"Perhaps; he used often to wish I were a boy. He used to say I was so strong, and tall, and had more sense than most women; and when he was taken sick, after mother's death, he said every few hours—'Oh if you were only a boy, Ellen, I would not mind so much leaving you alone in the world; you could soon be independent then, and make your own way!'"
"'Tis a pity, Ellen; you'd make a good man, I'm sure. You are as strong now as a boy of your age is likely to be, and half a head taller than John who is but six months younger."
"I dared John to a wrestle, one day in the barn, and threw him," laughed Ellen, "but I promised not to tell, and you must not twit him about it."
"All right, I won't; but were I John I'd keep on challenging you till I had proved my superior strength; no girl should throw me! Does Aunt Martha know?"
"Of course not, Donald. Already she calls me a hoyden, and an untamed Irish girl—which I am, the last I mean, and proud of it. Did she hear of my wrestling with John, the bread and water she threatens me with would be my only diet for a week."
"You'll not have bread and water diet while you are here, at any rate. But there's my mother calling now; my mouth waters for her Christmas dinner, for there's no better served in the neighborhood to-day, I warrant you. Come on; let's go down," and I put the little book in my pocket, seized Ellen by the hand and pulled her after me, pell-mell down the stairway where we ran straight into Aunt Martha.
"Ellen O'Niel!" she stopped to say, fixing a stern eye upon her—"you are the greatest hoyden I have ever seen. I thank a merciful Providence you are not my daughter."
"Amen, and so do I," said Ellen, in my ear, and as Aunt Martha passed into the next room, she turned toward me, and pulled her face down into the most comical imitation of Aunt Martha's solemn countenance. I laughed heartily, though in truth I did not approve of Ellen's flippancy. Reverence for religion and respect for our elders were among the virtues earliest and most faithfully instilled into the breasts of Scotch Irish children.
"Two of the pigs are gone, and I see fresh bear's tracks behind the barn, Ellen. If you want to go after the beast with Thomas and me, put on your heaviest boots, get a rifle from the rack, and come on," and I spoke with a degree of animation which turned upon me the gaze of the entire family, assembled at the breakfast table. I was not then so sated a huntsman that the prospect of big game could fail to excite me.
"Why, Donald, you are not thinking of taking Ellen bear hunting with you?"
"And why not, mother? She wishes to go, she handles a rifle well enough, and there's no danger with three guns against one poor bear."
"Oh, Aunt Rachael, please let me go; I have never seen a bear, and it must be beautiful in the forest to-day."
"Might as well let her go, mother," put in my father; "the boys will take care of her, and it will be an experience she will like to tell when she is an old woman. Besides, it is well enough for her to learn courage and coolness in facing danger—the women in this valley may need such qualities in the future, as they have in the past."
"I can't see why you care to go," said little Jean, shuddering involuntarily, her brown eyes fixed in amazement upon Ellen's eager countenance.
"May I go, Aunt Rachael?" urged Ellen.
"Well, child, I suppose so, since your heart seems set upon it. Do be careful, Donald, and get back before sundown."
We followed the print of the bear's feet across the meadow behind the barn, and then around the curve of a low range of hills to the edge of the forest, walking Indian file, Ellen between us, and stepping, as I bade her, in my tracks. The air was so crisp and buoyant that we were half intoxicated by long, full breaths of it, and went skimming over the frozen surface as if, like fabled Mercury, we had wings to our heels. The meadows gleamed and scintillated, and the edge of the hill's undulating outline shone in opalescent lines, as if the prying rays of the sun, forcing their way through the thin snow clouds at the eastern horizon, were disclosing a ledge of hidden jewels. The world all about us was downy soft, radiantly pure, and familiar fields and hills took on a strange newness, in which perspective was confused and outlines blurred; white fields melted into white hills, hills merged into white sky, and one might, it seemed, walk out of this world into the next without noting the point of transition.
The forest was stranger still, and even more beautiful. There was but little snow on the ground, and the dry leaves under it rustled beneath one's feet with homely, cheerful sound, but overhead stretched a marvelous canopy of graceful feather laden branches, each giant of the forest being powdered as carefully as any court dame, and, like her, gaining a sort of distinction for its beauty by this emphasis to its height and grace.
"Am I walking too fast for you, Ellen?" I asked soon after we had started.
"No; but you step too far," she called back merrily. So I shortened my stride a little, and again insisted on carrying her rifle, getting this time her consent.
"The forest is like a place enchanted," said Ellen with rapt face, as we waited at the edge of the woods for Thomas to catch up. "How warm and snug one could sleep under that low boughed pine, yonder; I'd like to live in the forest were there no panthers, wolves, or bears."
"But the beasts have possession, and sometimes I almost wonder if we have a right to drive them with gun and knife out of their inherited haunts."
"As we do the Indians."
"I have more sympathy for wild beasts than for the red savages; the beasts are not treacherous, nor cruel for sport."
"Have you lost the bear's track, Don?" interrupted Thomas; "if not, what are you stopping for?"
"We are admiring the forest—but I have kept my eye on the track, all right. There it goes off to the left; we'll find him, I suspect, fast asleep in some hollow log."
My surmise was correct, for the track led us to a large fallen tree a mile within the forest. The bear, having gorged himself on the pigs, was curled within for a good nap.
"We'll have to smoke him out," said Thomas, beginning to look about for dried leaves and twigs. We piled them into the smaller end of the log, and then lit them with our tinder-boxes, after which we stood about the larger opening and waited watchfully.
"You shall have the first shot, Ellen," I said. "Stand a little to one side, and aim either at his throat, or behind one of his ears."
The bear could not stand long the stifling smoke of the pungent leaves, and with a muffled roar, interrupted by a wheezing cough, he backed awkwardly out of the tree, then turned to look about him for an avenue of escape. But his captors, with ready rifles, stood in close range around him, and behind him burned the log, its murky smoke and lapping blaze limning weirdly the beast's shaggy bulk, against the white forest.
"Shoot, Ellen!" I called, for she stood as if spellbound, her eyes fixed upon the crouching, growling animal. She pulled her trigger then, but with nerveless fingers, and her ball whizzed just above the bear's head, cutting off one-half of his right ear. With a roar of pain the furious animal was upon her, the weight of his huge body throwing her down, and half burying her in the snow. For an instant my brain rocked with horror; I dared not shoot, for I could not distinguish Ellen's form from the bear's in the cloud of flying snow which surrounded them, and every instant I feared to hear a cry of agony, and the crunching of Ellen's skull between the creature's iron jaws.
"I must risk it," I swiftly concluded; and with quick intake of my breath, I raised my rifle to my shoulder, stepped back a pace, and took the aim of my life. Providence guided the ball, which severed the beast's spinal column just at the base of his brain. In another instant I was dragging his shuddering bulk from Ellen's body, lest he crush her in the death struggle.
Ellen was as pallid as the snow she lay upon, and as motionless. Her long lashes made a light shadow on the waxen cheeks, and the dark ringlets dropping over the brow were like charcoal by contrast with its marble. When I lifted her head upon my arm, I saw a ragged wound upon her neck, just behind her right ear, and from it ran trickling a crimson rill, down the soft throat to the still bosom. Her clothes were torn from her right shoulder, and there the flesh showed marks of the animal's teeth in the midst of an ugly bruise.
Thomas had dropped white and limp upon a log, and, great boy as he was, began to cry.
"She's dead, Don, she's dead! Oh, why did we let her come—what shall we do?"
"Hush," I said angrily; "she's not dead, only stunned, I hope," and I gathered handfuls of snow, which I rubbed gently upon her forehead and cheek, and then forced between her lips a few drops of gin from my pocket flask. Seeing that she swallowed the gin mechanically, I poured a good spoonful upon her tongue, and chafed her hands vigorously till she opened her eyes and recognized the faces bending over her.
"Where's the bear, Donald?" she asked, as quietly as if she had just wakened from a vivid dream.
"Dead," I answered cheerfully; "you shall have the skin for a rug."
"But I didn't kill him," in disappointed tones. "I got frightened and aimed badly—I'd never do for a man, after all."
"You'd make a better man than Thomas; he began to cry as soon as he saw you were hurt, and you haven't yet complained of the scratches the bear gave you."
"They sting some," she said with a grimace, putting her hand to her wound, and sliding it down to her shoulder. "Why, Donald, my clothes are torn," and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, while she tried to sit up and to pull her shredded garment together.
"The bear bit you there; it is well mother made you put on this buckskin jacket over your pelisse. Does the place hurt you much?" and I knelt beside her to examine her shoulder more carefully.
"It aches, while the hurt on my neck smarts," and she flushed again, and shrank from the touch of my fingers on her bare flesh.
And I, too, was suddenly embarrassed, while a new thrill went through me. "The shoulder bone is not crushed," I said, after a careful examination which gave Ellen some pain, "nor is the wound very deep; doubtless, though, it will hurt a good deal, besides making your shoulder stiff and helpless for a while. We must bandage the wound somehow, till we can get home, and we must find a way to exclude the cold air from it."
Thomas, who had sat by, flushed and silent since I had chidden him for blubbering, picked up the torn jacket I had stripped from Ellen's shoulders, and disappeared behind the tree. Presently he came back with his own flannel shirt and a bunch of linen strips across his arm, himself reclad in the torn jacket, which had been pinned together, after some sort, with small thorns.
"I beg your pardon, Thomas," I said, grasping his hand as I took the bandages from it.
"'Twas the sight of her so white and still," replied Thomas, looking yet mortified and hurt.
"Thank you, dear Thomas," said Ellen, smiling upon him; "your tears were only symptoms of a tender heart. I'm glad you were sorry for me; Donald did not care enough to cry."
Now that was very unkind of Ellen, for I had been sick with fright and apprehension for her, and would have rather been torn in pieces by the beast, myself, than to have carried home in my arms that still, white form. But I made no response to Ellen's accusation; I only set my lips, and plastered and bandaged her wounds as best I could.
Our homeward journey was very unlike the cheerful tramp of the morning, for Ellen tottered as she walked, and I had need to support her with my arm, while Thomas carried the guns and powder-horns. The snow no longer gleamed and sparkled, for the afternoon light was hazy and dull, and the sky a cold, smeary gray. Forest, field and hill were but the component parts of a commonplace winter landscape, and bear hunting something else than a glorious adventure through an enchanted forest.
And I was not the same, nor Ellen. She was become all at once a woman, shy, reserved, conscious of my touch, leaning on my arm no more than necessity required. And I, though half vexed at the change in her, and grieved that I had lost so congenial a comrade—for I knew intuitively that our intercourse would never again be so unrestrained—nevertheless found her more interesting, more alluring because of this very change which put a distance between us, and which had in it a touch of mystery:—as the forest had been that morning the fairer, for that unnameable magic with which nature veils herself in her stiller haunts.
The conversation around our Yule fire, to which I had listened with such eager absorption, had caused my budding convictions to bloom in an hour into fully expanded principles. I had caught the fever of patriotism running like an epidemic through the land. Were not we of Scotch Irish race and Presbyterian faith pledged already to the cause since the first blood shed for American liberty was the blood of the Scotch Irish Presbyterians, spilled at the battle of Alamance, when the stern North Carolina "Regulators" had risen, like Cromwell's "Ironsides," against the tyranny of their royal governor? The "Boston Tea Party," therefore, found quickest sympathy among the Scotch Irish of the Southern and Middle States, and the earliest and grimmest of the resolutions sent up to the several assemblies, urging that Massachusetts be sustained, and kingly tyranny determinedly resisted, came from the towns and counties settled by these people. "Freedom or death" was the consuming sentiment in the hearts of many Scotch Irish Americans for months before the typical orator of that race thrilled a continent by speaking those immortal words, "Give me liberty, or give me death."
The first call issued by Congress for troops named seven rifle companies to be recruited in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Again I put aside my books, only this time I gave them to a fellow student who sorely needed them, and went home to tell my father that I meant to enlist. I recall as vividly as 'twere yesterday that calm spring afternoon when I took the short cut across flower spangled meadows, and bosky, sweet scented woods to the humble home which had given me a youth so rich in love and happiness, but which I was so soon to leave for privations, dangers, and temptations such as had not yet entered into my imagination.
It was the year of my majority, and I was already mature in physical development. Even in our neighborhood of "brawny Scotchmen" I was called tall, measuring six feet three inches in my moccasins, and though somewhat spare, was broad of shoulder, long of limb, muscular, agile, and deep winded; moreover, I could ride and shoot with the best man in the valley. More proud was I, at this time, of my strength, and the keen sight of my gray eyes, than of my brown, curling hair, and the general comeliness of my appearance, in which my mother took such pride. A few months later I was to have my hour of vanity, and to eat the fruit of it.
Few men, I imagine, can separate their lives sharply into boyhood and manhood, but mine I can. That last Christmas holiday of my schooldays marked the line of division, and I took the first step across it the day I saved Ellen from the bear's fangs, and the second the hour I formed the resolution to shoulder my rifle for American liberty. My father, it is true, had chosen to treat me as a man, since the Indian raid, but from the hour I made up my mind to enlist I put aside childish things, and bore myself with a consciousness of manhood's power.
A stranger sat on our porch who, hearing me announce impetuously to my father, as he came to the top of the porch steps to meet me, that "I meant to enlist in one of the rifle companies," sprang up from his chair, seized my hand, shook it heartily, and said with a genial smile, and cordial tone that made my spirit go out to him at a leap,
"You're a lad after my own heart, sir! Are there many more like you in this valley? How old is your son, Justice McElroy?"
"Not long past twenty, sir. Donald, this is Captain Morgan, the renowned Indian fighter of whom you have so often heard. He is in the neighborhood to enlist men for his rifle company, so you have not far to go to fulfill your purpose."
I looked now, you may be sure, with fresh interest at the powerful but graceful figure before me. He was nearly as tall as I, but broader and heavier; his tanned, handsome face was marred by a scar on the right cheek, and I noted even in this first hasty scrutiny an indication of stubborn will in the set of his lips, and a dare devil gleam in his fine eyes that would make one hesitate to pick a quarrel with him.
"I have found my captain," I thought, my pulse throbbing joyously, just as he spoke again, with that ring of cheerful courage in his voice which I was to learn to know so well, and so often to be inspired by.
"That we shall win admits no doubt if I can enlist a company of muscular young giants like you. Can you shoot, lad?"
"Aye, that he can," laughed my father, well pleased, I could see, by Captain Morgan's manner toward me. "Cut off a squirrel's head at a distance of three hundred yards. And there are other marksmen in our valley that can fully equal him, though few as tall as my son Donald," and he laid a caressing hand upon my shoulder.
"You shall be one of my sergeants, lad," continued Captain Morgan, seizing my hand again, "and to-morrow you must ride with me to enlist as many like you as this neighborhood affords."
"Unfortunately, Captain Morgan," said my father, "some of those who would like nothing better than the opportunity to strike a blow for our rights, dare not leave their families and homes here unprotected, subject as we are to the raids of the savages from across the mountain. Enough able-bodied men must be left in the valley to turn back Indian forays, though, since our victory over them at Point Pleasant, our danger is not near so great. Still a score or more recruits may be had in this neighborhood, I doubt not."
"May I ask, Captain Morgan, whither we are to march after our quota has been recruited?" I questioned.
"Straight to Boston, where we will have a chance to drill."
"And to fight also, I hope."
"Amen, lad, say I to that! and may there be other of your brave spirit. I like not this dallying, this parleying with the stubborn king, who but deludes us with promises while he gains time to equip and to land his troops upon our shores. And I am beginning to think that this talk of our Congress that we take up arms as loyal subjects of England, to force from the crown redress of our grievances, goes not far enough. Only a democracy where all are free and equal, and where the stakes are worth the risks and privations to be endured, is suited to the genius of this vast and virgin continent. Under no other form of government may she be rightly developed."
"Nor are you alone, sir, in that opinion," replied my father. "None other is held in this valley, as the memorial sent up to the assembly by the county committee of Augusta in February last can testify. Were the Scotch Irish settlers of this country consulted, Captain Morgan, our declaration of independence would be speedily proclaimed; Patrick Henry's burning words but voice the sentiment of his race."
"The timid and the half-hearted may not yet be safely set in opposition, perhaps," answered Captain Morgan, "and Congress is beset with many difficulties. But 'tis for the independence of the American States I have drawn my sword"—and as he spoke he sprang suddenly to his feet, straightened his imposing figure and keyed his voice to a clarion pitch—"nor will I sheathe it again, save death or bodily infirmities intervene, till the glorious cause of America's liberty has been won—till we are a free, self-governing people!"
"I take that oath with you, sir," said I, springing also to my feet.
Then my father, looking up at us from his arm chair, unwiped tears upon his cheeks, said, in deep, reverent tone: "God grant us victory, and make this goodly land the home of freedom—a refuge for the oppressed of all nations!"
We found no trouble in enlisting men enough in our valley to complete the company Captain Morgan was to command, and in three weeks I was ready to march the Augusta boys to Frederick County, where we were to join our captain and the rest of the men. The twenty-two boys from our end of the valley bivouacked all night in our yard, that we might get an early start the next morning; and that evening the neighbors came from far and near to give us farewell, and a blessing. Uncle Thomas and his family came with the rest, Aunt Martha helping to cook the hot supper which my mother insisted on serving the lads under the trees, that their home-filled haversacks might be saved for the march.
Thomas wandered about among the men, lying in groups upon the grass in the shade of the oaks and elms, with a look of distress upon his face that surprised me. At last he called me to one side, and said with trembling lips,
"Don, I'd give the next ten years of my life to go with you."
"You are too young, Thomas. Why, you are not nineteen yet."
"There are four boys in the squad no older than I, and I am strong, and a fair shot."
"Then enlist; it's not too late yet, and the more the merrier."
"But my mother made me give her a solemn promise that I would not. She wishes me to be a minister, and once I thought I was called, but now I believe I was mistaken. I couldn't be so wild to go to the war if I had received a call from heaven to the ministry; but mother says it will kill her if I turn soldier, after she has solemnly consecrated me to the Lord. Oh, Donald, what must I do?"
"I cannot advise you to disobey your mother, Thomas," I answered, "but I am sorry for you."
"Ellen says my life is my own, to live as I please, and that not even my mother has a right to dictate to me whether I shall be preacher or soldier," sighed Thomas.
Now I half agreed with Ellen, but the doctrine seemed an irreverent one to a youth of Scotch Irish raising, so I only repeated, "I think you had best obey your mother, Tom," which afforded him small consolation. He answered me with a suppressed groan, and presently went back to the soldiers.
