Brother Jonathan

by Hezekiah Butterworth

THE LIFTED LATCH

An old house on the Connecticut way to Boston stood high on the windy hill. I have ridden past it at night when the dark savins lifted their conical forms on the hillside by the decrepit orchards and the clouds scudded over the moon. It had two chimneys that seemed to stand against the sky, and I saw it once at night when one of those chimneys was on fire, which caused my simple heart to beat fast in those uneventful days. I had heard say that the minutemen stopped there on their march from Worcester to Bunker Hill and were fed with bread from out of the great brick oven.

My father told me another thing which greatly awakened my curiosity. When the minutemen stopped there on their march to meet the “regulars,” they were in need of lead for bullets. They carried with them molds in which to make bullets, but they could not obtain the lead.

The good woman of the house was named Overfield, Farmer Overfield’s wife. She was called Mis’ Overfield. She had one daughter, a lithe, diminutive, beautiful girl, with large blue eyes and lips winsome and red, of such singular beauty that one’s eyes could hardly be diverted from following her. When she had anything to say in company, there was silence. She was the “prettiest girl in all the country around,” people used to say. And she was as good in these early days as she was pretty.

Her name was Annie—“sweet Annie Overfield” some people named her.

When she saw that the minutemen were perplexed about lead, she left her baking, wiped the meal from her nose that had been itching as a sign “that company was coming,” and, waving her white apron, approached the captain and said:

“Captain, I could tell you where there is lead if I had a mind to. But what would father say if I should? And my grandfather and grandmother, who are in their graves—they might rise up and shake the valances o’ nights, and that would be scary, O Captain!”

Annie’s father came stalking in in a blue blouse, a New England guard, ready for any duty.

“Father, I know where there is lead. May I tell?”

“Yes, girl, and the men shall have it wherever it be. Where is it, Annie? I have no lead, else I would have given it up at once.”

“In the clock weights, father.”

“Stop the clock!” cried the father. “Oh, Annie, ’tis a marvel you are!”

The old clock, with an oak frame, stood in the corner of the “living room,” as the common room was called, whose doors faced the parlor and the kitchen. It had stood there for a generation. It was some eight feet high and two broad in its upper part and two in its lower. It had a brass ornament on the top, and it ticked steadily and solemnly always and so loud as to be heard in the upper rooms at night. On its face were figures of the sun and moon. Annie’s hand had for several years wound the clock.

The great clock was stopped, the heavy weights were removed, and the minutemen carried them to the forge of Baldwin, the blacksmith, where they were speedily melted and poured into the molds.

The company went joyfully away, and as they marched down the hill the captain ordered the men to give three cheers for Annie Overfield. That that lead did much for the history of our country there can be no doubt. How much one can not tell.

One day, shortly after these events, a clock-cleaner came to the house on the hill. The maple leaves were flying and the migrating birds gathering in the rowen meadows. He said:

“I can not regulate the clock now, but I will be around again another year.”

When he came back, the sylph-like Annie was gone—where, none knew. She had been gone a long time.

Why had she gone? It was the old tale. A common English sailor from the provinces came to work on the farm. He received his pay in the fall and disappeared, and the day after he went Annie went too. It was very mysterious. She had been “her mother’s girl.”

She had spent her evenings with the sailor after the mowing days by the grindstone under the great maple-trees. He had sung to her English sailor songs and told her stories of the Spanish main and of his cottage at St. John’s. He was a homely man, but merry-hearted, and Annie had listened to him as to one enchanted. She carried him cold drinks “right from the well” in the field. She watched by the bars for him to come in from the meadows and fields. She grew thin, had “crying spells,” thought she was going “into a decline.” She was not like herself. The love stronger than that for a mother had found Annie amid the clover-fields when the west winds were blowing. The common sailor had become to her more than life. She felt that she could live better without others than without him.

She had said to her mother one day:

“Malone”—the sailor’s name—“has a good heart. I find my own in it. I wish we could give him a better chance in life.”

“He is an adventurer, thrown upon the world like a hulk of driftwood, hither and thither,” said her mother.

“I pity him. His heart deserves better friends than he has found. I want to be his friend. Why may I not?”

“If you were ever to marry a common sailor, Annie, I would strew salt on your grave. I married a common man, but he has been good to me. I have no respect whatever for those who marry beneath them and shame their own kin. But, Annie, that rover is worse than a common sailor—he is a Tory; think of that—a Tory!”

Such was the condition of the family when the old clock-cleaner returned.

He heard the story and said:

“I can hardly trust my ears. Annie was such a good girl. But the heart must wed its own. I pity her. She will come back again, for Annie is Annie.”

Then he turned to the clock and said:

“Now I’m going to examine it again and see what I can do. I will try to set it going till Annie comes back.”

“I shall never take any interest in such things any more,” said Mis’ Overfield. “It is all the same to me whether the clock goes or stands still, or whether life goes or stands still, for that matter. I loved Annie, and that is what makes it so hard. She used to watch over me when I was sick, oh, so faithfully, but I shall never feel the touch of her hand again, Annie’s hand. I would weep, but I have no tears to shed. Life is all a blank since this came upon me. The burying lot, as it looks to me, is the pleasantest place on earth. I look out of the pantry window sometimes and say, ‘Annie, come back.’ Then I shut my heart. Oh, that this should come to me!”

She seemed to be listening.

“How I used to wait for Annie evenings—conference meeting and candle-light meeting nights and singing-school evenings! How my heart used to beat hard when she lifted the latch of the porch door in the night!

“She came home like an angel then. I wonder if Annie’s hand will ever again lift the latch in the night. Trouble brings the heart home and sends us back to God. But I wouldn’t speak to her—lud, no, no, no!”

The tenderness went out of her face, and a strange, foreign light came into her blue-gray eyes.

She sat looking fixedly toward the hill. The old graves were there.

Farmer Overfield came in.

“Thinking?” said he.

“I was thinking of how Annie used to lift the latch evenings. I wish it could be so again. But it can’t.”

“Why not? There can be no true life in any household where it is forbidden to any to lift the latch.”

The clock-cleaner could not find the key of the clock. It had disappeared. He pounded on the case and said:

“It sounds hollow.”

Thanksgiving day came, and that day was supposed to bring all of the family home.

Mis’ Overfield watched the people coming, and she said to her little nurse Liddy as she waited:

“Have they all come, Liddy?”

“No, mum; not all.”

“Who is there to come?”

“Annie, mum.”

“She’s dead—dead here. I sometimes wish she would come, Liddy. But I wouldn’t speak to her if she were to come—that common sailor’s wife—and he a Tory! I wouldn’t—would you, Liddy?”

“Yes, mum.”

“You would? Tell me why now.”

“Because she is Annie. You would too.”

Mis’ Overfield gave a great sob and threw her apron over her head, and said in a muffled voice:

“What made you say that, Liddy?”

“There may come a day when Annie can not come back. The earth binds fast—the grave does. Think what you might have to reflect upon.”

“I, Liddy—I?”

“Yes. And there are more folks in some old houses than one can see always. They come back. There’s been a dead soldier here already. I saw him. And last night I heard the latch of the back door lift up three times.”

“Oh, Liddy! Nothing can ever harm us if we do just right. It was Annie that went wrong, not I. What do you suppose made the latch lift up?”

She stood silent, then said, with sudden resolution:

“Liddy, you go straight to your duties and never answer your mistress back again, not on Thanksgiving day nor on any other day.”

The rooms filled. Brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, came, and some of the guests offered to help the women folks about.

The hand of the new brass clock was moving around toward 12. A savory odor filled the room. Little Liddy flitted to and fro, handling hot dishes briskly so as not to get “scalded.”

Those who were voluntarily helping the women folks carried hot dishes in wrong directions. For twenty minutes or more everything went wrong in the usual way of the country kitchen at that hour of the day.

There was a jingle in the new brass clock. Then it struck, and the farmer raised his hand, and everybody stood still.

Twelve!

“Now, if you will all be seated at the tables,” said Farmer Overfield, “I will supplicate a blessing.”

He did. Prayer has a long journey around the world on Thanksgiving day. He arrived at last at “all who have gone astray but are still a part of the visible creation”—his mind wavered here—“grant ’em all repentance and make us charitable,” he said in a lower voice.

The room was very still. One could almost hear the dishes steam.

There was a sound in the corner of the room. The old clock-case quivered. Farmer Overfield became nervous in this part of his long prayer, opened his eyes and said:

“Oh, I thought I heard something somewhere. Where was I? Liddy, she says that she heard the latch lift in the night. I didn’t know——”

Just here there was a crash of dishes. Little Liddy had seen the old clock-case shake, which caused her to lose nerve power just as she was very carefully moving some dishes when she thought all other eyes were shut. The guests started.

“Accidents will happen,” said Farmer Overfield. “Now, all fall to and help yourselves. It seems like old times to find all the family here again just as it used to be—all except Annie, Annie, Annie. Her name has not been spoken to-day. I shall keep this plate and seat for her here close by my side. Annie’s heart is true to me still. I seem to feel that. I wish she were here to-day. The true note of Thanksgiving is lacking in a broken family. There can be no true Thanksgiving where there is an empty chair that might be filled. I shall always take Annie’s part. A father is always true to his daughter. I will yet die in her arms. A daughter is the angel for the father’s room when the great shadow falls.”

He stood, knife and fork in hand, the tears running down his face.

There was a little shriek in the door leading to the pantry.

“What now, Liddy?” asked the farmer.

“I saw something,” said Liddy, with shuttling eyes.

“What did you see, Liddy?”

“The sun and moon moving.”

“Massy! Where, Liddy?”

“On the face of the clock. Something is in there. That clock comes to life sometimes,” she added, going out.

All eyes were turned toward the clock. Knives, forks, and spoons were laid down, clicking on the many dishes.

The top of the clock, which was uncovered, seemed animated. Some said that they could see it move, others that the supposed movement was merely a matter of the imagination.

Liddy came into the room again with more dishes.

“I think,” said she, “that the clock-case is haunted.”

“Pshaw, Liddy!” said the farmer. “And what makes you say that? Who is it that would haunt that old eight-day clock?”

“One of the Britishers who was shot by a bullet made from the lead weights. That’s my way of thinking. I’ve known about it for a long time.”

“Liddy, you’re a little bit off—touched in mind—that’s what you are, Liddy. You never was quite all there.”

There arose another nervous shriek. Knives and forks dropped.

“What now, Liddy?” asked the farmer. “You set things all into agitation.”

The house dog joined Liddy in the new excitement. He ran under the table and to the clock and began to paw the case and to bark. There was a very happy, lively tone in his bark. He then sat down and watched the clock in a human way.

The guests waited for the farmer to speak.

“What did you see, Liddy?” asked Mis’ Overfield.

“The planets turned. Look there, now—now—there—there!”

The sun and moon on the clock face were indeed agitated. The old dog gave a leap into the air and barked more joyously than before.

