University of Virginia Library

XVII.—BLACK SAMPSON.

How beautiful in yonder graveyard, the wild flowers bloom, above the
Mother's grave!

Fond hopes are buried here, yes, beneath the rank grass and the dark
mould, a true heart that once throbbed with the pulsations of that passion
which is most like Heaven—a Mother's Love—moulders into dust.

And yet from the very rankness of the mould, that encloses the Mother's
form, from the very eyes and skull of Death, fair flowers bloom beautifully
into light, and with their fragrance sanctify the graveyard air.

So from the very blood and horror of the battle-field, many a tender
virtue is born, yes, from the carnage which floods the green meadow with
the life-current of a thousand hearts, many a god-like heroism springs
gloriously into life.

War is the parent of many virtues. Not Invading War, which attracts
ten thousand crimes with its blood-red sword, and fills the land with the
dead bodies of its children. No! Invading War is the Vulture of the
Andes, gorgeous in its plumage, bloody and merciless in its hatred, loathsome
in its appetite. It feeds only on the bodies of the dead.

But War for Home, and for Home's holiest altar, honest war waged with
a sword, that is taken from its resting place above the poor man's hearth,
and sanctified with the tears of his wife. War that is fought beneath a
clear sky, on a native soil, with the eyes of angels watching all the while;
this is a holy thing in the sight of Heaven.

From such a war, fought on the Continent of America, during the long
course of Eight years, and extending its battle-field from the rock of Quebec
to the meadows of Savannah, a thousand unknown virtues rushed into
birth.

I speak not now, of the sublime virtue of Washington, the heroism of La
Fayette, the wild energy of Anthony Wayne. No! The hero whose
savage virtue is yet recorded in every blade of grass, that waves above the
field of Brandywine, was a poor man. A very humble man who had toiled
from dawn until dusk, with the axe or spade. A rude man withal, who
made his home in a miserable hut, yet still a Hero!

The virtue that he cherished was a savage virtue, meaning in plain words,
Fidelity unto Death and after Death, yet still a virtue.

Start not when I tell you, that this hero was—a Negro! His hair
crisped into wool, his skin blackened to the hue of ink, by the fiery sun of
his clime and race, his hands harsh and bony with iron toil.

He was a Negro and yet a Hero!

Do not mistake me. I am no factionist, vowed to the madness of treason,
under the sounding name of—Humanity. I have no sympathy—no scorn
—nothing but pity for those miserably deluded men, who in order to free
the African race, would lay unholy hands upon the American Union.

That American Union is a holy thing to me. It was baptized some
seventy years ago, in a river of sacred blood. For that Union thousands
of brave men left their homes, their wives, all that man holds dear in order
to die, amid ice and snows, the shock of battles, the dishonor of gibbets.
No one can count the tears, the prayers, the lives, that have sanctified this
American Union, making it an eternal bond of brotherhood for innumerable
millions, an altar forever sacred to the Rights of Man. For seventy years
and more, the Smile of God has beamed upon it. The man that for any
pretence, would lay a finger upon one of its pillars, not only blasphemes
the memory of the dead, but invokes upon his name the Curse of all ages

yet to come. I care not how plausible his argument, how swelling his
sounding periods, how profuse his `sympathy for suffering humanity,'
that man is a Traitor to the soil that bore him, a Traitor to the mother
whose breast gave him nourishment, a Traitor to the Dead, whose very
graves abhor the pollution of his footsteps.

All that such a person can plead in extenuation, is the miserable excuse
of cowardice combined with folly. Arnold was a hero, a man of genius,
although a Traitor. The man who would taint with one unhallowed word
the sanctity of THE Union, stands arrayed in the leprosy of Arnold's
Treason, without one redeeming ray of his heroism, one spark of his
genius.

For the American Union is to Political Freedom, what the Bible is to
Religious Hope. There may be differences of opinion in relation to the
sacred volume, various creeds may spring from misconstruction of its pages,
defects of translation may mar the sublimest of its beauties.

