Читать книгу Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman - Willie Walker Caldwell - Страница 10

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The conversation around our Yule fire, to which I had listened with such eager absorption, had caused my budding convictions to bloom in an hour into fully expanded principles. I had caught the fever of patriotism running like an epidemic through the land. Were not we of Scotch Irish race and Presbyterian faith pledged already to the cause since the first blood shed for American liberty was the blood of the Scotch Irish Presbyterians, spilled at the battle of Alamance, when the stern North Carolina "Regulators" had risen, like Cromwell's "Ironsides," against the tyranny of their royal governor? The "Boston Tea Party," therefore, found quickest sympathy among the Scotch Irish of the Southern and Middle States, and the earliest and grimmest of the resolutions sent up to the several assemblies, urging that Massachusetts be sustained, and kingly tyranny determinedly resisted, came from the towns and counties settled by these people. "Freedom or death" was the consuming sentiment in the hearts of many Scotch Irish Americans for months before the typical orator of that race thrilled a continent by speaking those immortal words, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

The first call issued by Congress for troops named seven rifle companies to be recruited in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Again I put aside my books, only this time I gave them to a fellow student who sorely needed them, and went home to tell my father that I meant to enlist. I recall as vividly as 'twere yesterday that calm spring afternoon when I took the short cut across flower spangled meadows, and bosky, sweet scented woods to the humble home which had given me a youth so rich in love and happiness, but which I was so soon to leave for privations, dangers, and temptations such as had not yet entered into my imagination.

It was the year of my majority, and I was already mature in physical development. Even in our neighborhood of "brawny Scotchmen" I was called tall, measuring six feet three inches in my moccasins, and though somewhat spare, was broad of shoulder, long of limb, muscular, agile, and deep winded; moreover, I could ride and shoot with the best man in the valley. More proud was I, at this time, of my strength, and the keen sight of my gray eyes, than of my brown, curling hair, and the general comeliness of my appearance, in which my mother took such pride. A few months later I was to have my hour of vanity, and to eat the fruit of it.

Few men, I imagine, can separate their lives sharply into boyhood and manhood, but mine I can. That last Christmas holiday of my schooldays marked the line of division, and I took the first step across it the day I saved Ellen from the bear's fangs, and the second the hour I formed the resolution to shoulder my rifle for American liberty. My father, it is true, had chosen to treat me as a man, since the Indian raid, but from the hour I made up my mind to enlist I put aside childish things, and bore myself with a consciousness of manhood's power.

A stranger sat on our porch who, hearing me announce impetuously to my father, as he came to the top of the porch steps to meet me, that "I meant to enlist in one of the rifle companies," sprang up from his chair, seized my hand, shook it heartily, and said with a genial smile, and cordial tone that made my spirit go out to him at a leap,

"You're a lad after my own heart, sir! Are there many more like you in this valley? How old is your son, Justice McElroy?"

"Not long past twenty, sir. Donald, this is Captain Morgan, the renowned Indian fighter of whom you have so often heard. He is in the neighborhood to enlist men for his rifle company, so you have not far to go to fulfill your purpose."

I looked now, you may be sure, with fresh interest at the powerful but graceful figure before me. He was nearly as tall as I, but broader and heavier; his tanned, handsome face was marred by a scar on the right cheek, and I noted even in this first hasty scrutiny an indication of stubborn will in the set of his lips, and a dare devil gleam in his fine eyes that would make one hesitate to pick a quarrel with him.

"I have found my captain," I thought, my pulse throbbing joyously, just as he spoke again, with that ring of cheerful courage in his voice which I was to learn to know so well, and so often to be inspired by.

"That we shall win admits no doubt if I can enlist a company of muscular young giants like you. Can you shoot, lad?"

"Aye, that he can," laughed my father, well pleased, I could see, by Captain Morgan's manner toward me. "Cut off a squirrel's head at a distance of three hundred yards. And there are other marksmen in our valley that can fully equal him, though few as tall as my son Donald," and he laid a caressing hand upon my shoulder.

"You shall be one of my sergeants, lad," continued Captain Morgan, seizing my hand again, "and to-morrow you must ride with me to enlist as many like you as this neighborhood affords."

"Unfortunately, Captain Morgan," said my father, "some of those who would like nothing better than the opportunity to strike a blow for our rights, dare not leave their families and homes here unprotected, subject as we are to the raids of the savages from across the mountain. Enough able-bodied men must be left in the valley to turn back Indian forays, though, since our victory over them at Point Pleasant, our danger is not near so great. Still a score or more recruits may be had in this neighborhood, I doubt not."

"May I ask, Captain Morgan, whither we are to march after our quota has been recruited?" I questioned.

"Straight to Boston, where we will have a chance to drill."

