XXII.—THE MARTYR OF THE SOUTH.
There is a gloom to-day in Charleston.
It is not often that a great city feels, but when this great heart of humanity
whose every pulsation is a life, can feel, the result is more terrible than
the bloodiest battle. Yes, when those arteries of a city, its streets, and
lanes, and alleys, thrill with the same feeling, when like an electric chain it
darts invisibly from one breast to another, until it swells ten thousand
hearts, the result is terrible.
I care not whether that result is manifested in a Riot, that fills the streets
with the blood of men, and women, and little children, that fires the roof
over the head of the innocent, or sends the Church of God whirling in
smoke and flame to the midnight sky; or whether that feeling is manifested
in the silence of thousands, the bowed head, the compressed lip, the
stealthy footstep, still it is a fearful thing to see.
There is gloom to-day in Charleston.
A dead awe reigns over the city. Every face you see is stamped with
gloom; men go silently by, with anguish in their hearts and eyes. Women
are weeping in their darkened chambers; in yonder church old men
are kneeling before the altar, praying in low, deep, muttered tones.
The very soldiers whom you meet, clad in their British uniforms, wear
sadness on their faces. These men to whom murder is sport, are gloomy
to-day. The citizens pass hurriedly to and fro; cluster in groups; whisper
together; glide silently unto their homes.
The stores are closed to-day, as though it were Sunday. The windows
of those houses are closed, as though some great man were dead; there is
a silence on the air, as though a plague had despoiled the town of its beauty
and its manhood.
The British banner—stained as it is with the best blood of the Palmetto
State—seems to partake of the influence of the hour; for floating from
yonder staff, it does not swell buoyantly upon the breeze, but droops heavily
to the ground.
The only sound you hear, save the hurried tread of the citizens, is the
low, solemn notes of the Dead March, groaning from muffled drums.
Why all this gloom, that oppresses the heart and fills the eyes? Why
do Whig and Tory, citizen and soldier, share this gloom alike? Why this
silence, this awe, this dread?
Look yonder, and in the centre of that common, deserted by every human
thing, behold—rising in lonely hideousness—behold, a Gallows.
Why does that gibbet stand there, blackening in the morning sun?
Come with me into yonder mansion, whose roof arises proudly over all
other roofs. Up these carpeted stairs, into this luxurious chamber, whose
windows are darkened by hangings of satin, whose walls are covered with
tapestry, whose floor is crowded with elegant furniture. All is silent in this
chamber.
A single glow of morning light steals through the parted curtains of
yonder window. Beside that window, with his back to the light, his face
in shadow, as though he wished to hide certain dark thoughts from the light,
sits a young man, his handsome form arrayed in a British uniform.
He is young, but there is the gloom of age upon that woven brow, there
is the resolve of murder upon that curling lip. His attitude is significant.—
His head inclined to one side, the cheek resting on the left hand, while the
right grasps a parchment, which bears his signature, the ink not yet dried.
That parchment is a death-warrant.
If you will look closely upon that red uniform you will see that it is
stained with the blood of Paoli, where the cry for “quarter” was answered
by the falling sword and the reeking bayonet. Yes, this is none other than
General Grey, the Butcher of Paoli, transformed by the accolade of his
King into Lord Rawdon.
While he is there by the window, grasping that parchment in his hand,
the door opens, a strange group stand disclosed on the threshhold.
A woman and three children, dressed in black, stand there gazing upon
the English lord. They slowly advance; do you behold the pale face of
that woman, her eyes large and dark, not wet with tears, but glaring with
speechless woe? On one side a little girl with brown ringlets, on the other
her sister, one year older, with dark hair relieving a pallid face.
Somewhat in front, his young form rising to every inch of its height,
stands a boy of thirteen, with chesnut curls, clustering about his fair countenance.
You can see that dark eye flash, that lower lip quiver, as he
silently confronts Lord Rawdon.
The woman—I use that word, for to me it expresses all that is pure in
passion, or holy in humanity, while your word—lady—means nothing but
ribbons and milinery—the woman advances, and encircled by these children,
stands before the gloomy lord.
“I have come,” she speaks in a voice that strikes you with its music
and tenderness, “I have come to plead for my brother's life!”