“The valley of Ajalon!” said the farmer. “That old timepiece is bewitched. These things are mightily peculiarsome. I’m not inclined to be superstitious, but what am I to think, the planets turning around in that way? They say dogs do see apparitions first and start up. What would Annie say if she were here now? You don’t believe in signs, any of you, do you? I’m not superstitious, as I said, and I say it again. But what can be the matter with that there old clock-case? I hope that nothing has happened to Annie. She used to wind that clock. What do you suppose is the matter?”

The farmer’s eyes rolled like the planets on the clock face.

“Let me go and see,” said Mis’ Overfield, rising slowly and going toward the case, which seemed to quiver as she advanced, supporting herself by the backs of the chairs.

The nervous fancies of little Liddy could not be repressed. She called in an atmospheric voice:

“Mis’ Overfield, be careful how you open that clock door.”

Mis’ Overfield stopped.

“Why, Liddy, you distress me. The things that you say go to my nerves. Why, Liddy, should I be afraid to open the clock door?”

“Suppose, Mis’ Overfield—dare I say it—suppose you should find a dead body there?”

Mis’ Overfield leaned on the back of a chair, and Liddy added in an awesome tone:

“A girl’s—your own flesh and blood, Mis’ Overfield.”

Farmer Overfield leaned back in his chair.

The table was as silent as though it had been bare in an empty room.

The dog gave a quick, sharp bark.

Mis’ Overfield stood trembling.

“Heaven forgive me!” she said. “My heart and Annie’s are the same. We should be good to our own.”

She shook. “If I only knew that Annie was alive, I would forgive her everything. I would take her home to my bosom, her Tory husband and all. I never would have one hour of peace if she were to die. I never knew my heart before. Her cradle was here, and here should be her last rest. Annie was a good girl, and I am blind and hard. Annie, Annie! Oh, I would not have anything befall Annie. Albert, where is the key of the clock?”

The boy gave his mother the key.

“Here, mother, and it is a jolly time we’ll have.”

“Albert, how can you smile at a time like this! Didn’t you hear what she suggested? Don’t you sense it? You go with me now slowly, for I am all nerves, and my heart is weak.”

“That I will, mother.”

He gave her his arm and looked back with smiling eyes on the terrified guests.

“Dast that boy, he knows!” cried Liddy in almost profane excitement. “Hold up your hands. The house is going to fall.”

“Be quiet, Liddy,” said the farmer. “All be quiet now. We can not tell what is before us. Be still. It seems as though I can hear the steps of Providence. Something awaits us. I can feel it in my bones.”

The guests arose, and all stood silent.

Mis’ Overfield stopped before the clock door.

“Annie’s hand used to wind the clock,” she said. “Oh, what would I give to hear her wind the clock once more! I would be willing to lie down and give up all to know that she was alive. Liddy’s words do so chill me.”

She knocked on the clock door.

“Mother!”

The voice was the music-like tone of old. “Mother, you will forgive me if I did marry a Tory, for Annie is Annie—always Annie!”

The guests stood with intent faces.

The clock shook again. The old woman moved back.

“That was Annie’s voice. Husband, you go and see. If that is not Annie, then my heart is dead forever, and I hope there may be no hereafter for me.”

Farmer Overfield took the keys and slowly opened the clock door.

The guests stood with motionless eyes. The opening door revealed at first a dress, then a hand. The old woman threw up her arms.

“That’s Annie’s hand. There is no ring on it. Annie was too poor to have a wedding-ring. Open it slowly, husband. If she is not living, I am dead.”

The door was moved slowly by a trembling hand. A form appeared.

“That’s Annie,” said the old woman.

A face. The lips parted.

“Father, may I come out and sit beside you in the chair at the table?”

The dog whirled around with delight.

“Annie, my own Annie, life of my life, heart of my heart! Annie, how came you here?” exclaimed the farmer.

“I wished to see you, father, and all of my kin on this day, and mother—poor mother——”

“Don’t say that. I’m not worthy that you should say that, but my hard heart is gone,” faltered Mis’ Overfield.

“I got Albert to prepare the clock-case so I could stand here and move the planets around so that I could see you through the circles made for the planets. You can never dream how I felt here. My heart ached to know if any one to-day would think of me, and when you talked of me my heart made the old case tremble.”

“Annie, come here,” said Farmer Overfield.

“But I was not invited, father. I did not intend to make myself known to any one but Albert. I have been here before in the disguise of a soldier.”

“Annie, you are Annie, if you did marry a Tory sailor!” and the family heart was one again.

The story illustrates the family feeling of the time both as regards patriots and Tories.

---

CHAPTER VII
WASHINGTON SPEAKS A NAME WHICH NAMES THE REPUBLIC

When Washington was at Cambridge his headquarters were at the Craigie House, now known as the “home of Longfellow,” as that poet of the world’s heart lived and wrote there for nearly a generation. Go to Cambridge, my young people who visit Boston, and you may see the past of the Revolutionary days there, if you will close your eyes to the present. The old tree is there under which Washington took command of the army; a memorial stone with an inscription marks the place. The old buildings of Harvard College are there much as they were in Washington’s days. The Episcopal church where Washington worshiped still stands, and one may sit down in the pew that the general-in-chief occupied as in the Old North Church, Boston.

The tree under which Washington took command of the army is decayed and is rapidly falling away. It was once a magnificent elm, and Washington caused a lookout to be made in the top, which overlooked Boston and the British defenses. We can easily imagine him with his glass, hidden among the green boughs of this lofty and bowery tree, watching the movements of the enemy. Such an incident of the Revolution would seem to invite a national picture like one of young John Trumbull’s.

Washington held his councils of war at the Craigie House. It was doubtless from there that he sent his courier flying to Jonathan Trumbull for help. His message was that the army must have food.

It was then that the Connecticut Governor called together the Committee of Public Safety and sent his men of the secret service into the farm-ways of Connecticut and gathered cattle and stores from the farms, and forwarded the supplies on their way to Boston, and Dennis O’Hay went with them.

Boston was to be evacuated. Where were the British going? What was next to be done?

Washington called a council of his generals, and they deliberated the question of the hour.

The help that had given strength to the army investing Boston during the siege had come from Connecticut; the great heart-beat of Jonathan Trumbull had sent the British fleet out on the sea and away from Castle William (now the water-park of South Boston).

What should be done next? Officer after officer gave his views, without conclusion. The Brighton meadows, afterward made famous by the pen of Longfellow, glimmered in the light of early spring over which the happy wings of birds were rising in song. The great trees rustled in the spring winds. The officers paced the floor. What was to be done next? The officers waited for Washington to speak.

He had deliberated, but was not sure as to the wisest course to pursue.

He lifted his face at last, and said:

“We will have to consult Brother Jonathan.”

The name had been used before in the army, but not in this official way at a council.

It was at this council, or one like this, that he began to impress the worth of the judgment of the Connecticut Governor upon his generals.

Washington had unconsciously named the republic.

The Connecticut Governor’s home name began to rise to fame.

These officers repeated it to others.

Dennis O’Hay heard it. He was told that Washington had spoken it, probably at a council in the Craigie House, possibly at some out-of-door consultation. However this may be, the word had passed from the lips of the man of destiny.

“Cracky,” said Dennis, using the Yankee term of resolution, “and I will fly back to Connecticut, I will, on the wings of me horse, and I will, and tell the Governor of that, and I will, and all the people on the green, and I will, and set the children to clapping their hands, and the birds all a-singing in the green tree-tops, and I will.”

Dennis leaped on his horse as with wings. He slapped the horse’s neck with his bridle-rein and flew down the turnpike to Norwich, and did not so much as stop to rest at the Plainfield Tavern. That horse had the swiftness of wings, and Dennis seemed to be a kind of centaur.

The people saw him coming, and swung their hats, but only to say, “Who passed with the wind?”

The people of the cedars saw him coming up the hill and gathered on the green to ask:

“What is it, Dennis?”

“Great news! Great news!”

It was a day at the brightening of spring among the cedars. The people of the country around had heard of Dennis’s return and they gathered upon the green, which was growing green. The buds on the trees were swelling, the blue air was brightening, and nature was budding and seemed everywhere to be singing in the songs of birds.

All the world was full of joy, as the people gathered that day on the green. The Governor came out of his war office to hear Dennis speak; the schools were there, and William Williams, afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, honored the occasion with his presence.

Williams stood beside the Whig Governor under the glowing trees.

Dennis came out on the green, full of honorable pride.

His first words were characteristic:

“Oh, all ye people, all of the cedars, you well may gather together—now. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, for it is good news that I bring to ye all. Boston has fallen; it has tumbled into our hands, and Castle William has gone down into the sea, to the Britisher, and the same will never play Yankee Doodle there any more.

“Oh, but you should have seen him, as your brothers and I did—General Washington. He looked as though he had been born to lead the world. And what did he call our Governor—now, that is what I am bursting to tell you—what did he call our Governor?”

“The first patriot in America,” answered a merry farmer.

“Not that, now, but something better than that. Hear ye, open the mouths of your ears, now, and prepare to shout; all shout. He called—so the officers all say—he called him what you call him now. Colonel? No, no; not that. Judge? No, no; not that. Governor? No, no; not that. He called him what the heroes here who ran from the fields with their guns call him; what the good wives all call him; what the old men call him; what the children call him; what the dogs, cats, and all the birds call him; no, no; not that, but all nature here catches the spirit of what we called him. He called him Brother Jonathan! Shout, boys! Shout, girls! Shout, old men! Shout all! The world will call him that some day. My soul prophesies that. Shout, shout, shout! with the rising sun over the cedars—all shout for the long life and happiness of Brother Jonathan!”

Lebanon shouted, and birds flew up from the trees and clapped their wings, and the modest old Governor said:

“I love the soul of the man who delights to bring the people good news. I wrote to Washington, when he took command of the army at Cambridge, these words:

“‘Be strong and very courageous. May the God of the armies of Israel shower down his blessings upon you; may he give you wisdom and fortitude; may he cover your head in the day of battle, and convince our enemies of their mistake in attempting to deprive us of our liberties.’ And, my neighbors, what did he answer me? He wrote to me, saying: ‘My confidence is in Almighty God.’ So we are brothers. And my neighbor Dennis brings good tidings of joy out of his great heart. His heart is ours. What will we do for such a man as Dennis O’Hay?”

“Make him an ensign, the ensign of the alarm-post,” said one.

So Dennis O’Hay became known as Ensign Dennis O’Hay.

The Governor saw that in Dennis he had a messenger to send out on horses with wings, to bring back to Lebanon green the tidings of the events of the war.

The old Governor turned aside when the shouting was over.

“Dennis?”

“Your Honor?”

“You have been by the cabin of old Wetmore, the wood-chopper of the lane.”

“Yes, your Honor.”

“Well, I am afraid that the old man is a Tory. You have heard how he turned tall Peter, his nephew, out of doors? He said to the boy: ‘Out you go!’ The boy came to me; my mind is taken up by the correspondences, so I made him my clerk. I want you to put your arms around him—for me.”