Would you therefore blot the Bible from the earth? Give us a better, a
holier book, before you take this from our homes and hearts!

So the American Union may be the object of honest differences of opinion;
it may be liable to misinterpretation, or be darkened by the smoke of
conflicting creeds; yes, it may shelter black slavery in the south, and white
slavery in the north.

Would you therefore destroy it? Give us a better, a holier Union, before
you sweep this into chaos!

With this protest against every illegitimate creation of a feverish philanthrophy,
whether it takes the shape of affection for the suffering African, or
—like the valorous bull who contended with the steam engine—pitches with
head down, eyes closed, horns erect, against the Happiness of Millions, let
me turn to my hero. A negro Hero, with hair like wool, skin as black
as ink.

Against the porch of the murdered Schoolmaster's home, just before the
break of day, on the Eleventh of September, 1777, there leaned the figure
of a tall and muscular man.

You can see him yonder through the dimness of the day-break hour, resting
with bent arms against the railing of the porch. His attire is very
simple; rough coat and trowsers of plain homespun, yet through their loose
folds, you can discern the outlines of a noble, yes, magnificent form.

It is not his form however, with its breadth of chest, its sinewy arms, its
towering height, or Herculean outline of iron strength, that arrests your
attention.

His head placed erect upon his shoulders, by a firm bold neck. His face
with its unmistakable clearness of outline. The brow full and prominent,
the nose aquiline with slight and tremulous nostrils, the lips not remarkable

for thickness, set together with a firm pressure, the chin square and bold,
the cheek-bones high and angular.

And yet he is a Negro, and yet he has been a slave!

A Negro, without the peculiar conformation, which marks whole tribes
of his race. Neither thick lips, flat nose, receding chin or forehead, are
his. He stands in the dimness of this hour, a type of the war-like Ashantee
race, whose forms remind you at once of Apollo and Hercules, hewn
from a solid mass of anthracite—black in hue yet bold in outline, vigorous in
the proportions of each manly limb.

Black Sampson—so they called him—stood leaning against the porch of
his murdered master's home, while around him, certain white objects arose
prominently in the dim air, and a vague murmur swelled above the meadow
of the Brandywine.

These white objects were the tents of the Continential Encampment,
stretching over the valley afar. That murmur was the omen of a terrible
event. It meant that brave men, with stout hearts in their bosoms, were
sharpening their swords, examining their rifles, and eating their last meal
before the battle.

But Sampson looked not upon the white tents, nor heard the murmur.
Nor did he gaze upon a space of earth, some few paces up the hill-side,
where a circle had been described on the soft sward, by the action of fire.

There, the night before last, his friend, his master, the veteran who had
served with Washington in Braddock's war, had been—burned to death.

Nor did the eye of Black Sampson, rest upon a rude hut, which you can
see, down the meadow yonder, half way between the stream, and the foot
of the hill. That was Black Sampson's home—there, when sick and at
death's door, he had been fed by the old schoolmaster, and there, his dreams
of Pagan Superstition had been broken by the prayers of the schoolmaster's
child.

Sampson's thoughts were neither with the murdered man and his blue-eyed
daughter, nor with the army whose murmur swelled around.

No! Gathering his coarse garb, to his breast, he folded his arms, and
talked to himself.

Now you will understand me, this Negro, could not speak ten clear
words of our English tongue. He could not master the harsh elements of
our northern language. But when he thought, it was in the musical syllables
of his native Ashantee: shall we translate his thoughts into English?

“Years—years—O, years of horrible torture, how ye glide away!
Back into my native land again—the land of the desert and the sun, the
land of the Lion and the Tiger,—back once more into my father's kraal!
Yonder it stands among those trees, with the large green leaves, and many
colored birds upon each bough! Yonder by the deep river, whose waves
are white with lillies—yonder beneath the shadow of the palm, yonder
with its roof, evergreen with vines!

