“There seems to be less firing now,” observed Vine, after listening in silence a few minutes. “Can you perceive any new movements afoot? Can't you distinguish any of the words of command, or any thing that is said among that uproar of voices, which, between the booming of the cannon, once in a while, plainly reaches my ears?”
“Ay,” returned the other, intently bending her ear towards the scene of action—“ay, I think I can, now. Hark! I hear one voice in particular, rising loud over all others; but it is the voice of one in prayer, invoking the God of battles to strike with the free and aid in bringing down quick destruction on their foes. How mightily he cries to Heaven for succor and success!”
“Where is he? among the rest in the fight?”
“No, not directly in the battle, I should think, but a little aloof, in the rear of this end of the American lines. There! I can now distinguish his form coming obliquely out of the smoke in this direction.”
“Who is he?”
“I know not; but he seems a venerable old man, and his long, white locks are streaming in the wind, as, with a grasped musket in his hands, and the cry of The sword of the Lord and Gideon on his lips, he rushes towards the foe.”
“What! to encounter them alone?”
“Yes, alone, and in advance of all others. Now he takes his stand in front of a group of tories partially concealed by the bushes on the bank of the stream. There! he raises his gun, and crying, God have mercy on your soul, fires, and his victim pitches headlong to the ground. They return his fire, but harm him not; and he again raises his gun, and, with the same prayer for mercy on the soul of the foeman he has singled out, fires, and another tory falls heavily to the earth. Mercy! they are now rushing forward to slay the old man! But now they are met by a party of the Americans, running forward with shouts, For the rescue of Father Herriot! Both sides fire; and again all are enveloped in the cloud of smoke that rolls over them.”
“Father Herriot—Father Herriot,” said Vine, musingly. “I have heard a great deal said about one they call Father Herriot, lately; but can he be here fighting?”
“Why, who and what is he, that he should not be here?” asked the other.