Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman Part 6

"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 b.u.t.termilk. The footpath to the spring wound its careless way down a gra.s.sy 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 ma.s.ses 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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 superst.i.tious 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 coa.r.s.e, ill-smelling wool all day long, day after day? One dare not _think_, 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 ma.s.ses 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.

CHAPTER VII

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 pa.s.sed 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 Hanc.o.c.k, 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 reenlisted, 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.