p641-014 CHAPTER I. THE BIRTHPLACE OF ISRAEL.

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

THE traveller who at the present day is content to travel
in the good old Asiatic style, neither rushed along by a
locomotive, nor dragged by a stage-coach; who is willing to
enjoy hospitalities at far-scattered farmhouses, instead of
paying his bill at an inn; who is not to be frightened by
any amount of loneliness, or to be deterred by the roughest
roads or the highest hills; such a traveller in the eastern
part of Berkshire, Massachusetts, will find ample food
for poetic reflection in the singular scenery of a country,
which, owing to the ruggedness of the soil and its lying out
of the track of all public conveyances, remains almost as
unknown to the general tourist as the interior of Bohemia.

Travelling northward from the township of Otis, the road

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leads for twenty or thirty miles towards Windsor, lengthwise
upon that long broken spur of heights which the Green
Mountains of Vermont send into Massachusetts. For nearly
the whole of the distance, you have the continual sensation
of being upon some terrace in the moon. The feeling of the
plain or the valley is never yours; scarcely the feeling of
the earth. Unless by a sudden precipitation of the road you
find yourself plunging into some gorge, you pass on, and
on, and on, upon the crests or slopes of pastoral mountains,
while far below, mapped out in its beauty, the valley of the
Housatonic lies endlessly along at your feet. Often, as your
horse gaining some lofty level tract, flat as a table, trots
gayly over the almost deserted and sodded road, and your
admiring eye sweeps the broad landscape beneath, you seem
to be Boótes driving in heaven. Save a potato field here and
there, at long intervals, the whole country is either in wood
or pasture. Horses, cattle and sheep are the principal inhabitants
of these mountains. But all through the year lazy
columns of smoke, rising from the depths of the forest, proclaim
the presence of that half-outlaw, the charcoal-burner;
while in early spring added curls of vapor show that the
maple sugar-boiler is also at work. But as for farming as a
regular vocation, there is not much of it here. At any rate,
no man by that means accumulates a fortune from this thin
and rocky soil, all whose arable parts have long since been
nearly exhausted.

Yet during the first settlement of the country, the region
was not unproductive. Here it was that the original settlers
came, acting upon the principle well known to have regulated
their choice of site, namely, the high land in preference to the

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low, as less subject to the unwholesome miasmas generated
by breaking into the rich valleys and alluvial bottoms of
primeval regions. By degrees, however, they quitted the
safety of this sterile elevation, to brave the dangers of richer
though lower fields. So that, at the present day, some of
those mountain townships present an aspect of singular abandonment.
Though they have never known aught but peace
and health, they, in one lesser aspect at least, look like countries
depopulated by plague and war. Every mile or two a
house is passed untenanted. The strength of the frame-work
of these ancient buildings enables them long to resist the encroachments
of decay. Spotted gray and green with the
weather-stain, their timbers seem to have lapsed back into
their woodland original, forming part now of the general picturesqueness
of the natural scene. They are of extraordinary
size, compared with modern farmhouses. One peculiar feature
is the immense chimney, of light gray stone, perforating
the middle of the roof like a tower.

On all sides are seen the tokens of ancient industry.
As stone abounds throughout these mountains, that material
was, for fences, as ready to the hand as wood, besides being
much more durable. Consequently the landscape is intersected
in all directions with walls of uncommon neatness and
strength.

The number and length of these walls is not more surprising
than the size of some of the blocks comprising them. The
very Titans seemed to have been at work. That so small an
army as the first settlers must needs have been, should have
taken such wonderful pains to enclose so ungrateful a soil;
that they should have accomplished such herculean

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

undertakings with so slight prospect of reward; this is a consideration
which gives us a significant hint of the temper of the men of
the Revolutionary era.

Nor could a fitter country be found for the birthplace of the
devoted patriot, Israel Potter.

To this day the best stone-wall builders, as the best wood-choppers,
come from those solitary mountain towns; a tall,
athletic, and hardy race, unerring with the axe as the Indian
with the tomahawk; at stone-rolling, patient as Sisyphus,
powerful as Samson.

In fine clear June days, the bloom of these mountains is beyond
expression delightful. Last visiting these heights ere
she vanishes, Spring, like the sunset, flings her sweetest
charms upon them. Each tuft of upland grass is musked
like a bouquet with perfume. The balmy breeze swings to
and fro like a censer. On one side the eye follows for the
space of an eagle's flight, the serpentine mountain chains,
southwards from the great purple dome of Taconic—the
St. Peter's of these hills—northwards to the twin summits
of Saddleback, which is the two-steepled natural cathedral
of Berkshire; while low down to the west the Housatonic
winds on in her watery labyrinth, through charming
meadows basking in the reflected rays from the hill-sides.
At this season the beauty of every thing around you
populates the loneliness of your way. You would not
have the country more settled if you could. Content to
drink in such loveliness at all your senses, the heart
desires no company but Nature.

With what rapture you behold, hovering over some
vast hollow of the hills, or slowly drifting at an immense

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

height over the far sunken Housatonic valley, some lordly
eagle, who in unshared exaltation looks down equally
upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying
from some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from
his pinnacled castle, and darting down towards the river
for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding about in the
zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who
with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his
bravery, finally persecutes him back to his stronghold.
The otherwise dauntless bandit, soaring at his topmost
height, must needs succumb to this sable image of death.
Nor are there wanting many smaller and less famous
fowl, who without contributing to the grandeur, yet greatly
add to the beauty of the scene. The yellow-bird flits
like a winged jonquil here and there; like knots of violets
the blue-birds sport in clusters upon the grass; while
hurrying from the pasture to the grove, the red robin
seems an incendiary putting torch to the trees. Meanwhile
the air is vocal with their hymns, and your own
soul joys in the general joy. Like a stranger in an orchestra,
you cannot help singing yourself when all around you
raise such hosannas.

But in autumn, those gay northerners, the birds, return
to their southern plantations. The mountains are left
bleak and sere. Solitude settles down upon them in drizzling
mists. The traveller is beset, at perilous turns, by
dense masses of fog. He emerges for a moment into
more penetrable air; and passing some gray, abandoned
house, sees the lofty vapors plainly eddy by its desolate
door; just as from the plain you may see it eddy by

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the pinnacles of distant and lonely heights. Or, dismounting
from his frightened horse, he leads him down some
scowling glen, where the road steeply dips among grim
rocks, only to rise as abruptly again; and as he warily
picks his way, uneasy at the menacing scene, he sees some
ghost-like object looming through the mist at the roadside;
and wending towards it, beholds a rude white stone,
uncouthly inscribed, marking the spot where, some fifty
or sixty years ago, some farmer was upset in his wood-sled,
and perished beneath the load.

In winter this region is blocked up with snow. Inaccessible
and impassable, those wild, unfrequented roads,
which in August are overgrown with high grass, in December
are drifted to the arm-pit with the white fleece
from the sky. As if an ocean rolled between man and
man, intercommunication is often suspended for weeks
and weeks.

Such, at this day, is the country which gave birth to
our hero: prophetically styled Israel by the good Puritans,
his parents, since, for more than forty years, poor
Potter wandered in the wild wilderness of the world's
extremest hardships and ills.

