And now the wagon had come to the field, where stood the gallows, and all those hundreds of soldiers, and the great brass cannon. The bright sun shone on the bayonets and muskets of the soldiers and their gay uniforms, and the lovely Blue Mountains looked very calm and peaceful; and the soldiers kept very close to old John, for Virginia felt uneasy till the breath was out of him. Then John got out of the wagon and stood on the scaffold, and took his hat off for the last time, and laid it down by his side. Then he thanked the jailer, who had been kind to him; then they tied his elbows and ankles; then they drew a white cap over his eyes, and then they put the Kentucky rope around his neck. Then the sheriff told John to step forward; and John said, “I can’t see; you must lead me.” Then the sheriff asked John to drop his handkerchief, for a signal for him to hang him; and John said, “Now I am ready; only don’t keep me long waiting.”
When John asked his enemies for time for his trial, they wouldn’t let him have any; now, when he did not want any more time, they kept him waiting. So they made the old man stand there, blindfolded, full ten minutes, while they marched the soldiers up and down, and in and out, just as if they were drilling on parade. Some of the soldiers felt ashamed of this cruelty to the old man, and muttered between their teeth, for it was as much as their necks were worth to say it loud, “Shame! shame!” Then, at last, after the military maneuvers were over, the rope was cut, and John struggled and strangled and died. Then, you know, after that, Virginia had to be very sure the old man was really dead; so first the Charlestown doctors went up and poked him over, and pulled him about; then the military doctors had their turn; lifting up his arms, and putting their ears a great deal closer to his breast than they would have cared to do once, to see if he breathed; then they swung the body this way and that, in the air, for thirty-eight minutes. Then they lifted the body upon the scaffold, and it fell into a harmless heap. Then, although all the doctors who had pulled him around declared that he was dead, still Virginia was so afraid of John, that she insisted on cutting the dead body’s head off, or making it swallow some poison, for fear, by some hocus pocus, it might wake up again. But it didn’t wake—at least, not in the way they expected. But there is fierce fighting down in Virginia to-day; for, though John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on!
THE PLOUGHBOY POET.
Mother Nature does not always, like other mothers, lay her pet children on downy pillows, and under silken canopies. She seems to delight in showing that money shall buy everything but brains. At any rate, she not only opened our poet’s big, lustrous eyes, in a clay cottage, put roughly together by his father’s own hands, but, shortly after his birth, she blew it down over his head, and the mother and child were picked out from among the ruins, and carried to a neighbor’s for safe keeping—rather a rough welcome to a world which, in its own slow fashion, after the mold was on his breast, heaped over it honors, which seemed then such a mockery.
But the poor little baby and his mother, happy in their mutual love, knew little enough of all this. A good, loving mother she was, Agnes by name; keeping her house in order with a matron’s pride; chanting old songs and ballads to her baby-boy, as she glided cheerfully about; not discouraged when things went wrong on the farm, and the crops failed, and the table was scantily supplied with food—singing, hoping, trusting, loving still; a very woman, over whose head cottages might tumble, so that her heart was but satisfied.
Robert’s father was a good man, who performed each day’s duty as carefully as though each day brought other reward than that of having done his duty. It is a brave, strong heart, my dear children, which can do this. All can labor when success follows; it is disaster, defeat, difficulties, which prove what a man’s soul is made of. It is just here that the ranks grow thin in life’s battle—just here that the faint-hearted perish by the wayside, or desert, like cowards, to the enemy. William Burns stood manfully to his duty, plodding on, year after year;—when one plan failed, trying another; never saying, when his day’s work was done, “Ah! but this is too discouraging! I’ll to the alehouse, to drown my griefs in strong drink!” Neither did he go home moody and disconsolate, to drive his children into corners, and bring tears to the eyes of his toiling wife. But morning and evening the prayer went up, with unfailing trust in Heaven. Oh! but that was glorious! I love William Burns! Did he say at night, when so weary, “Now, at least, I’ll rest?” Not he: there were little bright eyes about him, out of which the eager soul was looking. So he gathered them about his armchair on those long winter evenings, and read to them, and taught them, and answered their simple yet deep questions. One of Robert’s sweetest poems, the Cotter’s Saturday Night, was written about this. Robert’s father told his children, too, of the history of their country; of skirmishes, sieges, and battles; old songs and ballads, too, he repeated to them, charming their young ears. Was not this a lovely home picture? Oh! how much were these peasant children to be envied above the children of richer parents, kept in the nursery, in the long intervals when their parents, forgetful of these sweet duties, were seeking their own pleasure and amusement. More blessed, surely, is the humblest roof, round whose evening hearth gather nightly, all its inmates, young and old.
Nor—poor as they were—did they lack books. Dainties they could forego, but not books; confusedly thrown about—soiled and thumbed; but—unlike our gilded, center-table ornaments—well selected, and well read. And so the years passed on, as does the life of so many human beings, quiet, but eventful.
Who sneers at “old women”? I should like to trace, for a jeering world, the influence of that important person in the Burns family. Old Jenny Wilson! Little she herself knew her power, when, with Robert Burns upon her knee, she poured into his listening ear her never-ending store of tales about fairies, and “brownies,” and witches, and giants, and dragons. So strong was the impression these supernatural stories made upon the mind of the boy, that he declared that, in later life, he could never go through a suspicious-looking place, without expecting to see some unearthly shape appear. Who shall determine how much this withered old woman had to do with making the boy a poet? And yet, poor humble soul—that is an idea which seldom enters the mind of his admirers. The bent figure, with wrinkle-seamed face, gliding noiselessly about your house, doing odds and ends of household labor, now singing a child to sleep, now cooking at the kitchen fire, now repairing a garment, or watching by a sickbed—always on hand, yet never in anybody’s way; silent, grateful, unobtrusive, yet beloved of Heaven—have you not known them?
Robert’s mother, the good Agnes, had a voice sweet as her name. The ballads she sang him were all of a serious cast. She had learned them, when a girl, from her mother. Oh, these songs! Many a simple hymn, thus listened to by childhood’s ear, has been that soul’s last utterance this side the grave. All other childish impressions may have faded away, but “mother’s hymn” is never forgotten. That strain, heard by none else, will sometimes come, an unbidden, unwelcome guest; and neither in noise nor wine can that bearded man drown it—this mother’s hymn! Sing on, sing on, ye patient, toiling mothers! over the cradle—by the fireside. Angels smile as they listen. The lark whom the cloud covers, is not lost.