“And my father is here! Yes, with his people and his children round
him, he sits before his palace gate, gold bracelets on his wrists, the iron
spear in his hand, a chain of diamonds and pearls about his neck. But
Ka-Loloo, the king of the Ashantee has grown old; he mourns for his son
—his son, who was stolen away, long years—ah, long, long years ago by
the pale face! Look! The old man weeps—he loved that son—see! the
rays of the setting sun light up his aged brow—he weeps! His people in
vain attempt to comfort him. “My son, my son,” he cries, “who shall
lead the Ashantees to battle, when I am gathered to the Kroal of the dead?”
So speaks Ka-Loloo king of the Ashantees, sitting with his people round
him at his palace gate!”

—Laugh if you please, at these strange memories of the Negro, but I assure
you, there were tears in the rude fellows eyes, even as he stood there leaning
against the porch.

For his Father was a King—he was the Prince of three thousand warriors—he,
whose native name was now lost in the cognomen, Black
Sampson—had been sold from his home into slavery.

The People of the valley of Brandywine knew but little about him.
About five years ago, he had appeared in the valley, a miserable skeleton,
covered from head to foot with scars. It was supposed that he was a slave
from the far south. No one asked his history, but the old veteran, even
Jacob Mayland, gave him a home. Therefore, Black Sampson clung to
the memory of his murdered master with all his soul.

The day began to dawn; light clouds floating over the eastern horizon,
saw the sun approach, and caught his golden smile upon their snowy
breasts.

It was at this hour, that Black Sampson, leaning against the porch of the
murdered man's home, beheld a strange figure come slowly over the sward,
toward him.

Was it a Ghost? So strangely beautiful, with those white feet, pressing
the soft grass, taht flowing brown hair sweeping over the bared arms?

At a second glance, he recognized the daughter of the schoolmaster, warm
and lovable and bewitching Mary Mayland, whom Gotlieb Hoff, the rough
farmer loved with all his heart.

Warm and lovable and bewitching no longer! For she came with her
blue eyes fixed and glassy—she came, clad in her night dress as a shroud
—she came, the image of a Woman, whose dearest hope has all at once
been wrecked, whose life has suddenly been transformed from a garden of
virgin hopes, into a desert of blasted ashes.

Sampson was a Negro—a rude man, who had an imperfect idea of the
Blessed Saviour, mingling His Religion with the dreams of Pagan superstition—and
yet, as he beheld this pale girl come slowly toward him, with
her white arms folded over her almost pulseless bosom, he, the black man,
shuddered.

Still the young woman came on, and stood before him—a miserable wreck
—telling in her mad way, the story of her unutterable wrong. She did
not see Sampson, for her glassy eyes looked on the vacant air, but still she
told her story, making the honest negro's blood run cold in his veins.

—The night before she had been lured from her home, and —. The
story cannot be told. All that we can know is, that she stands before us, in
the light of the breaking day, a mad and ruined girl. In her ravings—oh,
that name is too harsh! In her mild, deep voice, she told the story of her
wrong, and murmured the name of Gilbert Gates, and the name of a British
officer.

You can see Sampson start forward, gather her gently in his rude arms,
and place her quietly on the seat of the porch.

“Dis am berry bad, Missa Polly—” he said, and you will remember that
he spoke very uncouth English—“Enuf to break a nigga's heart! And
dey took you from yer home, and —”

The negro did not utter another word, for he saw the stout form of Gotlieb
Hoff coming briskly over the sod, a rifle on his shoulder, an oaken sprig
in the band of his hat. Gotlieb whistled gaily as he came, his light curling
hair waving about his ruddy face.

He did not dream of the agony in store for him.

And while he came, the poor girl sat on the porch of her Home, folding
her white arms over her bosom, and muttering in that low deep voice, the
story of her wrong.

The negro Black Sampson, could not endure the sight. Even as Gotlieb
came gaily on, the black man bounded from the porch, and hastened toward
yonder barn.

If he—the negro—turned away from the agony of this meeting between
the Plighted Husband and his Ruined Bride, shall we take hearts of stone
to our bosoms, and gaze upon the horror of that interview?

