A year has passed away—the second year of the
Revolution—and Greyslaer is not nearer the fruition
of his hopes than in the hour when they first dawned
anew upon his soul. The calls of military duty
have, in the mean time, carried him far from his native
valley, to which, with a sword whose temper
has been tried on many a Southern field, he is now
returning; for New-York at this moment needs all
her children to defend her soil. Burgoyne upon
the Hudson, and St. Leger along the Mohawk, are
marching to unite their forces in the heart of the
province, and sweep the country from the lakes to
the seaboard.

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

The ascendency which, upon the first outbreak
of hostilities, the Whigs of Tryon county attained
over the opposite faction, seemed, at this period of
the great struggle, about to be wrenched from their
hands. The conspiring bands of Tories which had
been driven out or disarmed when Schuyler marched
upon Johnstown and crushed the first rising of
the royalists, had lifted the royal standard anew
upon the border, and rumours of the thousands who
were flocking to it struck dismay into the patriot
councils. Brant and his Mohawks had always kept
the field in guerilla warfare, and the frontiersmen
were habituated to the terror of his name; but now
Guy Johnson, who had been stirring up the more
remote tribes, was said to have thickened his files
with a cloud of savage warriors. The combined
Indian and refugee forces had rendezvoused at Oswego
thoroughly armed and appointed for an efficient
campaign; and Barry St. Leger, who took
command of the whole, boasted confidently that he
would effect a conjunction with Burgoyne, if that
leader could make good his march upon Albany.

Availing himself of the numerous streams and
lakes of the country to transport his artillery and
heavy munitions, St. Leger advanced with forced
marches from the wilds of the North and the West,
and, penetrating into the Valley of the Mohawk, invested
Fort Stanwix, the portal of the whole region
beyond to the Hudson. The province far and wide
was alarmed at this bold and hitherto successful invasion;
and some of the sturdiest patriots of Tryon
county stood aghast at the incoming torrent which
threatened to overwhelm them. But the anxiety of
the mass was more akin to the alarm that arouses
than to the terror which paralyzes action. There
is a spirit abroad among the people; a spirit of determined
resolve, of vengeful hatred against those

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

who have come back to desolate the land with fire
and sword. Sir John Johnson, who stands high
in the councils of the invading general, has approached
the threshold of his fortified patrimony;
but the arrogant though brave baronet, should he
penetrate as far as the broad domain over which his
family once exercised an almost princely sway, will
find that strange changes have taken place among
his rustic and once humble neighbours.

The march of armies, the pomp and parade of
martial times, with many of the dark incidents of
civil feud shadowing the pageantry of regular war-fare,
have been beheld in the Valley of the Mohawk,
and the lapse of a short two years has markedly
altered the character of the district in which
the principal scenes of our story are laid. The inhabitants
are no longer gathered together in village
or hamlet to reason calmly about their rights, and
pass formal resolutions upon the conduct of their
rulers. The reckless assertion, the hot and hasty
reply, the careless laugh or fierce oath which cuts
short the laggard argument, show that men's tempers
have altered, and the times of debate have long
since given way to those of action. The soldier has
taken the place of the civilian; the military muster
supplanted the political assemblage; and the plain
yeomanry of a rural district are no longer recognisable
in the gay military groups that seem to have
usurped their place at the roadside inn. Now, especially,
when the proclamation of the commandant
of the district has summoned every male inhabitant
capable of bearing arms to the field, the high-ways
are filled with yeomanry corps, battalions of
infantry, volunteers from the villages, and squadrons
of mounted rangers from the remote settlements, all
urging their way to the general rendezvous at Fort
Dayton.

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

Hitherward, too, occasionally, intermingled with
these raw levies, were likewise marching bodies of
experienced partisan troops, which, as the scene of
war shifted from one part of the northern frontier to
another, had kept the field from the first. Armed
and trained to serve as either cavalry or infantry,
the “Mohawk Yægers,” as they called themselves,
were found acting now as videttes and foraging
parties for the Congressional forces; fighting now
by themselves with the Indians in guerilla conflict,
and now again co-operating with the Continental
army in regular warfare. The public-house of
Nicholas Wingear, which lay immediately upon the
road to Fort Dayton, was at this time a favourite
stopping-place of refreshment with the different
corps which composed this motley army, and a
small command had halted there for the night at the
time we resume the thread of our story.

The old stone-built inn, with its ruined sheds and
outhouses of half-hewn logs, which used to stand
somewhere about midway upon the road between
Canajoharie and German Flats, has probably long
since given place to some more modern hostelrie.
Mine ancient host, too, the worthy Deacon Wingear—
unless the flavour of his liquor lives in the memory
of some octogenarian toper—is perhaps likewise
forgotten. It is not less our duty, however, to
chronicle his name here while opening this act of
our drama beneath the hospitable roof of Nicholas.

The apartment in which the ranger corps were
carousing was large and rudely furnished, containing
only—besides the permanent fixture of a bar
for the sale of liquors, which was partitioned off under
the staircase at one end of the room—a small
cherry-wood table and a few rush-bottomed chairs
as its customary moveables. Temporary arrangements
seemed, however, to have been lately made

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

for a greater number of guests than those would
accommodate. An oaken settle had been brought
from its place in the porch, and arranged, with several
hastily-constructed benches, around a rude substitute
for a dining-table, formed by nailing a pair
of shutters upon a stout log placed upright upon the
floor; the convenience being eked out in length by
some unplaned boards resting upon an empty cask
or two.

The rudeness of this primitive banqueting furniture
could hardly be said to be smoothed away
by a soiled and crumpled tablecloth which scantily
concealed less than half of its upper surface. It
appeared, however, to answer the purpose with the
bluff campaigners who were now seated around it,
filling beaker after beaker from a huge pewter flagon
which rapidly circulated around the board. Nor did
they, while making the most of these ungainly appliances
for their comfort, envy the burly and selfish
lounger who occupied and monopolized two or three
of the chairs, as well as the smaller and neater table
in one corner of the apartment. Of this privileged
and loutish individual we shall speak hereafter. A
heavy black patch covered one of his eyes; but the
curious glances which he with the other ever and
anon casts upon the carousing soldiery would intimate
that they are worthy of a more minute description
than we have yet given of them.

Their—stacked arms and knapsacks flung carelessly
in the corners might indicate that they are
only some fatigue party of militia that has stopped
here for refreshment; or it may be a detachment
from some larger body of light troops which has
halted for the night upon their march through the
country. The absence of all military etiquette, and
the free and equal tone of their intercourse, as they
sit all drinking at the same board, would imply that

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

they are only privates of some volunteer company
of foot. And yet, if his sabre and spurs were wanting,
there is still that in the appearance as well as
the equipments of more than one of their number
which would anywhere distinguish him from the
common soldier of a marching regiment, much less
from an ordinary militia-man. His looks are too
intelligent for those of a mere human machine, accustomed
only to act in mechanical unison with
others. His features are earnest, but not rigid.
His air is martial, but yet not strictly military.
It betrays the schooling of service rather than the
habit of discipline. It bespeaks the soldier, who
has been made such by circumstance rather than by
the drill sergeant. In a word, it is the air of a guerilla,
and not of a regular.

But listen; the partisan grows musical in his
cups. There is a grave pause in his wild wassail;
he has linked hands with his comrades; and now,
with one voice, they raise their battle hymn together.
It is that half-German gathering song which, in the
days of the Revolution, used to stir the Teuton blood
of “The old Residenters,” as the men of the Mohawk
called themselves.

1.
Raise the heart, raise the hand,
Swear ye for the glorious cause,
Swear by Nature's holy laws
To defend your fatherland?
By the glory ye inherit,
By the deeds that patriots dare,
By your country's freedom, swear it:
By the Eternal, this day swear!
Raise the heart, raise the hand,
Fling abroad the starry banner,
Ever live our country's honour,
Ever bloom our native land.

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

The solitary lounger, who sat aloof from the soldiers,
exhibited every sign of boorish impatience
short of being directly offensive, as each new verse
followed the repetition of the chorus from the other
table. He was a strong-featured, bull-necked fellow,
whose slouched drab beaver, huge loaded whip,
and blanket-cloth overcoat indicated the occupation
of a teamster or drover. A pipe and pot of beer had
been placed before him while the soldiers were in
the midst of their song, with whose soothing luxury
he seemed not fully content, however, judging by
the growling impatience with which, ever and anon,
he now asked about some toasted cheese that it appeared
was preparing for him in the kitchen. His

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

remarks were addressed to mine host, a thin-faced,
lank-haired worthy, in a complete suit of black velveteen,
who stood behind the bar with slate in hand,
ready to make any addition to his reckoning at the
first call for replenishing the jorum of the soldiers;
and partly to a tight lass that glided to and fro
through the room, on the alert to receive the orders
of the company.

“Why, Tavy, gal,” said the drover, “I shall have
drank up all my ale before that cheese is forthcoming.
Your mammy ought to be able to toss up
such a trifle at five minutes' notice. I must ride
far to-night, and that right soon, to overtake my cattle,
which must be driven to Fort Dayton before
breakfast to-morrow. And here on moment—I
would tell you something, my pretty Tavy.”

“Octavia Sarah Ann,” cried a shrewish female
voice from the kitchen.

“Go, Tavy, my good girl, to your mother,” said
mine host, evidently uneasy to get the girl out of the
way of the cheese customer. “Your call shall be
obeyed in a moment, worthy sir; only have a little
patience. We are anything but strong-handed in
this house just now. My son Zachariah went off
with the Congress soldiers yesterday, and Scotch
Angus stole away to join the king's people last week.
The niggers are all sorting the horses that came in
to-night, and my good woman has no one to split a
stick for her till Zip comes in from the stable.”

“Well, Bully Nick, you might have spared all
that long palaver if you had left spry-tongued Tavy
to tell me the same thing in three words, instead of
squinting and blinking to her to clear out, as you did
just now. Hark ye, Nicholas, I would say a word
to you;” and the man, whose lawless features put
on a scowl, as if some angry thought had struck
him, beckoned to the innkeeper to approach near

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

enough for them to exchange a whisper together.
But this mark of confidence Wingear seemed sedulously
to avoid; and the traveller, at last rising
abruptly from his seat, strode up to the bar, and,
flinging down his reckoning, stalked out of the apartment;
not, however, before he had leaned over the
counter, and, catching the shrinking Nicholas by
the collar of his coat, muttered in his ear,

“I see you know me, worthy Nick! and, seeing
that you do, I've half a mind to slit your weasand
for fighting so shy of an old acquaintance. Schinos!
breathe but a syllable to this rebel gang, and
I'll roast you and your household among those rotten
timbers before morning. Remember! I have
an eye upon you, even among that batch of fools
yonder.”

“I say, deacon,” cried one of the Yægers, as the
innkeeper, stooping down behind the bar, as if busied
in arranging something, managed thus to conceal
the terror which this formidable speech had
inspired, “I say, deacon, my boy, who the devil's
that surly chap who's just left us?”

“That's more than I can tell you, Captain De
Roos,” replied Wingear, with difficulty mastering
the trepidation into which he had been thrown, and
still averting his face as he plied his towel industriously
along the shelves over which he leaned.
“The man's in the cattle business, I believe, sir,
as he talked of driving some critturs to Fort Dayton
for the troops there.”

The officer paused for a moment in mere idleness
of thought, as it seemed from the intentness
with which he watched the smoke-wreaths from his
mouth curling upward toward the rafters; and then
knocking the ashes from his segar, he resumed abruptly,
before replacing it in his lips,

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

“Did you ever see anything of Wolfert Valtmeyer
in these parts, Nicky?”

“Oh yes, sir,” answered Octavia, who that moment
entered with a fresh flagon from the cellar;
“he stopped here about harvest time two years ago
with Mr. Bradshawe, just as the troubles were beginning.
They went off in a hurry; folks said because
old Balt the hunter came down here to look
after their doings.”

“You are mistaken, Tavy,” said her father, uneasily;
“Bradshawe and the drover—and Valtmeyer
I mean—put down the pitcher, gal, and don't
stand gaping at me so. The drover and Brad—I
mean Wolfert—”

“You mean! and what the devil do you mean?”
said the soldier, turning round fiercely, and fixing a
stern eye upon the innkeeper. “Keep a straight
tongue between your teeth, Nick, or you may wish
it bitten off when too late.”

The abashed publican, quailing beneath the penetrating
glance of De Roos, was glad of any excuse
for remaining silent, while the other, addressing the
girl, thus pursued his inquiries:

“And so, my pretty Tavy, you saw Valtmeyer
about two years since, eh? About the time of
Greyslaer's fight, wasn't it?”

“Yes, sir, either just before or just after Brant
carried off Miss Alida.”

The features of the gay soldier darkened as she
spoke; but, quickly resuming his air of unconcern,
he continued his questions by asking,

“What kind of a looking fellow was Wolfert
then? Did he bear any resemblance to the drover
that was here but now?”

“He was about as tall as the drover, sir, but not
so fleshy. When the drover had his back turned I
almost mistrusted it was Mr. Valtmeyer; but then

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

the drover was much younger and rounder-faced, and,
in spite of the black patch over his eye, altogether
more likely looking than Mr. Valtmeyer, who looked
mighty homely with his great sprangly beard, he
did;” and the girl smoothed down her apron, and
cast a glance over her shoulder at a bit of looking-glass
stuck against a post of the bar, as if she questioned
the taste of the unshorn Wolfert in having,
by his toilet, shown such indifference to her charms.

“He was thinner, and wore a long beard, eh? a
razor and good quarters would easily make all the
difference,” soliloquized De Roos. “But the impudent
scoundrel would scarcely dare thus to put his
head in the lion's mouth. Yet I must have an eye to
the puritanical curmudgeon that this simple lass has
the courtesy to call father.” And then resuming
aloud, he added, “Did your, father ever know—”

“Octavia Sarah Ann,” interrupted the shrill voice
from the kitchen.

“Curse the beldam!” muttered De Roos, as the
nuisance was instantly repeated.

“Octavia Sarah Ann, come take this toasted
cheese to the cattle merchant.”

“Yes, mother, yes, I'm coming! Had you any
more questions to ask me, captain?”

“Go, gal, go,” growled old Wingear, in a low
voice. “You are too fond, young missus, of keeping
here among the sogers.”

“Any more questions? no—stay one moment,
sweet Tavy, my blooming Tavy. Where got you
those gay ribands which lace that bodice so charmingly?”

“Law, sir,” replied the girl, bashfully retiring a
step or two as the gallant soldier stretched out his
hand as if to draw her near and examine the trim
of her tasteful little figure more curiously; “law,
sir, it's only the blue and buff, the Congress colours,

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

you know, that old Balt brought me, with other fixings,
from Schenectady.”

