CHAPTER VI.
THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
It was a fine, clear morning, promising a hot day. Looking across theearthwork, Dick could see people on the housetops and hills of Bostonand the near-by country, attracted by the sound of the _Lively's_ firingand by the news that the Yankees had fortified the hill. Dick andMacAlister were presently relieved, whereupon they rested at theirrifles, while others went on working at the platforms. The firing fromthe river ceased, but the calm which followed was so like that whichprecedes a storm, that Dick was not even startled at the louder boomingthat soon arose, from a hill-battery in Boston as well as from thewar-vessels in the river. The men around Dick made jokes about theenemy's fire, and about what fate might befall one another within a fewhours. The prevalent spirit accorded with the half tragic, half comicalfeeling that thrilled Dick's breast and showed in his face.
There came a slight shock and a general sensation when the word wentaround that one of the British cannon balls had struck and killed AsaPollard, of Stickney's company in Bridge's regiment; and there followedsome ado over the matter of his burial, Colonel Prescott commanding thathe be buried immediately, a chaplain insisting on performing a serviceover the body, and Prescott thereupon ordering dispersed the crowd ofmen that gathered to hear the service. At this a number of menrebelliously left the hill. To shame the timid and encourage the brave,Prescott stepped to the top of the parapet and walked calmly aroundthereupon, coolly giving orders, in perfect heedlessness of the ballsthat plowed the hillside near at hand. A captain did likewise, andthereupon the men took to cheering defiantly at each notable specimen ofBritish marksmanship.
Keyed up to the pitch of recklessness, the men could laugh at theBritish fire, but the intense heat of the sun, the fatigue of theirlabors, and the hunger and thirst due to the neglect of many to bringprovisions, were foes not as easily disdained. Thanks to Dick's respectfor orders, and to Tom's wisdom of experience, these two had enough toeat and drink; but many, as they perspired or lay exhausted, growled orcursed, and thought war a useless, uncomfortable business.
During the morning, while the men worked with the spades, or waited idlyand wondered when, if ever, their first shot would be fired, there werefrequent consultations of the officers, frequent despatchings ofmessengers from the hill, or from one part of the hill to another,frequent signs that seemed to promise action but brought none. There wasa moment of interest for Dick when he became aware, first by sound, andthen by sight, that the cannon in a corner of the redoubt had begun toreply to the British fire, which had gained in severity and in thenumber of its sources.
At about eleven o'clock the men were ordered to cease work on theentrenchments, and their tools were piled in the rear. General Putnamnow rode up, evidently from Cambridge, and had some discussion withPrescott, and, apparently as a result thereof, a large party took up thetools and started off towards Charlestown Neck. Some of this partystopped at the next hill, to which Putnam rode, and there they began tothrow up breastworks under his orders. Thus the morning passed, intedious expectancy.
The burning noon found Dick and Tom again at the parapet, which was nowmanned with waiting musket-men. Dick's wandering gaze rested on twowar-ships that were moving up the river towards those already firing."Begorra, there's a thing or two doing, yonder in the town," saidMacAlister, with a slight revival from a tone of languor. Dick lookedacross to Boston. Through some streets and towards the wharves, traileda long, wide line of scarlet, flashing at countless points where thesunlight 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, andsent towards the scarlet line afar an unconscious smile of defiantwelcome.
The thunder of the British batteries and ships all at once swelled totremendous volume. The fields by the river, below the redoubt, weredeluged with cannon-shot. "To hinder us frae ganging doon to stop theirlanding," explained MacAlister to Dick. Scarlet troops could be seenmoving in Boston towards different wharves, from which at last theycrowded 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 theriver and towards a point of land eastward from the hill on which theYankee army waited. Passing between the belching vessels and the river'smouth, and as the wind drove the cannon smoke westward, the barges withtheir loads of scarlet and steel stood out clear in the sunlight.
It was one o'clock when the barges huddled together at the point, andthe red-coated troops filed ashore, and began to form in lines, now onthe same side of the river with the colonials who had defied them. Dickadmired the precision of the three lines in which they formed, thepatience with which they waited while their officers consulted and whilethe barges went back apparently for more troops, the matter-of-factmanner 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 ofbeer. While he was partaking of the consequent good cheer, there wasanother outburst of enthusiasm, this time over the arrival of DoctorWarren, recently made a general, and General Pomeroy, who both came toserve for the day in the ranks, as volunteers. Soon General Putnam rodeback again to the redoubt.