“Why did the old man say to the boy that?”

“The boy rejoiced over the Concord fight—you see! Put your arms around him. I want you two should be friends.”

“I will put my arms around him, for your sake and for the sake of Dennis O’Hay. He shall be my heart’s own.”

Peter had found friends—hearts.

He used to think of his old uncle as he slept under the cedars out of doors, on guard after his duties in the store, amid the fireflies, the night animals and birds.

He would seem to hear the old wood-chopper counting:

“One—

“Two—

“Three!”

He would wonder if the old man were counting for him, or if that which was counted would go to the King. If the patriots won their cause, the counted gold, if such it were, could not go to the King. What were the old man’s thoughts and purposes when he counted nights?

At the corner of the Trumbull house, overlooking the hills and roads in the country of the cedars, was a passageway that connected with the high roof. From this passageway the approach of an enemy could be signaled by a guard, and there was no point in the movements of the army more important than this.

Governor Trumbull became recognized as a power that stood behind the American armies. Lebanon of the cedars was the secret capital of the colonies. Here gathered the reserves of the war.

The common enemy everywhere began to plot against the iron Governor. Spies continued to come to Lebanon in many disguises and went away.

The people of Lebanon warned the Governor against these plots and spies, but he believed in Providence; that some good angel of protection attended him. When they told him that his life was in constant peril, he would say, like one who commanded hosts invisible, that “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.”

Dennis was in terror when he came to see the Governor’s danger. He had a bed in the garret, or “cockloft,” overlooking the cedars. From his room he watched the roads that led up to the hill.

One day some men of mystery came to the war office on horseback. Dennis saw them coming, from the garret or upper room. He hastened to the Governor at the war office, and gave the alarm. The men had their story, but Dennis saw that they were spies, and thought that they intended to return again.

Dennis had gained the confidence of the Governor and of the good man’s family perfectly now. He had become a shadow of the Governor, as it were.

After these mysterious men went away, the Governor called Dennis into his war office, and said:

“Dennis, you know a tremendous secret, and you warned me against these men. Why do you suspect them?”

“Because a conniving man carries an air of suspicion about him, your Honor. I can see it; I have second sight; some folks have, your Honor.”

“Dennis, you may be right. A pure heart sees clear, and you are an honest man, else there are none. Why do you think these men came? What was their hidden motive?”

“To find out where you hid your powder, your Honor. They are powder finders. In powder lies the hope of the cause, Governor. I have a thing on my mind, if I have a mind.”

“Well, Dennis, what have you on your mind?”

“There must be a military alarm-post in the cedars. It must be connected with hiding-places all along the way from Putnam to Norwich. And it is a man that you can trust that you must set in charge of the same alarm-post. As you said, I do know a tremendous secret.”

“You are a man that I can trust, Dennis; if not, who?”

“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing.

“Your heart is as true to liberty as that of Washington himself. To be true-hearted is the greatest thing in the world; hearts are more than rank.”

“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing again lower, “I would rather hear you say that than be a king.”

“Good, Dennis. Samuel Adams replied to the agent of General Gage who said to him, ‘It is time for you to make your peace with the King,’ and who then offered him bribes: ‘I trust that I have long ago made my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth shall make me recreant to my duties to my country.’”

“Samuel Adams is a glorious man, your Honor, and has a heart true to your own. I would die for liberty, and be willing to be forgotten for the cause. What matters what becomes of Dennis O’Hay—but the cause, the cause!”

“Then, Dennis, you are the one of all others to take charge of the alarm-post that you propose to establish permanently.” Many are willing to die in a cause that would not be willing to be forgotten, the old man thought, and walked about with his hands behind him.

“Forgotten, Dennis, what is it to be forgotten? The winds of the desert blow over the Persepolis, but where is the Persepolis? Babylon, where are thy sixty miles of walls, and the chariots that rolled on their lofty ways? Gone with the wind. Egypt, where are all the kings that raised thy pyramids? Gone with the wind. Solomon, where is thy throne of the gold and gems of the Ind? Gone with the wind. We all shall be forgotten, or only live in the good that we do. I like that word which you spoke, willing to be forgotten for the welfare of mankind. Dennis, I would be willing to be forgotten. I live for the cause. I seek neither money nor fame, but only to do the will of the everlasting God, to which I surrender all. To live for good influence is the whole of life. Soul value is everything. How will you establish the alarm-post?”

“I will watch the roads from the top of the second stairs as I have done before. I will have trusty men in the cedars who will set up signal lights at night. One of these men shall live in the rocks so that he may guard the place where the powder is stored. He shall ride a swift horse, and set up fire-signals at night. The secret shall be known to but few, if you will trust it to me to pick my men. And Peter—nimble Peter—your trusty clerk—who was sent out—he shall be my heart’s own.”

“I leave it all to you, Dennis. Establish the alarm-post. Select you hidden men. As for me, I believe like the men in the camp of the Hebrews, in helpers invisible. An angel stayed the hand of Abraham, and went before the tribes on their march out of Egypt, and led the feet of Abraham’s servant to find Rebecca; and when the young king was afraid to encounter so great a host, the prophet opened his spiritual eyes, and lo! the mountain was full of chariots and horsemen. The angel of Providence protects me; I know it, I feel it; it is my mission to reenforce the American army when it is in straits. Faith walks with the heavens, and I live by faith.”

Dennis went out. He felt free, like one commissioned by a higher power. Yes, he did know a tremendous secret. He knew where the powder was hidden.

When he had come to share with the Governor the secrets of collecting saltpeter and powder, he learned all the ways of this secret service. There must be found a place where this powder could be hidden, so as to be safely guarded. It was a necessity.

Lebanon abounded in rocky hills in which were caves. These caves could be guarded, and yet they would not be secure against spies. Dennis began to put his Irish wits at work to devise a way to protect a storage of powder against spies.

The tall, nimble boy who had been in the service of William Williams came first into Dennis’s mind and heart. Mr. Williams, for whom the boy had kept sheep, was a graduate of Harvard College, and had been a member of the Committee of Correspondence for the Union and Safety of the Colonies. This man had written several pamphlets to awaken the spirit of the colonies to resist aggression, and the nimble boy to whom we have referred, now the clerk, had listened at doors to the reading of these pamphlets, and drank in the spirit of them until he had become so full of patriotic feeling that he thought of little but the cause.

Dennis’s intuitive eye fixed itself upon this boy for secret service.

“Peter Nimble,” said Dennis to the young farmhand one day, as the latter was resting under the trees after the planting of pumpkin-seeds among the corn, while the sheep grazed, “I have come over here to have a secret talk with you. I have long had my eye on you. You are full of the new fire; you see things quick; you have long legs, and you are all brain, heart, and legs. You are just the lad I want.”

“For what, Dennis?”

“For the secret service. Will you promise me never to tell what I am about to tell you now?”

“Never, Dennis.”

“Though the sky fall?”

“Though the sky fall, and the earth cave in, and the waters cover the land. Never, Dennis, if it be for the cause.”

“It is for the cause, Peter. Hark ye, boy. We must store powder here. Powder is the life of the war. We must store it in a cave, and we must have some one to guard the cave, and to give an alarm if spies shall come.”

“I can run,” said Peter.

“Yes, Peter, you can run, and run the right way, too. You will never turn your heels against the country. You can outrun all the boys. But it is not for your heels that I come to you. I want a guard with nimble thoughts as well as legs. You could run to me quickly by day, as on feet of air, but it is for the night that I want you; for a curious service, a queer service.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Hold a window before your face, with a light in the window, and stand back by the roadside in the cedars.”

“That would be a strange thing for me to do, Dennis. How would that help the cause?”

“You know all the people of the town. You would know a stranger to be a stranger. Now, no stranger can pass down the turnpike at night without a passport. If he does, he is an enemy or a spy.

“You are to stand behind the lighted window at night back in the cedars, some distance from the road. If you see a stranger coming down the road at night, or hear him, you are to leave the window and light on a post and demand his passport. The window and light at a distance will look like a house. If the traveler have no passport, you must ask him to follow you at a distance toward the light in the window. Hear: ‘at a distance.’

“Then you are to take the window and the light and move up the hill, by the brook ways, so that I can see the light at the alarm-post. Then you may put out the light, and run for the war office: run like the wind. That will detain the spy, should he be one, and we will be warned and thwart his design. Do you see?”

“I see, but am I to be stationed near a cave where the powder is hidden?”

“No—tish, tish—but at a place that would turn a night traveler from the place where the powder is concealed. You yourself are not to know, or to seek to know, where the powder is hidden. No, no—tish, tish. If you were to be overpowered, you must be able to say that you do not know where the saltpeter is. Tish, tish!”

“That is a strange service, Dennis, but I will do as you say. I will watch by the window in the heat and cold, in the rain and snow, and I will never desert my post.”

“That you will, my boy. The true heart never deserts its post. You may save an army by this strange service. You are no longer to be Peter Nimble, but a window in the cedars. Ah, Peter, Peter, not in vain did the old man send you out. Boy, the Governor likes you, and you are my heart’s own!”

“But I will have to give up my place in the store?”

“I will talk with the Governor about that.”

One day Dennis O’Hay stood by the high window, looking down the turnpike road. A horseman seemed to leap on his flying steed into the way. Dennis ran down the stairs to give an alarm, and found the Governor in the great room, thinking as always.

“A man is coming on horseback, riding like mad. He looks like a general.”

“Spencer—I am expecting him—I sent for him. Sit down; your presence may make a clearer atmosphere.”

Dennis did not comprehend the Governor, but his curiosity was excited, and he sat down by the stairway.

A horse dashed up to the door. A man in uniform knocked, and entered with little ceremony.

“Governor, I am dishonored. Let me say at once that I am about to resign my commission in the army.”

“You have been superseded by General Putnam.”

“Yes; I who offered my life and all in the north in the service of my country, have been superseded. Congress little esteems such service as mine. Governor, I am undone.”

“General Spencer, Congress is seeking to place the best leaders in the field. It has done so now. It has not dishonored you; it honors you; it wants your service under Putnam.”

“Under! You may well say under. Would you, with a record like mine, serve under any man?”

“I would. My only thought is for the good of the people and the success of the cause. I have given up making money, for the cause. I have given up seeking position of popularity, for the cause. I am seeking to be neither a general, nor a congressman, nor a diplomat, for the cause. Whatever a man be or have, his influence is all that he is. I would do anything that would tend to make my influence powerful for the cause. I have snuffed out ambition, for the cause.”

General Spencer dropped his hands on his knees.

“Governor Trumbull, what would you have me do?”

“Serve your country under Putnam—as Congress wills—and never hinder the cause by any personal consideration. Be the cause.”

“Governor, I will; for your sake, I will. I see my way clear. I was not myself when I came—I am myself now.”

“Not for my sake, General, but for the cause!”

Dennis had seen the Governor’s soul. Giant that he was, tears ran down his face. He went out into the open air.

