 | Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution |  |
XVI.—THE SON OF THE HUNTER-SPY.
The gleam of the hearthside taper flashed far over the valley of the Brandywine.
From the upper window of that peaceful home, it flamed a long
and quivering ray of golden light.
The old house stood alone, some few paces from the road, at least an
hundred yards from the waters of the Brandywine. A small fabric of dark
grey stone, standing in the centre of a slope of grassy sod, with steep roof,
narrow windows, and a rustic porch before the door. On either side of the
grassy slope, the woods darkened, thick and luxuriant; above, the universe
of stars shed their calm, tranquil light, over the slumbering valley; from
afar, the musical murmur of the waves, rolling over their pebbled bed, broke
the deep silence of the night.
Let us look through the darkness, and by the clear starlight, behold this
small two-storied fabric, in all its rustic beauty, while yonder, not twenty
yards distant, a hay-rick rises from the level of the sod. All is still around
this home of Brandywine,—the house, the gently-ascending slope, the conical
hay-rick, the surrounding woods, present a picture of deep repose.
We will enter the home, yes, into the upper room, from whose narrow
window the ray of the fireside taper, gleams along the shadowy valley.
An old man, sitting easily in his oaken arm-chair, the glow of the candle
upon his wrinkled face and snowy hairs. The smoke of his pipe winds
around his face and head; his blue eyes gleaming with calm light, and
composed features, and attitude of careless ease, all betoken a mind at peace
with God and man.
On one side you behold his couch, with its coverlid of unruffled white;
yonder a rude table, placed beneath a small mirror, with a Bible, old and
venerable, laid upon its surface. There is a narrow hearth, simmering with
a slight fire of hickory faggots; beside the hearth, you see the door of a
closet, its panels hewn of solid oak, and darkened into inky blackness by
the touch of time.
In the centre of the room, his calm face glowing in the light of the candle,
sits the old man, coat and vest thrown aside, as he quietly smokes his
grateful pipe. As he knocks the ashes from the bowl, you may see that
he is one-armed; for the right arm has been severed at the shoulder: the
sleeve dangles by his side.
You will confess that it is but a quiet, nay, a tame picture, which I have
drawn for you—an old and one-armed man, smoking his evening pipe, ere
he retires to rest, his wrinkled face melowed with unspeakable content, his
blue eyes gleaming from beneath the thick grey eye-brows, as with the
light of blessed memories.
And yet this scene, placed beside another scene which will occur ere an
hour passes, might well draw tears from a heart of granite.
Suddenly the old man places his hand against his brow, his mild blue
eye moistens with a tear. His soul is with the past—with the wife who
now sleeps the last slumber, under the sod of the Quaker graveyard—with
the scenes of battle in the dim forests, where the rifle-blaze streams redly
over the leaves, and the yell of the Indian mingles with the war of the
cataract.
All at once there comes a memory which blanches the old man's cheek,
fills with wild light his calm blue eye. Looking back into time, he beholds
a dim recess of the forest, perched above the waters of the cataract, the sunbeam
playing over its moss, while the face of a dead man glares horribly in
the last flush of the sunset hour.
The old man rises, paces the floor, with his only hand wipes the moisture
from his brow.
“It was right,” he murmurs—“He had betrayed a thousand brave men
to death, and he died!”
And yet, look where he might, through that quiet room, he beheld a dead
man, suspended to the limb of a forest oak, with the sunlight—that last red
flush of sunset, which is so beautiful—playing warmly over the livid features.
This you will confess, was a terrible memory, or a strange frenzy. An
of a quiet home, to behold a livid face, working convulsively in death,
wherever he turned!
“I know not why it is, but wherever I turn, I seem to see—yes, I do
see—a dead man's face! And whenever I try to think of my dead wife, I
hear a voice repeating—`this night, this night you die!' ”
As the old man spoke, resuming his pipe, a slight sound disturbed the
silence of the room. He turned, and there, like a picture framed by the
rough timbers of the doorway, beheld the form of a young girl, clad slightly,
in her night-dress with a mass of brown hair about her neck and shoulders.
One hand was raised, the finger to her lip, and the round white arm,
gleaming in the light; the other grasped the handle of the door.