Hot and tired from the day's labors, I decided, after supper, to cool myself by a last drink of my mother's delicious buttermilk. The footpath to the spring wound its careless way down a grassy slope starred with dandelions, and dusted with milky ways of daisies and pale bluets. Apple, pear, and peach trees grew in the angles of the worm fence which separated the garden from the meadow, and they were so full of bloom that they looked like masses of pink and white clouds drifted down to earth. There was a crab apple tree among them, and its elusive fragrance came and went upon the zephyrs which swayed the dandelions and rustled the blossoms upon the trees. The world about my feet was as fair and full of mystic charm as the moon-glorified, star-spangled heaven. The talk, the work, the plans which had filled the last weeks of my life, seemed out of tune with God's purposes, as revealed in nature—out of keeping with His beneficent plans for all His handiwork.
Pondering this strange anomaly, of the tendency of God's creatures to make war continually upon each other, in the midst of a world so fair, so beneficent, and so peaceful—the solemn mystery of death always treading close upon the heels of life—of the desolation always threatening beauty, I passed the springhouse before I knew it, and found myself at the foot of the hill, where the spring breaks forth to fall into a natural basin overhung by a broad, jutting rock. As I raised my eyes to this rock, a vision greeted me which startled me into an instant's consciousness of superstitious terror. Did I see a ghost at last—after all my jeering unbelief? Was that slim shape, wrapped in a white robe standing so motionless on the white rock, the spirit of some Indian maiden, seeking again the haunts where in life she had met her lover?
Of course not; it was only Ellen, for now I saw a hand lifted, to push back the wind blowsed curls from her forehead. Softly I climbed the hill behind her, and stood at her side, but so rapt was she in her own thoughts, she did not hear me till I spoke.
"What are you looking at, Ellen?" I asked.
Had I not thrown my arm quickly about her, she would have sprung from the rock in her startled surprise, yet she did not scream, but regained her poise in an instant, disengaged herself from my arm, and answered me calmly—
"At the moon, Cousin Donald."
"'Tis only a round, bright ball, Ellen; why gaze at it so long and fixedly?"
"'Tis more than a silver ball when one looks at it so. It grows bigger and deeper, and within there are mountains and caverns, and seas and plains; mayhap there are people there who suffer and think as we do. Would you not like to have great wings, Cousin Donald, and fly and fly through the soft blue air, till you reached the moon?"
"Such fancies have never come into my mind, Ellen. You must have clear eyes, and a vivid imagination," and I smiled down upon her, not a little amused by her fanciful conceits.
"If I did not I should die;" then, turning hotly upon me, "How would you like to walk back and forth, back and forth along a bare floor, with bare garret walls about you, whirring a great, ugly wheel, and twisting coarse, ill-smelling wool all day long, day after day? One dare notthink, for then one gets careless and breaks or knots the thread, and yet to keep one's mind upon so dreary, and so monotonous a task is maddening. Do you wonder I run away, and talk with the flower-fairies, or the stars, whenever I get the chance?"
"No, Ellen, I don't. I have often thought that women's tasks must be very wearisome, the endless spinning, weaving, and knitting. I wonder they have patience for such work."
"I wish I might go to the war with you, Cousin Donald."
"You could never stand the hardships."
"But I think I could. I'd love to sleep out of doors, under the winking stars, and the friendly moon; I'd love to walk through trackless forests, across wide, unknown plains, and to come now and then upon some town or settlement where every one would feast and praise the patriots."
"But what of the cold, hunger and fatigue? of wounds and capture and the sights and sounds after a battle? It tries even the souls of brave, strong men to bear such things."
"The soul of a woman might endure as much, and I think I should mind even those things less than eternal spinning, Cousin Donald."
I laughed now. "You are not yet a woman, Ellen, and you are not doomed, I trust, to eternal spinning. When I come back from the war we'll go hunting every day, even though we will have to run off from Aunt Martha."
"I shall not have a friend left except grandma."
"And Thomas."
"Thomas likes me, yes, but he is too much afraid of his mother to help me have my way. When you come back you may not find me here."
"Of course I shall; and remember, Ellen, we are always to be good friends and comrades," and I held out my hand to her.
"Good friends and comrades," repeated Ellen; "I shall remind you one day when you come home famous, and dignified—if I am able to endure life with Aunt Martha so long as that," and she put her hand in mine in the old way of confident comradeship which had gone out of our intercourse for months. Hand in hand we went back to the house, talking intimately, she of her thoughts and feelings, I of my plans and hopes.
Before sun-up the next morning we were on the march. I had left Jean weeping bitterly on grandmother's shoulder, and I doubt not the dear old lady wept, too, when I was out of sight. My mother stood in the doorway, shading her brave, loving eyes with her hand, that I might not see fall the tears glittering on their lashes. Father walked beside me at the head of my little troop for a mile, and, before he left me, took me in his arms in sight of them all, straining me for an instant to his breast, and pouring out a patriarch's blessing upon my bowed head.
