Israel Potter

Chapter 3

ISRAEL GOES TO THE WARS; AND REACHING BUNKER HILL IN TIME TO BE OF

SERVICE THERE, SOON AFTER IS FORCED TO EXTEND HIS TRAVELS ACROSS THE SEA

INTO THE ENEMY'S LAND.

Left to idle lamentations, Israel might now have planted deep furrows in

his brow. But stifling his pain, he chose rather to plough, than be

ploughed. Farming weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil pursuit

tolerates nothing but tranquil meditations. There, too, in mother earth,

you may plant and reap; not, as in other things, plant and see the

planting torn up by the roots. But if wandering in the wilderness, and

wandering upon the waters, if felling trees, and hunting, and shipwreck,

and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures, had not

as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless passion, events were at

hand for ever to drown it.

It was the year 1774. The difficulties long pending between the colonies

and England were arriving at their crisis. Hostilities were certain. The

Americans were preparing themselves. Companies were formed in most of

the New England towns, whose members, receiving the name of minute-men,

stood ready to march anywhere at a minute's warning. Israel, for the

last eight months, sojourning as a laborer on a farm in Windsor,

enrolled himself in the regiment of Colonel John Patterson of Lenox,

afterwards General Patterson.

The battle of Lexington was fought on the 18th of April, 1775; news of

it arrived in the county of Berkshire on the 20th about noon. The next

morning at sunrise, Israel swung his knapsack, shouldered his musket,

and, with Patterson's regiment, was on the march, quickstep, towards

Boston.

Like Putnam, Israel received the stirring tidings at the plough. But

although not less willing than Putnam to fly to battle at an instant's

notice, yet--only half an acre of the field remaining to be finished--he

whipped up his team and finished it. Before hastening to one duty, he

would not leave a prior one undone; and ere helping to whip the British,

for a little practice' sake, he applied the gad to his oxen. From the

field of the farmer, he rushed to that of the soldier, mingling his

blood with his sweat. While we revel in broadcloth, let us not forget

what we owe to linsey-woolsey.

With other detachments from various quarters, Israel's regiment remained

encamped for several days in the vicinity of Charlestown. On the

seventeenth of June, one thousand Americans, including the regiment of

Patterson, were set about fortifying Bunker's Hill. Working all through

the night, by dawn of the following day, the redoubt was thrown up. But

every one knows all about the battle. Suffice it, that Israel was one

of those marksmen whom Putnam harangued as touching the enemy's eyes.

Forbearing as he was with his oppressive father and unfaithful love, and

mild as he was on the farm, Israel was not the same at Bunker Hill.

Putnam had enjoined the men to aim at the officers; so Israel aimed

between the golden epaulettes, as, in the wilderness, he had aimed

between the branching antlers. With dogged disdain of their foes, the

English grenadiers marched up the hill with sullen slowness; thus

furnishing still surer aims to the muskets which bristled on the

redoubt. Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice

in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an inexperienced marksman;

hinting, that every shot which the epauletted grenadiers received from

his rifle, would, upon a different occasion, have procured him a

deerskin. And like stricken deers the English, rashly brave as they

were, fled from the opening fire. But the marksman's ammunition was

expended; a hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Not one American musket in

twenty had a bayonet to it. So, wielding the stock right and left, the

terrible farmers, with hats and coats off, fought their way among the

furred grenadiers, knocking them right and left, as seal-hunters on the

beach knock down with their clubs the Shetland seal. In the dense crowd

and confusion, while Israel's musket got interlocked, he saw a blade

horizontally menacing his feet from the ground. Thinking some fallen

enemy sought to strike him at the last gasp, dropping his hold on his

musket, he wrenched at the steel, but found that though a brave hand

held it, that hand was powerless for ever. It was some British

officer's laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting,

refusing to yield up its blade to the last. At that moment another sword

was aimed at Israel's head by a living officer. In an instant the blow

was parried by kindred steel, and the assailant fell by a brother's

weapon, wielded by alien hands. But Israel did not come off unscathed. A

cut on the right arm near the elbow, received in parrying the officer's

blow, a long slit across the chest, a musket ball buried in his hip, and

another mangling him near the ankle of the same leg, were the tokens of

intrepidity which our Sicinius Dentatus carried from this memorable

field. Nevertheless, with his comrades he succeeded in reaching Prospect

Hill, and from thence was conveyed to the hospital at Cambridge. The

bullet was extracted, his lesser wounds were dressed, and after much

suffering from the fracture of the bone near the ankle, several pieces

of which were extracted by the surgeon, ere long, thanks to the high

health and pure blood of the farmer, Israel rejoined his regiment when

they were throwing up intrenchments on Prospect Hill. Bunker Hill was

now in possession of the foe, who in turn had fortified it.

On the third of July, Washington arrived from the South to take the

command. Israel witnessed his joyful reception by the huzzaing

companies.

The British now quartered in Boston suffered greatly from the scarcity

of provisions. Washington took every precaution to prevent their

receiving a supply. Inland, all aid could easily be cut off. To guard

against their receiving any by water, from tories and other disaffected

persons, the General equipped three armed vessels to intercept all

traitorous cruisers. Among them was the brigantine Washington, of ten

guns, commanded by Captain Martiedale. Seamen were hard to be had. The

soldiers were called upon to volunteer for these vessels. Israel was one

who so did; thinking that as an experienced sailor he should not be

backward in a juncture like this, little as he fancied the new service

assigned.

Three days out of Boston harbor, the brigantine was captured by the

enemy's ship Foy, of twenty guns. Taken prisoner with the rest of the

crew, Israel was afterwards put on board the frigate Tartar, with

immediate sailing orders for England. Seventy-two were captives in this

vessel. Headed by Israel, these men--half way across the sea--formed a

scheme to take the ship, but were betrayed by a renegade Englishman. As

ringleader, Israel was put in irons, and so remained till the frigate

anchored at Portsmouth. There he was brought on deck; and would have met

perhaps some terrible fate, had it not come out, during the examination,

that the Englishman had been a deserter from the army of his native

country ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. Relieved of his irons,

Israel was placed in the marine hospital on shore, where half of the

prisoners took the small-pox, which swept off a third of their number.

Why talk of Jaffa?

From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spithead, and thrust on

board a hulk. And here in the black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the

sunless sea, our poor Israel lay for a month, like Jonah in the belly

of the whale.

But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck. A bargeman of

the commander's boat is sick. Known for a sailor, Israel for the nonce

is appointed to pull the absent man's oar.

The officers being landed, some of the crew propose, like merry

Englishmen as they are, to hie to a neighboring ale-house, and have a

cosy pot or two together. Agreed. They start, and Israel with them. As

they enter the ale-house door, our prisoner is suddenly reminded of

still more imperative calls. Unsuspected of any design, he is allowed to

leave the party for a moment. No sooner does Israel see his companions

housed, than putting speed into his feet, and letting grow all his

wings, he starts like a deer. He runs four miles (so he afterwards

affirmed) without halting. He sped towards London; wisely deeming that

once in that crowd detection would be impossible.

Ten miles, as he computed, from where he had left the bargemen,

leisurely passing a public house of a little village on the roadside,

thinking himself now pretty safe--hark, what is this he hears?--

"Ahoy!"

"No ship," says Israel, hurrying on.

"Stop."

"If you will attend to your business, I will endeavor to attend to

mine," replies Israel coolly. And next minute he lets grow his wings

again; flying, one dare say, at the rate of something less than thirty

miles an hour.

"Stop thief!" is now the cry. Numbers rushed from the roadside houses.

After a mile's chase, the poor panting deer is caught.

Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly confesses

himself a prisoner-of-war. The officer, a good fellow as it turned out,

had him escorted back to the inn; where, observing to the landlord that

this must needs be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to

refresh Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed to guard

him for the present. This was towards evening; and up to a late hour at

night, the inn was filled with strangers crowding to see the Yankee

rebel, as they politely termed him. These honest rustics seemed to think

that Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of 'possum or

kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them. That liquor he drank

from the hand of his foe, has perhaps warmed his heart towards all the

rest of his enemies. Yet this may not be wholly so. We shall see. At any

rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance--escape. Neither the

jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer to molest him. He is

cogitating a little plot to himself.

It seems that the good officer--not more true to the king his master

than indulgent towards the prisoner which that same loyalty made--had

left orders that Israel should be supplied with whatever liquor he

wanted that night. So, calling for the can again and again, Israel

invites the two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag of the

company proposes that Israel should entertain the public with a jig, he

(the wag) having heard that the Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A

fiddle is brought in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut

to think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be diverted at

the expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel, while jigging it up and

down, still conspires away at his private plot, resolving ere long to

give the enemy a touch of certain Yankee steps, as yet undreamed of in

their simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation of his

dancing till he had danced himself into a perfect sweat, so that the

drops fell from his lank and flaxen hair. But Israel, with much of the

gentleness of the dove, is not wholly without the wisdom of the serpent.

Pleased to see the flowing bowl, he congratulates himself that his own

state of perspiration prevents it from producing any intoxicating effect

upon him.

Late at night the company break up. Furnished with a pair of handcuffs,

the prisoner is laid on a blanket spread upon the floor at the side of

the bed in which his two keepers are to repose. Expressing much

gratitude for the blanket, with apparent unconcern, Israel stretches his

legs. An hour or two passes. All is quiet without.

