“Jack, the Regular, is dead! Honor to the man who slew him!” So the Bergen farmers said as they crowded round to view him. For the wretch that lay there slain had, with wickedness unbending, To their roofs brought fiery rain, to their kinsfolk woful ending. Not a mother but had prest, in a sudden pang of fearing, Sobbing darlings to her breast when his name had smote her hearing; Not a wife that did not feel terror when the words were uttered; Not a man but chilled to steel when the hated sounds he muttered— “Jack, the Regular.” Bloody in his work was he, in his purpose iron-hearted; Gentle pity could not be when the pitiless had parted; So the corse in wagon thrown with no decent cover o’er it— Jeers its funeral rites alone—into Hackensack they bore it, ’Mid the clanging of the bells in the old Dutch church’s steeple, And the hooting and the yells of the gladdened, maddened people. Some they rode and some they ran by the wagon where it rumbled, Scoffing at the lifeless man, all elate that Death had humbled Jack, the Regular. Thus within the winter night, when the hickory fire is roaring, Flickering streams of ruddy light on the folk before it pouring; When the apples pass around, and the cider follows after, And the well-worn jest is crowned by the hearers’ hearty laughter; When the cat is purring there, and the dog beside her dozing, And within his easy-chair sits the grandsire old, reposing, Then they tell the story true to the children hushed and eager, How the bold Van Valen slew, on a time, the Tory leaguer, Jack, the Regular. _TARLETON’S DEFEAT._ [Illustration: BANASTRE TARLETON.]