But no one answered; and she again relapsed into the same ominous silence, and continued gazing with the same burning intensity, till the man, with a look of conscience-smitten agony, came up, and laying down his burden on the grass, gently turned it over, and presented to her the face of her slain husband; when shriek after shriek broke, in quick and startling succession, from her convulsed bosom, and she was carried, in a state of wild and fearful frenzy, into the house. The homicide was the tory husband, who, having met his victim in the fight, and acting, as he averred, under an irresistible impulse, had singled out and slain one, whom, the next moment, he would have given worlds to have been able to bring to life. [Footnote: The scene here introduced is drawn from an incident belonging to the local history of the battle of Bennington, and is but one among the many sad and touching occurrences which tradition has preserved as connected with that memorable conflict.]
The scattered forces of the sky now again began to collect, the rain to descend, and the angry winds to roar through the surrounding forest, compelling both the assailed and assailants to retire from the fields and woods to their respective places of rendezvous for shelter. And soon night closed over the scene, and shrouded every object from view with its Egyptian darkness.
Widely different were the feelings and impressions which the events of that afternoon had imparted to the troops of the two opposing armies. The advantages gained, though not very important or decisive, had yet been almost wholly on the side of the Americans. Their different parties of scouts and skirmishers, who, with the first slackening of the storm, had filled the woods in every direction around the British encampment, had slain or disabled, in the various encounters of the day, more than thirty of their opponents, and, among them, two Indian chiefs, whose destruction caused a rejoicing proportioned to the exasperation which their presence here had occasioned. And the effect of the whole had been to banish the last remaining doubts of success from their bosoms, and make them long for the hour when they should be permitted to meet the foe in regular battle. The losses and defeats of the royal forces, on the other hand, had proportionally depressed their feelings, and filled them with dark forebodings of the fate which was in store for them. Nor did these feelings, in conjunction with the natural effect of the gloom and physical discomforts of their situation, long fail of a characteristic manifestation among the contrasted bands of that fated army. And strange and fearful were the sights and sounds which their encampment exhibited during the night of storm and darkness that followed. The sullen oaths and outlandish grumbling of the Germans, delving and splashing away at their unfinished intrenchments,—the noisy execrations of the exasperated tories moving restlessly about from tent to tent, and swearing revenge for the losses,—the sputtering of the Canadians,—the frightful whooping of the discontented savages, as their dark forms were seen darting about in the flickering light of their camp fires, and finally, the groans and blaspheming curses of the poor wretches who had been wounded in the skirmishes of the day, all mingling with the wailing of the wind, and the ceaseless pattering of the rain, combined to form a scene as wild and dismal as language could well paint, or even imagination conceive, and throw over this devoted spot of earth more of the air of the regions of the damned, than of the abodes of human beings.
But what, in the mean while, were the thoughts and sensations of the hapless maiden, whose fate and fortune seemed to have become so strangely involved in the movements and scenes we have been describing? To her the day had been but a varying scene of gloom and wretchedness—of maidenly terror and painful excitement. And night had come only to be made still more hideous by its accumulated horrors. Shuddering at the strange and appalling sounds, that constantly assailed her recoiling senses from without, and pained and distressed at the ceaseless wailing of the bereaved and heart-broken wife within—often startled and alarmed at the noisy intrusions of the heartless tories in the room below, and their frequent threats, and even occasional attempts to get into her apartment above, and tortured by the anxieties, suspense, and apprehension she felt respecting the fate for which she might be reserved, independent of the more immediately-menaced evils around her, she lay, hour after hour, during the first watches of that fearful night, tremblingly clinging to her less-troubled companion, and earnestly praying for death, or the approach of morning, to relieve her from some of the horrors of her situation. But at length her exhausted system yielded to the requirements of nature, and her senses became locked, and her cares lost, in the forgetfulness of slumber.
She and her attendant were awakened, the next morning, by the reveille of the clangorous brass drums of the Hessians, and the mingling hum of the stirring camp around them. Attiring themselves with that haste which, whether required or not, is usually consequent on a state of great anxiety, they ran to the window and glanced out over the landscape. But what a contrast with what it yesterday presented! The black storm-cloud, that had so closely brooded over the earth, had been rolled away, and the cerulean vault above was as calm and cloudless as if storm and tempest had never disfigured its beautiful expanse. The air was full of balmy sweetness; and soon the golden sun, slowly mounting over the eastern hills, poured down his floods of light upon the varigated landscape, transforming the still-weeping forest into a sea of glittering diamonds, converting the hitherto unnoticed openings on the surrounding hill-sides into bright spots of smiling verdure, and adding a brighter tint to the yellow fields of waving grain, that stood ripening in the valley, soon to be trod and trampled by other than peaceful reapers' feet:—
“For here, far other harvest here
Than that which peasant's scythe demands,
Was gathered in by sterner hands,
With musket, blade, and spear.”
Slowly rolled the bright hours of that calm and beautiful morning away, as Miss Haviland, with her attendant, sat by the window, often and anxiously glancing along the road to the east, to catch a glimpse of that army, in whose movements all her hopes were centred, making its expected advance. But it came not. No American—not even a scout or skirmisher—any where made his appearance; and no signs of a battle were visible in any quarter, unless they might be gathered from the busy labors of the British troops in putting their arms in order, or the unusual stillness and the air of anxious suspense that seemed to pervade their whole encampment. Noon came; and still all remained quiet as before. That hour, and the next, also, passed away with the same ominous stillness; and the desponding girl began seriously to fear, that the Americans had indeed retreated from the vicinity, and left her and the country alike at the mercy of the foe. But just as this depressing thought was taking possession of her mind, a sound reached her ears from afar, that caused her suddenly to start to her feet with a look of joy and animation that, for weeks, had been a stranger to her countenance.