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Whatever may be the result of the present public movement
for the abolition of capital punishment, and however far future
experiments may go towards establishing the expediency and
safety of such a change in criminal jurisprudence, the history of
every nation and people will show, we believe, the remarkable
fact, that ever since Cain stood before his Maker with his hands
reeking with the blood of his murdered brother, and his heart so
deeply smitten with the consciousness of having justly forfeited
his own life by taking the life of another, that he could not divest
himself of the belief that all men would seek to slay him, no one
principle has been found to be more deeply implanted in the
human breast than the desire to see the wilful shedding of blood
atoned for by the blood of the perpetrator. So strong, so active,
and so impelling, indeed, seems this principle, that no sooner goes
forth the dread tale of homicide, than all community rise up,
as one man, instinctively impressed with the duty of hunting down
the guilty and bringing them to justice; while the guilty themselves
seem no less instinctively impressed with the abiding consciousness
that the doom, which heaven and earth has decreed to
their crimes, must inevitably overtake them.

Deep and fearful was the excitement, in the hitherto quiet and
peaceful village of Westminster, as from mouth to mouth, and
house to house, spread the startling intelligence, that a meeting
of unarmed citizens, assembled at the Court House, had been
assailed, and numbers shot down in cold blood by the minions of
British authority. The whole town was soon in commotion. No
loud noise or clamor of voices, it is true, was heard proclaiming
the deed on the midnight air; but the rapid footfalls of men hurrying
along the streets, the hastily exchanged inquiry, the eager,
suppressed tones of those conversing in small groups at the corners
and by-places around the village, the hasty opening and shutting of
doors, and the dancing of lights in every direction, gave ominous
indication of the feeling that had every where been awakened,

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and the secret movement which was every where afoot among the
people.

A small band, who had gathered in the yard of what was called
the People's Tavern, were listening, with many a demonstration
of horror and indignation, to the account of one who had escaped
from the Court House after the tories had got possession.

“Where are our leaders, Morris?” asked one of the listeners,
as the speaker, a fluent, energetic young man, closed his recital
of the atrocities he had witnessed. “Did they escape, or are they
among the wounded and prisoners?”

“Wright and Carpenter had gone off before we were attacked,”
was the reply; “the rest, not among the wounded I have named,
escaped in the confusion, I think, except Dr. Jones, of Rockingham,
who was driven into the felon's hole with other prisoners; and
it may be well that he was, perhaps, as those bloodthirsty brutes
would have suffered no surgeon to be sent for to attend those who
are not past help.”

“And Tom Dunning, whose rifle we shall need, — what became
of him?”

“He got out in the same manner I did. We stood in a dark
corner, at the head of the stairs, taking note of the proceedings
below; when that crafty little chap, that joined us from Brush's,
came wriggling like an eel out from between the legs of the
crowding tories, in the passage; and, working himself up stairs
unnoticed, in the same way, beckoned us to follow him, as we did,
into the court-room, where, at his suggestion, we stripped off the
sheets of a bed, in one of those corner sleeping cuddies, made a
rope, and by it let ourselves down through a window to the
ground in the rear of the house; when we separated, Dunning
going home, as he said, to arm himself. But here he comes,”
added the speaker, peering out towards the street, from which
several forms were dimly seen approaching — “here he comes;
and those just behind him I should judge to be Carpenter and
Fletcher, by their gait.”

“Well, Dunning,” asked one of the company, as the hunter
came striding up to the spot, “what is your response to all this?”

“Der — sixty bullets, and a — ditter — pound of powder!”
was the stern and significant reply of the other, as with one hand
he struck his rattling bullet-pouch and huge powder-horn, and
with the other brought down the breech of his rifle with a heavy
blow upon the ground.

“That's the man for me!” exclaimed Fletcher, now coming
up with Carpenter.

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

“Ay, Dunning is right!” said Carpenter, with emphasis; “if
we hold our peace now, the very stones will cry out for vengeance!
But talking is only a small part of what must be done. We must
act. And first of all, this tale of murder and outrage must instantly
be thrown upon the four winds of heaven, and carried into
every town in this part of the settlement. Who will volunteer to
ride express with the news? — news which, if I know any thing of
the spirit of the great mass of our people, will be taken as a call
to arms, and responded to accordingly.”

Several eager voices announced their readiness to start off at
once on the proposed mission.

