. 5. That was an awful death-bed. The minister had watched "the last night" with a hundred convicts in their cells, but had never beheld a scene so terrible as this. Suddenly the dying man arose: he tottered along the floor. (With those white fingers, whose nails were blue with the death-chill, he threw open a valise. He drew from thence a faded coat of blue, faced with silver, and the wreck of a battle-flag. 6. "Look ye, priest! this faded coat is spotted with my blood!" he cried, as old memories seemed stirring at his heart. "This coat I wore, when I first heard the news of Lexington: this coat I wore, when I planted the banner of the stars on Ticonderoga! that bullet-hole was pierced in the fight of Quebec; and now, I am a―let me whisper it in your ear!" He hissed that single burning word into the minister's ear: "Now help me, priest! help me to put on this coat of blue; for you see”—and a ghastly smile came over his face-" there is no one here to wipe the cold drops from my brow: no wife: no child. I must meet Death alone; but I will meet him, as I have met him in battle, without a fear!" 7. And, while he stood arraying his limbs in that worm-eaten coat, of blue and silver, the good minister spoke to him of faith in Jesus. Yes, of that great faith, which pierces the clouds of human guilt, and rolls them back from the face of God. "Faith!" echoed that strange man, who stood there, erect, with the death-chill on his brow, "Faith! Can it give me back my honor? Look ye, priest! there, over the waves, sits George Washington, telling to his comrades the pleasant story of the eight years' war: there, in his royal balls, sits George of England, bewailing, in his idiotic voice, the loss of his colonies! And here am I!-I, who was the first to raise the flag of freedom, the first to strike a blow against that king—here am I, dying! oh, dying like a dog!" 8. The awe-stricken preacher started back from the look of the dying man, while throb-throb-throb-beats the death-watch, in the shattered wall. "Hush! silence along the lines there!" he muttered, in that wild, absent tone, as though speaking to the dead; "silence along the lines! not a word—not a word, on peril of your lives! Hark you, Montgomery! we will meet in the centre of the town :—we will meet there in victory, or die!--Hist! silence, my men—not a whisper, as we move up those steep rocks! Now on, my boys-now on! Men of the wilderness, we will gain the town! Now up with the banner of the stars-up with the flag of freedom, though the night is dark, and the snow falls! Now! now, one more blow, and Quebec is ours! " (9. And look! his eye grows glassy. With that word on his lips, he stands there-ah! what a hideous picture of despair: erect, livid, ghastly: there for a moment, and then he falls!-he is dead! Ah, look at that proud form, thrown cold and stiff upon the damp floor. In that glassy eye there lingers, even yet, a horrible energy-a sublimity of despair Who is this strange man lying there alone, in this rude garret: this man, who, in all his crimes, still treasured up in that blue uniform, that faded flag? Who is this being of horrible remorse-this man, whose memories seem to link something with heaven, and more with hell?) (10. Let us look at that parchment and flag.) The aged minister unrolls that faded flag; it is a blue banner gleaming with thirteen stars. He unrolls that parchment: it is a colonel's commission in the Continental army addressed to BENEDICT ARNOLD! And there, in that rude hut, while the death-watch throbbed like a heart in the shattered wall: there, unknown, unwept, in all the bitterness. of desolation, lay the corse of the patriot and the traitor. 11. Oh that our own true Washington had been there, to sever that good right arm from the corse; and, while the dishonored body rotted into dust, to bring home that noble arm, and embalm it among the holiest memories of the past. For that right arm struck many a gallant blow for freedom: yonder at Ticonderoga, at Quebec, Champlain, and Saratoga-that arm, yonder, beneath the snow white mountains, in the deep silence of the river of the dead, first raised into light the Banner of the Stars.) III.-WHAT THE SEA SAID TO ME. 1. By the sandy sea-shore strolling, Surely, 'tis no idle notion, That the sparkling, seething ocean, 2. "Ocean, with thy locks so hoary, Softly said the sea as sighing, 3. "Sad and lonely once I wandered Round a shoreless world and pondered, Now, since heaven has kindly fated I like Adam should be mated, Now I see. 4. I've a sweetheart, I'm a lover, Now I know what heavenly bliss is, While I feel such love as this is, That when the searching eye of heaven is hid The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs 2. So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,- 3. Not all the water in the rough rude sea For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel: then, if angels fight, Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right. V.-SEEING THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT. 1. In July, 1865, Hon. J. H. Campbell, United States Minister to Norway, with a party of American gentlemen, went far enough north to see the sun at midnight. It was in 69 degrees north latitude, and they ascended a cliff 1,000 feet high above the Arctic sea. 2. The scene is thus described: "It was late, but still sunlight. The Arctic ocean stretched away in silent vastness at our feet; the sound of its waves scarcely reached our airy lookout; away in the north the huge old sun swung low along the horizon like a slow beat of the pendulum in the tall clock in our grandfather's parlor corner. We all stood silent looking at our watches. When both hands came together at 12, midnight, the full, round orb hung triumphantly above the wave: a bridge of gold running due north spangled the waters between us and him. 3. There he shone in silent majesty which knew no setting. We involuntarily took off our hats-no word was spoken. Combine, if you can, the most brilliant sunset and sunrise you ever saw, and its beauties will pale before the gorgeous coloring which now lit up the ocean, heaven and mountain. In half an hour the sun had swung up perceptibly on its beat, the colors changed to those of morning, a fresh breeze rippled over the florid sea, one songster after another piped up in the grove behind uswe had slid into another day." |