Page:Seventy-six, or, Love and battle (IA seventysixlove00nealrich).pdf/12

 and wrung it with all his might, while the tears rushed into his eyes, and he said, "O, brother, would to God that I were as strong and handsome as you!"

Arthur arose to go.

"No, my lad," said my father, "you will take a bed with me to-night, and to-morrow go round to your acquaintances, with Arthur and Archy they shall both go with you, and bid them good-bye. I will take care to represent the matter rightly to your uncle. It is really time that we did something. I am ashamed of myself. Our cause must perish if all abandon it as I have done. No, I will mount and ride to-morrow through all the neighbourhood, and never rest till I have stirred up some of our substantial men—for they are the most backward after all; they have nothing to gain and much to lose, and they, like me, have been lying by, to see the sun break out, before they go abroad. No ! it shall not be so another day. I will go to them myself, and if that doesn t work upon them, I will let the minister loose. Ha! Archy, what say you—silent? Well, well, I like your contemplative spirit—so fond of study.

I heard something fall, and turning to where he stood, saw that the book which he had been holding had fallen from his hand, but he did not appear to observe it.

"No!" continued my father, "we must be ready to begin the next campaign with spirit, or the devil will be to pay—one bold, manly effort, and we shall down with our invader to the dust—to-morrow, I will throw open my barn, and stable, and corn-houses, and let the first foraging party that will, empty them all—and set fire to the ruins. I will never complain more!—what say you, Archy ?- will that do!—come, come, cheer—up you shall stay by your old father and mother, and comfort them, while Jonathan is cutting and slashing at the enemy so, hourra from independence!"

"Hourra! hourra!" shouted Arthur, swinging the old rifle round his head—"hourra for independence!"

My voice followed his, but so faintly, that it sounded like an echo only—while Archibald merely merely locked his hands, and uplifted fliem to heaven, much to the delight of the old gentleman, who winked at us, and smiled, as if it were some timely revelation from above—"Yes! yes!" said he, "he was made for a minister."

Never, in all my life, did I pass such a night as that which followed the conversation that I have just related. I know not whether I was know not whether I was born with a more timorous heart than other men, but I have been ready to believe, when I have seen their indifference to matters of life and death, where we have stood together, ankle deep in blood: their cold, phlegmatic habitual disregard of what made my heart feel sometimes as if it were turning to stone within me, and my flesh crawl: that they were fashioned originally, and by constitution, of sterner material than myself; and yet, I have seen Archibald too, pale as death, in the awful stillness that preceded the first shot, while they went on, immoveable and solid as a phalanx of machinery, with no sweat upon their foreheads, no prayers upon their lips, no knocking at their ribs. What, then, should I think ? His courage was indisputable, and yet he was abundantly more agitated than myself. However, not to anticipate, there were a thousand apprehensions, natural to an inexperienced country lad, like myself, about to abandon the roof of his father, mingled and dashed, too, with some pleasant and adventurous feeling, common, I dare say, to the high in blood, whatever may be their courage: but there were some perils—some, that the terror of would not let me sleep. The smallpox was in the American army, and its ravages were tremendous, as we were told, and believed: add to this that Cornwallis had just moved upon our frontiers, with the design of effecting a junction between his army and that of Sir Henry Clinton, then in possession of New York. Their forces, exceeding fifty-five thousand men, were well known to be admirably appointed, and altogether superior to ours. Arnold had been beaten, and we had just lost the command of the lakes; and Fort Pitt, too, had fallen; several perilous changes had been made in the staff; General Schuyler and Gates were at loggerheads—Washington himself was losing a part of his popularity; and they were intriguing to set him aside, not by dismissal, but by passing a vote of censure upon him, which they knew the great man would not brook; the army had dwindled to nothing, by the folly and madness of short enlistments, and, literally, nothing at all had been done, on our part, during the campaign—nothing experienced but a series of defeat and humiliation, which no human being could have held up against, except George Washington.

Such was the state of affairs at this time; and if you add to these facts, which were painful and disheartening enough to intimidate and bow the bravest, the ten thousand rumours and exaggerations perpetually afloat; the fact that we were safer under the protection of the enemy than of our own countrymen; the different appearance of our tatterdemalions, half naked, half armed, and half starved, from their invaders, a gallant and dazzling army with banners and trumpets, and the offer pardon and mercy, just made by Sir William Howe, at the head of thirty thousand veterans—offers which were not only made to, but were accepted, far and near, by the dastardly of gentry (for the poor held out, in their nakedness and poverty, to their last breath); and the threat, constantly reiterated, that all the prisoners of war would be hung for rebels and traitors, and never exchanged; you will not wonder that my heart was heavy at the thought of what I was about to encounter.

However, the night wore away at last, and never did the morning light break in upon me with such influence; my blood danced in my body: and before I had been out in the wind an hour—a fine frosty air, with a few stars yet visible, and the bluest sky that I ever saw above me, I do believe that I could have gone into battle with less terror than I had heard the proposal to go ten or twelve hours before. Such is the