THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
It was a fine, clear morning, promising a hot day. Looking across the
earthwork, Dick could see people on the housetops and hills of Boston
and the near-by country, attracted by the sound of the _Lively's_ firing
and by the news that the Yankees had fortified the hill. Dick and
MacAlister were presently relieved, whereupon they rested at their
rifles, while others went on working at the platforms. The firing from
the river ceased, but the calm which followed was so like that which
precedes a storm, that Dick was not even startled at the louder booming
that soon arose, from a hill-battery in Boston as well as from the
war-vessels in the river. The men around Dick made jokes about the
enemy's fire, and about what fate might befall one another within a few
hours. The prevalent spirit accorded with the half tragic, half comical
feeling that thrilled Dick's breast and showed in his face.
There came a slight shock and a general sensation when the word went
around that one of the British cannon balls had struck and killed Asa
Pollard, of Stickney's company in Bridge's regiment; and there followed
some ado over the matter of his burial, Colonel Prescott commanding that
he be buried immediately, a chaplain insisting on performing a service
over the body, and Prescott thereupon ordering dispersed the crowd of
men that gathered to hear the service. At this a number of men
rebelliously left the hill. To shame the timid and encourage the brave,
Prescott stepped to the top of the parapet and walked calmly around
thereupon, coolly giving orders, in perfect heedlessness of the balls
that plowed the hillside near at hand. A captain did likewise, and
thereupon the men took to cheering defiantly at each notable specimen of
British marksmanship.
Keyed up to the pitch of recklessness, the men could laugh at the
British fire, but the intense heat of the sun, the fatigue of their
labors, and the hunger and thirst due to the neglect of many to bring
provisions, were foes not as easily disdained. Thanks to Dick's respect
for orders, and to Tom's wisdom of experience, these two had enough to
eat and drink; but many, as they perspired or lay exhausted, growled or
cursed, and thought war a useless, uncomfortable business.
During the morning, while the men worked with the spades, or waited idly
and wondered when, if ever, their first shot would be fired, there were
frequent consultations of the officers, frequent despatchings of
messengers from the hill, or from one part of the hill to another,
frequent signs that seemed to promise action but brought none. There was
a moment of interest for Dick when he became aware, first by sound, and
then by sight, that the cannon in a corner of the redoubt had begun to
reply to the British fire, which had gained in severity and in the
number of its sources.
At about eleven o'clock the men were ordered to cease work on the
entrenchments, and their tools were piled in the rear. General Putnam
now rode up, evidently from Cambridge, and had some discussion with
Prescott, and, apparently as a result thereof, a large party took up the
tools and started off towards Charlestown Neck. Some of this party
stopped at the next hill, to which Putnam rode, and there they began to
throw up breastworks under his orders. Thus the morning passed, in
tedious expectancy.
The burning noon found Dick and Tom again at the parapet, which was now
manned with waiting musket-men. Dick's wandering gaze rested on two
war-ships that were moving up the river towards those already firing.
"Begorra, there's a thing or two doing, yonder in the town," said
MacAlister, with a slight revival from a tone of languor. Dick looked
across to Boston. Through some streets and towards the wharves, trailed
a long, wide line of scarlet, flashing at countless points where the
sunlight fell on polished metal. The line was of British regiments,
doubtless coming to attack the Yankee redoubt.
An oppressive silence fell for a moment on Dick and all his comrades,
while their eyes glistened; then, simultaneously, they raised a wild,
half hysterical cheer, and many a man grasped his weapon tighter, and
sent towards the scarlet line afar an unconscious smile of defiant
welcome.
The thunder of the British batteries and ships all at once swelled to
tremendous volume. The fields by the river, below the redoubt, were
deluged with cannon-shot. "To hinder us frae ganging doon to stop their
landing," explained MacAlister to Dick. Scarlet troops could be seen
moving in Boston towards different wharves, from which at last they
crowded into barges, a few of them hauling field-pieces along with them.
Dick thrilled at the fine sight when the barges were rowed out into the
river and towards a point of land eastward from the hill on which the
Yankee army waited. Passing between the belching vessels and the river's
mouth, and as the wind drove the cannon smoke westward, the barges with
their loads of scarlet and steel stood out clear in the sunlight.
It was one o'clock when the barges huddled together at the point, and
the red-coated troops filed ashore, and began to form in lines, now on
the same side of the river with the colonials who had defied them. Dick
admired the precision of the three lines in which they formed, the
patience with which they waited while their officers consulted and while
the barges went back apparently for more troops, the matter-of-fact
manner in which many of them ate their dinners while they stood.
