"Does your excellency think I have exposed my life and blasted my character for money? No, not a dollar of your gold will I touch! Poor America has need of it all!"
"But remember, the veil that conceals your true character cannot be raised. The prime of your days is already past. What have you to subsist on?"
"These," exclaimed Harvey Birch, stretching forth his hands.
"The characters of men much esteemed depend on your secrecy. What pledge can I give them of your fidelity?"
"Tell them," said Birch, "that I would not take the gold."
The officer grasped the hand of the pedlar as he exclaimed, "Now, indeed, I know you!"
It was thirty-three years after the interview just related that an American army was once more arrayed against the troops of England; but the scene was transferred from the banks of the Hudson to those of the Niagara.
The body of Washington had long lain mouldering in the tomb, but his name was hourly receiving new lustre as his worth and integrity became more visible.
The sound of cannon and musketry was heard above the roar of the cataract. On both sides repeated and bloody charges had been made. While the action was raging an old man wandering near was seen to throw down suddenly a bundle he was carrying and to seize a musket from a fallen soldier. He plunged headlong into the thick of the fight, and bore himself as valiantly as the best of the American soldiers. When, in the evening, the order was given to the shattered troops to return to camp, Captain Wharton Dunwoodie found that his lieutenant was missing, and taking a lighted fusee, he went himself in quest of the body. The lieutenant was found on the side of the hill seated with great composure, but unable to walk from a fractured leg.