It was thirty-three years after the interview just related that an
American army was once more arrayed against the troops of England; but
the scene was transferred from the banks of the Hudson to those of the
Niagara.
The body of Washington had long lain mouldering in the tomb, but his
name was hourly receiving new lustre as his worth and integrity became
more visible.
The sound of cannon and musketry was heard above the roar of the
cataract. On both sides repeated and bloody charges had been made. While
the action was raging an old man wandering near was seen to throw down
suddenly a bundle he was carrying and to seize a musket from a fallen
soldier. He plunged headlong into the thick of the fight, and bore
himself as valiantly as the best of the American soldiers. When, in the
evening, the order was given to the shattered troops to return to camp,
Captain Wharton Dunwoodie found that his lieutenant was missing, and
taking a lighted fusee, he went himself in quest of the body. The
lieutenant was found on the side of the hill seated with great
composure, but unable to walk from a fractured leg.
"Ah, dear Tom," exclaimed Dunwoodie, "I knew I should find you the
nearest man to the enemy!"
"No," said the lieutenant. "There is a brave fellow nearer than myself.
He rushed out of our smoke to make a prisoner, and he never came back.
He lies just over the hillock."
Dunwoodie went to the spot and found an aged stranger. He lay on his
back, his eyes closed as if in slumber, and his hands pressed on his
breast contained something that glittered like silver.
The subject of his care was a tin box, through which the bullet had
pierced to find a way to his heart, and the dying moments of the old man
must have been passed in drawing it from his bosom.
Dunwoodie opened it, and found a paper on which he read:
"Circumstances of political importance, which involve the lives and
fortunes of many, have hitherto kept secret what this paper reveals.
Harvey Birch has for years been a faithful and unrequited servant of his
country. Though man does not, may God reward him for his conduct! GEO.
WASHINGTON."
It was the spy of the neutral ground, who died as he had lived, devoted
to his country.
* * * * *
MRS. CRAIK
John Halifax, Gentleman
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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