Our valley looked very fair that day, as we marched northward across it. The rank wheat rolled in billows of rich green, the springing corn showed narrow gray green blades, which moved gently to and fro above the loamy uplands, and the forests, which enclosed the cleared lands on all sides, were fresh robed in verdure of many hues. Edging the forest like a jeweled braid grew masses of red-bud, dogwood and hawthorn in full blossom, and singing along its sparkling way, the river wound in and out of velvety meadows with deep curves and bold sweeps of bountiful intent, embracing as much as possible of this fair land that it might scatter widely its fertilizing influences.
"Boys," I said, pausing on an eminence from which we could see all our end of the valley, and pointing outward, as I stopped to take a long, last look, "is it not a land worth fighting for?"
"Aye, aye, sergeant!" came in hearty chorus.
"Then fight for it we will, like brave men and true, nor look backward again till freedom be won."
"Aye, that we will!" again in deep, full accord, and when all had taken a lingering look, I gave the command—
"Right about face! Forward!"
Without a backward glance, we tramped onward, our faces forever toward the enemies of freedom.
Under Morgan we marched to Boston, and a long and weary tramp it seemed, though in comparison with later ones, I learned to look back upon it as a pleasant summer's journey. Our uniforms, patterned after Morgan's habitual dress, consisted of buckskin breeches, leggins and moccasins, a flannel shirt, over which we usually wore an unbleached linen hunting shirt, confined with a leathern belt at the waist, and a huntsman's cap on the band of which was inscribed, "Liberty or Death." From each man's belt hung a knife, a tomahawk, and a bullet pouch, and each rifleman carried in his pockets a bullet mold, and a bar of lead; across one shoulder passed the strap from which hung his powder-horn, and over the other he carried his rifle with its whittled ramrod of hickory wood.
Our uniforms, our size, and our marksmanship won for us immediate notoriety and consideration, and not many days were we permitted to be idle, though it was but comparative idleness we enjoyed, even in camp, since we were drilled two hours each morning and afternoon, and did our share of guard duty in the trenches around Boston. In our leisure hours we taught the Yankees to chew tobacco, and to mold bullets, and learned in return to rant eloquently upon liberty and natural rights in the language of Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, and to eat beans baked with hog middling.
Early in September we were ordered to join Colonel Arnold's command for a raid into Canada. In addition to our arms, ammunition, and blankets we must take turns at carrying the light canoes necessary for a part of our journey, and many miles of our way lay through the tangled undergrowth of dense forests, or across the treacherous slime of trackless bogs. It was not long before many of the men were bare footed, half naked, and weak from insufficient food; for our rifles were soon our dependence for rations, and game grew scarce as we proceeded northward. Several of the companies ate their sled dogs with relish. Morgan's men fared better than the rest, for it was our rule to share equally whatever game we killed, and we were sure to get a large proportion of all there was to be found. Moreover, our clothes, being of leather, stood the wear of the march better than the uniforms of the rest, and many of us could make rude moccasins of wolf or dog skins.
After two months of toils and privations such as I wonder now we were able to endure, we reached Quebec with but seven hundred of the thousand men with whom we had started from Boston. In response to Arnold's daring summons to fight or surrender, the garrison shut the city's gates in our faces, and we were compelled to lie in our trenches, and wait for General Montgomery's reinforcements. On the last day of December, 1775, in the midst of a blinding snow storm, we attacked Quebec. General Montgomery soon received the bullet that ended his career, and Colonel Arnold was wounded shortly after. But for these two untoward misfortunes, I truly believe we had won the day, and over all Canada and all British America would now be waving the Stars and Stripes. Be that as it may, we riflemen came very near to taking Quebec alone and unsupported, for Morgan took the battery opposed to him, and penetrated to the very center of the town. Meanwhile, General Montgomery's troops, broken and disorganized for lack of a leader, and Arnold's, in like case, were falling back; our opponents were left free to concentrate their forces upon us, so that, after a fierce resistance, we were completely surrounded, outnumbered, and compelled to surrender.
We lay in prison at Quebec for nine long months, treated with as much kindness as is usually accorded to prisoners of war, but chafing like wild animals in a cage. Captain Morgan told me of the offer, made to him by one of the garrison officers, that he should be made a colonel in the British army, if he would but desert "a doomed and hopeless cause," and of the hot reply he made.
"Sir, I scorn your proposition, and I trust that you will never again insult me in my present distressed and unfortunate condition, by making me an offer which plainly implies that you consider me a scoundrel."
At last we were discharged, Captain Morgan on parole, and were carried in transports to New York. I saw Morgan as he stepped off the boat, in the brilliant light of a harvest moon, stoop and kiss the soil, and heard him whisper in a sort of ecstasy, "My country, my country!" My own heart swelled within me, and I could have done likewise with full meaning.
Great things, of which we had heard but vague rumors, had happened in our absence. Boston had been evacuated by the enemy, the attack on Fort Moultrie had failed, and the Declaration of Independence had been declared by all the thirteen States. On the other hand, General Washington had been compelled to yield New York to Howe, and to fall back to New Jersey, and England was making ready to send army after army across the ocean to conquer her rebellious colonies.
Though my term of enlistment had already expired, I could not go home in the midst of such stirring events, so I made haste to Morristown, there reënlisted, and was put to service as special courier to General Washington. And now, for the first time, I saw the man to whom all patriotic hearts turned with hope and pride. His soldierly, dignified bearing, the look of resolute, yet not arrogant self-consciousness upon his face, his courteous manner, and the perfectly controlled tone of voice in which he issued a command, or uttered a rebuke, impressed me with a confidence that made me from that hour sure of our cause. "With such leaders as Washington, Arnold and Morgan," I thought, with fervid enthusiasm and pride, "how can we fail to win?"
Not many weeks later my beloved captain, who had been exchanged, and made a colonel by act of Congress, marched into our camp with one hundred and eight recruits, most of them from the valley, at his back. I could hardly wait till he had reported at headquarters before I sought him.
"'Tis my old comrade, Donald McElroy!" he said, scarcely less moved than I. "Have you been on duty all this time, lad, with no furlough, no rest? Ah, many's the time I've told Arnold, that with ten thousand such troops as my Scotch Irish riflemen, I'd undertake to whip all the armies that could be sent to these shores."
"I believe you could do it, Colonel," answered I, "but your health, sir? Are you quite strong again?"
"Never better, lad; even my rheumatism is gone. I've been home, you know, for five months, and have had nothing but coddling from that good wife of mine. Six months more of it, and I'd have been unfitted for further service to my country. My lad, you should marry—how old are you, sir?"
"In my twenty-third year, Colonel, but as yet I have had no time to look for a wife," and I blushed like a lass.
"There's yet time enough, without doubt, but a man needs a wife to keep him from mischief—especially a soldier. I was but a half tamed animal till Abigail took me in training; ever since I have lived the life of a gentleman, I hope, and been as happy as a lord. You deserve a good wife, Donald, and I shall help you to find one, sir."
Despite the embarrassment which such personal interest caused me, I was greatly pleased to be so noticed by my colonel, and when, a few days later, he sent for me to tell me that he had named me as one of the captains who were to command the eight companies of which his regiment would be composed, I was filled with such joy and pride as I have since experienced but once—and then upon a very different occasion.
"Donald, lad," said Colonel Morgan, standing at the door of my tent on an April morning, when the sweet scents and cheerful sounds of early spring had started a longing in my heart for a look at our valley, "I've a secret for your ear, and an expedition to propose to you."
"Come in, Colonel," said I, smiling with pleasure of his visit, and offering my one chair; "I'll be proud to know the secret, and I promise to keep it well."
"We are shortly to be ordered North to join General Gates, who is to check the advance of General Burgoyne upon New York, if possible, and we'll see active service, and mayhap a big battle or two, at last. Meantime I'm riding home on ten days' furlough, to say good-by to Abigail, and would you ride with me, I'll grant you leave to go."
"Your invitation is an honor I much appreciate, Colonel, and it will give me pleasure to go."
"Then be ready, by sun up."
It was about ten o'clock at night, and our horses were stiff jointed, and without spirit, after three days' hard traveling, when we rode through the double gates that opened into the driveway circling the lawn of "Soldier's Rest"—Colonel Morgan's home in Frederick County. The spacious brick house with its columned porch was in darkness, save for one brightly lighted room on the left, and a single candle burning in the hall. Colonel Morgan's spurs and sword clanked noisily on the bare floor of the hallway, and he called to me, in hearty tones, "Come on, lad! we'll find Abigail in the red room." As he spoke the door flew open, warmth and light streamed forth to meet us, and also the sweet tones of a woman's voice in eager greeting.
"Well, Dan'l! what good fortune brought you back so soon? Oh, but it is good to see your dear face again!" I hung back in the shadow, with a lump in my throat, while Mrs. Morgan laid her head on her husband's breast, and was for a moment clasped in his arms.
"Captain McElroy is with me, Abigail," said the Colonel. "Where are you, Donald?"
"Here, Colonel," said I, stepping into the light.
"It is a pleasure to welcome you to our home, Captain McElroy," in Mrs. Morgan's kind tones. "I've heard the Colonel speak of you, and of your family; walk in, and be resting while I have supper served; you are both hungry and tired, I am sure."