He was drawn from this sight presently by a cheer from his own comrades,
which heralded the arrival of some teams with provisions and barrels of
beer. While he was partaking of the consequent good cheer, there was
another outburst of enthusiasm, this time over the arrival of Doctor
Warren, recently made a general, and General Pomeroy, who both came to
serve for the day in the ranks, as volunteers. Soon General Putnam rode
back again to the redoubt.
Now the British were seen beginning a movement from the point, and along
the Mystic River, which ran by the hill's northern base as the Charles
ran by its southern one. Some artillery and some Connecticut troops,
detached to oppose this movement, went down the hill and began to
construct a kind of breastwork of a pair of stone and rail fences and
some fresh-cut hay that lay in the fields. But Dick had no attention for
this business, or for the reinforcements that began to arrive over
Charlestown Neck in the fire of the British ships and batteries. All his
powers of sight were for the well-drilled enemy, who had ceased to move
along the Mystic, and now stood near the point.
At about three o'clock the British barges came back from Boston on their
second trip, and, landing short of the point, disembarked their troops
at a place much nearer the redoubt than the first force was. "It's them
we'll be having dealings wi'," said MacAlister, nodding towards the new
arrivals. "There's a regiment that we'll ken the name of later, and a
battalion of marines, not to speak of them companies of light infantry
and grenadiers. Whist, lad, it's like we'll hae the worth of our
labors."
While Dick waited, with his eyes on the force at the foot of the hill,
in front of him, he was vaguely conscious that things were doing
elsewhere; that the field-pieces of the British right wing--the force
first landed--were conversing with the Yankees' cannon; that parties
were being sent out from the redoubt to flank the enemy and were doing a
little futile skirmishing; and that the roars of cannon were more
deafening, the balls raining more thickly and incessantly on the
hillside from the ships and the Boston batteries. At last the British
left wing--the newly landed force, of which Tom had spoken--began to
march towards the redoubt. This left wing had meanwhile been augmented
by some of the regiments that had crossed the river on the first trip of
the barges.
"They're coming, boy," said old Tom. "It's a general movement of both
divisions. They are the best troops in the world, son, dour devils every
ane of them, and they mane to tak' this hill as sure as we mane to hould
it. It's a grand disputation ye're like to see this day, lad!"
Colonel Prescott strode around the platform, instructing the men upon it
how to fire, the men behind it how to hand loaded guns to the first, how
to reload, how to take the places of the disabled. "Remember," said he,
"wait for the word before you fire. Mind you put every grain of powder
to good use; there's none for wasting. Aim at their waist-bands, and
bring down their officers. That musket must be lower, man, when you come
to fire. You, there, with your finger ready to pull, wait for the word,
I tell you!"
Warfare and orders were different with the Yankee army on the hill, from
what they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.
Dick was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near some
brick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on the
infantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precision
that was proof against marshy ground, tall grass, stone or rail fences,
and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating of
their own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor to
left, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces no
complaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might await
them, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarlet
coats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectly
groomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and of
the occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag that
fluttered slightly in the faint breeze,--so they came, their faces fixed
with a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to Dick that, coming
in fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility be
turned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he said
to MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could be
afraid to face all hell, either marching with them, or waiting here to
fight against them?"
"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great matters
do be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggle
over it!"
The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed of
tall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of the
redoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot,
its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure was
recognized by one of Dick's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who had
called on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoats
were still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and fired
at the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a great
machine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easy
manner in which the marching officers had ordered it, Dick heeded not
the whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain was
too great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at the
approaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof of
these, and some of the officers ran along the top of the parapet,
kicking up the guns of men who were taking aim.
On came the enemy, firing at regular intervals in obedience to slight
gestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might be
distinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenances
had in common the impassive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look of
British veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement was
such that Dick and most of his comrades would not trust their voices to
speak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinary
moods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Air
we going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving a
finger?" queried another. It began to look to Dick as if the enemy were
indeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who was
motionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-butt against shoulder, eye
following out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently all
growlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, the
throbbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets in
the air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the single
word, "Fire!"
There was flash, a crack, a belch of smoke, along the whole redoubt;
and, when the smoke rose, Dick got an indistinct impression of great
gaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground in
various positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still,
some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afoot
were looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regular
formation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. Dick
mechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind the
platform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to the
same man; in another moment he was blazing away again at a scarlet coat.
Then he himself reloaded, and fired a third time; and after that he saw
the broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in a
kind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind and
plunging presently to the earth.
"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded to
the top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse to
give chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlister
upon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for several
men had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeing
foe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered them
back into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried Dick, ecstatically.
"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if they
stay so!"
All the world knows they did not stay so; that the rest of that hot,
eventful afternoon, until the termination of the fight, had nothing in
it to give Dick an impression different from those he had already
received; that the British re-formed by the shore, charged up the hill a
second time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly American
marksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire to
Charlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplish
their purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more work
this second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded in
their charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to step
over; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-pricking
and striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was in
greater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered more
thickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before they
began their third attack; that on the American side there was much
bungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived over
Charlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunk
away; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar to
those at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the second
attack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillery
cartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and the
powder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernel
of it tell.
"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," said
Colonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready for
them!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy would
probably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had been
sent back to Boston,--so that the British troops would not have them to
flee to, as old Tom divined,--also that the British had received
reinforcements from the vessels.
When they advanced in column to the third attack, they came without
knapsacks, and their whole movement was concentrated upon the redoubt
and breastwork, while their artillery was sent ahead and so placed as to
enfilade the Americans in flank. The red lines were but twenty yards
away when Prescott gave the order to fire. The columns wavered at the
volley, but recovered form in a moment, and sprang forward with fixed
bayonets, without firing in return. Dick, knowing he had fired his last
round, and following Tom's example, turned his weapon around to use it
as a club. He was now at the southeastern corner of the redoubt.
The British surged up to the southern side, like a tidal wave, their
front line being lifted by the men behind. A red-coated officer set foot
on the parapet, cried out "The day is ours!" and fell, pierced by the
last bullet of some Yankee inside the redoubt. The whole first rank that
mounted the parapet was shot down, but there was no powder left for the
ranks that followed. Dick brought down his rifle-butt with all his
strength on the head of the nearest redcoat. Before he could raise his
weapon, he felt in his leg the violent thrust of a British bayonet. He
made a wild movement to clutch it, but it was drawn out of him by its
owner's hand. Dick fell forward on one knee, and a moment later toppled
over the parapet and fell outside the redoubt, upon the quivering body
of a dying redcoat, by whose advancing comrades he was soon trodden into
insensibility.
When he opened his eyes again it was late in the evening. The melee was
over. He lay on some hay on the hillside, with a number of other men,
some wounded, some apparently whole, all under guard of sentries who
paced on every side. He soon perceived that the men under guard were of
the Yankee army, while those who guarded them were British, and, as he
presently recognized the redoubt not far away, he knew that the British
had won the day and that he was a prisoner. Before night a surgeon came
and examined his wound, had it washed and tied up by an assistant, and
pronounced it of no consequence. Dick passed the night in exhaustion,
pain, and thirst, on his bed of hay on the hillside.
The next day, while the British were fitting the redoubt for their own
service, and also beginning new works, Dick and his fellow prisoners
were marched down to the river, conveyed by boat to Boston, and led
through certain streets of that town, some of which were curved, some
crooked, some steeply ascending, some flanked by closely built
rough-cast houses with projecting upper stories, some by commodious
brick or wooden residences in the midst of fine gardens; and so into a
stone jail that stood with its walled yard on the south side of the
way. At one side of the entrance, within this prison, was a guard-room,
into which each prisoner was taken for his name to be entered in the
records. Dick was the last to be directed thither. When he had been duly
registered by the proper officer, he turned to follow the guard to the
cell assigned him.
"So we've got you at last," came, in a slightly Irish accent, from a
British officer, who appeared to be in some authority at the prison, but
whom Dick had not before observed closely. "Faith, we'll take care you
shall stay with us awhile, and we'll not give you a chance to murder
English officers, either, as you tried to murder Lieutenant Blagdon in
New York. What have you done with my sword, you spalpeen?"
Dick recognized the officer in whose company Blagdon had been at the
time of the occurrence in the King's Arms Tavern. He would have made an
answer, although the other's question did not in its tone imply
expectation of one; but the guard hurried him away, in obedience to a
sudden gesture of the Irishman.
"At least," thought Dick, "though that man, as Blagdon's friend, counts
himself my enemy, he has done me the service of informing me that
Blagdon is not dead. '_Tried_ to murder Blagdon,' he said. Tom the
piper's son was right. And, thinking of Tom, I wonder where he is now.
Evidently not a prisoner, for our lot seems to comprise all that were
taken. Killed? I can't think that! Does he know what has become of me, I
wonder? Shall I ever see him again?"
Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridor
and ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door opened
thereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls and
floor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by half
a score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that had
come with Dick. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on the
outside, Dick having been the last prisoner lodged.
