leaning over the side of the ship, gazing into the deep waves,
when the door of the Pirate Captain's cabin was opened, and the Captain
appeared. You can see his muscular form, clad in a dress of green, laced
with gold, plumes waving aside from his swarthy brow, his limbs, encased
in boots of soft doe-skin. Altogether, an elegant murderer; an exquisite
Pirate, from head to foot.

The rude sailor—or Michael, as you please to call him—leaning over the
side of the ship, heard the Pirate Captain approach, heard the light footstep,
which mingled its echoes with the sound of his heavy tread. Light footstep?
Yes, for a beautiful woman hung on the Pirate's arm, her form,
clad in the garb of an Eastern Sultana, her darkly-flowing hair relieved by
the gleam of pearls.

As she came along the deck, she looked up tenderly into his face, and
her light laugh ran merrily on the air.

Michael turned, beheld her, and survived the horror of that look! She
knew him not; the soldier and hero was lost in his uncouth disguise.

It was—Alice.

Let us now hurry on, over many days of blood and battle, and behold
the Pirate Ship sunk in the ocean, its masts and shrouds devoured by flames,
while the water engulfed its hull.

Three persons alone survived that wreck. You see them, yonder, by
the light of the morning sun, borne by a miserable raft over the gently
swelling waters.

Three persons, who have lived for days or nights without bread or water.
Let us look upon them, and behold in its various shapes the horrors of
famine.

In that wretched form, laid on his back, his hollow cheeks reddened by
the sunbeams, his parched eye-balls upturned to the sky, who would recognize
the gallant—Pirate Chief?

By his side crouches a half-clad female form, beautiful even amid horrors
worse than death, although her eyes are fired with unnatural light, her
cheek flushed with the unhealthy redness of fever, her lips burning in their
vivid crimson hues. Starvation is gnawing at her vitals, and yet she is
beautiful; look—how wavingly her dark hair floats over her snowy shoulders!
Is this—Alice?

The third figure, a rude sailor, his face stained with dark red hues, a
skull-cap drawn down to his eyebrows. Brave Michael, of Lee's Legion.

He sits with his elbows resting on his knees, his cheeks supported by his
hands, while his eyes are turned to the uprising sun.

A groan quivers along the still air. It is the last howl of the Pirate
Chief; with that sound—half-blasphemy, half-prayer—he dies.

His bride—so beautiful, even yet amid famine and despair—covers his
lips with kisses, and at last, grasping the sailor by the arm, begs him to
save the life of her—husband!

The sailor turns, tears the cap from his brow; the paint has already
gone from his face.

Alice and Michael confront each other, alone on that miserable raft, a
thousand miles from shore.

Who would dare to paint the agony of her look, the horror of the shrick
which rent her bosom?

Only once she looked upon him—then sunk stiffened and appalled beside
her pirate husband. But a calm smile illumined Michael's face; he towered
erect upon the quivering raft, and drew some bread and a flagon of water
—precious as gold—from the pocket of his coarse sailor jacket.

“For you,” he said, in that low-toned voice with which he had plighted
his eternal troth to her—“For you I have left my native land. For you I
have left my father, alone and desolate in his old age. For you—not by
any means the least of all my sufferings—I have killed the good old war-horse,
the only friend whom I ever trusted, that did not betrary me. For
you, Alice, I am an outcast, wanderer, exile! Behold my revenge! You
are starving—I feed you—give you meat and drink. Yes, I, Michael, your
plighted husband—bid you live!”

He placed the bread and water in her grasp, and then turned with folded
arms to gaze upon the rising sun. Do you see that muscular form, towering
from the raft—his high, straight forehead, glowing in the light of the
dawning day?

He turned again: there was a dead man at his feet; a dead woman
before his eyes.

There may have been agony at his heart, but his face was unsoftened by
emotion. With his lineaments moulded in iron rigidity, he resumed his
gaze toward the rising sun.

At last, a sail came gleaming into view—then the hull of a man-of-war—
and then, bright and beautiful upon the morning air, fluttered the glorious
emblem of Hope and Promise—the tri-colored Flag of France.

Years passed, glorious years, which beheld a World in motion for its
rights and freedom.

There came a day, when the sun beheld a sight like this:—A man of
noble presence, whose forehead, broad, and high and straight, shone with

the chivalry of a great soul, stood erect, in the presence of his executioners.

Those executioners, his own soldiers, who shed tears as they levelled
their pieces at his heart.

This man of noble presence was guilty of three crimes, for which the
crowned robbers of Europe could never forgive him.

He had risen from the humblest of the people, and became a General, a
Marshal, a Duke.

He was the friend of a great and good man.

In the hour of this great and good man's trial, when all the crowned
robbers, the anointed assassins of Europe, conspired to crush him, this
General, Marshal and Duke refused to desert the great and good man.

For this he was to be shot—shot by his own soldiers, who could not
restrain their tears as they gazed in his face.

Let us also go there, gaze upon him, mark each outline of his face and
form, just at the moment when the musquets are levelled at his heart, and
answer the question—Does not this General, Marshal, Duke, now standing
in presence of his Death's-men, strangely resemble that Michael whom
we have seen on the banks of the Chesapeake—the Hero of Lee's Legion
—Bravest of the Brave?

Ere the question can be answered, the Hero waves his hand. Looking
his soldiers fixedly in the face, he exclaims in that voice which they have
so often heard in the thickest of the fight—

“At my heart, comrades!”

As he falls, bathed in blood, the victim of a “Holy Assassination,” let
us learn what words were those which brave Michael, long years ago,
heard whispered in his dream, what face was that, which, with its sublime
forehead and earnest eyes, spoke these words? Let us also learn who
was this soldier Michael, of Lee's Legion?

The words? The first, Moscow—the second, Waterloo—the third,
St. Helena.

This soldier of Lee's Legion, the bravest of the brave?

MICHAEL NEY.[1]

II.—THE NINTH HOUR.

The time was 1778—the place, an old-time mansion, among the hills of
Valley Forge.

Yonder, in a comfortable chamber, seated before a table, overspread with
papers, you behold a gentleman of some fifty-six years, attired in black
velvet, with an elegant dress sword by his side, snow-white ruffles on his
wrists and breast. By the glow of the fire, which crackles on the spacious
hearth, you can discern the face of this gentleman, the wide and massive
brow, the marked features, and the clear, deep grey eyes. As he sits erect
in the cushioned arm-chair, you can at a glance perceive that he is a man
of almost giant stature, with muscular limbs and iron chest.

And snow drifts in white masses on yonder hills, which you behold
through the deep silled windows; and the wind, moaning as with a nation's
dirge, howls dismally through the deep ravines.

Still the gentleman, with the calm face and deep grey eyes, sits in silence
there, his features glowing in the light of the hearth-side flame, while a
pleasant smile trembles on his compressed lips.

Altogether, he is a singular man. His appearance impresses us with a
strange awe. We dare not approach him but with uncovered heads. The
papers which overspread the table, impress us with a vague curiosity.
There you behold a letter directed to General the Marquis de La Fayette;
another bears the name of General Anthony Wayne; a third General Benedict
Arnold; and that large pacquet, with the massive seal, is inscribed with
the words—To His Excellency, John Hancock, President of the Continental
Congress.

This gentleman, sitting alone in the old-fashioned chamber, his form clad
in black velvet, his face glowing in mild light, must be, then, a person of
some consideration, perchance a warrior of high renown?

As you look in mingled wonder and reverence upon his commanding
face, the sound of a heavy footstep is heard, and a grim old soldier, clad in
the hunting shirt of the Revolution, appears in yonder doorway, and approaches
the gentleman in black velvet.

He lifts the rude cap with bucktail plume from his sunburnt brow, and
accomplishes a rough salute. Then, he speaks in a voice which may have
been rendered hoarse by much shouting in battle, or sleeping dark winter
nights on the uncovered ground.

“General, I heer'd you wanted to speak to me, and I am here.”

The gentleman in black velvet, raised his clear grey eyes, and a slight
smile disturbed the serenity of his face.

“Ah, Sergeant Caleb, I am glad to see you. I want your aid in an undertaking
of great importance.”

“Say the word, and Caleb's your man!”

“Nine miles from the mansion, at four o'clock this afternoon, the `Loyal
Rangers of Valley Forge,' hold their meeting. Their captain, a desperate
man, has prepared a number of important papers for Sir William Howe.
In these papers are recorded the names of all persons within ten miles, who
are friendly to the British cause, or who are willing to supply Sir William
with provisions, together with a minute description of the affairs and prospects
of the Continental army. At four this afternoon, these papers will be
delivered to an officer of the British army, who is expected from Philadelphia
in the disguise of a farmer. That officer is now a prisoner near our
headquarters on the Schuylkill, some six miles from this place. You—understand
me, Sergeant Caleb—you will assume this disguise, hurry to the
Tory rendezvous, and receive the papers from the hands of the Captain.”

As the gentleman spoke, the countenance of the old soldier assumed an
expression of deep chagrin. The corners of his mouth were distorted in
an expression of comical dismay, while his large blue eyes expanding in
his sunburnt face, glared with unmistakable horror.

He had been with Arnold at Quebec, with Washington at Brandywine,
this hardy Sergeant Caleb—but to go to the Tory rendezvous in disguise,
was to act the part of a Spy, and the robber-captain of the Tories would
put him to death, on the first rope and nearest tree, as a—Spy!

Therefore the old Sergeant, who had played with death as with a boon
companion, when he came in the shape of a sharp bayonet, or a dull cannon
ball, feared him when he appeared in the guise of a—Gibbet!

“You are not afraid?” said the gentleman. “That will be news indeed,
for the soldiers! Sergeant Caleb Ringdale afraid!”

The old Sergeant quivered from head to foot, as he laid his muscular
hand upon the table, and exclaimed in a voice broken by an emotion not
any the less sincere because it was rude:

“Afeer'd? Now Gineral Washington, it isn't kind to say that o' me!
I'm not afeer'd of anythin' in the shape of a white or black human bein',

but this tory Cap'in Runnels, is a reg'lar fiend, and that's a fact nobody
can deny!”

“Do you fear him?”

“Not a peg! For all he's the bloodiest villain that ever murdered a
man in the name of King George—for all he hides himself in the darkest
hollow, in the meanest, old, out-of-the-way farm-house, I don't fear, no
more than I feer'd them ten Britishers that fell on me at Paoli! But do
you see, Gineral, I don't like the idea of goin' as a spy! That's what
cuts an old feller's feelin's! Say the word, and I'll go, just as I am, in my
own proper uniform—not very handsome, yet still the rale Continental—
an' tell the Britishers to crack away, and be hanged!”

And in the honest excitement of the moment, the old Sergeant brought
his closed hand to bear upon the table, until the papers shook again.

Washington rested his cheek upon his hand, while his face was darkened
by an expression of anxious thought.

“You do not wish to go as a spy, and yet there are no other means of
securing these papers.”

