In 1773 some of the Pietist monks were still living in their rude
monastery whose ruins are visible on the banks of the Wissahickon. Chief
among these mystics was an old man who might have enjoyed the wealth and
distinction warranted by a title had he chosen to remain in Germany, but
he had forsworn vanities, and had come to the new world to pray, to rear
his children, and to live a simple life. Some said he was an alchemist,
and many believed him to be a prophet. The infrequent wanderer beside the
romantic river had seen lights burning in the window of his cell and had
heard the solemn sound of song and prayer. On a winter night, when snow
lay untrodden about the building and a sharp air stirred in the trees
with a sound like harps, the old man sat in a large room of the place,
with his son and daughter, waiting. For a prophecy had run that on that
night, at the third hour of morning, the Deliverer would present himself.
In a dream was heard a voice, saying, “I will send a deliverer to the new
world who shall save my people from bondage, as my Son saved them from
spiritual death.” The night wore on in prayer and meditation, and the
hours tolled heavily across the frozen wilderness, but, at the stroke of
three, steps were heard in the snow and the door swung open. The man who
entered was of great stature, with a calm, strong face, a powerful frame,
and a manner of dignity and grace.
“Friends, I have lost my way,” said he. “Can you direct me?”
The old man started up in a kind of rapture. “You have not lost your
way,” he cried, “but found it. You are called to a great mission. Kneel
at this altar and receive it.”
The stranger looked at the man in surprise and a doubt passed over his
face. “Nay, I am not mad,” urged the recluse, with a slight smile.
“Listen: to-night, disturbed for the future of your country, and unable
to sleep, you mounted horse and rode into the night air to think on the
question that cannot be kept out of your mind, Is it lawful for the
subject to draw sword against his king? The horse wandered, you knew and
cared not whither, until he brought you here.”
“How do you know this?” asked the stranger, in amazement.
“Be not surprised, but kneel while I anoint thee deliverer of this land.”
Moved and impressed, the man bowed his knee before one of his fellows for
the first time in his life. The monk touched his finger with oil, and
laying it on the brow of the stranger said, “Do you promise, when the
hour shall strike, to take the sword in defence of your country? Do you
promise, when you shall see your soldiers suffer for bread and fire, and
when the people you have led to victory shall bow before you, to remember
that you are but the minister of God in the work of a nation's freedom?”
With a new light burning in his eyes, the stranger bent his head.
“Then, in His name, I consecrate thee deliverer of this oppressed people.
When the time comes, go forth to victory, for, as you are faithful, be
sure that God will grant it. Wear no crown, but the blessings and honor
of a free people, save this.” As he finished, his daughter, a girl of
seventeen, came forward and put a wreath of laurel on the brow of the
kneeling man. “Rise,” continued the prophet, “and take my hand, which I
have never before offered to any man, and accept my promise to be
faithful to you and to this country, even if it cost my life.”
As he arose, the son of the priest stepped to him and girt a sword upon
his hip, and the old man held up his hands in solemn benediction. The
stranger laid his hand on the book that stood open on the altar and
kissed the hilt of his sword. “I will keep the faith,” said he. At dawn
he went his way again, and no one knew his name, but when the fires of
battle lighted the western world America looked to him for its
deliverance from tyranny. Years later it was this spot that he revisited,
alone, to pray, and here Sir William Howe offered to him, in the name of
his king, the title of regent of America. He took the parchment and
ground it into a rag in the earth at his feet. For this was Washington.
MARION
Blooming and maidenly, though she dressed in leather and used a rifle
like a man, was Marion, grand-daughter of old Abraham, who counted his
years as ninety, and who for many of those years had lived with his books
in the tidy cabin where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela come together.
This place stood near the trail along which Braddock marched to his
defeat, and it was one of the stragglers from this command, a bony
half-breed with red hair, called Red Wolf, that knocked at the door and
asked for water. Seeing no one but Marion he ventured in, and would have
tried not only to make free with the contents of the little house but
would have kissed the girl as well, only that she seized her rifle and
held him at bay. Still, the fellow would have braved a shot, had not a
young officer in a silver-laced uniform glanced through the open door in
passing and discovered the situation. He doffed his chapeau to Marion,
then said sternly to the rogue, “Retire. Your men are waiting for you.”
Red Wolf slunk away, and Washington, for it was he, begged that he might
rest for a little time under the roof.
This request was gladly complied with, both by the girl and by her
grandfather, who presently appeared, and the fever that threatened the
young soldier was averted by a day of careful nursing. Marion's innate
refinement, her gentleness, her vivacity, could not fail to interest
Washington, and the vision of her face was with him for many a day. He
promised to return, then he rode forward and caught up with the troops.
He survived the battle in which seven hundred of his comrades were shot
or tomahawked and scalped. One Indian fired at him eleven times, and five
of the bullets scratched him; after that the savage forbore, believing
that the officer was under Manitou's protection. When the retreating
column approached the place where Marion lived he hastened on in advance
to see her. The cabin was in ashes. He called, but there was no answer.
When he turned away, with sad and thoughtful mien, a brown tress was
wrapped around his finger, and in his cabinet he kept it until his death,
folded in a paper marked “Marion, July 11, 1755.”