There was something very beautiful in the sight.
Not that her dress was fashioned of silk or purple, or that her white
neck shone with the gleam of diamonds or pearls. Ah, no! Her dress
was made of coarse homespun cloth; it left her arms, and neck, and feet,
bare to the light. Still there was a beauty about her young face, which
glowed on the lips and cheeks, with the warmth of a summer dawn, and
shone in the deep blue eyes, with the tranquil loveliness of a starlight
night.
Her hair too; you cannot say that it gathered in curls, or floated in
tresses; but to tell the sober truth, in color it was of that rich brown which
deepens into black, and waving from her white forehead, it fell in one glossy
mass, down to the white bosom, which had never been ruffled by a thought
of sin.
With regard to the young form, whose outlines gleamed on you, even
from the folds of her coarse dress, you could not affirm that it rivalled the
dream of the Sculptor, the Venus de Medici, or burst forth in all the
majestic beauty of one of Raphael's Painted Poems. It was but the form
of a Peasant Girl, reminding you in every hue and outline, of a wild forest
rose, that flourishing alone amid large green leaves, trembles on the verge
of its perfect bloom; not so gorgeous as a hot-house plant, still very warm,
and very loveable, and very beautiful.
And she stood there, even on the threshold, her finger to her lip, gazing
with a look of wild alarm, upon the wrinkled face of her father, the one-armed
schoolmaster of Brandywine.
“Mary!” the old man exclaimed, his eyes expanding with wonder.
“Hush, father! Do you not hear the tread of armed men? Listen!
Do you not hear the rattling of arms? Hark! That deep-toned whisper,
coupled with an oath—`Mayland the spy—break the door—arrest, and
bear him to the British camp!' ”
And while the word trembled on her lip, a dull, heavy sound broke like
a knell upon the air. It was the crashing of a musket-stock against the
door of the schoolmaster's home.
“Fly! For God's sake, fly!” exclaimed Mary, darting forward, and
laying her white hand on the old man's arm.
“Fly!” he echoed, with a bewildered look—“Wherefore? Whom
have I wronged, that I should fly from my own home at midnight, like a
hunted beast?”
In brief words, uttered with gasping breath and tremulous bosom, the
Daughter revealed the strange secret:
“A week ago, you gave shelter to an old man, clad in the garb of forest-hunter.
That man left in your charge a pacquet, which you promised to
transmit without delay, to the Camp of Washington!”
“And did so, this very morning.”
“That pacquet was stolen from the camp-chest of General Howe. It
contained his plans of battle—Now do you guess wherefore the British soldiers
surround your house, whispering your name as `Mayland the Spy?' ”
The old man's countenance fell.
“Oh, that I had my own good right arm again!” he cried, after a moment's
pause—“I would defy the whole pack of red-coat hounds!”
Harsh language, this! But it must be confessed that the old school-master
was prejudiced against the British; he had seen but one side of the
question—aye, read it too, in the smouldering ruins of the homes they had
burned, in the livid faces of the farmers they had butchered.
The Peasant Girl—clad lightly as she was, in her night dress—tripped
softly to the opposite side of the room, and opened the closet door. In a
moment, she had torn the loose boards from the floor.
“Father, the way of escape lies before you! This ladder descends
from the closet into the cellar; from the cellar a subterranean passage leads
to the side of the hill! Quick—there is no time to be lost! For God's
sake—fly!”
`The ladder was used as a stairway in the old times; the underground
passage was made in the time o' the Injings,” murmured the old man.
“But my daughter, who will protect you?”
“They seek not to harm me,” she hurriedly exclaimed—“Hark! Do
you hear their shouts?”
And, as if in answer to her words, there came a hoarse and murmuring
cry from beneath the windows.
“One blow, and we'll force the door!” a deep voice was heard—“Remember,
comrades! a hundred guineas, if we catch the Spy!”
The old man hesitated no longer. Placing a foot on the ladder, he began
to descend. His daughter bending over him, held the light in her extended
hand; its rays lighted his grey hairs, and warmed the soft outlines of
her face.
“Quick, father!” she gaspingly whispered—“The passage leads out on
the hill-side, near the hay-stack! Ha! he descends—one moment more
and he will stand in the passage! Another moment, and he will be free!”