You can see the old soldier stand confused and puzzled there, wiping the
perspiration from his brow with his bony hand, while Washington turning
his chair, folds his arms, and gazes steadily into the fire.

“Is there no man who will undertake this desperate office in my name?
in the name of the cause for which we fight?”

And as the words passed his lips, a soft voice—almost as soft and
musical as a woman's—uttered this reply, which thrilled the General to
the heart:

“There is. I will undertake it, General.”

Washington started from his chair.

“You!” he exclaimed, surveying the intruder from head to foot.

It must be confessed, that the expression of wonder which passed over
the face of the American General, was not without a substantial cause.

There in the glow of the fire, stood a young man, graceful and slender,
almost to womanly beauty, and clad not in the dress of a soldier, but in the
costume of a gentleman of fashion, a coat of dark rich purple velvet, satin
vest, disclosing the proportions of a broad chest and wasp-like waist, diamond
buckles on the shoes, and cambric ruffles around each delicate hand.

“You!” exclaimed Washington, “surely Ensign Murray, you are
dreaming!”

The face of the young man was somewhat peculiar. The skin very pale
and delicate as a woman's. The hair, long and dark brown in color, waving
in rich masses to the shoulders. The eyes, deep and clear—almost
black, and yet with a shade of blue—shone with an expression which you
could not define, and yet it was at once calm, wild and dazzling. Indeed,
gazing on those eyes, or rather into their clear lustre, you could not divest
yourself of the idea that they reflected the light of a strong intellect, at the

same time, an intellect shaken and warped by some peculiar train of
thought.

“Yes, General,” was the answer of Ensign Murray; “at four o'clock,
in the disguise of a British officer, I will enter the den of the Tories and
receive those papers!”

Washington took the young man by the hand, and without a word led
him across the room.

“Look there!” he whispered.

“They stood beside a glass door, which opened the view into the next
apartment, the drawing-room of the mansion.

As Ensign Murray looked, his pale yet handsome face was darkened by
an expression of indefinable agony.

There, beside the fire of the next chamber was seated a young girl,
whose hair descended in curling masses along her cheek, until they touched
her neck. A green habit fitting closely to her form, revealed its warm and
blooming proportions. She sat there alone, bending over an embroidery
frame, her dark eyes gleaming with light, as tranquil as the beam of the
evening star, upon the unruffled depths of a mountain lake.

And as her white fingers moved briskly over the flowers, which grew into
life at her touch, she sang a low and murmuring song.

“Look there!” whispered Washington, “and behold your bride! To-night
your wedding will take place. This very morning I left Valley
Forge, in order to behold your union with this beautiful and virtuous
woman. And yet you talk of going in disguise into the den of robbers,
who hesitate at no deed of cruelty or murder, and this on your bridal-eve!”

There was a strange expression on the young man's face—a sudden contortion
of those pale, handsome features—but in a moment all was calm
again.

“General, I will go,” he said, “and return before sunset!”

He stood before the Man of the Army, his slender form swelling as with
the impulse of a heroic resolve.

“George,” said Washington, in a tone of kind familiarity; “you must
not think of this! When your father died in my arms at Trenton, I
promised that I would, to the last breath of life, be a father to his boy. I
will not, cannot, send you on this fearful enterprise!”

“Look you!” cried the old Sergeant, advancing—“I don't like this office
of a Spy—but sooner than the young Ensign here should peril his life
at such an hour, I'll go myself! Jist set me down for that thing, will you?”

“General!” said the Ensign, laying his white hand on the muscular arm
of Washington, and speaking in a deep, deliberate voice, that was strongly
contrasted with his effeminate appearance and slender frame—“did I behave
badly at Brandywine?”

“Never a braver soldier drew sword, than you proved yourself on that

terrible day! Twice with my own arm I had to restrain you from rushing
on to certain death!”

“At Germantown?”

“I can speak for him there, Gineral! You'd ought to seen him rushing
up to Chew's house, into the very muzzles of the British! He made
many an old soldier feel foolish, I tell you!”

“You were the last in the retreat, George, the last and the bravest!”

“Then can you refuse me this one request? Let me go—secure those
papers—and come back crowned with laurels, to wed my bride!”

He spoke in a clear deliberate tone, and yet there was a strange fire in
his eye.

Washington hesitated; his gaze surveyed the young man's face, and then
turning away he wrung him by the hand:

“On those papers, perchance, the safety of our army depends. Go or
stay as you please. I do not command nor forbid!”

With that word he resumed his seat, and bowed his head in the effort to
peruse the documents which were scattered over the table. He bowed his
head very low, and yet there were tears in his eyes—tears in those eyes
which had never quailed in the hour of battle, tears in the eyes of Washington!

The young man turned aside into a dark corner of the room, and covered
his Wedding-Dress with a coarse grey over-coat, that reached from his chin
to his knees. Then he drew on long and coarse boots, over his shoes
gemmed with diamond buckles. A broad-rimmed hat upon his curling
locks, and he stood ready for the work of danger.

“General,” he said, in that soft musical voice—“is there a watch-word
which admits—ha, ha!—the British officer into the Tory farm-house?”

“Death to Washington!” and a sad smile gleamed over the General's
face.

“The name of the British officer whose character I am to assume?”

“`Captain Algernon Edam, of His Majesty's Infantry!'—He is now
under guard, near headquarters, at Valley Forge.”

“Hah!” gasped Ensign Murray. “Captain Edam!”

“You know him, then?”

“I have known Captain Edam,” answered George Murray, with that
strange smile which invested his face with an expression that was almost
supernatural.

“These papers will give you all requisite information. The farm-house
is three miles distant from this place, and nine miles from Valley Forge.”

“Nine!” ejaculated the Ensign, with a sudden start. “Ah!” he muttered
in a whisper that would have penetrated your blood—“Must that horrible
number always pursue me? Nine years, nine days! These must
pass, and then I will wed my bride—but such a bride!”

Washington heard him murmur, but could not distinguish the words, yet

he saw that pale face flushing with unnatural crimson, while the deep blue
eye glared with wild light.

“Again let me entreat you to give up your purpose. Your danger is
enough to appal the stoutest heart! Not only death you dare, but death on
the—gibbet!”

In the earnestness of his feelings, Washington would have seized him by
the arm, but the Ensign retreated from his grasp, and left the room with
his exclamation:

“Farewell, General! Do not fear for me! Believe me, I will before
the setting of yonder sun, attain the object which I so earnestly desire!”

In the hall a new trial awaited the young soldier. He was confronted
by a jovial old man, with a corpulent frame, round face and snow-white
hair. It was Squire Musgrave, a fine specimen of the old fashioned gentleman
and—the father of his bride.

“Hah, you young dog! What trick is this?” said the old Squire, with
a jovial chuckle; “you skulked away from the table just now, proving
yourself a most disloyal traitor to old Madeira! And now I find you in
this disguise! Eh, Georgie! What's in the wind?”

“Hush! Not a word to 'Bel!” exclaimed the Ensign, with a smile on
his lips, and a look of affected mystery in his eyes. “Not a word, or
you'll spoil a capital jest!

Thus speaking, he flung himself from the old man, and stood upon the
porch of the mansion. The beautiful country lay there before him, not
lovely as in summer, with green leaves, perfume and flowers, but covered
far up each hill, and down into the shades of each valley, with a mantle of
frozen snow. The trees, their bared limbs upstarting into the deep blue
sky, were glittering with leaves and fruits, sculptured from the ice by the
finger of Winter.

And the rich warm glow of the declining sun was upon it all—the old
mansion, with its dark grey stone and antique porch, the far-extending hills
and winding dales of Valley Forge.

The Ensign stood upon the verge of the porch; he was about to depart
upon his enterprise of untold danger, when—

A soft warm hand was laid upon his shoulder; another was placed across
his eyes, and a light laugh thrilled him to the heart.

“Oh, you look like the ogre of some goblin story!” said a voice which
almost made him relent the stern purpose of that hour—“If you would only
look in the glass and see yourself! Ha, ha, ha!”

And as the soft hand was lifted from his eyes, George beheld the beautiful
form and beaming face of his—bride.

“Softly, Isabel! Not a word!” he whispered laughingly, “Or you will
spoil one of the finest jests ever planned!”

He pressed his kiss upon her warm ripe lips.

“The Last!” he murmured, as that pressure of soul to soul through the
mingling lips, fired every vein.

He darted from the porch, and hurried on his way. Far over the frozen
snow he toiled along, and only once looked back.

With that look of fearful anxiety he beheld his bride, standing on the
porch, her long hair floating from her face, while her merry laugh came
ringing to his ears.

Did you ever in a nightmare dream, chance to behold a dark old mansion,
standing utterly alone in the shadows of a dell, encircled by steep
hills, rough with rocks, and sombre with thickly clustered trees? In this
dell noonday is twilight, and twilight is midnight, so darkly frown the
granite rocks, so lowering rise the forest trees.

But this is in the summer time, when there are leaves upon the trees, and
vines among the rocks. In the summer time when the little brook yonder,
winding before the mansion, sings a rippling song in praise of the flowers,
and moss, and birds.

Now it is winter. Yonder, through the tall and leafless oaks, glares the
red flush of the sunset sky. Every tree with its rugged limbs, and stripped
branches, stands up against the western horizon, like a tree of ebony,
painted on a sky of crimson and gold. Winter now! The rocks, the
hill-side, the very ice which covers the brook, is white with a mantle of
snow, that gleams and blushes in the sunset glare.

Still the old mansion rises in sullen gloom, its dark walls tottering as
though about to fall, its shutters closed, its doorway crumbling into fragments.
And like a white veil flung over some ruffian bandit's brow, the steep roof,
covered with wreaths of snow, gleams above the dark grey walls.

Is this old mansion tenanted by anything that wears the shape of man?
As we look, the leaning chimney sends up its column of blue smoke to the
evening sky. Still for all that emblem of fireside comfort, the farm-house
looks like a den for murderers.

Look closely on its shutters and wide door, and you will perceive certain
port-holes, made for the musquet and rifle.

There are footsteps printed on the frozen snow, and yet you hear no
voices, you behold no form of man or beast.

At this hour, when the solemn flush of a winter sunset is upon the
mantle of snow, there comes slowly toiling over the frozen crust, the figure
of a young man clad in a coarse overcoat, with a broad-rimmed hat upon
his brow. That coat gathers around his slender form in heavy folds, and
yet it cannot hide the heavings of his chest. The hat droops low over his
face, and yet cannot conceal the wild glance of those deep blue eyes.

Urging his way along the frozen snow,—the shadow of his form thrown
far and black behind him—he stands before the battered door of the farm-house,
he lifts the iron knocker, and a sound like a knell breaks on the
still air.

The young man listens eagerly, but no answer greets his summons.

Then turning his face to the evening sky, he stands erect upon the granite
stone before the door, and in a clear voice repeats the words—

“Death to Washington!”

There is the sound of an unclosing door, the young man is seized by unknown
hands, and borne along a dark passage into a large and gloomy
place.

It may be a room, it may be a cavern, but all that greets his sight is a
large fire, burning on a wide hearth, and flashing a lurid glare over some
twenty ruffian faces.

A dark, a hideous picture!

A single form distinguished from the others by its height, but wearing the
pistols and knife, common to all, advances and confronts the stranger. The
young man, in that lowering face marked by the traces of many a crime,
recognizes “Black Runnels,” the Tory Chief.

“Whence came you?”

As he speaks, a strange sound mingles with his words—the clicking of
pistols, the clang of knives.

“From the headquarters of General Sir William Howe!” the young
man answered, in a clear deliberate voice.

“Your object here?”

“The possession of certain papers prepared by Captain Runnels, for Sir
William Howe.”

“Your name?”

“Algernon Edam, Captain in his Majesty's infantry!” replied the young
man, in the same collected manner.

There was a murmur, a confused sound as of many voices whispering in
chorus, and in a moment the blaze of a large lamp filled that spacious room
with light.

“Now look ye, Captain,” said the Tory leader, earnestly regarding the
disguised American, “we don't doubt as how you are the rale Captain
Edam, but we Loyal Rangers have a way of our own. We never trusts an
individooal afore we tries his spunk. If you are a true Briton, you wont
object to the trial. If so be you chances to prove a Rebel, why, we'll soon
find it out.”

The answer of the young man was short and to the point:

“Name your trial, and I am ready!”

“Do you see that keg o' powder thar? We'll attach a slow match to it
—a match that'll take three minutes to burn out! You will sit on that
keg!—Afore the three minutes is out, we'll return to the house, and see
how you stand the trial! If there's a drop of sweat on your forehead, or
any sign of paleness on your cheek, we will conclude that you are a rebel,
and deserve to die!”

The Tories gathered round, gazing in the young man's face with looks
of deep interest.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed the object of their interest, “what need of this
nonsense? I am a British officer—but—what need of words, I am ready,
and will stand the trial.”

Thus speaking, he saw the match applied to the keg, he saw it lighted,
and took his seat. With a confused murmur, the Tories left the room.

“Look ye,” cried the last of their band, who stood in the doorway—it
was the Captain—“we will conceal ourselves, where the blowing up of the
house can do us no injury—that is, in case the worthless old den should
happen to blow up. In two minutes we'll return. Take care o' yourself,
Captain!”

The young man was alone—alone in that large old room, the light of the
lamp falling over his brow, the keg beneath him, the match slowly burning
near his feet.

Why does he not extinguish the match, and at once put an end to this
fearful danger? Why does he sit there, fixed as a statue, his pale face
wearing its usual calm expression, his deep blue eyes gleaming with their
peculiar light?

Not a motion—not a movement of the hand which holds his watch—not
a tremor of the face!

What are the thoughts of this young man, whom another minute may
precipitate into eternity by a horrible death?

Does he think of the young bride, who even now awaits his coming?

Two minutes have expired. The Tories do not return. Slowly, surely
burns the match—as calm, as fixed as marble, the young man awaits
his fate.

The half-minute is gone, and yet no sign of the bravoes.

At last—O! do not let your eyes wander from his pale, beautiful face, in
this, the moment of his dread extremity—the match emits a sudden flame,
sparkles, crackles, and burns out!

“Nine years, nine days! At last, thank God, it is over!”

These were his last words, before the powder exploded. He folded his
arms, closed his eyes, and gave his sould to God.

Did that lonely house ascend to heaven, a pyramid of blackening fragments,
and smoke and flame, with the corse of the young man torn into
atoms by the explosion?

For a moment he awaited his fate—all was silent. Then came the
sound of trampling footsteps; the young man unclosed his eyes, and beheld
the faces of the Tory band.

“Game, I vow, game to the last!” cried the Tory leader, Runnels—
“Do ye know we watched ye all the while, from a crack in yonder door?
It was only a trial you know, but a trial that would have made many an
older man than you shiver, turn pale, and cry like a babe!—There's no

powder in the keg—ha, ha! How'd ye feel when the match burnt
out?”

“Give me the papers,” asked the brave young man. “Let me hasten
on my way!”

“O, I don't object to giving you the papers,” cried the Tory. “But,
afore I do, I like to ask your opinion of this gentleman?”

As he spoke, the Tories parted into two divisions; in their centre appeared
a man of some thirty years, his tall and muscular form clad in crimson,
his florid face with powdered hair and light blue eye, ruffled by a
sneering smile.

“Captain Edam!” exclaimed the disguised American, completely taken
by surprise—“I thought you were a prisoner, nine miles away at Valley
Forge?”

“Yes, Captain Edam, at your service!” replied the British officer with
a polite bow.

As he spoke, a burst of hoarse laughter made the old room echo again.

“It was well planned, my dear Ensign, but it won't do!” exclaimed the
Briton;—“I was a prisoner, but—escaped! You were a British officer, a
moment ago, but now, you are—a Spy. I presume it is needless to tell
you the fate of a Spy.”

It was strange to see the calm smile which broke from the young Ensign's
lips and eyes.

“Death!” he replied, in his low musical voice.

“Death—aye, death by the rope!” shouted the Tory Captain;—“I
say, Watkins, rig a rope to that beam! We'll show you how to play
tricks on Loyal Rangers.”

The rope was attached to the beam—the noose arranged; the Tories
filled with indignation, clustered round—still the young man stood calm and
smiling there.

“Ensign, you have ten minutes to live,” said the handsome British
officer. “Make your peace. You have been taken as a spy, and—ha,
ha! must be punished as a spy!”

“Thank God!” said the young man in a whisper, not meant to be
audible, yet they heard it, every Tory in the room.

“It seems to me, young man, you're thankful for very small favors!”
cried the Tory leader, with a brutal laugh.

The gallant Captain Edam made a sign—the Tories trooped through the
door-way.

George Murray was alone with Algernon Edam.

George Murray was pale—but not paler than usual—his blue eyes
glaring with deep light, his lip a lip of iron. Algernon Edam was tall and
magnificent in his healthy and robust manhood. There was ill-suppressed
laughter in his light blue eyes.

“Do you remember the days of our childhood, George, when we played

together on the hills of Valley Forge? Little did we think that a scene
like this would ever come to pass! Here I stand, the rejected lover—ha,
ha! the British officer! And there stands the betrothed husband, the
Rebel Spy! Ha, ha, ha!”

These were bitter taunts to pass between a living and a dying man! Yet
there was something in the words and look of Captain Edam that revealed
the cause of all his ill-timed mirth—he was a rejected lover. His successful
rival stood before him.

No word passed the lips of George, He regarded the elegant Captain
with a calm smile, and coolly asked, as though inquiring the dinner hour—
“How many minutes before I am to be hung?”

“You carry it bravely!” laughed the Briton; “but think of Isabel!”

The only answer which escaped the lips of George, was a solitary
syllable:

“Al!” he said, and turned his smiling face upon the face of his enemy.

That syllable made the Briton tremble from head to foot. It spoke to
himof the happy days of old—of the green hills and pleasant dells of Valley
Forge,—of two boys who were sworn friends—of George and Algernon. It
also spoke of a laughing girl, who was the cousin of Algernon, the beloved
of George—Isabel!

For that name was the familiar diminutive which George had often whispered
in the ears of his boy-friend, flinging his arms about his neck, and
twining his hands in his golden hair.

“Al, don't you remember the day, nine years and nine days ago, when
in the presence of Isabel, you rescued me from a terrible danger?”

The words, the tone, the look, melted the heart of the undaunted Briton.
There is a magic in the memory of childhood, irresistible as a voice from
the lips of Death.

“I do, George, I do!” he cried, “and now, I am to be your—executioner!”

“To-night, is my wedding night, my friend—”

“But I cannot save you!” gasped Edam; his voice now deepened with
the accent of irresistible agony—“we are surrounded—all hope is vain.”

“I do not want to be saved,” said George, still preserving his quiet
manner; “let me be put to death as suddenly and with as little pain as
possible. But I have one request. When I am dead and you are safe in
Philadelphia, write to Washington, and tell him, that I died like a man.
Write to—Isabel—and tell her—'

—A large tear rolled down the Ensign's cheek. The Captain struggled
to a seat. There was something unnaturally frightful in the calmness of
the doomed man.

“Tell her, that—pure and beautiful as she is—George Murray could
never have made her life a life of peace and joy. Tell her that the last
words which he spoke were these—`Algernon Edam is noble in heart,

although he has espoused the British cause. Wed him, Isabel, for he loves
you—wed him, and my blessing be upon you!”'

The Captain,—to hide the agony of his feelings, uttered a horrible oath.

“Why cannot I aid you to escape?” he cried, wildly pacing the room.

“You can aid me to escape!” slowly uttered the doomed man.

“How? Name the method! Quick—for I am yours—yours to the
death!”

“You can aid me to escape from this horrible dream of life!” exclaimed
Murray, lifting his brown hair with his delicate hand—“this dream which
torments me, which sits upon my soul like a nightmare, which makes me
shudder at the idea of a union with Isabel! O, you may think me strange,
mad!—but talk as you will, my friend, I feel happier than I have felt for
years!”

While Edam stood horrified by his words, he removed the overcoat and
hat, and stood revealed in his wedding-dress.

“I thought that Brandywine would awaken me from this dream—O, how
hard it is to pursue a grave, and feel it glide from your footsteps! It was
a bloody battle, but I lived! Then, in the darkest hour of Germantown, I
saw my death in the mists before me, and leaped to grasp it, but in vain!
Still I lived! The day of my marriage wore on, and there was no resource
but suicide, until Washington informed me of this enterprise. Ah, my dear
friend, give me your hand; I feel very calm, aye, happy!”

The Briton, or rather the British officer, (for by birth he was an American,)
instantly seized the slender hand, wrung it, and swore by his Maker
that he should not die!

An expression, as strange as it was sudden, darkened the pale face of the
doomed man. His blue eyes emitted wild and deadly light. Do you see
him start forward, his slender and graceful form attired in his wedding-dress,
his rich brown hair waving from his shoulders? He seizes Edam
by the wrist.

“O, Algernon, were my bitterest enemy beneath my feet—one who had
done a wrong too dark for mercy, or revenge—sooner than sever his heart
with my knife, I would bid him live as I have lived for years!”

There is nothing in language to picture the utter horror of his look and tone.

Captain Edam was dumb, but his face reflected the despair of George.

“O, Algernon, I beseech you take Isabel, and be happy with her! At
the same time I implore you aid me in my attempt to shake off this nightmare
—life!”

Captain Edam sank back on the empty keg, and buried his face in his
hands.

You can see Murray stand there before the fire, contemplating him with
a calm smile.

“Hark! they come!” cried the British officer, starting to his feet and

drawing his sword. “They come to put you to death, but not while I am
alive.”

