XI
Brown to Our Prisoners
AFTER mutual congratulations over the bloodless and happy conclusion of the adventure, we set our friends down with us to eat the interrupted breakfast, to which they were prepared to do ample justice. They had ridden all night, some forty or fifty miles, in pursuit of the enemy,—had ridden all night, without rest or food, from the time they left us, at dusk of evening, till they surprised us that morning with their dauntless charge.
Another incident in connection with the events described it seems fitting to mention, as affording a very interesting side-glance at the character of our hero. After the meal, Captain Brown was asked by our officers to give a talk to the prisoners taken the day before, who were now drawn up in line for parole. He responded without an instant's hesitation or a moment to think what he should say.
He spoke to them in a plain, simple, unpretentious way, but with a directness, a force, and an eloquence withal, which doubtless wonderfully impressed those addressed, as certainly it held spell-bound all others who listened. Such vivid and indelible impression did this speech of Brown make on the mind of the present writer that, even after the lapse of these many years, he is able to reproduce it, not only in substance, but almost word for word; and he has no doubt of its exceptional character. Perhaps it was second only to that immortal address which the hero made three years later to the court at his trial in Virginia, which Emerson pronounced one of the three most remarkable addresses in the world.
On the latter occasion, however, instead of a few plain, simple, rough and ready, but intensely admiring followers, he had almost the whole civilized world eagerly to hear and sacredly to preserve his utterance.
Brown's speech to the prisoners was probably not over five minutes long in its delivery, but it lasted those forty trembling men a lifetime. It was not known that one of them ever afterward ventured over the Missouri border into the Kansas territory.
The address was as follows:
"Men of Missouri, one of your number has asked to see John Brown. Here he is. Look at him, and hereafter remember that he is the enemy of all evil-doers.
"And what of you yourselves, men! You are from a neighboring State. What are you here for? You are invaders of this territory,—and for evil purposes, you know as well as we know. You have been killing our men, terrorizing our women and children, and destroying our property,—houses, crops, and animals. So you stand here as criminals.