"The people of the town fled when they perceived the approach of the British, but Mrs. Caldwell remained, and with her children and maid retired to a private apartment and engaged in prayer.
"Presently her maid, glancing from a window, exclaimed that a red-coated soldier had jumped over the fence and was coming toward the window.
"At that Mrs. Caldwell rose from the bed where she had been sitting, and at that moment the soldier raised his musket and deliberately fired at her through the window, sending two balls through her body, killing her instantly, so that she fell dead among her poor frightened children.
"It was with some difficulty that her body was saved from the fire which was consuming the town. It was dragged out into the street, and lay exposed there for some time—several hours—till some of her friends got leave to remove it to a house on the other side of the street.
"Her husband was at the Short Hills that night, and in great anxiety and distress about his family; the next day he went with a flag of truce to the village, found it in ruins, and his wife dead.
"That cold-blooded murder and wanton destruction of the peaceful little village aroused great indignation all over the land and turned many a Tory into a Whig."
"Did anybody ever find out who it was that killed her, papa?" asked Grace.
"The murderer is said to have been a man from the north of Ireland, named McDonald, who for some unknown reason had taken a violent dislike to Mr. Caldwell.
"But little more than a year afterward Mr. Caldwell himself was slain, in a very similar manner, but by an American soldier."
"An American, Brother Levis?" exclaimed Walter, in unfeigned surprise. "Did he do it intentionally?"