There was the sound of trampling feet—a confused murmur—then the
thunder of many rifle shots mingled in one deafening report, broke on the
silence of the hour.

George's countenance fell.

“Stand back!” shouted Captain Edam—“approach this room, and I will
fire! Hark! Do you hear, George? They dispute among themselves!
There is a division—we must save you! Do you hear those shouts?”

As he spoke, the door opened, and there, on the threshhold, stood a bluff,
hearty figure, attired in the Continental uniform.

“The Gineral sent me on your track!” exclaimed the hoarse voice of
Sergeant Caleb. “The Tories is captured and you are saved, you dare-devil
of an Ensign! I say, Mister, in the red jacket, won't you give up
your sword?”

As the honest veteran received the sword of Captain Edam, George
turned aside and buried his face in his hands, while his whole frame shook
with emotion, with agony.

“Foiled again! `Nine years, nine days!' I must submit—it is Fate!
The ninth hour is near! Ah! why is death denied to me?”

The old clock in the hall smiled in the light, its minute hand pointing to
30, its hour hand to 9.

The wedding guests were assembled. Far over the frozen snow, from
every window, gushed a stream of joyous light.

Grouped in the most spacious apartment of Squire Musgrave's mansion,
the wedding guests presented a sight of some interest.

The light of those tall wax candles was upon their faces.

Washington was there, towering above the heads of other men, his magnificent
form clad in the blue coat and buff vest, with his sword by his side.
By his side, the high brow and eagle eye of Anthony Wayne. Yonder, a
gallant cavalier, attired in the extreme of fashion, with a mild blue eye, and
clustered locks of sand-hued hair—the chivalrous La Fayette!

And there, standing side by side, were two young men, engaged in affable
conversation.

One, with a high forehead, deeply indented between the brows—the other,
a man of slender frame, with a delicately-chiselled face, and eyes that seem
to burn you, as he speaks, in that low, soft voice, which wins your soul.

Who, that beholds these young men, calmly conversing together, on this
wedding-night, would dream that one was destined to die by the other's
hand. For the one with the deeply-indented brow is Alexander Hamilton,
the other, with the sculptured face, and magical eyes and voice, is Aaron Burr.

In the centre of the scene stood a group, the objects of every eye.

The Preacher in his dark gown, on one side; the good-humored Squire,
with his jocund face and corpulent form, on the other.

Between them, under that chandelier, which warms their faces with a
mild light, stand the bride and briegroom.

She, in a dress of stainless white satin, which displays the beautiful outlines
of her bust and waist, and by its short skirt permits you to behold
those small feet, encased in delicate slippers. Her neck, her shoulders,
gleam like alabaster in the light. A single ornament—a cross of diamonds
and gold—suspended from the neck, rises and falls with every pulsation of
her heart. And from the flowing world of her dark hair, which freely
courses from her brow to the shoulders, looks out a face, at once young,
innocent, angelic!

Ever and again, glancing sidelong, she turns her large eyes towards the
bridegroom, while a soft crimson flushes imperceptibly over her face.

The bridegroom is very pale, but calm and sedate. His dark blue eyes
gleaming from the pallor of that delicately chiselled face, return the glance
of his bride with a look at once earnest and indefinable. Is it love?—or
love mingled with intense pity? What means that scarce perceptible quivering
of the nether lip?

The words of the Preacher are said. George presses the husband's kiss
on the lips of his bride. Why does Isabel—surrendering all the graceful
beauty of her waist to the pressure of his arm—start and tremble, as she
feels those lips, now hot as with fever, now cold as with death?

At this moment, through the interval made by the parting guests, advances
the form of Washington—that face, which never yet has been painted by
artist, or described by poet, beaming with a paternal smile, those dark grey
eyes, which shone so fiercely in the hour of battle, now gazing in softened
regard, upon the bridegroom and the bride.

The voice of Washington was heard:

“George, when your father breathed his last, in my arms, amid the horrors
of battle—it was at Trenton—with his parting breath, he besought me
to be a father to his son! How can I better fulfil my trust, than by placing
your hand within the hand of a beautiful and innocent woman, and bidding
you be happy together? She”—he turned to the bridegroom—“is worthy
of a soldier's love. He,”—turning to the bride—“he is a soldier, a little
rash, perchance, but brave as the summer day is long!”

He placed their hands together, and kindly looked from face to face.
Every eye was centred upon this interesting group.

Here, Washington, tall and commanding; on one side the bridegroom,
slender, almost effeminate, yet with courage and manhood written on his
face; on the other—a beautiful and sinless girl! What words can describe
the last?

At this moment the jocund voice of the father, good-hearted, bluff Squire

Musgrave, was heard. With a jovial smile upon his round and crimson
face, he advanced.

“Look ye, George,” he said. “Now that you're married, you must
conform to a custom in our family. Never a Musgrave was wedded but
the silver goblet and the old wine were brought forth, and a royal bumper
drank to the bride by all the guests. You dont't stand precisely in the
light of a guest—eh, George? ha! ha! But you must begin the ceremony!”

As he spoke, a servant in livery appeared with a salver, on which was
placed a venerable bottle, dark in the body, red about the neck, and wreathed
in cobwebs. Thirty year old Madeira. By its side a silver goblet, antique
in shape, carved with all manner of fawns and flowers.

In a moment this goblet was filled; from its capacious bowl flashed the
red gleam of rich old wine.

“Drink, George! A royal bumper to the health of the bride!”

The movement of George were somewhat singular. Every one remarked
the fact. As the bluff old Squire extended the goblet, George reached forth
his hand, fixing his blue eyes, with a strange stare, upon the crimson wine.
Then a shudder shook his frame, and communicated its tremor to the
goblet.

He seized it—as with the grasp of despair, or as a soldier precipitated
from a fortress might clutch the naked blade of a sword, to stay his fall—
his blue eyes dilating all the while he raised it to his lips.

His face was mirrored, there in the tremulous ripplets of the goblet, when,
as his lip was about to press its brim, his arm slowly straightened outward
from his body, his fingers slowly parted, each one stiffening like a finger
of marble.

The goblet fell to the floor.

George seemed making a violent effort to control his agitation. That lip
pressed between his teeth until a single blood drop came, the eyes wildly
rolling from face to face, the hands nervously extended.—Was ever the last
moment of a dying man as terrible as this?

He sank on one knee—slowly, slowly to the floor; he sank as though
the blood were freezing in his veins.

No words can picture the surprise, the horror, the awe of the wedding
guests.

Do you see that circle of faces, all pale as death, with every eye fixed
upon the kneeling? Do you behold the young girl, who faints not nor
falters, in this hour of peril, but, with a face white as the snow, firmly extends
her hand, and calls her husband tenderly by name?

For a moment all was terribly still.

At last he raised his head. He gazed upon her with eyes unnaturally
dilated, and whispered in a tone that pierced every heart—

“Isabel—I would speak with you alone.”

She raised him from the floor, and girding his waist with her arm, led

him toward the next room. Had she been a fine lady she would have
fainted, or shrieked, but, Heaven be blessed, was a Woman. One of those
women whose character is not known, until Adversity, like a holy angel,
reveals its heroic firmness and divine tenderness.

She closed the folding doors after her; the bride and bridegroom were
gone into the next chamber.

For half an hour, in silent awe,—not a word spoken, not a sound heard,
but the gasping of deep-drawn breath—the wedding guests waited there,
gazing on the closed folding doors.

It was an half hour of terrible suspense.

As the clock struck nine Washington advanced. “I can bear this no
longer,” he said, and pushed open the folding doors.

Ere we gaze upon the sight he beheld, let us follow the footsteps of
George and Isabel.

As she led him through the doorway into that large chamber, filled with
antique furniture, and lighted by a single candle, standing before a mirror
on a table of mosaic work, Isabel felt the hand which she grasped, covered
with a clammy moisture like the sweat of death.

Before that large, old-fashioned mirror, in which the light was dimly reflected,—like
a distant star shining from an intensely dark sky,—they sank
down on chairs that were placed near each other, George clinging to the
hand of his bride as to his last hope.

“The thing which I feared has come upon me!” he gasped, speaking
the pathetic language of Scipture—“Isabel, place your hand upon my brow,
and hear me. The time alotted to me is short: it rapidly glides away.
And while you listen, do not, ha, ha! do not smile if in the tragedy of my
life the grotesque mingles with the terrible!”

One hand with his own, one upon his brow, the brave girl listened. His
words were few and concise:

“Many years ago, when we were children, Isabel, on a cold, clear
winter's day, we wandered forth in the cheerless woods, you and I, and
Algernon. My favorite dog—you remember him?—was with us? Do
you also remember—”

Ah, that hollow voice, that unnatural smile! How well did Isabel
remember.

“Suddenly the favorite—old Wolfe, you know he was named after the
brave General—turned upon me, fixed his teeth in my arm, and lacerated
the flesh to the bone. Algernon struck him down—”

Isabel felt that brow grow like iron beneath her touch.

“It was long before the wound was healed, but the dog, in a few days,
died, raging mad. Now mark you, Isabel, another circumstance. Perchance
you remember it also? While my wound was most painful, there
came to your father's house an aged woman, who was noted for her skill in

the healing of injuries like this. She was also regarded by the country
people as a witch—a corceress! Is it not laughable, Isabel?—that a poor
old creature like this, regarded by some as an Indian, by others as a Negro,
should have such a strange influence upon my life? She healed the wound,
but, at the same time, whispered in my ear the popular superstition, that a
person bitten by a rabid dog, would go mad on the ninth hour of the ninth
day of the ninth year! Child as I was, I laughed at her words. Time
passed on; days, months, years glided away. Need I tell you how this
popular superstition fastened on my mind until it became a prophecy?
Perchance the poison, communicated by the fang of the dog, was already
working in my veins, perchance—but why multiply words? This awful
fear gradually poisoned my whole existence; it drove me from my books
into the army. I began to thirst for death. I sought him in every battle;
O, how terrible `to long for death that cometh not!' For I was always
haunted by a fear—not merely the fear of going mad, but the fear of the
`ninth day of the ninth year'—the fear of dying a death at once horrible
and grotesque—dying like a venomous beast, my form torn by convulsions,
my reason crushed, my last breath howling forth a yell of horrible laughter—”

He paused; you would not have liked to gaze upon his face. You
would rather have faced a charge of bayonets than heard his voice. There
was something horrible, not so much in the stillness of that dimly-lighted
room, nor altogether in the contortions of his face, the fire of his eye, the deep
conviction of his voice, but in the idea,—a noble mind, a brave heart, crushed
by a mere superstition! A young life forever darkened by an idle hallucination!
An immortal soul tortured by unmeaning words, uttered years
ago, in the dewy childhood time!

“Isabel!” gasped the wretched bridegroom, “in a moment, yonder clock
will strike the hour of nine! At that hour, the end of all this agony will
come! Hideously transformed, I will writhe at your feet!”