How little he thought, when, as a boy, hunting after
his father's stray cattle among these New England hills
he himself like a beast should be hunted through half of
Old England, as a runaway rebel. Or, how could he
ever have dreamed, when involved in the autumnal vapors
of these mountains, that worse bewilderments awaited
him three thousand miles across the sea, wandering forlorn
in the coal-fogs of London. But so it was destined

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

to be. This little boy of the hills, born in sight of the
sparkling Housatonic, was to linger out the best part of
his life a prisoner or a pauper upon the grimy banks of
the Thames.

p641-021 CHAPTER II. THE YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES OF ISRAEL.

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IMAGINATION will easily picture the rural day of the
youth of Israel. Let us pass on to a less immature
period.

It appears that he began his wanderings very early;
moreover, that ere, on just principles throwing off the
yoke off his king, Israel, on equally excusable grounds,
emancipated himself from his sire. He continued in the
enjoyment of parental love till the age of eighteen,
when, having formed an attachment for a neighbor's
daughter—for some reason, not deemed a suitable match
by his father—he was severely reprimanded, warned to
discontinue his visits, and threatened with some disgraceful
punishment in case he persisted. As the girl was not
only beautiful, but amiable—though, as will be seen,
rather weak—and her family as respectable as any, though
unfortunately but poor, Israel deemed his father's conduct
unreasonable and oppressive; particularly as it turned
out that he had taken secret means to thwart his son
with the girl's connections, if not with the girl herself,

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

so as to place almost insurmountable obstacles to an
eventual marriage. For it had not been the purpose of
Israel to marry at once, but at a future day, when prudence
should approve the step. So, oppressed by his
father, and bitterly disappointed in his love, the desperate
boy formed the determination to quit them both, for
another home and other friends.

It was on Sunday, while the family were gone to a
farmhouse church near by, that he packed up as much
of his clothing as might be contained in a handkerchief,
which, with a small quantity of provision, he hid in a
piece of woods in the rear of the house. He then returned,
and continued in the house till about nine in
the evening, when, pretending to go to bed, he passed
out of a back door, and hastened to the woods for his
bundle.

It was a sultry night in July; and that he might travel
with the more case on the succeeding day, he lay down
at the foot of a pine tree, reposing himself till an hour
before dawn, when, upon awaking, he heard the soft, prophetic
sighing of the pine, stirred by the first breath of
the morning. Like the leaflets of that evergreen, all the
fibres of his heart trembled within him; tears fell from
his eyes. But he thought of the tyranny of his father,
and what seemed to him the faithlessness of his love;
and shouldering his bundle, arose, and marched on.

His intention was to reach the new countries to the
northward and westward, lying between the Dutch settlements
on the Hudson, and the Yankee settlements on
the Housatonic. This was mainly to elude all search.

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

For the same reason, for the first ten or twelve miles,
shunning the public roads, he travelled through the woods;
for he knew that he would soon be missed and pursued.

He reached his destination in safety; hired out to a
farmer for a month through the harvest; then crossed
from the Hudson to the Connecticut. Meeting here with
an adventurer to the unknown regions lying about the
head waters of the latter river, he ascended with this
man in a canoe, paddling and pulling for many miles.
Here again he hired himself out for three months; at
the end of that time to receive for his wages, two hundred
acres of land lying in New Hampshire. The cheapness
of the land was not alone owing to the newness of
the country, but to the perils investing it. Not only
was it a wilderness abounding with wild beasts, but the
widely-scattered inhabitants were in continual dread of
being, at some unguarded moment, destroyed or made
captive by the Canadian savages, who, ever since the
French war, had improved every opportunity to make
forays across the defenceless frontier.

His employer proving false to his contract in the matter
of the land, and there being no law in the country
to force him to fulfil it, Israel—who, however brave-hearted,
and even much of a darc-devil upon a pinch, seems nevertheless
to have evinced, throughout many parts of his
career, a singular patience and mildness—was obliged
to look round for other means of livelihood than clearing
out a farm for himself in the wilderness. A party
of royal surveyors were at this period surveying the
unsettled regions bordering the Connecticut river to its

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

source. At fifteen shillings per month, he engaged himself
to this party as assistant chain-bearer, little thinking
that the day was to come when he should clank the king's
chains in a dungeon, even as now he trailed them a free
ranger of the woods. It was midwinter; the land was
surveyed upon snow-shoes. At the close of the day,
fires were kindled with dry hemlock, a hut thrown up,
and the party ate and slept.

Paid off at last, Israel bought a gun and ammunition,
and turned hunter. Deer, beaver, &c., were plenty. In
two or three months he had many skins to show. I suppose
it never entered his mind that he was thus qualifying
himself for a marksman of men. But thus were
tutored those wonderful shots who did such execution at
Bunker's Hill; these, the hunter-soldiers, whom Putnam
bade wait till the white of the enemy's eye was seen.

With the result of his hunting he purchased a hundred
acres of land, further down the river, toward the more
settled parts; built himself a log hut, and in two summers,
with his own hands, cleared thirty acres for sowing.
In the winter seasons he hunted and trapped. At the end
of the two years, he sold back his land—now much improved—
to the original owner, at an advance of fifty
pounds. He conveyed his cash and furs to Charlestown,
on the Connecticut (sometimes called No. 4), where he
trafficked them away for Indian blankets, pigments, and
other showy articles adapted to the business of a trader
among savages. It was now winter again. Putting his
goods on a hand-sled, he started towards Canada, a peddler
in the wilderness, stopping at wigwams instead of

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

cottages. One fancies that, had it been summer, Israel
would have travelled with a wheelbarrow, and so trundled
his wares through the primeval forests, with the same indifference
as porters roll their barrows over the flagging
of streets. In this way was bred that fearless self-reliance
and independence which conducted our forefathers to national
freedom.

This Canadian trip proved highly successful. Selling
his glittering goods at a great advance, he received in
exchange valuable peltries and furs at a corresponding
reduction. Returning to Charlestown, he disposed of his
return cargo again at a very fine profit. And now, with
a light heart and a heavy purse, he resolved to visit his
sweetheart and parents, of whom, for three years, he had
had no tidings.

They were not less astonished than delighted at his reappearance;
he had been numbered with the dead. But
his love still seemed strangely coy; willing, but yet somehow
mysteriously withheld. The old intrigues were still
on foot. Israel soon discovered, that though rejoiced to
welcome the return of the prodigal son—so some called
him—his father still remained inflexibly determined against
the match, and still inexplicably countermined his wooing.
With a dolorous heart he mildly yielded to what seemed
his fatality; and more intrepid in facing peril for himself,
than in endangering others by maintaining his rights
(for he was now one-and-twenty), resolved once more to
retreat, and quit his blue hills for the bluer billows.

A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded
misanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

asylum for the generous distressed. The ocean brims
with natural griefs and tragedies; and into that watery
immensity of terror, man's private grief is lost like a
drop.

Travelling on foot to Providence, Rhode Island, Israel
shipped on board a sloop, bound with lime to the West
Indies. On the tenth day out, the vessel caught fire,
from water communicating with the lime. It was impossible
to extinguish the flames. The boat was hoisted out,
but owing to long exposure to the sun, it needed continual
bailing to keep it afloat. They had only time to
put in a firkin of butter and a ten-gallon keg of water.
Eight in number, the crew entrusted themselves to the
waves, in a leaky tub, many leagues from land. As the
boat swept under the burning bowsprit, Israel caught at
a fragment of the flying-jib, which sail had fallen down
the stay, owing to the charring, nigh the deck, of the rope
which hoisted it. Tanned with the smoke, and its edge
blackened with the fire, this bit of canvass helped them
bravely on their way. Thanks to kind Providence, on the
second day they were picked up by a Dutch ship, bound
from Eustatia to Holland. The castaways were humanely
received, and supplied with every necessary. At the end
of a week, while unsophisticated Israel was sitting in the
main-top, thinking what should befall him in Holland, and
wondering what sort of unsettled, wild country it was, and
whether there was any deer-shooting or beaver-trapping
there, lo! an American brig, bound from Piscataqua
to Antigua, comes in sight. The American took them
aboard, and conveyed them safely to her port. There

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

Israel shipped for Porto Rico; from thence, sailed to
Eustatia.

Other rovings ensued; until at last, entering on board
a Nantucket ship, he hunted the leviathan off the Western
Islands and on the coast of Africa, for sixteen months;
returning at length to Nantucket with a brimming hold.
From that island he sailed again on another whaling
voyage, extending, this time, into the great South Sea.
There, promoted to be harpooner, Israel, whose eye and
arm had been so improved by practice with his gun in
the wilderness, now further intensified his aim, by darting
the whale-lance; still, unwittingly, preparing himself for
the Bunker Hill rifle.

In this last voyage, our adventurer experienced to the
extreme all the hardships and privations of the whale-man's
life on a long voyage to distant and barbarous
waters—hardships and privations unknown at the present
day, when science has so greatly contributed, in manifold
ways, to lessen the sufferings, and add to the comforts of
seafaring men. Heartily sick of the ocean, and longing
once more for the bush, Israel, upon receiving his discharge
at Nantucket at the end of the voyage, hied
straight back for his mountain home.

But if hopes of his sweetheart winged his returning
flight, such hopes were not destined to be crowned with
fruition. The dear, false girl was another's.

p641-028 CHAPTER III. ISRAEL GOES TO THE WARS; AND REACHING BUNKER HILL IN TIME TO BE OF SERVICE THERE, SOON AFTER IS FORCED TO EXTEND HIS TRAVELS ACROSS THE SEA INTO THE ENEMY'S LAND.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

LEFT to idle lamentations, Israel might now have
planted deep furrows in his brow. But stifling his
pain, he chose rather to plough, than be ploughed. Farming
weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil pursuit
tolerates nothing but tranquil meditations. There, too, in
mother earth, you may plant and reap; not, as in other
things, plant and see the planting torn up by the roots.
But if wandering in the wilderness, and wandering upon
the waters, if felling trees, and hunting, and shipwreck,
and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures,
had not as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless
passion, events were at hand for ever to drown it.

It was the year 1774. The difficulties long pending
between the colonies and England were arriving at their
crisis. Hostilities were certain. The Americans were preparing
themselves. Companies were formed in most of

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

the New England towns, whose members, receiving the
name of minute-men, stood ready to march anywhere at
a minute's warning. Israel, for the last eight months, sojourning
as a laborer on a farm in Windsor, enrolled
himself in the regiment of Colonel John Patterson of
Lenox, afterwards General Patterson.

The battle of Lexington was fought on the 18th of
April, 1775; news of it arrived in the county of Berkshire
on the 20th about noon. The next morning at
sunrise, Israel swung his knapsack, shouldered his musket,
and, with Patterson's regiment, was on the march, quickstep,
towards Boston.

Like Putnam, Israel received the stirring tidings at the
plough. But although not less willing than Putnam to
fly to battle at an instant's notice, yet—only half an
acre of the field remaining to be finished—he whipped up
his team and finished it. Before hastening to one duty,
he would not leave a prior one undone; and ere helping
to whip the British, for a little practice' sake, he applied
the gad to his oxen. From the field of the farmer, he
rushed to that of the soldier, mingling his blood with his
sweat. While we revel in broadcloth, let us not forget
what we owe to linsey-woolsey.

With other detachments from various quarters, Israel's
regiment remained encamped for several days in the vicinity
of Charlestown. On the seventeenth of June, one
thousand Americans, including the regiment of Patterson,
were set about fortifying Bunker's Hill. Working all
through the night, by dawn of the following day, the
redoubt was thrown up. But every one knows all about

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

the battle. Suffice it, that Israel was one of those marksmen
whom Putnam harangued as touching the enemy's
eyes. Forbearing as he was with his oppressive father
and unfaithful love, and mild as he was on the farm,
Israel was not the same at Bunker Hill. Putnam had
enjoined the men to aim at the officers; so Israel aimed
between the golden epaulettes, as, in the wilderness, he
had aimed between the branching antlers. With dogged
disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up
the hill with sullen slowness; thus furnishing still surer
aims to the muskets which bristled on the redoubt.
Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice
in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an
inexperienced marksman; hinting, that every shot which
the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would,
upon a different occasion, have procured him a deerskin.
And like stricken deers the English, rashly brave as they
were, fled from the opening fire. But the marksman's
ammunition was expended; a hand-to-hand encounter ensued.
Not one American musket in twenty had a bayonet
to it. So, wielding the stock right and left, the terrible
farmers, with hats and coats off, fought their way among
the furred grenadiers, knocking them right and left, as
seal-hunters on the beach, knock down with their clubs
the Shetland seal. In the dense crowd and confusion,
while Israel's musket got interlocked, he saw a blade
horizontally menacing his feet from the ground. Thinking
some fallen enemy sought to strike him at the last gasp,
dropping his hold on his musket, he wrenched at the steel,
but found that though a brave hand held it, that hand

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

was powerless for ever. It was some British officer's
laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting,
refusing to yield up its blade to the last. At that
moment another sword was aimed at Israel's head by a
living officer. In an instant the blow was parried by
kindred steel, and the assailant fell by a brother's weapon,
wielded by alien hands. But Israel did not come off unscathed.
A cut on the right arm near the elbow, received
in parrying the officer's blow, a long slit across
the chest, a musket ball buried in his hip, and another
mangling him near the ankle of the same leg, were the
tokens of intrepidity which our Sicinius Dentatus carried
from this memorable field. Nevertheless, with his comrades
he succeeded in reaching Prospect Hill, and from
thence was conveyed to the hospital at Cambridge. The
bullet was extracted, his lesser wounds were dressed, and
after much suffering from the fracture of the bone near
the ankle, several pieces of which were extracted by the
surgeon, ere long, thanks to the high health and pure
blood of the farmer, Israel rejoined his regiment when
they were throwing up intrenchments on Prospect Hill.
Bunker Hill was now in possession of the foe, who in
turn had fortified it.

On the third of July, Washington arrived from the
South to take the command. Israel witnessed his joyful
reception by the huzzaing companies.

The British now quartered in Boston suffered greatly
from the scarcity of provisions. Washington took every
precaution to prevent their receiving a supply. Inland,
all aid could easily be cut off. To guard against their

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

receiving any by water, from tories and other disaffected
persons, the General equipped three armed vessels to intercept
all traitorous cruisers. Among them was the
brigantine Washington, of ten guns, commanded by Captain
Martindale. Seamen were hard to be had. The
soldiers were called upon to volunteer for these vessels.
Israel was one who so did; thinking that as an experienced
sailor he should not be backward in a juncture like this,
little as he fancied the new service assigned.

Three days out of Boston harbor, the brigantine was
captured by the enemy's ship Foy, of twenty guns. Taken
prisoner with the rest of the crew, Israel was afterwards
put on board the frigate Tartar, with immediate sailing
orders for England. Seventy-two were captives in this
vessel. Headed by Israel, these men—half way across
the sea—formed a scheme to take the ship, but were betrayed
by a renegade Englishman. As ringleader, Israel
was put in irons, and so remained till the frigate anchored
at Portsmouth. There he was brought on deck; and
would have met perhaps some terrible fate, had it not
come out, during the examination, that the Englishman
had been a deserter from the army of his native country
ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. Relieved of
his irons, Israel was placed in the marine hospital on
shore, where half of the prisoners took the small-pox,
which swept off a third of their number. Why talk of
Jaffa?

From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spit-head,
and thrust on board a hulk. And here in the
black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the sunless sea, our

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

poor Israel lay for a month, like Jonah in the belly of
the whale.

But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck.
A bargeman of the commander's boat is sick. Known
for a sailor, Israel for the nonce is appointed to pull the
absent man's oar.

The officers being landed, some of the crew propose,
like merry Englishmen as they are, to hie to a neighboring
ale-house, and have a cosy pot or two together.
Agreed. They start, and Israel with them. As they
enter the ale-house door, our prisoner is suddenly reminded
of still more imperative calls. Unsuspected of any design,
he is allowed to leave the party for a moment. No sooner
does Israel see his companions housed, than putting speed
into his feet, and letting grow all his wings, he starts like a
deer. He runs four miles (so he afterwards affirmed) without
halting. He sped towards London; wisely deeming
that once in that crowd detection would be impossible.

Ten miles, as he computed, from where he had left the
bargemen, leisurely passing a public house of a little village
on the roadside, thinking himself now pretty safe—
hark, what is this he hears?—

“Ahoy!”

“No ship,” says Israel, hurrying on.

“Stop.”

“If you will attend to your business, I will endeavor
to attend to mine,” replies Israel coolly. And next minute
he lets grow his wings again; flying, one dare say, at
the rate of something less than thirty miles an hour.

“Stop thief!” is now the cry. Numbers rushed from

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

the roadside houses. After a mile's chase, the poor panting
deer is caught.

Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly
confesses himself a prisoner-of-war. The officer, a good
fellow as it turned out, had him escorted back to the inn;
where, observing to the landlord that this must needs
be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to refresh
Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed
to guard him for the present. This was towards evening;
and up to a late hour at night, the inn was filled with
strangers crowding to see the Yankee rebel, as they politely
termed him. These honest rustics seemed to think that
Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of 'possum
or kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them.
That liquor he drank from the hand of his foe, has perhaps
warmed his heart towards all the rest of his enemies.
Yet this may not be wholly so. We shall see. At any
rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance—escape.
Neither the jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer
to molest him. He is cogitating a little plot to himself.

It seems that the good officer—not more true to the
king his master than indulgent towards the prisoner which
that same loyalty made—had left orders that Israel should
be supplied with whatever liquor he wanted that night.
So, calling for the can again and again, Israel invites the
two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag
of the company proposes that Israel should entertain the
public with a jig, he (the wag) having heard that the
Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A fiddle is brought
in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut to

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be
diverted at the expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel,
while jigging it up and down, still conspires away at his
private plot, resolving ere long to give the enemy a touch
of certain Yankee steps, as yet undreamed of in their
simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation
of his dancing till he had danced himself into a perfect
sweat, so that the drops fell from his lank and flaxen
hair. But Israel, with much of the gentleness of the
dove, is not wholly without the wisdom of the serpent.
Pleased to see the flowing bowl, he congratulates himself
that his own state of perspiration prevents it from producing
any intoxicating effect upon him.

Late at night the company break up. Furnished with
a pair of handcuffs, the prisoner is laid on a blanket spread
upon the floor at the side of the bed in which his two
keepers are to repose. Expressing much gratitude for the
blanket, with apparent unconcern, Israel stretches his legs.
An hour or two passes. All is quiet without.

The important moment had now arrived. Certain it
was, that if this chance were suffered to pass unimproved,
a second would hardly present itself. For early, doubtless,
on the following morning, if not some way prevented,
the two soldiers would convey Israel back to his floating
prison, where he would thenceforth remain confined until
the close of the war; years and years, perhaps. When
he thought of that horrible old hulk, his nerves were
restrung for flight. But intrepid as he must be to compass
it, wariness too was needed. His keepers had gone
to bed pretty well under the influence of the liquor. This

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

was favorable. But still, they were full-grown, strong men;
and Israel was handcuffed. So Israel resolved upon strategy
first; and if that failed, force afterwards. He eagerly
listened. One of the drunken soldiers muttered in his
sleep, at first lowly, then louder and louder,—“Catch 'em!
Grapple 'em! Have at 'em! Ha—long cutlasses! Take
that, runaway!”

“What's the matter with ye, Phil?” hiccoughed the
other, who was not yet asleep. “Keep quiet, will ye?
Ye ain't at Fontenoy now.”

“He's a runaway prisoner, I say. Catch him, catch
him!”

“Oh, stush with your drunken dreaming,” again hiccoughed
his comrade, violently nudging him. “This comes
o' carousing.”

Shortly after, the dreamer with loud snores fell back
into dead sleep. But by something in the sound of the
breathing of the other soldier, Israel knew that this man
remained uneasily awake. He deliberated a moment what
was best to do. At length he determined upon trying
his old plea. Calling upon the two soldiers, he informed
them that urgent necessity required his immediate presence
somewhere in the rear of the house.

“Come, wake up here, Phil,” roared the soldier who
was awake; “the fellow here says he must step out;
cuss these Yankees; no better edication than to be gettin'
up on nateral necessities at this time o' night. It ain't
nateral; its unnateral. D—n ye, Yankee, don't ye know
no better?”

With many more denunciations, the two now staggered

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

to their feet, and clutching hold of Israel, escorted him
down stairs, and through a long, narrow, dark entry, rearward,
till they came to a door. No sooner was this unbolted
by the foremost guard, than, quick as a flash, manacled
Israel, shaking off the grasp of the one behind him,
butts him sprawling back into the entry; when, dashing
in the opposite direction, he bounces the other head over
heels into the garden, never using a hand; and then, leaping
over the latter's head, darts blindly out into the midnight.
Next moment he was at the garden wall. No
outlet was discoverable in the gloom. But a fruit-tree
grew close to the wall. Springing into it desperately,
handcuffed as he was, Israel leaps atop of the barrier, and
without pausing to see where he is, drops himself to the
ground on the other side, and once more lets grow all
his wings. Meantime, with loud outcries, the two baffled
drunkards grope deliriously about in the garden.

After running two or three miles, and hearing no sound
of pursuit, Israel reins up to rid himself of the handcuffs,
which impede him. After much painful labor he succeeds
in the attempt. Pressing on again with all speed, day
broke, revealing a trim-looking, hedged, and beautiful country,
soft, neat, and serene, all colored with the fresh early
tints of the spring of 1776.

Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall certainly
be caught now; I have broken into some nobleman's
park.

But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike
road, and then knew that, all comely and shaven as it
was, this was simply the open country of England; one

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the sea.
A copse skirting the road was just bursting out into bud.
Each unrolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its
prison. Israel looked at the budding leaves, and round
on the budding sod, and up at the budding dawn of the
day. He was so sad, and these sights were so gay, that
Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain
home rushed like a wind on his heart. But conquering
this fit, he marched on, and presently passed nigh a field,
where two figures were working. They had rosy cheeks,
short, sturdy legs, showing the blue stocking nearly to the
knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white frocks, and had
on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were
partly averted.

“Please, ladies,” half roguishly says Israel, taking off
his hat, “does this road go to London?”

At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of
stupid amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression
in Israel, who now perceived that they were men,
and not women. He had mistaken them, owing to their
frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches
hidden by their frocks.

“Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something
else,” said Israel again.

Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and
with added boorishness of surprise.

“Does this road go to London, gentlemen?”

“Gentlemen—egad!” cried one of the two.

“Egad!” echoed the second.

Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

now took a good long look at Israel, meantime scratching
their heads under their plaited straw hats.

“Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind
enough to tell a poor fellow, do.”

“Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees? Weel—all right—
go along.”

And without another word, having now satisfied their
rustic curiosity, the two human steers, with wonderful
phlegm, applied themselves to their hoes; supposing, no
doubt, that they had given all requisite information.

Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking
chapel, its roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead
leaves of the previous autumn, showered there from a close
cluster of venerable trees, with great trunks, and overstretching
branches. Next moment he found himself entering
a village. The silence of early morning rested upon
it. But few figures were seen. Glancing through the
window of a now noiseless public-house, Israel saw a table
all in disorder, covered with empty flagons, and tobaccoashes,
and long pipes; some of the latter broken.

After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed
a man over the way standing still and watching him. Instantly
Israel was reminded that he had on the dress of an
English sailor, and that it was this probably which had
arrested the stranger's attention. Well knowing that his
peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster
to escape the village; resolving at the first opportunity
to change his garments. Ere long, in a secluded place
about a mile from the village, he saw an old ditcher tottering
beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe and shovel,

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

going to his work; the very picture of poverty, toil and
distress. His clothes were tatters.

Making up to this old man, Israel, after a word or two
of salutation, offered to change clothes with him. As his
own clothes were prince-like compared to the ditcher's,
Israel thought that however much his proposition might
excite the suspicion of the ditcher, yet self-interest would
prevent his communicating the suspicions. To be brief,
the two went behind a hedge, and presently Israel emerged,
presenting the most forlorn appearance conceivable; while
the old ditcher hobbled off in an opposite direction, correspondingly
improved in his aspect; though it was rather
ludicrous than otherwise, owing to the immense bagginess
of the sailor-trowsers flapping about his lean shanks, to say
nothing of the spare voluminousness of the pea-jacket. But
Israel—how deplorable, how dismal his plight! Little
did he ween that these wretched rags he now wore, were
but suitable to that long career of destitution before him:
one brief career of adventurous wanderings; and then,
forty torpid years of pauperism. The coat was all patches.
And no two patches were alike, and no one patch was
the color of the original cloth. The stringless breeches
gaped wide open at the knee; the long woollen stockings
looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target.
Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old
age; just like an old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed,
dull, dreary adversity was now in store for him; and adversity,
come it at eighteen or eighty, is the true old age
of man. The dress befitted the fate.

From the friendly old ditcher, Israel learned the exact

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

course he must steer for London; distant now between
seventy and eighty miles. He was also apprised by his
venerable friend, that the country was filled with soldiers
on the constant look-out for deserters whether from the
navy or army, for the capture of whom a stipulated reward
was given, just as in Massachusetts at that time for prowling
bears.

Having solemnly enjoined his old friend not to give
any information, should any one he meet inquire for such
a person as Israel, our adventurer walked briskly on, less
heavy of heart, now that he felt comparatively safe in
disguise.

Thirty miles were travelled that day. At night Israel
stole into a barn, in hopes of finding straw or hay for a
bed. But it was spring; all the hay and straw were
gone. So after groping about in the dark, he was fain to
content himself with an undressed sheep-skin. Cold, hungry,
foot-sore, weary, and impatient for the morning dawn,
Israel drearily dozed out the night.

By the first peep of day coming through the chinks of
the barn, he was up and abroad. Ere long finding himself
in the suburbs of a considerable village, the better
to guard against detection he supplied himself with a rude
crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight
through the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur,
which kept up a continual, spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel
longed to have one good rap at him with his crutch, but
thought it would hardly look in character for a poor old
cripple to be vindictive.

A few miles further, and he came to a second village.

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

While hobbling through its main street, as through the
former one, he was suddenly stopped by a genuine cripple,
all in tatters, too, who, with a sympathetic air, inquired
after the cause of his lameness.

“White swelling,” says Israel.

“That's just my ailing,” wheezed the other; “but
you're lamer than me,” he added with a forlorn sort of
self-satisfaction, critically eyeing Israel's limp as once
more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry too
long.

“But halloo, what's your hurry, friend?” seeing Israel
fairly departing—“where 're you going?”

“To London,” answered Israel, turning round, heartily
wishing the old fellow any where else than present.

“Going to limp to Lunnun, eh? Well, success to ye.”

“As much to you, sir,” answers Israel politely.

Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune
would have it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for
the metropolis turned into the main road from a side one.
Immediately Israel limps most deplorably, and begs the
driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs;
but after a time, finding the gait of the elephantine draughthorses
intolerably slow, Israel craves permission to dismount,
when, throwing away his crutch, he takes nimbly
to his legs, much to the surprise of his honest friend the
driver.

The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in
the wagon, was, when passing through a third village—
but a little distant from the previous one—Israel, by lying
down in the wagon, had wholly avoided being seen.

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

The villages surprised him by their number and proximity.
Nothing like this was to be seen at home. Well
knowing that in these villages he ran much more risk of
detection than in the open country, he henceforth did his
best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever
they came in sight from a distance. This mode
of travelling not only lengthened his journey, but put
unlooked-for obstacles in his path—walls, ditches, and
streams.

Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he
leaped a great ditch ten feet wide, and of undiscoverable
muddy depth. I wonder if the old cripple would think
me the lamer one now, thought Israel to himself, arriving
on the hither side.

p641-044 CHAPTER IV. FURTHER WANDERINGS OF THE REFUGEE, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A GOOD KNIGHT OF BRENTFORD WHO BEFRIENDED HIM.

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

AT nightfall, on the third day, Israel had arrived within
sixteen miles of the capital. Once more he sought
refuge in a barn. This time he found some hay, and
flinging himself down procured a tolerable night's rest.

Bright and early he arose refreshed, with the pleasing
prospect of reaching his destination ere noon. Encouraged
to find himself now so far from his original pursuers,
Israel relaxed in his vigilance, and about ten o'clock, while
passing through the town of Staines, suddenly encountered
three soldiers. Unfortunately in exchanging clothes with
the ditcher, he could not bring himself to include his shirt
in the traffic, which shirt was a British navy shirt, a bargeman's
shirt, and though hitherto he had crumpled the blue
collar ought of sight, yet, as it appeared in the present
instance, it was not thoroughly concealed. At any rate,
keenly on the lookout for deserters, and made acute by
hopes of reward for their apprehension, the soldiers spied

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

the fatal collar, and in an instant laid violent hands on
the refugee.

“Hey, lad!” said the foremost soldier, a corporal, “you
are one of his majesty's seamen! come along with ye.”

So, unable to give any satisfactory account of himself,
he was made prisoner on the spot, and soon after found
himself handcuffed and locked up in the Round House
of the place, a prison so called, appropriated to runaways,
and those convicted of minor offences. Day passed dinnerless
and supperless in this dismal durance, and night
came on.

Israel had now been three days without food, except
one twopenny loaf. The cravings of hunger now became
sharper; his spirits, hitherto arming him with fortitude,
began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon
the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on
the eve of falling into helpless despair. But he rallied,
and considering that grief would only add to his calamity,
sought with stubborn patience to habituate himself to
misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He
roused himself, and began to bethink him how to be extricated
from this labyrinth.

Two hours sawing across the grating of the window,
ridded him of his handcuffs. Next came the door, secured
luckily with only a hasp and padlock. Thrusting the bolt
of his handcuffs through a small window in the door, he
succeeded in forcing the hasp and regaining his liberty
about three o'clock in the morning.

Not long after sunrise, he passed nigh Brentford, some
six or seven miles from the capital. So great was his

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

hunger that downright starvation seemed before him. He
chewed grass, and swallowed it. Upon first escaping from
the hulk, six English pennies was all the money he had.
With two of these he had bought a small loaf the day
after fleeing the inn. The other four still remained in his
pocket, not having met with a good opportunity to dispose
of them for food.

Having torn off the collar of his shirt, and flung it into
a hedge, he ventured to accost a respectable carpenter at
a pale fence, about a mile this side of Brentford, to whom
his deplorable situation now induced him to apply for
work. The man did not wish himself to hire, but said
that if he (Israel) understood farming or gardening, he
might perhaps procure work from Sir John Millet, whose
seat, he said, was not remote. He added that the knight
was in the habit of employing many men at that season
of the year, so he stood a fair chance.

Revived a little by this prospect of relief, Israel starts
in quest of the gentleman's seat, agreeably to the direction
received. But he mistook his way, and proceeding
up a gravelled and beautifully decorated walk, was terrified
at catching a glimpse of a number of soldiers
thronging a garden. He made an instant retreat before
being espied in turn. No wild creature of the American
wilderness could have been more panic-struck by a firebrand,
than at this period hunted Israel was by a red coat.
It afterwards appeared that this garden was the Princess
Amelia's.

Taking another path, ere long he came to some laborers
shovelling gravel. These proved to be men employed by

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

Sir John. By them he was directed towards the house,
when the knight was pointed out to him, walking bare-headed
in the inclosure with several guests. Having heard
the rich men of England charged with all sorts of domineering
qualities, Israel felt no little misgiving in approaching
to an audience with so imposing a stranger.
But, screwing up his courage, he advanced; while seeing
him coming all rags and tatters, the group of gentlemen
stood in some wonder awaiting what so singular a phantom
might want.

“Mr. Millet,” said Israel, bowing towards the bare-headed
gentleman.

“Ha,—who are you, pray?”

“A poor fellow, sir, in want of work.”

“A wardrobe, too, I should say,” smiled one of the
guests, of a very youthful, prosperous, and dandified air.

“Where's your hoe?” said Sir John.

“I have none, sir.”

“Any money to buy one?”

“Only four English pennies, sir.”

“English pennies. What other sort would you have?”

“Why, China pennies to be sure,” laughed the youthful
gentleman. “See his long, yellow hair behind; he looks
like a Chinaman. Some broken-down Mandarin. Pity
he's no crown to his old hat; if he had, he might pass
it round, and make eight pennies of his four.”

“Will you hire me, Mr. Millet,” said Israel.

“Ha! that's queer again,” cried the knight.

“Hark ye, fellow,” said a brisk servant, approaching
from the porch, “this is Sir John Millet.”

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

Seeming to take pity on his seeming ignorance, as well
as on his undisputable poverty, the good knight now told
Israel that if he would come the next morning he would
see him supplied with a hoe, and moreover would hire
him.

It would be hard to express the satisfaction of the wanderer
at receiving this encouraging reply. Emboldened
by it, he now returns towards a baker's he had spied,
and bravely marching in, flings down all four pennies,
and demands bread. Thinking he would not have any
more food till next morning, Israel resolved to eat only
one of the pair of twopenny loaves. But having demolished
one, it so sharpened his longing, that yielding
to the irresistible temptation, he bolted down the second
loaf to keep the other company.

After resting under a hedge, he saw the sun far descended,
and so prepared himself for another hard night.
Waiting till dark, he crawled into an old carriage-house,
finding nothing there but a dismantled old phaeton. Into
this he climbed, and curling himself up like a carriage-dog,
endeavored to sleep; but, unable to endure the constraint
of such a bed, got out, and stretched himself on
the bare boards of the floor.

No sooner was light in the east than he hastened to
await the commands of one who, his instinct told him,
was destined to prove his benefactor. On his father's
farm accustomed to rise with the lark, Israel was surprised
to discover, as he approached the house, that no
soul was astir. It was four o'clock. For a considerable
time he walked back and forth before the portal ere any

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

one appeared. The first riser was a man servant of the
household, who informed Israel that seven o'clock was the
hour the people went to their work. Soon after he met
an hostler of the place, who gave him permission to lie
on some straw in an outhouse. There he enjoyed a sweet
sleep till awakened at seven o'clock by the sounds of
activity around him.

Supplied by the overseer of the men with a large iron
fork and a hoe, he followed the hands into the field. He
was so weak he could hardly support his tools. Unwilling
to expose his debility, he yet could not succeed
in concealing it. At last, to avoid worse imputations, he
confessed the cause. His companions regarded him with
compassion, and exempted him from the severer toil.

About noon the knight visited his workmen. Noticing
that Israel made little progress, he said to him, that
though he had long arms and broad shoulders, yet he
was feigning himself to be a very weak man, or otherwise
must in reality be so.

Hereupon one of the laborers standing by informed the
gentleman how it was with Israel, when immediately the
knight put a shilling into his hands and bade him go to
a little roadside inn, which was nearer than the house,
and buy him bread and a pot of beer. Thus refreshed
he returned to the band, and toiled with them till four
o'clock, when the day's work was over.

Arrived at the house he there again saw his employer,
who, after attentively eyeing him without speaking,
bade a meal be prepared for him, when the maid presenting
a smaller supply than her kind master deemed

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

necessary, she was ordered to return and bring out the
entire dish. But aware of the danger of sudden repletion
of heavy food to one in his condition, Israel, previously
recruited by the frugal meal at the inn, partook but
sparingly. The repast was spread on the grass, and
being over, the good knight again looking inquisitively at
Israel, ordered a comfortable bed to be laid in the barn,
and here Israel spent a capital night.

After breakfast, next morning, he was proceeding to go
with the laborers to their work, when his employer approaching
him with a benevolent air, bade him return to
his couch, and there remain till he had slept his fill, and
was in a better state to resume his labors.

Upon coming forth again a little after noon, he found
Sir John walking alone in the grounds. Upon discovering
him, Israel would have retreated, fearing that he might
intrude; but beckoning him to advance, the knight, as
Israel drew nigh, fixed on him such a penetrating glance,
that our poor hero quaked to the core. Neither was his
dread of detection relieved by the knight's now calling
in a loud voice for one from the house. Israel was just
on the point of fleeing, when overhearing the words of
the master to the servant who now appeared, all dread
departed:

“Bring hither some wine!”

It presently came; by order of the knight the salver
was set down on a green bank near by, and the servant
retired.

“My poor fellow,” said Sir John, now pouring out a
glass of wine, and handing it to Israel, “I perceive that

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

you are an American; and, if I am not mistaken, you are
an escaped prisoner of war. But no fear—drink the
wine.”

“Mr. Millet,” exclaimed Israel aghast, the untasted wine
trembling in his hand, “Mr. Millet, I —”

“Mr. Millet—there it is again. Why don't you say
Sir John like the rest?”

“Why, sir—pardon me—but somehow, I can't. I've
tried; but I can't. You won't betray me for that?”

“Betray—poor fellow! Hark ye, your history is
doubtless a secret which you would not wish to divulge
to a stranger; but whatever happens to you, I pledge
you my honor I will never betray you.”

“God bless you for that, Mr. Millet.”

“Come, come; call me by my right name. I am not
Mr. Millet. You have said Sir to me; and no doubt
you have a thousand times said John to other people.
Now can't you couple the two? Try once. Come. Only
Sir and then John—Sir John—that's all.

“John—I can't—Sir, sir!—your pardon. I didn't mean
that.”

“My good fellow,” said the knight looking sharply upon
Israel, “tell me, are all your countrymen like you? If
so, it's no use fighting them. To that effect, I must write
to his Majesty myself. Well, I excuse you from Sir
Johnning me. But tell me the truth, are you not a seafaring
man, and lately a prisoner of war?”

Israel frankly confessed it, and told his whole story.
The knight listened with much interest; and at its conclusion,
warned Israel to beware of the soldiers; for owing

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

to the seats of some of the royal family being in the neighborhood,
the red-coats abounded hereabout.

“I do not wish unnecessarily to speak against my own
countrymen,” he added, “I but plainly speak for your good.
The soldiers you meet prowling on the roads, are not fair
specimens of the army. They are a set of mean, dastardly
banditti, who, to obtain their fee, would betray their best
friends. Once more, I warn you against them. But
enough; follow me now to the house, and as you tell me
you have exchanged clothes before now, you can do it
again. What say you? I will give you coat and
breeches for your rags.”

Thus generously supplied with clothes and other comforts
by the good knight, and implicitly relying upon the
honor of so kind-hearted a man, Israel cheered up, and in
the course of two or three weeks had so fattened his flanks,
that he was able completely to fill Sir John's old buckskin
breeches, which at first had hung but loosely about him.

He was assigned to an occupation which removed him
from the other workmen. The strawberry bed was put
under his sole charge. And often, of mild, sunny afternoons,
the knight, genial and gentle with dinner, would
stroll bareheaded to the pleasant strawberry bed, and
have nice little confidential chats with Israel; while Israel,
charmed by the patriarchal demeanor of this true Abrahamic
gentleman, with a smile on his lip, and tears of
gratitude in his eyes, offered him, from time to time, the
plumpest berries of the bed.

When the strawberry season was over, other parts of
the grounds were assigned him. And so six months

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

elapsed, when, at the recommendation of Sir John, Israel
procured a good berth in the garden of the Princess
Amelia.

So completely now had recent events metamorphosed
him in all outward things, that few suspected him of being
any other than an Englishman. Not even the knight's
domestics. But in the princess's garden, being obliged
to work in company with many other laborers, the war
was often a topic of discussion among them. And “the
d—d Yankee rebels” were not seldom the object of scurrilous
remark. Illy could the exile brook in silence such
insults upon the country for which he had bled, and for
whose honored sake he was that very instant a sufferer.
More than once, his indignation came very nigh getting
the better of his prudence. He longed for the war to
end, that he might but speak a little bit of his mind.

Now the superintendent of the garden was a harsh,
overbearing man. The workmen with tame servility endured
his worst affronts. But Israel, bred among mountains,
found it impossible to restrain himself when made the undeserved
object of pitiless epithets. Ere two months
went by, he quitted the service of the princess, and engaged
himself to a farmer in a small village not far from Brentford.
But hardly had he been here three weeks, when a
rumor again got afloat, that he was a Yankee prisoner of
war. Whence this report arose he could never discover.
No sooner did it reach the ears of the soldiers, than they
were on the alert. Luckily, Israel was apprised of their
intentions in time. But he was hard pushed. He was
hunted after with a perseverance worthy a less ignoble

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cause. He had many hairbreadth escapes. Most assuredly
he would have been captured, had it not been for the secret
good offices of a few individuals, who, perhaps, were not
unfriendly to the American side of the question, though
they durst not avow it.

Tracked one night by the soldiers to the house of one
of these friends, in whose garret he was concealed, he was
obliged to force the skuttle, and running along the roof,
passed to those of adjoining houses to the number of ten
or twelve, finally succeeding in making his escape.

p641-055 CHAPTER V. ISRAEL IN THE LION'S DEN.

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HARASSED day and night, hunted from food and sleep,
driven from hole to hole like a fox in the woods, with
no chance to earn an hour's wages, he was at last advised
by one whose sincerity he could not doubt, to apply, on
the good word of Sir John Millet, for a berth as laborer
in the King's Gardens at Kew. There, it was said, he
would be entirely safe, as no soldier durst approach those
premises to molest any soul therein employed. It struck
the poor exile as curious, that the very den of the British
lion, the private grounds of the British King, should be
commended to a refugee as his securest asylum.

His nativity carefully concealed, and being personally
introduced to the chief gardener by one who well knew
him; armed, too, with a line from Sir John, and recommended
by his introducer as uncommonly expert at horticulture;
Israel was soon installed as keeper of certain less
private plants and walks of the park.

It was here, to one of his near country retreats, that,
coming from perplexities of state—leaving far behind him

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the dingy old bricks of St. James—George the Third was
wont to walk up and down beneath the long arbors formed
by the interlockings of lofty trees.

More than once, raking the gravel, Israel through intervening
foliage would catch peeps in some private but
parallel walk, of that lonely figure, not more shadowy
with overhanging leaves than with the shade of royal
meditations.

Unauthorized and abhorrent thoughts will sometimes invade
the best human heart. Seeing the monarch unguarded
before him; remembering that the war was imputed more
to the self-will of the King than to the willingness of parliament
or the nation; and calling to mind all his own
sufferings growing out of that war, with all the calamities
of his country; dim impulses, such as those to which the
regicide Ravaillac yielded, would shoot balefully across
the soul of the exile. But thrusting Satan behind him,
Israel vanquished all such temptations. Nor did these
ever more disturb him, after his one chance conversation
with the monarch.

As he was one day gravelling a little by-walk, wrapped
in thought, the King turning a clump of bushes,
suddenly brushed Israel's person.

Immediately Israel touched his hat—but did not remove
it—bowed, and was retiring; when something in his air
arrested the King's attention.

“You ain't an Englishman,—no Englishman—no, no.”

Pale as death, Israel tried to answer something; but
knowing not what to say, stood frozen to the ground.

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“You are a Yankee—a Yankee,” said the King again in
his rapid and half-stammering way.

Again Israel assayed to reply, but could not. What
could he say? Could he lie to a King?

“Yes, yes,—you are one of that stubborn race,—that
very stubborn race. What brought you here?”

“The fate of war, sir.”

“May it please your Majesty,” said a low cringing voice,
approaching, “this man is in the walk against orders. There
is some mistake, may it please your Majesty. Quit the
walk, blockhead,” he hissed at Israel.

It was one of the junior gardeners who thus spoke. It
seems that Israel had mistaken his directions that morning.

“Slink, you dog,” hissed the gardener again to Israel;
then aloud to the King, “A mistake of the man, I assure
your Majesty.”

“Go you away—away with ye, and leave him with me,”
said the king.

Waiting a moment, till the man was out of hearing,
the king again turned upon Israel.

“Were you at Bunker Hill?—that bloody Bunker Hill—
eh, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fought like a devil—like a very devil, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Helped flog—helped flog my soldiers?”

“Yes, sir; but very sorry to do it.”

“Eh?—eh?—how's that?”

“I took it to be my sad duty, sir.”

“Very much mistaken—very much mistaken, indeed.

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Why do ye sir me?—eh? I'm your king—your king.”

“Sir,” said Israel firmly, but with deep respect, “I have
no king.”

The king darted his eye incensedly for a moment; but
without quailing, Israel, now that all was out, still stood
with mute respect before him. The king, turning suddenly,
walked rapidly away from Israel a moment, but presently
returning with a less hasty pace, said, “You are rumored
to be a spy—a spy, or something of that sort—ain't you?
But I know you are not—no, no. You are a runaway
prisoner of war, eh? You have sought this place to be
safe from pursuit, eh? eh? Is it not so?—eh? eh? eh?”

“Sir, it is.”

“Well, ye're an honest rebel—rebel, yes, rebel. Hark
ye, hark. Say nothing of this talk to any one. And hark
again. So long as you remain here at Kew, I shall see
that you are safe—safe.”

“God bless your Majesty!”

“Eh?”

“God bless your noble Majesty?”

“Come—come—come,” smiled the king in delight, “I
thought I could conquer ye—conquer ye.”

“Not the king, but the king's kindness, your Majesty.”

“Join my army—army.”

Sadly looking down, Israel silently shook his head.

“You won't? Well, gravel the walk then—gravel away.
Very stubborn race—very stubborn race, indeed—very—
very—very.”

And still growling, the magnanimous lion departed.

How the monarch came by his knowledge of so humble

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an exile, whether through that swift insight into individual
character said to form one of the miraculous qualities
transmitted with a crown, or whether some of the rumors
prevailing outside of the garden had come to his ear,
Israel could never determine. Very probably, though, the
latter was the case, inasmuch as some vague shadowy
report of Israel not being an Englishman, had, a little previous
to his interview with the king, been communicated
to several of the inferior gardeners. Without any impeachment
of Israel's fealty to his country, it must still be narrated,
that from this his familiar audience with George
the Third, he went away with very favorable views of that
monarch. Israel now thought that it could not be the
warm heart of the king, but the cold heads of his lords
in council, that persuaded him so tyrannically to persecute
America. Yet hitherto the precise contrary of this had
been Israel's opinion, agreeably to the popular prejudice
throughout New England.

Thus we see what strange and powerful magic resides
in a crown, and how subtly that cheap and easy magnanimity,
which in private belongs to most kings, may operate
on good-natured and unfortunate souls. Indeed, had it
not been for the peculiar disinterested fidelity of our
adventurer's patriotism, he would have soon sported the
red coat; and perhaps under the immediate patronage of
his royal friend, been advanced in time to no mean rank
in the army of Britain. Nor in that case would we have
had to follow him, as at last we shall, through long, long
years of obscure and penurious wandering.

Continuing in the service of the king's gardeners at Kew,

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until a season came when the work of the garden required
a less number of laborers, Israel, with several others,
was discharged; and the day after, engaged himself for a
few months to a farmer in the neighborhood where he had
been last employed. But hardly a week had gone by,
when the old story of his being a rebel, or a runaway
prisoner, or a Yankee! or a spy, began to be revived
with added malignity. Like bloodhounds, the soldiers
were once more on the track. The houses where he harbored
were many times searched; but thanks to the fidelity
of a few earnest well-wishers, and to his own unsleeping
vigilance and activity, the hunted fox still continued to
elude apprehension. To such extremities of harassment,
however, did this incessant pursuit subject him, that in a
fit of despair he was about to surrender himself, and submit
to his fate, when Providence seasonably interposed in
his favor.

p641-061 CHAPTER VI. ISRAEL MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF CERTAIN SECRET FRIENDS OF AMERICA, ONE OF THEM BEING THE FAMOUS AUTHOR OF THE “DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. ” THESE DESPATCH HIM ON A SLY ERRAND ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

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AT this period, though made the victims indeed of British
oppression, yet the colonies were not totally without
friends in Britain. It was but natural that when Parliament
itself held patriotic and gifted men, who not only
recommended conciliatory measures, but likewise denounced
the war as monstrous; it was but natural that throughout
the nation at large there should be many private individuals
cherishing similar sentiments, and some who made no
scruple clandestinely to act upon them.

Late one night while hiding in a farmer's granary, Israel
saw a man with a lantern approaching. He was about
to flee, when the man hailed him in a well-known voice,
bidding him have no fear. It was the farmer himself. He
carried a message to Israel from a gentleman of Brentford,
to the effect, that the refugee was earnestly requested to
repair on the following evening to that gentleman's mansion.

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