Now the British were seen beginning a movement from the point, and alongthe Mystic River, which ran by the hill's northern base as the Charlesran by its southern one. Some artillery and some Connecticut troops,detached to oppose this movement, went down the hill and began toconstruct a kind of breastwork of a pair of stone and rail fences andsome fresh-cut hay that lay in the fields. But Dick had no attention forthis business, or for the reinforcements that began to arrive overCharlestown Neck in the fire of the British ships and batteries. All hispowers of sight were for the well-drilled enemy, who had ceased to movealong the Mystic, and now stood near the point.
At about three o'clock the British barges came back from Boston on theirsecond trip, and, landing short of the point, disembarked their troopsat a place much nearer the redoubt than the first force was. "It's themwe'll be having dealings wi'," said MacAlister, nodding towards the newarrivals. "There's a regiment that we'll ken the name of later, and abattalion of marines, not to speak of them companies of light infantryand grenadiers. Whist, lad, it's like we'll hae the worth of ourlabors."
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 doingelsewhere; that the field-pieces of the British right wing--the forcefirst landed--were conversing with the Yankees' cannon; that partieswere being sent out from the redoubt to flank the enemy and were doing alittle futile skirmishing; and that the roars of cannon were moredeafening, the balls raining more thickly and incessantly on thehillside from the ships and the Boston batteries. At last the Britishleft wing--the newly landed force, of which Tom had spoken--began tomarch towards the redoubt. This left wing had meanwhile been augmentedby some of the regiments that had crossed the river on the first trip ofthe barges.
"They're coming, boy," said old Tom. "It's a general movement of bothdivisions. They are the best troops in the world, son, dour devils everyane of them, and they mane to tak' this hill as sure as we mane to houldit. It's a grand disputation ye're like to see this day, lad!"
Colonel Prescott strode around the platform, instructing the men upon ithow to fire, the men behind it how to hand loaded guns to the first, howto 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 powderto good use; there's none for wasting. Aim at their waist-bands, andbring down their officers. That musket must be lower, man, when you cometo fire. You, there, with your finger ready to pull, wait for the word,I tell you!"
Warfare and orders were different with th
e Yankee army on the hill, fromwhat they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.
Dick was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near somebrick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on theinfantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precisionthat was proof against marshy ground, tall grass, stone or rail fences,and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating oftheir own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor toleft, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces nocomplaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might awaitthem, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarletcoats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectlygroomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and ofthe occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag thatfluttered slightly in the faint breeze,--so they came, their faces fixedwith a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to Dick that, comingin fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility beturned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he saidto MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could beafraid to face all hell, either marching with them, or waiting here tofight against them?"
"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great mattersdo be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggleover it!"
The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed oftall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of theredoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot,its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure wasrecognized by one of Dick's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who hadcalled on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoatswere still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and firedat the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a greatmachine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easymanner in which the marching officers had ordered it, Dick heeded notthe whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain wastoo great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at theapproaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof ofthese, 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 slightgestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might bedistinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenanceshad in common the impassive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look ofBritish veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement wassuch that Dick and most of his comrades would not trust their voices tospeak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinarymoods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Airwe going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving afinger?" queried another. It began to look to Dick as if the enemy wereindeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who wasmotionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-butt against shoulder, eyefollowing out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently allgrowlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, thethrobbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets inthe air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the singleword, "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 greatgaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground invarious positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still,some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afootwere looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regularformation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. Dickmechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind theplatform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to thesame 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 sawthe broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in akind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind andplunging presently to the earth.
"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded tothe top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse togive chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlisterupon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for severalmen had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeingfoe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered themback into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried Dick, ecstatically.
"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if theystay 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 init to give Dick an impression different from those he had alreadyreceived; that the British re-formed by the shore, charged up the hill asecond time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly Americanmarksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire toCharlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplishtheir purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more workthis second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded intheir charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to stepover; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-prickingand striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was ingreater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered morethickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before theybegan their third attack; that on the American side there was muchbungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived overCharlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunkaway; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar tothose at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the secondattack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillerycartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and thepowder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernelof it tell.
"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," saidColonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready forthem!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy wouldprobably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had beensent back to Boston,--so that the British troops would not have them toflee to, as old Tom divined,--also that the British had receivedreinforcements from the vessels.
When they advanced in column to the third attack, they came withoutknapsacks, and their whole movement was concentrated upon the redoubtand breastwork, while their artillery was sent ahead and so placed as toenfilade the Americans in flank. The red lines were but twenty yardsaway when Prescott gave the order to fire. The columns wavered at thevolley, but recovered form in a moment, and sprang forward with fixedbayonets, without firing in return. Dick, knowing he had fired his lastround, and following Tom's example, turned his weapon around to use itas a club. He was now at the southeastern corner of the redoubt.