"That we are, Abigail," and the Colonel set me the example of divesting himself of muddy leggins, spurs, and top coat—"The smell of your coffee and fried ham has been in my nostrils for two hours past. Donald, she's the best housekeeper in the Old Dominion," and he smiled proudly upon the round, comely, beaming little woman, who, as I soon discovered, deserved all his praise, for she was equal to my own mother as housewife.
As I followed Mrs. Morgan into the living room, which was brightly lighted by half a dozen candles in brass candle-sticks with crystal pendants, and a pile of roaring logs upon the hearth, I realized suddenly the presence of a very pretty young woman sitting beside a candle stand, on one side of the fire place, with a piece of needle work in her hands. She looked up as we entered, then dropped her eyes again to her work.
"Colonel Morgan, this is my cousin, Nelly Buford, and this is Captain McElroy, Nelly."
The young lady rose, dropped me a graceful courtesy, then turned and held out her hand to Colonel Morgan.
"You do not remember me, Cousin Daniel, but I well recall you, and the day you came to our house to see Cousin Abigail. I had heard of you as a famous Indian fighter, and I peeped at you through the half open door, expecting to see a string of scalps around your waist."
"I had no eyes nor ears then for any woman save Abigail," replied Colonel Morgan, shaking her hand in his hearty fashion, "but I'll never forget your pretty face again, Cousin Nelly—be sure of that."
She laughed merrily, and her ease of manner indicated that she was as much used to pretty speeches as she deserved them. There was a witchery in her laughing hazel eyes, in the curves of her saucy, full lipped mouth, in the very tendrils of blonde hair which looped and ringed in riotous fashion about the small pink ears, and low, white brow, which few men tried to resist. Before we retired that night, I was completely fascinated. I lay wide awake in spite of my weariness until past midnight, recalling each curve of her pretty, piquant face, each modulation of her cooing voice; and then I set over against her many charms my own awkwardness, the boorishness of my manners, and my ignorance of everything except camp life and public topics. I longed ardently for that polish of manner, and that faculty of polite conversation I had heretofore esteemed so lightly.
There were no girls in our neighborhood near my own age, and I had known scarcely any other women besides those of our own family, and the matrons of our church congregation. I had grown up, therefore, like a maiden, with no temptations, and small knowledge of passion, and later my mind had been so fully occupied with hunting, studying, Indians, and public matters, that all the vanities and snares of youth had passed me by. But nature is not easily starved into subserviency, and upon the first opportunity takes vengeance for former neglect by more violent and unreasoning possession.
So madly in love was I with Nelly Buford before another sunset that all my past was forgotten, and all my future weighed as naught. I cared for nothing, wished for nothing but to be with her; had no dream or ambition beyond pleasing her. I blushed when she spoke to me, trembled if her hand or her dress touched me, and could scarcely refrain from kissing the handkerchief she now and then let fall, and which I restored to her with a sense of proud privilege. I scarcely heard the remarks of Mrs. and Colonel Morgan, but every word Nelly spoke was registered in my mind and conned over and over like a lesson. When they left me alone with her, as they often did—for they were daily going about the place together, to take counsel as to its management during the Colonel's absence—I experienced a sort of ecstasy which made my blood surge through my brains, and my heart flutter as if I were frightened.
Nor was Miss Nelly slow to perceive my infatuation, or so little woman as to fail to take pleasure in it. I think she beguiled me, indeed, with an audacity she would not have dared to use toward a youth more worldly wise, or more experienced in the emotions of the heart. I recall one instance which will illustrate the coquetry which she practiced for my deeper ensnaring. We were walking through the orchard flush with bloom, when she stopped beneath a low boughed apple tree, and asked me to pluck a spray for her, then twisted it into a wreath, and laughingly bade me crown her queen of May. I took the wreath from her fingers, and would have dropped it awkwardly upon her blonde curls almost two feet below me, but she stopped me with a merry laugh, and said in playful tones,
"How stupid you are! The queen must be enthroned before she is crowned. Help me to a seat upon this curving limb, and then I'll be just high enough for you to lay the crown upon my sacred head, with due reverence and solemnity."
I lifted her to the bough she indicated, and when she had settled herself gracefully, and said with pretty affectation of dignity, "Now, Sir Knight, the Queen awaits your service," I laid the floral wreath carefully upon the bright curls, and would have stepped back to admire its effect, only something in the eyes that met mine, and the perfume breathing lips, which were on a level with my own, made my head reel, the blood surge in my ears, and many colored motes float between me and the canopy of blossom bending over us. In another instant I had kissed her full upon the lips, and then emboldened by their touch, I threw my arms about her, and kissed her again and again, upon brow, cheek, eyes and lips, paying no heed to her commands, and only desisting when she began tearfully to entreat me.