“It was the electric flame to fire the heartsOf a true people.”
And while it opened the eyes of hundreds of the hitherto acquiescent, it armed the opposing with an energy and determination in their cause, which at once became irresistible; and when the war-note was subsequently sounded by such patriots as Benjamin Carpenter and his associates, it found a ready response in every glen and corner of the surrounding country, and the hardy settlers seized their arms, and, with the cry ofFrench and vengeance!hastened away to the scenes of action at Lexington, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill.
We are aware that some historians have classed this affair among the difficulties and skirmishes growing out of what has usually been termed the New York controversy, while others have treated the subject in a manner which shows them to be doubtful in what light to place the transaction; and, for that reason apparently, they have slid over the matter in those general and ambiguous terms so often and reprehensibly indulged in by writers at a loss about facts, to conceal their own ignorance, or to avoid the responsibility of deciding the point at issue. But a careful examination of the subject has led us to the conclusion, that the affair in question had little or no connection, in reality, with the New York controversy, but that it was wholly of a revolutionary character. No resistance to the authority of New York had ever been previously made in this section of the Grants; nor did the opposers of this court, in any of their remonstrances, or other proceedings, either before or after the massacre, assign any reason for their doings which can be fairly construed into an objection to the jurisdiction of that province, as such; or any otherwise than that it had, up to that time, refused to adopt the resolves and recommendations of the Continental Congress. On the contrary, all their arguments are based on their duty and determination of joining their revolting brethren in the other colonies, and, consequently, of resisting the longer continuance of British authority among them. Such, indeed, is the ground taken by Dr. Jones, in his minute and authentic account of the occurrence, in which he was, as we have made him in our illustrations, an actor. And even the inscription on the tombstone of the ill-fated French, written when the transaction, and all its attendant circumstances, were fresh in the minds of all, sufficiently proves, if further proof were necessary, that the version we have given of the affair is identical with the one generally understood and received at the time.” [Footnote: The inscription here alluded to, which we insert as supporting our position rather than as affording any new antiquarian curiosity to many readers, is verbatim as follows:—
“In memory of William French, son of Mr. Nathaniel French,Who was shot at Westminster March y'e 13th 1775 by the handsof Cruel Ministerial tools of George y'e 3d, in the CourtHouse, at 11 o'clock at night, in the 22d year of his age.“Here William French his Body liesFor murder his blood for vengeance criesKing George the third, his tory crewTha with a bawl his head shot threwFor liberty and his country's goodHe lost his life and dearest blood.”]
It was this view of the occurrence which led us to occupy the space we have devoted in attempting to illustrate it; for it becomes invested with a new interest and new importance, when it is considered, as we think it must be, that here was enacted the first scene of the great drama that followed; here was shed the first blood, and here fell the first martyr, of the American revolution.
“They sank till their fair land became a styStygian with moral darkness. Heart and mindDebased—dark passions rose, and with red eye,Rushed to their revel; until Freedom, blindAnd maniac, sought the rest the suicide would find.”
The traveller of the present day, as he enters the town of Guilford, on the southern confines of Vermont, will soon be struck with the peculiar appearance of many things around him. Few or no traces of a primitive forest are to be seen, while its place is supplied by a heavy second growth of woods, sixty or seventy years old, in the midst of which the remains of old enclosures and other indications of former habitations are not unfrequently observable. On the cleared farms, also, may often be seen three or four different clumps of aged fruit-trees, scattered about in the nooks and corners of the lot, and sometimes extending into the woods, in such a manner as to preclude the idea that they could have been planted under any thing like the present arrangements of the farm and its buildings. Near these old relics of former orchards may likewise generally be perceived some levelled spot, remains of old chimneys, traces of cellars, or other marks of dwellings long since removed, or fallen to decay. These, with many other peculiarities, give to the whole town an aspect nowhere else to be seen in Vermont, nor even, perhaps, in any part of New England. And if the traveller be of a fanciful turn, he will associate the place with the idea of some deserted country, resettled by a new race of men; and even if he be a mere matter-of-fact man, he cannot fail to perceive that the town must have been originally tenanted under a division of lands and an order of things quite different from those now existing. And either of these suppositions would be far better justified by the facts than most of the speculations of modern tourists made in their flying visits through the land, as will be seen by a recurrence to the early annals of this town, of which, for the purpose of insuring a full understanding of some scenes here about to be described, we must be permitted to give a brief outline.