It was evening at Lebanon. He looked up to the hills and saw the clerk, who had again become a shepherd-boy, there in the dusk guiding the sheep to sheltered pastures among the savins.

Dennis was lonesome for companionship. He was but a common laborer, with no family or fortune, nothing but his honest soul.

He longed to talk with one like himself. He walked up the hills, and hailed the shepherd-boy, who had become a guard in the new secret service.

“Nimble,” he said, “you believe in the Governor, don’t you? I do, more and more.”

“’Fore the Lord, I do,” said the shepherd in an awesome tone.

“I have just seen the soul of that man. He is more of a god than a man. But, Nimble, Nimble, my heart’s own boy, he is surrounded more and more by spies, and think of it, wagons of powder are coming here and going away. What havoc a spy could make!

“Boy, my heart goes out to that man. I would die for him. So would you. I am going to act as a guard for him, not only openly—I do that now—but secretly. You will act with me.”

“Yes, yes, Dennis. But what more can I do?”

“Keep your eyes open on the hills against surprise, and guard the magazines.”

“That I am doing, but where are the magazines?”

“Where are the magazines?”

“Oh, boy, boy, do not seek to know. Tish, tish! Have an eye on the covered ways that are still. You watch nights by the window?”

“Yes, and I can watch days.”

The sheep lay down in the sheltered ways of the high hill, and the two talked together as brothers. They had become a part of the cause.

And Dennis found in his heart a new and unexpected delight. It was when he said to the shepherd-boy of the green cedars, as he did almost daily, “You are my heart’s own; we serve one cause, and look for nothing more!”

So these two patriots became to Brother Jonathan “helpers invisible.”

The Governor now hurried levies. Lebanon was a scene of excitement. Connecticut forgot her own perils, for the greater need.

Dennis was ordered away with the men. He was to drive a powder-wagon. The young shepherd was to leave for a time his place as a watchman and to go with him.

In the midst of these preparations a beautiful, anxious face flitted to and fro. It was that of Madam Trumbull.

“You must not go,” said she to Dennis. “We need you here.”

“Who?”

“I—spies swarm; the Governor is all of the time in peril. I can trust your heart.”

“He must go,” said the Governor. “The powder-wagon needs him more than I do. I shall be guarded. I can hear the wings; the rocks of Lebanon are not firmer than my faith. Powder is the battle. Go, Dennis, go. Our powder told at Bunker Hill; they will need it again.”

Dennis and the shepherd-boy went, guarding the powder.

“Good-by, Governor,” said Dennis. “We leave the heavens behind us still.”

What a time that was! Every Whig forgot his own self and interests in the cause. No one looked for any pay for anything. The cattle, the sheep, the corn and grain, all belonged to the cause. Everything followed the suggestion of the great Governor’s heart.

Tories and spies came to Lebanon with plots in their hearts, but they went away again. Ships down the river landed men, who came to Lebanon with evil intents; but they looked at the Governor from the tavern window, as he crossed the green, and went away again.

The school for the training of Indian missionaries, that had been founded in Lebanon and that had trained Occum, who became the marvelous Indian preacher, had been removed to a log-house college on the upper Connecticut now, where it was to become Dartmouth College. But Indians still came to the green, and heard the cannon thunder with wonder.

The Governor’s house, the alarm-post, was to become the head of a long line of signal-stations.

---

CHAPTER VIII
PETER NIMBLE AND DENNIS IN THE ALARM-POST

Peter, after being entrusted with Dennis’s secret of the hidden powder, walked about like one whose head was in the air. If he stuck pumpkin-seeds into corn-hills, he did so with a machine-like motion. He had listened to the singing of the birds in the cedars, but he forgot the bird-singing now; though he loved rare wild flowers, a white orchid bloomed among the wintergreens by the ferny brookside, but he did not see it now; the sky, the forests, and everything seemed to have vanished away.

He watched Dennis after their return as the latter came out of the alarm-post over the way and went to the tavern or the war office.

Dennis for a time merely bowed to him and passed him by, day by day, when on duty; and the corn grew, and the orioles flamed in the air. But one thought held him—a picture of the light in the window in the cedars, guarding some unknown cave that contained the lightnings and the thunder of the battle-field. What would come of that service?

He at last felt that he must see Dennis. He could stand the suspense no longer.

So one night he crept up to Dennis’s chamber under the rafters.

“I could stay away from you no longer, after what you told me,” said he. “Strange things are going on—horsemen coming and going; queer people haunt the Colchester road; knife-grinders, clock-cleaners, going into the forest to get walnut-oil; men calling out ‘Old brass to mend’; and I seem to see spies in them, and I fear for him.”

“Boy, I fear for him. He is an old man now, but he walks erect, and seems to think that some host unseen is guarding him. He wears the armor of faith. I can see it, other people do not; and he does not fear the face of clay.”

“Dennis, when are you going to set me behind the window and the light in the cedars, at night?”

“Soon, boy, soon. Let us look out of the window.”

It was a June night. Below them was the war office, the Alden Tavern, the house of William Williams—the boy’s home. Afar stretched the intervales, now full of fireflies and glowing with the silvery light of the half-moon. Night-hawks made lively the still air, and the lonely notes of the whippoorwills rang out from the cedars and savins in nature’s own sad cadences. The roads were full of the odors of wild roses and sweetbrier, but were silent.

“Dennis,” said Peter, “I have been thinking. Suppose I were to watch in the cedars, and an unknown man were to come down the open road toward the light in the window. And suppose I were to say, ‘Halt, and give the countersign,’ and he were to have no countersign. Then I would say, ‘Follow me, but do not come near me, or I will discharge my duty upon you.’ And suppose he were to follow, and I move back, back, back with the window and light, and he were to think that I were a house, and that I were to draw him into a trap and lose him, and put out the light and run for you—what would you do then?”

“I would hunt for him in the ravine where you left him—in the wood trap—and would find him, and wring from him the cause of his being on the highway without a passport.”

“Dennis, do you think that such a thing as that will ever happen?”

“Yes; my instincts tell me that it will. Boy, there is one man whom Washington trusts, whom the Governor relies upon, but in whom I can see a false heart. He was born only a few miles from here. He is famous. If he were to turn traitor to our cause, as I believe he will, he would send spies to Lebanon. He would seek to destroy the hiding-places of powder, and he knows where they are to be found. Then, boy, your time to thwart such designs would come.”

“What is that man’s name?”

“I hardly dare to breathe it even to you, with a heart of truth.”

“I will never break your confidence. What is the name?”

“Benedict Arnold!”

It now began to be seen in the army that the Governor was in peril. The Tories plotted a secret warfare against the leading patriots.

One day Governor Trumbull met the Council of Public Safety with the alarming declaration:

“They have put a price upon my head.”

A reward had been secretly offered for his capture.

“I must have a guard,” he said, and a guard was granted him of four sturdy, loyal men—a public guard, who examined all strangers who came by day to Lebanon.

The plots of the Tories filled the country with alarm. One of these plots was to assassinate Washington. Others were to abduct the royal Governors.

These plotters tried to seize Governor Clinton of New York, and William Livingston, the patriotic Governor of New Jersey. They did seize General Stillman at Fairfield and carried him away as a prisoner.

Lebanon was exposed to such incursions from the sea. Spy boats were on the waters, and these might land men on the highway to Lebanon and seize the Governor and bear him away.

The biographer of Governor Trumbull (Stuart) thus relates an incident that illustrates the perils to which the Governor was exposed:

“A traveler, in the garb of a mendicant—of exceedingly suspicious appearance—came into his house one evening when he was unwell and had retired to bed. The stranger, though denied the opportunity of seeing him, yet insisted upon an interview so pertinaciously that at last the Governor’s wary housekeeper—Mrs. Hyde—alarmed and disgusted at his conduct, seized the shovel and tongs from the fireplace and drove him out of the house. At the same time she called loudly for the guard; but the intruder suddenly disappeared, and, though careful search was made, eluded pursuit, and never appeared in that quarter again.”

One of the reasons that made Lebanon a perilous place and that invited plots and spies was that magazines of powder from the West Indies were thought to be hidden here, as well as at New London and along the Connecticut main and river. Powder was the necessity of the war; to explode a powder magazine was to retard the cause.

Lebanon was like a secret fortress to the cause. Prisoners of war were sent to Governor Trumbull. It was thought that they could not be rescued here. But their detention here by the wise, firm Governor invited new plots. The thirteen colonies sent their State prisoners here. Among these prisoners was the Tory son of Benjamin Franklin, a disgrace to the great patriot, that led him to carry a heavy heart amid all of his honors as the ambassador to the French court. Dr. Benjamin Church, a classmate of Trumbull at college, was sent to him among these prisoners.

Trumbull became universally hated by the Tories. They saw in him the silent captain of the world’s movement for liberty. The condition became so alarming that in November, 1779, Washington sent a message to him to seize all Tories. “They are preying upon the vitals of the country,” he said. The Continental Congress demanded of him to “arrest every person that endangered the safety of the colony.” The condition that became so alarming, then, was beginning now.

What a position was that that was held by this brave, clear-headed, conscience-free man!

Strangers were coming and going; any one of them might have a cunning plot against the Governor in his heart. The way to him was easy. Express-wagons with provisions started from Lebanon; drivers of cattle came there; people who had cases of casuistry; men desiring public appointment in the army; peddlers, wayfarers, seamen, the captains of privateers.

But he walked among them—amid these accumulating perils—as one who had a “guard invisible.” He had. He knew that his own people were loyal to him, that they believed him as one directed by the Supreme Power for the supreme good, and that they loved him as a father.

Dennis guarded the good old man as though he had had a commission from the skies to do so. He gave to him the strength of his great heart. He caused a tower—“the alarm-post”—over his head, one secret room, to protect him—“a room over the gate”—and the room must have seemed to the man whose brain directed all like the outstretched wing of a guardian divine. The Governor was an old man when the war began. Born in 1710, he was at the time of the Declaration of Independence sixty-six years old.

Dennis was like a guardian sent to him, and Peter like a messenger sent to Dennis. There was something in the glances of each to the other that was out of the common of life—it was the cause.

One day there was a shout in the alarm-post.

A man was riding up the Colchester road, dashing, as it were, as if his own body and that of his horse were only agents of this thought. He was an Irishman. When the Lexington alarm came, he had heard the clock of liberty strike; his hour had come.

“A man is coming like mad, riding with the wind,” said the sentinel in common terms.

The man came rushing up to the store, and drew his rein. The Governor met him there.

“Knox, your Honor, Knox of the artillery. I was at Bunker Hill.”

“I know you by your good name,” said the Governor. “You know how to put your shoulder to the wheel.”

Knox of the artillery smiled.

He had won the reputation of knowing how to put his shoulder to the wheel in a queer way. There was a rivalry between the Northenders and Southenders in Boston, and both parties celebrated Guy Fawkes’s day with grotesque processions, in which were effigies of Guy Fawkes and the devil. In an evening procession of the party to which young Knox belonged on Guy Fawkes’s day the wheel of the wagon or float bearing an effigy, possibly of Guy Fawkes, broke, and that the rival party might not know it and ridicule his party, he said:

“I will put my shoulder to the wheel.”

