Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/185

Rh cool water, for their labor-worn, and heat-exhausted frames. They found that desperation would supply the place of discipline; that the stock of a musket wielded with true nerves, would deal a blow as deadly as the thrust of a bayonet; that a heavy stone would level an assailant, as well as a charge of powder. As for food and water, the hunger they were compelled to bear unrelieved, and they cooled their brows only by the thick, heavy drops which poured before the sun. It was their opening combat, and it decided the spirit and hope of all their subsequent campaigns. They had freed themselves, during the engagement, from all that natural reluctance, which they had heretofore felt, in turning their offensive weapons against the breasts of former friends, yes, even of their kindred. On that eminence, the first bright image of Liberty, of a free native land, kindled the eyes of those who were expiring in their gore, and the image passed between the living and the dying, to seal the covenant, that the hope of the one, or the fate of the other, should unite them, here, or hereafter. Henceforth, from the village homes, and farm-houses around, amid the encouraging exhortations, as well as the tearful prayers of their families, the yeomen took from their chimney-stacks, the familiar, and well proved weapons of a life in the woods, and felt for the first time, what it was to have a country, and resolved for the first time, that they would save their country, or be mourned by her."

The placing of the last stone upon the Bunker