THE BUGLES BLOW
A high sound of bugles rang out in the still summer air.
It stopped all feet in the country of the cedars――it seemed as though
the world stopped to listen.
Again the tone filled the summer air――nearer.
The ospreys and crows were flying high in air, down the odorous way
where the bugles were blowing.
Again, and nearer.
Were the bugles those of Rochambeau, who had landed at Newport, or of a
troop of the enemy coming to surprise the town?
It was a time of expectancy, and also of terror.
Why of terror?
It was known that Rochambeau had landed at Newport, and was coming
to Lebanon――it was in the air. He would stop at Newport, and it was
believed that Washington would go there to meet him. Washington might
go by way of New London and Lebanon or over the great turnpike road of
Massachusetts and Connecticut; but whatever way he might take, it was
believed that he would stop in the hidden Connecticut town.
One day a courier had come to the alarm-post.
“Are the ways guarded?” he asked. “There is a plot to capture
Washington if he makes a progress to meet Rochambeau.”
“Let us go to the war office and consider the matter,” said the
Governor.
“If the matter is serious, I will bring it before the Committee of
Safety.”
They considered the matter. The Governor was alarmed, and he said to
Peter:
“Leave the store and go back to your post on the by-road.”
The danger at this time is thus treated in Sparks’s Life of Trumbull:
“Intelligence had come from New York that three hundred horsemen had
crossed over to Long Island and proceeded eastward, and that boats
at the same time had been sent up the Sound. It was inferred that
the party would pass from Long Island to Connecticut and attempt to
intercept General Washington on his way to Newport, as it was supposed
his intended journey was known to the enemy. Lafayette suggested that
the Duke de Lauzun should be informed of this movement as soon as
possible, that he might be prepared with his cavalry, then stationed at
Lebanon, to repel the invaders.”
There had landed at Newport with Rochambeau a most brilliant French
officer of cavalry, who was destined to become the general-in-chief of
the Army of the Rhine, and to lose his head in the French Revolution.
It was the Duke de Lauzun, born in Paris, 1747. He commanded a force
known as Lauzun’s Legion, which consisted of some six hundred Hussars,
with the French enthusiasm for liberty. They were well equipped, wore
brilliant uniforms, and bore the banners of heroes.
The alarm-post became the seat of numerous orders; the roads were dusty
with hurrying feet.
The people met on the green as soon as the bugles were heard.
Peter was there. He heard the bugles ring out, and cried:
“Auvergne! They are the bugles of Auvergne!”
Dennis listened as the air rung merrily.
“Yes, Peter, those are the bugles of Auvergne.”
Faith Trumbull came out and stood on the green beside Peter.
“Do you think those are the French bugles?” she asked. “If so, the
cause is saved.”
An advance horseman, a Hussar, came riding up the hill. The bugles blew
behind him, now near to the town.
“The Duke is at hand,” said he in French.
The people sank upon their knees.
The Governor heard and stood like a statue on the green.
“They are coming!” he said. “They are on the way of victory!”
Six hundred horsemen, glittering in insignia, banners, and trappings,
swept into the town, and their dashing leader, the Duke de Lauzun,
threw up his hand and took off his hat before the war office. No one
had ever dreamed of a scene like that.
The people gathered around him uncovered. The farmers shouted. Children
danced in the natural way; old men wept.
Dennis approached a French officer who could speak English.
“An’ have you been blowing the bugles of Auvergne?” asked he, hat in
hand.
“You may well call them so,” said the courtly officer. “The bugles of
Auvergne are the heralds of victory!”
“The cause of liberty in America is won,” said Dennis. “Lafayette said
it would be so when the French bugles should blow.”
Peter fell down on the green and wept like a child, saying, over and
over: “The bugles of Auvergne! The bugles of Auvergne!”
It was a glorious day. The very earth seemed to be glad.
The Hussars sat for a time on their restless horses, surveying a scene
unusual to their eyes. That simple church was not Notre Dame; the
Governor’s house was not the Tuileries, nor Versailles, nor Marley,
nor Saint Cloud. The green was not the Saint Cloud garden, the people
were not courtiers. Yet their hearts glowed. They saluted the simple
Governor.
Then the bugles blew again――the bugles of Auvergne, and a great sound
rent the air.
The Hussars went to the fields for quarters, and the Duke followed the
Governor into the war office to “consider.”
Washington came to Connecticut in safety. He reviewed the army on
Lebanon green and at Hartford. Near Hartford he planned the campaign in
Virginia that was to end the war.
“AUVERGNE SANS TACHE”――AUVERGNE WITHOUT A STAIN
This motto a part of the French soldiers bore proudly wherever they
went. They carried it out of France with shoutings, and trailed it
across the sea. They bore it into Newport amid booming guns, and to
Lebanon amid the shouts of the heroic farmers. They planted it on
Lebanon green. It should be put to-day among the mottoes of schools for
Flag days and Independence days.
That day of review――it may well rise again in our fancy!
Spring is in the air. The birds in the woods are appearing again. There
is new light and odors in the cedars.
The French heroes of Auvergne, the mountaineers, whose aid Lafayette
had sought, assembled on the green. On one side of the green was the
tavern, and on the other side rose the country village church. The
hills everywhere were renewing their circle of green.
Rochambeau was there with the escutcheon. The Marquis de Chastellux was
probably there――a man of genius, who wielded the pen of a painter. The
gay, and perhaps profane, Duke de Lauzun was there――he who laughed at
the Governor’s prayers at the table, and who died many years afterward
on the guillotine. Men were there who had sought the animal delights
of the glittering palaces of Versailles, Marley, and Saint Cloud. The
heroes were there whose descendants made France a republic.
The sun rose high on the glittering hills. The bugles sounded again,
horses neighed and pranced, uniforms glittered, and the band filled the
air with choral strains.
The simple country folks gathered about the green, bringing
“training-day” ginger-bread, women with knitted hoods, boys and girls
in homespun.
The cedar of Lebanon was there――Governor Trumbull――and his wife, also,
more noble than most of the stately dames of Trianon.
The American flag arose, and was hailed as the flag of the future.
A shout for honor went up in which all joined. The hearts of the
French heroes and American heroes were one. Honor and liberty was the
sentiment that ruled the hour, and here the pioneers of liberty of the
two republics of the future clasped hands.
A glorious day, indeed, was that! Keep it in eternal memory, O Lebanon
hills! Make your old graves a place of pilgrimages. Sons of the
Revolution, have you ever visited Lebanon?
There came an August night, misty and still. A cloud covered the hills,
and seemed to fall down like a lake on the cedar swamp. The few distant
stars went out.
It lightened――“heat lightning,” as the lightning without thunder was
called in the old New England villages.
The turnpike road was silent. There were no sounds of night-birds in
the deep cedar swamps.
Peter, the shepherd-boy, stood behind his window light in silence under
a cedar that spread itself like a tent. The tree gathered mist and shed
it like rain. He had put a mask in the window, for fear of a shot, in
case of danger.
“Nothing to-night,” he said.
But what was that?
A dead twig of a tree broke under a foot.
He started and moved behind the window toward the highway.
Another twig snapped.
“Who goes there?” he called.
“A friend.”
“Give the countersign.”
“Groton,” said the voice.
“Wrong,” said the lad. “Follow the window, but keep at a distance, for
you are my prisoner.”
It lightened. The lad saw the man, and that he was no ordinary traveler.
The lad moved back. The traveler followed, and presently said:
“Hello! where am I?”
“A prisoner; follow me.”
“But the house moves.”
“Follow me――you are in my power.”
It lightened again.
The flash disclosed that the traveler had drawn a pistol.
“It is useless for you to use weapons,” said Peter; “you are in my
power.”
There was a crack in the air. A pistol-shot struck the mask in the
window and broke it. Then all was darkness and silence.
“Follow me,” said the lad. “Your shot was vain. You are a traitor, and
you are in my power. I could take your life in a minute. Follow me.”
“But your house moves,” said the man in a voice that trembled.
He may have had a brave heart, but few brave men at that time were
proof against the terrors of superstition. The man evidently believed
that he was in the power of some evil spirit.
There was another lightning flash. The man had turned.
“Follow me,” said the lad, “or you are a dead man.”
“Will you spare me if I will follow?” asked the adventurer.
“Follow me until I tell you to stop, and I will be your friend if you
speak fair.”
The steps followed the moving window at a distance. Suddenly they went
down, and there arose a cry as of a penned animal. The man had fallen
into a cave.
The moving window went up the hill in sight of the alarm-post, and then
the light went out.
Peter went down in the darkness to the rescue of the fallen stranger.
“Where am I?” asked the stranger.
“In the cave.”
“In the cave of the magazine?”
The stranger had asked the question in an unguarded moment of terror.