How acted then, this innocent and guileless girl, who had grown to bewitching
womanhood amid the hills and dells of Valley Forge?

Hers was not the skill to argue this question in a philosophical manner.

True, she had heard of great minds being haunted all their lives by a
horrible fear. Some, the fear of being buried alive—some, the fear of going
mad—some, the fear of dying of loathsome disease.

But it was not her knowledge of these fancies—these monomanias of the
strong-hearted—that moved her into action at this hour.

It was her woman's heart that whispered to her soul a strange but fixed
resolve.

“As the clock strikes nine, you will go mad,” she said. “This is the
idea that has haunted your life for years. It was this that forced the goblet
from your lips, palsied your hand and dashed the wine to the floor! But
if your reason survives the hour of nine? Then the danger will be over?
Speak George, is it so?”

“It is,” he gasped; “but there is no hope—”

The word had not passed his lips, when she tore one hand from his
grasp, removed the other to his brow. Outspreading her arms, she wound
them round his neck, and buried his face upon her bosom.

The clock began to strike the hour of nine.

Closer she clasped him, convulsively pressing his face to her breast—as
to a holy shrine—until he felt her heart beating against his cheek.

“Now, God help me!” she prayed, and reaching forth her left hand,
grasped a glass which stood upon the Mosaic table. It was filled with
water, fresh and sparkling, from the brook.

Look! she raises his head, gazes intently in his face. Ah! she winds
her right arm closer about his neck, and with those eyes earnestly, intensely
fixed upon his face, she holds the glass to his lips.

“Drink, George, and fear not! If you love me, drink!”

Feeble words these, when spoken again, but had you heard her speak,
or but seen the overwhelming love of her young eyes!

A nervous shudder shakes his frame. He shrinks from the glass. But
he sees her eyes, he feels her voice, he extends his hand and drinks.

The clock has struck the last knell of the fatal hour.

He drinks! She, gazing earnestly, with her face and heart fixed on him,
all the while, he drinks.

“Now,” she whispers, while her warm fingers tremble gently over his
cheeks. “Now, George, speak to me! It is past! You love me? You
drank for my sake! For my sake you conquered this fatal idea. Speak,
speak—is it past?”

He rose from his chair—his face changed, as a cloud seemed to pass
from his breast—he gazed upon her with tearful eyes, and then exclaimed
in a tone that came like music to her soul:

“Isabel, more than life you have saved! My reason; you—”

He could speak no more. His heart was too full. His joy too deep.

So, spreading forth his arms—as the horror of years rushed upon his
soul—he fell weeping on her bosom.

That was the sight which the unfolded doors revealed to Washington!

IV.—THE PREACHER-GENERAL.

It was a beautiful picture, that quaint old country church, with its rustic
steeple and grey walls, nestling there in the centre of a green valley, with
the blue sky above, and a grass-grown grave-yard all around it.

It was indeed a fine old church, that Chapel of St. John, and in the
quietude of the summer noon, when not a cloud marred the surface of the
heavens, not a breeze ruffled the repose of the grave-yard grass. It seemed
like a place where holy men might pray and praise, without an earthly care,
a worldly thought.

The valley itself was beautiful; one of the fairest of the green valleys
of the Old Dominion. A slope of meadow, dotted with trees, a stream of
clear cold water, winding along its verge, under the shadow of grey rocks;
to the east a waving mass of woodland; to the west a chain of rolling hills,
with the blue tops of the Alleghanies seen far away! Was it not a lovely
valley, with the quaint old church, smiling in its lap, like a Pilgrim, who,
having journeyed afar, came here to rest for a while, amid green fields and
swelling hills!

It was a Sabbath noon, in the dark time of the Revolution. Fear was
abroad in the land, yet here, to the good old church, came young and old,
rich and poor, to listen to the words of life, and break the bread of God.

Yonder, under the rude shed, you may see the wagon of the farmer, and
the carriage of the rich man; or looking along this line of trees, you may
behold the saddled horses, waiting for their masters. All is silent without
the church; a deep solemnity rests upon the sabbath hour.

Within! Ah, here is indeed an impressive spectacle. Through the
deep-silled windows pours the noon-day sun, softened by the foliage of trees.
Above is the dark ceiling, supported by heavy rafters; yonder the altar,
with the cross and sacred letters, I. H. S., gleaming in the light; and all
around, you behold the earnest faces of the crowded assemblage.

The prayers have been said, those prayers of the Episcopal church,
which, gathered from the Book of God, flow forever in a fountain of everlasting
beauty in ten thousand hearts—the prayers have been said, the
hymn-notes have died away, and now every voice is hushed, every face is
stamped with a marble stillness.

A few moments pass, and then behold this picture:

Old men and young maidens are kneeling around the altar—yes, the forms
of robust manhood and mature womanhood are prostrate there. Along the
railing, which describes a cresent around the altar, they throng with heads
bent low and hands clasped fervently.

They are about to drink the Wine of the Redeemer—to eat the bread
of God.

Is it not a lovely scene? The white hairs of the old men, the brown

tresses of the young girls, the sunburnt visages of those well-formed young
men, the calm faces of the matrons, all touched by the flitting sunbeam.

Look! Amid that throng a dusky negro kneels, his swart visage seen
amid the pale faces of his white brethren.

All is silent in the church. Those who do not come to the altar, kneel
in reverence, and yonder you may see the slaves, clustering beside the
church-porch, with uncovered heads and forms bent in prayer.

All is silent in the church, and the Sacrament begins.

The Preacher stands there, within the railing, with the silver goblet
gleaming in one hand, while the other extends the plate of consecrated
bread.

His tall form, clad in the flowing robes of his office, towers erect, far
above the heads of the kneeling men and women, while his bold countenance,
with high brow, and clear dark eyes, strikes you with an impression
of admiration. He is a noble looking man, with an air of majesty, without
pride; intellect, without vanity; devotion, without cant.

Tell me, as he moves along yonder, dispensing the wine and bread, while
his deep, full voice, fills the church with the holy words of the Sacrament
—tell me, does he not honor his great office, this Preacher of noble look
and gleaming eyes?

Look! how fair hands are reached forth to grasp the cup, how manly
heads bow low, as the bread of life passes from lip to lip. Not much
whining here, not much strained mockery of devotion, but in every face
you see the tokens of a sincere and honest religion.

The Preacher passes along, bending low, as he places the goblet to the
red lips of yonder maiden, or extends the bread to the white-haired man by
her side. Meanwhile, his sonorous voice fills the church:

—And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and
break it, and gave is to his disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body.

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying,
Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is
shed for many, for the remission of sins.—

As you gaze upon the scene, a holy memory seizes upon your soul.

The quiet church, the earnest faces of the spectators, the sunlight stealing
through the deep-silled windows, over the group of kneeling men and
women, who, in this time of blood and war, have met to celebrate the
Supper of the Lord, the tall Preacher passing before the altar, the goblet
gleaming in his hand—This is the scene which is now present with you.

The memory?

Ah, that is of a far-gone day, some seventeen centuries ago, when in the
fragrant chamber of Jerusalem, Jesus looked around with his eyes of eternal
love, and shared the cup and bread with his faithful Eleven, while beloved
John looked silently into his face, and black-browed Judas scowled at his
shoulder. Yes, the Memory seizes upon you now, and you hear his tones,

you see his face, the low deep tones flowing with eternal music, the face
of God-head, with its eyes of unutterable beauty.

Now the Sacrament is over, yet still the men and women are kneeling
there.

The Preacher advances, and stands in front of his people, with the silver
cup in his hand. A slight breeze ruffles the folds of his robes, and tosses
his dark hair back from his brow.

He is about to speak on a subject of deep interest, for his lip is compressed,
his brow wears a look of gloom. Every man, woman and child
in that crowded church, listens intently for his first word; the negroes come
crowding around the church-porch; the communicants look up from their
prayers.

The words of the Preacher were uttered in a tone that thrilled every heart:

“There is a time to preach, to pray, to fight!” He paused, looking from
face to face, with his flashing eyes.

“The time to preach is gone, the time to pray is past, the time to fight
has come!”

You could see his stature dilate, his eye fire, as he thundered through
the church—“the time to fight has come!”

The silver goblet shook in his quivering hands. With one impulse the
congregation started to their feet. With the same movement the kneeling
communicants arose. These strange words burned like fire-coals at every
heart.

“Yes,” thundered the Preacher, “Yes, my brethren, when we preach
again, it must be with the sword by our side—when we pray, it must be
with the rifle in our hands! I say the time to fight has come! for at this
hour your land is red with innocent blood, poured forth by the hirelings of
the British King. For at this moment the voices of dead men call from the
battlefields, and call to you! They call you forth to the defence of your
homes, your wives and little ones! At this moment, while the noonday
sun falls calmly on your faces, the voices of your brothers in arms pierce
this lonely valley, and bid you seize the rifle, for your country and your
God!”

Bold words were these, majestic the bearing of the Pracher, fierce as
flame-coals his look, eloquent his ringing voice!

A deep murmur swelled through the church—a wild, ominous sound—and
then all was still again.

“My brethren, we have borne this massacre long enough. Now, our
country, our God, our dead brethren call on us. Now, our wives look in
our faces and wonder why we delay to seize the sword, nay, our little ones
appeal to us for protection against the robber and assassin. Come, my
friends, I have preached with you, prayed with you—with you I have eaten
the Saviour's body and drank his blood. Now, by the blessing of God, I
will lead you to battle. Come, in the name of that country which now

bleeds beneath the Invader's feet—in the name of the dead who gave their
lives in this holy cause—in the name of the God who made you, and the
Saviour who redeemed you—I say come! To arms! The time to fight
is here!”

Did you ever see the faces of a crowd change, like the hues of the ocean
in a storm? Did you ever hear the low, deep, moaning of that ocean, when
the storm is about to break over its bosom?

Then may you have some idea of the wild agitation which ran like
electric fire, through this quaint old Chapel of St. John, as the preacher
stood erect, with the goblet held in his extendnd hand, his brow flushed with
a warm glow, and his eyes gleaming fire.

“The time to fight is here,” he said, as with a sudden movement he
flung his sacerdotal robe from his form, and stood disclosed before his congregation,
arrayed in warrior costume.

Yes, from head to foot, his proud form was clad in the blue uniform of
the Continental host, while the pistols protruded from his belt, and the
sword shone by his side.

At that sight, a murmur arose, a wild hurrah shook the church.

“To arms!” arose like thunder on the Sabbath air.

And then there was one wild impulse quivering through each manly
breast, as though each heart beat with the same pulsation. They came
rushing forward, those robust forms; they clustered around the altar, eagerly
reaching forth their hands to sign the paper which the Preacher laid upon
the Sacramental table. In that crowd were old men with white hair, and
boys with beardless chins, all moved by the impulse of the hour. The
women, too, were there urging their brothers, their husbands, to sign their
names to the Preacher's muster-roll, and become soldiers for their Country
and their God.