The important moment had now arrived. Certain it was, that if this

chance were suffered to pass unimproved, a second would hardly present

itself. For early, doubtless, on the following morning, if not some way

prevented, the two soldiers would convey Israel back to his floating

prison, where he would thenceforth remain confined until the close of

the war; years and years, perhaps. When he thought of that horrible old

hulk, his nerves were restrung for flight. But intrepid as he must be to

compass it, wariness too was needed. His keepers had gone to bed pretty

well under the influence of the liquor. This was favorable. But still,

they were full-grown, strong men; and Israel was handcuffed. So Israel

resolved upon strategy first; and if that failed, force afterwards. He

eagerly listened. One of the drunken soldiers muttered in his sleep, at

first lowly, then louder and louder,--"Catch 'em! Grapple 'em! Have at

'em! Ha--long cutlasses! Take that, runaway!"

"What's the matter with ye, Phil?" hiccoughed the other, who was not yet

asleep. "Keep quiet, will ye? Ye ain't at Fontenoy now."

"He's a runaway prisoner, I say. Catch him, catch him!"

"Oh, stush with your drunken dreaming," again hiccoughed his comrade,

violently nudging him. "This comes o' carousing."

Shortly after, the dreamer with loud snores fell back into dead sleep.

But by something in the sound of the breathing of the other soldier,

Israel knew that this man remained uneasily awake. He deliberated a

moment what was best to do. At length he determined upon trying his old

plea. Calling upon the two soldiers, he informed them that urgent

necessity required his immediate presence somewhere in the rear of the

house.

"Come, wake up here, Phil," roared the soldier who was awake; "the

fellow here says he must step out; cuss these Yankees; no better

edication than to be gettin' up on nateral necessities at this time

o'night. It ain't nateral; its unnateral. D---n ye, Yankee, don't ye

know no better?"

With many more denunciations, the two now staggered to their feet, and

clutching hold of Israel, escorted him down stairs, and through a long,

narrow, dark entry; rearward, till they came to a door. No sooner

was this unbolted by the foremost guard, than, quick as a flash,

manacled Israel, shaking off the grasp of the one behind him, butts him

sprawling back into the entry; when, dashing in the opposite direction,

he bounces the other head over heels into the garden, never using a

hand; and then, leaping over the latter's head, darts blindly out into

the midnight. Next moment he was at the garden wall. No outlet was

discoverable in the gloom. But a fruit-tree grew close to the wall.

Springing into it desperately, handcuffed as he was, Israel leaps atop

of the barrier, and without pausing to see where he is, drops himself to

the ground on the other side, and once more lets grow all his wings.

Meantime, with loud outcries, the two baffled drunkards grope

deliriously about in the garden.

After running two or three miles, and hearing no sound of pursuit,

Israel reins up to rid himself of the handcuffs, which impede him. After

much painful labor he succeeds in the attempt. Pressing on again with

all speed, day broke, revealing a trim-looking, hedged, and beautiful

country, soft, neat, and serene, all colored with the fresh early tints

of the spring of 1776.

Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall certainly be caught

now; I have broken into some nobleman's park.

But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike road, and then knew

that, all comely and shaven as it was, this was simply the open country

of England; one bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the

sea. A copse skirting the road was just bursting out into bud. Each

unrolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its prison. Israel

looked at the budding leaves, and round on the budding sod, and up at

the budding dawn of the day. He was so sad, and these sights were so

gay, that Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain

home rushed like a wind on his heart. But conquering this fit, he

marched on, and presently passed nigh a field, where two figures were

working. They had rosy cheeks, short, sturdy legs, showing the blue

stocking nearly to the knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white

frocks, and had on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were

partly averted.

"Please, ladies," half roguishly says Israel, taking off his hat, "does

this road go to London?"

At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of stupid

amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression in Israel, who now

perceived that they were men, and not women. He had mistaken them, owing

to their frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches hidden

by their frocks.

"Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something else," said Israel

again.

Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and with added

boorishness of surprise.

"Does this road go to London, gentlemen?"

"Gentlemen--egad!" cried one of the two.

"Egad!" echoed the second.

Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors now took a good

long look at Israel, meantime scratching their heads under their plaited

straw hats.

"Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind enough to tell a poor

fellow, do."

"Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees? Weel--all right--go along."

And without another word, having now satisfied their rustic curiosity,

the two human steers, with wonderful phlegm, applied themselves to their

hoes; supposing, no doubt, that they had given all requisite

information.

Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking chapel, its

roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead leaves of the previous

autumn, showered there from a close cluster of venerable trees, with

great trunks, and overstretching branches. Next moment he found himself

entering a village. The silence of early morning rested upon it. But few

figures were seen. Glancing through the window of a now noiseless

public-house, Israel saw a table all in disorder, covered with empty

flagons, and tobacco-ashes, and long pipes; some of the latter broken.

