"That is ours—that is Gabor Aron[79]—and that the enemy—and now the thunder of heaven."
[79] A common rustic, who, at the beginning of the late war, astonished his countrymen by his skill in founding cannons, and in the art of gunnery.
And, when the cannon had ceased, they waited with beating hearts to hear of defeat or victory.
And all—mothers, young girls, brides, wives, breathed the same fervent wish—that if the beloved should return, it might be with glory; but that if the day were lost which was to decide the fate of their country, none might return to tell it!
On the threshold of the chapel, by the crypt-door, sat an old man: he was past eighty—his eyes were dim and lustreless, and his voice faint and trembling: he, too, had come out to the churchyard to wait the issue of the battle, for he could not rest at home; beside him sat a cripple, who had one leg shrunk up, but although the body was weak and sickly, every thought of his heart was in the battle-field, and he frequently exclaimed, in bitterness of spirit, "Why cannot I too be there?"
The cripple knelt beside the old man, and read to him out of the Bible. The passage was in Samuel, about the battles of Israel—the holy war, in which thirty thousand had fallen guarding the ark of God.
"Why cannot I be there?" sighed the unhappy youth, and read:
"'And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
"'And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head.
"'And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.