“You are a spy, and were seeking for the magazines,” said the boy. “I
know your heart. Let me help you out, and come with me to the shelter
of the cedars.”
Peter took the stranger’s hand, and led him by flashes of lightning to
a covert under the cedars. Some crows cawed in the darkness above.
The two sat down.
“You are in my power,” said Peter.
“Then you must be the Evil One. Why am I in your power more than you in
mine? Do you live in a house that travels? Where has your house gone?”
“Tell me, now, who you are,” said Peter.
“I am a traveler.”
“Why did you give me a false countersign?”
“To put you off so that I might go on.”
“Who are you seeking?”
“I was going to the war office.”
“For what?”
“To see the Governor.”
“But why did you say ‘magazine’?”
“I deal in saltpeter.”
The clouds were lifting. The great cedars seemed to shudder now and
then as a faint breeze stole through them. Then the full moon rolled
out. The crows flapped away from the place when they heard voices.
“Let us go,” said the man. “For what are you waiting?”
There was a sound of horses’ feet. Dennis had seen the signal.
“Who is coming?” asked the man.
“The guard.”
“So you have entrapped me. Where is the house?”
“There was none.”
Dennis and two men rode up.
“This man,” said Peter, “is a spy; he has given a false countersign,
and is looking for magazines.”
“Who are you?” demanded Dennis, with a leveled musket.
“I am your prisoner,” said the man, “and more is the pity. I have been
tricked. I followed a window; it is gone.”
“Stranger, no trifling,” said Dennis. “What brought you here? If you
will tell me the truth, I will befriend you as far as I can. But
listen: you have no hope of anything outside of my friendly heart, and
I am one of the guard of the first of patriots in the land. I am an
Irishman, but I am loyal to America. Tell me the truth――what brought
you here?”
“You speak true when you say that I have no hope but in your heart, and
I am inclined to tell you all.”
Dennis and the two men whom he had brought with him dismounted, and sat
down under the cedars, through which the moon shone.
“I was led here through the suggestion of a bad example. We are led by
the imagination. Imagination follows suggestion. Benedict Arnold went
over to the cause of the King, and he is a power now. I once served
under Arnold. It was in the northern campaign. I will acknowledge
all. I am seeking to do him a service――to find out where your powder
magazines are stored. Arnold will soon be thundering off this coast!”
Dennis started.
“What! in Connecticut?”
“Yes, in Connecticut.”
“Among his own kin?”
“Among his own kin.”
“Black must be the heart of a man that would fall upon his own
neighborhood. Such a heart must be born wrong. They say that he liked
to torture animals when he was a boy. Man, what do you know? Remember
the fate of André.”
The man suddenly recollected it. He began to shake, for with the rising
of the moon and the clearing of the air it was cool.
“I know not where I am,” said he. “Everything is strange. But let me
talk to you in confidence.
“I have money.”
He took out a purse, and jingled some coin.
“Let me go and I will pay you. Here, take this.” He extended the purse
toward Dennis. “Let me go back and you shall have it all.”
“Man,” said Dennis, “André offered gold to his captors, and tried to
bribe them to let him go. Put up thy gold. There is money that does
not enrich. I would not betray the cause of liberty in America and the
great heart of Jonathan Trumbull for all the gold of Peru. Tell me now
your whole heart, or I take you to the alarm-post, to be shot as a spy.”
The man shook.
“Well, here is my confession. I hoped to find the secret places of
the magazines where the powder that supplies the army is hidden, and
to report to Arnold. This is the whole truth. I am sorry for what I
planned. I would not do so again. Now I ask your mercy.”
“To Arnold, did you say? Where did you expect to meet Arnold?”
“On the coast――it might be at New London or Groton.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Soon, soon. Peter, set the beacon on the hill!”
The boy ran; a light streamed up. Dennis hurried with his prisoner to
the alarm-post.
The prisoner knew not what to make of that night when windows moved
and a shot that shattered a head did not kill, and the heavens flamed
before the nimble feet of a boy.
Had he been drawn into a witch’s cave? What had led him to disclose the
secret? He thought of André, and when he was led into the guard-house
he sat down, wondered, and wept.
But he hoped Dennis, his captor, had a human heart. Was he a second
André?
Dennis went to the guard-house the next day to visit a new prisoner.
The suggestions that the latter made were most alarming.
If Benedict Arnold was to make attack along the coast his object was
to divide the American army, which was now moving south for the great
Virginia campaign against Cornwallis.