The events connected with the first settlement of the town of Guilford, which afterwards became so noted as the stronghold of toryism and adherence to the New York supremacy, form a curious anomaly even in the anomalous history of Vermont. The territory comprising this township appears to have been granted, as early as 1754, to a company of about fifty persons, by a charter, which, unlike that of any other town, empowered the proprietors, in express terms, to govern themselves and regulate the concerns of their little community, by such laws as the majority should be pleased to enact, without being made amenable to any power under heaven, save that which might be exercised by the British Parliament. Being thus constituted a band of freemen and legislators, at the outset, they soon took possession of their chartered piece of wilderness, organized by the election of the proper officers of state, and assumed the title of an independent republic, which their charter, in fact, created, any control of the Parliament of England being as little to be apprehended, in their secluded retreat among the wilds of the Green Mountains, as that of the Great Mogul of Tartary. And as novel as was the idea of a republic at that early period, when “the divine right of kings” to govern all men was as little questioned as the divine right of Satan to afflict the pious Job of old, this enterprising little band of settlers, for many years, appear to have well sustained the character they had assumed, not only by carrying out, in all their public doings, that essential principle of a republic which makes the will of the majority supreme, but by the simplicity of their tastes and habits in private life, and their beautiful exemplification of the great law of love, that can only be fulfilled towards our neighbors by according to them equal rights and privileges with ourselves. At length, however, new doctrines began to prevail, and the independent character of our little republic was soon, in a good degree, forfeited; and that, too, by the very means, it would seem, which had been taken to make it flourish and increase. It had been one of the conditions of the charter that every grantee should become an actual settler, and, within five years, clear and cultivate five acres of land, for every fifty purchased. And in accordance with this cunning policy for insuring the actual and rapid settlement of the place, the township had been laid out in fifty and one hundred acre lots, except the governor's right of five hundred acres, which his excellency of New Hampshire, in granting Vermont lands, never forgot to reserve for his own use, in every township, but which the proprietors generally contrived, as in this instance, to have set off on the highest mountain in town, considering it but respectful and fitting, as they used waggishly to observe, that so elevated a personage should be honored with the most elevated location. And the effect of this policy, together with the low prices at which the lands were put, and other inducements held out to draw in settlers, soon became visible in the rapid increase of the population, and consequent improvement of the town. So unexampled in these new settlements was its progress, indeed, in both the particulars we have just named, that within twenty years from the time when the sound of the axe was first heard in its woody limits, the inhabitants were found to number nearly three thousand; while fields were every where opened in the wilderness, and buildings raised in such neighborly contiguity, that the whole town presented the appearance of a continuous village. It is not very surprising, therefore, that, through such an influx of settlers, coming from all parts of the country, and including many interested and active partisans of the York jurisdiction, a majority should soon be obtained, who were induced to depart from the views of the first settlers respecting the independence of their community, and adopt the more fashionable form of subordinate government, which prevailed in all the towns around them. And accordingly we find them, at their annual meeting in 1772, voting the district of Guilford, as they termed it, to belong to the county of Cumberland and province of New York, and thereupon proceeding to reorganize the town, agreeably to the laws of that province. This change, however, does not appear to have been followed by any material alteration of their internal polity, or to have been productive of any great civil discord, till about the time of the opening of the American revolution; when the town became the prey of contending factions, of so fierce and lawless a character as to convert this once Arcadian abode of virtue, simplicity, and rural happiness, into a theatre of violence and social disorganization, which never, perhaps, found a parallel within the limits of order-loving New England. Sometimes the York party and tories,—for, in this town, it so happened that the two were identical,—and sometimes the whigs and friends of the new state of Vermont, were in the ascendant; while scenes of such disorder and outrage were constantly occurring between the belligerent parties, that his honor, Judge Lynch, for many years, appears to have been not the least among the potentates of this notable republic. Nor was order restored to the ill-starred town till after the close of the war; when every refractory spirit, whether tory or Yorker, was punished or awed into submission by the fiery energy of the iron-heeled Ethan Allen, who, then being relieved from the pursuit of more important game, came thundering down upon the town with his hundred Green Mountain Boys, proclaiming to the disaffected, with demonstrations which they well knew how to interpret, that the peaceable and instant submission of the place to the new authorities of the land should alone save it from being “made as desolate as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah”.
It was a dark and gloomy day in April, and the sleety storm was beating, in fitful gusts, against the broken and creaking casements, and the disjointed, loose, and leaky covering of an old, dilapidated log-house, standing by the road-side, in one of the thousand little dales, which, with their corresponding hills, so beautifully diversify the face of the town we have been describing. But as comfortless as this miserable hut was, and as poor and insufficient a protection from the elements as it afforded, even for the healthy and robust, it was now the only shelter of a sick and destitute woman, the widowed mother of Harry Woodburn. The hand of her son's persecutor, as it not unfrequently is seen to occur in the history of human oppression, was destined to fall even more heavily on her than on him for whom the blow was designed. The minion officer, selected by Peters for the purpose, had no sooner received his warrants, than, faithful to the cruel instructions of his employer, he had repaired post-haste to the residence of the absent Woodburn, of which he was authorized to take possession, and, with insults and abuse, rudely thrust the lone and unprotected occupant out of doors, in despite of all her entreaties for mercy, or delay till her son should return, or even for one day, to give her an opportunity to find some shelter for her now houseless head. He then, with the aid of the three or four ruffian assistants enlisted to accompany him, threw all the furniture out of the windows or doors into the mud and snow beneath where the whole, consisting of crockery and glasses, now half broken by the fall, and beds, linen, kettles, chairs, tables, and the like, soon lay piled promiscuously together. Having thus driven the terrified and distressed woman from the comfortable abode which had formerly cost her and her deceased husband so many years of toil to erect and furnish, and having, to add to the wrong, either injured or destroyed the greater part of her little stock of goods, by the wanton or careless manner in which they had been removed, this brutal officer next proceeded to the barn, and by virtue of hiscopiasfor costs, seized the cow and oxen, the last remaining property of the wronged and ruined young man, which, after intrusting the present keeping and defence of the premises to two of his band, he drove away to another part of the town, to be sold at the post, as soon as the forms of the law, respecting notice of the sale, could be complied with. The poor widow, half distracted at being thus suddenly bereft of house and home, spent the remainder of the day in vainly endeavoring to procure some tenement into which she could remove with her furniture, or with so much of it as might yet be saved. On the next day, however, as a last resort, she obtained and accepted the present use of the deserted cabin we have described, situated but a short distance from the house from which she had been ejected. And into this comfortless place, after several days of incessant toil and exposure, she succeeded in getting her damaged furniture, but not till her exertions, combined with her anxieties and grief, had given rise to a malady which, though not at first very threatening, became, each subsequent day, more and more alarmingly developed in her overtasked system. In this situation she was found by her son, who, being entirely ignorant that any judgment had passed against him, and, consequently, little dreaming what was taking place at home, had remained at Westminster nearly a week after the massacre, attending the public meetings, which, as we have before intimated, followed that event; when he returned to Guilford, and, with feelings bordering on desperation, learned the extent of his misfortunes. But the bitterness of his feelings, as great as it was, at being stripped of all his property through such a series of wrongs, soon became wholly merged in anxiety and grief for his sick and sorrow-stricken parent, and in the exasperating thought that her sickness and suffering proceeded from the same source with his other injuries. And close and unremitting had been his attentions to her, until the day previous to the one on which we have introduced her to the reader; when he had been induced to leave for Brattleborough, or other more distant towns, to try to obtain money to redeem his stock, which was now about to be sold, and which was worth more than double the amount, as he had recently ascertained, of the execution on which it had been seized. On the morning after his departure, she had become so much worse that she was compelled to take to her bed, and despatch her only attendant for a doctor. That attendant was Barty Burt, who had come down from Westminster with Woodburn, and had been engaged by the latter to remain with his mother during his absence. Having thus glanced over the events which had occurred previously to the opening of this new scene of our story, we will now return to the point we left to make the digression.
Slowly, to the suffering invalid, rolled the sad hours away, as with thick and labored breathing, she lay tossing upon her rude couch, standing behind a blanket-screen, in one corner of her cheerless abode. Occasionally she would raise her fevered head from the pillow, and seem to listen to catch the sounds of expected footsteps, and her languid eye would turn anxiously towards the door; when, after thus exerting her senses in vain a few moments, she would sink back upon her bed, with a long-drawn, sighing groan, which told alike of disappointment and bodily anguish. At length, however, footsteps were heard approaching, the door opened, and Barty Burt stilly glided into the apartment, and approached the bedside of the sufferer.
“You have come at last, then,” said she, lifting her dim eyes to meet the face of the other. “It seemed as if you never would arrive. But where is the doctor?”
“He will be on afore long, mistress; but I've had a time on't in getting round, I tell ye!” replied Bart.
“I am very sorry, if you have had any unexpected trouble on my account,” meekly observed the invalid; “but what has befallen you?”
“O, nothin,” answered the former—“nothin, at least, but what I was willing to bear for Harry's sake, who invited me home here till I got business, or for yours, who let me be. Though to be stopped and bothered, when one is going for the doctor, is worse than I ever thought of humans before. But it shows their character—dum 'em!”
“Did they really stop you, knowing your errand?”
“Yes, that they did, mistress. As I was going by the tavern, a mile or two up the road yonder, three or four of them torified Yorkers came out, and told me I couldn't go for the doctor, nor nowhere else, without a pass from one of their committee. So I had to post back more than half way, to Squire Ashcrafts, and there had to be questioned a long while before he would give me any pass at all. And then again, when I got to the doctor's, he said he wanted a pass, too; for he darsent go to see a whig woman without one, which I must go and get him from Squire Evans, another committee man. Well, finding there was no other way to get him started, I went, feeling all the time just between crying and fighting. And as soon as I got the bit of paper into the doctor's hands, I put for home, leaving him fixing to come horseback, which is the reason of my getting here first.”
“These are, indeed dreadful times,” sighed the widow. “But they cannot always remain; for, though God may chastise us a while for our sins, yet the rods of the oppressors will surely be broken.”
“I'd rather see their necks broken,” responded Bart, dryly “When we left Westminster, I thought, as much as could be, the tories were all used up; but I find 'em down here thicker than ever now, and as sarcy and spiteful as a nest of yellow jackets that, like them, have been routed in one place and got fixed in another. Blast their picturs, how I hate 'em!”
“That is not right, Barty. You should love your enemies. Evil wishes, towards those who injure us, are both wicked and foolish.”
“I don't understand, mistress.”
“Why, Barty, to love is to be happy, as far as circumstances will permit; and to hate is but to feel disquieted and miserable. So when we keep the command to love our enemies, we obtain a reward which often outbalances the evil they inflict on us, or, at least, enables us the better to bear it; while, on the contrary, when we hate those who injure us, we receive a double evil—the wrong they inflict, and the unhappiness created by the exercise of our revengeful passions. Did you ever think of that, Barty?”
“No, mum; Harry talks kinder that way, sometimes; but I can't understand it, no how.”
“With your means of moral instruction, perhaps it is not surprising that you should not; so I will drop the subject, and ask you if you heard any thing of Harry, while you were gone.”
“No, mistress; didn't see nobody that knew he was gone.”
“O, when will he return? He has now been gone two long, long days; but I must not repine.”
“Why, mistress, I kinder guess he'll be along to-night, unless so be he's met with considerable bother to get the money, or somethin. He must be here afore to-morrow afternoon, when the sale is, you know.”
“Yes, I knew the sale was delayed till town meeting day, which is to-morrow, I believe; though for what reason they put it off I never heard. Harry felt so bitter about the affair, that I thought I would not disturb his feelings by making any allusions to the subject. But there appeared to be something about it that I didn't understand. Why didn't the sale take place last week, as first appointed?”
“For as good a reason as ever a tory officer had for doing any thing—or not doing any thing, may be, I should say—in the world,” replied Bart with a knowing look.
“What was it?”
“Why, when the day come, he couldn't find any cattle to sell.”
“What had become of them?”
“Well, mistress, I don't know how much it is best to say about that, considering. But I shouldn't be surprised,” continued the speaker, while a sly, roguish expression stole over his usually grave, impenetrable countenance, “that is, not much surprised, if it turned out that two or three of Harry's friends got the cattle out of the barn where they were keeping, one dark night, and driv 'em off into the woods, near the top of Governor's Mountain, and then backed up hay enough to keep 'em a spell; while the company took turns, for a few days, in going a hunting over the mountain, so as to come round, once in a while, to fodder and see to the creters, for which old Bug-Horn paid in milk, on the spot. Now, mind, I haven't said Iknewthis was so, but was only kinder guessing at it; for all that's really known about it—that is, out loud—is, that Fitch and his men found the cattle up there; and the way they found them was by following up the trail made by the hay straws that some one, after a while, grew careless enough to scatter from his back-load along the path.”
“Did my son have any hand in this affair?” asked the widow, anxiously.
“No, mistress; Harry is so kinder notional about some things, that we thought—that is, I guess some thought—it wasn't best to say any thing to him about the plan till his cattle were fairly saved.”
“I am glad to hear it. I should rather see him deprived of his last penny than do a questionable act. We should never do wrong because others have done wrong to us.”
“There is a differ between your think and mine, I see, mistress. If they did wrong in getting away Harry's cattle so, as every body knows they did, then the tother of that—getting them back again—must be right. But you needn't tell any body what I've said, mistress; for they might, perhaps, have Bill Piper and me up, and try to make barglary out of it—or simony, I don't know but the law folks would call it—the breaking into a log-barn. But hush! Somebody's coming. It is the doctor.”
Doctor Soper, who now entered, was a small, pug-nosed, chubby man, of ostentatious manners, and high pretensions to skill and knowledge in his profession; though, in fact, he was but a quack, and of that most dangerous class, too, who dip into books rather to acquire learned terms than to study principles, and who, consequently, as often as otherwise, are found “doctoring to a name,” which chance has suggested, but which has little connection with the case which is engaging their attention.
“Ah, how do you find yourself, madam?” said the doctor, throwing off his dripping overcoat, and drawing up a chair towards the head of the patient's bed.
“Very ill, doctor,” replied the other. “Not so much on account of the loss of strength, as yet, as the deeply-seated pain in the chest, which, for the last twenty-four hours, has caused me great suffering; though, for the last half hour, not so severe.”
“Indeed, madam! Well, now for thediagnosisof your disease. I pride myself ondiagnostics. Your wrist, madam, if you please,” said the doctor, proceeding to feel the pulse of his patient, with an air intended for a very professional one. “Tense—frequent—this pulse of yours, madam; showing great irritability. Your tongue, now. Ay—rubric—dry and streaked; usualprognosticsof neuralgy. Pretty much made up my mind about your complaint coming along, madam, having learned from your lad here something of your troubles and fright on losing your home. And I was right, I see. It isneuralgy—decidedly aneuralgy.”
“What is that, doctor?”
“Always happy to explain, madam, so as to bring my meaning within the comprehension of common minds.Neuralgymadam, is a derangement of the nerves. Your disease, precisely.”
“Why, I am not at all nervous, sir,” responded the patient, looking up in surprise.
“You may not think so, madam. Few do, in your case.”
“And then, doctor, I have an intense inward fever,” persisted the other, “and my lungs seem much affected.”
“Nervous fever, madam,” returned the doctor, too wise to be instructed, “and lungs sympathetically affected—that's all. Quiet and strengthen the nerves, and all will be right in a short time. I shall prescribeRadix Rhei, in small doses,assafoetida, quinine, and brandy bitters of my own pieparing. These, with nourishing food, as soon as you can bear it, will speedily restore you, madam.”
Having dealt out the prescribed medicines, calculated rather to increase than check the poor woman's malady, which was inflammation of the lungs, the self-satisfied doctor, swelling with his own importance, departed, leaving his patient now to contend with two evils, instead of one—a dangerous disease, and the more dangerous effects of a quack's prescription.
“What time is it now, Barty?” asked the invalid, with a deep sigh, as she awoke from a troubled slumber, into which she had fallen after the doctor's departure.
“Why, don't know exactly, mistress,” answered Bart, rousing himself from the dreamy abstraction in which he had been indulging, as he sat looking into the decaying fire—“don't know, exactly; but it has got a considerable piece into the night. About nine o'clock, guess; may be more.”
“Nine o'clock at night, and Harry not yet returned!” sighed the invalid. “Well, well, I will complain no more.”
“Can I do any thing for you, mistress?” asked her untutored attendant, touched at the sad and despondent tone of the other.
“You may bring me in a pitcher of fresh, cold water, with some ice in it, if you will, Barty,” replied the former. “It seems to me as if this inward heat was consuming my vitals, since I took the doctor's medicines.”
The youth, with noiseless step, then disappeared with his pitcher, and, in a few moments, returned with it filled with water and several pieces of clear, pure ice, which were heard dashing against its sides.
“How grateful!” said the sick woman, as she took from her lips the wooden cup which had been filled and handed her by her attendant, and from which she had eagerly drained nearly a pint of the cooling beverage at a single draught. “There, now, set the pitcher on the table yonder, and raise the largest piece of ice up in sight, so, as I lie here, I can look at it. The mere sight of it seems to do me good.”
Another dreary hour rolled away in silence, which was broken only by the restless motions and occasional suppressed groans of the invalid within, and the wailing of the winds and the pattering of the rain against the windows without, when a slow, heavy step was heard coming up to the house.
“That is he—that is his step!” faintly exclaimed the sick woman, partially raising herself in bed, and gazing eagerly towards the door; while her pain-contracted features were, for the moment, smoothed by the smile of affection and pleasure that now broke over them, like the faint electric illumining of a weeping cloud.