After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed a man over the

way standing still and watching him. Instantly Israel was reminded that

he had on the dress of an English sailor, and that it was this probably

which had arrested the stranger's attention. Well knowing that his

peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster to escape the

village; resolving at the first opportunity to change his garments. Ere

long, in a secluded place about a mile from the village, he saw an old

ditcher tottering beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe and shovel,

going to his work; the very picture of poverty, toil and distress. His

clothes were tatters.

Making up to this old man, Israel, after a word or two of salutation,

offered to change clothes with him. As his own clothes were prince-like

compared to the ditchers, Israel thought that however much his

proposition might excite the suspicion of the ditcher, yet self-interest

would prevent his communicating the suspicions. To be brief, the two

went behind a hedge, and presently Israel emerged, presenting the most

forlorn appearance conceivable; while the old ditcher hobbled off in an

opposite direction, correspondingly improved in his aspect; though it

was rather ludicrous than otherwise, owing to the immense bagginess of

the sailor-trowsers flapping about his lean shanks, to say nothing of

the spare voluminousness of the pea-jacket. But Israel--how deplorable,

how dismal his plight! Little did he ween that these wretched rags he

now wore, were but suitable to that long career of destitution before

him: one brief career of adventurous wanderings; and then, forty torpid

years of pauperism. The coat was all patches. And no two patches were

alike, and no one patch was the color of the original cloth. The

stringless breeches gaped wide open at the knee; the long woollen

stockings looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target.

Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old age; just like an

old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed, dull, dreary adversity was now

in store for him; and adversity, come it at eighteen or eighty, is the

true old age of man. The dress befitted the fate.

From the friendly old ditcher, Israel learned the exact course he must

steer for London; distant now between seventy and eighty miles. He was

also apprised by his venerable friend, that the country was filled with

soldiers on the constant look-out for deserters whether from the navy or

army, for the capture of whom a stipulated reward was given, just as in

Massachusetts at that time for prowling bears.

Having solemnly enjoined his old friend not to give any information,

should any one he meet inquire for such a person as Israel, our

adventurer walked briskly on, less heavy of heart, now that he felt

comparatively safe in disguise.

Thirty miles were travelled that day. At night Israel stole into a barn,

in hopes of finding straw or hay for a bed. But it was spring; all the

hay and straw were gone. So after groping about in the dark, he was fain

to content himself with an undressed sheep-skin. Cold, hungry,

foot-sore, weary, and impatient for the morning dawn, Israel drearily

dozed out the night.

By the first peep of day coming through the c****s of the barn, he was

up and abroad. Ere long finding himself in the suburbs of a considerable

village, the better to guard against detection he supplied himself with

a rude crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight through

the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur, which kept up a continual,

spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel longed to have one good rap at him

with his crutch, but thought it would hardly look in character for a

poor old cripple to be vindictive.

A few miles further, and he came to a second village. While hobbling

through its main street, as through the former one, he was suddenly

stopped by a genuine cripple, all in tatters, too, who, with a

sympathetic air, inquired after the cause of his lameness.

"White swelling," says Israel.

"That's just my ailing," wheezed the other; "but you're lamer than me,"

he added with a forlorn sort of self-satisfaction, critically eyeing

Israel's limp as once, more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry

too long.

"But halloo, what's your hurry, friend?" seeing Israel fairly

departing--"where're you going?"

"To London," answered Israel, turning round, heartily wishing the old

fellow any where else than present.

"Going to limp to Lunnun, eh? Well, success to ye."

"As much to you, sir," answers Israel politely.

Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune would have

it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for the metropolis turned into the main

road from a side one. Immediately Israel limps most deplorably, and begs

the driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs; but after a

time, finding the gait of the elephantine draught-horses intolerably

slow, Israel craves permission to dismount, when, throwing away his

crutch, he takes nimbly to his legs, much to the surprise of his honest

friend the driver.

The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in the wagon, was,

when passing through a third village--but a little distant from the

previous one--Israel, by lying down in the wagon, had wholly avoided

being seen.

The villages surprised him by their number and proximity. Nothing like

this was to be seen at home. Well knowing that in these villages he ran

much more risk of detection than in the open country, he henceforth did

his best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever they came

in sight from a distance. This mode of travelling not only lengthened

his journey, but put unlooked-for obstacles in his path--walls, ditches,

and streams.

Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he leaped a great ditch

ten feet wide, and of undiscoverable muddy depth. I wonder if the old

cripple would think me the lamer one now, thought Israel to himself,

arriving on the hither side.