The British surged up to the southern side, like a tidal wave, theirfront line being lifted by the men behind. A red-coated officer set footon the parapet, cried out "The day is ours!" and fell, pierced by thelast bullet of some Yankee inside the redoubt. The whole first rank thatmounted the parapet was shot down, but there was no powder left for theranks that followed. Dick brought down his rifle-butt with all hisstrength on the head of the nearest redcoat. Before he could raise hisweapon, he felt in his leg the violent thrust of a British bayonet. Hemade a wild movement to clutch it, but it was drawn out of him by itsowner's hand. Dick fell forward on one knee, and a moment later toppledover the parapet and fell outside the redoubt, upon the quivering bodyof a dying redcoat, by whose advancing comrades he was soon trodden intoinsensibility.
When he opened his eyes again it was late in the evening. The melee wasover. He lay on some hay on the hillside, with a number of other men,some wounded,
some apparently whole, all under guard of sentries whopaced on every side. He soon perceived that the men under guard were ofthe Yankee army, while those who guarded them were British, and, as hepresently recognized the redoubt not far away, he knew that the Britishhad won the day and that he was a prisoner. Before night a surgeon cameand examined his wound, had it washed and tied up by an assistant, andpronounced 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 ownservice, and also beginning new works, Dick and his fellow prisonerswere marched down to the river, conveyed by boat to Boston, and ledthrough certain streets of that town, some of which were curved, somecrooked, some steeply ascending, some flanked by closely builtrough-cast houses with projecting upper stories, some by commodiousbrick or wooden residences in the midst of fine gardens; and so into astone jail that stood with its walled yard on the south side of theway. 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 therecords. Dick was the last to be directed thither. When he had been dulyregistered by the proper officer, he turned to follow the guard to thecell assigned him.
"So we've got you at last," came, in a slightly Irish accent, from aBritish officer, who appeared to be in some authority at the prison, butwhom Dick had not before observed closely. "Faith, we'll take care youshall stay with us awhile, and we'll not give you a chance to murderEnglish officers, either, as you tried to murder Lieutenant Blagdon inNew York. What have you done with my sword, you spalpeen?"
Dick recognized the officer in whose company Blagdon had been at thetime of the occurrence in the King's Arms Tavern. He would have made ananswer, although the other's question did not in its tone implyexpectation of one; but the guard hurried him away, in obedience to asudden gesture of the Irishman.
"At least," thought Dick, "though that man, as Blagdon's friend, countshimself my enemy, he has done me the service of informing me thatBlagdon is not dead. '_Tried_ to murder Blagdon,' he said. Tom thepiper'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 weretaken. Killed? I can't think that! Does he know what has become of me, Iwonder? Shall I ever see him again?"
Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridorand ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door openedthereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls andfloor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by halfa score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that hadcome with Dick. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on theoutside, Dick having been the last prisoner lodged.
Dick and his roommates had of floor space barely sufficient for all tolie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a singlewindow, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings andgardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted woodthat encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certainplaces where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison wasvisible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which wereremoved and returned once a day.
Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, breador biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and theprisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walkin the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselvesrecognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and toconsider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmeritedprivileges. As the days passed, it became manifest that Dick receivedfewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. Hepromptly 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, aswas shown in the search made of Dick's person on his capture, a searchwhich had not disclosed the picture. For Dick, to be ready against thechance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag,which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it bymeans of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbonsthat tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.
Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a fewwere in Dick's cell, the others being confined in other apartments inthe jail. Among Dick's roommates were some citizens of Boston, indurance for various alleged offences against the royal government. Onewas charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, anotherwith having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondencesmuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealedin his house,--the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting,delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under theaccusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike oldgentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals tothe rebels from a church steeple.
This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his featuresrendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner ofthe cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and thenopening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation.The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave Dick an account of him. Hewas, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time whenpeople were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of thebesieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered bysome jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for suchexertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to hissuccess were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for theinformation of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation andimprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had nosympathy for the old man, whom he pronounced a rank Tory, said that thecharge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner'sToryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentlemancame out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, itwas to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble,and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemiesamong 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 takestime 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-likein his passive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, Dicksuffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want ofsleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow inrecovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet hescarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with thewounds 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 becameinsupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon torequire amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in theprison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although heultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon'sassistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were assuccessful 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 bynight, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in closecontact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into everyconceivable 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, Dickbegan early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He becameas thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusionfrom the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of generaltalk in the cell.