The quick ears of the afflicted mother had not deceived her. The next instant Harry Woodburn entered the room, and, with a gloomy, abstracted air, proceeded to divest himself of his wet coat and muddy boots, without uttering a word, or bestowing any thing more than a casual glance towards the bed, to which he supposed his mother had just retired, as was usual with her, about this hour, and not suspecting that she was more indisposed than when he left her. But as he now turned and approached the fire, his eyes fell, for the first time, on her haggard features when, stopping short, with a look of surprise and lively concern, he exclaimed,—
“Mother! are you worse, mother?”
“Yes, Harry, I am very, very sick; and O, how glad I am that you are come.”
For several moments he said nothing, but stood gazing at her with the distressed and stupefied air of one struggling to shut out painful apprehensions. At length, however, he aroused himself, and made a few hasty inquiries relative to her disorder, and what had been done for her; and, having been informed of all that had occurred in his absence, and now appearing fully to comprehend the danger of her situation, he sat down by her bedside, when his lip soon began to quiver, and his strong bosom heave with tumultuous emotions, while bitter tears flowed down his manly cheeks, as this crowning blow to his misfortunes was brought home to his feelings.
“Had they been content,” he said, struggling hard, but vainly, to master his feelings—“had they but been content with robbing me of my property, I could have borne it; but to be the means, also, of murdering my only parent, is more than I can endure. God help me, or I shall go mad!”
“Do not—do not be so distressed, my son,” said the mother deeply touched at this exhibition of feeling, accompanied as it was with such a proof of filial affection in her idolized son, and anxious to soothe and divert his mind. “I shall recover, if God wills it. Let us, then, bow in resignation to his dispensations, and not disturb our feelings with unavailing regrets. Come, my dear son, cheer up, and tell me how you have succeeded in the object of your journey.”
“No success,” he replied, gloomily. “No; I have been running from town to town since yesterday morning, and have not been able to obtain a single dollar. So the cattle must go to satisfy the stolen judgment of that insatiable Peters.”
At this moment the conversation was arrested by a low rap at the door, when, after the customary walk in had been pronounced by Woodburn, the door was gently opened, and a tall robust young man, with a frank, open countenance, hesitatingly entered.
“Good evening, folks,” he said, in a suppressed tone. “I didn't exactly know what to do about calling to-night, on account of disturbing your mother, Harry; but wishing to know whether you had got home, and hear the news if you had, I thought I would venture to rap. What is going on up country?”
“Nothing very new, I believe, Mr. Piper.”
“Well, what luck about the money, Harry?”
“None—none whatever.”
“I am sorry for that. No, I won't lie, now; I am not sorry, Harry; and I will tell you why, hereafter. All I wanted to know to-night was, whether you had got the wherewith to redeem the cattle, to-morrow being the last chance for doing it, you know.”
“Yes, I was aware of it, friend Piper; and many thanks for the interest you take in my misfortunes. But I cannot redeem the stock. It must go: nothing more can be done to save it.”
“Well, I don't quite know about that, Harry. I don't know about standing by, and seeing a neighbor's property snatched away from him on such smuggled papers. But let that turn as it may, the subject brings to mind a certain circumstance, which I will name, after first asking a question; and that is, whether Peters has not been hung?”
“Peters hung? Why, no; the prisoners are not to be tried till the new court we have been appointing at Westminster holds its first session, some weeks hence. But why do you ask so strange a question?”
“Well, Harry, by way of answer, I will tell you the circumstance I alluded to, which was this: Last night, as I was crossing about town drumming up friends to attend the meeting tomorrow, seeing we are expecting a hard tussle, I met a man that I could have sworn was John Peters, if I had not known the fellow was close in Northampton jail; and as it was, I could swear it was his exact shape and appearance. Well, knowing it could not be him bodily, it soon struck me that they had been hanging off a parcel of them there, Peters among the rest, and that this was his ghost, kinder hovering about here to see if his affairs were fixed up to his liking.”
“Your notion of a ghost, Piper, if you are serious about it, is all nonsense,” said Woodburn, who had listened with lively interest to the singular story of the other. “Yes, that is nonsense; but it has brought to mind a rumor which reached Brattleborough yesterday, that all the prisoners at Northampton had been liberated byhabeas corpusfrom the chief justice of New York, and were now at large. Although this was not credited, yet, if you saw Peters here last night, as I begin to fear, the story must have been true. And he appears here, at this time, for the double purpose of seeing, as you said, whether his orders have been carried into execution, and of being present to use his corrupting influence at town meeting to-morrow.”
“Well, Harry, that's about what I meant; for I saw him sure enough, and knew, at once, that we had got to have him against us at town meeting, which makes our case rather doubtful. We felt quite sure, before this, of being able to carry a majority; and in that case, some of us counted on getting a vote to rescue your cattle, or, at least, putting them into the hands of our sheriff. [Footnote: During the period of anarchy, change, and discord, in this distracted town, each of the belligerent parties had their sheriff, or constable, and other town officers, and would yield obedience to the officers of their opponents only on compulsion, though the officers of the majority were not generally resisted, except, perhaps, in matters purely political.] And either of these ways would be the means, we thought, of saving your property, and, at the same time, be a plaguy sight more lawful than any authority they have for selling them. But now there's no saying how it will go. I expect hot work there to-morrow; and that minds me to ask if you heard whether help from the towns up the river is coming down to join us on the occasion?”
“Yes, Tom Dunning came down with me, and he informed me that several others were on the way.”
“Good. Tom himself, in matter of managing, will be almost a match for Peters, whether ghost or no ghost. But where is he?”
“He stopped back at the Liberty Pole tavern.”
“All happens right, then. I am bound there myself. We are going to hold a little meeting at the Pole, after folks are to bed, to make up our plans and arrangements for to-morrow. You can't go, I suppose.”
“No, I must not think of it.”
“But you will be at town meeting to-morrow?”
“Quite uncertain. In the first place, I ought not to leave my sick mother; and in the next, my feelings are in such a state of bitterness, that I dare hardly trust myself in such a scene, lest I should do that which would cost me months of painful regret. No, Piper, in mercy to a desperate man, let me keep away. But here is Bart to go, if he choose, both to-night and tomorrow.”
“Bart is agreeable to that, if Harry and mistress don't want him,” said the person just named, rousing up from the long-silent reverie in which he had been sitting before the fire apparently inattentive to the conversation of the others, which had been carried on in a low tone, at the opposite side of the room. “So here goes for the Pole to-night, and meeting to-morrow,” he added, taking down his gun from the pegs on which it was suspended, near the ceiling above,
“What do you want to do with that, Bart?” asked Woodburn.
“I want it for lining to my coat,” replied Bart. “If our coats had all been lined in that fashion, the first night there, at Westminster, we needn't have had to attend French's funeral, nor you been troubled about the papers they got out when you was in jail.”
“Bravo, Bart. You see that my coat is not wanting of that kind of lining, don't you?” said Piper, throwing open his greatcoat and displaying a rifle, as the two now left the house together, on their way to the rendezvous of the liberty party.
“Agreed in nothing, but t' abolish,Subvert, extirpate, and demolish.”
“Hurrah for Vermont! hurrah for the new state of Vermont! The victory is won, and the town is redeemed! hurrah! hurrah!”
Such were the sounds that rose and rung among the rafters of the crowded old log Town House of Guilford, as, for the first time for several years, a New Statesman and whig moderator was declared elected by a majority of the suffrages of the freemen. The next moment, the door was seen vomiting forth its throng of excited victors, who, as they reached the open air, joined the crowd eagerly awaiting the result at the entrance, and, with them, renewed and reiterated the glad shout, till the distant hills responded in loud echoes to the roar of the stentorian voices of the triumphant party.
After a fortnight's active exertions on the part of each of the opposing parties, in mustering and drilling their respective forces, preparatory to the approaching contest, in which both were equally confident of victory, though too sensible of the danger of losing it to remit any effort, the voters had assembled at one o'clock in the afternoon. After spending several hours in a disorderly and wrangling debate, in relation to the qualification of voters, which at last resulted in rejecting the test required by the charter,—that of being a freeholder,-and in permitting every resident to vote, the ballots had been taken for moderator, or chairman of the meeting, when, as much to the dismay of the tories as the joy of their opponents, it was found that victory, in a majority of three, had declared for the latter, who thereupon testified their exultation in the uproarious manner we have described.
After a while, the noise and tumult within the house was suddenly hushed, and the clear, deliberate tones of some new speaker addressing the assembly, became audible to those without the building; while the attent and eager looks of those who stood listening in the crowded pass-way, plainly evinced that some important and exciting subject had been introduced. At length the voice ceased, and a new commotion ensued within.
“What new movement is that? what is going on in there now, Piper?” asked one standing near the door, as one young man came elbowing his way out of the house.
“Why, they are on Colonel Carpenter's resolution. Haven't none of you here been in there to hear it?” said Piper, turning to the querist and other political associates, standing near by.
“No; what is it about?” inquired several of the latter, with interest.
“The York Rule,” answered Piper, with an animated air. “The colonel offered a resolve that we shake off the York government now, henceforth and forever. And this he backed with a speech which would have done you good to hear. He went into them, I tell you, like a thousand of brick; and not a single tory tongue of 'em all dare wag in trying to answer it. They are now beginning to vote on the resolution, which, if carried, the colonel intends to follow up by another, cutting up all British authority root and branch.”
At this moment, they were joined by Tom Dunning, who came hurrying out of the house, and, taking Piper aside, said,—
“Do you ditter understand the plan of what's going on there, Piper, and the importance to you here, in Guilford, of carrying it?”
“Not fully, perhaps,” answered Piper. “I didn't have a chance to talk with Carpenter and the other committee before this move was made, and don't understand why they did not urge on the election of the other town officers, as usual, after making a moderator, instead of getting up these resolutions.”
“Der well, this is it; they are afraid to ditter try any of the town officers on so slim a majority, lest the tory candidates should have got some of our voters under their thumbs, by way of debts or other obligations, which they will der make use of to get their votes for them personally, but won't have 'em pledged for this.”
“That is well thought of,” responded Piper. “They have indeed got the screws on some I know of, and would so threaten 'em with prosecutions, that I'm fearful they would get 'em, sure enough. But what's the prospect about the resolutions?”
“Well, the colonel thinks, after what has ditter taken place at Westminster, that we can carry them; and if we can, it will pretty effectually tie 'em up, even if they got their officers. But we der don't mean to let 'em. For the plan is, that as soon as we've ditter carried the resolves, to dissolve the meeting without making any town officers at all, which we think can be carried by the same voters, and which if we can ditter do it, with the resolves, will kill Fitch and his papers as dead as a ditter dum smelt, and so save the property of Harry, and that of all others in the same der situation.”
“Good!” exclaimed Piper, with animation; “I see through the move now; and we'll go at 'em, and whip 'em out on it; and then if Fitch don't give up the cattle, we'll make him, by the course we thought of taking, last night, in case we failed electing our officers to-day, or of getting any vote on Harry's affair.”