Black Sampson approached the barn whose walls of logs you see piled
up yonder, on the side of the hill.

He opened a narrow door and called for his dog. The dog bounded
forth, a noble animal, in shape something like the kingly dogs of St.
Bernard, yet white as the driven snow. He came with fierce eyes and
formidable teeth, ears and head erect, and crouched low at his master's
feet.

Then Sampson entered the barn, and in a moment appeared, holding a
scythe in his right arm. He wound one arm around the handle, and with
the fingers of his other hand, tested the sharpness of the edge.

Then a low, deep, yet unnatural chuckle passed the African's lips.

“Look heah, Debbil—” that was the name of his dog—“Hah, yah!
Sampson am gwain a-mowin' dis day!”

The dog darted up, as with mingled rage and joy.

You will admit that Sampson's movements are peculiar. In order to

understand this strange magnetic sympathy between the master and the dog,
let us follow Sampson's steps into the barn.

He flings open the large door, and by the dim morning light you behold
a strange object in the centre of the threshing floor among heaps of straw.

Is it a man, or an image?

It is a British uniform, stuffed with straw and glittering with epaulettes
of gold. There is a gay chapeau placed on the shoulders of the figure,
military boots upon its legs.

The moment that `Debbil' beholds it, he howls with ungovernable rage,
displays his teeth, and shoots fire from his eyes.

But Sampson holds him by the collar, talking merrily to him all the
while —

“Look heah Debbil, we am gwain a-mowin' dis day! De ye know
what we gwain to mow? I tells ye. De night afore last, de dam British,
dey burn your Massa alive—d'ye hear dat, ye stupid Debbil? Dis berry
hour dey abuse your young Missus—you understand me Debbil? Dat's
de reason we am gwain a-mowin'! Dat is! An' whenebber ye see anyting
like dat Debbil—” pointing to the figure—“Den at 'em trote, and lap
um blood!”

He loosed the collar of the Dog and suffered him to go.

—You hear a deep howl, you see the dog spring forward. Look! His
teeth are fixed in the throat of the figure; he tears it, drags it, crushes it in
his rage, while Black Sampson stands laughing by.

Laughing a low, deep laugh, that has something else than mirth in its tone.

“Dat's de way we am gwain a-mowin' dis day!”

He turned from the barn followed by the spotless dog. He stood amid
the cinders of the burned haystack, where his master had died in bitter
agony the night before last.

Then, while the armies were mustering for the conflict, while over the
valley of the Brandywine the Continentals formed in columns, their starry
banner waving overhead, while on yonder porch Gotlieb listens to the story
of the veteran's child, here, on this circle of withered grass, Black Sampson
prepared for battle.

The manner of his preparation was singular.

The sun came on—the gleam of British arms shine on the opposite hills
—the battle was about to commence its Liturgy of yells and groans, yet
still Sampson stood there, in the centre of the blasted circle.

On the very spot where the veteran's bones had laid, he stood.

Muttering again that terrible oath of vengeance to his Moloch God, he
first stripped from his form his coat of coarse homespun. Then, with his
broad, black chest glittering in the sunlight, he wound his right arm around
the handle of his scythe.

He laid the other hand upon the head of his dog. His eye gleamed with
deadly light.

Thus, scythe in hand, his dog by his side, his form, in all its herculean
proportion, bared to the waist, Black Sampson stood prepared for battle.

Look yonder over the valley! Behold that sweep of level meadow, that
rippling stream of water. On these eastern hills, you see the men of Mad
Anthony Wayne, ranged in battle-order. Yonder, from the western woods,
the gleam of Kniphausen's arms, shoots gaily over the leaves,

Suddenly there is a sound like thunder, then white columns of smoke,
then a noise of trampling hoofs.

Black Sampson hears that thunder and quivers from head to foot. He
sees the white smoke, and lifts his scythe. The trampling hoofs he hears,
and speaks to his dog—“Debbil, dis day we am gwain a-mowin'!”

