I.—THE DAYBREAK WATCH.
Along the porch of an ancient mansion, surmounting the height of Mount
Airy, strode the sentinel of the British picket, his tall form looming like the
figure of a giant in the gathering mist, while the musquet on his shoulder
was grasped by a hand red with American blood.
He strode slowly along the porch, keeping his lonely watch; now turning
to gaze at the dark shadow of the mansion towering above him, now
fixing his eye along the Germantown road, as it wound down the hill, on its
northward course; and again he gazed upon the landscape around him,
wrapt in a gathering mist, which chilled his blood, and rendered all objects
around him dim and indistinct.
All around was vague and shadowy. The mist, with its white wreaths
and snowy columns, came sweeping up on every side, from the bosom of
the Wissahikon, from the depths of a thousand brooklets, over hill and over
valley, circled that dense and gathering exhalation; covering the woods with
its ghastly pall, rolling over the plains, and winding upward around the
height of Mount Airy, enveloping the cottages opposite the sentinel, in its
folds of gloom, and confining the view to a space of twenty paces from the
porch, where he kept his solitary watch—to him, a watch of death.
It is now daybreak, and a strange sound meets that soldier's ear. It is
now daybreak, and his comrades sleep within the walls of Allen's house, and
a strange, low, murmuring noise, heard from a great distance, causes him to
incline his ear with attention, and to listen with hushed breath and parted lips.
He listens. The night wore on. The blood-red moon was there in the
sky, looking out from the mist, like a funeral torch shining through a shroud.
The Sentinel bent his head down upon the porch, and with that musquet,
red with the carnage of Brandywine, in his hand, he listens. It is a distant
sound—very distant; like the rush of waters, or the moaning of the young
August storm, bursting into life amid the ravines of the far-off mountains.
It swells on the ear—it spreads to the east and to the west: it strikes the
sentinel's heart with a strange fear, and he shoulders his musquet with a
firmer grasp; and now a merry smile wreathes his lips.
That sound—it is the rush of waters: the Wissahikon has flooded its
banks, and is pouring its torrents over the meadows, while it rolls onward
towards the Schuylkill. The sentinel smiles at his discovery, and resumes
his measured stride. He is right—and yet not altogether right. A stream
has burst its banks, but not the Wissahikon. A stream of vengeance—dark,
wild, and terrible, vexed by passion, aroused by revenge, boiling and seething
from its unfathomable deeps—is flowing from the north, and on its bosom
are borne men with strong arms and stout hearts, swelling the turbulence of
the waters; while the gleam of sword and bayonet flashes over the dark
waves.
The day is breaking—sadly and slowly breaking, along the veil of mist,
that whitens over the face of nature like a Shroud of Death for millions.
The sentinel leans idly upon the bannisters of the porch, relaxes the grasp
of his musquet, inclines his head to one side, and no longer looks upon the
face of nature covered by mist. He sleeps. The sound not long ago far
off, is now near and mighty in its volume, the tramp of steeds startles the
silence of the road, suppressed tones are heard, and there is a noise like the
moving of legions.