She does not say, behold, my brother's children, but there they are, and
the English lord beholds them. Tears are coursing down the cheeks of
those little girls, but the eye of the woman is not dim. The boy of thirteen
looks intently in the face of the Briton, his under lip quivering like a
leaf.
For a single moment that proud lord raises his head and surveys the
group, and then you hear his deep yet melodious voice:
“Madam, your brother swore allegiance to His Majesty, and was afterwards
taken in arms against his King. He is guilty of Treason, and must
endure the penalty, and that, you well know, is Death.”
“But, my lord,” said that brave woman, standing firm and erect, her
beauty shining more serenely in that moment of heroism, “You well know
the circumstances under which he swore allegiance. He, a citizen of South
Carolina, an American, was dragged from the bedside of a dying wife, and
hurried to Charleston, where this language was held by your officers—`Take
the oath of allegiance, and return to the bedside of your dying wife: Refuse,
and we will consign you to gaol. This, my lord, not when he was free to
act, ah, no! But when his wife lay dying of that fearful disease—small pox
—which had already destroyed two of his children. How could he act
otherwise than he did? how could he refuse to take your oath? In his
case, would you, my lord, would any man, refuse to do the same?”
Still the silent children stood there before him, while the clear voice of
the true woman pierced his soul.
“Your brother is condemned to death! He dies at noon. I can do
nothing for you!”
Silently the woman, holding a little girl by each hand, sank on her knees;
but the boy of thirteen stood erect. Do you see that group? Those hands
upraised, those voices, the clear voice of the woman, the infantile tones of
those sweet girls, mingling in one cry for “Mercy!” while the Briton looks
upon them with a face of iron, and the boy of thirteen stands erect, no tear
in his eye, but a convulsive tremor on his lip!
Then the tears of that woman come at last—then as the face of that stern
man glooms before her, she takes the little hands of the girls within her
own, and lifts them to his knee, and begs him to spare the father's life.
Not a word from the English Lord.
The boy still firm, erect and silent, no tear dims the eye which glares
steadily in the face of the tyrant.
“Ah, you relent!” shrieks that sister of the condemned man. “You
will not deprive these children of a father—you will not cut him off in the
prime of manhood, by this hideous death! As you hope for mercy in
your last hour, be merciful now—spare my brother, and not a heart in
Charleston but will bless you—spare him for the sake of these children!”
“Madam,” was the cold reply, “your brother has been condemned to
die. I can do nothing for you!”
He turned his head away, and held the parchment before his eyes. At
last the stern heart of the boy was melted. There was a spasmodic motion
about his chest, his limbs shook, he stood for a moment like a statue, and
then fell on his knees, seizing the right hand of Lord Rawdon with his
trembling fingers.
Lord Rawdon looked down upon that young face, shadowed with chesnut-curls,
as the small hands clutched his wrist, and an expression of surprise
came over his face.
“My child,” said he, “I can do nothing for you!”
The boy silently rose. He took a sister by each hand. There was a
wild light in his young eye—a scorn of defiance on his lip.
“Come, sisters, let us go.”
He said this, and led those fair girls toward the door, followed by the
sister of the condemned. Not a word more was said—but ere they passed
from the room, that true woman looked back into the face of Lord Rawdon.
He never forgot that look.
They were gone from the room, and he stood alone before that window,
with the sunlight pouring over his guilty brow.
“Yes, it is necessary to make an example! This rebellion must be
crushed; these rebels taught submission! The death of this man will
strike terror into their hearts. They will learn at last that treason is no
trifling game; that the rope and the gibbet will reward each Rebel for his
crime!”
Poor Lord Rawdon!
The streets were now utterly deserted. Not a citizen, a soldier, not
even a negro was seen. A silence like death rested upon the city.
Suddenly the sound of the dead march was heard, and yonder behold
the only evidence of life through this wide city.
On yonder common, around the gibbet, is gathered a strangely contrasted
crowd. There is the negro, the outcast of society, the British officer
in his uniform, the citizen in his plain dress. All are grouped together in
that crowd.
In the centre of the dense mass, beside that horse and cart, one foot
resting on that coffin of pine, stands the only man in this crowd with an
uncovered brow. He stands there, an image of mature manhood, with a
muscular form, a clear full eye, a bold forehead. His cheek is not pale,
nor his eye dim. He is dressed neatly in a suit of dark velvet, made after
the fashion of his time; one hand inserted in his vest, rests on his heart.