But then, through the clamor of battle, there comes a long and ringing
cry. It is the battle-shout of Anthony Wayne.

Black Sampson hears it, darts forward, and with his dog by his side,
rushes into the folds of the battle-smoke.

You see him yonder, far down the valley, you see him yonder, in the
midst of the stream; now he is gone among the clouds, now he comes forth
again, now the whirlpool of battle shuts him in. Still the white dog is by
his side, still that scythe gleams aloft. Does it fall?

At last, yonder on the banks of the Brandywine, where a gush of sunlight
pours through the battle-clouds, you see Black Sampson stand. A strange
change has passed over himself, his scythe, his dog. All have changed
color. The color they wear is a fiery red—look! You can see it drip
from the scythe, crimson Sampson's chest and arms, and stain with gory
patches, the white fur of his dog.

And the word that Sampson said, as he patted his noble dog, was something
like this:

“Dat counts one for Massa!”

Had the scythe fallen? Had the dog hunted his game?

Through the entire battle of Brandywine, which began at break of day,
and spent its last shot when the night set in, and the stars came smiling out
upon the scene of murder, that Black Hercules was seen, companioned by
his white dog, the sharp scythe flashing in dazzling circles above his head.

On the plain or meadow, extending in a lake of verdure where the battle
begun; four miles away in the graveyard of the Quaker Meeting house,
where thousands of contending foemen, fought until the sod was slippery
with blood; at noon, at night, always rushing forward that Negro was seen,
armed only with a sharp scythe, his only comrade a white dog, spotted
with flakes of blood.

And the war-cry that he ever shouted, was in his rude way—

“Dat counts one for Massa, Debbil!”

Whenever he said this, the dog howled, and there was another mangled
corse upon the ground.

The British soldiers saw him come—his broad black chest gleaming in
the sun—his strange weapon glittering overhead—his white dog yelling by
his side, and as they looked they felt their hearts grow cold, and turned
from his path with fear. Yes fear, for with a superstition not unnatural,
they thought they beheld, not a warrior armed for the fight, but a Demon,
created by the horror of battle, rushing on with the fiend-animal by his
side.

Many a British throat that had been fondly pressed by the hands of
mother, wife, or sister, that day felt the teeth of the white dog! Many a
British eye that had gazed undismayed into the muzzle of American cannon,
quailed with involuntary cowardice at the sight of that circling scythe.
Many a British heart that had often beat with mad pulsations, in the hour
when American homes had been desolated, American fathers murdered,
American mothers outraged, that day lay cold in the bosom which was
pressed by the foot of Black Sampson, the Prince of the Ashantee.

Do not impute to me a morbid appetite for scenes of blood. I might
pourtray to you in all their horrors, the several deaths of the murderers of
Jacob Mayland, the veteran of Braddock's war. How this one was hurled
from his horse by the white dog, while the scythe of Sampson performed
its terrible office. How another, pursuing the Americans at the head of
his men, uttered the shout of victory, and then heard the howl of the dog
and died. How a third gentleman, while in the act of listening to my Lord
Cornwallis, (who always went out to murder in clean ruffles and a wig,
perfumed with Marechale powder,) was startled by the apparition of a
giant negro, a whirling scythe, a white dog crimsoned with blood, and how
when he saw this apparition a moment only, he never saw or felt anything
more.

But I will not do it. My only object is to impress upon your minds,
my friends—for sitting alone in my room, with but this pen in my hand, I
can talk to you all; you, the half-a-million readers of this page and call you
friends—the idea of Black Sampson's conduct, his religion, his ruling
motive.

It was this: The old man Mayland and his daughter, had been very
kind to him. To them in his rude negro heart, he had sworn eternal
fidelity. In his rude African religion, to revenge the death of a friend,
was not only a duty, but a solemn injunction from the lips of the dead.

Therefore arming himself but with a scythe, he called his dog, and went
out to hunt Englishmen, as he had often hunted wild beasts.