The sunlight fell over the wild array of faces, glowing with emotion, and
revealed the light forms of the women passing through the crowd, while the
Preacher stood alone, with the paper in one hand and his good sword in
the other.

Softly came the summer breeze through the windows; brilliantly in the
sunlight glittered the Cross and the holy letters—I. H. S.

Still the Preacher stood there, that proud flash upon his brow, that deep
satisfactian gleaming from his dark eye.

“Now,” said he, gazing upon the stout forms which encompassed him
like a wall, “now let us pray God's blessing on our swords!'

As one man they knelt.

The Preacher, attired as he was in the blue and buff uniform, knelt in
their midst, clasping his sword in his hand, while his deep voice arose in
prayer to God.

That night, through a road that led between high rocks, three hundred

brave men, mounted on gallant steeds, went forth to join the Army of
Washington.

At their head, riding a grey steed, his tall form clad in the blue and buff
uniform, was their leader, who, with compressed lip and gleaming eye, led
them on to battle.

It was the darkest hour of the battle of Germantown, when a gallant
warrior, clad in the Continental uniform and mounted on a grey steed, was
surrounded by a crowd of British soldiers.

All day long, that American General had gone through the ranks of battle,
at the head of his brave men. Side by side with Washington and Wayne,
he had rushed upon the the British bayonets. One by one, he had seen his
gallant band measure their graves upon the fatal field. Now he was alone,
the last in the dread retreat.

All around was smoke and mist. Chew's house was seen to the east,
looming grandly through the gloom. The American army were in full retreat,
while this solitary warrior, mounted on his grey war-horse, looking
from side to side, beheld nothing but scarlet uniforms and British bayonets.
At his back, toward the North, was a high wall, built of massive stone, a
wall the most gallant steed might essay to leap in vain. That warrior's
horse was brave, his blood was full of fire, but he recoiled from that terrible
leap.

The soldier on the grey steed was a prisoner.

The British encircled him, their bayonets pointed at his breast, while his
dark eye moved from face to face.

A soldier advanced to secure the victim; he was a gallant fellow, his
brown hair waving in thick curls around his ruddy face. He advanced,
when the American soldier gazed in his face with a look of deep compassion,
and muttered a prayer. The hand of the Briton was extended to grasp
the bridle rein of the grey steed, when the American suddenly drew his
pistol from the holster, and fired.

A moment passed—the smoke cleared away. There, on the moist earth,
bleeding slowly to death, lay the handsome Briton—but the prisoner?

Look yonder to the South! There, through the folds of mist, you may
see the grey horse and his rider. Bullets whistle in the air, but he does
not fall. Still the gallant steed keeps on his career. Right through the
British Army, right through the hail of lead, and the gleam of bayonets,
dashes the grey war-horse, the mist wreathing like a cloak around his
rider's form.

Now he turns, yes, to the North again. The band of soldiers look up
from the corse of their dead comrade, and behold the American soldier
dashing along the road, right in front of their path. They raise their musquets—they
fire. The American soldier looks back and smiles, and
passes on.

The white cloud receives him into its folds.

Yet lo! As he passes on through smoke and mist, urging his gallant
grey to the top of his speed, he sees once more the glare of red uniforms,
the flashing of British steel. He is surrounded by a band of dragoons, returning
from the pursuit of Washington's army. Again to the South, brave
soldier! Again to the South, with the pursuing troopers at his horse's
heels. How gallantly he rides—look! You can see his form rising through
the mist; by the light of that pistol flash, you can even see the tossing of
his plume, white as a snow-flake floating in the sun.

Again to the South, through the closely-woven ranks of the British host.
Those soldiers look up in wonder at the strange sight—an American officer
dashing bravely through their lines unscathed by bullet or sword.

Now doubling on his pursuers, now near Chew's house, now far away
in the fields, that brave soldier kept on his flight. God and the mist favored
him. At last, after dashing through the British lines, he was riding Northward
again—his pursuers had lost sight of their victim. He was riding
slowly Northward again; when looking ahead, he beheld a wounded man
stretched on the sod, in the agonies of death.

It was the brave young Briton who had fallen by his shot. A tear was
in the eye of the American soldier as he beheld that pale brow, with its
curling brown hair. Perchance the youth had a wife—a sister—in far away
England? Or, maybe, even now a mother wept for his return?

Our Continental soldier dismounted; he laid the head of the dying Briton
on his knee. He moistened his hot lips with water from his flask.

It was a sad yet lovely sight, to see that brave American, in his blue
uniform, kneeling there, with the head of his enemy, the red-coated Briton,
resting on his knee.

Then as the dying man looked up, his foe muttered a prayer for his
passing soul. As that prayer went up to God, up with its accents of compassion,
ascended the soul of the British youth.

The American held a dead body in his arms.

One look at the pale face, and he sprang to his steed. He rejoined the
American army some miles above, but never in all his life did the Preacher-Soldier
forget the last look of the dying Briton.

Another scene from the life of this Preacher-soldier.

It is night around Yorktown. Yonder, through the gloom, you see dim
masses of shadow, creeping along toward the British entrenchments. Suddenly
all is light, and groans and smoke! Suddenly the Continentals start
up from darkness into the light of the cannon-glare! Suddenly the sky is
traversed by fiery bombs, while the earth shakes with the tread of embattled
legions!

Look yonder! A desperate band of American soldiers, with fixed bayonets,
advance along the trenches, and spring up the steep ascent, to the very

muzzles of British cannon. This is the crisis of the fight. Those cannon
spiked, this redoubt carried, and Yorktown is won! Two brave men lead
on these soldiers—one, the high-browed Alexander Hamilton, the other the
Preacher-Soldier! A desperate charge, a wild hurrah, the redoubt is won!

And there, standing in the glare of the cannon, on the very summit of
the steep ascent, the flag of stars in one hand, the good sword in the other
the Preacher Soldier shouts to his comrades, and tells them that Yorktown
is won.

He stands there for a moment, and then falls in the trench, his leg shattered
by a cannon ball.

Bending over him, by the light of the battle-glare, the brave Hamilton
gazes in his pale face, and bending beside the wounded Preacher-Soldier,
pens a few hasty words, announcing to the Continental Congress that Yorktown
is taken—Cornwallis a prisoner—America a Nation!

And who was this brave man, who, from the altar of God's Church
preached freedom? Who, the last in the retreat of Germantown, escaped
as by a miracle from British bayonets? Who, by a long course of gallant
deeds, wreathed his brow with the Hero's laurel? Who was this brave
man? How name you him,who led on the forlorn hope at Yorktown,
with the starry banner waving over his head!

Ah, he bore the name which our history loves to cherish, which our
literature embalms in her annals, which Religion places among her holiest
lights, burning forevermore by the altar of God!

Pennsylvania is not just to her heroes. She is content to have them do
great deeds, but she suffers them to be crowded out of history. While
North and South, with untiring devotion, glorify their humblest soldiers,
Pennsylvania is content to take but one name from a crowd of patriots, and
blazon that name upon the escutcheon of our glory—the name of “Mad
Anthony Wayne.”

Now let us do the Iron State some small justice at last. Now let us
select another name of glory from the crowd of heroes. Now let us write
upon the column of her fame, side by side with the name of Anthony
Wayne, the name of Peter Muhlenberg, the Preacher-General of the
Revolution!

There let them shine forever—those brother heroes, solemn witnesses,
of the glory of the Land of Penn—there let them shine, the objects of our
reverence and our love—these two great names—Peter Muhlenberg and
Anthony Wayne.

V.—TRENTON; OR, THE FOOTSTEP IN THE SNOW.
A TRADITION OF CHRISTMAS NIGHT, 1776.

It was a dark and dreary night, sixty-nine years ago, when, in an ancient
farm-house, that rises along yonder shore, an old man and his children had
gathered around their Christmas hearth.

It was a lovely picture.

That old man, sitting there on the broad hearth, in the full glow of the
flame—his dame, a fine old matron, by his side—his children, a band of
red-lipped maidens,—some with slender forms, just trembling on the verge
of girlhood,—others warming and flushing into the summer morn of womanhood!
And the warm glow of the fire was upon the white locks of the
old man, and on the mild face of his wife, and the young bloom of those
fair daughters.

Had you, on that dark night—for it was dark and cold—while the December
sky gloomed above, and the sleet swept over the hills of the Delaware
— drawn near that farm-house window, and looked in upon that
Christmas hearth, and drank in the full beauty of that scene—you would
confess with me that though this world has many beautiful scenes—much
of the strangely beautiful in poetry—yet there, by that hearth, centred and
brightened and burned that poetry, which is most like Heaven, THE Poetry
of Home!

You have all heard the story of the convict, who stood on the gallows,
embruted in crime—steeped to the lips in blood—stood there, mocking at
the preacher's prayer, mocking even the hangman! When, suddenly, as
he stood with the rope about his neck—his head sunk—a single, burning,
scalding tear rolled down his cheek.

“I was thinking,” said he, in a broken voice, “I was thinking of the—
Christmas fire!”

Yes, in that moment, when the preached failed to warn, when even the
hangman could not awe—a thought came over the convict's heart of that
time, when a father and his children, in a far land, gathered around their
Christmas fire.

That thought melted his iron soul.

“I care not for your ropes and your gibbets,” he said. “But now, in
that far land—there, over the waters—my father, my brothers, my sisters,
are sitting around their Christmas fire! They are waiting for me! And I
am here—here upon the scaffold!”

Is there not a deep poetry in the scene, that could thus touch a murderer's
soul, and melt it into tears?

And now, as the old man, his wife, his daughters cluster around their
fire, tell me, why does that old man's head droop slowly down, his eyes fill,
his hands tremble?

Ah, there is ONE absent from the Christmas hearth!

He is thinking of the absent one—his manly, brave boy, who has been
gone from the farm-house for a year.

But hark! Even as the thought comes over him, the silence of that fire-side
is broken by a faint cry—a faint moan, heard over the wastes of snow
from afar.

The old man grasps a lantern, and, with that young girl by his side, goes
out upon the dark night.

Look there—as following the sound of that moan—they go softly over
the frozen path: how the lantern flashes over their forms—over a few
white paces of frozen snow—while beyond all is darkness!

Still that moan, so low, so faint, so deep-toned, quivers on the air.

Something arrests the old man's eye, there in the snow—they bend down,
he and his daughter—they gaze upon that sight.

It is a human footstep painted in the snow, painted in blood.

“My child,” whispers the old man, tremulously, “now pray to Heaven
for Washington! For by this footstep, stamped in blood, I judge that his
army is passing near this place!”

Still that moan quivers on the air!

Then the old man, and that young girl, following those footsteps stained
in blood—one—two—three—four—look how the red tokens crimson the
white snow!—following those bloody footprints; go on until they reach
that rock, beetling over the river shore.

There the lantern light flashes over the form of a half-naked man, crouching
down in the snow—freezing and bleeding to death.