Above his head dangles the rope. Near his back stands that figure with
the craped face; around are the British soldiers, separating the condemned
from the crowd. Among all that rude band of soldiers, not an eye but is
wet with tears.
The brave officer there, who has charge of the murder, pulls his chapeau
over his eyes, to shield them from the sun, or—can it be?—to hide his
tears.
All is ready. He has bidden the last farewell to his sister, his children
in yonder gaol; he has said his last word to his noble boy, pressed his last
kiss upon the lips of those fair girls. All is ready for the murder.
At this moment a citizen advances, his face convulsed with emotion—
“Hayne,” he speaks, in a choking voice, “show them how an American
can die!”
“I will endeavor to do so,” was the reply of the doomed man.
At this moment the hangman advanced, and placed the cap over his brow.
A cry was heard in the crowd, a footstep, and those soldiers shrank back
before a boy of thirteen, who came rushing forward.
“Father!” he shrieked, as he beheld the condemned with the cap over
his brow.
One groan arose from that crowd—a simultaneous expression of horror.
The father drew the cap from his brow: beheld the wild face, the glaring
eyes of his son.
“God bless you, my boy,” he spoke, gathering that young form to his
heart. “Now go, and leave your father to his fate. Return when I am
dead—receive my body, and have it buried by my forefathers!”
As the boy turned and went through the crowd, the father stepped firmly
into the cart.
There was a pause, as though every man in that crowd was suddenly
turned to stone.
The boy looked back but once, only once, and then beheld—ah, I dare
not speak it, for it chills the blood in the veins—he beheld that manly
form suspended to the gibbet, with the cap over his brow, while the distorted
face glowed horribly in the sun.
That was his Father!
That boy did not shriek, nor groan, but instantly—like a light extinguished
suddenly—the fire left his eye, the color his cheek. His lips opened in
a silly smile. The first word he uttered told the story—
“My father!” he cried, and then pointed to the body, and broke into a
laugh.
Oh, it was horrible, that laugh, so hollow, shrill, and wild. The child
of the Martyr was an idiot.
Still, as the crowd gathered round him, as kind hands bore him away,
that pale face was turned over his shoulder toward the gallows:
“My Father!”
And still that laugh was borne upon the breeze, even to the gibbet's
timbers, where—in hideous mockery, a blackened but not dishonored thing
—swung the body of the Martyr Hayne.
“This death will strike terror into the hearts of the Rebels!”
Poor Lord Rawdon!
Did that man, in his fine uniform, forget that there was a God? Did he
forget that the voice of a Martyr's blood can never die?
This death strike terror into the heart of the Rebels?
It roused one feeling of abhorrence through the whole South. It took
down a thousand rifles from the hooks above the fire-side hearth. It turned
many a doubting heart to the cause of freedom; nay, Tories by hundreds
came flocking to the camp of liberty. The blood of Hayne took root and
grew into an army.
There came a day when George Washington, by the conquest of Yorktown,
had in his possession the murderer who did this deed; Lord Cornwallis,
who commended, nay commanded it: Lord Rawdon, who signed
the death-warrant.
Here was a glorious chance for Washington to avenge the Martyr Hayne,
who had been choked to death by these men. The feeling of the army,
the voice of America—nay, certain voices that spoke in the British Parliament,
would have justified the deed. The law of nations would have proclaimed
it a holy act. But how did Washington act?
He left each murderer to God and his own conscience. He showed the
whole world a sublime manifestation of forgiveness and scorn. Forgiveness
for this humilitated Cornwallis, who, so far from bearing Washington
home to London a prisoner in chains, was now a conquered man in the
midst of his captive army.
But this Lord Rawdon, who, captured by a French vessel, was brought
into Yorktown, this arrested murderer, who skulled about the camp, the
object of universal loathing, how did Washington treat him?
He scorned him too much to lay a hand upon his head; from the fulness
of contempt, he permitted him to live.
Poor Lord Rawdon!
Who hears his name now, save as an object, forgotten in the universality
of scorn?
But the Martyr—where is the heart that does not throb at the mention of
his fate, at the name of Isaac Hayne?