“Octavia Sarah Ann, if ye're not here in the
peeling of an inion, 'twill be the worse for you,”
screamed the virago mother.

“You see, captain, I must go.”

“Zounds! what a tight ankle the girl has, too,”
quoth the captain, as she tripped out of the apartment.
“And so that queer quiz, old Balt, has induced her
to mount the patriot colours! Well, I hope a finer
riband will not induce her to change them for the
blue and silver of `The Royal New-Yorkers,' as
Johnson's motley gang call themselves. For `Bold
and true, in buff and blue, &c.;”' and the mercurial
ranger strolled off to the stables, humming some
verses of an old song, which was quickly taken up
and echoed by his comrades.

“There he goes—God bless him—singing for all
the world like a Bob-a-linkum on the wing—a

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

crittur whose very natur it is not to keep still for a moment,
and to make music wherever he moves.”

“And what mare's nest has our singing bird
found now, corporal?”

“Well, I don't know, sargeant; only, if the captain
has got upon the trail of Wild Wolfert, as his
words belikened, it would be a tall thing for us boys
to seize that limb o' Satan, and carry him along
with us to German Flats.”

“Ay, ay, it would indeed; but though our scouts
would make us believe that both he and Bradshawe
are snooping about the country among the Tories,
I rather guess that they are both snug in St. Leger's
lines before Fort Stanwix.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said a trooper, rapping an
empty flagon with the hilt of his sabre, as if tired
of the discussion of so dry a subject. “Butler
could never spare such an officer as Bradshawe at
such a time as this.”

“Yes,” rejoined another; “and if he were really
skulking about among the Tories, the hawk-eyed
Willett must have lighted upon him while screwing
his way through such a ticklish region to come
down and alarm the lower country as he did.”

“Come, lieutenant,” cried one who had not yet
spoken, “give us another song; and be it a merry
or droll one, if it suits you; this is the last night
we are to mess together like gentlemen volunteers.
To-morrow we shall be mustered with the old Continentals,
and then the cursed etiquette of army discipline
puts an end to all fun among us. It takes
Captain Dirk a whole campaign to thaw out into a
clever fellow after passing a week with his company
in the regular lines; and as for you, Tom Wiley,
who've sat the whole evening—”

“Spare me, worthy Hans; I hate to find myself
under the command of a Congress officer as much

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

as you do, only you know that, for the honour of the
corps, we Yægers should keep up the observances
of military rank when acting with the government
forces.”

“That's a fact, boys,” said the corporal. “What!
would you have our free companies confounded with
the common-draughted milishy, and laughed at by all
the Continentals as they be? No, no; I may wince
as much as any on ye when I feel the screws o' discipline
first beginning to set tight, but I like to see
our captain take airs upon himself with the best on
'em when it's for the honour of the corps. There
now's the Refugee partisans that fight on their own
hook just like ourselves—Johnson's Greens and
Butler's Rangers, Tories though they be—toe the
mark like real sodgers upon a call of duty. Oh,
you should have been in Greyslaer's company to
see discipline, and that, too, jist when the war was
breaking out; only ask Cornet Kit Lansingh, when
the poor boy comes safe to hand again from that
wild tramp of hisn! As sure as my name's Adam
Miller, if Major Max ever comes back from the
South—”

“It will be to haunt you, Adam, for prosing about
these gloomy byergones instead of drinking your liquor.
Major Greyslaer has been dead these six
months, and his ghost ought to be laid by this time.
As for poor Cornet Kit, the only service we can
render him is to drink his memory all standing.”

“Don't tell me that,” said the corporal, his face
reddening with indignation. “You can't riley me
about the major, Tom Wiley; for, though folks
would make out that he fell at Fort Moultrie, I
knows what I knows about him! As for Kit Lansingh,
you needn't waste liquor by drinking to his
memory yet a while; for hasn't old Balt got scent
of him clean off in the Genesee country? and aint

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

he upon his living trail by this time with the friendly
Mohegan that I myself heerd tell about having seen
Kit with his own eyes among the Oneidas last winter?”

“What, Balt try to carry his scalp safely through
the Seneca nation, not to mention the Onondagoes
and Cayugas, through all of which he'll have to run
the gauntlet before reaching the Genesee? Pshaw,
man, the old hunter is as cold as my spurs long before
this.”

Though the reckless trooper spoke thus only for
the sake of teasing his comrade, yet the partisan
corporal was familiar enough with the dangers of
the wilderness not to fear that what Wiley said
was true. But, as if to shake off the ungrateful
conviction, he emptied his beaker at a draught,
shook his head, and was silent, while another of the
Yægers changed the subject by saying,

“Well, well, let's have Wiley's song. Come, Wiley,
if it must be the last time we have a bout of
free and equal fellowship like this together, just tune
up something we can all join in.”

The vocalist began to clear his throat, filled a
bumper, threw himself back in his chair, and had
got more than half through the usual preliminaries
with which most pretenders to connoiseurship chill
and deaden the impulsive flow of festive feeling
(in instantaneous sympathy with which their song
should burst forth if they mean to sing at all), when
he was suddenly superseded in his vocation.

“Tavy, my light lass! Tavy, my border blossom!”
cried the gay voice of De Roos without; and
then, as entering the room from one door, while the
girl peeped shyly in from the other, “Come hither—
hither, my flowering graft of a thorny crab; come
hither, my peeping fawn, and learn news of the kind
old forester who has always played the godfather to

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

you. They have succeeded, boys. Kit Lansingh
lives and thrives. Here's a messenger from Fort
Dayton, bringing the news from Balt himself, now
at that post. Carry on, carry on, and tell us your
tidings; but hold, the poor fellow's athirst, perhaps.
Wash the dust from his mouth with a cup
of apple-jack, Adam, and then he'll speak.”

The countryman, who, entering the room at the
heels of De Roos, had cast a wistful eye upon the
table from the first, advanced without saying a word,
and tossed off the liquor which the corporal filled
out for him, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with
his coat-sleeve, and thus delivered himself:

“All I have to say, gentlemen, is nothing more
or less than what I was telling the capting here when
he broke away from me like mad at the stable-door;
where, who should I first happen upon but the capting
when I went to put up my pony, before looking
round for him here. `Is there anything astir
among the people?' says the capting, says he, when
I delivered him that note from Colonel Weston
which he holds in his hand, and which, if I don't
make too bold, is an order—”

“Yes, yes, an order for me to move forward tonight.
Carry on, man, carry on with your story,”
cried the impatient De Roos.

“Well, as I was saying, `Is there anything astir?'
says the capting, says he. `Why, to be sure there
is,' says I; `and a mighty pretty stir it is, too,' says
I. `Hasn't old Balt got back from his wild tramp,
and doesn't he bring the best of news for us in times
as ticklish as these? I guess he does, though,' says
I. `There's the young chief Teondetha and a white
man he rescued from the Cayugas, and took home
among his people for safety, are coming down to
help the country, with three hundred Oneida rifles
at their backs,' says I; `and didn't they send Balt

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

a short cut ahead to warn our people not to move
upon Fort Stanwix until they could have time to
crawl safely round the enemy and join old Herkimer
at the German Flats? To be sure they did,'
says I; and then the capting what does he do but,
instead of hearing me out, he ups at once and asks
me the name of the white man as furiously as if it was
for dear life he spoke; and when I told him it was
Mr. Christian Lansingh, the likely young nephew of
old Balt, he tore away from me as if I had the
plague; and I—I ups and follows at once to see the
end of his doings; and there, now, gentlemen, you
have the hull history o' the matter, so I'll jist put
another drop o' liquor in this glass and drink sarvice
to all on ye, not forgetting that right snug young
woman, whose colour has been coming and going
like all natur while I told my story—meaning no
offence whatever, miss.”

“Offence to Tavy, my lad! no one suspects you
of that. There are mettlesome chaps enough here
to take care of her,” said a soldier.

“Ay,” echoed another, “she has a brother in
every man in the troop.”

“And she shall choose a husband among the best
of ye, when the wars are over,” cried De Roos.
“But carry on, men, carry on; we must sound for
the saddle in twenty minutes; and, unless you would
leave your liquor undrunk, carry on, carry on.”

“Ay, ay, fill round for our last toast,” said the
sergeant, rising; “war and woman—wassail we've
had enough of to-night—war and woman—the myrtle
and steel.”

“The myrtle and steel,” echoed a dozen voices.
“Your song, your song now, Wiley.”

“War and woman—the myrtle and steel,” shouted
De Roos; and then, before the twice-foiled lieutenant
could collect his wits for the occasion, the

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

spirit of the wild partisan broke forth in the song
with which we close this record of the rangers'
revels.

CHAPTER II. THE SOLDIER'S RETURN.

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

It was a summer's evening, when Max Greyslaer,
returning, after a long absence, to his native valley,
left his tired horse at the adjacent hamlet, and hurried
off on foot to present himself at the Hawksnest.
The sun of a fiercer climate, not less than the unhealthy
swamps of the South, had stolen the freshness
from his cheek; and the arduous campaign in
which he had lately signalized himself, had left
more than one impress of its perils upon his manly
front. But the heart of the young soldier was not
less buoyant within him because conscious that the
comeliness of youth had passed away from his scarred
and sallow features. He had learned, before
reaching its neighbourhood, that the beloved inmate
of the homestead was well; and, breathing
again the health-laden airs of his native north, he
felt an elasticity of feeling and motion such as he
had not known in many a long month before. The
stern realities of life which he had beheld, not less
than the active duties in which he had shared, had
long since changed Max Greyslaer from a dreaming
student into a practical-minded, energetic man; but
his whole moral temperament must have been

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

altered completely, if the scene which now lay around,
and the circumstances under which he beheld it,
had not called back some of the thoughtful musings
of earlier days.

The atmosphere, while slowly fading into the
gray of evening, was still rich in that golden hue
which dyes our harvest landscape. The twilight
shadows lay broad and still upon the river which
glided tranquilly between its overhanging thickets;
but, while those on the farther side were purpled
with the light of evening, the warm hues of lingering
sunset still played upon the canopy of wild vines
which imbowered those that were nearer, touching
here and there the top of a tall elm with a still ruddier
glow, and bathing the stubble-field on some distant
hill in a flood of yellow light. But, lovely and
peaceful as seemed the scene, there was something
of sadness in the deep silence which hung over it.
The whistle of the ploughboy, the shout of the
herdsman, the voices of home-returning boors loitering
by the roadside to chat for a moment together
when their harvest-day's work was over—
none of these rustic sounds were there. The near
approach of invasion had summoned the defenders
of the soil away from their native fields, and the region
around was almost denuded of its male inhabitants;
infirm age or tender youth alone remaining
around the hearths they were too feeble to protect.
The deep bay of a house-dog was the first thing
that reminded Greyslaer that some sentinels at least
were not wanting to watch over their masterless
homesteads.

The young officer, fresh from the animated turmoil
of a camp-life, had ridden all day along highways
bustling with the march of yeomanry corps,
crowding into the main route from a hundred farm-roads
and by-paths, all hastening toward the border,

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

and the air of desertion in the present scene could
not but strike him by the contrast. It was with a
heart less light and a step less free than they were an
hour before that he now wended his way among the
shrubbery in approaching the door of the Hawksnest.
The sound of music came from an open
window in the wing which was nearest to him, and
his heart thrilled in recognition of the voice of the
singer as he paused to listen to a mournful air
which was singularly in unison with his feelings at
the moment. The words, which were Greyslaer's
own, had, indeed, no allusion to his own story, but
they had been thrown off in one of those melancholy
moods when the imprisoned spirit of sadness will
borrow any guise from fancy to steal out from the
heart; and coming from the lips they did, they were
now not less apposite to the passing tone of his
mind than in the moment they were written.

The song had ceased, but Greyslaer, before it finished,
had approached near enough to hear the sigh

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

with which it ended; for how much of the past did
not that single sigh repay him, even if his long account
of affection had not been already balanced by
the true heart that breathed it! In another moment
Alida is folded to his bosom.

“My own Alida was hard to win, but most truly
does she wear. Do I not know who was in your
thoughts, beloved, in the moment that my rustling
footsteps made you rush to the verandah to greet
me?”

“I heard not your footsteps, I felt your presence,
dearest Max; yet was I strangely sad in the instant
before you came.”

“And I, too, Alida, was sad, I scarce know why,
save from that mysterious sympathy of soul with
soul you have almost taught me to believe in. But
now—”

“Now I know there should be no place for gloom;
yet why, Max, should melancholy thoughts in the
heart of either herald a moment of so much joy to
both?”

Max, who had often playfully philosophized with
her upon the tinge of superstition with which the
highly imaginative mind of Alida was imbued, now
attempted to smile away her apprehensive forebodings.
But as she knew, in anticipation, that he
was on his way to the seat of war, and could only
have snatched this brief interview in passing to the
post of peril, the task of cheering her spirits was a
difficult one.

“Not,” said she, rising and pacing the room,
while her tall figure and noble air seemed to gather
a still more queenly expression from the feelings
which agitated her, “not that I would have the idle
fears of a weak woman dwell one moment among
your cares—for your mind, Max, must be free even

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

of the thought of me when you go where men are
matched in war or counsel against each other—but
something whispers that this meeting, that this parting
is—is what your own words, which I sung but
now, may in spirit be prophetic of.”

“Nay, nay, Alida,” said Max, smiling, “that foolish
song has already more than answered its purpose
in serving to while away a lonely moment of
yours, and I protest against my rhymes being perverted
to such dismal uses. You may change your
true knight into a faithful troubadour or humble minstrel
of your household, if you will; but I protest
against your making him play the musty part of old
`Thomas the Rhymer,' merely because he has once
or twice offended by stringing verses together.”

“Why will you always jest so when I feel gravest?”
said Alida, half reproachfully, as she placed
her hand in that which gently drew her back to the
seat which she had left by Greyslaer's side.

“It is gravity of mood, and not of thought, dearest,
that I would fain banter away; for surely my
Alida would not call these vain and idle fancies
thoughts? Why should I deal daintily with things
so troublous of her peace? Out upon them all, I
say. The future has no cloud for us, save that
which will continue to hover over thousands till
peace return to the land; why should we study to
appropriate more than our proper share of the general
gloom? As for this Barry St. Leger,” said
Max, with increasing animation, “St. Leger is a
clever fellow to have pushed his brigand crew thus
far into the country; but gallant Gansevoort still
holds him stoutly at bay, and if Hermiker and his
militia fail to bring him to a successful account, we
have fiery Arnold and his Continentals already on
the march to beat up his quarters and drive the Tories
back to Canada.”

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

As the young soldier spoke, Alida caught a momentary
confidence not less from the tone of his
voice than from the look of his eye. The proud
affection with which she now gazed upon the manly
mien of her lover seemed more akin to her natural
character than did the anxiety of feeling which
again resumed its influence in her bosom; an anxiety
which continually, throughout the evening, sent
a shade of sadness to her features, and which Greyslaer,
remembering in long months afterward, had
but too much reason to think proceeded from one of
those unaccountable presentiments of approaching
evil which all have at some time known.

Since the memorable night when Greyslaer's
providential discovery of the real position in which
Alida stood toward Bradshawe had won from her
the first avowal of her regard, this painful subject
had been rarely alluded to by either; nor, closely as
it mingled with the story of their loves, will it seem
strange that a matter so delicate should be avoided
by both in an interview like the present.

The joy of their first meeting had banished it alike
from the hearts of either; and Alida, as the painful
moment of parting grew nigh, could not bring herself
to add to present sorrows by recalling those
which seemed all but passed away entirely, though
their memory still existed as a latent cause of disquiet
to herself. As for Max, his spirits seemed to
have imbibed so much vigour and elasticity from
the stirring life he had lately led, that it was almost
impossible for Alida not to catch a share of the confidence
which animated him. But though the state
of the times and the duties which called Greyslaer
to the field, and which might still for a long period
defer their union, seemed, as they conversed together,
the only difficulties that obstructed their mutual
path to happiness, there was in the heart of Alida

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

a vague apprehension of impediments yet undreamed
of and far less easy to be surmounted.

The moments of their brief converse were sweet,
deliciously sweet to either; but the banquet of feeling
was to Alida like the maiden's feast of the Iroquois
legend. Her bosom was the haunted lodge,
where ever and anon a dim phantom flitted around
the board, and withered, with his shadow, the fruits
and flowers which graced it.

In the mean time there was one little circumstance,
which, calling up a degree of thoughtfulness,
if not of pain, in the mind of Greyslaer, would alone
have impaired the full luxury of the present hour.
Some household concerns had called Alida for a few
minutes from the room in which they were sitting,
and Max, to amuse himself in her absence, turned
over a portfolio of her drawings which chanced to
be lying upon a table near. The sketches were
chiefly landscape views of the neighbouring scenery
of the Mohawk, which is so rich in subjects for the
pencil; but there were several studies of the head
of a child interspersed among the rest, which, after
the recurrence of the same features sketched again
and again with more or less freedom and lightness,
finally arrested the earnest gaze of Max as he viewed
them at last in a finished drawing, which was
evidently intended for a portrait. He felt certain
that he had seen the face of that young boy before,
yet when or where it was impossible for him to remember.
There was an Indian cast in the physiognomy,
which for a moment made him conceive that
it must have been during his captivity among the
Mohawks that he had seen the child. Yet, though
a close observer of faces, he could recall no such
head among the bright-eyed urchins he had often
seen at play around his wigwam.

“I am puzzling myself, Alida,” said he, as Miss

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

De Roos returned to the room, “to remember where
it is that I have seen the original of this portrait;
for certain it is, the style of the features, if not the
whole head, is perfectly familiar to me;” and Max,
shading the picture partly with his hand, looked up
for a moment as Alida approached him while speaking.
“Good heavens!” he added, in a tone of surprise,
“how much it resembles yourself as the light
now falls on your countenance.”

“Do you think so?” cried Alida; “that is certainly
very odd, for I have always thought that poor
little Guise bore a wonderful resemblance to my
brother Derrick, notwithstanding his straight black
Indian locks are so different from Dirk's bright
curls. Your remark confirms the truth of the likeness
I discovered between them; for Derrick and
I, you know, were always thought to resemble each
other.”

“And who, if I may ask,” rejoined Greyslaer,
gravely, “is this `poor little Guise,' who is so familiar
a subject of interest to you?”

“Oh! I should have told you before of our little
protegé, but my thoughts have been so hurried tonight,”
replied Alida, blushing. “You must know,
then, that Derrick takes a vast interest in this forlorn
little captive, who is neither more nor less than
a grandson of Joseph Brant, that was left behind in
an Indian foray when Derrick's band had driven
back or dispersed his natural protectors.”

“What, a child like that accompany an expedition
of warriors across the border! a child of Isaac
Brant, too; for he, I believe, is the only married son
of the chief! Who gave you this account, Alida?”

“Dear Max, you look grave as well as incredulous.
I tell you only what Derrick imparted to
me when he brought that friendless boy hither,
and begged me to assume the charge of him for a

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

short season. I conjured my brother to return him
to his people, but he would not hear of it. He only
answered that, as the boy was an orphan whose
mother had perished in the fray in which her child
was taken, and whose father was off fighting on another
part of the frontier, it was a mercy to keep
him here. I saw Derrick for scarcely an hour at
the time he made the request. He came galloping
across the lawn with the child on the pommel of
his saddle before him; scarcely entered the house,
except to exchange a joke or two with the old servants
who crowded around him; took Guise with
him to the stable to look at the horses, and then
hurried off to join his troop, which, he said, had
made a brief halt while passing through the country
toward Lake George.”

“And has he given you no farther particulars
since?”

“Not a word. He has written once or twice,
inquiring how I liked his dusky pet, as he calls him;
but he says not a word of his ultimate intentions in
regard to him. It was only the other day that, in
marching through from the Upper Hudson toward
Fort Stanwix, he paid me a visit; but he stopped
only to breakfast, and came as suddenly and disappeared
almost as quickly as before; and though he
caressed and fondled the child while here, yet, when
I attempted to hold some sober talk with him about
his charge, he only ran on in his old rattling manner,
and said there was time enough to think of this
when the St. Leger business was over.”

“Can I see the child?” said Greyslaer, with difficulty
suppressing an exclamation of impatience at
the levity of his friend.

“He sleeps now, dear Max. He has been ill
to-day, and when I left the room it was only to see

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

whether or not the restlessness of my little patient
had subsided into slumber.”

“Does this picture bear a close resemblance to
his features?” rejoined Max, taking up the drawing
once more from the table.

“I cannot say that; yet I have tried so often, for
my amusement, to take them, that I ought at least
to have partially succeeded in my last effort. The
wild, winning little creature is so incessantly in motion,
though, that a far more skilful hand than mine
might be foiled in the undertaking. But, Max, if
you really feel such a curiosity about my charge, I
must show him to you; wait but an instant till I
return.”

Alida, taking one of the lights from the table as
she glided out of the room, reappeared with it, a
moment afterward, in her hand. “Tread lightly
now,” she said, “while following me, for he still
sleeps most sweetly, and I would not have him disturbed
for the world.”

Greyslaer, who seemed to be actuated by some
more serious motive than mere curiosity for holding
this inquisition over the sleeping urchin, followed
her steps without speaking. Alida, entering
the dressing-room—into which, as the reader may
remember, the eyes of her lover had once before
penetrated—made a quick step or two in advance,
and closed the door leading into the chamber beyond;
then turning round, she pointed to a little cotbedstead,
which seemed to have been temporarily
placed there for greater convenience in attending
upon her patient.

Max took the candle from her hand, and, shading
the eyes of the infant sleeper with his broad-leaved
beaver, bent over, as if in close scrutiny of its placid
features; while Alida, touched by the sympathizing
interest which her lover displayed in her

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

charge, and dreaming not of the cause which
prompted that interest, gazed on with a countenance
beaming with sensibility. At first the deep sleep
in which the child was plunged left nothing but the
lovely air of infantile repose in its expression; but—
whether from being stirred inwardly by dreams, or
disturbed by the light which penetrated its fringed
lids from without, or touched, perhaps, by the drooping
plume with which the soldier shaded its brow—
it soon began to move, to gripe the coverlet in its
tiny fingers, and, turning over petulantly even in its
slumbers, to work its features into something more
of meaning.

It was a child of the most tender years; but,
though scarcely four summers could have passed
over its innocent head, the lineaments of another,
less pure than it, were strongly charactered in its
face. Something there was of Alida there, but far
more of her wild and almost lawless brother. There
seemed, indeed, what might be called a strong family
resemblance to them both; but while the darker
hue of Alida's hair might have aided in first recalling
her image to him who gazed upon the sable
locks of the Indian child, yet her noble brow was
wanting beneath them; and the mouth, which earliest
shows the natural temper, and which most nearly
expresses the habitual passions at maturity—the
mouth was wholly that of her wayward and reckless
brother. The features were so decidedly European,
that the tawny skin and the eyes, which were
closed from Greyslaer's view, were all he thought
that could proclaim an Indian origin for this true
scion of the Mohawk chieftain's line, as Derrick had
represented him to his sister.

“It is the mysterious instinct of blood, then, as
well as the natural promptings of her sex's kindness,
which has elicited Alida's sympathy for this

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

wild offshoot of her house. But she should have a
more considerate protector than this giddy brother,
who, even in assuming the most sacred responsibility,
must needs risk mixing up a sister's name with
his own wild doings.”

“You do not tell me what you think of my proteg
é,” said Alida, as Greyslaer, musing thus, was
silent for a moment or two after they returned to
the sitting-room. “I declare your indifference quite
piques me. You have no idea of the interest poor
forlorn little Guise excited when I took him with me
to Albany on my last visit to our family friends
there.”

Max had it upon his tongue to ask her in reply
if she thought that the child bore any resemblance
to Isaac Brant, its reputed father, whom Alida must
have seen in former years; but, at once remembering
how closely that individual was connected with
Bradshawe's misdeeds, he stifled the question, and,
passing by her last observation as lightly as possible,
changed the subject altogether. The whole
matter, however, left somehow a disagreeable impression
with him, and he was provoked at the importance
it assumed in his thoughts, when, after the
thrilling emotions of a lover's parting had passed
away, it recurred again and again to his mind during
his long walk back to the inn where he was to
pass the night.

The dawn of the next morning found Greyslaer
again upon the road toward Fort Dayton, where a
pleasurable meeting with more than one old comrade
awaited him, and where a military duty devolved
upon him which, slight in character as it at
first appeared, was destined, in its fulfilment, to
have a most serious bearing upon his own happiness
and that of Alida.

CHAPTER III. THE CONSPIRATORS.

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

The reader has perhaps gathered, from the interview
between Greyslaer and Alida last described,
that the characters of both have undergone no
slight change since the period when they were first
introduced into our story: that Max, as the successful
wooer and the travelled soldier who had seen
the world, is now a somewhat different being from
the visionary student, the fond-dreaming and willow-wearing
lover, whose romantic musings have
heretofore, perhaps, called out, at times, a pitying
smile from the reader: that Alida, the once haughty
empress of his heart, whose pride, though utterly
removed from ordinary selfishness, had still a species
of self-idolatry as its basis, had been not less
affected in her disposition by the softening influences
of love and sorrow, and that patient realization
of hope-deferred which tameth alike the heart of
man or woman. Yet these changes are merely
those which time and circumstance will work in all
of us, and Max and Alida are still the same in every
essential of character.

The change in Greyslaer is one that all men

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

more or less undergo as the sobering influence of
riper years steals over them, and their minds are
brought more in contact with the practical things of
life; when, having tested their powers in the world
of action, the frame of the mind becomes, as it were,
more closely knit and sinewy, and seeks objects to
grapple with more substantial than the shadowy
creations of the ideal world in which erst they
dwelt. Now, while the success which had hitherto
crowned the early career of Max Greyslaer alike in
love and arms, is one of the most active elements
in rapidly effecting this change from wild, visionary
youth, to dignified, consummate manhood, the emotions
and cares of Alida were precisely those which
would dash the Amazonian spirit and humble the
arrogance of self-sustainment in a proud and beautiful
woman, once the petted inmate of a bright and
happy home, and intrenched in all the advantages
that family and station could confer.

The half-insane idea of righting in person the
wrongs which she had received at the hands of
Bradshawe, had been long since dispelled by the
realization of more irremediable sorrows in the
death of her nearest relations; and as her woman's
heart awoke for the first time to the graces of woman's
tenderness, and her spirit grew more and more
feminine as it learned to lean upon another, she
even shuddered at remembering the strange fantasy
of revenge that was the darling dream of her girlhood.
It is true, that in the hour of her betrothal
to Greyslaer she had listened with the kindling delight
of some stern heroine of romantic story to the
deep-breathed vengeance of her lover against the
man who had plotted her ruin. But as time wore
on, and the fulfilment of the vow grew less probable
from the prolonged exile of Bradshawe, which might
ultimately result in total banishment from his native

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

land; and as Max, who was soon afterward called
away by his military duties to a distant region,
grew more and more dear to her in absence, she
gradually learned to shrink as painfully from the
idea of a deadly personal encounter between him
and Bradshawe, as she lately had from her own unfeminine
dream of vengeance.

Nor had the views of Greyslaer, though affected
by different causes from those which swayed Alida,
altered less in this respect. Max, though his wellordered
mind was in the main governed by high
religious principle, was certainly not in advance of
those opinions of his day which held a fairly-fought
duel as no very serious offence against Heaven; and
indeed he had betrayed, upon more than one occasion,
while serving with the hot-headed spirits of the
South, that no scruple of early education interfered
to prevent him from calling an offender to account
after the most punctilious fashion of the times.
But, since he had mingled more among men of the
world, he had learned enough of its customs to know
that Bradshawe was rather a subject for the punishment
of the criminal laws than for the chastisement
of a gentleman's sword; and that, while wiping away
an insult with blood was a venial offence according
to the fantastic code to which, as a military man,
he was now subject, to spill the same blood in cutting
off a felon was unofficer-like in deed, as it was
unchristian-like in spirit to thirst after it. These
sentiments, which his camp associations had gradually,
and, almost unknowingly to himself, infused
into the young soldier, were more than redeemed
from trivial-mindedness by those more extended
views of action which, growing up at the same time
with them, merged the recollection of personal
grievances in the public wrongs, to whose redress
his sword was already devoted.

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

The scenes he was now about revisiting served
to recall the distempered counsels of former times;
when, after his betrothal to Alida, he had meditated
throwing up his commission, and dogging Bradshawe
with the footsteps of an avenger until the
death of one of them were wrought; and when his
being ordered unexpectedly upon dangerous duty
to a remote district happily interposed the point of
honour as a stay to such mad procedure. But these
scenes, with their attendant associations, revived
no feeling in Max's bosom nearer akin to personal
hostility toward Bradshawe than any earnest and
honest mind might entertain toward a low-lived and
desperate adventurer, whose mischievous career
would be shortened with benefit to the community.
If, then, either the fortune of war or a higher Providence
should seem at any time to single out him
as the appointed instrument of Bradshawe's punishment,
let it bring no reproach to the chivalrous nature
of Greyslaer if he should fulfil his stern office
with the methodical coldness of the mere soldier.

The order which Captain De Roos had received
to hurry forward with his comrades was prompted
by intelligence which had been received at Fort
Dayton of a secret movement among the disaffected
in the neighbourhood. The rapid advance of Barry
St. Leger into the Valley of the Mohawk, together
with his formidable investure of Fort Stanwix, while
far and wide it called out the valour and activity of
the patriots to resist the invasion, was viewed with
very opposite feelings by the remains of the royalist
party which were still scattered here and there
throughout Tryon county. These disaffected families,
taught, by the events which followed Schuyler's
march upon Johnstown in the earlier days of
the war, that their lives were held by rather a precarious
tenure, and that both their property and

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

their personal safety depended upon their abstaining
from all political agitation, hesitated long to venture
upon any new overt acts of treason.

The Johnsons and their refugee adherents, however,
had not, in the mean time, been idle in scattering
the proclamations of the British ministry, and
attempting, by every means in their power, to keep
up an intimate connexion with their political friends
who were within the American lines. The Provincial
government was fully aware of the existence of
these intrigues, which were so daringly set on foot
and indefatigably followed up by the Tories; and
a military force, consisting of the first New-York
regiment and other troops, had at an early day been
posted at Fort Dayton on the Mohawk, in order to
overawe the loyalists and prevent any sudden rising
among them.

So bold a Tory as Walter Bradshawe, however,
was not to be paralyzed in his plans by such impediments
to their success. His emissary, Valtmeyer,
whom we have already recognised under his disguise
at the roadside inn, had appeared among his
old haunts on the very day that St. Leger sat down
before Fort Stanwix; and, by the aid of letters and
vouchers both from Bradshawe and his superiors,
had successfully busied himself in leaguing the
Tories together for sudden and concerted action.
But, before openly committing themselves in arms,
it was deemed necessary that a meeting should be
held at the house of one of their number for the purposes
of general consultation.

Within a few miles of Fort Dayton resided a Mr.
Schoonmacker, a disaffected gentleman, who, previously
to the breaking out of the war, had been in
his majesty's commission of the peace. This individual,
a man of extensive means and influential
connexions, had of late exerted himself effectually

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

in rekindling the spirits and hopes of his party in
the neighbourhood. The address with which he
managed his intrigues for a long time preserved
him from all suspicion of taking an active part in
the affairs of the times, though his political tenets
were well known in the country round. Grown
rash by long impunity, however, or rather, perhaps,
incited by the blustering proclamations with which
St. Leger flooded the country to give confidence to
the king's friends, Schoonmacker now ventured to
commit himself completely by offering his house
for the accommodation of the clandestine meeting.
His generous zeal was warmly praised by the loyalists,
already in arms under St. Leger; and their
commander promised that an officer of the crown
should be present at the assemblage to represent
his own views, and aid and encourage Schoonmacker's
friends in their undertaking. Walter Bradshawe,
who was now in command of one of the
companies of refugees enrolled with the forces that
beleaguered Fort Stanwix, eagerly voluntered upon
this perilous agency, stipulating only that a small
detachment should accompany him to the place of
rendezvous—in order to cut his way back to the
besieging army in case the projected rising should
prove a failure.

Taking with him a dozen soldiers and the like
number of Indians, the Tory captain withdrew from
the lines of Fort Stanwix and approached the rendezvous
of the conspirators upon the appointed
evening. His white followers, though they had
been mustered in St. Leger's army as regular soldiers,
consisted chiefly of those wild border characters
who, throughout the war, seem to have fought
indifferently upon either side, as the hope of booty
or the dictates of private vengeance prompted them
to adopt a part in the quarrel. One of these last,

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

a man whose powerful frame seemed of yet more
gigantic proportions, clad as he was in the loose
hunting-shirt of the border, and armed to the teeth
with knife and tomahawk, two brace of pistols, and
a double-barrelled fusee, presented the appearance
of a walking armory as he strode along in earnest
conversation with his leader.

“Well, Valtmeyer,” said Bradshawe, as they approached
their destination, “I do not order you
upon this duty, which I think one of my light-armed
Indians could perform better, perhaps, than yourself;
but, if you choose to reconnoitre the fort
while we are engaged in counsel, you have full liberty
to do so, only—”

But, before he could add the precautions he
was about to utter, Valtmeyer, simply exclaiming
“Enough!” turned shortly into an adjacent thicket,
where the sound of his footsteps upon the rustling
leaves was soon lost to the ear of his officer.

Though the hour was late, yet the party collected
at Schoonmacker's were still seated at table when
Bradshawe, having stationed his sentries, prepared
to join them. The carousing royalists had evidently
drunk deep during the evening. The health
of “The King” was pledged again and again; and
their favourite toast of “Confusion to the Rebels”
was floating upon a bumper near each one's lips
when Bradshawe entered the apartment.

“You are loud in your mirth, gentlemen,” cried
the Tory officer, returning their vociferous greeting
with some sternness, and impatiently waving from
him the glass that was eagerly proffered by more
than one of the conspirators. “Do I see all of our
friends, Mr. Schoonmacker, or have these loyal gentlemen
brought some retainers with them?” added
Bradshawe, with more blandness, bowing at the
same time politely to three or four of the company,

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as he recognised them individually either as influential
characters well known in the county, or as
old personal acquaintances of his own. “I was told,
Major MacDonald,” continued he, turning to a noble-looking,
gray-headed man of fifty, “I was told
that you, at least, could bring some twenty-five or
thirty of your friends and dependants to strengthen
our battalion of Royal Rangers.”

“Twenty-six, sir, is the number of followers
which I have promised to add to the royal levies;
but, in lending my poor means to aid the cause of the
king, I was not aware that my recruits were to be
mustered under the command of a stranger; nor
did I understand from General St. Leger that we
were to serve in the Rangers. There are certain
forms, young sir, to be observed in such proceedings
as those in which we are engaged; and it may be
well for you to produce certain missives, with which
you are doubtless furnished, before we proceed directly
to business.”

Bradshawe—who, by-the-by, was hardly of an
age to be addressed as “young sir” without some offence
to his dignity—bit his lip while observing the
coolness with which the worthy major knocked the
ashes from his segar while tranquilly thus delivering
himself. He, however, repressed the insolent language
which rose to his lips in reply, and, placing
his hand in his bosom, contented himself with flinging
contemptuously upon the table a bundle of papers
which he drew forth, exclaiming, at the same
time,

“You will find there my warrant, gentlemen, for
busying myself in these matters.”

As he spoke he threw himself into a chair and
poured out a glass of wine, with whose hue and flavour
he tried to occupy his attention for the moment;
but he could not conceal that he was somewhat

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nettled by the coolness with which the veteran turned
over and examined the documents one after another,
passing the captain's commission of Bradshawe,
with the other papers, successively to those who sat
near him. Bradshawe moved uneasily in his chair
as this examination, which seemed to be needlessly
minute and protracted, was going forward; and it
is impossible to say what might have been the result
of so severely testing the patience of his restless
and overbearing mind, if the phlegmatic investigation
of the worthy major had not been interrupted
by a noisy burst of merriment from another part of
the house, which instantly called the partisan captain
to his feet.

“For God's sake, Mr. Schoonmacker, what means
this revelry? Do those sounds come from the rebels,
who lie near enough and in sufficient force to
crush us in a moment, or is it our own friends who
play the conspirator after such a fashion? Who
the dev—”

“Your zeal is too violent—pardon me, my worthy
friend,” interrupted the amiable host. “The revellers
you hear are only the good country people whom
our friends have brought with them to honour my
poor house, and who are making themselves a little
merry over a barrel of beer in the kitchen. We
could not, you know, Mr. Bradshawe,” he added, in
an insinuating, deprecatory tone, as the other raised
his eyebrows with a look of unpleased surprise,
“we could not but give them the means of drinking
the health of the king, and all are so well armed
that we dread no surprise from Colonel Weston.”

A shade of chagrin and vexation passed over the
haughty features of Bradshawe as he compared in
his mind more than one orderly and stern assemblage
of the Whigs, to which he had managed to
gain access, with the carousing crew with whom

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

he had now to deal. “The fools, too!” he muttered,
“sending my countrymen to drink with their
servants! Do they think that is the way to confirm
the loyalty of American yeomen?” Then addressing
himself to the company with that urbane
and candid air which he knew so well how to assume,
and by which he had often profited when before
a jury in other days, he said, “I was too hasty,
gentlemen; but I was afraid, from the noise I heard,
that a body of Indians that I have brought with me
had somehow got access to liquor; and, to prevent
the possibility of so dangerous a circumstance, I
think we had better at once call our friends together,
and let the proclamation of General St. Leger, with
the accompanying letter from Sir John Johnson,
both of which lie before you, be read aloud for the
benefit of all.”

The suggestion, which could not but have weight
with all parties, was instantly adopted. A meeting
was soon organized by calling Major MacDonald to
the chair and appointing Mr. Schoonmacker secretary;
and the more humble adherents of the royal
cause being summoned from the other parts of the
house, the proclamation and letter were duly read
by the latter.

The appeal of Sir John to the timid and disaffected
inhabitants of Tryon county to follow his
example, and, abandoning their present neutral position,
take up arms for their lawful sovereign, was
received with warm approbation. Nor was there
less enthusiasm upon hearing the proclamation from
St. Leger read, inviting all true subjects of the king,
and all violators of the laws, who hoped pardon for
past offences from his majesty's goodness, to come
and enroll themselves with his army now before
Fort Stanwix. Bradshawe then moved a resolution,
beginning with the customary preamble, “At

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a meeting of the loyal gentry and yeomanry of
Tryon county, convened,” &c., and by way of
clinching matters while they seemed in such capital
train, he mounted a chair and commenced haranguing
the assemblage, urging the importance of immediate
action in the cause to which every man
present had now fully committed himself.

His adroit, and, withal, impassioned eloquence,
was addressed chiefly to the common people; and
the generous boldness with which he committed his
and their property to the chances of a civil war, in
which either had but little or nothing to lose, elicited
their rapturous admiration; particularly when he set
forth, in glowing terms, how much they were to expect
from the exhaustless bounty of their sovereign.
In the midst of his harangue, however, and while
all parties were warmed up to the highest pitch of
loyal enthusiasm, he met with an interruption, the
cause of which may be best explained by looking
back a few pages in our narrative.

CHAPTER IV. THE SPY.

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

The outlaw Valtmeyer, after parting with his
officer in the manner already described, had proceeded
at once, agreeably to the permission he had
obtained, toward Fort Dayton, which had been for
some time garrisoned by a battalion of Continental
troops under the command of Colonel Weston, but
where several detachments of other corps had recently
taken up their temporary quarters. The object
of Valtmeyer was partly to reconnoitre the outworks
of the fort for future attack, and partly to
spy out any movement upon the part of Weston
and his people which might indicate that Bradshawe's
mission in the neighbourhood was suspected,
and give him and his friends timely warning of
the danger.

A well-trained Indian warrior would, as Bradshawe
had hinted, have better performed this duty
than the wild borderer to whom it was now intrusted;
for the character of Valtmeyer, whose vindictive daring
and brutal courage has made his name terrible
in the traditions of this region, was even less suited

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

than that of a wild Indian to the duties and responsibilities
of a regular soldier. The Indian warrior,
though he insists upon encountering his enemy wholly
after his own fashion, is still amenable to certain
rude laws of discipline, for whose observance he
may be relied upon; but the white frontiersman
who has led the life of a free hunter, perhaps of all
other men shrinks most from every form of military
subordination. And, indeed, Valtmeyer, though, to
answer his own selfish purposes, he had so often
been a mere tool in the hands of Bradshawe, already
regretted having taken service with the Royal
Rangers, and consenting to act under the command
of any person save that of Wolfert Valtmeyer.

Being now wholly withdrawn from the surveillance
of his officer, the worthy Wolfert, somewhat
oblivious of his military duties, bethought himself
how he could turn the occasion to the best account
by what a similar combatant in the battle of Bennington
afterward called making war on his own
hook. In other words, he determined to amuse himself
for an hour or so within the purlieus of Fort
Dayton, by carrying off or slaying some of the sentinels;
a species of entertainment which he thought
there would be no difficulty in indulging himself in.
This seizing of opposite partisans, and holding them
to ransom, was always a favourite feat with Valtmeyer
and his compeer Joe Bettys; and the annals
of the period make it of so common occurrence in
the province of New-York, that one would almost
think that man-stealing was the peculiar forte of its
inhabitants.

Had Wolfert, in approaching the fort, got his eye
upon any of the picket-guard, he might very possibly
have successfully effected his purpose. But,
ill-practised as he was in the regulations of a wellordered
garrison, the adventurous hunter had not

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

the least idea how far the line of outposts extended;
and, like many a cunning person, he overreached
himself while trying to circumvent others. In a
word, he got completely within the line of defences
without being at all aware of their position.

With the stealthy art of a practised deer-stalker,
he managed to creep, alike unobserved by others and
himself unobserving, within the outer line of pickets,
which was posted in the deep shadow of a wood, to
a thicket of briers, where he paused. The gleam of
a sentinel's musket above the bushes had lured him
thus far, and he halted to see if the sentinel himself
were now visible. It seemed that he could make
out nothing satisfactory as yet; for now, throwing
himself upon his chest, he continues slowly to advance,
crawling through the long grass until he gains
a copse of dogwood and sumach bushes within half
pistol-shot of his victim. The soldier is now fully
displayed to view; Valtmeyer can see his very buttons
gleam in the light of the moon, as the planet
from time to time shines through the clouds which
traverse her face. Another moment, and the seizure
is fully accomplished. The brigand, crumpling
his worsted sash in his hands, has leaped upon the
sentinel just as he was turning in his monotonous
walk, and borne him to the ground, while adroitly
gagging his mouth before he could utter a cry.

“Pshaw! what a cocksparrow!” muttered Wolfert,
when, having dragged his captive within the
bushes, he for the first time observed that it was
but a stripling recruit of some sixteen or eighteen
years. “I must carry away with me something
better than a boy.”

With these words he hastily secured the lad to a
sapling by the aid of a thong which he cut from his
leather hunting-shirt, and then prepared to make a
similar onset upon the next sentinel in the same line.

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

This man had paused for a moment at the end
of his walk, waiting for a glimpse of moonlight to
reveal his comrade, whom he had missed in his last
turn. A straggling beam fell at last upon the path
before him, and the soldier, resting on his musket,
leaned forward, as if trying to pierce the gloom.
The side of his person was turned toward Valtmeyer,
and his head only partially averted; but Wolfert
preferred seizing the present moment rather than to
wait for a more favourable one, which might not
come. Clasping his hands above his head, he leaped
forward with a sudden bound, and threw them
like a noose over the neck of the other, slipping them
down below the elbows, which were thus pinioned
to the side of his prisoner, whose musket dropped
from his hands.

“Wolfert Valtmeyer, by the Etarnal!” ejaculated
the man, instantly recognising his assailant from the
well-known trick which they had often practised
upon each other in the mock-wrestling of former
days.

“Exactly the man, Balt; and you must go with
him.”

“Not unless he's a better man than ever I proved
him,” said Balt, struggling in the brawny arms of
his brother borderer, who held him at such disadvantage.

“Donder und blixem, manny, you would not have
me kill a brother hunter, would ye?” growled Valtmeyer,
whose voice thickened with anger as he felt
himself compelled to use every effort to maintain
his grip.

“There's—no—brother—hood—between—us—
in—this—quar'l,” panted forth the stout-hearted
Balt, without an instant relaxing his endeavour.

“Then die the death of a rebel fool,” muttered
the other, hastily drawing his knife, and raising it

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

to strike. The blow, as driven from behind by so
powerful a hand, must have cut short the biography
of the worthy Balt had it fairly descended into the
neck at which it was aimed. But the intent of the
Tory desperado was foreseen in the very instant
that the former released his grip with one hand in
order to draw his knife with the other; and Balt,
dropping suddenly upon his knees as Valtmeyer,
who was full a head taller than his opponent, threw
the whole weight of his body into the blow, the gigantic
borderer was pitched completely over the
head of his antagonist, and measured his length
upon the sod. The clanging of his arms as he fell
raised an instant alarm among those whom the deepbreathed
threatenings of these sturdy foes had not
before roused. But Valtmeyer was upon his feet
before Balt or the other sentinel, who rushed to the
spot, could seize him. Indeed, he brought the former
to the ground with a pistol-shot, stunning, but
happily not wounding him, as he himself was in the
act of rising. The other sentinel, who ought to have
fired upon the first alarm, made a motion to charge
upon him, and then threw away his shot by firing
just at the instant when Valtmeyer parried the thrust
of the bayonet with his knife, and, of course, simultaneously
averted the muzzle of the gun from his
body.

While this was passing the guard turned out; but,
though Valtmeyer received their fire unharmed as
he rushed toward the wood, he escaped one danger
only to fall into another. Ignorant of the existence
of the outer line of sentinels, he was seized by the
picket-guard in the moment that, thinking he had
escaped all dangers, he relaxed his efforts to make
good his advantage.

The prisoner being brought before Colonel Weston,
that sagacious officer lost no time in a fruitless

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

examination of so determined a fellow taken under
such circumstances. The redoubtable Valtmeyer
was well known to him by fame, and Balt fully established
his identity. Weston was before aware
that the noted outlaw had taken service with one
of the different corps of Butler's Rangers, and he
readily conceived that he had been but now acting
as the scout for some predatory band of Tories.
Captain De Roos, who, as an active and efficient
partisan officer, had been summoned to the fort for
the very purpose of scouring the country for such
offenders, was sent off with his command to make
the circuit of the neighbourhood, and another detachment
of troops was instantly despatched to the
suspected house of Mr. Schoonmacker. The latter
duty was one of some delicacy, and requiring a
cooler judgment than that of De Roos; and Weston
selected Major Greyslaer as the officer to whom
it might best be intrusted.

De Roos, rashly insisting that he could squeeze
something out of the sulky villain, was permitted to
take Valtmeyer with him as a guide to the whereabout
of his friends; and Valtmeyer, after fooling
with him for a season, and leading his party in every
direction but the right one, finally succeeded in
saving his own neck from the gallows by giving
them the slip entirely. The expedition of Greyslaer
had a different issue.

Ever cool and steady in his purposes when duty
called upon him to collect his energies, this officer
advanced with speed and secrecy to the goal he
had in view. The grounds around Schoonmacker's
house were crossed, and every door beset by a party
of armed men in perfect quietness. Balt—who had
soon recovered from the stunning effects of the pistol-shot
that grazed his temple—availed himself of
the lesson in soldier-craft which he had just

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

received from his brother woodsman, and secured the only
sentinel that was upon his post. The temptation
of the beer-barrel in the kitchen proved too strong
for the Indians and their newly-levied white comrades
to permit their keeping a better watch. The
house was, in fact, fairly surrounded by the Whig
forces before a sound was heard to interrupt the
harangue which Bradshawe was perorating within.
MacDonald alone sprang from his seat, and, darting
into an adjacent closet, made his escape through an
open window in the moment that Greyslaer entered
the room with a file of bayonets.

“In the name of the Continental Congress, I
claim you all as my prisoners,” cried Max, advancing
to the table, and, with great presence of mind,
seizing all the papers upon it, including the commission
of Bradshawe.

That officer, who had stood for the moment astonished
at the scene, now made a fiery movement
to clutch the papers from Greyslaer as the latter
quietly ran his eye over their superscription; but
he instantly found himself pinioned by two sturdy
fellows behind him.

“See that you secure that spy effectually, my
men.”

“Spy, sir!” cried Bradshawe, with a keen look
of anxious inquiry, while he vainly tried to give his
voice the tone of indignant disclaimer to the imputed
character.

“Spy was the word, sir,” answered Max, gravely;
“and, unless these documents speak falsely, as
such you will probably suffer by dawn to-morrow.
This paper purports to be the commission of Walter
Bradshawe as captain in Butler's regiment of
Royal Rangers; and the promised promotion in
this note, for certain service to be rendered this
very night, leaves no doubt of the character in which

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

Captain Bradshawe has introduced himself into an
enemy's country. Lansingh, remove your prisoner
to the room on the other side of the hall, and see
that he be well guarded!”

It is astonishing how invariably the success of
an individual, whether in good or evil undertakings,
affects his character with the vulgar; a term which,
both in its conventional as well as its primitive
sense, includes, perhaps, the majority of mankind.
Certain it is, that, in this instance, the very associates
and complotters of the prisoner, who but an
hour before had hailed his appearance among them
with such cordial greetings, now slunk from his
side as if he had been a convicted felon. Indeed,
some of the meaner minds present even attempted
to conciliate the successful party by exhibiting the
strongest signs of personal aversion to Bradshawe,
and of coarse gratification at the mode in which
his career seemed suddenly about to be brought to
a close.

These miscreants were scattered among others
of both parties who were collected in the hall and
grouped around the open door of the apartment in
which Bradshawe, guarded by a couple of sentinels,
was pacing to and fro. And while Mr. Schoonmacker
and others of the leading Tories in the opposite
room were listening in dignified dejection to
the measures which Greyslaer stated, in the most
courteous terms, it was his painful duty to adopt in
regard to them, their followers were exchanging tokens
of recognition with old neighbours and former
comrades of the opposite party.

“Jim, you've done the darn thing agin us tonight,
and no mistake,” said one. “But if the Injuns
hadn't got as drunk as fiddlers, you couldn't
have popped in upon us as you did.”

The Congress soldier made no reply; but the

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

demure gravity of him and his comrades did not prevent
others of the Tory militia from attempting a
conversation with them.

“Well, Mat,” said a second, “if I'm to be taken
by the Whigs, I'm only glad that you happened to
come up from the fort along with them; for you
are just the man to say a good word for an old
friend. All this muss is of Wat Bradshawe's cooking.”

“Yes,” cried a third, “the friends of the king
only met to drink his health and have a little social
junketing together; and if bully Bradshawe had not
come among us, things would have gone off as
quietly as possible. All the harm I wish him is,
that he may get paid off for his old scrapes with a
halter, and rid the country of such a pest; there's
the affair, now, of old De Roos's daughter, for
which he ought to have swung eight years since.”

“Eight years!” rejoined the other. “No, the
scrape you speak of is hardly a matter of six years
by gone. But give the devil his due. The few
folks that knowed of it talked hard about wild Wat
for his share in that business. But things could not
have gone so far, after all, or the Rooses would
never have refused to appear against him, much less
would the gal herself have rejected his offer when
he wanted to make an honest woman of her.”

Bradshawe betrayed no agitation during this discussion,
which took place so near to him that, though
the speakers lowered their voices somewhat, it must
have been at least partially overheard by himself as
well as by others. But when another of the rustic
gossipers pointed significantly toward the room in
which Major Greyslaer was engaged, while whispering
that Miss De Roos had now “a raal truelove
of her own, and no mistake,” the features of

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

the Tory captain writhed with an expression almost
fiendish.

“Yes! I must live,” he muttered internally. “I
cannot, I will not die.—I have too many stakes yet
in the game of life to have the cards dashed thus
suddenly from my hands.—My scheme of existence
is too intimately interwoven with that of others to
stop here, and stop singly. I know, I feel that Alida's
fate and that of this moonstruck boy is interwoven
with mine.—I only can redeem her name,
or blast it with utter infamy; and their peace or
my revenge—whichever is ultimately to triumph—
were both a nullity if I perish now.” Alas! Walter
Bradshawe, dost thou think that Providence hath
but one mode of accomplishing its ends, if innocence
is to be vindicated, and that only through so
foul an instrument as thou!

Thus thought, or “thought he thought,” this ironhearted
desperado. But there were other distracting
feelings in his bosom which it were impossible for
him to analyze. Though hatred had long since predominated
over love in the warring passions of his
stormy breast, yet that hatred was born only of the
indignation and horror with which his attempts to
control Alida's inclinations had been received, and
his admiration had increased from the very circumstances
which chilled his love; but now the subtle
workings of jealousy infused a new element among
his conflicting passions, which quickened both love
and hatred into a more poignant existence.

Few, even of the most ignoble natures, are wholly
base; and Bradshawe, though he could not conceive
of, much less realize, one generous emotion
that belongs to those dispositions which the
world terms chivalrous, still possessed some of the
qualities that keep a man from becoming despicable
either to himself or to others. He had both

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

bravery and ability, and he knew it. Incapable of
one magnanimous thought, in deed he might still
be great! And determined in purpose as he was
loose in principle, he believed that he was a man
born for the very time and country in which his
lot was cast; for, regarding all others as senseless
zealots, he deemed that every man of abilities
engaged in the present political struggle was an adventurer
like himself, having his own selfish views
as the ultimate objects of his dangers and his toils.

If the aspiring aims, then, of a reckless ambition,
backed by no ordinary talent and courage the most
unflinching, can redeem from ignominy a mind
otherwise contracted, coarse, and selfish, Bradshawe
may be enrolled upon the same list with many a
hero, not less mean of soul, whom the world has
consented to admire; for the majority of mankind
always look to the deeds of those who distinguish
themselves beyond the herd, without much regard
to the moral end which those deeds were intended
to promote; and one brilliant invading campaign of
Napoleon is more dazzling to the mind than the
whole military career of HIM who fought only to
preserve his country! whose Heaven-directed arms
triumphed ultimately over thousands as brave as
Walter Bradshawe in the field; whose godlike counsels
discomfited thousands more gifted, if not more
unprincipled, in the cabinet.

But, awarding whatever credit we may to Bradshawe
for his aspirations after fame, let us leave
him now to awaken from the vague dream which,
almost unknown to himself, had at times passed
through his brain—of sharing his future renown with
Alida; and, while wiping off, in honourable marriage,
the reproach which he had attached to her
name, of gratifying, at the last, the passion which
was rooted in his heart. Let us leave the

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searching pang of jealousy to reveal to him first the existence
of this lingering touch of tenderness amid feelings
which he himself thought had become only
those of hatred. Let us leave him with that utter
desolation of the heart's best earthly hope, which
would prompt most men to welcome the grave upon
whose brink he stood, but from which he, fired with
a burning lust of vengeance, shrunk as from a dungeon
where the plotting brain and relentless hand
of malignity would lie helpless for ever.

How little they read the man who deemed that
terror of his fate had stupified him, when, obedient
to the order of his captor, he moved off, with stolid
and downcast look, amid the guard which conducted
him to durance at the quarters of the patriots.

CHAPTER V. THE FIELD OF ORISKANY.

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The doom which Greyslaer had, with military
sternness, predicted, was formally, by a military
court, pronounced upon Bradshawe that very night;
but when the hour of execution arrived on the morrow,
events were at hand which, postponing it for
the present, gave him, in fact, the advantages of an
indefinite reprieval.

Some Continental officers, of a rank superior to
that of the commandant, who arrived at Fort Dayton
during the night, suggested doubts as to the
policy of thus summarily executing martial law
upon the prisoner. In the morning a message arrived
from the beleaguered garrison of Fort Stanwix,
urging the Whig forces to press forward to the
scene of action, and attempt raising the seige at
once, or their succour would come too late to save
their compatriots. All was then bustle and motion.
The greater part of the troops at once hurried forward
to join Herkimer's forces, which had already
taken up their line of march for Oriskany, while a

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

detachment was sent down the river to speed on
those who still loitered on the road, to the border.
When this last was about to depart, the opportunity
was deemed a good one of getting rid of Bradshawe,
by sending him to headquarters at Albany, where
his sentence could either be enforced or remitted,
as a higher military authority should decide; and
he was accordingly marched off, strictly guarded by
the detachment.

Of the use that Walter Bradshawe made of this
reprieve to carry into effect his meditated vengeance
against Alida and her lover, we shall see hereafter.
We must now return to other personages of our
story, who have been, perhaps, too long forgotten.

It has been already incidentally mentioned that
Brant and his followers were playing a conspicuous
part in the bold invasion which now threatened to
give the royalists possession of at least two thirds
of the fair province of New-York, if, indeed, they
should not succeed in overrunning the whole.
Brant, who had brought nearly a thousand Iroquois
warriors to the standard of St. Leger, was indeed
the very soul of the expedition; for, if there be a
doubt of his devising the scheme itself, he certainly
planned some of its most important details; and the
zeal with which he executed his share of the undertaking
proved how thoroughly his heart was engaged
in it. The Johnsons, indeed, had come back
to struggle once more for a noble patrimony which
had been wrested from them, and many of their refugee
friends were animated by the hope of recovering
the valuable estates they had forfeited; but
Brant fought to recover the ancient seats of his
people, whose name as a nation was in danger of
being blotted out from the land.

When, therefore, he learned, through his scouts,
that Herkimer was approaching by forced marches

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

to break up the encampment of St. Leger, relieve
Fort Stanwix, and repel the advance of the invaders
through the valley of which it was the portal,
he instantly suggested measures for his discomfiture,
and planned that masterly ambuscade which
resulted in the bloody field of Oriskany.

There is, within a few miles of Fort Stanwix, a
deep hollow or ravine which intersects the forest
road by which Herkimer and his brave but undisciplined
army of partisan forces were approaching
to St. Leger's lines. The ravine sweeps toward
the east in a semicircular form, either horn of the
crescent thus formed bearing a northern and southern
direction, and enclosing a level and elevated
piece of ground upon the western side. The bottom
of the ravine was marshy, and the road crossed
it by means of a causeway. This was the spot selected
by Brant for attacking the column of Herkimer;
and hither St. Leger had sent a large force of
royalists to take post with his Indians on the morning
of the fatal sixth of August.

The white troops, consisting of detachments
from Claus's and Butler's Rangers and Johnson's
Greens, with a battalion of Major Watts's Royal
New-Yorkers, disposed themselves in the form of a
semicircle, with a swarm of Red warriors clustering
like bees upon either extremity; and it would seem
as if nothing could save Herkimer's column from
annihilation, should it once push fairly within the
horns of the crescent thus formed. The fortunes
of war, however, turn upon strange incidents; and
in the present instance, the very circumstance which
hurried hundreds of brave men among the patriots
upon their fate, was a cause of preservation to their
comrades.

The veteran General Herkimer, who was a wary
and experienced bush-fighter, aware of the

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

character of this ground, had ordered a halt when within a
few hundred yards of the spot where the battle was
ultimately joined; but, irritated by the mutinous
remonstrances of some of his insubordinate followers,
several of whom flatly charged the stout old
general with cowardice, he gave the order to “march
on” while his ranks were yet in confusion; and
eagerly was the order obeyed by the rash gathering
of border yeomanry.

“March on,” shouted the fiery Cox and ill-fated
Eisenlord. “March on,” thundered the Herculean
Gardinier and Samson-like Dillenback, whose puissant
deeds at Oriskany have immortalized their
names in border story. “March on,” echoed the
patriotic Billington and long-regretted Paris, and
many another brave civilian and gallant gentleman,
whom neither rank, nor station, nor want of skill in
arms had prevented from volunteering upon this fatal
field—the first and last they ever saw! “March
on,” shouted the hot-headed De Roos, catching up
the cry as quickly it ran from rank to rank, and
dashing wildly forward, he scarce knew where.

And already the foremost files have descended
into the hollow, and others, pressing from behind,
are pouring in a living tide to meet the opposing
shock below.

The impatience of Brant's warriors does not allow
them to wait until the Whig forces have all descended
into the ravine; but, raising their well-known
war-cry, the Mohawks pour a volley, which nearly
annihilates half of Herkimer's foremost division,
and wholly cuts off the remainder from the support
of their comrades. Uprising then among the bushes,
they spring with tomahawk and javelin upon
the panic-stricken corps, already broken and borne
down by that first onslaught. The Refugees push
forward with their bayonets to share in the

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

massacre of their countrymen. But now fresh foes are
rushing upon them in turn. Headstrong and impetuous
themselves, or urged on by the fiery masses
that press upon them from behind, they descend like
an avalanche from the plain above, and fill that little
vale with carnage and destruction; now swooping
down to be dispersed in death, and now bearing
with them a resistless force that hurls hundreds
who oppose it into eternity.

The leaders of both parties soon began to see that
this indiscriminate melee could result in no positive
advantage to either, while involving the destruction
of both; and, in a momentary pause of the conflict,
the voices of Herkimer's officers and of the opposing
leaders were simultaneously heard calling upon
their men to betake themselves to the bushes and
form anew under their cover. And now the fight is
somewhat changed in its character. Major Greyslaer,
seeing the causeway partially cleared of its
struggling combatants, rallies a compact band of
well-disciplined followers, and charges the thickets
in advance. But the throng through which he
cleaves a passage closes instantly behind him, and,
with the loss of half his men, he is obliged to cut
his way back to his comrades, where the chieftain
Teondetha, with his Oneida rifles, covers the shattered
band till Greyslaer can take new order.

The Whig yeomanry, in the mean time, had for
the most part taken post behind the adjacent trees,
where each man, as from a citadel of his own, made
war upon the enemy by keeping up an incessant
firing. But Brant, whose Indians were chiefly galled
by these sharpshooters, gave his orders, and the
Mohawks, wherever they saw the flash of a rifle,
would rush up, and, with lance or tomahawk, despatch
the marksman before he could gain time to
reload. Balt, whose unerring rifle had already

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

made many a foeman bite the dust, had ensconced
himself behind a shattered oak, a little in advance
of a thicket of birch and juniper, from which Christian
Lansingh, with others of Greyslaer's followers,
kept up a steady fire, and thus covered Balt's position.
The worthy hunter absolutely foamed with
rage when he saw several of his acquaintance, who
were less protected than himself, thus falling singly
beneath the murderous tomahawks of Brant's people;
but his anger received a new turn when he
beheld Greyslaer breaking his cover and rushing
with clubbed rifle after one of the retreating Mohawks,
who had despatched an unfortunate militiaman
within a few paces of him.

“Goody Lordy!” he exclaimed, “the boy's mad!
He'll spoil the breaching or bend the bar'l of the best
rifle in the county. Tormented lightning! though,
how he's buried the brass into him.”

Greyslaer, as Balt spoke, drove the angular metal
with which the stock of the weapon was shod
deep into the brain of the flying savage, while Balt
himself, in the same moment, brought down a javelin
man who was flying to the assistance of the
other.

“Aha! ain't that the caper on't, you pisen copperhead!
Down, major, down,” shouted the woodsman,
as his quick ear caught the click of a dozen
triggers in the opposite thicket; and Max, obedient
to the word, threw himself upon his face, while the
fire of a whole platoon of Tory rangers, that was
instantly answered by a volley from his own men,
passed harmlessly over him.

The dropping shots now became less frequent,
for the borderers on either side were so well protected
by the woodland cover, that, thought the
clothes of many were riddled with bullets, yet the
grazing of an elbow or some slight flesh-wound in

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

the leg was all the execution done by those who
were as practised in avoiding exposure to the aim
of an enemy, as in availing themselves with unerring
quickness of each chance of planting a bullet.

General Herkimer, who had already seen Greyslaer's
spirited effort to cut his way through the enemy
with a handful of men, deemed this the fitting
time to execute the movement upon a larger scale.
The fatal causeway was again thronged by the patriots
in the instant they heard the voice of their
leader exhorting his troops to force the passage in
which their bravest had already fallen. But, even
before they could form, and in the moment that
those closing ranks exposed themselves, a murderous
fire was poured in upon them on every side;
every tree and bush seemed to branch out with
flame.

Thrice, with desperate valour, did Herkimer cross
the causeway and charge the thronged hillside in
front; and thrice the files who rushed into the
places of the fallen were mowed down by the deadly
rifles from the thickets, or beaten back by the
cloud of spears and tomahawks that instantly thickened
in the path before them. In the third charge
the veteran fell, a musket-ball, which killed his
horse, having shattered his knee while passing
through the body of the charger.

But the fall of their general, instead of disheartening,
seems only to nerve his brave followers with
new determination of spirit, as, placed on his saddle
beneath a tree, the stout old soldier still essays
to order the battle. His manly tones, heard even
above the din of the conflict, give system and efficacy
to the brave endeavour of his broken ranks.
The tree against which he leans becomes a central
point round which they rally, fighting now, not for
conquest—hardly for self-preservation—but only in

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

stubborn resistance of their fate. And now, as the
enemy, impatient of this long opposition, concentre
round them, they form in circles, and receive in
silence the furious charge of their hostile countrymen.
Bayonet crosses bayonet, or the clubbed rifle
batters the opposing gunstock as they fight hand to
hand and foot to foot. Again and again do the
royalists recoil from the wall of iron hearts against
which they have hurled themselves. But, though
the living rampart yields not, it begins to crumble
with these successive shocks; the ranks of the patriots
grow thinner around their wounded general,
where brave men strew the ground like leaves when
the autumn is serest.

The Indian allies upon either side have, in the
mean time, suspended their firing. In vain does
the voice of Brant encourage his Mohawks to strike
a blow which shall at once decide this fearful crisis.
In vain does the gallant shout of Teondetha cheer
on the Oneidas to rescue his friends from the destruction
that hedges them in. Not an Indian will
move in that green-wood. The warriors of the forest
upon both sides have paused to watch this terrible
death-struggle between white men of the same
country and language. They have already ceased
to fire upon each other; and now, gazing together
upon the well-matched contest of those who involved
them in this family quarrel, they will not raise
an arm to strike for either party.

A storm, a terrific midsummer tempest, such as
often marks the sudden vicissitudes of our climate,
was the Heaven-directed interposition which stayed
the slaughter of that battle-field. The breath of
the thunder-gust swept the rain in sheets of foam
through the forest, and the hail burst down in torrents
upon those warring bands, whose arms now

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

flashed only as they glinted back the lightning's
glare.

There is a pause, then, in the bloody fight of Oriskany;
but the battle, which seemed but now nearly
ended in the overthrow of the patriots, is soon to be
resumed under different auspices. The royalists
have withdrawn for the moment to a spot where a
heavier forest-growth affords them some protection
from the elements. The republicans have conveyed
their wounded general to an adjacent knoll, from
which, exposed as it is to the fire of the enemy, he
insists upon ordering the battle when it shall be resumed;
and here, in the heat of the onslaught
which succeeded, the sturdy old border chief was
observed, with great deliberation, to take his flint
and tinder-box from his pocket, light his pipe, and
smoke with perfect composure. The veteran bush-fighter,
who missed many an officer around him,
grieved not the less for more than one favourite
rifle-shot who had perished among his private soldiers;
and, in order to counteract the mode of warfare
adopted by Brant, when, in the early part of
the battle, the Indian spears and tomahawks made
such dreadful havoc among the scattered riflemen,
Herkimer commanded his sharpshooters to station
themselves in pairs behind a single tree, and one
always to reserve his fire till the Indians should
rush up to despatch his comrade when loading.

In the mean time, while the different dispositions
for attack and defence were thus making by their
leaders, the rude soldiers on either side, hundreds
of whom were mutually acquainted, exchanged
many a bitter jeer with each other, while ever and
anon, as some taunting cry would rise among the
young warriors of Brant's party, it was echoed by
the opposing Oneidas with a fierce whoop of

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

defiance, that would pierce wildly amid the peltings of
the storm.

An hour elapsed before an abatement of the tempest
allowed the work of death to commence anew.
A movement on the part of the royalists by Major
Watts's battalion, first drew the fire of the patriots;
and then the Mohawks, cheered on by the terrible
war-whoop of Brant, and uttering yell on yell to intimidate
their foes, commenced the onslaught, tomahawk
in hand. But the cool execution done by the
marksmen whom Herkimer had so wisely planted
to sustain each other, made them quickly recoil;
and the Oneidas, eagerly pressing forward from the
republican side, drove them back upon a large body
of Butler's Rangers. Many of this corps had been
so severely handled by Greyslaer's men in the first
part of the battle, that they had fallen back to take
care of their wounded. But Bradshawe's company,
which had suffered least, was now in advance.
These fierce men brooked no control from the young
subaltern who was now nominally their commander.
Headed by the terrible Valtmeyer, whose
clothes were smeared with the gore from a dozen
scalps which dangled at his waist, they broke their
ranks, rushed singly upon the Oneidas, who had intruded
into their lair, and, driving them back among
their friends, became the next moment themselves
mixed up in wild melée with partisans of the other
side. This onslaught served as a signal for a rival
corps in another part of the field; and Claus's Rangers
broke their cover to battle with their foemen
hand to hand.

This corps of refugee royalists consisted of men
enlisted chiefly from the very neighbourhood where
they were now fighting. They had come back to
their former homes, bearing with them the hot
thirst of vengeance against their former friends and

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

neighbours; and when they heard the triumphant
shout of the Whigs at a momentary recoil of their
friends, and perhaps recognised the voices of some
who had aided in driving them from their country,
their impatience could not be restrained; they rushed
forward with a fiendish yell of hatred and ferocity,
while the patriots, instead of awaiting the charge,
in obedience to the commands of their officer, sprang
like chafed tigers from their covert, and met them
in the midst. Bayonets and clubbed muskets made
the first shock fatal to many; but these were quickly
thrown aside as the parties came in grappling
contact, drawing their knives and throttling each
other, stabbing, and literally dying in each other's
embrace.[7]

And thus, for five long hours, raged this ruthless
conflict. All military order had been lost in the
moment when the wild bush-fighters first broke
their cover and rushed forward to decide the battle
hand to hand. Men fought with the fury of demons;
or if, by chance, a squad or party of five or six
found themselves acting together, these would
quickly form rush forward, and, charging into the
thickest of the fight, soon be lost amid the crowd of
combatants. At one moment the tomahawk of
some fierce Red warrior would crash among the
bayonets and spears of whites and Indians as he
hewed his way to rescue some comrade that was
beset by clustering foes; at another, the shattering
of shafts and clashing of steel would be heard where
a sturdy pioneer, with his back to a tree, stood,
axe in hand, cleaving down a soldier at every blow,
or matching the cherished tool of his craft with the
ponderous mace of some brawny savage. Now
the groans of the dying, mixed with imprecations
deep and foul, rose harshly above the din of the

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

battle, and now te dismal howl or exulting yell of
the red Indian was mocked by a thousand demoniac
voices, screeching wild through the forest, as if the
very fiends of hell were let loose in that black
ravine.

The turmoil of the elements has long since subsided.
The sky is clear and serene above. Happily,
the forest glooms interpose a veil between its
meek, holy eye, and this dance of devilish passions
upon the earth.

eaf153v2.n7

[7] Stone, Campbell, Morris.

CHAPTER VI. THE ISSUES OF THE BATTLE.

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

An accomplished statesman and eloquent writer
has, in the passage which heads this chapter, well
depicted the appearance which the field of Oriskany
presented when the fight was over. The battle itself,
while the most bloody fought during the Revolution,
is remarkable for having been contested exclusively
between Americans, or, at least, between
those who, if not natives of the soil, were all denizens
of the province in which it was fought. And
though its political consequences were of slight
moment, for both parties claimed the victory, yet,
from the character of the troops engaged in it—from
the number of Indian warriors that were arrayed
upon either side—the protracted fierceness of the
action, and the terrible slaughter which marked its
progress, it must be held the most memorable conflict
that marked our seven years' struggle for national
independence.

Of the field officers that fell, it is true that most,
like the brave Herkimer himself, were only militiamen,
and of no great public consideration beyond
their own county: but with these gallant gentlemen
were associated as volunteers more than one mili

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

tary man of rank and repute that had been won upon
other fields; and many a civilian of eminence, who,
at the call of patriotism, had shouldered a musket
and met his death as a private soldier. The combatants
upon either side consisting almost exclusively
of inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley, there
were so many friends and neighbours, kinsmen, and
even brothers arrayed against each other, that the
battle partook of the nature of a series of private
feuds, in which the most bitter feelings of the human
heart were brought into play between the
greater part of those engaged. And when the few
who were actuated by a more chivalric spirit—like
the gallant Major Watts of the Royal New-Yorkers,
and others who might be designated among his hostile
compatriots—met in opposing arms, they too
fought with a stubborn valour, as if the military
character of their native province depended equally
upon the dauntless bearing of either party. The
annalist has elsewhere preserved so many minute
and thrilling details of Herkimer's last field,[8] that
it hardly becomes us to recapitulate them here,
though we would fain recall some of those traits of
chivalrous gallantry and generous daring which redeem
the brutal ferocity of the contest.

The deeds of the brave Captain Dillenback,
though his name is not intermingled with the thread
of our story, are so characteristic of the times in
which its scenes are laid, that they can hardly be
passed over. This officer had his private enemies
among those who were now arrayed in battle as public
foes; and Wolfert Valtmeyer, with three others
among the most desperate of the Refugees, determined
to seize his person in the midst of the fight,
and carry him off for some purpose best known
to themselves. Watching their opportunity, these

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

four desperadoes, when the tumult of the conflict
was at the highest, cut their way to the spot where
Dillenback was standing; and one of them succeeded
in mastering his gun for a moment. But Dillenback,
who caught sight of Valtmeyer's well-known
form pressing forward to aid his comrades in the
capture, knew better than to trust himself to the
tender mercies of his outlaw band. He swore that
he would not be taken alive, and he was not.
Wrenching his gun from the grasp of the first assailant,
he felled him to the earth with the breech,
shot the second dead, and plunged the bayonet into
the heart of the third. But in the moment of his
last triumph the brave Whig was himself laid dead
by a pistol-shot from Valtmeyer, who chanced to
be the fourth in coming up to him.

But perhaps as true a chevalier as met his fate
amid all that host of valiant hearts was a former
friend of Balt the woodsman; an old Mohawk hunter,
who bore the uncouth Dutch name of Bronkahorlst.

It was in the heat of the fight, when Brant's
dusky followers, flitting from tree to tree, had at one
time almost surrounded Greyslaer's small command,
that Balt, in the thickest of the fire, heard a well-known
voice calling him by name from behind
a large tree near; and, looking out from the huge
trunk which sheltered his own person, he recognised
the only Indian with whom his prejudices
against the race had ever allowed him to be upon
terms of intimacy.

“Come, my brother,” said the Iroquois warrior,
in his own tongue, “come and escape death or torture
by surrendering to your old friend, who pledges
the word of a Mohawk for your kind treatment and
protection.”

“Rather to you than to anybody, my noble old

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

boy; but Balt will be prisoner this day to no mortal
man. My name is Nozun Dotji—he that never
shirks.”

“And my name,” cried the Indian, “is The Killer
of Brave Men; so come on; we are happily
met.” With these words both parties threw down
their rifles, and, drawing their knives, rushed upon
each other.

The struggle was only a brief one; for Time, who
had nerved the brawny form of the white borderer
into the full maturity of manly strength, had dealt
less leniently with the aged Indian, who was borne
at once to the ground as they closed in the deathgrapple.
It was in vain that Balt, mindful of other
days and kinder meetings in the deep woodlands,
attempted to save his opponent's life by making
him a prisoner; for, in the moment that he mastered
the scalping-knife of the Indian and pinioned his
right arm to the ground, the latter, writhing beneath
his adversary with the flexibility of a serpent,
brought up his knee so near to his left hand as to
draw the leg-knife from beneath the garter, and
dealt Balt a blow in his side which nothing but his
hunting-shirt of tough elk-hide prevented from being
fatal. Even as it was, the weapon, after sliding
an inch or two, cut through the arrow-proof garment
that ere now had turned a sabre; while Balt, feeling
the point graze upon his ribs, thought that his
campaigning days were over, and, in the exasperation
of the moment, buried his knife to the hilt in
the bare bosom of Bronkahorlst.

“We are going together, old boy,” he cried, as
he sank back with a momentary faintness. “I only
hope we'll find the game as plenty in your hunting-ground
of spirits as we have on the banks of the
Sacondaga—God forgive me for being sich a heathen!”

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

But while this singular duel, with personal encounters
of a similar nature, were taking place in
one part of the field, others more eventful in their
consequences were transpiring elsewhere. The
puissant deeds of Captain Gardinier, like those of
Dillenback, have given his name a place upon the
sober page of history; but, as they involved the
fate of more than one of the personages of our story,
we have no hesitation in recapitulating them
here.

One principal cause, perhaps, why the Whigs
maintained their ground with such desperate tenacity,
was the hope that, so soon as the sound of
their firearms should reach the invested garrison of
Fort Stanwix, a sally would be attempted by the
besieged to effect a diversion in their favour. That
sally, so famous in our Revolutionary history, and
which gave to Willet, who conducted it, the name
of “the hero of Fort Stanwix,” did, in fact, take
place before the close of the battle of Oriskany, and
was, as we all know, attended with the most brilliant
success. But, long before the performance of
that gallant feat of Willet's, the Tory partisan, Colonel
Butler, aware of the hopes which animated his
Whig opponents at Oriskany, essayed a ruse de
guerre, which had wellnigh eventuated in their complete
destruction.

This wily officer, withdrawing a large detachment
of Johnson's Greens from the field of action,
partially disguised them as Republican troops by
making them change their hats for those of their
fallen enemies; and then adopting the patriot colours
and other party emblems as far as they could,
they made a circuit through the woods, and turned
the flank of the Whigs in the hope of gaining the
midst of them by coming in the guise of a timely
re-enforcement sent from the fort.

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

The hats of these soldiers appearing first through
the bushes, cheered Herkimer's men at once. The
cry was instantly raised that succour was at hand.
Many of the undisciplined yeomanry broke from
their stations, and ran to grasp the hands of their
supposed friends.

“Beware! beware! 'tis the enemy; don't you
see their green coats?” shouted Captain Gardinier,
whose company of dismounted rangers was nearest
to these new-comers. But, even as he spoke, one
of his own soldiers, a slight stripling, recognising
his own brother among the Greens, and supposing
him embarked in the same cause with himself,
rushed forward to embrace him. His outstretched
hand was seized with no friendly grasp by his hostile
kinsman; for the Tory brother, fastening a ferocious
gripe upon the credulous Whig, dragged him
within the opposing lines, exclaiming only, as he
flung him backward amid his comrades, “See, some
of ye, to the d—d young rebel, will ye?”

“For God's sake, brother, let them not kill me!
Do you not know me?” shrieked the youthful patriot,
as he clutched at one of those amid whom he
fell, to shield him from the blows that were straightway
aimed at his life.

But his brother had other work to engage him at
this instant; for the gallant Gardinier, observing
the action and its result, seized a partisan from a
corporal who stood near, and, wielding the spear like
a quarter staff, dealt his blows to the right and left
so vigorously that he soon beat back the disordered
group and liberated his man, who, clubbing his
rifle as he sprang to his feet, instantly levelled his
treacherous brother in the dust. But Gardinier and
his stripling soldier were now in the midst of the
Greens, unsupported by any of their comrades; and
the sturdy Major MacDonald, who this day had

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

taken duty with a detachment of Johnson's men, rushed
forward sword in hand to cut down Gardinier in
the same moment that two of the disguised Greens
sprang upon him from behind. Struggling with almost
superhuman strength to free himself from their
grasp, the spurs of the Whig Ranger became entangled
in the clothes of his adversaries, and he was
thrown to the ground. Both of his thighs were instantly
transfixed to the earth by the bayonets of
two of his assailants, while MacDonald, presenting
the point of his rapier to his throat, cried out to
“Yield himself, rescue or no rescue.” But Gardinier
did not yet dream of yielding.

Seizing the blade of the sword with his left hand,
the trooper, by a sudden wrench, brings the High-lander
down upon his own person, where he holds
him for a moment as a shield against the assault of
others. At this moment, Adam Miller for the first
time sees the struggle of Gardinier against this fearful
odds. His sword is already out and crimson
with the blood of more than one foe; and now,
rushing forward, he lays about him so industriously,
that the Greens are compelled to defend themselves
against their new adversary. Gardinier, raising
himself to a sitting posture, bears back MacDonald;
but the gallant Scot, still clinching the throat
of his foe with his left hand, braces himself firmly
on one knee, and turns to parry the phrensied blows
of Miller with his right. Gardinier has but one
hand at liberty, and that is lacerated by the rapier
which he had grasped so desperately; yet, quick
as light, he seizes the spear which is still lying near
him, and plants it to the barb in the side of MacDonald.
The chivalric Highlander expires without
a groan.

The Greens, struck with dismay at the fate of
this veteran officer, the near friend of Sir John

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

Johnson, fall back upon those of their comrades
who have not yet broken their ranks; while those
lookers-on, stung with grief for the loss of such an
officer, rally instantly to the charge, and pour in a
volley upon the Whigs, who have just succeeded in
dragging the wounded Gardinier out of the melée.
Severa fall, but their death is avenged on the instant;
yet dearly avenged, for the blow which follows,
while it terminates the battle, concludes the
existence of one of the most gallant spirits embarked
in it.

Young Derrick de Roos on that day had enacted
wonders of prowess. And though the rashness he exhibited
made his early soubriquet of “Mad Dirk” remembered
by more than one of his comrades, yet
he seemed somehow to bear a charmed life while
continually rushing to and fro wherever the fight
was hottest. At the very opening of the conflict,
when most of the mounted Rangers threw themselves
from their saddles and took to the bushes
with their rifles,[9] De Roos, with but a handful of
troopers to back him, drew his sword and charged
into the thickets from which came the first fire of
the ambushed foe.

“It is impossible for cavalry to act upon such
ground,” exclaimed an officer, seeing him about to
execute this mad movement. Do Roos, who, on
the march, was leading his horse, did not heed the
remark as he threw himself into the saddle. “Your
spurs—where are your spurs, man?” cried another,
as the horse, flurried by the first fire, rose on his

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

hinder legs instead of dashing forward. “Charge
not without your spurs, captain!”

“I'm going to win my spurs,” shouted Mad Dirk,
striking the flanks of the steed with the flat of his
sabre, which the next moment gleamed above his
head as the spirited animal, gathering courage from
his fiery rider, bounded forward in the charge.

In the instant confusion that followed, De Roos
was no more seen; the smoke, indeed, sometimes
revealed his orange plume floating like a tongue of
flame amid its wreaths; and his “Carry on, carry
on, men,” for a few moments cheered the ears of
the friends who could distinguish his gay and reckless
voice even amid the earnest shouts of the white
borderers, mingled as they were with the wild slogan
of the Indian warriors. But De Roos himself
appeared no more until, in the pause of the battle
already mentioned, he presented himself among his
compatriots, exclaiming,

“I've used up all my men! Is there no handful
of brave fellows here who will rally under Dirk de
Roos when we set-to again?”

The fearful slaughter which, as is known, took
place among Herkimer's officers at the very outset
of the fight, and almost with the first volley from
Brant's people, left men enough among those undisciplined
bands to furnish forth a stout array of volunteers,
who were eager to fight under so daring a
leader; and when the battle was renewed, the wild
partisan went into it with a train more numerous
than before. But his horse had long since been
killed under him; the followers upon whom he was
in the habit of relying had fallen, either dead or disabled,
by his side; and Derrick, somewhat sobered
in spirit, became more economical of his resources.
And, though still exposing his own person as much
as ever, he was vigilant in seeing that his men were

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

well covered, while he hoarded their energies to
strike some well-directed blow which might terminate
the battle.

With the last volley of the Greens he thought
the fitting moment had come. His bugle sounded
a charge, and on rushed his band with the bayonet.

“Carry on, carry on,” shouted De Roos, who
charged, sword in hand, a musket's length ahead of
his foremost files.

It seemed impossible for the weary royalists to
stand up against this column; for small in number
as were the men who composed it, they were comparatively
fresh, from a short breathing spell which they
had enjoyed; while their spirits were excited to the
utmost by their having been kept back by their officer
as he waited for the approaching crisis before
permitting a man to move. But the line of the
royalists, though broken and uneven, was still so
much longer than that of the patriots, that, outflanking
their assailants as they did, they had only to permit
their headlong foe to pass through, and then fall
upon his rear.

This movement the Greens effected with equal
alacrity and steadiness. Their ranks opened with
such quickness that they seemed to melt like a wave
before De Roos's impetuous charge; but, wavelike
too, they closed again behind his little band, which
was thus cut off from the patriot standard. Furious
at being thus caught in the toils, the fierce republicans
wheel again, and madly endeavour to cut their
way back to their friends; but the equally brave
royalists far outnumber them, and their fate for the
moment seems sealed, when suddenly another player
in this iron game presents himself.

Max Greyslaer, who, from a distance, has watched
the movement of his friend with the keenest
anxiety, sees the unequal struggle upon which the

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

fortunes of the whole battle are turning. He has
fought all day on foot, and, wounded and weary, he
seems too far from the spot upon which all the
chances of the fight are now concentred to reach it
ere they are decided. He looks eagerly around for
assistance; he shouts madly to those who are closer
to De Roos to press forward; and, bounding over a
fallen tree near him, he stumbles upon the trained
horse of a rifleman, which has been taught to crouch
in the thickets for safety. The couchant steed—
but now so quiet when masterless—rises with a
grateful winnow as Max seizes his bridle; and,
gladly yielding his back to so featly a rider, he
tosses his head with proud neighings as he feels
himself no longer a passive sharer in the dangers of
the field. On comes the gallant horse. The rider
gathers new life from the fresh spirits of his steed.
He sweeps—'twas thus the warlike saints of old
swept before the eyes of knightly combatants—he
sweeps meteor-like across the field, and charges
with his flashing brand, singly against the royal
host. Down goes the green banner of the Johnsons;
down goes the sturdy banner-man, shorn to
the earth by that trenchant blade.

The Greens, attacked thus impetuously in their
rear, turn partly round to confront this bold assailant;
but Greyslaer has already cloven his way
through their line, and Christian Lansingh, with a
score of active borderers, have rushed tumultuously
into his wake. The royalists are broken and forced
back laterally on either side of the pathway thus
made; but either fragment of the disjointed band
still struggles to reunite with desperate valour. The
republicans, concentrating their forces upon one at
a time, charge both parties alternately. Thrice
wheeling with the suddenness of a falcon in mid air,
has Greyslaer hurled himself upon their crumbling

[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]

ranks; and now, as one division is nearly annihilated
by that last charge, De Roos, emulous of his
friend, heads the onslaught against the remaining
fragment of the royalists. His orange plume again
floats foremost; and loud as when the fight was
new, his cheering voice is heard,

“Carry on, men, carry o—”

An Indian whoop—the last that was heard upon
the field of Oriskany—followed the single shot
which hushed that voice and laid that orange plume
in the dust.

Both Mohawks and royalists had already mostly
withdrawn from the field; and the remainder of the
Greens, who had contested it to the last so stubbornly,
retired when they saw De Roos fall.[10]

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[8] See Stone's Border Wars of the American Revolution.

CHAPTER VII. THE DOUBTFUL PARENTAGE.

[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]

They were busy making rude litters for the
wounded upon that field of slaughter. The brave
Herkimer, who so soon died of his injury, was already
borne off; but most of his surviving followers
yet remained. There were groups of mournful
faces around the dying, and here and there a desolate-looking
man was seen stalking over the field,
pausing from time to time in his dreary quest, looking
around now with quick and painful glances, and
now, with a half-fearful air, stooping over some gory
corse, as if seeking some near friend or kinsman
among the fallen.

By the root of a dusky tamarack lay a bleeding
officer, whose pale features showed that he was yet
young in years; while another of similar age was
busied stanching the blood which oozed in torrents
from his side. A kneeling soldier offered a vessel
of water; a grizzly hunter held the feet of the dying
man in his bosom, as if to cherish the extremities
that were rapidly growing cold. A grave Indian
stood mutely looking on. If he indeed sorrows
in heart like the others, his smooth cheek and quiet

[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]

eye betray not the agitation which paints their faces
with emotion.

It is of no avail, the kindness of that ministering
group of friends. The dying man, indeed, once
opens his eyes, and he seems to murmur something,
which the other officer bends forward with the most
earnest solicitation to hear. He seems to have
some charge or bequest of wishes to make to his
friend; but his thoughts cannot syllable themselves
into connected utterance. His wound seems to
gather virulence from each successive effort; yet
still he squanders his remaining strength in futile
attempts to communicate with his friends. Alas!
why did he not speak before, that luckless soldier,
if life's last moments were so precious to him?

“I know—I know—it is of Guise, the Indian
child, you would speak,” cried the agonized friend,
as the sudden thought started into his mind. “It is
the mystery of his birth—it is your wishes about
your own offspring that you would declare. God of
Heaven, pardon and spare him for a moment. Press
my hand, Derrick, if I have guessed truly that the
child is yours; make any—the least, the feeblest
sign, and your boy shall be as dear to Greyslaer as
his own.”

But Derrick died and gave no sign! His last
breath went out in the moment that his agitated
friend, for the first time, conjectured what he intended
to reveal.

They buried him beneath that dusky tamarack;
and there let him lay, a gallant, frank-hearted soldier,
whose bravery and generosity of disposition
will be remembered in his native valley long after
the blemishes, or, rather, the inherent defects of his
character are forgotten; a character not altogether
inestimable, far less unloveable, at that graceful season
of life when the wildest sallies of youth are

[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]

forgotten in the generous impulses which seem to
prompt them, but which, unregulated by one steadfast
principle, is perhaps, of all others, the most
likely to degenerate into utter profligacy and selfishness
when age shall have chilled the social flow of
its feelings, and habit confirmed the reckless indulgence
of its own humours.

It was well, then, perhaps, for the memory of the
gay and high-spirited De Roos, that his career closed
as it did; but the sorrowing group who are now
retiring from his hastily-made grave would spurn
the solace which such a reflection might impart.
The three white men have scattered twigs and tufts
of grass over the spot before they leave it; and they
turn to see why the Indian still lingers behind them;
an exclamation of displeasure, as at beholding some
heathen rite, bursts from the lips of Greyslaer as he
sees a column of smoke arise from a pile of brush
which Teondetha has already heaped together.

“The pagan Redskin, what is he doing?” muttered
Christian Lansingh.

“Teondetha is wise,” said Balt, sadly, in the only
words of kindness he had ever spoken to the young
chief. “He has preserved all that remains of poor
Captain Dirk; for the wild beasts will never scratch
through the ashes to disturb him.”

The Indian replied not, and they all left the battle-field
in silence.

Tradition tells of the horrid spectacle which that
field exhibited three days afterward, when the
wolves, the bears, and the panthers, with which the
adjacent forests at that time abounded, had been
busy among the graves of the slain; but the simple
precaution of Teondetha preserved from violation
the last resting-place of the friend of his boyhood.

Of the others that fell in this ensanguined conflict,
it belongs to history rather than to us to speak.

[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]

The annalist of Tryon county[11] tells us, that in the
whole Valley of the Mohawk there was scarcely a
family which had not lost some member; scarcely a
man, woman, or child who had not some relative to
deplore after the fatal field of Oriskany. Brant's
warriors had suffered so severely that his immediate
band of Mohawks was nearly all cut to pieces; but,
deeply as the chieftain grieved for the loss of his
brave followers, he had still room in his heart to
lament his friend MacDonald. At this point we
shall probably take leave of the famous Sachem,
whose career, though it grows more and more thrilling
in interest through the successive scenes of the
civil war along this border, is haply no farther interwoven
with the thread of our narrative.

Teondetha, too, though he may possibly again
flit across our page, we must now dismiss with his
Oneidas to the ancient seats of his people, where
they finally halted after cruelly harassing the rear
of the flying St. Leger. That officer, as is known,
broke up his lines before Fort Stanwix upon Arnold's
approach to Fort Dayton, and effected a most disastrous
retreat to the wilds from which he had
emerged with such boastful anticipations. Of the
officers to whom the arduous duty of pursuing him
into the wilderness was intrusted, few were more
distinguished for zeal and efficiency than Major
Greyslaer, whose knowledge of forest life enabled
him to co-operate to the greatest advantage with
the Oneida allies of the patriot cause.

Returning from this arduous and perilous service,
Greyslaer, when halting to refresh his men at the
Oneida Castle, had an opportunity of witnessing the
wedded happiness of “The Spreading Dew,” who
was long since united to her true warrior, and who
welcomed him with proud feelings of gratification

[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]

to her husband's lodge. He sympathized with the
fortunate issue of their simple loves, even while he
sighed to think that the course of his own, which
had never run too smoothly, was still far from
bright.

It was impossible for him to be near Alida in the
first days of her grief, when the tidings should reach
her that her only brother, the last male of her family,
the last near relation she had on earth, had been
taken away; but he had promised himself that many
weeks should not elapse before she should find a
comfort in the society of one who would leave no
means untried that kindness could suggest to alleviate
her sorrows; who would in all things endeavour
to supply the place of him who could return
no more. And, truly, if the ever-watchful consideration,
the tender and fostering care, the minute and
gentle offices of affection suggested by a heart of
inborn delicacy and feeling—if these cherishing
ministrations at the hands of a stranger to our blood
can ever supply the loss of a natural tie, Max Greyslaer
was the man of all others whose sympathies
would be most balmful at such a season. Alida
herself, though in the first agony of her grief she
would have shrunk from communion even with
Greyslaer, yet, when the paroxysm had passed
away, looked naturally to her lover—the earliest
and closest friend of the brother she had lost—as
her best consoler; and she yearned for his appearance
by her side with that impatience of disappointment
or delay which, though chiefly characteristic
of poor Derrick's impetuous and irrestrainable disposition,
was in no slight degree shared as a family
trait by his sister. But the day was far distant
when the lovers were again to meet; and Destiny
had strange things in store for them ere that

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

meeting, now so eagerly desired by either, was to be
brought about.

The greater part of the patriot troops employed
against St. Leger had been marched off to oppose
Burgoyne, whose invasion along the Hudson was
destined to be equally unsuccessful with that upon
the Mohawk. The fate of Major Greyslaer did not
lead him to have a share in the glorious operations
of Schuyler and Gates; while the large force which
had thus been withdrawn from the Valley of the
Mohawk, rendering the utmost vigilance necessary
in those who were left to guard it, made it impossible
for an officer of his standing and importance
to be absent on furlough at such a season.

As the autumn came on, he found himself posted
at Fort Stanwix, where new works were to be erected
to strengthen a frontier position which late events
had proved to be so all important to the preservation
of the province.

The winter set in, and his prospect of seeing
Alida was still farther postponed. The spring arrived
at last; and what were the hopes it brought
with its blossoms, when Greyslaer was about to
avail himself at last of a long-promised furlough?

The letters of Alida, meanwhile, had long breathed
a spirit which filled him with anxiety. They
had become more and more brief; and, though not
cold precisely, there was yet something formal in
their tenour, as if their writer were gradually falling
back upon the old terms of friendship which had so
long been their only acknowledged relation of regard.
It seemed as if some new and deeper sorrow
had fixed upon her heart; some weight of misery
which even he could not remove. She did not
complain; she made no mention of any specific
cause of grief, but she spoke as one whose hopes
were no longer of this world.

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

At first Greyslaer thought that it was the death
of her brother which had thus preyed upon her spirits;
and his replies to her letters bore the tenderest
sympathy with her sorrows as he united in mourning
over the early-closed career of his gallant and
high-spirited friend. But, dearly as she loved Derrick,
his name now was never mentioned by Alida!
Could it be that her health was failing? Was the
grave, then, about to yawn between Greyslaer and
his hopes, to swallow them up for ever? And did
Alida wish thus gradually to wean him from the
wild idolatry which had been the passion of his
life? to prepare him for the passing away of his
idol?

He thought, with terror, that it must be so.
There was a tone of serious religious sentiment, a
character of meekness and humility in some of her
letters, wholly foreign to her once proud and fervid
spirit. It was the tone of one who had ceased to
struggle with and rebel against her lot; who had
yielded her spirit to the guidance of Him who gave
it, and who waited in humble patience for the moment
of its recall.

“Yes,” said Greyslaer on the day that he was at
last to be relieved from his military duties, as he
read one of those passages in an agony of emotion,
with which something of solace was still intermingled,
“yes, she feels herself fading into the grave.
Consumption—yet Alida's is not the soul to crumble
beneath disease! This new-born gentleness can
only have been imparted from above. Her bright
spirit is gathering from on high the only grace it
lacked to fit it for that blessed sphere. She is fading—
fading away from me for ever.” His eyes
were strained on vacancy as he spoke, and he stood
with arms wildly outstretched, as if to arrest some

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

beloved phantom which seemed melting before
them.

The starting tears had scarcely filled those eyes,
when a comrade, abruptly breaking into his quarters,
told a tale which congealed them with horror
where they stood. The whole nature of Max
Greyslaer, the gentle, the high-minded, was changed
within him from that very moment.

And what was the monstrous tale that wrought
this change upon a mind so well attempered, a soul
so steadfast, a heart so true in all that can approve
its worth as was that of Greyslaer? Has fortune
still a test in store to prove the love that never wavered?
Has fate, from her black quiver, thrown a
shaft that even love itself, in all its panoply, can
not repel?

We are now approaching a part of our story that
we would fain pass over as rapidly as possible, for
the details are most painful; so painful, so revolting,
in fact, that we cannot bring ourselves to do
more than touch upon them while hurrying on to
the catastrophe which they precipitated.

Walter Bradshawe, as we have seen, was convicted
as a spy, and received sentence of death; but
a mistaken lenity prompted his reprieve before the
hour of execution arrived. When removed to Albany,
he was at first closely imprisoned for several
months; but the secret Tories, with which the capital
of the province at that time abounded, found
means of mitigating the rigours of his confinement,
and even of enlisting a strong interest in his behalf
among some of the most influential inhabitants.
Bradshawe, before the Revolution, had mingled intimately
in the society of the place, and his strongly-marked
character had made both friends and
enemies in the social circle. His present political
situation increased the number of both, and both

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

were now equally active in the endeavour to preserve
or crush him. The royalists, willing to keep
politics entirely out of view, appealed only to private
and personal feelings of old association in pleading
for his safety. Some of the patriots sternly rejected
all reference to a state of things which had
passed away, and would see only a Tory malignant
and detected spy in their former neighbour. But
others accepted the issue which was offered by the
friends of the criminal, and indignantly insisted that
there was nothing in his private character which
should make him a fit subject for mercy. The
whole career of his life was ripped up from the
time when, as a law student at Albany, he was
known as one of the most riotous and reckless
youths of the period—through the opening scenes
of the Revolution, when his insolent and scandalous
conduct, on more than one occasion, had exasperated
the minds of men against the official profligate—
through those which followed the outbreak of civil
discord, when his aid or connivance was more than
suspected to many a deed of ruthless violence, of
midnight burning, of bloodshed and cruelty—down
to the present time, when he stood a convicted
criminal, whose life had been most justly forfeited.

Men stop at nothing when their minds are once
excited in times so phrensied as these; and the
whole story of the abduction of Miss De Roos was
brought up as testimony against Bradshawe's character,
with every particular exaggerated, and the
outrage painted in every colour which could inspire
horror at its enormity.

Rumours of Greyslaer's approaching nuptials
with the unhappy lady who was thus made the general
subject of conversation, reached the ears of
Bradshawe while chafing beneath these charges,
and the thought of the misery they would inflict

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

upon his victims might have been sufficient even
for his revengeful spirit; but he determined, with a
hellish ingenuity, to fling the imputation of the outrage
from himself, and, at the same time, to plant
its stigma in an exaggerated form upon her whose
name had been so recklessly dragged in by his persecutors.
He first set afloat insinuations in regard
to the parentage of the half-blood Indian boy who
had long been an inmate of the family at the Hawksnest,
and who had more than once visited Albany
under the care of Alida, whom the child so much
resembled! And then he boldly proclaimed, that,
so far from instituting the alleged abduction of Miss
De Roos, he had only, out of respect for her connexions,
aided in withdrawing her from the protection
of Isaac Brant, to whom she had fled from her
father's halls!

A conviction of the nature of the feelings, the
tortured and blasted feelings which had prompted
the tone of Alida's letters, flashed electric upon the
mind of her lover at this horrid recital; and at
thought of that lady, most deject and wretched, his
noble and most sovereign reason—to which religion
had ever been the handmaid—was quite o'erthrown:
“The soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, quite—
quite down.”

In a word, Max Greyslaer, as we have already
said—Max, the gentle, the high-minded, became
changed in soul on the instant. The prayerful
spirit of one short hour ago vanished before the new
divinity that usurped its place upon the altar of his
heart. His dream of submission to the will of Providence—
the tearful resignation which his belief in
Alida's illness inspired, was over, lost, swallowed
up, obliterated in the wild tempest of his passions.
The fierce lust of vengeance shot through his veins
and agitated every fibre of his system; a horrid

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

craving seized his heart—the craving for the blood
of a human victim! And had Bradshawe stood
near, gifted with a hundred lives, Greyslaer could
one by one have torn them all from out his mortal
frame.

The object of his vengeance was far away, but
Max Greyslaer from that moment was not less in
thought—a MURDERER!

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