He did this, and the float moved on, and the pride of his party was saved.

Knox of the artillery had kept a bookstore in Boston. It was like the New Corner Bookstore before the famous Old Corner Bookstore. When the war broke out he was attached to the artillery. There was a great need of powder, and he had a scent for it. He found it, he hid it; he was the “powder-monkey” of the great campaigns.

Like Paul Revere, he caught the spirit of the minutemen. He could ride for liberty! He was riding for liberty now!

“Washington recommended you to volunteer for the artillery service,” said the Governor. “I could have no more favorable introduction to you. You do not ride for nothing, my young friend. May I ask what brings you here? Your horse foams.”

“There is no time to be lost in days like these,” said the young artilleryman. “These are days of destiny, and we must make the success of our cause sure. I went to Washington for permission to bring the siege-guns and powder from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. I have come to you for a like reason. I am sure, in my soul, of ultimate victory; I know it will come, but preparation is victory. Boston is evacuated, and to defend New York we must protect the coast of Connecticut. I have conferred with Washington, and I must have a word with you.”

“To the tavern with the horse,” said the Governor. “Into the store, or war office, as I call my place here, we will go and shut the weather-door, and I will answer ‘Go’ if any call. We will consider the matter.”

They went into the store and the door was shut.

Without sighed the cedars in the April or May winds. It was the coming of summer; the bright wings of southern birds were blooming in the air. The cedars were dressing in green, and the elms flaming in the glowing suns of the long days.

They talked, as we may fancy, of the sons of liberty, the siege of Boston, and the outlook, and here young Knox gained strength to face the strenuous campaigns of New York and the Jerseys, and to cause the cannon of liberty to thunder as never before.

They talked of Rhode Island. Strange things were happening there.

Then the Committee of Safety came. And they considered the matter.

The Governor had a habit of saying, “Let us consider the matter”; after a time he added, “and bring it before the council.”

He walked about like a visitor to the world. He was always “considering” some matter.

He would stand before the church, considering; cross the green, considering; the public men who came to visit him usually found him considering.

Why had Knox come to Lebanon?

It was to talk of powder. How could saltpeter be found? Where could it be stored?

There might be a powder magazine at New London, or near it, or in covert in a place on the Connecticut, or right here among the rocky caves of the hills. Where?

The Governor would “consider.” He did, and the secret hiding-places of powder were known to few besides him. The Governor knew the guards of the magazines. So Connecticut stored powder.

“Powder, powder, ye gods, send us powder!” cried General Putnam at [the battle of Bunker Hill].

[The battle of Bunker Hill.]

There was a powder famine. The whole army needed powder.

One day the Governor sat before his door on the green, waiting the return of Dennis. The latter came back from a commission which he had executed quickly, and dropped from his horse on the green.

“You have made short time, Dennis.”

“Yes, Governor; I never think of myself, but only of the cause.”

“You may well say that, and I know it to be true. Such a spirit as that in these testing times is invaluable. I have a new commission for you.”

“Let me have it. I will die for it; I am in for liberty now—head, heart, and heels.”

He sunk down on the green.

“Let us consider,” the Governor said; “let us consider. You have heard me speak of Salisbury, the hidden town in the northwest corner of the State, on the Housatonic. The world knows little of that town, but it hears much. There has been a foundry there since ’62. I am going to make an arsenal there, and manufacture guns there, and make it a powder-post. I must have post-riders who can lead teamsters and who can be trusted, and move quickly, to go from Lebanon green to Salisbury with my orders. No spot in America can be made more useful to our army than this. I am going to appoint you as an officer for this business, as a special messenger to Salisbury in the secret service.

“Dennis, no one can do so much as when he is doing many things. When I am doing two things well, I can do three. I never undertake anything that I can not do well, but experience enables us to do many things well, as you are learning yourself, Dennis O’Hay.”

Dennis bowed.

Salisbury was a hidden place, but rich in nature. It was a place of iron-mines, with limestone and granite at the foot of the mountains. Here the United States began to cast cannon and gather saltpeter. The works grew. Cannon-balls, bombs, shells, grape-shot, anchors, hand-grenades, swivels, mess-pots and kettles, all implements of war were made and stored here. The armaments of ships were furnished here by skilled hands. Here the furnaces blazed night and day. Here the ore-diggers, founders, molders, and guards were constantly at work. There came here an army of teamsters for transportation. The Governor wished one whom he could trust to bear his orders to this town hidden among the mountains, and Dennis was such a man. Dennis could be spared, as there was a regular guard at the alarm-post now, and the church afforded it a shelter.

The reader who makes a pilgrimage to Lebanon to visit the “war office” should note the old church and recall the habits of a stately past, when men lived less for money-making and more for the things that live.

The solemn bell rings out as of old, but it is over the graves of people who were the empire builders, but who knew it not except by faith. The gray stones are crumbling where they lie. The engine-whistle sounds afar, and Willimantic reflects the life of new times. Here New England of old lives on—apart from the hurrying world of steam and electricity.

The great cedars are gone, though cedar swamps are near. Night settles down over all in silence, and one feels here that this is a lonely world.

The lights have gone out in the old Alden Tavern, and the tavern itself is gone, but nature here is beautiful among the hills, and to the susceptible eye the hills are touched by the spirit of the patriots of old.

---

CHAPTER IX
A MAN WITH A CANE—“OFF WITH YOUR HAT”

Dennis O’Hay, who had created for the cause the alarm-post in the cedars, learned all the ways and byways of the Connecticut colonies, and the ways leading to and out of Boston. He was, as we have said, a giant in form, and his usual salutation—“The top of the morning to everybody,” or “The top of the morning to everybody on this green earth”—won the hearts of people, and as much by the tone in which it was spoken as by the whole-hearted expression itself. He came to be known as the Irish giant of the hill country.

He traveled much in the secret service from Lebanon to Plainfield and Providence, which was a part of the turnpike road to Norwich. The children and dogs seemed to know him, and the very geese along the way to salute him with honks of wonder quite uncommon.

He greeted titled people and laborers in the same common way, and he one day said to the Governor:

“If I were to meet General Prescott himself, I would not take off my hat to him unless he met me civil.”

Who was General Prescott? Not the patriot hero of Bunker Hill. He was a British general that had been sent to Rhode Island, and had made himself a terror there. The women, children, dogs, and perhaps the farmhouse geese, ran from him when he appeared; even the Rhode Island Quakers moved aside when he was seen in a highway.

He carried a cane.

When he met a person in the highway he used to say:

“Off with your hat! Don’t you know who I am?”

If the person so accosted did not doff his hat, the pompous General gave the hat a vigorous whack with his stout cane, and the wearer’s head rung, and the latter did not soon again forget his manners.

He once met an aged Quaker on the way—and these incidents are largely traditional—who approached him respectfully, after the usual way, with his broad-brimmed hat covering his curly locks.

“Yea, verily, one day outshines another, and to goodly people this is a goodly world.”

“Who are you?” said the testy General.

“A servant of the Lord, as I hope.”

“A servant of the Lord? Off with your hat! Haven’t you any reverence for me, nor the Lord either? Don’t you know who I am?”

“Nay, nay, softly; speak not thus, my friend.”

“Off with your hat!” said the irate General. “None of your yea says and nay says in my presence.”

“I never unhat or unbonnet, my friend, in the presence of any man. I could not do it if I were to meet the King himself.”

The General grew red in the face.

“There, you Pharisee, take that,” and here he applied his cane to the good Quaker’s hat, “and that, and that, and THAT!”

The Quaker strode away, and would need a new hat when next he went abroad on the highway of the orchards and gardens.

General Prescott, while at Newport, desired to have a sidewalk in front of his house, so he ordered all of his neighbors’ door-stones to be removed for the purpose.

He was a petty tyrant, and he liked nothing so much as to make the people—“rebels,” as he called them—feel his power. He would order any one whom he disliked to be sent to the military prison without assigning any reason.

He once sent a greatly respected citizen to prison and forbade that the latter should have any verbal communication with his friends or family. The wife of the prisoner used to send him notes in loaves of bread.

One day she appeared before Prescott, and desired him to allow her to make one visit to her husband.

“Who do you think I am?” said the General, or words in this spirit. “Instead of allowing you to visit him, I will have him hanged before the end of the week.”

Under the petty tyranny of Prescott no one seemed safe on the island.

The stories of Prescott’s insults to worthy people roused the spirit of Dennis.

“An’ sure it is, now,” he said to the Governor, “if I were to meet that big-feeling Britisher, I would make him take off his own hat. Look at me now.”

Dennis stretched himself up to a height of nearly seven feet.

“If he sassed me back, I’d give him one box on the ear with this shovel of a hand, and he would never speak one word after he felt its swoop; and it will be a sorry day if he ever says ‘Off with your hat’ to me, now!”

He repeated these things to Peter on the green.

Dennis had met a man in Providence by the name of Barton—Colonel Barton. This man was a native of Warren, R. I., and the son of a thrifty farmer who owned a beautiful estate on Touisset Neck. The farm and the family burying-ground are still to be seen there, much as they were in the Revolutionary days. The place is now owned by Elmer Cole.

Barton was a brave, bold man. He conceived a plan to capture the tyrannical Prescott and humiliate the testy Britisher. For this enterprise he desired to enlist strong, fearless, seafaring men.

He had met Dennis and had said to himself that he must have the rugged Irishman’s assistance.

He met Dennis again one day in Providence.

“Dennis O’Hay, can you keep a secret?”

“Sure I can, if anybody. Dennis O’Hay would not betray a secret if the earth were to quake and the heavens were all to come tumbling down, sure as you are living—never that would Dennis O’Hay.”

“Then close your mouth and open your ears. I have a plan to capture General Prescott.”

“An’ I am with ye. I’ll like to make that man feel the wake of my two fists, and he wouldn’t dare to cane me after that.”

“I want to secure twenty men or more that I can trust, seafaring men. You must be one of them,” he continued.

“I plan to go down to Warwick Neck, and to go over to the island with my picked men in the night on whale-boats. The General and his guard are at the Overing House on the north end of the island, down by the sea.

“I plan to pass through the British fleet in the night with muffled oars, to land near Prescott’s headquarters, and——”

“Whoop!” said Dennis rudely, “to carry him off before he has time to put on his clothes. You hand him over to me, and I would get him back down to the boats as easy as a chicken-hawk with a chicken. He would not even ask me to take off my hat. Put me down as one of the picked men.”

“You will meet me at the wharf on Warwick Neck on the afternoon of July 10th.”

“That I will. You are a brave man and have the spirit of the times. That man will know what are the rights of men if I ever get him between these two fists. What did Providence make these hands for?”

Dennis opened them and swung them around like a windmill.

Dennis hurried back to Lebanon. He found the Governor there, and said:

“I am going on an adventure with Colonel Barton; and when I return perhaps I will bring a stranger with me. Mum is the word, your Honor.”

