_2nd Sol_. A chance to throw your life away,--he will never give you. A chance to fight, you will have ere long,--doubt it not. Our General might clear his blackened fame, by opposing this force to that,--this day he might;--he will not do it. The time has not yet come. But he will spare no pains to strengthen the army, and prepare it for victory, and the glory he will leave to his rival. Recruits will be pouring in ere long. General Burgoyne's proclamation has weakened us,--General Schuyler will issue one himself to-day. _1st Sol_. Will he? will he? What will he proclaim?--As to the recruits he gets, I'll eat them all, skin and bone. What will he proclaim? You see what Burgoyne offers us. On the one hand, money and clothing, and protection for ourselves and our families; and on the other, the cord, and the tomahawk, and the scalping-knife. Now, what will General Schuyler set down over against these two columns?--What will he offer us?--To lend us a gun, maybe,--leave to follow him from one post to another, barefooted and starving, and for our pains to be cursed and reviled for cowards from one end of the land to the other. And what will he threaten? Ha, we were cowards indeed, if we feared what he could threaten. What thing in human nature will he speak to?--say. _2nd Sol_. I will tell you. To that spirit in human nature which resists the wrong, the fiendish wrong threatened there. Ay, in the basest nature that power sleeps, and out of the bosom of Omnipotence there is nothing stronger. It has wakened here once, and this war is its fruit. It slumbers now. Let Burgoyne look to it that he rouse it not himself for us. Let him look to it. For every outrage of those fiendish legions, thank God.--It lays a finger on the spring of our only strength. _What_ will he offer us? I will tell you.--A chance to live, or to die,--_men_,--ay, to leave a sample of manhood on the earth, that shall wring tears from the selfish of unborn ages, as they feel for once the depths of the slumbering and godlike nature within them. And Burgoyne,--oh! a coat and a pair of shoes, he offers, and--how many pounds?--Are you men? _4th Sol_. What do you say, Sam?--Talks like a minister, don't he? _1st Sol_. Come, come,--there's the drum, boys. You don't bamboozle me again! I've heard all that before. _3d Sol_. Nor me.--I don't intend to have my wife and children tomahawked,--don't think I can stand that, refugee or not. _2nd Sol_. Here they come. (_Other Soldiers enter_.) _5th Sol_. All's ready, all's ready. _6th Sol_. (_singing_.) "_Come blow the shrill bugle, the war dogs are howling_,"-- [_Exeunt_. * * * * * DIALOGUE II. SCENE. _Before the door of the Parsonage. Trunks, boxes, and various articles of furniture, scattered about the yard. Two men coming down the path_. (_George Grey enters_.)