Part 5 (2/2)

”Let us march at once,” he said, ”and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence.”

The next morning, Hale called his pupils together, ”gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them, and shaking each by the hand,” took his leave, and during the same forenoon marched with his company for Cambridge.

The young officer from Connecticut took an active part in the siege of Boston, and soon became captain of his company. Hale's diary is still preserved, and after all these years it is full of interest. It seems that he took charge of his men's clothing, rations, and money.

Much of his time he was on picket duty, and took part in many lively skirmishes with the redcoats. Besides studying military tactics, he found time to make up wrestling matches, to play football and checkers, and, on Sundays, to hold religious meetings in barns.

Within a few hours after bidding good-by to General Was.h.i.+ngton, Captain Hale, taking with him one of his own trusty soldiers, left the camp at Harlem, intending at the first opportunity to cross Long Island Sound. There were so many British guard s.h.i.+ps on the watch {56} that he and his companion found no safe place to cross until they had reached Norwalk, fifty miles up the Sound on the Connecticut sh.o.r.e. Here a small sloop was to land Hale on the other side.

Stripping off his uniform, the young captain put on a plain brown suit of citizen's clothes, and a broad-brimmed hat. Thus attired in the dress of a schoolmaster, he was landed across the Sound, and shortly afterwards reached the nearest British camp.

The redcoats received the pretended schoolmaster cordially. A captain of the dragoons spoke of him long afterwards as a ”jolly good fellow.” Hale pretended that he was tired of the ”rebel cause,” and that he was in search of a place to teach school.

It would be interesting to know just what the ”schoolmaster” did in the next two weeks. Think of the poor fellow's eagerness to make the most of his time, drawing plans of the forts, and going rapidly from one point to another to watch the marching of troops, patrols, and guards. Think of his sleepless nights, his fearful risk, the ever-present dread of being recognized by some Tory. All this we know nothing about, but his brave and tender heart must sometimes have been sorely tried.

From the midst of all these dangers Hale, unharmed, began his return trip to the American lines. He had threaded his way through the woods, and round all the British camps on Long Island, until he reached in safety the point where he had first landed. Here he had {57} planned for a boat to meet him early the next morning, to take him over to the mainland.

Many a patriotic American boy has thought what he should have done if he could have exchanged places with Nathan Hale on this evening. Near by, at a place then called and still called ”The Cedars,” a woman by the name of Chichester, and nicknamed ”Mother Chick,” kept a tavern, which was the favorite resort of all the Tories in that region. Hale was sure that n.o.body would know him in his strange dress, and so he ventured into the tavern. A number of people were in the barroom. A few minutes afterwards, a man whose face seemed familiar to Hale suddenly left the room, and was not seen again.

The pretended schoolmaster spent the night at the tavern.

Early the next morning, the landlady rushed into the barroom, crying out to her guests, ”Look out, boys! there is a strange boat close in sh.o.r.e!”

The Tories scampered as if the house were on fire.

”That surely is the very boat I'm looking for,” thought Hale on leaving the tavern, and hastened towards the beach, where the boat had already landed.

A moment more, and the young captain was amazed at the sight of six British marines, standing erect in the boat, with their muskets aimed at him. He turned to run, when a loud voice cried out, ”Surrender or die!” He was within close range of their guns. Escape was {58} not possible. The poor fellow gave himself up. He was taken on board the British guard s.h.i.+p Halifax, which lay at anchor close by, hidden from sight by a point of land.

Some have declared that the man who so suddenly left the tavern was a Tory cousin to Hale, and saw at once through the patriot's disguise; that, being quite a rascal, he hurried away to get word to the British camp. There seems to be no good reason, however, to believe that the fellow was a kinsman.

However this may be, the British captured Captain Hale in disguise.

They stripped him and searched him, and found his drawings and his notes. These were written in Latin, and had been tucked away between the soles of his shoes.

”I am sorry that so fine a fellow has fallen into my hands,” said the captain of the guard s.h.i.+p, ”but you are my prisoner, and I think a spy. So to New York you must go!”

General Howe's headquarters were at this time in the elegant Beekman mansion, situated near what is now the corner of Fifty-First Street and First Avenue. Calm and fearless, the captured spy stood before the British commander. He bravely owned that he was an American officer, and said that he was sorry he had not been able to serve his country better. No time was to be wasted in calling a court-martial.

Without trial of any kind, Captain Hale was condemned to die the death of a spy. {59} The verdict was that he should be hanged by the neck, ”to-morrow morning at daybreak.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Patriot Spy before the British General]

That night, which was Sat.u.r.day, September 21, the condemned man was kept under a strong guard, in the greenhouse near the Beekman mansion. He had been given over to the care of the brutal Cunningham, the infamous British provost marshal, with orders to carry out the sentence before sunrise the next morning.

”To-morrow morning at daybreak.”

How cruelly brief! Nathan Hale, the patriot spy, was left to himself for the night.

When morning came, Cunningham found his prisoner ready. While preparations were being made, a young officer, moved in spite of himself, allowed Hale to sit in his tent long enough to write brief letters to his parents and his friends. The letters were pa.s.sed to Cunningham to be sent. He read them, and as he saw the n.o.ble spirit which breathed in every line, the wretch {60} began to curse, and tore the letters into bits before the face of his victim. He said that the rebels should never know they had a man who could die with such firmness.

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