For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution, Brady [acx book reading .TXT] 📗

to a further examination. She knelt down and wiped the blood and smoke and dust from the face of the prostrate man, and recognized him at once. It was old Bentley, desperately wounded, his clothes soaked with blood from several severe wounds, and apparently dying fast, but still breathing. A small tightly rolled up ball of bunting was lying near her on the deck; it was a flag from the Randolph, which had been blown there by the force of the explosion. She quickly picked it up and pillowed the head of the unconscious man upon it. Then she ran below to her cabin, coming back in a moment with water and a cordial, with which she bathed the head and wiped the lips of the dying man. The fires were all forward, and, the wind being aft, the danger was in the fore part of the ship; no one therefore paid the least attention to her. There was, in fact, save the captain and one or two midshipmen, no one else on the poop-deck except her father, who like herself had been overwhelmed by the sudden and awful ending of the battle. Being without anything to do, the colonel, who had been watching the men fight with the fire, happened to look aft for a moment and saw his daughter by the side of the prostrate man. He stepped over to her at once.

"Katharine, Katharine," he said to her in a tone of stern reproof and surprise, not as he usually spoke to her, "you here! 'T is no place for women. When did you come from below?"

"I've not been below at all, father," she replied, looking up at him with a white, stricken face which troubled his loving heart.

"Do you mean to tell me that you have been on deck during the action?"

"Yes, father, right here. Do you not understand that it was Mr.
Seymour's ship—I could not go away!"

"By heavens! Think of it! And I forgot you completely— The fault was mine, how could I have allowed it?" he continued in great agitation.

"Never mind, father; I could not have gone below in any case. Do you think he—Mr. Seymour—can be yet alive?" she asked, still cherishing a faint hope.

The colonel shook his head gloomily, and then stooping down and looking at the prostrate form of the man on the deck, he asked,—

"But who is this you have here?"

The man opened his eyes at this moment and looked up vacantly.

"William Bentley, sir," he said in a hoarse whisper, as if in answer to the question; and then making a vain effort to raise his hand to his head, he went on half-mechanically, "bosun of the Randolph, sir. Come aboard!"

"Merciful Powers, it is old Bentley!" cried the colonel. "Can anything be done for you, my man? How is it with you?"

Katharine poured a little more of the cordial down his throat, which gave him a fictitious strength for a moment, and he answered in a little stronger voice, with a glance of recognition and wonder,—

"The colonel and the young miss! we thought you dead in the wreck of the Radnor. He will be glad;" and then after a pause recollection came to him. "Oh, God!" he murmured, "Mr. Seymour!"

"What of him? Speak!" cried Katharine, in agony.

"Gone with the rest," he replied with an effort "'T was a good fight, though. The other ships,—where are they?"

"Escaped," answered the colonel; "we are too much cut up to pursue."

"Why did you do it?" moaned Katharine, thinking of Seymour's attack on the ship of the line.

The old man did not heed the question; his eyes closed. He was still a moment, and then he opened his eyes again slowly. Straight above him waved the standard of his enemy.

"I never thought—to die—under the English flag," he said slowly and with great effort. Supplying its place with her own young soft arm, Katharine drew forth the little American ensign which had served him for a pillow—stained with his own blood—and held it up before him. A light came into his dying eyes,—a light of heaven, perhaps, no pain in his heart now. One trembling hand would still do his bidding; by a superhuman effort of his resolute will he caught the bit of bunting and carried it to his lips in a long kiss of farewell. His lips moved. He was saying something. Katharine bent to listen. What was it? Ah! she heard; they were the words he said on the deck of the transport when they saw the ship wrecked in the pass in the beating seas,—the words he had repeated in the old farmhouse on that winter night to the great general, when he told the story of that cruise; the words he had made to stand for the great idea of his own life; the words with which he had cheered and soothed and sustained and encouraged many weaker men who had looked to his iron soul for help and guidance. They were the words to which many a patriot like him, now lying mute and cold upon the hills about Boston, under the trees at Long Island, by the flowing waters and frowning cliffs of the Hudson, on the verdant glacis at Quebec, 'neath the smooth surface of Lake Champlain, in the dim northern woods, on the historic field of Princeton, or within the still depths of this mighty sea now tossing them upon its bosom, had given most eloquent expression and final attestation. What were they?

"For—for—love—of—country." The once mighty voice died away in a feeble whisper; a child might still the faintly beating heart. The mighty chest—rose—fell; the old man lay still. Love of country,—that was his passion, you understand.