Dick and his roommates had of floor space barely sufficient for all to
lie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a single
window, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings and
gardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted wood
that encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certain
places where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison was
visible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which were
removed and returned once a day.
Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, bread
or biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and the
prisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walk
in the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselves
recognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and to
consider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmerited
privileges. As the days passed, it became manifest that Dick received
fewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. He
promptly attributed this to the influence of the Irish officer.
Did that officer, Dick asked himself, know the story of the miniature?
Probably not, or he would have made some attempt, on Blagdon's behalf,
to obtain it. Such an attempt would doubtless have failed, however, as
was shown in the search made of Dick's person on his capture, a search
which had not disclosed the picture. For Dick, to be ready against the
chance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag,
which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it by
means of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbons
that tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.
Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a few
were in Dick's cell, the others being confined in other apartments in
the jail. Among Dick's roommates were some citizens of Boston, in
durance for various alleged offences against the royal government. One
was charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, another
with having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondence
smuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealed
in his house,--the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting,
delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under the
accusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike old
gentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals to
the rebels from a church steeple.
This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his features
rendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner of
the cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and then
opening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation.
The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave Dick an account of him. He
was, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time when
people were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of the
besieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered by
some jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for such
exertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to his
success were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for the
information of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation and
imprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had no
sympathy for the old man, whom he pronounced a rank Tory, said that the
charge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner's
Toryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentleman
came out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, it
was to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble,
and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemies
among the Tories," said the printer, "he has friends among them also,
and it is quite likely he will be released as soon as General Gage takes
time to consider his case."
But July came and went, and the old Tory still lingered in prison,
growing constantly more fretful in his active moments, more trance-like
in his passive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, Dick
suffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want of
sleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow in
recovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet he
scarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with the
wounds and other ailments of some of his fellow prisoners. One of these,
in whose thigh a grape-shot had torn a hideous gash that finally became
insupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon to
require amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in the
prison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although he
ultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon's
assistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were as
successful as that performed on Dick's cell-mate.
Fevers and numerous internal disorders assailed Dick and his comrades,
and their cell, in its half light by day and in its black darkness by
night, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in close
contact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into every
conceivable attitude. Accustomed as he was to outdoor air, and deprived,
as he came to be, of a breath of it, as well as of all exercise, Dick
began early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He became
as thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusion
from the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of general
talk in the cell.
One day the surgeon examined Dick's wound, assuming as he did so a kind
of grave frown, and uttering certain ominous ejaculations to himself,
his manifestations having, to Dick's keen intelligence, the appearance
of being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through a
good-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The first
was that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who had
arrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for any
ill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that must
eventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The second
was that the old Tory's friends were working vigorously on his behalf,
and that an order of release from General Gage might soon be expected.
To every one's surprise, the old gentleman heard this information with
stupid indifference.
The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer,
and made another examination of Dick's wound. This done, the surgeon
turned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefaced
manner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will be
necessary in this case, sir."
"Indeed?" said the officer, without even a serious pretence of surprise.
"Then let it be done immediately."
"Immediately, the devil!" cried Dick. "Cut my leg off? Why, there's
nothing the matter with it! I walked on it all the way to this prison!"
"My good man," said the officer, loftily, "you don't know what is best
for you. It's our duty to care for you, even against your own will.
Don't double up your fists! You'll only hurt yourself by resisting. We
shall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer left
the cell, and the surgeon briefly told Dick to be ready to be taken
down-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be made
for the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followed
the officer.
Before Dick could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades could
offer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door again
opened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer that
some of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with an
order for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairs
to break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, if
possible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain of
the effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the old
gentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to the
superior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engaged
the latter to perform it, went from the cell to wait in the corridor.
The printer, glancing at the old man and supposing him to be asleep,
rapidly confided to his fellow prisoners what the guard had said, and
then stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder.
After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the old
man and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to the
expectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By God, I think
they're too late with their damned release! If I know anything, the old
man's dead!"
Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, sat
down-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, who
explained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet.
When ten minutes had passed, the officer went to the corridor, and
called up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient to
see him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the old
gentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of the
stair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-room
door, opposite the officer.
In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by
two armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavily
wigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture,
were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadly
soiled.
Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in the
half light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, the
Irish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's three
friends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with half
smiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When he
reached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, to
their astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth between
two of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and,
ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacrity
miraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into the
first street that ran southward.
"His imprisonment has crazed him!" cried one of the three gentlemen.
"Hell and damnation!" cried the Irish officer, rushing up the stairs and
motioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over the
prostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless in
a corner. The clothes on this figure were Dick Wetheral's, but the face
was that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat at
the prisoners in the cell, the officer bounded back to the door,
fastened it, and leaped down the stairs to order a pursuit.
At about the same moment, Dick, tossing the old man's wig back towards
the prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantly
with himself:
"Cut my leg off, eh? Not if it and its comrade serve me properly to-day!
The printer was right,--'twould have been a shame to waste that order of
release on a dead man!"
As he ran, he divested himself of the old Tory's cumbersome coat,
throwing it over a gate into an alley-way between two houses, and he
also mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be the
one who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and others
had argued, in the few moments available for discussion, Dick's leg was
at stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there was
an evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the others
might be presently exchanged, which Dick could not hope to be as long as
the machinations of his enemy could hinder.
When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, and
Dick fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became a
walk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through a
deserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention.
Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiers
than citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, his
coatless condition being easily accounted for by the heat of the season.
At last he sat down to rest on the steps of a large brick church, at a
corner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly wooded
space, which he knew, from previous description and from the military
tents now upon it, to be the Common.
While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how he
should ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurried
movement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on the
highest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by an
officer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticed
this movement, which was rapidly nearing.
To get out of the way inconspicuously, Dick descended from the church
steps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side of
the church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up the
hill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making good
speed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top of
the hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.
"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irish
officer. Dick turned into the street that went along the upper side of
the Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on the
right-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whose
wide door, flanked by glass panels and surmounted by a great fan-light,
gaped hospitably from a spacious vine-embowered porch. As he made for
this porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill street
by the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly from
the door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel,"
and then stepped back in surprise as Dick, tripping on the steps that
led up to the porch, fell prone at her feet.
"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quickly
stooped and picked up something from near Dick's head.
"That belongs to me!" he said, hoarsely, rising to his knees, and
reaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, which had
in some manner worked from its fastenings in Dick's queue.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, who was slender, blue-eyed, and fair,
still retaining the portrait.
"Stop that rebel!" came the cry from around the corner of the Common.
Dick's mind worked quickly. "I'm the man they're hunting," he said.
The girl frowned, murmured the word "rebel," and looked down at him with
an expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hence
friendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.
She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from its
silken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from the
fighting?" she asked, with sudden softness of tone and countenance.
"Yes," lied Dick, promptly; "as you also doubtless wait for some one!"
The girl blushed, and looked sympathetically at the portrait, then at
Dick.
"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, but
its owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of the
garden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"
"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to Dick, handing him the
portrait. "There,--under that bench!"
Dick obeyed, from lack of other choice, at the same time losing hope,
for the space beneath the bench was open to the view of any one entering
the porch.
A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by the
skirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on the
bench immediately over him.
In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politely
answered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rear
alley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; and
when the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly arose
and faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he could
better look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conducted
him to the garret of the house, where he passed the rest of the day, and
the ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels.
Next afternoon, she brought him a pass obtained from Major Urquhart, the
town-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pass the barriers at
Boston Neck. She gave Dick a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed him
how to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the house
and grounds by a back way while the family sat at supper.
"'Tis all for the sake of the lady who is waiting for you," were her
last words, and Dick, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the way
she had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked under
the chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took as
evidence of the excellence of his disguise.
His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pass to the sergeant of
the guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last moment
is a sickening thing. But he was passed through without special
question, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the George
Tavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garb
before the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of General
Thomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline to
Cambridge.
There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner,
as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, better
equipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of the
new commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where the
army's centre lay. Best of all, to Dick, companies of riflemen had
arrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county,
Cumberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learning
from Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined this
organization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, much
to the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise,
for nothing ever surprised him. Dick found him quartered on Prospect
Hill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returned
from a day spent with a rifle in picking off British soldiers in Boston.
Dick was warmly welcomed by Captain Hendricks, and speedily mustered in.
He doffed his prison-worn clothes for a rifleman's suit, which had
belonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with his
friend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and with
Lieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; and
passed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away at
British soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near the
camp on the Common now and then.
He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as the
commander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments were
assembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien of
dignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalled
all Dick's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and would
have done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buff
underdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlike
cocked hat with its black cockade.
On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, Dick and Tom took
note of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachment
going under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the
roll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tents
and everything necessary are provided for their reception. The rifle
company at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march early
to-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and men
as are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, are
to attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, at
seven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they are
forthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."
"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do ye
mind a word I spoke to ye once, about the wind o' circumstance?"
"Why, what do you mean?" queried Dick.
"Nothing," said the piper's son, "only that order includes us, and maybe
it's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachment
will be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"
Quebec! Dick reached back and clutched the portrait, which had been
restored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way he
heard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:
"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but the
road will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"