“Follow me to the stables, then,” resumed the stanch patriot,
hastily leading the way to the barn, and throwing open a stable
door. “There!” he continued, pointing to a pair of large, active-looking
brutes, feeding together in one stall — “there are my two
horses — take them. Let one of their riders go north, the other
south; and spare no horse-flesh of mine in an emergency like
this; but ride and rally, till you have sent the bloody tale to
every house and hut this side the mountains. And you, Morris
and Dunning, accompany me to Captain Wright's. More messengers
must be despatched west and east, into the borders of
New Hampshire, and much other business done before morning.”

A far different scene, in the mean while, was in progress among
the inmates of the loyal mansion, which we have before described,
and which was destined to give shelter that night to the last conclave
of royal office-holders ever known in the Green Mountains.
Although the leaders of the court party had returned from the
sanguinary scene they had enacted, in high exultation at the
decisive victory they supposed they had achieved over their
despised opponents, yet neither their own vain boastings, nor the
deeply-quaffed wines of their host, could long keep up their spirits.
Conscience soon began to be busy among them; and their hearts
waxed faint and fearful at the thought of what they had done.
They instinctively drew close together, conversed in subdued
tones, or sat uneasily listening to the sounds that occasionally
reached them from without. And whatever they might have
said to keep up their own and each other's courage, it soon became
apparent that secret misgivings, fears, and forebodings of a
coming retribution had taken possession of their guilt-smitten
bosoms.

And there was another person in that house, to whom the
tragical events of the night brought deep disquietude; but it was
a disquietude of quite a different character from that which was

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experienced by the troubled wretches we have named: that
person was the Tory's Daughter — the pure, guileless, and noble-minded
Sabrey Haviland.

Having been apprised of the intention of Patterson and his
confederates to make an assault upon their opponents as soon as
the expected reënforcements arrived, her anxieties on the subject
had prevented her from retiring to rest, as her less concerned companion
did, at the usual hour. And when the startling report of fire-arms
broke upon the stillness of the night, she was not, like many
others in the village, at loss to know the cause; and her fears led
her to divine but too well the fatal result. And after an interval
of painful suspense, which was terminated by the return of the
tory leaders to the house, she stole softly out of her chamber to
the head of the stairs, and there listened with mingled emotions
of horror and disgust to the boastful recital of their sanguinary
deeds, as given by the heartless Gale and others, to her father and
Judge Sabin, who had remained in the house, but who, she perceived
with sorrow, were warm approvers of all that had been done.
But, as revolting to her gentle nature as was the general description
of the event, the particulars the exulting narrators soon proceeded
to give were much more so. And when she heard them
relate the affray between Woodburn and Peters, and heard the
latter, while making light of his own hurts, boast that he had
first given the other a thrust with his sword through the body,
which must finish him before morning, she could listen no longer,
but, hastily retiring to her room, she walked the apartment for
nearly an hour in the deepest agitation and distress.

Among the many excellent traits of Miss Haviland's character,
a lively sense of right and wrong, together with a deep and
abiding love of truth and justice, unquestionably predominated.
So strong and controlling, indeed, was this principle in her
bosom, that it exhibited itself in all her conversation, and seemed
to be the governing motive of all her actions. And when she
had once discovered the truth and the right, at which she appeared
to arrive with intuitive quickness, no wheedling or sophistry
could blind her to their force; and no inducements could be
offered sufficient to cause her to waver in their support. And
yet this peculiar trait, as deeply seated as it was, and as firmly
as it was ever exercised, was so beautifully tempered by the
benevolence of her heart, the equanimity of her mind, and the
engaging sweetness of her demeanor, that it never seemed to impart
the least tinge of arrogance to her character, or harshness
to her manners. On the contrary, she was all gentleness and

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

affection, and ever ready to comply with the wishes of others,
when a compliance did not contravene, in her opinion, any of
the principles of even-handed justice; and, in case she felt
bound to refuse to yield to their requests, her refusal was made
and maintained with such mild firmness, that none could be
offended, none feel inclined to charge her with obstinacy or perverseness.
She was at this time the mistress of her father's
household, her exemplary and intellectual mother having several
years before deceased, and her elder and only sister, the year
previous, married one of the leading loyalists of Guilford. And
it had been mainly through the influence of this sister and her
husband, that she had been induced, the preceding fall, to take
the step which was destined to cause her years of sorrow and
perplexity — that of engaging herself in marriage to Peters.
She had found few or no opportunities of studying this man's
character, having known him only as a parlor acquaintance, of
easy manners and considerable intelligence. And although she
saw nothing particularly objectionable in him, and although she
knew that, in point of wealth and family distinction, he was considered
what is termed a desirable match, yet she had entered
into the engagement with many misgivings, and in compliance
rather with the wishes of her friends above named, seconded by
the urgent request of her father, than in accordance with the dictates
of her own judgment and inclination. But whatever her
doubts at that time, or during the months immediately following,
they had not been sufficient to disturb the usual even tenor of
her feelings, till she left home on her present excursion, during
which, as already intimated, she had seen the character of her
affianced in a new light — a light which showed him to be possessed
of traits as abhorrent to her feelings, as, to her mind, they
were base and reprehensible in themselves. And now, to crown
all, he had, by an act of deliberate, private malice, even according
to his own account, inflicted a mortal wound on the victim of his
former injuries — the man who, but the day before, had snatched
her, whom the other professed to hold as the highest object of his
earthly solicitude, from a watery grave. It was these painful
reflections that were now agitating her bosom; for the more she
pondered upon the conduct of Peters, the more did her heart
reject and despise him; and in proportion as her feelings rose
up against him were her sympathies drawn towards his victim,
Woodburn, whose noble act had created so strong a claim upon
her gratitude, and whose character and appearance had alike
awakened her interest and admiration.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

“Is it indeed thus,” she at length uttered, as if summing up
the thoughts that had been passing through her mind, “that he
who saved my life, at the risk of his own, must die by the hand
of one who should have been the first to thank and reward him?
Ay, and die, too, without receiving from me, or mine, one word
of acknowledgment, even, of the service he so nobly rendered?
Perhaps the thought of our ingratitude is now embittering his
dying moments! Can I, should I suffer this so to remain?”

Here she relapsed into silence, and, slowly resuming her walk
round the room, seemed for a while immersed in anxious thought;
when she suddenly paused, and, after a moment of apparent
irresolution, stepped to the wall, and gave two or three pulls at
the wire connected with the servants' bell in the kitchen. In a
few minutes the summons was answered by the appearance of
the chamber-maid.

“Will you go down to the gentlemen's sitting-room,” said Miss
Haviland, “ask out my father, and tell him I would see him a
moment in my own room?”

The girl disappeared, and, in a short time, Esquire Haviland,
with a slightly disturbed and anxious air, entered the room, and
said, —

“What's the matter, Sabrey? Are you sick to-night, that you
are yet up and send for me?”

“O, no,” replied the other; “nothing of that kind led me to
send for you, but my wish to make a request which I was unwilling
to delay.”

The squire cast a somewhat surprised and inquiring look at
his daughter, but remained silent, while the latter resumed: —

“You recollect that this morning, after apprising you of the
extent of our obligations to Mr. Woodburn, about which you
seem to have been so misinformed, I suggested that a personal
acknowledgment, with offers of some more substantial token of
our gratitude, should be immediately made to him. Has this
been done?”

“No,” replied he, with a gathering frown: “having understood
the fellow was assorting with the rebels in their treasonable
plots, I did not feel myself bound to seek him in such company.
Is that all you wish of me?”

“It is not, sir,” she answered seriously, and with the air of one
determined not to be repulsed. “I have accidentally become
apprised that Mr. Woodburn, in the affray of to-night, has been
dangerously wounded, and, in this condition, thrust into prison.
And, as we have now an opportunity of testifying our sense of

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

his services, it is my earnest request that you procure his release
from prison, for which your influence here, I know, is sufficient;
that he may be brought out to-night and properly attended.”

“Insane girl!” muttered the father, angrily, “what can have
put that absurd project into your head? Had you been abed
hours ago, as you ought, instead of being up and prying into the
doings of our authorities, with which a woman has no concern, I
should have been spared this exhibition of folly. Why, the
wretched fellow is but receiving the just deserts of his crimes.
He is in prison for high treason; and had I the will, which I
have not, I could not procure his release.”

“I cannot believe these opposers of the court will be held to
answer for such a crime. Indeed, it has occurred to me that the
authorities themselves may be called to account for firing upon
these unarmed men; and therefore I still hope you will use your
exertions for Woodburn's release,” urged the fair pleader.

“You are to be the judge what is treason, then, hey? And
you are ready to side with these daring and desperate fellows,
and condemn our authorities, are you? What assurance! You
will hardly persuade me to favor your mad projects, I think,”
harshly retorted the bigoted old gentleman.

“You can, at least, go to the prison and return him the acknowledgments
which our character and credit require of us,”
still persisted the former.

“Well, I shall do no such thing,” replied the other, with
angry impatience; “for I consider the fellow's conduct to-night
has wholly absolved me from my obligations to him, if I was
ever under any,” he added, rising to depart.

“I do not view it so, father,” returned the unmoved girl, in a
mild, expostulating tone, “and I am sorry for your decision;
for, if those whose place it more properly is to do this, refuse to
perform it, I know not why I should not myself undertake the
duty.”

“You!”

“Yes, father.”

“What, to-night?”

“Certainly; another day may be too late.”

“Madness and folly! Why, who is to attend you, silly girl?”

“If no gentleman is to be found with courtesy enough to
attend me, I shall not hesitate to go alone, sir.”

“We will see if you do!” exclaimed the old gentleman, looking
back from the entrance at the other, with an expression of scornful
defiance — “we will see if you do, madam!” he repeated,

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closing the door after him, and turning the key on his daughter,
whom he thus left a prisoner in her own room.

As Miss Haviland listened to the springing bolt and her father's
departing steps, a slight flush overspread her face at the thought
of the indignity thus put upon her, and she rose, and, after putting
her hand to the door to assure herself that she was not mistaken,
proceeded, with a calm, determined air, to a table on one
side of the room, on which stood the materials for writing; and
here, taking pen and paper, she seated herself, and addressed
a brief note to Woodburn, delicately expressing her sense of
obligation to him, and concluding with the hope that she might
soon have it in her power to do something towards alleviating
his present situation. Having signed, sealed, and superscribed
the billet, she rose and stood some time hesitating and irresolute.

By what means could this note, now it was written, be made
to reach its destination? Should she again summon the
chamber-maid, she presumed her father had so managed that
the call would not be answered; besides, she felt a repugnance to
the thought of resorting to such means. What other method
could then be devised?

While thus casting about her for some expedient for effecting her
purpose, she thought she heard some one placing a ladder against
the side of the house, beneath a window, opening from the rear
end of the passage adjoining her room; and, after listening a
moment, she distinctly heard the person cautiously ascending.
Not being of a timid cast, she quickly removed the thick, heavy
curtains of the window in her room next and very near the one
under which the unknown intruder was mounting the ladder, and,
throwing up the sash, peered out; when, to her surprise, she
beheld, and at once recognized, the queer-looking figure of Barty
Burt, standing on the top round of the ladder, scratching his head,
and giving other tokens of embarrassment at being thus unexpectedly
caught in this situation.

“Master Bart,” said Miss Haviland, who had become somewhat
acquainted with the other, while supplying her room with
fuel, previous to his ejection from the house, to which she was
knowing, “your appearance, at this time, to say the least of it,
causes me much surprise.”

“I returns the compliment, miss,” replied Bart; “so that
makes us even, and no questions on ither side, don't it?”

“Perhaps not, sir,” returned the former, with seriousness:
“at all events, you should be able to give a good reason for your

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appearance here, under such circumstances: please explain your
object.”

“And if I don't, you will sing out for the squire, you said?
Well, I can get down, and off, before he can get here, I reckon,”
responded Bart, in a tone of roguish defiance.

“I did not say I would call Esquire Brush; but, unless you
explain—”

“Yes, yes, jest as lieves as not, and will, if you'll keep shut
till I can run up garret and back.”

“Your purpose there, sir?”

“An honest one — only to get my gun up there, which the
squire didn't have put out for me, when he dismissed me with
his high-heeled shoes, to-day, and which I darsent name then,
fear he'd have that thrown down, like my 'tother duds, and break
it — only that — and if you'll say nothing, and let me whip in,
and up to get it, I'll lay it up against you, as a great oblige, to
be paid for, by a good turn to you some time, miss.”

“If that is all, go — and I may wish to speak with you when
you come back.”

So saying, she gently let down the sash, and, withdrawing a
little from her window, stood awaiting the result; when she soon
heard the other, with the light and stealthy movements of a cat,
enter the house, and ascend into the garret, through a small sidedoor,
opening from the passage we have named. Scarcely a
minute had elapsed before she again heard his footsteps stealing
back by her door to the window, through which he had so noiselessly
entered; when, once more raising the sash of her own,
she found him already standing on the top of the ladder where she
last saw him, he having effected his ingress and egress with such
celerity, that but for the light fusil he now held in his hand, she
would have believed herself mistaken in supposing he had entered
at all.

“Well, miss, I am waiting for your say so,” he said, in a low
tone, peering warily around him.

“Have you been to the Court House to-night?” hesitatingly
asked the other.

“Well, now,” replied Bart, hesitating in his turn, “without
more token for knowing what you're up to, I'll say, may be so,
and may be no so.”

“You need not fear me, Bart,” replied Sabrey, conjecturing
the cause of his hesitation; “I am no enemy of those who
have suffered there to-night. But do you know Mr. Woodburn?”

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

“Harry, who got you out of that river scrape? Yes; lived
in his town last summer.”

“He is among the wounded and prisoners in jail, it is said?”

“Dreadful true, miss.”

“Could you get this small letter to him to-night?” she timidly
asked.

“Yes, through the grate; glad to do it, glad of it, twice
over,” replied Bart, reaching out and grasping the proffered
billet.

“Why, why do you say that?” asked Sabrey, with an air of
mingled doubt and curiosity.

“Cause, in the first place, you'll now keep my secret of being
here; and nextly, glad to find there's one among the court folks
that feels decent about this bloody business. But I must be off.
Yes, I'll get it to him,” said Bart, beginning to descend.

“Stay, Barty. Is there any hope that Mr. Woodburn will survive
his wounds?”

“Survive? Live, do you mean? O, yes; though the lunge
which that — But no matter. It was well meant for the heart,
and the fellow wan't at all to blame that it didn't reach it, instead
of the inner part of the arm.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Miss Haviland, in a tone of joyful surprise;
which the next instant, however, gave way to one of
embarrassment. “Why, I heard — have written, indeed, under
the belief that — and perhaps — Barty, I think, on the whole,
I will not send that billet now.”

As Bart heard these last words of the fair speaker, so inconsistent
with all which both her words and manner had just expressed,
he looked up with a stare of surprise to her face, now
sufficiently revealed, by the glancing light standing near her in the
room, to betray its varying expressions. But, as he ran his keen
gray eyes over her hesitating and slightly confused countenance,
he soon seemed to read the secret cause of her sudden change
of purpose, arising from that curious and beautiful trait in
woman's heart, which, by some gush of awakened sympathy,
often unfolds all the lurking secrets of the breast, but which,
when the cause of that sympathy is removed, closes up the
avenue, and conceals them from view, in the cold reserve of
shrinking delicacy — the colder and more impenetrable in proportion
as the disclosure has been complete.

“O, yes, I will carry it,” said Bart, pretending to misunderstand
the other, while he pocketed the billet and began to glide
down the ladder.

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

“No,” commenced Miss Haviland; “no, Bart, I said —”

“Yes, yes, I will have it there in a jiffy,” interrupted Bart,
hastening his descent, and the next instant dodging away in the
dark beneath the foot of the ladder.

“Well, let it go,” said the foiled and somewhat mortified
maiden to herself, after the disappearance of her strange visitor.
“If what I expressed, when I thought him dying, was right and
proper, it cannot be very wrong now.”

As soon as she had thus reconciled herself to the unexpected
turn which this matter had taken, Miss Haviland now began to
reflect more on Bart's motives in coming, at such an hour of the
night, for his gun; when it, for the first time, occurred to her
mind, that he had been induced to take this step in consequence
of some particular call for arms having reference to the events
of the evening. Fearing she might have done wrong in suffering
him to take away the gun, if it was to be used for hostile purposes,
and anxious to know whether her conjectures relative to a rising
of the people were well founded, she proceeded to an end window
of her room, which overlooked a range of buildings known
to her to be mostly occupied by the opposers of royal authority;
and removing the curtains and raising the sash, she leaned out
and listened for any unusual sounds which might reach her from
without. And it was not long before she became well convinced
that her apprehensions were not groundless. Some extraordinary
movement was evidently going on in the village. The low hum
of suppressed voices, mingled with various sounds of busy preparation,
came up, on the dense night air, from almost every direction
around her. Here, was heard the small hammer, the grating
file, with the occasional clicking of the firelock, undergoing repairs
by the use of the instruments just named. There, could be distinguished
the pecking of flints, the rattling of ramrods, and the
regularly repeated rapping of bullet-moulds to disengage the
freshly-cast balls. In other places could be perceived the hasty
movements of men about the stables, evidently engaged in leading
out and saddling horses, and making other preparations for
mounting; and then followed the sounds of the quick, short
gallop of their steeds, starting off, on express, in various directions,
under the sharply applied lashes of excited riders, and distinctly
revealing their different routes out of the village, by the streams
of fire that flew from their rapidly striking hoofs on the gravelly
and frozen ground. All, indeed, seemed to be in silent commotion
through the town. Bart's object in coming for his gun, at
such an hour of the night, was now sufficiently explained; for

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

the quick and discerning mind of Miss Haviland at once told
her that the country was indeed rising in arms to avenge the
atrocities just committed by the party among whom were all her
relatives and friends; and she shuddered at the thought of to-morrow,
feeling, as she did, a secret and boding consciousness
that their downfall, brought about by their arrogance and crimes,
was now at hand.

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