Holding the light above her head, she swept her brown hair aside from
her face, and gazed into the darkness beneath with dilating eyes.
Still from beneath the windows arose that hoarse cry; again the crash of
musquet-stocks against the door.
“In truth, thee father is in great danger,” said a mild voice, which made
the young girl start as though she had trod on a serpent's fang.
She turned, and beheld a man of slender frame, clad in the plain garb of
the Quaker faith. Gaze upon him and tell me, in that contracted face, with
sharp nose and hawk-like grey eyes, thin lips and brown hair, curling to
the shoulders, do you recognize some Memory of the Past?
Does it look like the face of the Hunter-Spy, who hung above the
chasm, long years ago, or like the countenance of his Son, the laughing boy,
whose blood was congealed to ice, by the vision of the murdered man?
“Gilbert Gates!” exclaimed Mary; “here, too, in this hour of peril!
Then indeed, does evil threaten us!”
“Maiden, thee wrongs me,” exclaimed that soft and insinuating voice.
“Passing along the valley, on the way to my farm, which—as thee knows
—lies near Brenton's ford, I beheld thee father's house surrounded by
armed men, who clamored for his blood. I found entrance by a back
window, and am here to save thee.”
“Burst open the door!” arose the shout from beneath the windows.
“We'll trap the Rebel in his den!”
“You here to save me?” exclaimed Mary, as she blushed from the
bosom to the brow with scorn. “I tell you man, there is Traitor on your
forehead and in your eye!”
“Look thee, maiden—but two hours ago, thee father did reject the offer
of marriage which I made to thee, with words of bitterness and scorn.
Now he is threatened with death—nay, smile not in derision—thy honor is
menaced with ruin! Be mine—yea, consent to receive my hand in marriage,
and I will save ye!
“Ah! his footsteps are in the cellar—he gains the passage—he is saved!”
exclaimed Mary, as she flung the rays of the light into the gloom below.
“Be yours!” and while every pulse throbbed tumultuously with loathing,
she turned to the strange man by her side—“Neither your assumed dress,
nor awkward attempt at the Quaker dialect, can deceive me! I know you
—scorn you! Nay, do not advance—I am but a weak girl, but dare to
pollute me, with but a finger's touch, and as heaven nerves my arm, I will
brain you with this oaken brand!”
She stood on the verge of the closet, one hand grasping the light, while
the other raised aloft a solid piece of oak, which she had seized from the
floor.
You can see the man of slender figure and Quaker dress shrink back appalled.
A wild light blazes in his grey eye; his long, talon-like fingers are
pressed convulsively against his breast. Suddenly his hard features were
trembling on a rock of granite.
“Maiden, did thee know my life—MY OATH—thee would not taunt me
thus. He died alone in the wild wood—ah, even now, I see the sunset
flush upon his icy face! My father—the only friend I ever had—the only
thing I ever loved. Maiden, become mine, and all shall be forgotten—all,
even my OATH!”
Clasping his hands, while his cold grey eyes were wet with tears, he advanced,
and gazed upon the warm bloom of the maiden's face.
For a moment, she gazed upon him, while the flush of scorn, which reddened
her cheeks, was succeeded by a look of deep compassion.
Again that deep roar beneath the windows—hark! A crash—a wild yell
—“We have the Rebel up stairs, and the guineas are ours!”
“Does thee consent?” exclaimed Gilbert Gates, advancing a single step.
“Ha! The door between the cellar and the passage is unfastened!
But I will save my father at the hazard of my life!”
With one bound she flung herself upon the ladder, and with the light
above her head, descended into the darkness of the cellar. As she went
down, her hair fell wavingly over her neck and shoulders, over the bosom
which heaved tumultuously into the light.
Gilbert Gates in his Quaker garb, with his hands folded over his narrow
chest, stood alone in the darkness of the school-master's bed-room. All
was darkness around him, yet there was a light within, which burned his
heart-strings, and filled his blood with liquid fire.
Darkness around him; no eye to look upon the writhings of his face; and
yet, even there through the gloom, he beheld that fearful vision—a dead
man swinging over the abyss of a cataract, with the sunset flush upon his
icy face.