The old man looks upon that form, clad in ragged uniform of the Continental
army—the stiffened fingers grasping the battered musket.

It was his only son.

He called to him—the young girl knelt, and—you may be sure there
were tears in her eyes—chafed her brother's hands—ah, they were stiff and
cold! And when she could not warm them, gathered them to her young
bosom, and wept her tears upon his dying face.

Suddenly that brother raised his head—he extended his hand towards
the river.

“Look THERE, FATHER!” he said, in his husky voice.

And bending down over the rock, the old man looked far over the
river.

There, under the dark sky, a fleet of boats were tossing amid piles of
floating ice. A fleet of boats bearing men and arms, and extending in irregular
lines from shore to shore.

And the last boat of the fleet—that boat just leaving the western shore
of the Delaware; the old man saw that too, and saw—even through the
darkness—yon tall form, half-muffled in a warrior's cloak, with a grey war-horse
by his side.

Was not that a strange sight to see at dead of night, on a dark river,
under a darker sky?

The old man turned to his dying son to ask the meaning of this
mystery.

“Father,” gasped the brave boy, tottering to his feet. “Father, give
me my musket—help me on—help me down to the river—for to-night—for
to-night—

As that word was on his lips—he fell. He fell, and lay there stiff and
cold. Still on his lips there hung some faintly spoken words.

The old man—that fair girl—bent down—they listened to those words—

“To-night—Washington—the British—to-night—TRENTON!”

And with that word gasping on his lips—“Trenton!” he died!

The old man did not know the meaning of that word until the next morning.
Then there was the sound of musketry to the south; then, booming
along the Delaware came the roar of battle.

Then, that old man, with his wife and children, gathered around the body
of that dead boy, knew the meaning of that single word that had trembled
on his lips.

Knew that George Washington had burst like a thunderbolt upon the
British Camp in Trenton!

Ah! that was a merry Christmas Party which the British officers kept
in the town of Trenton, seventy years ago—although it is true, that to
that party there came an uninvited guest, one Mister Washington, his half-clad
army, and certain bold Jerseymen!

Would that I might linger here, and picture the great deeds of that morning,
seventy years ago.

Would that I might linger here upon the holy ground of Trenton.

For it is holy ground. For it was here, in the darkest hour of the Revolution,
that George Washington made one stout and gallant blow in the name
of that Declaration, which fifty-six bold men had proclaimed in the old
State House of Philadelphia, six months before.

If that State House is the Mecca of Freedom, to which the pilgrims
of all climes may come to worship, then is the battle-ground of Trenton,
the twin-Mecca—the Jerusalem of Freedom—to which the Children of
Liberty, from every land, may come — look upon the footsteps of the
mighty dead—bring their offerings—shed their tears.

December 26th, 1776!—

It was a dark night, but the first gleam of morning shone over the form
of George Washington, as he stood beside the Hessian leader, Ralle, who
lay in yonder room wrestling with death—yes, Washington stood there, and
placed the cup of water to his feverish lips, and spoke a prayer for his
passing soul.

It was a dark night, but the gleam of morning shone over you cliff darkening

above the wintry river, over the frozen snow, where a father, a wife,
a band of children, clustered around the cold form of a dead soldier.

He was clad in rags, but there was a grim smile on his white lips—his
frozen hand still clenched with an iron grasp the broken rifle.

His face, so cold, so pale, was wet with his sister's tears, but his soul had
gone to yonder heaven, there to join the Martyrs of Trenton and of Bunker
Hill.

VI.—THE PRINTER BOY AND THE AMBASSADOR.

Genius in its glory—genius on its eagle-wings—genius soaring away
there in the skies!

This is a sight we often see!

But Genius in its work-shop—Genius in its cell—Genius digging away
in the dark mines of poverty—Toil in the brain, and Toil in the heart—this
is an every day fact—yet a sight that we do not often see!

Let us for a moment look at the strange contrast between—Intellect
standing there, in the sunlight of Fame, with the shouts of millions ringing
in its ears—and Intellect down there, in cold and night-crouching in the
work-shop or the garret; neglected—unpitied—and alone!

Let us for a moment behold two pictures, illustrating The Great Facts—
Intellect in its rags, and Intellect in its Glory.

The first picture has not much in it to strike your fancy—here are no
dim Cathedral aisles, grand with fretted arch and towering with pillars—
here are no scenes of nature in her sublimity, when deep lakes bosomed in
colossal cliffs, dawn on your eye—or yet, of nature's repose, when quiet
dells musical with the lull of waterfalls, breaking through the purple twilight
steal gently in dream-glimpses upon your soul!

No! Here is but a picture of plain rude Toil—yes, hot, tired, dusty
toil!

The morning sunshine is stealing through the dim panes of an old
window—yes, stealing and struggling through those dim panes, into the
dark recesses of yonder room. It is a strange old room—the walls cracked
in an hundred places, are hung with cobwebs—the floor, dark as ink, is
stained with dismal black blotches—and all around are scattered the
evidences of some plain workman's craft—heaps of paper, little pieces of
antimony are scattered over the floor—and there, in the light of the
morning sun, beside that window, stands a young man of some twenty
years—quite a boy—his coat thrown aside, his faded garments covered
with patches, while his right hand grasps several of those small bits of
antimony.

Why this is but a dull picture—a plain, sober, every-day fact.

Yet look again upon that boy standing there, in the full light of the
morning sun—there is meaning in that massive brow, shaded by locks of

dark brown hair—there is meaning in that full grey eye, now dilating and
burning, as that young man stands there alone, alone in the old room.

But what is this grim monster on which the young man leans? This
thing of uncouth shape, built of massy iron, full of springs and screws, and
bolts—tell us the name of this strange uncouth monster, on which that
young man rests his hand?

Ah! that grim old monster is a terrible thing—a horrid Phantom for dishonest
priests or traitor kings! Yes, that uncouth shape every now and
then, speaks out words that shake the world—for it is a Printing Press!

And the young man standing there in a rude garb, with the warm sunshine
streaming over his bold brow—that young man standing alone
—neglected—unknown—is a Printer Boy;—yes, an earnest Son of Toil;
thinking deep thoughts there in that old room, with its dusty floor and its
cobweb-hung walls!

Those thoughts will one day shake the world.

Now let us look upon the other picture:—

Ah! here is a scene full of Night and Music and Romance!

We stand in a magnificent garden, musical with waterfalls, and yonder,
far through these arcades of towering trees, a massive palace breaks up into
the deep azure of night.

Let us approach that palace, with its thousand windows flashing with
lights—hark! how the music of a full band comes stealing along this garden
—mingling with the hum of fountains—gathering in one burst up into the
dark concave of Heaven.

Let us enter this palace! Up wide stair-ways where heavy carpets give
no echo to the footfall—up wide stair-ways—through long corridors,
adorned with statues—into this splendid saloon.

Yes, a splendid saloon—yon chandelier flinging a shower of light over
this array of noble lords and beautiful women—on every side the flash of
jewels—the glitter of embroidery—the soft mild gleam of pearls, rising into
light, with the pulsation of fair bosoms—ah! this is indeed a splendid
scene!

And yonder—far through the crowd of nobility and beauty—yonder,
under folds of purple tapestry, dotted with gold, stands the Throne, and on
that Throne—the King!

That King—these courtiers—noble lords—and proud dames—are all
awaiting a strange spectacle! The appearance of an Ambassador from an
unknown Republic far over the waters. They are all anxious to look upon
this strange man—whose fame goes before him. Hark—to those whispers
—it is even said this strange Ambassador of an unknown Republic, has
called down the lightnings from God's eternal sky.

No doubt this Ambassador will be something very uncouth, yet it still
must be plain that he will try to veil his uncouthness in a splendid Court
dress!

The King, the Courtiers, are all on the tip-toe of expectation!

Why does not this Magician from the New World—this Chainer of
thunderbolts—appear?

Suddenly there is a murmur—the tinselled crowd part on either side—
look!—he comes: the Magician, the Ambassador!

He comes walking through that lane, whose walls are beautiful women;
—is he decked out in a Court dress? Is he abashed by the presence of
the King?

Ah, no! Look there—how the King starts with surprise, as that plain
man comes forward! That plain man with the bold brow, the curling
locks behind his ears—and such odious home-made blue stockings upon his
limbs.

Look there, and in that Magician—that Chainer of the Lightnings—behold
the Printer Boy of the dusty room; stout-hearted, true-souled, common-sense
Benjamin Franklin!

And shall we leave these two pictures, without looking at the deep moral
they inculcate?

Without the slightest disrespect to the professions called learned, I stand
here to-night, to confess that the great Truth of Franklin's life is the
sanctity of Toil!

Yes, that your true Nobleman of God's creation, is not your lawyer, digging
away among musty parchments, not even your white cravatted divine
—but this man, who clad in the coarse garments of Toil, comes out from
the work-shop and stands with the noon-day sun upon his brow, not
ashamed to own himself a Mechanic!

Ah! my friends, there is a world of meaning in these pictures! They
speak to your hearts now—they will speak to the heart of Universal Man
forever!

Here, the unknown Printer Boy standing at his labor, neglected, unknown;
clad in a patched garb, with the laborer's sweat upon his brow
—There, the Man whom nations are proud to claim as their own, standing
as the Ambassador of a Free People—standing as a Prophet of the
Rights of Man—unawed, unabashed, in the Presence of Royalty and
Gold!

Benjamin Franklin, in his brown coat and blue stockings, mocking to
shame the pomp of these Courtiers—the glittering robes of yonder King!

VII.—THE REST OF THE PILGRIM.

Like the Pilgrim of the olden time, who having journeyed through many
lands, gathering new memories from every shrine and fresher hopes from
every altar, ascends the summit of the last hill, and bending on his staff,
surveys afar the holiest place of all, I have reached after much joy and
toil the end of my wanderings, and in the distance behold gleaming into
light, the Jerusalem of my soul.

That Jerusalem the Altar of the American Past, the Sepulchre of the
American Dead.

I have been a Pilgrim in holy ground. On the sod of the battle-field,
where every flower blooms more beautiful from the oblation of heroic blood,
poured forth upon the hallowed soil—in old mansions where the rent walls
and blood-stained threshhold bear memory of the ancient time—amid the
shadows of the Hall of Independence, where the warm heart may see the
Signers walk again—in the dark glen where the yell of slaughter once arose,
and every rock received its bloody offering—Such have been the holy
places of my Pilgrimage into the American Past.

And as the Pilgrim of the far-gone ages, resting on the last hill, stood after
all his wanderings only in sight of the great temple of all his hopes, so does
the Pilgrim of the battle-field, rich as he is with the relics of the Past, stand
after all but on the threshhold of his hallowed work.

For this book of the Revolution, stored with Legends of the Past, gathered
from aged lips and renowned battle-fields, speaking in the language of the
iron time of Washington and his heroes, is but a page in the traditionary
history of our land. Much I have written, but a volume ten times as large
as this remains yet to be written.[2] I have but uncovered the sealed spring
of Revolutionary Legend, scarcely dipped my scallop shell into its wild, yet
deep and tranquil waters.

