XXVI.—THE RIGHT ARM.
Fifty years ago, a terrible storm shook the city of London. At the dead
of night, when the storm was at its highest, an aged minister, living near
one of the darkest suburbs of the city, was aroused by an earnest cry for
help. Looking from his window, he beheld a rude man, clad in the coarse
attire of a sweeper of the public streets. In a few moments, while the rain
came down in torrents, and the storm growled above, that preacher, leaning
on the arm of the scavenger, threaded his way to the dark suburb, listening
meanwhile to the story of the dying man.
That very day, a strange old man had fallen speechless, in front of the
scavenger's rude home. The good-hearted street-sweeper had taken him
in—laid him on his bed—he had not once spoken—and now he was dying.
This was the story of that rough man.
And now through dark alleys, among miserable tenements, that seemed
about to topple down upon their heads, into the loneliest and dreariest
suburb of the city, they passed, that white-haired minister and his guide.
At last into a narrow court, and up dark stairs, that cracked beneath their
tread, and then into the death room.
It was in truth a miserable place.
A glimmering light stood on a broken chair.—There were the rough
walls, there the solitary garret window, with the rain beating in, through
the rags and straw, which stuffed the broken panes,—and there, amid a heap
of cold ashes, the small valise, which it seems the stranger had with him.
In one corner, on the coarse straw of the ragged bed, lay the dying man.
He was but half-dressed; his legs were concealed in long military boots.
The aged preacher drew near, and looked upon him. And as he looked,
throb—throb—throb—you might hear the death-watch ticking in the shattered
wall.
It was the form of a strong man, grown old with care more than age.
There was a face, that you might look upon but once, and yet wear in
your memory for ever.
Let us bend over the bed, and look upon that face: A bold forehead,
seamed by one deep wrinkle between the brows—long locks of dark hair,
sprinkled with grey—lips firmly set, yet quivering as though they had a
life, separate from the life of the man—and then two large eyes, vivid,
burning, unnatural in their steady glare.
Ah, there was something so terrible in that face—something so full of
unutterable loneliness, unspeakable despair—that the aged minister started
back in horror.
But look! Those strong arms are clutching at the vacant air—the death-sweat
starts in drops upon that bold brow—the man is dying.
Throb—throb—throb—beats the death-watch in the shattered wall.
“Would you die in the faith of the Christian?” faltered the preacher, as
he knelt there, on the damp floor.
The white lips of the death-stricken man trembled, but made no sound.
Then, with the strong agony of death upon him, he rose into a sitting
posture. For the first time, he spoke:
“Christian!” he echoed in that deep tone, which thrilled the preacher to
the heart, “will that faith give me back my honor? Come with me, old
man—come with me, far over the waters. Hah! we are there! This is
my native town. Yonder is the church in which I knelt in childhood—
yonder the green on which I sported when a boy. But another flag waves
yonder in place of the flag that waved when I was a child. And listen,
old man, where I to pass along the street, as I passed when but a child, the
very babes in their cradles would raise their tiny hands and curse me.
The graves in yonder graveyard would shrink from my footsteps, and yonder
flag—would rain a baptism of blood upon my head?”
That was an awful death-bed. The minister had watched the “last
night” with a hundred convicts in their cells, and yet never beheld a scene
so terrible as this.
Suddenly the dying man arose. He tottered along the floor. With those
white fingers, whose nails are blue with the death-chill, he threw open the
valise. He drew from thence a faded coat of blue, faced with silver, an
old parchment, a piece of damp cloth, that looked like the wreck of a
battle-flag.
“Look ye, priest, this faded coat is spotted with my blood!” he cried, as
old memories seemed stirring at his heart. “This coat I wore, when I
first heard the news of Lexington—this coat I wore, when I planted the
banner of the stars on Ticonderoga! That bullet-hole was pierced in the
fight of Quebec; and now—I am a—let me whisper it in your ear!”—
He hissed that single, burning word into the minister's ear.
“Now help me, priest,” he said, in a voice grown suddenly tremulous;
“help me to put on this coat of blue and silver. For you see—” and a
ghastly smile came over his face—“there is no one here to wipe the cold
drops from my brow; no wife—no child—I must meet death alone; but I
will meet him, as I have met him in battle, without a fear!”
And while he stood arraying his limbs in that worm-eaten coat of blue
and silver, the good preacher spoke to him of faith in Jesus. Yes, of that
great faith, which pierces the clouds of human guilt, and rolls them back
from the face of God.
“Faith!” echoed that strange man, who stood there, erect, with the
death-chill on his brow, the death-light in his eye. “Faith? Can it give
me back my honor? Look, ye priest, there over the waves, sits George
Washington, telling to his comrades, the pleasant story of the eight years'
war—there in his royal halls sits George of England, bewailing in his idiot
voice, the loss of his Colonies. And here am I—I—who was the first to
raise the flag of freedom, the first to strike a blow against that King—here
am I, dying, ah, dying like a dog!”
The awe-stricken preacher started back from the look of the dying man,
while throb—throb—throb—beat the death-watch in the shattered wall.
“Hush! silence along the lines there!” he muttered, in that wild absent
tone, as though speaking to the dead; “silence along the lines! Not a
word, not a word on peril of your lives. Hark you, Montgomery, we will
meet in the centre of the town. We will meet there, in victory, or die!—
Hist! Silence, my men—not a whisper, as we move up these steep rocks!
Now on, my boys, now on! Men of the Wilderness, we will gain the
town!—Now up with the banner of the stars—up with the flag of freedom,
though the night is dark and the snow falls! Now—now—” shrieked that
death stricken man, towering there, in the blue uniform, with his clenched
hands waving in the air—“now, now! One blow more, and Quebec is
ours!”
And look! His eye grows glassy. With that word on his, he stands
there—ah, what a hideous picture of despair, erect, livid, ghastly! There
for a moment, and then he falls! He is dead!
Ah, look at that proud form, thrown cold and stiff upon the damp floor.
In that glassy eye there lingers, even yet, a horrible energy—a sublimity
of despair.
Who is this strange man, dying here alone, in this rude garret—this man,
who, in all his crimes, still treasured up that blue uniform, that faded flag?
Who is this being of horrible remorse?—this man, whose memories seem
to link something of heaven, and more of hell?
Let us look at that parchment and flag
The aged minister unrolls that faded flag—it is a blue banner, gleaming
with thirteen stars.
He unrolls that parchment. It is a colonel's commission in the Continental
army, addressed to—Benedict Arnold!
And there, in that rude hut, while the death-watch throbbed like a heart
in the shattered wall—there, unknown, unwept, in all the bitterness of desolation,
lay the corse of the Patriot and the Traitor.
O, that our own true Washington had been there, to sever that good right
arm from the corse, and while the dishonored body rotted into dust, to bring
home that good right arm, and embalm it among the holiest memories of
the Past.—
For that right arm struck many a gallant blow for freedom, yonder at
Ticonderoga, at Quebec, Champlain, and Saratoga—THAT ARM, YONDER,
BENEATH THE SNOW-WHITE MOUNTAIN, IN THE DEEP SILENCE OF THE RIVER
OF THE DEAD, FIRST RAISED INTO LIGHT THE Banner of the Stars.