“It would be like the British to strike us now upon the coast,” said
the Governor, “but he would be more than a traitor who would slaughter
his own kin on the soil where he was born and bred.”
The man gave his name as Ayre; probably from the suggestion of the name
of the British colonel who was under Arnold.
He was despondent, and sat in the guard-house with drooping head.
“Of what are you thinking?” asked Dennis. “You may give me your
thoughts with safety. The Governor is the soul of honor, and he will
not cause me to violate the spirit of my promise that I have made.”
“I am thinking of the moment when the captors of André said to him, ‘We
must take off your boots.’”
For in the boots of the unfortunate officer were the despatches from
Arnold offering to treacherously surrender West Point.
“That moment must have stricken terror to André’s heart,” said the man.
“Then it was that he saw the whole of life. Your Governor seems to be a
very kind-hearted man――the people love him. I am sorry that I ever had
evil thoughts of him. But, my friend, send me away; for should a fleet
descend upon the coast, the hatred of all these people will fall upon
me. The man who suggests an evil that comes is held in detestation. I
would not be safe here.”
“You are right, and you shall be sent to Boston.”
It was in the air that the Connecticut coast was to be attacked again.
Connecticut must be defended by her own people, should it come, for it
would not do to divide the American army in its great movement to crush
the main army of the British of the south.
“I will send you, with the Governor’s approval, to Fort Trumbull, at
New London, and I will accompany you there myself,” decided Dennis.
It was the 6th of November when the two set out on horseback for New
London and Groton――a bright, glimmering day, the wayside bordered with
goldenrod. The meadows were clouded with the aftermath and webby wild
grasses, and seemed to sing with insects.
Boom!
What was that?
Boom! Boom!
“There is a cannonade going on at New London,” said Dennis.
They hurried on.
The air thundered.
“It is Arnold!” said the prisoner.
As they passed down their way amid cidery orchards, they began to meet
people flying with terror.
“What has happened?” asked Dennis.
“Arnold!” was the answer of one. “He is burning everything――the streets
that he trod in his boyhood, the very houses that sheltered him. He is
standing on the hill, glass in hand, gloating in the power to kill his
own neighbors’ sons. Oh, is it possible that one should come to kill
his own!”
As they went on, the cannonading grew louder and the roads presented a
scene such as had hardly ever been witnessed in America before.
The people were flying with their goods: women on beds on the backs of
horses; old women driving cows before them; boys with sheep; men in
carts, with valuables; dogs who had lost their masters.
They met one scene that was indeed pitiful. It was a man hurrying with
the coffin of a child on his back toward the burying-ground. He must
bury the little one as he fled.
The farmhouses were full of people with white faces, people who crowded
upon each other.
It was a terrible story that they had to tell. Arnold had surprised New
London by the sea, and had burned down every house, even the houses
that sheltered him in his boyhood.
But the destruction of New London was a light event compared to the
horrors of Groton, across the river.
They found that Colonel Ayre had attacked Fort Griswold, and was
slaughtering the men after they had surrendered. Arnold had sent a
messenger to arrest this slaughter, but the latter had arrived too
late. The garrison had refused to surrender. When, at last, they were
compelled to yield, they were put to the sword without mercy, and
the wounded were killed, and even the dead were maltreated. The men
under Colonel Ayre had become human fiends. They had gone mad with the
passion for killing.
One of the British officers ran from place to place to restrain the
soldiers.
“Stop! stop!” said he. “In the name of heaven, I say stop――I can not
endure it!”
But the work of killing went on, and of killing the wounded and
stabbing the dead.
Night fell. The British set a bomb to the magazine and passed up the
river, expecting to see a terrible explosion that would fire the
heavens. But the explosion did not come. A brave band of Americans had
extinguished the fuse.
“There is no Fort Trumbull to which I can take you now,” said Dennis to
his prisoner. “You may go to your own.”
“Then I will return with you, and you will never find a heart more true
to your Governor than mine will be. Christ forgave Peter, and was not
Peter true? Our truest friends are those whom we forgive. To know all
is to forgive all. I know your Governor now. I once hated him; he is
led by the spirit of the living God, and I would die for a man like
that. It is better to change the heart of an enemy than to kill him.
Let me follow you back, and the people will receive my repentance even
at this awful hour.”
Dennis, through fear of his safety, left him outside of Lebanon at a
farmhouse, but when he had told his tale to the people, they said:
“Bring him back; he is another man now.”