Suddenly there was the sound of trampling feet upon the stairs; then the
blaze of torches flashed into the room, and some twenty forms dressed in
the attire of Tory Refugees—half-robber, half-soldier—came rushing over
the threshhold.
“The schoolmaster—where is he?” exclaimed their leader, a burly ruffian,
with crape over his face, and a white belt across his breast. “Speak,
Gilbert!”
“The Spy!” echoed the deep voices of the Tories, as they waved their
torches, their rifles, and their knives, above their heads.
“Yes, Smoothspeech, where's the schoolmaster, and the purty robin his
daughter, Polly?” cried a voice which issued from a mass of carbuneled
face, which in its turn, surmounted by a huge form clad in scarlet. “A
hundred guineas for the lass, you know; eh, comrades?”
The answer of Gilbert was short and concise.
“In truth, it seems to me, the old man Mayland and his daughter Mary,
are even now in the cellar, attending to their household affairs!”
With one movement, the Tory Captain and his comrades rushed down
the stairway.
Gilbert approached the closet; a light, gleaming from the cellar below,
bathed his face in a red glare.
“He will emerge from the passage on the hillside, near the hay-stack,”
he muttered, while a demoniac look worked over his contracted face.—
“Fairer tombs have I seen—but none so warm!”
As he gazes down the narrow passage, the light from beneath, reddening
his face, while his slender form quivers with a death-like agony: Let us
go back through the vista of twenty years, and behold the boy gazing into
the darkness of the chasm, in search of his father's corse.
Who, in the cold-featured, stony-eyed Gilbert Gates, would recognize the
boy with laughing eyes and flowing hair?
The blaze of torches illumined the cellar.
Before a door of solid oak, which separated the cellar from the subterranean
passage, the Tories paused. Then deep-muttered oaths alone disturbed
the midnight silence.
“Quick—we have no time to lose—he is hidden in the underground
passage—let us force the door, before the people of the valley come to his
rescue!”
Thus speaking, the Tory leader, whose face was hidden beneath the folds
of crape, pointed with his sword towards a heavy billet of wood, which
laid on the hard clay of the cellar floor.
Four stalwart Tories seize it in their muscular grasp; they stand prepared
to dash the door from its hinges.
“One good blow and the Spy is ours!” shouts the Tory leader, with
an oath.
“And the guineas—don't forget the guineas, and the girl!” growled the
red-faced British Sergeant.
The torch-light fell over their faces, frenzied by intoxication and rage,
over their forms, clad in plain farmer's costume, with a belt across every
chest, a powder horn by each side.
And at this moment, as they stand ready to dash the door into fragments,
on the other side stands Mary, the peasant girl, her round white arm supplying
the place of bar and fastening. Yes, with the light in her extended
right arm, she gazes after the retreating form of her father, while her left
arm is placed through the staples, in place of the bar.
One blow, and the maiden's arm will be rent in fragments, even to the
shoulder, one blow, and over her crushed and trampled body, will be made
the pathway of the ravager and robber!
“Heaven, pity me! My father has not sufficient strength to roll the
rock from the mouth of the passage! I hear their voices—their threats—
not pass to my father's heart, save over the dead body of his child!”
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the door, the four ruffians stood ready
with the billet of oak, in their iron grasp.
“Now!” shouted the Tory Captain, “one good blow, and it is done!”
They swayed the log slowly to and fro—it moved forward,—all the impulse
of their iron sinews concentrated in the effort—when a heavy body
fell from the narrow window of the cellar and beat the billet to the ground.
The curse of the Tory leader echoed through the vault.
In a moment, ere they could raise a hand, up from the darkness there
rose the form of a giant negro, bared to the waist, his broad chest heaving,
while his eyes rolled wildly in his inky face.
“Black Sampson!” growled the Tory. “Stand aside charcoal, or I'll
cut you down!”
“Look heah!” shouted the Negro, confronting the armed Tories with
his bared arms and breast, while his teeth grated convulsively. “Stan' off
—I say s-t-a-n' off! Ole Massa Maylan' kind to Sampson—gib him bread
when he hungry—med'cin' when he sick! Now you gwain to hurt de ole
man? I 'spose not, while Sampson hab an arm! Stan' off—I'm dangerous!”