On this Rock of Wissahikon I pause in my pilgrimage, and write these
words to my reader. This Rock of Wissahikon which rises on the side
of a steep hill, amid thick woods—a craggy altar on whose summit worshipped

long ago, the Priests of a forgotten faith. Around me branch the
trees—glorious monuments of three hundred years—fresh with the verdure
of June. Between their leaves the sky smiles on me, dimpled only by a
floating cloud. Far below, the stream flashes and sings between its
mountain banks. Looking down a vista of trees and moss and flowers, I
behold a vision of forest homes, grouped by the waters. You that love to
lap yourself in June, and drink its odors, and feel its blessed air upon your
brows, and recline on its rocks covered with vines, musical with birds and
bees, should come hither. It is an altar for the Soul.

As I sit upon this rock—the paper on my knee, the birds, the stream, the
sky, the leaves, all ministering blessings to my soul—a strange throng of
fancies crowd tumultuously on me.

What was the name of the Race who peopled these cliffs, and roved
these woods two thousand years ago! Were they but brute barbarians, or
a people civilized with all that is noble in science or art, hallowed by the
knowledge of all that is true and beautiful in Religion? Where are their
monuments; the wrecks of City and Altar? O, that this rock could speak,
and tell to me the history of the long-forgotten People, who dwelt in this
land before the rude Indian!

Tell us, ye Ages, what mysterious tie connects the history of the red
men of the north, with the voluptuous children of the south? Speak, ye
Centuries, and reveal to us the mystic message of these monuments of the
Past, scattered over the hills and prairies of our northern America? The
mounds of the west, the fortifications rising ruggedly from the rank grass,
the deep-walled foundations of a city in Wiskonsan—a city that has been
a wreck for a thousand years—what is their Revelation? What word have
they of the mysterious bye-gone time?

Are there no Legends of the Lost Nations of America?

As I start back, awed and wondering from the fancies that crowd upon
me, there rushes on my sight a vision at once sublime and beautiful!

It is the vision of a land washed by the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific,
beautiful with vallies of fruit and flowers, grand with its snow-white peak
of Orizaba, magnificent with its cities—reared in a strange yet gorgeous
architecture—among which sits supreme, the Capitol of Montezuma! A
gorgeous vision! It swells on my sight with its altars of bloody sacrifice,
rising above the sea of roofs, with its clear deep lakes set in frames of
flowers, and the volcanic mountains hemming it in a magic circle, their pillars
of snow and fire supporting the blue dome of the sky!

Crowd your wonders of the old world into one panorama, pile Babylon
on Palmyra, and crown them both with Rome, and yet you cannot match
the luxury, the magnificence, the splendor that dazzles, and the mystery
that bewilders, of this strange land.

The tamest word in its history is a Romance—the wildest dreams of Romance,
hollow and meaningless, compared with its plainest fact.

And the name of the vision that breaks upon me is—Mexico.

Behold three lines of its history in the course of six hundred years!

—Six hundred years ago a barbarous horde from the far north of America,
the tribes of the Aztec people, precipitated themselves on this beautiful valley,
conquered the race who dwelt there, and swelled into the civilized Empire
of Montezuma.

—Three hundred years ago, a wandering adventure who came from an
unknown land, with a band of white men clad in iron at his back—only six
hundred homeless men—overturned the splendid dominion of Montezuma,
and founded the Empire of Cortes.

—Now in the year eighteen-hundred and forty-seven, even while I write,
the white race of North America, the children of the Revolution and countrymen
of Washington, are thronging the vallies, darkening the mountains
of this land, bearing in their front amid a tide of sword and bayonet the
Banner of the Stars, which they have determined to plant on the Hall of
Montezuma and Cortez, thus establishing in the valley of Mexico, a new
dominion—THE EMPIRE OF FREEDOM.

Shall we not write the traditions of this land? Shall we not follow the
Banner of the Stars from the bloody heighth of Bunker Hill, from the
meadow of Brandywine, to the snow-clad heighth of Orizaba and the
golden city of [3] Tenochtitlan?

Yes, we will do it; the beautiful traditions of that land speak to us in a
voice that we may not disregard. In one work, we will combine the tradition,
the history, the battles and the religions of this wonderful land. We
will traverse its three Eras, gathering a wild excitement as we go. First,
the Era of the Aztec Invasion, six hundred years ago. Then the Era of
Cortez, three hundred years back into time. Last of all, the Era of Freedom,
when the bloody fields of Palo Alto, Resaca, the three days fight of
Monterey, the terrible contest of Buena Vista, the seige of Vera Cruz and
glorious rout of Cerro Gordo, made new leaves in our history and linked
with Cortez and Montezuma, the names of Scott and Taylor!

To you, reader, who perused with deep sympathy, the Legends of the
Revolution, let us present the traditions of another scene; “the Legends
of Mexico.”

—Let me tell you, how the idea of writing the legends of the golden and
bloody Land, first dawned upon me.

One day, not long ago, as I sat in my room, my table strewn with the
manuscript of Washington and his Generals, there appeared on the threshhold
a young man, clad in a plain military undress, his pale face, scarred
forehead and fiery eye, denoting the ravages of the battle and the fever.

He advanced, greeted me by name, and I soon knew him as one of the
disbanded volunteers of Mexico.

I must confess that he was a magnificent looking young man. Six feet
high, his figure light, agile, and muscular, his head placed proudly on his
shoulders—despite the withered cheek and scarred brow—he was a noble
man for the eyes to behold.

In short plain words, he told me his story, which was afterwards corroborated
by others who knew the stranger. But a year ago he had left his
home, in one of the dear vallies of the west, left a mother and sister, joined
the army of Taylor, shared in the perils of Palo Alto, Resaca and Monterey.
You should have seen his lip quiver, his pale cheek glow, his full
eye flash, as he spoke of the terrible storming of the Bishop's Palace. It
made the blood run cold, to hear him talk of the sworn comrade of his
heart, whose skull was peeled off, by an escoppette ball, as they advanced
side by side along the Plaza of Monterey.

Altogether the history of this young man, the story of his life from the
hour when he kissed “farewell” on his sister's lips, and beheld his mother's
white hairs gleaming from the threshhold of Home, until the moment when
disbanded with the other volunteers, he lay fevered and dying in the Hospital
of New Orleans, affected me with every varying interest; I felt my
heart swell, my eyes fill with tears.

At last, I ventured to ask him how he knew my name—

“I came,” said the soldier, mentioning my name with an emphasis, that
made my heart bound—“I came from the field of Monterey, to thank you
for myself and my comrades!”

“Thank me?”

“Your works have cheered the weariness of many a sleepless night.
Gathered round our watch-fire before the battle of Monterey, one of our
number seated on a cannon, would read, while the others listened. Yes, in
the Courier we read your Legends of the Revolution! Believe me, sir,
those things made our hearts feel warm—they nerved our arms for the battle!
When we read of the old times of our Flag, we swore in our hearts,
never to disgrace it!”

As the young soldier spoke, he placed in my hand a small knife,—a very
toy of a thing—and a volume of blotted manuscript.

“This knife I took from the vest of my dead comrade in the plaza of
Monterey. Take it, sir, as a mark of gratitude from a soldier, whose lonely
hours have been cheered by your Legends. This Manuscript contains the
record of my wanderings—roughly written—yet the facts of the battles and
marches are there. Accept these tokens, the knife and the book—they are
all I have to give!”

As the brave fellow spoke, his voice grew tremulous; there was a tear
in his eye.

Shall I confess it? As I glanced from the papers on my table—newspapers
among others containing the foulest libels on my works, ever penned
by the animalculæ of the Press—to the pale face of the young soldier, I felt

my heart bound with a joy unfelt before. Far more precious to my heart,
than the praise of all the critics in the world, was that scarred soldier's tear.

Rather dwell enshrined in one honest heart like his, than enjoy the
praise of Critics, Reviewers, and all other Pigmies of the pen, whose good
opinion can be bought even as you purchase peddler's wares.

I will confess, and confess frankly, that the knife, the journal of that soldier
of Monterey, are worth more to me than a ribbon or a title bestowed
by the hands of the proudest monarch that ever lived.

From the rough heart-warm sketches of that journal, I have constructed
the basis of my “Legends of Mexico.”[4]

Do not charge me with the folly of egotism. I have journeyed far and
long with you, my reader, and never once obtruded the Author on your
sight. But at the same time that I frankly confess my thorough contempt
of the whole race of mercenary critics, whose praise I have once or twice
been so unfortunate as to receive—a praise more to be dreaded than their
slander—I must also state that the spontaneous tribute from the scarred soldier
of Monterey, spoke to my inmost heart. It showed me that my labors
were not altogether valueless; it showed more a high and holy truth, that
the memories of the Old Revolution are still with us, in the hearts of our
People, binding millions in one great bond of brotherhood, and nerving the
arms of American freemen in far distant lands, amid the horrors of savage
battles.

May—I whose greatest fault has ever been, that I could not mould myself
to the humors of a tinselled aristocracy, nor worship empty pomps and
emptier skulls, though garnished with big names and hired praise—frankly
make the record on this page, that I am proud of the unbought approbation
of that battered soldier of Monterey?

You should have heard him talk of the scenes he had witnessed, in the
strange land of Mexico.

In the battle where a few American freemen contended against the brave
hordes of the southern land. Among the mountains, whose shadows still
shelter the remnants of the Aztec People. Amid the ruins of gorgeous
cities, whose strange architecture stamped with the traces of a thousand
years, tells of a long lost civilization, whose wierd hieroglyphics are big
with History that no human eye may read; whose rainbow vegetation,
blossoming amid monument and pyramid, adorns the wreck which it cannot
save—whose solemn temples, mysterious with God and Symbol, speak of
a Religion once the barbarous Hope of millions, and now forgotten in that
awful silence, brooding over the past ages, like the serence and pathless sky
above the summit of Chimborazo!

Such had been the course of his wanderings; and wherever he turned,
he discovered the broken links of the great chain which connects the stern
Indian of the rugged North, with those children of the blossoming South,
the dwellers in the land of Mexico and Peru!

And now reader, as on this Rock of Wissahikon I write these farewell
words, while the supernatural beauty of this place is all about me, imbuing
the air as with an angel presence, permit me to hope that we do not part
forever. For the Pilgrim of the battle-fields of America will wander forth
again, and gather new relics from the Sepulchre of the Past. When next
we wander forth with staff and scallop shell, our pilgrimage will tend to
Mount Vernon; from that shrine of our history we will bring you fresh
stores of tradition, and from the grave of the American Chieftain, pour new
light upon the glorious career of the brother-heroes—Washington and his
Generals.

Stereotyped by
R. P. MOGRIDGE—PHILAD'A.