“Barton, who is he?” asked the Governor.

“A man with a stout heart, who can see in the dark.”

“Go, Dennis, I have confidence in you.”

Then Dennis went to Peter. He did not tell him the plot, not all of it, but he said:

“I am going to attempt something that will tip over the world. I want you to watch for my coming back. I will signal to you from the Plainfield Hills, and when you see the signal, run to the Governor and say: ‘They’ve got him!’ Oh, Peter, it is a foine lad that you are now.” Dennis slapped both hands on his knees, and laughed in a strange way.

When the evening of the 10th of July came and Warwick Point, with its green sea meadows and great trees, faded in the long cloudy twilight, off the new wharfage lay three whale-boats, strong ribbed, and ample enough to hold immense storage of blubber.

In the shadows of the waving trees were Colonel Barton and some forty men. The old ballad says:

’Twas on that dark and stormy night,

The winds and waves did roar,

Bold Barton then with twenty men

Went down upon the shore.

There were more than twenty men who gathered at Warwick Point on that eventful evening.

It had been a windy day, a July storm, and the bay, usually so blue and placid, was ruffled.

Dennis was on hand at the appointed hour.

“This is a good night for our enterprise,” said Barton. “This is a night of darkness, and it favors us; let it be one of silence.”

“Aye, aye,” said Dennis. “Oh, General Prescott, how I long to fold you in my arms and give you a pat, pat on your face!”

“Stop your joking,” said Barton. “We face serious work now.”

Darkness fell on the waters. The men were mostly sailors, or used to seafaring life.

They heard the boom of the sunset gun from the British war-ships lying between them and Rhode Island.

The boats started toward Rhode Island in the darkness with silent men and muffled oars.

They passed between the ships that were guarding the British camp.

“All is well,” called a sentinel on one of the ships whose lights glimmered in the mist.

“Much you know about it,” said Dennis.

“Silence!” said Barton, as the oars dipped in the waters in which lay the cloud.

As silent as sea-birds and as unseen as birds in the cloud the boats passed on and reached the shores of Rhode Island, beyond the two islands of Prudence and Patience.

There were lights in the Overing House. They glimmered in the mist through the wet and dripping trees.

The clouds were breaking and the moon was rolling through them.

Barton summoned to him four trusty men. Among them was the giant Dennis, and a powerful negro called Sile Sisson.

This party stole through the side ways to the house.

A guard was there.

“Halt and give the countersign!” said the sentinel.

“We need no countersign,” said the leader. “Are there any deserters here?”

The sentinel was thrown off his guard.

Suddenly he found his gun wrenched from him, and he himself, poor man, in the hands of the giant Dennis. He was greatly astonished.

Colonel Barton entered the house, and found Mr. Overton, a Quaker, reading in one of the lower rooms.

“Is General Prescott here?” asked Colonel Barton.

The Quaker’s eyes rounded.

“He has retired.”

“Where is his room?”

“At the head of the stairs.”

Colonel Barton ascended the stairs and stood before Prescott’s door.

He gave a startling rap.

There was no response.

He tried the door. It was locked. He endeavored to force open the door, but it was firm.

“I will open the door,” said the giant negro. “Stand back.”

His head was like a battering ram. He drew back, bent forward, and struck the door with the top of his head.

Crash!

An old gentleman jumped out of bed, all astonished and excited.

“Thieves! help!” cried the terrified man; but the sentry was in charge of Dennis.

Colonel Barton laid his hand on General Prescott’s shoulder.

“General Prescott, you are my prisoner, and you must go immediately to my boats.”

“The dragon I am! Give me time to dress.”

“No, you can have no time to dress. I will take your clothes with you; march right on, just as you are.”

The proud General was pushed down-stairs, greatly to the amazement of the good Quaker, Mr. Overton, and was led out into fields which were full of briers, partly naked as he was. He was so filled with terror that he did not greatly mind the briers. He was hurried over the rough ways, gasping and trembling, and found himself on a whale-boat, with two other boats near him. The three boats moved away.

“All is well!” said the sentinels on the ships.

The noon of night passed, the clouds scudding over the moon; and the silent boats, amid the British assurances that all was well, landed near Providence, and horses with couriers ran hither and thither to carry the news that Colonel Barton had captured General Prescott.

It was decided to send Prescott to Washington’s headquarters, and he would pass through Lebanon.

Dennis rode swiftly toward Lebanon to tell the people the great news. He raised the signal at Plainfield, and Peter ran to the Governor’s office.

“Raree show! raree show!” shouted Dennis as he entered the town, and met the open-mouthed people on the green. “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad, and all good people shout now. Colonel Barton has captured General Prescott, and they are bringing him here!”

General Prescott, with his spirit unbroken, was brought to Lebanon. The carriage in which he was held as a prisoner rolled up to the door of the old Alden Tavern, and Prescott was led into the office.

“I must have something to eat,” said Prescott.

The good woman of the tavern bustled about, and brought out her bean-pot and set it down on the dining-table. She had stewed corn, too, and of the two one might make the old-time luxury called succotash.

The beans and corn steamed, and the good woman, loyal as she was, was glad that she could present so fine a supper to such a notable man.

But General Prescott had been used to the dining-halls of castles.

“Do you call that a supper?” said he angrily. “It is not fit for hogs to eat. Take it away!”

Dennis had come upon the scene.

“Take it away!” demanded Prescott haughtily.

“I’ll take you away for insulting my wife,” said the tavern-keeper. “Dennis, take down the cowhide and I will make this Britisher dance.”

The tavern-keeper applied the cowhide to the leaping General as an old-fashioned schoolmaster might have used a birch switch on an unruly boy.

It was a terrible chastisement that the General received, and he always remembered it. One day, in the course of the war, after he had been exchanged for General Lee, he met a man who looked like the tavern-keeper, and he shrunk back in alarm and said: “Oh, but I thought that was the man who cowhided me.”

These incidents are mainly true, and have but a thread of fiction.

Dennis became a local hero among the friends of Brother Jonathan, and took his place as the keeper of the alarm-post again.

“Dennis,” said the Governor to him one day, “our hearts are one; I can trust you anywhere. I will have important service for you some day. When there shall come some great emergency, I will know whom I can trust. General Washington trusts me, and I can trust you.”

What a compliment! Dennis threw up his arms, and leaped.

“I feel as though I could shake the heavens now. After General Washington, you, and after you—hurrah for Dennis O’Hay! I wish my old mother in Ireland could hear that, now. You shall never trust the heart of Dennis O’Hay to your sorrow. These times make men, and one does not get acquainted with himself until he is tried.”

Dennis had grown. He felt that something noble in the secret service awaited him. If he could not make himself famous, he could be a cause of success in others. That he would be, and this sense of manhood filled his ambition.

“It is only a matter of time,” he said, “between Shakespeare and the King and Dennis O’Hay. We will all go into oblivion at last, like the kings of the pyramids of Egypt. It is only what we do that lasts.”

So our shipwrecked mariner and rustic philosopher night after night mounted the stairs to the outlook window, and saw the stars rise and set, and was glad that he was living.

He shared his life with the shepherd-boy. He lived outside of himself, as it were—all did then.

Dennis often joined the story-tellers on the Alden green and in the war-office store. At the store the wayfarers bartered in a curious way: they swapped stories. The drovers were a pack of clever story-tellers, but also the wayfarers from the sea.

Dennis O’Hay, who had been used to the docks of Belfast, Liverpool, and London, saw some strange sights on his rides to secure stores for the army, and saltpeter among the hill towns.

One cold March day he stopped before the fence of a hillside farmhouse, and his eye rested upon the most curious object that he had ever beheld in his life. It seemed to be a sheep dressed in man’s clothing, eating old sprouts from cabbage stumps.

He sat on his horse and watched the man, or sheepman, as the case might be.

“Ye saints and sinners,” said he, “and did any one ever see the like o’ that before? Not a man in sheep’s clothing, but a sheep in a man’s clothing, browsing on last year’s second growth of cabbage. I must call at the door and find out the meaning o’ that.”

He called to the sheep:

“You there, baa, baa, baa!”

The sheep in his jacket answered him, “Baa-baa,” and came running to the gate as if to welcome him.

Dennis dismounted and pulled the strap of the door.

The sheep followed him to the door, and when the latter was opened, announced the arrival of a stranger by a baa.

A tall, elderly man stood at the door, dressed in a new woolen suit. He had a high neck-stock, and bowed in a very stately way. He had manners.

“An’ I am out on business for the Governor,” said Dennis.

“You are welcome,” said the tall man. “Any one in the service of the Governor is welcome to my home, and to the best of my scanty fare.” He bowed again.

Dennis walked in, so did the sheep, with many baas.

“Take a place before the fire,” said the tall old man. “I feel the snows of age falling upon me,” he continued. “The sun and the light of the moon will soon be darkened to me, and the clouds already return after the rain.

“The keepers of the house tremble,” here he lifted his hands, which shook with a slight palsy; “and the grinders cease because they are few,” here he pointed to his almost toothless gums; “and those that look out of the windows be darkened,” here he took a pair of spectacles from his eyes. He talked almost wholly in scriptural language.

The sheltered sheep said baa, and dropped down before the fire. Dennis knew not what to say, but uttered a yum, when the tall man broke out again: “The sound of the grinding is low, and I fear when I walk on the places that are high, and the grasshopper is a burden. Yes, my friend, the silver cord will soon be loosed, and the golden bowl broken and the pitcher at the fountain and wheel at the cistern. You find me a reed shaken by the wind, a trembling old man; but I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. I am at your service; my house, such as it is, is yours.” He bowed, and turned around and bowed.

“I am out and about collecting saltpeter,” said Dennis, “and all that I ask is to warm myself by your fire, except, except—well, that shorn sheep puzzles my wits. Pardon me, I beg a thousand pardons if I seem uncivil, but why is it dressed up in that way?”

“I will explain and enlighten your curiosity, my friendly traveler. The sheep has on my old clothing, and I have on his.”

He continued: “I am the teacher here, and my pay is small, and the war taxes take all I can save. My old clothes became very worn, as you can see there, and I had to maintain my dignity. I am a graduate of Yale, and so I exchanged clothing with my one sheep.

“My noble wife brought it about; she is at her wheel now. Let me call her and introduce her.”

He opened a door to a room where a wheel was whirling and buzzing like a northern wind.

“May, my dear!”

May appeared. The withered man bowed, holding his right hand in air on a level with his forehead. May made a courtesy.

“Behold a virtuous woman,” said the tall man, with manners. “Her price is above rubies.

“The heart of her husband does safely trust in her, that he shall have no need of spoil.

“She seeketh wool and flax.”

Here the sheep seemed to be in a familiar atmosphere, and responded in his one word, baa.

“She layeth hands on the spindle, and holds the distaff. Her household are clothed in scarlet. Her children rise up and call her blessed, and her husband praiseth her.”

Dennis had seen many parts of the world, but he had never been introduced to any one in that way before.

The old man added, much to the wonder and amusement of his guest:

“I sheared the sheep and she carded the wool, and she spun the wool and wove it into strong cloth, and dyed the cloth, and here I am clothed against the storm. You see what a wife I have got.”

“And what a sheep you have got, too,” said Dennis. “But may the Lord protect you both. You have a heart to let the sheep warm himself by your fire, and that is why you give me a place here.”

“And now, wife,” said the tall man, “place the best that you have on the table for the stranger. ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.’”

“But, my dear consort, we have only one cake left for us two.”

“Well, give that to him, and we will go supperless to Him who owns the cattle upon a thousand hills. He is riding in the cause of liberty, and needs the cake more than we. God will give us the white stone and the hidden manna, and to serve the patriots we have gone supperless before.”

Queer as it may seem, this story pictures the time. This man plowed with a cow, but treated the animal as if she was a member of the household; men and animals suffered together then in those hard, sturdy, and glorious old New England days.

“This is a queer country,” said Dennis, “but what men it makes! What will they be when they are free!”

But now came the disastrous battle of Long Island. New York was taken, and the fall winds began to blow.

There was sadness in every true American’s heart. England was rejoicing, and felt secure in the rising success of her arms.

Washington appealed to Trumbull. A former appeal had come in spring-time, when Putnam left his plow in the furrow.

The appeal now came in harvest-time. What were the farmers to do?

“The wives and boys and old men will harvest the crops,” was the public answer. “Save Washington again, Brother Jonathan!”

It was in 1777. Disaster had again befallen the American army, and Lord Howe was on the sea.

Where was the British commander going? Some thought to the Hudson River, some to Philadelphia. No patriot could know.

Washington was in great distress and perplexity.

Putnam commanded Philadelphia. In this crisis a young man presented himself to General Putnam.

“I am a patriot at heart,” he said, “but have been with Lord Howe. I have been commanded by Lord Howe to bear a letter to General Burgoyne, but, true to the American cause, I have brought the letter to you.”

The letter was, or seemed to be, in the handwriting of Lord Howe. It was sent to Washington. It informed Burgoyne that the fleet was about to proceed against Boston.

“The letter is a feint,” said Washington. But he read into it the real design of Lord Howe, which was to proceed against him, and he was thrown by it into the greatest perplexity.

He must have more troops, and at once. He consulted Putnam, and said: “I want you to send an express to Governor Trumbull at once. Tell him to send the State militia without delay. He will not fail me.” He added: “Connecticut can not be in more danger than this. Governor Trumbull will, I trust, be sensible to this. I must appeal again to Brother Jonathan.”

These were nearly Washington’s own words to Connecticut Putnam, of the fearless heart.

Putnam sent a courier to Connecticut, a man on a winged horse, as it were, who “flew” as Dennis had done.

“If you ever rode, ride now,” was the probable order. “If we ever had need of Brother Jonathan, it is now.”

Still Brother Jonathan, whose heart was like a hammer and head like a castle. This courier was destined to startle indeed the people of the cedars.

The American army was in dire distress and Lord Howe was on the sea!

Brother Jonathan! He had grown now in reputation so that the hearts of the people beyond his own State were his. If he could save the situation he would indeed be the first of patriots.

The messenger came, and said: “I am sent to you from Washington.”

The Governor turned to the courier:

“Go to the tavern; take your horse and yourself, and say to your chief, ‘It shall be done!’”

What was it that should be done?

The Council of Safety assembled in the back store.

“Washington waits another regiment,” said one of the members in the back store.

“Yes, so it seems,” said another. “Every point seems to be threatened.”

“We may find it hard to raise another regiment,” said a third member.

“One,” said the Governor, “one regiment? We must raise NINE! We can do it.”

“Will the men descend from the sky?” questioned one. “We can not create men.”

“He can who thinks he can,” said the Governor. “Nine regiments he needs, and nine regiments he shall have. Shall he not?”

“Yes,” said all, “if you can find the men.”

“I can find the men. Dennis?”

There was no response.

The shell was blown. The latch-string bobbed.

“Dennis, Washington must have NINE regiments for the defense of New York. That means work for you. Go to the towns—fly! Tell the selectmen that Washington wants men. He has sent his appeal to me; he has put confidence in my heart, notwithstanding my weak hands. He shall not appeal in vain. Go, Dennis; these days are to live again. I feel the divinity of the times; I must act, though I myself am nothing. Go to Norwich, Hartford, New Haven—fly, Dennis, fly!”

“I am not a bird, your Honor.”

“Yes, Dennis, you are. Fly!” That word was the order now.

Then the Governor talked with the Committee of Safety in the back store until midnight.

The candles went out, and the men slept there.

The nine regiments of three hundred and fifty men each were raised.

Men were few in old Windham County now. “Gone to the war,” answered many inquiries.

The women led the teams to the field; the old men, old women, and the boys went to the husk-heap and husked corn. The boys learned to use the threshing flails and winnowing sieves in the barns with open doors.

The young and old filled the potato bins in the cellar and stored the apples there. They banked the houses with thatch.

Governor Trumbull was now at the full age when the vital powers ripen, and when many men begin to abate their activities. But he seemed to forget his age; he was never so active as now.

[Jonathan Trumbull.]

Washington noted this activity of age with wonder, and he wrote to him: “I observe with great pleasure that you have ordered the remaining regiments of militia that can be spared from the immediate defense of the seacoast to march toward New York with all expedition. I can not sufficiently express my thanks.” To which Brother Jonathan replied:

“When your Excellency was pleased to request the militia of our State to be sent forward with all possible expedition to reenforce the army at New York, no time was lost to expedite the march; and I am happy to find the spirit and zeal that appeared in the people of this State, to yield every assistance in their power in the present critical situation of our affairs. The season, indeed, was most unfavorable for so many of our farmers and laborers to leave home. Many had not even secured their harvest; the greater part had secured but a small part even of their hay, and the preparation of the crop of winter’s grain for the ensuing year was totally omitted; but they, the most of them, left all to afford their help in protecting and defending their just rights and liberties against the attempt of a numerous army sent to invade them. The suddenness of the requisition, the haste and expedition required in the raising, equipping, and marching such a number of men after the large drafts before made on this State, engrossed all our time and attention.”

The people forgot themselves for the cause. When Washington and Trumbull made a call upon them for help it was like Moses and Aaron. They did not argue or question; they hurried to the village greens, there to receive their orders as from the Deity.

That autumn the Governor issued a wonderful proclamation for a day of fasting and prayer.

The bell rang; the people assembled. Trumbull always attended church, and the chair in which he used to sit is still shown in Lebanon. The people followed his example. They felt that what was best for them would be best for their children, and that whether they left them rich estates or not, they must bequeath them liberty and the examples of virtue. So they lived mightily in “Brother Jonathan’s day.”

---

CHAPTER X
BEACONS

There is one history of the Revolution that has never been written; it is that of beacons. The beacon, in the sense of a signal, was the night alarm, the night order. The hills on which beacons were set were those that could be seen from afar, and those who planted these far angles of communications of light were patriots, like the rest.

There was a beacon at Mt. Hope, R. I. It probably signaled to a beacon on King’s Rocks, Swansea, which picturesque rocks are near to the Garrison House at Myles Bridge, and the Swansea church, founded in the spirit of liberty and learning by the famous John Myles, a learned exile from Wales, who came to Swansea, Mass., for religious liberty, bringing his church records from Swansea, Wales, with him. The old Hessian burying-ground is near the place. Here John Myles founded education in the spirit of the education of all. He made every house a schoolhouse by becoming a traveling teacher.

The King’s Rocks beacon communicated with Providence, and Providence probably with Boston.

In Boston was the beacon of beacons. Beacon Hill now bears its name. A book might be written in regard to this famous beacon. It stood on Sentry Hill, a tall mast overlooking city and harbor, not at first with a globe on the top and an eagle on the globe, as is represented on the monument. Sentry Hill was the highest of the hills of Trimountain. The golden dome of the State-house marks the place now.

The first beacon in Boston was erected here in 1635. It was an odd-looking object.

The general court of Massachusetts thus gave the order for the erection of the beacon:

“It is ordered that there shall be a beacon set on Sentry Hill, to give notice to the country of danger.”

The beacon had a peg ladder and a crane, on which was hung an iron pot.

This beacon seems to have remained for nearly one hundred and fifty years. It was the suggestion of beacons in many places, and these were the telegraph stations of the Revolutionary War. A history of the beacons would be a history of the war.

What a signal it made as it blazed in the heavens! What eyes were turned toward it in the nights of alarm of the Indian wars, and again in the strenuous times of the expedition against Louisburg, and in all the years of the great Revolution! A tar-barrel was placed on the beacon-mast in perilous times, and it flamed in the sky like a comet when the country was in danger.

Beacon (or Sentry) Hill was almost a mountain then. The owners lowered it for the sake of gravel for private and public improvements. It filled hollows and lengthened wharves, and at last the beacon gave place to the monument of its usefulness.

In New York beacons were set along the highlands whose tops fired the night sky in times of danger.

These beacons or signals probably suggested the semaphore—a system of signals with shutters and flags used in France during the wars of Napoleon.

Governor Trumbull said one day to Dennis: “We must consider the matter of beacons.”

The two went into the war office to consider.

“I will bring the subject before the Committee,” said the Governor after they had “considered” the matter for a time, “and you may get Peter to point out to you the longest lookouts on the high hills. The sky must be made to speak for the cause in tongues of fire.”

The Tories more and more hated the war Governor.

“I would kill him as I would a rattlesnake,” said one of these.

There were new plots everywhere among Tory people to destroy him and his great influence.

Peter Nimble, though really a guard on secret service, still herded sheep and roamed after his flocks and guided them in the pleasant seasons of pasturage. He went up on the hills of the savins above the cedar swamps. He knew the hills better than many of the people of Lebanon.

One day he met the Governor on the green.

“Governor,” he said, “I watch at nights. You know all. I watch for spies that are looking for the magazines. You know, Governor. I can do you a greater service than that.”

“Well, boy, you speak well. What can you do?”

“I can think and talk with the skies.”

“That is bravely said, but what do you mean?”

“I can set beacons on the hills. I have studied the hilltops, and how to look far. I can see how I could flash a signal from one hill to Plainfield, and to Providence, and to New London.”

“Boy, boy, you see. I can trust you. Have you told Mr. Williams of this? Shepherd-boy, shepherd-boy, you are one after my own heart. Find out the way to set beacons. Set signals. How did this knowledge come to you?”

“My heart is full of my country, when I am among the flocks on the hills.”

“You are like another David. Talk with Dennis about these things.”

“Governor?”

“Well, my shepherd-boy?”

“One day, it may be, I will see something.”

The Governor went to his war office. People were coming from four different ways, all to consult with the Governor: horsemen, men in gigs, men from the ships, people with provisions, all with something special to say to the Governor.

The Governor met William Williams, “the signer,” at the door of the war office.

“That is a bright boy that you keep to herd sheep,” said he.

“Peter?”

“Yes. He has just said something to me that I think remarkable. Give him freedom to do much as he pleases. He is carrying out secret instructions of mine.”

Peter studied hilltops, and told Dennis of all the curious angles that he discerned on the far and near hills. He set beacons and found out how he could communicate with Plainfield, Providence, and Groton.

In the meantime he watched in the midnight hours at an angle in the turnpike road behind the curious window. He knew that the magazine was near; he did not seek to learn where. While the young patriot’s mind was employed in these things there came to him one night a very strange adventure, which led him to see to how great peril the Governor’s person was exposed.

Peter thought much of his aged uncle, the wood-chopper, who had said to him, “Out you go!” The boy had a forgiving heart. “He did it on account of his love for the King, and he thinks that a king is appointed by God,” he would say to the Governor. “Do not disturb him.”

The Governor would not disturb him. He, too, had a forgiving heart.

Peter’s heart was true to the old man. He sometimes wondered as to where would fall the old man’s gold at last—to the King, or him. But he had no selfish schemes in the matter—for him to do right was to live. In his midnight watches, and with his most curious means of communication with the alarm-post in the cedars, he held one purpose uppermost: it was, to protect from harm the unselfish Governor who had spoken so kindly to him when his heart was hungry, and whom all the people loved.

The Governor still went about with apparent unconcern; he would talk here and there with those who detained him and needed him, now at the tavern, now upon the village green. But the people all knew that dangerous people were coming and going to and from the green-walled town.

Peter saw something suspicious in the conduct of several sailors who visited the place from the ports, and who called the inland province the Connecticut main.

“I would sooner die myself,” he said to Dennis, “than to see any harm befall the Governor. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’” He had learned to quote Scripture from the Governor.

One night as he was watching with his window at the elbow of the turnpike, he was surprised to hear a soft, slow, cautious footfall, and to see a curious stranger in a blanket approaching in the dim light. He turned up the hill behind the window and light to see if the man in the blanket would follow him.

The man in the blanket turned when Peter set down the window, and went down the hill as from a house to meet the traveler.

Peter stopped the stranger, whom he saw to be dark and tall, and who held under his blanket some weapon which seemed to be a hatchet.

“Do you live in yonder house?” the man asked.

“No,” said the boy, “that is not my house. Whom are you seeking?”

“Does an old man live there?” asked the stranger. “An old man who used to live with a boy—his brother’s boy?”

“No, no,” answered Peter in much surprise.

“Do you know of any old man that lives all alone? They say that the boy has left him.”

“I have in mind such an old man, stranger.”

“What became of the boy?”

“He tends sheep during the days.”

“Can you direct me to the place where the old man lives?”

“What would you have of him?”

“I would have him help me. I need help.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“No.”

“How did you hear of him?”

“I am partly an Indian. The scholars of the Indian school that were once here used to meet him on the road in front of his woodpile. They heard that he had concealed money. Indian need heap money. Indian must have help.”

The last sentence showed that the Indian spoke true in regard to his nationality.

A suspicion flashed across Peter’s mind; this stray Indian was out in the forest at this time with no honest purpose.

He simply said: “Follow me.”

He led the Indian to the alarm-post. The Indian thought that he was going to the wood-chopper’s cabin. Dennis received the night wanderer and detained him.

“I must go and alarm my uncle,” said Peter to Dennis, privately.

He hurried away toward the old wood-chopper’s cabin.

He beat on the door, and cried:

“Lift the latch!”

There was a noise within, and presently the latch was lifted.

“You, boy? You? What brings you here at this time of night?”

“To warn you of danger. There has been a man in the cedar swamp who is seeking you, and he has no honest purpose in his heart, as I could see. He is a half-breed. He says that you have money concealed.”

The old man’s face took on a look of terror.

He began to dance around.

“Who—ah—says that I have money concealed?” he said, lighting a candle—“who—who—who?” He lit another light.

“Boy, you are not deceiving me? You never deceived anybody. And what a heart you must have to come here to protect an old man like me, who said to you, ‘Out you go!’ And you have held no hardness against me—I have cursed you—because you have turned against the King. Come in—sit down—I am afraid. You don’t think that the Indian meant to rob me, do you?”

“I think he intended to find you in the night and beg money, and if you refused him to demand money, and if you refused him, then to find out where you hid money. If I had not turned him aside, I don’t believe that you would have been living in the morning. Bad Indians murder lone men by lonely ways. There was crime in his eye.”

“Boy, let me bar the door. I know your heart. You had a mother who had a true heart, and a boy’s heart is his mother’s heart. You only come here for a good purpose. I know that. And you have come in to-night to protect me, who turned you out.

“Boy, I have money. I am willing to tell you now where it is!”

“But, uncle, I am not seeking your money—I do not wish to know where it is.”

“But you must—you must; you are the only friend that I have on earth. What made me say, ‘Out you go!’ when I needed you?

“The money—if ever I should die, do you come back here and take all I leave, and wash and wash and wash until you find the bottom of the soap-barrel. There, I haven’t told you anything. People don’t hide money in the soap-barrel—no, no; lye eats—no, no. You know enough now. Will you stay with me until morning?”

“No; I have come to take you to the war office, for protection—to the store. One room there is almost always open.”

“To the Governor’s! He suspects me of being a Tory. What would the King say, if he were to know that I went to the rebel Governor for protection? No, no, no, no. Let the Indians kill me—I will die true to my king. You may go—you will not betray me.”

“I can not leave you until morning, and then I will see that you are guarded.”

“Who will guard me?”

“The Governor will see that you are kept from harm.”

“No, no, no. Go, Peter, go—out into the night. I want the King to know that he has one heart that is true to him in the land of the cedars. Go! I will bolt my door nights—and will chop wood. That is what I tell people who come to visit me—I chop wood—and I will say no more.

“You would die for the Governor, and I am willing to suffer any danger for my king—for King George of Hanover. Go!”

Peter went out into the night. There was something in his grim uncle’s loyalty that kindled his admiration, and there was a touch in the old man’s desire that he should possess his property that really awakened a chord of love in his heart. He resolved that he would be as true to the old man as ever his duties to the cause would allow, although the rugged Tory had said to him a second time, “Out you go!” The heart knows its own.

Peter could ride like the wind. So the people said “that he streaked it through the air.” With his night service, and his placing of beacons on the hills, and his place at the door of the war office in the store, which he yet sometimes filled, and the spirit that he had shown toward his unhappy old uncle, the wood-chopper, he was making for himself a personality.

The Governor entrusted him with a message to the army at Valley Forge.

The Governor’s wife was a noble woman, as we have seen. She was true to her own. Her family were very tender-hearted and affectionate. Her daughter Faith, who could paint and who had inspired her brother, the great historic painter, in his boyhood, died of insanity after hearing the thunders of Bunker Hill. She had married Colonel Huntington, who went to the camps around Boston. She hoped to meet him there, but arrived just as the battle of Bunker Hill was rending the air.

When she thought of what war might mean to her father, her husband, and her brother, who was an officer, her mind could not withstand the dark vision that arose before her, and it went out. She died at Dedham. One of her brothers, too, had so much of the human and elemental nature as to have become greatly depressed by disappointment. The Trumbulls were a marvelous family, with a divine spark in them all, but not all the children had the rugged nerve of their father.

The wife of Governor Trumbull guarded her family when the Governor was absent on official duties at Hartford.

The family now were like so many listeners—to get tidings from the war was their life, and anxiety filled their faces as messengers from Boston, Providence, New London, and Hartford, and the great powder-mills and ordnance works of hidden Salisbury came to them.

One evening, when the Governor was away, a messenger came to the green, and stopped before the tavern. It was dark and rainy.

“It is the shepherd-boy!” said Faith Trumbull, standing in the door, with a lantern in her hand. “He has returned from Valley Forge. I almost shut my heart against the news. His face is white.”

The boy came to the house and Madam Trumbull received him by laying her hand on his shoulders.

Dennis came running in.

“You, my boy Nimble? You made a quick journey.”

The family sat down by the broad, open fire. Their anxiety was shown by their silence.

“Well,” said madam, “the time has come to speak. What news?”

“Oh, could you see,” said the shepherd-boy, “shoeless men, foodless men—snow and blood. When the men move, the snow lies red behind them. Oh, it makes my heart sick to tell it. I would think that the stars would look down in pity.”

“Dennis,” said madam, “call the women of the Relief Committee here to-night, all of them—now.”

“Let us hear what more the boy has to say.”

“No; suffering has no right to be delayed one moment of relief. Go now.”

Dennis went out into the night. He returned with the women, who began to knit stockings for the barefoot soldiers of Valley Forge.

Madam addressed the women.

“I belong to the Pilgrim Colony,” said she, “but of that I would not boast. Hear the rain, hear the sleet, and the wind rising! You have met here in the rain. The fire burns warm.

“Let me tell you my thoughts—something that comes to me. It was such a night as this when John Howland with a band of Pilgrims sailed in the deep darkness, near the coast, on the shallop of the Mayflower, and he knew not where he was.”

“What did he do?” asked one of the knitters.

“He sang in the storm. Darkness covered him—there was ice on the oars as they lifted and fell. There was no light on the coast. The wind rose and the seas were pitiless, but he sang—John Howland.”

“What did he sing?”

“That I can not tell. I think that he sang the Psalm that we sing to the words

‘God is the refuge of his saints,

Though storms of sharp distress invade.’

Let us sing that now. The storm that tossed the shallop of the Mayflower broke; the clouds lifted. So it will be at Valley Forge. Knit and sing.”

And the knitters sang. The storm rose to a gale. Shutters banged, and there was only the tavern lights to be seen across the black green.

Suddenly a strange thing happened.

Peter opened the door, hat in hand.

“Madam Trumbull,” said he, “may I speak to you?”

“Yes, Peter, boy; what have you to say?”

“I saw a strange man at Valley Forge. He was young—a Frenchman.

“One cold night he was standing near Washington in the marquee, and Washington, the great Washington, put his own cloak about him, and the two stood under the same cloak, and some officers gathered around him. And I heard him say, the young Frenchman: ‘When you shall hear the bugles of Auvergne, the cause of liberty will have won the battle of the world.’ What did he mean?”

“I do not know,” said Madam Robinson; “it seems like a prophecy; like John Howland, the pilgrim, singing in the night-storm on the shallop of the Mayflower. The bugles of Auvergne!—the words seem to ring in my ears. What was the young Frenchman’s name?”

“Lafayette.”

The next day Peter went to Dennis and related the same story, and said:

“America will be free when she shall hear the bugles of Auvergne.”

“So she will; I feel it in my soul she will—the bugles of Auvergne! That sounds like a silver trumpet from the skies. But where are the bugles of Auvergne?”

“I do not know, but we will hear them—Lafayette said so.”

“But who is that same Lafayette?”

---

CHAPTER XI
THE SECRET OF LAFAYETTE