Love of country! That was the great refrain. The wind roared the song through the pines, on the snow-clad mountains in the far north, sobbed it softly through the rustling palmetto branches in the south-land, or breathed it in whispers over the leaves of the oak and elm and laurel, between. The waves crashed it in tremendous chorus on rock-bound shores, or rolled it with tender caress over shining sands. Under its inspiration, mighty men left all and marched forth to battle; wooed by its subtle music, hero women bore the long hours of absence and suspense; and in its tender harmonies the little children were rocked to sleep. Ay, love of country! All the voices of man and nature in a continent caught it up and breathed it forth, hurled it in mighty diapason far up into God's heaven. Love of country! It was indeed a mighty truth. They preached it, loved it, lived for it, died for it, till at last it made them free!

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Philip Disobeys Orders

"Who is this, pray?" said Captain Vincent, at this moment stepping back to the silent little group.

"The boatswain of the Randolph," replied the colonel. "He has just died."

"Poor fellow! but there are many other brave men gone this day. What think you was the complement of the frigate, colonel?"

"Over three hundred men certainly," replied the colonel (the actual number was three hundred and fifteen). "Most of them not already done for were lost in the explosion, I presume?"

"Yes, assuredly; and now I owe you an apology, my dear sir. I never saw a more gallant action in my life. The man 's gone, of course, but he shall have full credit for it in my report; 'twas bravely done, and successfully, too. We are frightfully cut up, and in no condition to pursue. In fact, I will not conceal from you that some of our spars are so severely wounded, and the starboard rigging so damaged and scorched and cut up, that I know not how we could stand a heavy blow. Twenty-five are killed, and upward of sixty wounded too, and about thirty missing, killed, or wounded men of the boarding party, who were undoubtedly blown up with the frigate. Beauchamp is gone; and that little fellow there," pointing to a couple of seamen bringing a small limp body aft, "is Montagu. Poor little youngster!"

"This has indeed been a frightful action, captain," replied the colonel. "I knew young Seymour well. He was a man of the most consummate gallantry. This sacrifice is like him," he continued softly, looking at Katharine and then turning away. Perhaps the captain understood. At any rate he stepped to her side and said gently,—

"Mistress Katharine, this is no place for you; you must go below. Indeed, I must insist. I shall have to order you. Come—" and then laying his hand on her arm, he started back in surprise. "Why, you are wounded!"

"'Tis nothing, sir," said Katharine, faintly. "I welcome it; 'twas an
American bullet. Would it had found my heart!"

"Only a flesh-wound, colonel; no cause for alarm," said the captain, looking at it with the eye of experience. "It will be all right in a day or two. But now she must go below. I can't understand how you were allowed to stay here, or be here. What were they thinking of? But you saw one of the hottest and most desperate battles ever fought between two ships since you were here. They can fight; you were right, colonel," he went on in ungrudging admiration.

"Here, Desborough," he added, addressing the lieutenant, who just then put his foot on the deck, "take Miss Wilton below, and ask the surgeon to attend her at his convenience; she 's gone and got herself wounded by her friends."

Lieutenant Desborough, black and grimy, streaked with smoke and powder, turned pale at the captain's words, and sprang forward anxiously and led the object of his love down the steps to her cabin. "Wounded!" he murmured. "Oh, my love, why did no one take you to a place of safety?"

"'T is nothing," she replied, going on as if in a dream.

Desborough had his wish: his rival was gone; he had the field to himself; but he was too manly to feel any exultation now that it was over, and too sorry for the vacant despair he saw on her face. He tenderly whispered to her as he led her on,—

"Believe me, dear Katharine, it is not thus I would have triumphed over
Mr. Seymour. He was in truth a knightly gentleman."

Overwhelming pity for her filled his heart, and he went on magnanimously,—

"I am sorry—"

She made no answer; she did not hear. In the cabin the body of little Montagu was lying on a table. He would never get his frigate now. How small and frail and boyish looked the Honorable Giles to-day! Why did they send children like that to war? Had he no mother?—poor lad! Moved by a sudden impulse, she stooped and kissed him, as she had done an hour before. No throb of the proud little heart answered responsive to her caress now. Alas! she might kiss him when and as she pleased; he would not feel it, and he would not heed. Entering her own berth at last, she closed the door and sank down upon her knees,—alone with God!

"A sail coming down fast,—the little brig, sir," reported the officer of the deck to Captain Vincent. "Shall we come about and give him a broadside?"

"No, no; we dare not handle the braces yet,—not until the gear and spars have been well overhauled."

"Shall we use the stern-chaser then, sir?"

The Yarmouth had left the scene of the explosion some distance away by this time, but she was still within easy gun-shot. Captain Vincent earnestly examined the brig; as he looked, she came up to the wind, hove to, and dropped a boat in the water. There was a bit of spar still floating there. The captain saw that three or four men were clinging to it.

"No; she's on an errand of mercy. There are men in the water on that topmast there. Let her go free," he said generously. "We 've done enough to-day to satisfy any reasonable man."

The colonel grasped his hand warmly and thanked him.