"And to fight also, I hope."

"Amen, lad, say I to that! and may there be other of your brave spirit. I like not this dallying, this parleying with the stubborn king, who but deludes us with promises while he gains time to equip and to land his troops upon our shores. And I am beginning to think that this talk of our Congress that we take up arms as loyal subjects of England, to force from the crown redress of our grievances, goes not far enough. Only a democracy where all are free and equal, and where the stakes are worth the risks and privations to be endured, is suited to the genius of this vast and virgin continent. Under no other form of government may she be rightly developed."

"Nor are you alone, sir, in that opinion," replied my father. "None other is held in this valley, as the memorial sent up to the assembly by the county committee of Augusta in February last can testify. Were the Scotch Irish settlers of this country consulted, Captain Morgan, our declaration of independence would be speedily proclaimed; Patrick Henry's burning words but voice the sentiment of his race."

"The timid and the half-hearted may not yet be safely set in opposition, perhaps," answered Captain Morgan, "and Congress is beset with many difficulties. But 'tis for the independence of the American States I have drawn my sword"—and as he spoke he sprang suddenly to his feet, straightened his imposing figure and keyed his voice to a clarion pitch—"nor will I sheathe it again, save death or bodily infirmities intervene, till the glorious cause of America's liberty has been won—till we are a free, self-governing people!"

"I take that oath with you, sir," said I, springing also to my feet.

Then my father, looking up at us from his arm chair, unwiped tears upon his cheeks, said, in deep, reverent tone: "God grant us victory, and make this goodly land the home of freedom—a refuge for the oppressed of all nations!"

We found no trouble in enlisting men enough in our valley to complete the company Captain Morgan was to command, and in three weeks I was ready to march the Augusta boys to Frederick County, where we were to join our captain and the rest of the men. The twenty-two boys from our end of the valley bivouacked all night in our yard, that we might get an early start the next morning; and that evening the neighbors came from far and near to give us farewell, and a blessing. Uncle Thomas and his family came with the rest, Aunt Martha helping to cook the hot supper which my mother insisted on serving the lads under the trees, that their home-filled haversacks might be saved for the march.

Thomas wandered about among the men, lying in groups upon the grass in the shade of the oaks and elms, with a look of distress upon his face that surprised me. At last he called me to one side, and said with trembling lips,

"Don, I'd give the next ten years of my life to go with you."

"You are too young, Thomas. Why, you are not nineteen yet."

"There are four boys in the squad no older than I, and I am strong, and a fair shot."

"Then enlist; it's not too late yet, and the more the merrier."

"But my mother made me give her a solemn promise that I would not. She wishes me to be a minister, and once I thought I was called, but now I believe I was mistaken. I couldn't be so wild to go to the war if I had received a call from heaven to the ministry; but mother says it will kill her if I turn soldier, after she has solemnly consecrated me to the Lord. Oh, Donald, what must I do?"

"I cannot advise you to disobey your mother, Thomas," I answered, "but I am sorry for you."

"Ellen says my life is my own, to live as I please, and that not even my mother has a right to dictate to me whether I shall be preacher or soldier," sighed Thomas.

Now I half agreed with Ellen, but the doctrine seemed an irreverent one to a youth of Scotch Irish raising, so I only repeated, "I think you had best obey your mother, Tom," which afforded him small consolation. He answered me with a suppressed groan, and presently went back to the soldiers.

Hot and tired from the day's labors, I decided, after supper, to cool myself by a last drink of my mother's delicious buttermilk. The footpath to the spring wound its careless way down a grassy slope starred with dandelions, and dusted with milky ways of daisies and pale bluets. Apple, pear, and peach trees grew in the angles of the worm fence which separated the garden from the meadow, and they were so full of bloom that they looked like masses of pink and white clouds drifted down to earth. There was a crab apple tree among them, and its elusive fragrance came and went upon the zephyrs which swayed the dandelions and rustled the blossoms upon the trees. The world about my feet was as fair and full of mystic charm as the moon-glorified, star-spangled heaven. The talk, the work, the plans which had filled the last weeks of my life, seemed out of tune with God's purposes, as revealed in nature—out of keeping with His beneficent plans for all His handiwork.

Pondering this strange anomaly, of the tendency of God's creatures to make war continually upon each other, in the midst of a world so fair, so beneficent, and so peaceful—the solemn mystery of death always treading close upon the heels of life—of the desolation always threatening beauty, I passed the springhouse before I knew it, and found myself at the foot of the hill, where the spring breaks forth to fall into a natural basin overhung by a broad, jutting rock. As I raised my eyes to this rock, a vision greeted me which startled me into an instant's consciousness of superstitious terror. Did I see a ghost at last—after all my jeering unbelief? Was that slim shape, wrapped in a white robe standing so motionless on the white rock, the spirit of some Indian maiden, seeking again the haunts where in life she had met her lover?

Of course not; it was only Ellen, for now I saw a hand lifted, to push back the wind blowsed curls from her forehead. Softly I climbed the hill behind her, and stood at her side, but so rapt was she in her own thoughts, she did not hear me till I spoke.

"What are you looking at, Ellen?" I asked.

Had I not thrown my arm quickly about her, she would have sprung from the rock in her startled surprise, yet she did not scream, but regained her poise in an instant, disengaged herself from my arm, and answered me calmly—

"At the moon, Cousin Donald."

"'Tis only a round, bright ball, Ellen; why gaze at it so long and fixedly?"

"'Tis more than a silver ball when one looks at it so. It grows bigger and deeper, and within there are mountains and caverns, and seas and plains; mayhap there are people there who suffer and think as we do. Would you not like to have great wings, Cousin Donald, and fly and fly through the soft blue air, till you reached the moon?"

"Such fancies have never come into my mind, Ellen. You must have clear eyes, and a vivid imagination," and I smiled down upon her, not a little amused by her fanciful conceits.

"If I did not I should die;" then, turning hotly upon me, "How would you like to walk back and forth, back and forth along a bare floor, with bare garret walls about you, whirring a great, ugly wheel, and twisting coarse, ill-smelling wool all day long, day after day? One dare not think, for then one gets careless and breaks or knots the thread, and yet to keep one's mind upon so dreary, and so monotonous a task is maddening. Do you wonder I run away, and talk with the flower-fairies, or the stars, whenever I get the chance?"

"No, Ellen, I don't. I have often thought that women's tasks must be very wearisome, the endless spinning, weaving, and knitting. I wonder they have patience for such work."

"I wish I might go to the war with you, Cousin Donald."

"You could never stand the hardships."

"But I think I could. I'd love to sleep out of doors, under the winking stars, and the friendly moon; I'd love to walk through trackless forests, across wide, unknown plains, and to come now and then upon some town or settlement where every one would feast and praise the patriots."

"But what of the cold, hunger and fatigue? of wounds and capture and the sights and sounds after a battle? It tries even the souls of brave, strong men to bear such things."

"The soul of a woman might endure as much, and I think I should mind even those things less than eternal spinning, Cousin Donald."

I laughed now. "You are not yet a woman, Ellen, and you are not doomed, I trust, to eternal spinning. When I come back from the war we'll go hunting every day, even though we will have to run off from Aunt Martha."

"I shall not have a friend left except grandma."

"And Thomas."

"Thomas likes me, yes, but he is too much afraid of his mother to help me have my way. When you come back you may not find me here."

"Of course I shall; and remember, Ellen, we are always to be good friends and comrades," and I held out my hand to her.

"Good friends and comrades," repeated Ellen; "I shall remind you one day when you come home famous, and dignified—if I am able to endure life with Aunt Martha so long as that," and she put her hand in mine in the old way of confident comradeship which had gone out of our intercourse for months. Hand in hand we went back to the house, talking intimately, she of her thoughts and feelings, I of my plans and hopes.

Before sun-up the next morning we were on the march. I had left Jean weeping bitterly on grandmother's shoulder, and I doubt not the dear old lady wept, too, when I was out of sight. My mother stood in the doorway, shading her brave, loving eyes with her hand, that I might not see fall the tears glittering on their lashes. Father walked beside me at the head of my little troop for a mile, and, before he left me, took me in his arms in sight of them all, straining me for an instant to his breast, and pouring out a patriarch's blessing upon my bowed head.

Our valley looked very fair that day, as we marched northward across it. The rank wheat rolled in billows of rich green, the springing corn showed narrow gray green blades, which moved gently to and fro above the loamy uplands, and the forests, which enclosed the cleared lands on all sides, were fresh robed in verdure of many hues. Edging the forest like a jeweled braid grew masses of red-bud, dogwood and hawthorn in full blossom, and singing along its sparkling way, the river wound in and out of velvety meadows with deep curves and bold sweeps of bountiful intent, embracing as much as possible of this fair land that it might scatter widely its fertilizing influences.

"Boys," I said, pausing on an eminence from which we could see all our end of the valley, and pointing outward, as I stopped to take a long, last look, "is it not a land worth fighting for?"

"Aye, aye, sergeant!" came in hearty chorus.

"Then fight for it we will, like brave men and true, nor look backward again till freedom be won."

"Aye, that we will!" again in deep, full accord, and when all had taken a lingering look, I gave the command—

"Right about face! Forward!"

Without a backward glance, we tramped onward, our faces forever toward the enemies of freedom.