University of Virginia Library

VII.—KING GEORGE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

One fine summer afternoon, in the year 1780, King George the Third,
of Great Britain, defender of the faith, as well as owner of a string of other
titles, as long as a hypocrite's prayer, took a quiet stroll through the dim
cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

It does not become me to picture that magnificent House of the Dead,
where Royalty sleeps its last slumber, as soundly as though it had never
butchered the innocent freeman, or robbed the orphan of her bread, while
poor Genius, starved and kicked while living, skulks into some corner, with
a marble monument above its tired head.

No! We will leave the description of Westminster Abbey to any one of
the ten thousand travellers, who depart from their own country—scarce
knowing whether Niagara is in New York or Georgia—and write us home
such delightful long letters about Kings and Queens, and other grand folks.

No! All we have to do is to relate a most singular incident, which happened
to George the Third, etc., etc., etc.—on this fine summer afternoon,
in the year of our Lord, 1780.

Do you see that long, gloomy aisle, walled in on either side by gorgeous
tombs, with the fretted roof above, and a mass of red, blue, purple and gold
pouring in on the marble pavement, through the discolored window-panes,
yonder? Does not the silence of this lonely aisle make you afraid? Do
you not feel that the dead are around, about, beneath, above—nay, in
the air?

After you have looked well at this aisle, with its splendid tombs, its marble
floor, its heavy masses of shade and discolored patches of light, let me
ask you to look upon the figure, which, at this moment, turns the corner
of yonder monument.

He stands aside from the light, yet you behold every outline of his face

and form. He is clad in a coat of dark purple velvet, faced with gold lace.
His breeches are of a pale blue satin; his stockings flesh-colored, and of
the finest silk. There is a jewelled garter around his right leg. His white
satin vest gleams with a single star. His shoes glitter with diamonds buckles,
he carries a richly-faced hat under his right arm. This is a very pretty
dress: and I am sure you will excuse me for being so minute, as I have
the greatest respect for grand folks.

This man—if it is not blasphemous to call such a great being a man—
seems prematurely old. His face does not strike you with its majesty; for
his forehead is low, the pale blue eyes bulge out from their sockets, the
lower lip hangs down upon the chin. Indeed, if this man was not so great
a being, you would call him an Idiot.

This, in fact, is George the Third, King of Great Britain, Ireland and
France; and owner of a string of other titles, who rules by divine right.

As he stands near yonder monument, a woman—dressed in faded black
—starts from behind that big piece of sculptured marble, on which “Mercy”
appears, in the act of bending from the skies, and flings herself at the feet
of the King.

“Mercy!” she cries, with uplifted hands.

“What—what—what?” stammers the good King. “What's all this?”

“My son committed robbery, some two months ago. He robbed on the
highway to give me bread. I was sick—famished—dying. He has been
condemned to death, and to-morrow he dies. Mercy for the widow's son?”

“What—what—what? Eh? What's this? How much did he steal?”

“Only ten shillings! Only ten shillings! For the love of God, mercy?”

The good King looked upon the wan face and pleading eyes of that poor
woman, and said, hurriedly—

“I cannot pardon your son. If I pardon the thief, I may as well pardon
the forger and murderer.—There—go, good woman: I can do nothing
for you.”

The good King turned away, leaving the insensible form of the widow
stretched out upon the marble floor. He would have pardoned her boy,
but there were some two or three hundred crimes punishable with death,
from the petty offence of killing a man up to the enormous blasphemy of
shooting a rabbit on a rich man's estate. Therefore, King George could not
pardon one of these crimes, for, do you mark, the hangman once put down,
there is an end of all law.

The King, I like to call grand people by their titles, the good King—I
also like to call him good, because, do you see, the Archbishop of Canterbury
called him so, in his sermon, every Sunday morning—the good King
turned away, leaving the poor widow insensible on the floor.

This little incident had somewhat excited him, so he sank down upon the
corner of a marble slab, and bent his head upon his hand, and began to think.

All at once, he felt seized by invisible hands, and borne, with the speed

of light, through the air and over a long sweep of ocean waves. His journey
was but for a moment, yet, it seemed to him, that he had traversed thousands
of miles. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing by a
road-side, opposite a beautiful little cottage, which, with a garden in front,
smiled upon the view from a grove of orchard trees. A young woman with
a little boy by her side and a baby in her arms, stood in the cottage door.

The King could not admire that cottage too much, with its trees and
flowers, and, as for that rosy-cheeked woman, in the linsey gown, he was
forced to admit to himself that he had never seen anything half so beautiful,
even in the Royal family.

While the King was looking upon the young woman and her children, he
heard a strange noise, and, turning his head, he beheld a man in a plain
farmer's coat, with a gun in his hand, tottering up the highway. His face
was very pale, and as he walked tremblingly along, the blood fell, drop by
drop, from a wound near his heart, upon the highway dust.

The man stumbled along, reached the garden gate, and sprang forward,
with a bound, towards the young woman and her children.

“Husband!” shrieked the young woman.

“Father!” cried the little boy.

Even the baby lifted its little hands, and greeted in its infant tones that
wounded man.

Yet the poor farmer lay there at the feet of his wife, bleeding slowly to
death. The young woman knelt by his side, kissing him on the forehead,
and placing her hand over the wound, as if to stop the blood, but it was in
vain. The red current started from his mouth.

The good King lifted his eyes. The groans of the dying man, the shrieks
of the wife, the screams of the little children, sounded like voices from the
dead. At last his feelings overcome him—

“Who,” he shouted, “who has done this murder?”

As he spoke—as if in answer to his question—a stout, muscular man
came running along the road, in the very path lately stained with the blood
of the wounded man. He was dressed in a red coat, and in his right hand
he grasped a musquet, with a bayonet dripping blood.

“I killed that fellow,” he said in a rude tone, “and what have you got
to say to it?”

“Did he ever harm you?” said the King.

“No—I never saw him before this hour!”

“Then why did you kill him?”

“I killed him for eight-pence,” said the man, with a brutal sneer.

The good King raised his hands in horror, and called on his God to pity
the wretch!

“Killed a man for eight-pence! Ah, you wretch! Don't you hear the
groans of his wife?—the screams of his children?”

“Why, that hain't nothin',” said the man in the red coat. “I've killed

many a one to-day, beside him. I'm quite used to it, though burnin' 'em
alive in their houses is much better fun.”

The King now foamed with righteous scorn.

`Wretch!” he screamed, “where is your master, this devil in human
shape, who gives you eight-pence for killing an innocent man?”

“Oh, he's a good ways over the water,” said the man. “His name is
George the Third. He's my King. He—”

The good King groaned.

“Why—why,” said he, slowly, “I must be in America. That dying
man must be a—Rebel. You must be one of my soldiers—”

“Yes,” said the man in the red coat, with a brutal grin; “you took me
out o' Newgate, and put this pretty dress on my back. That man whom I
killed was a farmer: he sometimes killed sheep for a dollar a day. I'm
not quite so well off as him, for I kill men, and only get eight-pence a day.
I say, old gentleman, couldn't you raise my wages?”

But the King did not behold the brute any longer. He only saw that
the young woman and her children, kneeling around the body of the dead
man.

Suddenly those invisible hands again grasped his Royal person, and bore
him through the air.

When he again opened his eyes, he beheld a wide lawn, extending in the
light of the December moon. That lawn was white with snow. From its
centre arose an old-time mansion, with grotesque ornaments about its roof,
a hall door defended by pillars, and steps of stone, surmounted by two lions
in marble. All around the mansion, like sentinels on their midnight watch,
stood scattered trees, their bare limbs rising clearly and distinctly into the
midnight sky.

While the King was wrapped in wonder at the sight—behold! A band
of women, a long and solemn train, came walking over the lawn, their long
black gowns trailing in the winter snow.

It was a terrible sight to see those wan faces, upturned to the cold moon,
but oh! the chaunt they sung, those spectral women, as they slowly wound
around the lawn: it chilled the King's blood.

For that chaunt implored Almighty God to curse King George of England
for the murder of their husbands—fathers—brothers!

Then came a band of little children, walking two by two, and raising
their tiny hands in the light of the moon. They also rent the air with a
low, deep chaunt, sung in their infantile tones.

George, the King, listened to that chaunt with freezing blood, with trembling
limbs. He knew not why, but he joined in that song in spite of himself,
he sung their hymn of woe.

“George of England, we curse thee in the sight of God, for the murder
of our fathers! We curse thee with the orphan's curse!”

This was their chaunt. No other words they sung. But this simple
hymn they sung again and again, raising their little hands to God.

“Oh, this is hard!” shrieked King George. “I could bear the curse of
warriors—nay, even the curse of the Priest at the Altar! But to be cursed
by widows—to be cursed by little children—ah—”

The good King fell on his knees.

“Where am I!” he shrieked—“and who are these?”

A voice from the still winter air answered—

“You are on the battle-field. These are the widows and orphans of the
dead of Germantown.”

“But did I murder their fathers? Their husbands?”

The voice replied—

“You did! Too cowardly or too weak to kill them with your own hand,
you hired your starving peasants, your condemned felons to do it for you!”

The King grovelled in the snow and beat his head against the frozen
ground. He felt that he was a murderer: he could feel the brand of Cain
blistering upon his brow.

Again he was taken up—again borne through the air.

Where was he now? He looked around, and by the light of that December
moon, struggling among thick clouds, he beheld a scattered village of
huts, extending along wintry hills. The cold wind cut his cheek and froze
his blood

An object at his feet arrested his eye. He stooped down: examined it
with a shudder. It was a man's footsteps, printed in blood.

The King was chilled to the heart by the cold; stupified with horror at
the sight of this strange footstep. He said to himself, I will hasten to yonder
hut; I will escape from the wind and cold, and the sight of that horrid
footstep.

He started toward the village of huts, but all around him those bloody
footsteps in the snow seemed to gather and increase at every inch of his
way.

At last he reached the first hut, a rude structure of logs and mud. He
looked in the door, and beheld a naked man, worn to a skeleton, stretched
prostrate on a heap of straw.