“Yes; but we must be ditter lively in getting in the voters. You and Bart go in and vote; and I will beat about the bush, here, for more help, before I go in; for as they have just admitted some to vote on a twenty hours' residence,—as I can ditter swear they did,—I intend to vote myself, this time, and have all those from my way der do the same,” said the hunter, bustling off to muster his forces.
Just as Dunning, who had collected a band of voters, without much regard to their qualifications, was pushing into the house at the head of his recruits, an outcry was raised within; and, the next moment, Bart Burt was seen hastily emerging from the crowd, followed by the kicks and cudgel-blows of the tories, through whom he had been compelled, to save himself from a rougher handling, to run the gauntlet to the door.
“What, in the name of der Tophet, is the meaning of that ditter treatment, ye shameless lubbers?” sternly demanded the hunter, shaking his stout beech cane over the heads of the fore most of his opponents.
“He deserves it! He is an impostor! He tried to get in his vote when he aint over eighteen years old!” shouted several tory voices in reply.
“They let me vote last time without a word,” said Bart, facing round upon his foes, with a grin of spite and pain; “and so they did John Stubbs and Jo Snelling, then and now too; and they aint a day older than I be.”
“Then we will der have you in, and vote too, if the ditter divil stands at the door!” fiercely exclaimed the hunter.
“Let them prove he aint one and twenty,” said one of the same party. “He wasn't born in these parts, nor does he know himself, I understand, where he was born, or how old he is; and until they can prove him under age, I motion, blow high or blow low, that we make them receive his vote.”
“Aye, he shall vote! he shall vote!” shouted a dozen others. “They have admitted others under age, and they shall him, whether or no! Let them live up to their own rules! Sauce for goose is sauce for gander, the world over; they shall take him, they shall take him!”
A hasty consultation was now held, and a plan of operations for compelling the opposite party to admit Bart to the polls was soon digested. And, in pursuance of this plan, Bart, who was short and light of weight, was mounted astride the brawny shoulders of Dunning, while Piper, with his burly frame, was placed in front, with a stiff cudgel in hand, to act as the battering-ram or entering wedge to the crowd of tories, who had closed up the way with their bodies, obviously to prevent Bart, or any other whig, indeed, from again entering till the ballot-box was turned. Eight or ten stout, resolute young men were then selected and formed in column to bring up the rear, and give such an impetus to those before them as to force them forward in spite of all opposing obstacles, till they reached the voters' stand in the house.
“Ditter ready, boys?” now cried Dunning, firmly grasping Bart's legs, and glancing over his shoulders to his lusty little band of backers. “All ready there, behind, boys? Then go ahead, as if ditter Belzebub kicked ye an end!”
At the word, Piper, gathering himself up like a ram for a butting match, made a lunge head foremost into the recoiling ranks of the tories, and, borne irresistibly forward by the force of the rushing phalanx behind, overthrew, prostrated, and shoved aside, all before him, till the whole column gained the interior, and came to a halt before the ballot-box.
“I protest against that fellow's voting!” exclaimed Peters, approaching the stand as Bart, from his lofty seat on Dunning's shoulders, was about to put in his vote, which was a simpleyeawritten on a slip of paper, and handed up to him by some one stationed near the box to furnish the unsupplied. “I protest against such a glaring outrage! He is under age, and was very properly driven from the house.”
“Prove it! prove it!” shouted several of Bart's friends.
“You can't do it,” cried another, “and if you could, two of your party, who are under age, have voted already; 'tis a fact; deny it if you can!”
“In with it, Bart!” said Dunning, bending down to give the other a chance.
“Yes, in with it; for he shall vote!” responded the rest.
“He shall not vote!” vociferated Peters; “and if he attempts to do it; I'll blow his brains out!” he added, pulling out and levelling a pistol. Quick as thought, Bart threw open his over-coat, and, drawing from beneath it the light short gun there concealed, cocked, and brought it to his shoulder; while the threatening weapon of his foe was seen flying to a distant part of the room, from a sudden blow of Piper's cudgel, and its disarmed and nonplused owner slinking away out of the range of the suspicious-looking barrel still kept aimed at his head.
Amidst the loud cries of order, and the heated vociferations of both parties, now raised to condemn or defend the transaction, through the house, Bart, Dunning, and others of their company, who had not voted, now hastily deposited their votes, and retired unmolested.
Although the portion of the revolutionary party, whose movements we have been more particularly describing, acting on the supposed and probably actual frauds of their opponents, had thus secured Bart's vote, and the votes of two or three others, perhaps equally illegal, yet the event soon showed that their policy in so doing was a mistaken one, and calculated to defeat the very object they intended to promote; for, as will always be the result where one party attempts to adopt the wrongful measures of their opponents, the tories, now armed with the fact that they had detected the other party in a wrong more glaring, because more public, than any they had perpetrated, made use of the advantage with such effect as to bring over several, intending to support the resolutions, to change their intention, and go against them. And, in addition to this, by way of retaliating, and of making good at least all the ground lost by the questionable votes forced upon them, they brought forward every minor they could find approximating the size of a man, and boldly demanded their admittance to the polls. An opposition was, indeed, attempted to a measure so manifestly illegal, by the leaders of the other party; but they had become too much disarmed by the acts of their own partisans to produce any sensible effect; and their voices were soon drowned by the clamors of the tories, who now admitted the boys by acclamation. This, as will be anticipated, decided the contest. On counting the votes, the resolution was found to have been rejected by more than a dozen majority-a victory which the tories failed not to announce by shouts of exultation, which out-thundered those of their opponents in their late short-lived triumph. The friends of freedom, being thus caught in their own trap, or, at least, worsted by the indiscretion of their own friends, now pretty much yielded the contest: while the victorious Yorkers and tories had everything in their own way, electing their town officers, passing denunciatory and royal resolutions, and continuing their discussions unopposed till it was nearly dark, when the meeting broke up in noisy confusion.
“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” was now heard crying the well-known voice of Constable Fitch, as he mounted a stump in the yard; while near by stood a gang of his confederates, hedging in Woodburn's cow and oxen, which the former had found the means to have on the spot, in readiness for the sale, the moment the assembly broke up. “Oyez! A cow and oxen, taken on execution, now about to be sold to the highest bidder, gentlemen. We will take the oxen first; as fine a yoke as ever drew plough Who will give us the first bid? Shan't dwell three minutes. Who bids, I say? One pound bid, gentlemen; one pound ten! one pound ten! and on Mr. Peters. Who bids higher?”
But, as rapid as had been the constable's movements, he did not, as he intended, take the friends of Woodburn by surprise. They had withdrawn from the meeting a short time before it dissolved, and met for consultation in the rear of the house, where, having arranged their plan of operations, they stood awaiting for the proper time to carry it into execution.
“There!” exclaimed Dunning, as the constable began to cry the sale in the manner we have just described—“there, that is ditter Fitch; he is at it! All ready, boys? You, Piper and Bart, with your vials of oil of vitriol in your sleeves, ready to uncork on to their ditter tails?”
“Ay, ay!”
“And your ditter snuff to throw into their eyes?”
“Yes, that, too.”
“And your guns ditter cocked, and safe under your coats you that are to fire?”
“Ay, all right and ready—lead on!”
“Der well, but remember we ditter separate here, so as to come up on different sides of the crowd; and mind, don't let off your guns till the creatures begin to ditter grow uneasy and der snort and blow.”
While Fitch was repeating the bids he had received for the oxen, and was about to knock them off to the highest bidder, which still chanced to be Peters, he was suddenly told to hold on, by several persons who had just at that moment made their appearance in different parts of the crowd, and who expressed their wish to bid, as soon as they could get up to examine the cattle. Owing to the duskiness, the faces of the new comers did not seem to be recognized by the tories, who unsuspectingly opened and admitted them to the stand. Quickly availing themselves of the opportunity, the former, among the foremost of whom were Piper and Bart, now crowded eagerly round the cattle, and, after rapidly passing their hands over the cow and each of the oxen a moment, and then stepping back, began to banter and bid. Not much time, however, was allowed them to do either; for the cattle, all at once, became unaccountably restless, at first backing and wheeling about in their confined space, and then wildly tossing up their heads, snuffing, and assuming the startled and furious appearance generally exhibited by this class of animals when about to make a desperate effort to break away.
At this critical juncture, the fierce flashes and stunning reports of a half dozen muskets burst over the heads of the startled and astonished company from various points on the outer edge of the crowd; and the next instant the already maddened cattle, with loud snorts, leaping over or trampling down all in their way, broke through the living hedge of tories around them, and bounded off, with their tails thrown aloft, and bellowing in wild affright, in different directions, towards the woods, leaving the amazed and broken crowd jostling and pitching about with exclamations of surprise, groans of pain, volleys of oaths, and shouts of laughter, all mingled in Babel-like confusion.
“'Tis all the work of the cursed rebels!” exclaimed Peters, the first to rally and comprehend the affair. “Fitch!” he added, pointing after the runaway cattle, “where the devil are your wits, that you don't order a pursuit?”
“Yes, pursue and bring 'em back, instantly!” screamed the constable, awaking from the stupor and confusion of ideas into which he seemed to have been thrown by the strange and unexpected occurrence. “Yes, 'tis an unlawful rescue—it's a conspiracy! bring back the cattle! seize the offenders, every one of 'em! in the king's name I command ye.”
Obedient to the call, the obsequious tories instantly rallied for the pursuit, and, breaking off into three distinct bands, eagerly set forward in the different directions taken by the fugitive cattle, then just disappearing over the distant swells, or in the borders of the woods. Dunning, Piper and Bart, who, in the mean while, had, unknown and unsuspected in the darkness and confusion, stood in the throng, keenly watching the result of their plan, no sooner heard the expected order of pursuit given, than, separating, like their opponents, and each joining a different band of the pursuers, they sprang in before the rest, and, by their superior alacrity and speed, soon succeeded in taking the lead and finally in completely distancing all others in the promiscuous chase. The tories, now soon wholly losing sight of their fleet and, as they still supposed, trusty guides in the pursuit, became, in a short time, confused and at fault respecting the courses to be taken; and, after hallooing and running about the woods and pastures at random, nearly an hour, without discovering any traces either of the lost cattle or the missing pursuers, at length came straggling back to the Town House, and, by way of saving their own credit, reported to Fitch, Peters, and the small party remaining there, that their swiftest runners were last seen nearly up with the cattle, and would soon be in with them, or that the creatures had been headed, and were on their way back, in another direction. On this, the company waited another hour; when, neither the cattle nor the expected pursuers appearing, they began to suspect something amiss; and the inquiries and investigations then put afoot soon resulted in the mortifying conviction, that the cattle had been overtaken and driven off by the same persons who previously had caused them to break away. Prompted by the enraged Peters, Fitch then offered a reward for the recovery of the cattle and the detection of those who had abducted them; when the company separated, to resume the search the next day. But although this was done, and the country scoured in every direction for several days, yet the search proved wholly fruitless. Not one of the cattle was to be found. Nor were the actors in the transaction, with any certainty, identified, though the absence of Piper and Bart, for some days after the event, caused them to be suspected and marked for punishment, when they should again appear abroad.