And the black Hercules towered aloft, his sinews writhing, his teeth
clenched, his features—moulded with the aquiline contour of the Ashantee
race—quivering with rage.
There was a struggle—the gleam of arms—shouts and curses—yet still
the Negro beat them back—dashing their swords aside with his weaponless
hands.
Still, true to that wild fidelity—which burned in his savage heart like a
gleam from Heaven—he shouted his hoarse war-cry.
“De ole man kind to Sampson! 'Spose you hurt him? You mus' kill
dis nigga fust!”
Again he beat them back—but at last, by a simultaneous effort they bore
him to the earth.
At the same moment, the door flew open, and a shriek quivered through
the cellar.
“Saved—my father—saved!”
There, beneath the glare of the torches, lay the form of the fainting girl
—her bosom pulseless, her face as white as death.
“This way!” cried the Tory Captain. “We will secure the Spy first,
and then his daughter!”
They rushed after their leader—their shouts and cries, echoed far along
the passage.
In another moment, a light shone over the cellar and a man of some
twenty-six years, attired in the brown dress of a farmer, with blue eyes and
flaxen hair, advanced toward the unconscious girl.
“Here's a purty business!” he exclaimed, with a strong German accent
—“De nigga kilt, and Polly half dead!”
And thus speaking, honest Gotleib Hoff knelt before the unconscious
girl.
On the green slope, which arose from the school-master's home, toward
the woods, on the hill-top stood the strange being whom we have known as
the son of the Hunter-Spy, and the Pretended Quaker—Gilbert Gates.
Above him arched the universe of stars—around him, slumbered the
peaceful valley of Brandywine—within him, burned the tortures of a lost
soul.
In his talon-like fingers he crushed a much-worn paper; it had been
pinned to the dead man's breast some twenty years ago.
There were cold drops of sweat upon his brow; he trembled from his
heart to his finger ends.
“They are on his track, the dupes, the tools of my vengeance! Mine—
mine—father and daughter, both mine! For him a death of horror—for
her a life of shame! Hah! I hear their shouts—they pursue him to the
death!”
As he spoke, a long column of light was flung over the green sward
where he stood, as if from the bosom of the earth. A huge rock was rolled
from the mouth of the mound, and the shouts and yells of the ruffian band
swelled on the air.
A figure sprang from the shelter of the mound—a weak and aged man—
his attire covered with earth, and torn in fragments—his blue eyes, wandering
in their glance, his grey hairs tossing to the impulse of the night breeze.
As he sprung out upon the sod, he muttered the name of God:
“It is hard for an old man like me to be hunted to death like a mad dog!
Let me see, which way shall I turn? I must take to the woods!”
“Nay, friend Mayland, nay,” said a mild and conciliating voice: “Thee
has never trusted in me, yet now will I save thy life. Not to the woods,
for the bloodhounds are too near; in truth they are. But to the hay-stack!
Behold this cavity, which I have made to conceal thee, amid this pile of
hay!”
“Gilbert Gates!” cried the old man, starting back. “I trust you not—
there is Traitor written on your face!”
“Hark! Does thee hear the shouts of thee pursuers? `Death, death
to Mayland the Spy!' Will thee trust to them?”
“To the hay-stack be it, then!” cried the bewildered old man; “Bless
me, what does this mean? A hole hollowed out in the centre of the stack!”
“I'll tell thee when thou art saved!” cried Gilbert, with his peculiar
smile. “In, friend Mayland, in! They will never suspect thee hiding-place—I
will conceal it with this loose hay!”
In a moment Jacob Mayland disappeared, while Gilbert Gates stood alone
in the centre of the sward.
The hay-stack, round, compact and uniform in appearance, rose darkly
in the dim light of the stars. Within its centre, cramped, confined, scarce
able to breathe, crouched Jacob Mayland, the one-armed schoolmaster.
A shout from the mound, a flash of light, and some twenty forms leap
one by one, from the mouth of the passage.
“Ha! Gilbert Gates!” shouted the Tory leader—“which way went
they spy?”
“To the woods! to the woods!” cried Gilbert, as his sharp features
glowed in the light of twenty torches.