“Ho! my friend,” said the King, as though a voice spoke in him, without
his will, “why do you lie here, freezing to death, when my General,
Sir William Howe, at Philadelphia yonder, will give you such fine clothes
and rich food?”

The freezing man looked up, and muttered a few brief words, and then
fell back—dead!

“Washington is here!” was all he said, ere he died.

In another hut, in search of shelter, peeped the cold and hungry King.
A rude fellow sate warming his hands by a miserable fire, over which an

old kettle was suspended. His face was lean and his cheeks hollow, nay,
the hands which he held out towards the light, looked like the hands of a
skeleton.

“Ho! my friend—what cheer?” said the King. “I am hungry—have
you any thing to eat?”

“Not much of any account,” replied the rude fellow; “yesterday I eat
the last of my dog, and to-day I'm goin' to dine on these mocassins: don't
you hear 'em bilin'?”

“But,” said the King, “there's fine living at Philadelphia, in the camp of
Sir William. Why do you stay here to starve?”

“Was you ever to school?” said the starved Rebel. “Do you know
how to spell L-i-b-e-r-t-y?”

The good King passed on. In the next hut lay a poor wretch dying of
that loathsome plague—small-pox.

“Come,” said the King, or rather the voice in him spoke, “away to
Philadelphia!”

“These hills are free!” cried the poor wretch, lifting his loathsome face
into light; then, without a moan, he laid down to his fever and starvation
again.

At last, his Royal brain confounded by the words of these strange men
the King entered a two-story stone house, which arose in the glen, between
the hills, near the brink of a dark river. Slowly entered the King, attracted
by the sound of a voice at prayer along a dark passage, into a small chamber,
in which a light was burning.

A man of noble visage was on his knees, praying to God in earnest
tones—

“We will endure disease, starvation, death, but, in thy name, oh, God!
we will never give up our arms! The tyrant, with murder in his heart,
may darken our plains with his hirelings, possess our cities, but still we
thank thee, oh, God! that the mountains are free, that where the panther
howls, we may yet find a home for the brave.

“Hold, hold!” shouted the voice within the King, as the terror-stricken
Monarch rushed into the room. “Washington do not pray against me! I
can bear to be called a murderer—a butcher of orphans, but that you—you,
so calm amid starvation, nakedness, disease—you whom I thought hunted
long ago, like a wolf before the hounds—that you should call God's vengeance
on my head—that I cannot bear! Washington, do not pray
against me!”

And he flung himself at the feet of the Hunted Rebel, and besought his
mercy with trembling hands, extended in a gesture of supplication.

“It was I that butchered your farmers! It was I that tore the husband
from the wife, the father from his child! It was I that drove these freemen
to the huts of Valley Forge, where they endure the want of bread, fire, the
freezing cold, the loathsome small-pox, rather than take my gold—it was I!

Rebel I am at your feet! Have mercy! I, George by the Grace of God,
Defender of the Faith, Head of the Church, fling myself at your feet, and
beg your pity! For I am a murderer—the murderer of thousands and tens
of thousands!”

He started tremblingly forward, but in the action, that room, that solemn
face and warrior form of the Rebel, passed away.

George the King awoke: he had been dreaming. He woke with the
cold sweat on his brow; a tremor like the ague upon his limbs.

The sun was setting, and his red light streamed in one gaudy blaze
through yonder stained window.—All was terribly still in Westminster
Abbey.

The King arose, he rushed along the aisles, seeking with starting eyes
for the form of the poor widow. At last he beheld her, shrouded in her
faded garments, leaning for support against a marble figure of Mercy.

The King rushed to her, with outspread hands.

“Woman, woman!” he shrieked, “I pardon your son!”

He said nothing more, he did not even wait to receive her blessings, but
rushing with trembling steps toward the door, he seized the withered old
Porter, who waited there, by the hand

“Do you see it in my face?” he whispered—“don't you see the brand
—Murder—here?”

He sadly laid his hand against his forehead, and passed through the door,
on his way.

“The poor King's gone mad!” said the old Porter. “God bless his
Majesty!”

In front of that dim old Abbey, with its outlines of grandeur and gloom,
waited the Royal carriage, environed by guards. Two men advanced to
meet the King—one clad in the attire of a nobleman, with a heavy face and
dull eye; and the other in the garb of a Prelate, with mild blue eyes and
snow-white hair.

“I hope your Majesty's prayers, for the defeat of the Rebels, will be
smiled upon by Heaven!”

Thus with a smile and gently-waving hand, spoke my Lord, the Archbishop
of Canterbury.

“O, by Christmas next, we'll have this Washington brought home in
chains!”

Thus with a gruff chuckle spoke my Lord North, Prime Minister of
England.

The good King looked at them both with a silly smile, and then pressed
his finger against his forehead.

“What—what—what? Do you see it here? Do, you see it? It burns!
Eh? Murderer!”

With that silly smile the King leaped in the carriage. Hurrah! How

the mob shouted—how the swords of the guards gleamed on high—how
gaily the chariot wheels dashed along the streets—hurrah!

Let us swell the shout, but—

That night a rumor crept through all London, that King George was
mad again!