“Certainly, my son; but recollect that the fight which Ben Bunker and me had is mighty entertaining.”
“I have no doubt of it, sir; still, as I have taken a fancy to ‘The Rescue at the Eleventh Hour,’ you would oblige me by relating that.”
The old veteran bowed, swallowed a glass of wine, and commenced the tale.
“The days of which I now speak, my son, were pregnant with perils. When we retired to our beds at night, we knew not what the morning might bring forth. We might hear of the death of a father, mother, or sister, by the ruthless hand of a British forager, or equally sanguine tory. Or else our ears would be greeted with the wail of some outcast, who had travelled all night to flee the ravagers of his property. Every hour was pregnant with news, either in favor or against the interests of our country. The British, at the time of which I speak, were overrunning the land, devastating the fairest farms, and murdering or making captive their inhabitants.
“I was then young—but twenty years had passed over my head, and, of course, I possessed all the sanguine nature of youth: added to which, my soul was kindled to anger by the horrid accounts which reached us daily of British brutality. My father, who had fought in the old French and Indians wars, had taught me to despise oppression, but to worship freedom.
“Early impressions seldom fade from the mind, but become more vivid with the increase of our years, and so had the sentiments which my father had taught me.
“The next farm to that of my father’s, belonged to Charles Worthington, who had but one child, a daughter, about three years younger than I was. Even yet, after a lapse of fifty years, the blood bounds through my veins, and my heart heaves with an unusual emotion, as I think of that fair girl. Ah, she was surpassing fair, but yet her beauty was rivalled by her goodness of heart and her amiability. With a skin of the fairest white, deep blue eyes, forehead high and expansive, and features altogether classical, she was one whom any one could love; and, excuse me, my son, for indulging in reflections which may be of no interest to you, but these pictures, when they do arise in the memory, are still intensely vivid, while their being so long ago enacted, gives each small incident an interest with me, which to you may appear unworthy of a single thought.
“Lucy Worthington and I met, and we loved, and it was that deep love which casts its hue over all our future actions. It was the first love—when those whirlwind passions of the mind are first awakened to activity, and, like the sun rising over the landscape, throws its hues upon every object, and tinges them of its own peculiar color.
“For months Lucy and I were almost inseparable companions—we consumed the greater part of our days wandering in the fields and woods, gathering flowers and listening to each other’s words; and my greatest ambition was to please her, my only thoughts to elicit a smile of love from her bright eye. Thus passed away the days till the destroyer came.
“It was a bright morning in summer. The sun had just risen, and I was gazing upon its early rays, as they threw the shadows of the dancing foliage through the window upon the opposite wall; when I heard a distant crack of a gun, which was immediately followed by another, then another, and then others, in such quick succession that I could not count them.