Pass we then the carnage of that fearful day.

It was in the calm of twilight, when that sweet valley of Brandywine
looks as lovely as a young bride, trembling on the threshold of the Bridal
Chamber—a blushing, joyous, solemn thing, half-light, half-shadow—that a
rude figure stumbled into a room, where a dead woman lay.

It was in a house near Dilworth corner, one or two miles from the battle-field
of the meeting house.

A quiet chamber filled with silent people, with hushed breath and deeply
saddened faces, and the softened glow of a glorious sunset pouring through
the closed curtains of yonder window.

Those people gathered round a bed, whose snow-white coverlet caught a
flush of gold from the setting sun. Stout men were in that crowd, men
who had done brave work in that day's battle, and tender girls who were
looking forward with hope to a future life of calm, home-born joys, and
aged matrons, who had counted the years of their lives by the burial of dear
friends. These all were there.

And there at the foot of the bed, stood a man in the dress of a farmer, his
frank honest face, stained with blood, his curling hair curling no longer, but
stiffened with clotted gore. He had been in battle, Gotlieb Hoff striving
earnestly to do some justice on these British spoilers, and now at the evening
hour—after scenes that I may picture at some future time—came to
look upon the burden of that bed.

It was no wonder that honest Gotlieb muttered certain mad sentences, in
broken English, as he gazed upon this sight.

For believe me had you been there, you would have felt your senses
gliding from you at that vision. It was indeed, a pitiful sight.

She looked so beautiful as she lay there upon the bed. The hands that
were gently clasped, and the bosom that had heaved its last throb, and the
closed eyelids that were never to open more, and — you see they wept
there, all of them, for she looked so sadly beautiful as she lay dead, even
Mary sweet gentle lovable Mary, with the waving brown hair and the
laughing blue eyes.

She was dead now. About the hour of noon when the battle raged most
horribly, the last chord of her brain snapt, and on the altar of her outraged
life the last fire went out. She was dead, and O, she wore the saddest,
sweetest smile about her young face as she lay there, that you ever saw.

That was what made them weep. To have looked stiff and cold and
dismal, would have seemed more like Death, but to smile thus upon them
all, when her honor, her reason, her life, had all in one hour been trampled
into nothingness, to smile thus peacefully and forgivingly as she lay dead,
in her simple night-dress—ah! It cut every heart with a sudden sharp
pain, and made the eyes overflow with bitter tears.

I have said that a rude figure stumbled into a room, where a dead
woman lay.

Yes, in the very moment when the last ray of the sun—that never more
should rise upon the dead girl—was kissing her closed lids as if in pity,
there came a rude figure, breasting his way through the spectators.

Black and grim—almost horrible to look upon—bleeding from many
wounds, the scythe in his hand, Sampson stood there. He looked long and

fixedly upon the dead girl. They could see a tremulous motion at his
nostrils, a convulsive quivering about his mouth.

At last with an oath—and O, forgive it kind Heaven, for it was but
sworn to hide the sincere feeling of his heart—he laid his hand upon the
head of the dog, which had crept silently to his side, and told the faithful
animal —

“Debbil you am a rale brute, and no mistake! Dars Missa Maylan'
layin' dead—stone dead—she dat feed you and your Massa, many a hunder
time—and you no cry one dam' tear!”

Two large tears rolled down his face as he spoke, and the last sunbeam
kissed the eyelids of the dead girl, and was gone.

Some three or four years since, a ploughshare that upturned the soil
where a forest had stood in the Revolution, uncovered the grave of some
unknown man. In that grave were discovered the skeleton of a human being,
the bones of an animal, and the rusted and blood-clotted blade of a scythe.

Did the hand of the Avenger ever strike the tinselled wretch who had
crushed into dishonor, the peasant-girl of Brandywine?

Even in the presence of Washington, while encircling the Chieftain with
British soldiers he fell, stricken down by the quiet Gilbert Gates, who whispered
in his freezing ear “Thou didst dishonor her—thou, that hadst no
father's blood to avenge!”

As the handsome Captain writhed in the dust—Washington amazed, the
British soldiers maddened by the sight—the pretended Quaker true to his
instinct of falsehood, whispered to the one, “Washington I have saved
thee!” and to the others—“Behold the order of friend Cornwallis, commanding
this deed!”

Need we gaze upon the fate of this strange man, Gilbert Gates the Son
of the Hunter-Spy? His crimes, his oath, his life, were all dyed with innocent
blood, but the last scene which closed the page of this world to him
forever, is too dark and bloody to be told.

In a dim nook of the woods of Brandywine, two vigorous hickory trees
bending over a pool of water, in opposite directions, had been forced by
strong cords together, and firmly joined into one. Those cords once
separated—the knot which combined them once untied—it was plainly to
be seen that the hickory trees would spring back to their natural position,
with a terrific rebound.

The knot was untied by a rifle-ball. But the moment, ere the trees
sprung apart with a sound like thunder, you might see a human form lashed
by the arms and limbs, to their separate branches.

It was the form of Gilbert Gates, the Son of the Hunter-Spy. The ball
that untied the knot, was sped from the rifle of Gotlieb Hoff, the plighted
husband of the dishonored girl.

We have followed to its end, the strange and varied career of Gilbert
Gates, the False Quaker of Brandywine. Now let us look upon a Friend
of another kind. The day before the battle, there stood in the shadows
of the forest, at a point where two roads met, a man of some fifty-eight
years, one hand resting on the bridle-rein of his well-fed nag, and the other
pressed against his massive brow. He was clad in the Quaker dress. A
man of almost giant stature, his muscular limbs clad in sober drab, his
ruddy face and snow-white hairs crowned by a broad-rimmed hat. The
leaves formed a canopy above his head, as he stood wrapped in deep and
exciting thoughts, while his sleek, black horse—a long known and favorite
animal—bending his neck, cropped the fragrant wild grass at his feet.

The stout Quaker felt the throes of a strange mental contest quivering
through his veins. The father butchered by his hearthstone, the mother dishonored
in the presence of her children, the home in flames, and the hearth a
Golgotha—these are not very Christian sights, and yet the old Quaker had
seen them all. And now with his heart torn by the contest between his
principles and his impulses,—his principles were `Peace!', his impulses
shrieked `Washington!'—he had come here to the silent woods to think
the matter over. He wished to shoulder a rifle in the Army of freedom,
but the principles of his life and creed forbade the thought. After much
thought, and it must be said, severe though silent Prayer, the stout Quaker
resolved to test the question by a resort to the ancient method of ordeal or
lottery. “Now,” said he, as the sunlight played with his white hairs—“I
stand here, alone in the woods, where two roads meet. I will turn my favorite
horse, even Billy, loose, to go wherever he pleaseth. If he takes the road
on the right, I will get me a rifle and join the Camp of Friend Washington.
But in case he takes the road on the left, I will even go home, and mind
my own business. Now, Billy, thee is free—go where it pleaseth thee—
and mind what thee's about!”

The loosened rein fell dangling on Billy's sleek neck. The patriotic
friend beheld him hesitate on the point where the two paths joined; he
saw him roll his large eyes lazily from side to side, and then slowly saunter
toward the road on the left—the `Home' road.

As quick as thought, the stout Quaker started forward, and gave the rein
almost imperceptible, but powerful inclination toward the `Washington
Road,' exclaiming in deprecatory tones—“Now thee stupid thing! I
verily thought thee had better sense!”

Whether the words or the sudden movement of the Quaker's hand,
worked a change in Billy's mind, we cannot tell, but certain it is, that while
the grave Friend, with his hands dropped by his side, calmly watched the
result, the sagacious horse changed his course, and entered the `Washington
road.'

“Verily, it is ordered so!” was the quiet ejaculation of the Quaker, as
he took his way to the camp of Washington. We need not say, that he
did a brave work in the battle of Brandywine.