and after the hymn, the couplet:
“The warrior took that banner proud,
And it was his martial cloak and shroud!”
There was no sisterhood, properly speaking, at Bethlehem during the Revolution. The inmates of the Sisters’ House were under the care of a Mother Superior, but they were bound by no vows, and were free to leave if they wished. They abounded in good works, were full of the spirit of devotion, and had morning and evening prayers in the chapel. But there was no cowled head in that little chapel, no swinging censer, no altar; these were not in accord with the Moravian mode of worship. Famous needlewomen were those good sisters, and they excelled in embroidery. Pulaski, during a visit to Bethlehem, admired their work, and ordered for his legion a cavalry guidon of crimson silk. When finished, he paid for it; it was a commonplace business transaction, with no thought, on either side, of presentation or consecration. The noble Pole was mortally wounded at the siege of Savannah and was buried in the Savannah River. Whether the guidon, miscalled a banner, was used as his shroud, those who have seen it in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, can testify.
Even the novelists claim indulgence in this sort of license. In that fanciful story of Bulwer-Lytton, “The Last Days of Pompeii,” for example, he says (Book v. ch. vi.),—
“The air was now still for a few minutes; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on—they gained the gate—they passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning hashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood amid the crashing elements; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape.”
In a foot-note the novelist adds,—
“The skeletons of more than one sentry were found at their posts.”
Very pretty. As Mrs. Browning says, “Beautiful indeed, and worthy of acceptation.” What a pity that we have to fall back upon the mistrustful “Se non è vero è ben trovato.” Not that we question the likelihood of such stern and unflinching obedience of orders in any age of the world, but we want trustworthy evidence. In the case of the boy “who stood on the burning deck,” commemorated by Mrs. Hemans, we have such evidence. It is a feature of British naval history that Casabianca, the young son of the admiral of the Orient, at the battle of the Nile, stood at his post, and perished when the flames of the burning ship reached the magazine.
Moore says in his “Irish Melodies”: