The next morning the son walked beside his father to the place of execution. The history of the war scarcely affords a more heart-rending incident. There was not a citizen of Charleston whose bosom did not swell with anguish and indignation. There was sorrow in every countenance, and when men spoke with each other, it was in accents of horror.
The Implacable Governor.—Page [14].
When the two came within sight of the gallows, the parent strengthened himself, and said to the weeping boy:
"Tom, my son, show yourself a man! That tree is the boundary of my life and all my life's sorrow. Beyond that the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Don't lay too much at heart our separation—it will be short. 'Twas but lately your mother died; to-day I die; and you, though young, must shortly follow."
"Yes, my father," replied the broken-hearted boy, "I shall soon follow you; for, indeed, I feel that I can not live long."
And this melancholy anticipation was fulfilled in a manner far more dreadful than is implied in the mere extinction of life. When his father was tom from his side, his tears flowed incessantly, and his bosom was convulsed with sobs; but when he saw that beloved parent in the hands of the executioner, the halter adjusted to his neck, and then his form convulsively struggling in the air, the fountain of his tears was suddenly stanched, and he stood transfixed with horror. He never wept again. When all was over he was led from the scene, but there was a wildness in his look, a pallor in his cheek, which alarmed his friends. The terrible truth was soon made known. His reason had fled forever. It was not long before he followed his parents to the grave, but his death was even sadder than his father's. In his last moments he often called the beloved name in accents of such anguish that the sternest hearted wept to hear him. But the merciful all-Father took him home and restored him forever to the side of that parent, the shock of whose rude death sundered the tender strings of a child's heart.
Lord Rawdon should have been proud of this noble feat. He was one of those who
"Stand, to move the world, on a child's heart."
The outrageous oppression of Governor Tryon and Lord Rawdon were only a few among many instances of the spirit shown by Government officials, until the people of the Colonies were driven to that universal rebellion which resulted in the establishment of our independence. And when that struggle was begun, British arrogance and cruelty asserted itself, in her officers and minions, in those equivocal shapes which ought to make British history blush with shame along the ensanguined record. It has been truly said that a wrong begun is only maintained by a wrong continued.