“Look, you smooth-speech!” cried the huge British Sergeant, stumbling
forward—“I don't trust you. Your broad-brimmed hat don't hide your
villainous face. By—, I believe you've helped this Spy to escape!”
A hoarse murmur arose from the bravoes, who with ominous looks, came
grouping round the False Quaker.
“Now, friend Hamsdroff, do not get into a passion,” said Gilbert, in his
mildest tones—“or if thee does get into a passion, I beseech—' his face
assumed an expression which, in its mingled mildness and hatred, chilled
even the drunken Sergeant to the heart—“do not, I beseech thee, fire the
poor man's hay-stack!”
“Ha, ha! Won't I though?” shouted the Sergeant. “The old fox
has escaped, but we'll burn his nest!”
He seized a torch and dashed it along the hay.
“Fire the hay-stack, my boys!” shouted the tory leader: “Fire the
hay-stack, every man of you! Burn the rebel out of house and home!”
As you look, twelve of the band rush forward and encircle the hay-stack
with a belt of flame. Another moment—a sudden breeze from the forest—
the hay-stack glows from the sward a mass of living flame.
The fire whizzed, and crackled, and hissed, winding around the cone of
hay, and shooting in one long column, into the midnight sky. Abroad over
the meadow, abroad over the forest, crimsoning each leaf with a blood-red
glow, high and higher, fierce and madder, it whirled and rose, that column
of flame.
Now the Tories, half in rage and half in drunken joy, mingled hand in
hand, and danced around the burning pile.
“Hurrah for King George!” shouted the Sergeant, leaping from the
ground. “Death to all Rebels!”
“So perish all rebels!” echoed the Tories.
And higher and higher rose the flame.
Up to the heavens, paling the stars with its burning red—over the green
of the meadows—down upon the waters of the Brandywine—up the hill-side—along
the woods, it rose, that merry flame!
As in the blaze of noonday, lay the level sward, the grey stone house of
the schoolmaster, the frame barn with its fences and outhouses—while
around the burning pile, merrier and gayer danced the soldiers, flinging their
George to the skies!
Retired in the background, some few yards from the burning stack, his
arms folded on his breast, his head turned to one side, stood Gilbert Gates,
the Son of the Hunter-Spy. A smile on his pinched lips, a cold gleam in
his eye.
“Fire the house!” shouted the Tory leader.
They turned to fire the house, but a low, moaning sound broke on the
air—it caused the troopers, brutal as they were, to start with horror. The
leader of the Tories wheeled suddenly round bending his head to catch the
slightest whisper; the face of the Sergeant grew white as his sword
belt.
That low, moaning sound swelled to a shriek—a shriek that curdled their
blood. It came from the bosom of the burning hay-stack—along the breeze
it yelled, and died away. Another shriek and another! Three sounds
more horrible never broke on the ears of man. In a moment all was still
as death—the hay-stack crashed down with a deadened sound. Nothing
was left but a pile of smouldering embers. All was still as death, but a dim
object moved amid the last remains of the burning hay—moved, struggled,
and was still.
For the last time, the flame glared into the midnight sky.
Disclosed by that red glare, stood Gilbert Gates, perusing the crushed
paper which he grasped in his talon-fingers.
These are the words which he read by the glare of the hay-stack, words
written in a cramped hand—perhaps in blood—and dated more than twenty
years before this, September day in 1777:
“Isaac Gates—a Traitor and Spy—Hung by three soldiers of his
Majesty's Army.
Jacob Mayland.”
“He died alone in the wild woods—and I—his son, and his avenger!”
With these words, the son of the Hunter-Spy passed behind the barn,
and was lost to sight.
And from the accursed pile of death fled the soldiers, spurring their horses
to their utmost speed—with the fear and horror of coward guilt they fled—
while far over the plain, far over the valley, came the men of Brandywine,
roused from their sleep by the burning hay-stack. Yes, from the hill-top
and valley they came, as the last embers of the fire were yet glowing on
the green sward.
And two figures emerged from the door of the schoolmaster's house, the
form of a stout and muscular man, and the form of a trembling maiden.
“Gotlieb, it seems like a dream,” said the maiden. “The flight of my
father, the chase in the passage—the swoon! Thank God, my father has
escaped! But what means this sudden stillness—yon flickering fire?”
They reached the burning embers on the hill-side and stood for a moment
gazing upon the scene.
A mass of burning hay, a pile of ashes, the wreck of some splintered
boards, were all that remained to tell of the location of the hay-stack.
“What is that dark thing in the fire?” exclaimed Mary Mayland—
“Quick, Gotlieb—hold the light nearer—it seems to move, to stir!”
Gotlieb held the light over the darkened mass. Here let me pause for a
single moment.
You may charge me with painting horrors that never existed.
And yet there is not a hill or a valley in any one of the old Thirteen
States unstained with the blood of peaceful men, shed by the hirelings of
King George.
Not only on the soil of Brandywine, but in a quiet home of Germantown,
was a deed similar to the one in question, committed by American Tories
and their British brethren.
An old man burned to death in cold blood by the soldiers of King George:
it is horrible, but having occurred in the course of that beautiful game of
War, which Kings and Tyrants have played for some four thousand years;
let us write it down, aye, in its darkest and bloodiest details, so that the
children of our day may know the features of Civil War.
War has been painted too long as a pretty thing, spangled with buttons,
fluttering with ribbons, waving with plumes.
Let us learn to look upon it as it is; a horrible bandit, reeking with the
blood of the innocent, the knife of murder in his hand, the fire of carnage
in his eye.
The war which Washington waged, was not war, in the proper sense of
the term. It was only the defence of one's hearthside against the robber
and murderer.
But of all the hideous murders which have been done, for two thousand
years, the war waged by the British King, against the American People,
was the foulest, the dastardliest, the bloodiest.
It was a massacre of eight years, beginning to kill at Bunker Hill, and
ending its work of butchery, only when it was crushed at Yorktown.
Let no mawkish sympathy for Great Britain shake this truth from our
souls. The Englishman we do not hate; he is the countryman of Shakspeare
and Milton, he is our brother.
But it will take a thousand years of good deeds to wash from the History
of England, the horrid and merciless butcheries which she perpetrated in
the Eight Years' War.
To forgive these crimes is our duty, but to forget them —
Can a child forget the wretch who butchered his mother?
Why, at the thought, the dead of our battlefields bleed again—aye, from
the shades of Mount Vernon, armed for the combat, starts the solemn ghost
of Washington!
Let us follow this tragedy to the end, and at the same time, remember—it
is only one among a thousand.
Gotlieb held the light over the darkened mass.
Yes, while the men of Brandywine formed a circle about the scene,
grouping around the form of the farmer and the maiden, the light streamed
over that hideous object among the embers.
Mary, the daughter advanced, her face glowing mildly in the light, advanced
and—looked—
—There are some sights which it is blasphemy to paint, and this is one
of them!—
Some Angel of Mercy, at the sight, took from her sense and consciousness.
She fell: her white hands outstretched, touched the mangled form of her
father.
Then one groan heaving from an hundred hearts, swelled on the air.
A dark form came rushing to the scene; breasting the spectators aside,
Sampson, the Giant Negro stood there, gazing upon the horrid mass at
his feet.
And he knelt there, and his lips moved, and murmured a vow—not in
English—but in his wild Ashantee tongue. A heathen, with but an imperfect
notion of the Christian Truth, dragged from his native land into
slavery when but a child, the son of a savage king, he murmured above
the old man's skeleton his horrible vow, devoting the murderers to his
Moloch God.
How that vow was kept let the records of Brandywine witness!
At the moment while stout Gotlieb, appalled and stricken into stone, stood
holding the light over the dead—as Mary, pale and beautiful, lay beside
that which was her father, only an hour ago—as the huge negro bent above
the witness of murder, his sinews quivering, lips clenched and eyes glaring,
as he took the vow—at this moment, while the spectators stood alternately
melted into tears and frozen into the dead apathy of horror.—
There came a peaceful man, gliding silently through the crowd, his bosom
trembling with deep compassion, his eyes wet with tears.
“Ah, this is a terrible thing!” said a tremulous voice—“In truth is it!”
And the Son of the Hunter-Spy stood gazing on the miserable remains
of his Father's Executioner.
| Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution | |