Part 9 (1/2)
”This is a very different matter, sir. Blood has not been drawn in a _riot_, but in a _battle_.”
”Battle! You amaze me, sir! That is indeed a serious matter, and may lead to most serious consequences!”
”The Lord preserve us from evil times,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the chaplain, ”and lead us, poor, dependent creatures that we are, into the paths of peace and quietness! Without his grace, we are the blind leading the blind.”
”Do you mean, major Willoughby, that armed and disciplined bodies have met in actual conflict?”
”Perhaps not literally so, my dear father; but the minute-men of Ma.s.sachusetts, and His Majesty's forces, have met and fought. This I know, full well; for my own regiment was in the field, and, I hope it is unnecessary to add, that its second officer was not absent.”
”Of course these minute-men--rabble would be the better word--could not stand before you?” said the captain, compressing his lips, under a strong impulse of military pride.
Major Willoughby coloured, and, to own the truth, at that moment he wished the Rev. Mr. Woods, if not literally at the devil, at least safe and sound in another room; anywhere, so it were out of ear-shot of the answer.
”Why, sir,” he said, hesitating, not to say stammering, notwithstanding a prodigious effort to seem philosophical and calm--”To own the truth, these minute-fellows are not quite as contemptible as we soldiers would be apt to think. It was a stone-wall affair, and dodging work; and, so, you know, sir, drilled troops wouldn't have the usual chance. They pressed us pretty warmly on the retreat.”
”_Retreat_! Major Willoughby!”
”I called it retreat, sure enough; but it was only a march _in_, again, after having done the business on which we went out. I shall admit, I say, sir, that we were hard pressed, until _reinforced_.”
”_Reinforced_, my dear Bob! _Your_ regiment, _our_ regiment could not need a reinforcement against all the Yankees in New England.”
The major could not abstain from laughing, a little, at this exhibition of his father's _esprit de corps_; but native frankness, and love of truth, compelled him to admit the contrary.
”It _did_, sir, notwithstanding,” he answered; ”and, not to mince the matter, it needed it confoundedly. Some of our officers who have seen the hardest service of the last war, declare, that taking the march, and the popping work, and the distance, altogether, it was the warmest day _they_ remember. Our loss, too, was by no means insignificant, as I hope you will believe, when you know the troops engaged. We report something like three hundred casualties.”
The captain did not answer for quite a minute. All this time he sat thoughtful, and even pale; for his mind was teeming with the pregnant consequences of such an outbreak. Then he desired his son to give a succinct, but connected history of the whole affair. The major complied, beginning his narrative with an account of the general state of the country, and concluding it, by giving, as far as it was possible for one whose professional pride and political feelings were too deeply involved to be entirely impartial, a reasonably just account of the particular occurrence already mentioned.
The events that led to, and the hot skirmish which it is the practice of the country to call the Battle of Lexington, and the incidents of the day itself, are too familiar to the ordinary reader, to require repet.i.tion here. The major explained all the military points very clearly, did full justice to the perseverance and daring of the provincials, as he called his enemies--for, an American himself, he would not term them Americans--and threw in as many explanatory remarks as he could think of, by way of vindicating the ”march _in_, again.” This he did, too, quite as much out of filial piety, as out of self-love; for, to own the truth, the captain's mortification, as a soldier, was so very evident as to give his son sensible pain.
”The effect of all this,” continued the major, when his narrative of the military movements was ended, ”has been to raise a tremendous feeling, throughout the country, and G.o.d knows what is to follow.”
”And this you have come hither to tell me, Robert,” said the father, kindly. ”It is well done, and as I would have expected from you. We might have pa.s.sed the summer, here, and not have heard a whisper of so important an event.”
”Soon after the affair--or, as soon as we got some notion of its effect on the provinces, general Gage sent me, privately, with despatches to governor Tryon. _He_, governor Tryon, was aware of your position; and, as I had also to communicate the death of Sir Harry Willoughby, he directed me to come up the river, privately, have an interview with Sir John, if possible, and then push on, under a feigned name, and communicate with you. He thinks, now Sir William is dead, that with your estate, and new rank, and local influence, you might be very serviceable in sustaining the royal cause; for, it is not to be concealed that this affair is likely to take the character of an open and wide-spread revolt against the authority of the crown.”
”General Tryon does me too much honour,” answered the captain, coldly.
”My estate is a small body of wild land; my influence extends little beyond this beaver meadow, and is confined to my own household, and some fifteen or twenty labourers; and as for the _new rank_ of which you speak, it is not likely the colonists will care much for _that,_ if they disregard the rights of the king. Still, you have acted like a son in running the risk you do, Bob; and I pray G.o.d you may get back to your regiment, in safety.”
”This is a cordial to my hopes, sir; for nothing would pain me more than to believe you think it my duty, because I was born in the colonies, to throw up my commission, and take side with the rebels.”
”I do not conceive that to be your duty, any more than I conceive it to be mine to take sides against them, because I happened to be born in England. It is a weak view of moral obligations, that confines them merely to the accidents of birth, and birth-place. Such a subsequent state of things may have grown up, as to change all our duties, and it is necessary that we discharge them as they _are_; not as they may have been, hitherto, or may be, hereafter. Those who clamour so much about mere birth-place, usually have no very clear sense of their higher obligations. Over our birth we can have no control; while we are rigidly responsible for the fulfilment of obligations voluntarily contracted.”
”Do you reason thus, captain?” asked the chaplain, with strong interest--”Now, I confess, I _feel_, in this matter, not only very much like a native American, but very much like a native Yankee, in the bargain. You know I was born in the Bay, and--the major must excuse me--but, it ill-becomes my cloth to deceive--I hope the major will pardon me--I--I do hope--”
”Speak out, Mr. Woods,” said Robert Willoughby, smiling--”_You_ have nothing to fear from your old friend the major.”
”So I thought--so I thought--well, then, I was glad--yes, really rejoiced at heart, to hear that my countrymen, down-east, there, had made the king's troops scamper,”
”I am not aware that I used any such terms, sir, in connection with the manner in which we marched in, after the duty we went out on was performed,” returned the young soldier, a little stiffly. ”I suppose it is natural for one Yankee to sympathize with another; but, my father, Mr. Woods, is an _Old_ England, and not a _New_-England-man; and he may be excused if he feel more for the servants of the crown.”
”Certainly, my dear major--certainly, my dear Mr. Robert--my old pupil, and, I hope, my friend--all this is true enough, and very natural. I allow captain Willoughby to wish the best for the king's troops, while I wish the best for my own countrymen.”
”This is natural, on both sides, out of all question, though it by no means follows that it is right. 'Our country, right or wrong,' is a high-sounding maxim, but it is scarcely the honest man's maxim. Our country, after all, cannot have nearer claims upon us, than our parents for instance; and who can claim a moral right to sustain even his own father, in error, injustice, or crime? No, no--I hate your pithy sayings; they commonly mean nothing that is substantially good, at bottom.”