Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/210

 choly of his officers, amid the formalities of their capitulation, the martial demeanour of Gates, the energetic, open countenance of Knox, the sullen faces of the British soldiery, the half-suppressed rage with which they grounded their arms, produced a combination of joy and rapturous gratitude, softened by pity, which can scarcely be imagined but by an actor in those tumultuous scenes. The very tones of the music, which guided their march, seemed again to vibrate on his ear, and the foliage of the Saratoga forests, bright with the opposing hues of autumn, to wave in accordance.

Interesting groups filled the back ground of this mental picture. The funeral of General Frazer; the incessant cannonade upon his grave; the uncovered head of the clergyman, who absorbed in the services of heaven, heeded not the war upon earth; the pale, delicate, beautiful countenance of Lady Ackland, committing herself to the waters in an open boat, amid the darkness and storms of night, or presenting to General Gates the open and wet letter of Burgoyne, in which her protection was supplicated, or entreating with the exquisite tones of female fortitude in anguish, permission to attend her imprisoned and desperately wounded husband; the magnanimous Schuyler, as he took in his arms the three little children of the Baroness Reidesel, reassuring the spirits of the stranger, and the captive, by his tenderness to her helpless offspring; these, and many more touching images were call-