One day the surgeon examined Dick's wound, assuming as he did so a kindof grave frown
, and uttering certain ominous ejaculations to himself,his manifestations having, to Dick's keen intelligence, the appearanceof being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through agood-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The firstwas that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who hadarrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for anyill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that musteventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The secondwas 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 withstupid indifference.
The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer,and made another examination of Dick's wound. This done, the surgeonturned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefacedmanner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will benecessary 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'snothing 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 bestfor 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. Weshall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer leftthe cell, and the surgeon briefly told Dick to be ready to be takendown-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be madefor the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followedthe officer.
Before Dick could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades couldoffer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door againopened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer thatsome of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with anorder for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairsto break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, ifpossible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain ofthe effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the oldgentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to thesuperior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engagedthe 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, andthen stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder.After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the oldman and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to theexpectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By God, I thinkthey're too late with their damned release! If I know anything, the oldman's dead!"
Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, satdown-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, whoexplained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet.When ten minutes had passed, the officer went to the corridor, andcalled up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient tosee him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the oldgentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of thestair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-roomdoor, opposite the officer.
In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed bytwo armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavilywigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture,were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadlysoiled.
Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in thehalf light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, theIrish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's threefriends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with halfsmiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When hereached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, totheir astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth betweentwo of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and,ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacritymiraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into thefirst 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 andmotioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over theprostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless ina corner. The clothes on this figure were Dick Wetheral's, but the facewas that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat atthe 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 towardsthe prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantlywith 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 ofrelease 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 healso mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be theone who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and othershad argued, in the few moments available for discussion, Dick's leg wasat stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there wasan evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the othersmight be presently exchanged, which Dick could not hope to be as long asthe machinations of his enemy could hinder.
When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, andDick fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became awalk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through adeserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention.Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiersthan citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, hiscoatless 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 acorner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly woodedspace, which he knew, from previous description and from the militarytents now upon it, to be the Common.
While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how heshould ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurriedmovement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on thehighest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by anofficer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticedthis movement, which was rapidly nearing.
To get out of the way inconspicuously, Dick descended from the churchsteps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side ofthe church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up thehill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making goodspeed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top ofthe hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.
"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irishofficer. Dick turned into the street that went along the upper side ofthe Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on theright-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whosewide door, flanked by glass panels and surmounted by a great fan-light,gaped hospitably from a spacious vine-embowered porch. As he made forthis porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill streetby the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly fromthe door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel,"and then stepped back in surprise as Dick, tripping on the steps thatled up to the porch, fell prone at her feet.
"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quicklystooped and picked up something from near Dick's head.
"That belongs to me!" he said, hoarsely, rising to his knees, andreaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, whi
ch hadin 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 withan expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hencefriendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.
She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from itssilken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from thefighting?" 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 atDick.
"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, butits owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of thegarden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"
"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to Dick, handing him theportrait. "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 enteringthe porch.
A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by theskirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on thebench immediately over him.
In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politelyanswered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rearalley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; andwhen the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly aroseand faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he couldbetter look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conductedhim to the garret of the house, where he passed the rest of the day, andthe ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels.Next afternoon, she brought him a pass obtained from Major Urquhart, thetown-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pass the barriers atBoston Neck. She gave Dick a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed himhow to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the houseand 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 herlast words, and Dick, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the wayshe had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked underthe chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took asevidence of the excellence of his disguise.
His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pass to the sergeant ofthe guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last momentis a sickening thing. But he was passed through without specialquestion, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the GeorgeTavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garbbefore the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of GeneralThomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline toCambridge.
There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner,as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, betterequipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of thenew commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where thearmy's centre lay. Best of all, to Dick, companies of riflemen hadarrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county,Cumberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learningfrom Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined thisorganization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, muchto the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise,for nothing ever surprised him. Dick found him quartered on ProspectHill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returnedfrom 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 hadbelonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with hisfriend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and withLieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; andpassed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away atBritish soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near thecamp on the Common now and then.
He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as thecommander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments wereassembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien ofdignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalledall Dick's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and wouldhave done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buffunderdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlikecocked hat with its black cockade.
On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, Dick and Tom tooknote of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachmentgoing under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off theroll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tentsand everything necessary are provided for their reception. The riflecompany at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march earlyto-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and menas are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, areto attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, atseven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they areforthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."
"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do yemind 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 maybeit's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachmentwill be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"
Quebec! Dick reached back and clutched the portrait, which had beenrestored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way heheard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:
"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but theroad will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"
The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure Page 9
