From Kingdom to Colony

Her eyes lingered longest upon the spot in the hazy distance near where she knew lay the beloved old home.

"How far – how far away it is now," she murmured.

"What, little one?" her husband asked softly.

"I was thinking of my old home," she answered, surprised to have spoken her thought aloud. "And," looking about with a shiver, "it seems so far – so lonely all about us here."

"Are you frightened or unhappy?" he asked, drawing her still closer to him.

She looked up with brave, loyal eyes, and answered, as had her ancestress, Anne Devereux, when she and her young husband were about to seek a new home in a strange, far-off land, —

"No – not so long as we be together."

Hugh Knollys fell – a Major in the Massachusetts line – during one of the closing engagements of the war, and his mother did not long survive him.

John Devereux passed through the conflict unharmed, and returned to the farm, where he and Mary lived long and happily, with their children growing up about them.

They had each summer as their guests an Englishman and his wife – a little, girl-like woman, whom every one adored – who crossed the sea to pay them long visits. Sometimes the pleasant days found this Englishman seated in the Sachem's Cave, his eyes wandering off over the sea; and with him often would be Mary Broughton's eldest son, and first-born – Jack, who had his Aunt Dorothy's curling locks and dark eyes.

The favorite story at such times, and one never tired of by either the man or child, was that telling how in the great war his mother had frightened a young English soldier so that he fell over the rocks, and how, soon after this, a certain brave little maid had hurled the burning lanterns from these same rocks, to save her brother and his companions from danger.

The youngster had first heard of all this from Johnnie Strings, – to the day of his death a crippled pensioner on the Devereux farm – who never seemed to realize that the war was over, and who had expressed marked disapproval when 'Bitha, now tall and stately, had, following her Cousin Dorothy's example, and quite regardless of her own long-ago avowals, given her heart and hand to the nephew of this same British soldier.

With this must end my story of the old town. But there is another story, – that of its fisher and sailor soldiers, and it is told in the deeds they have wrought.

These form a goodly part of the foundation upon which rests the mighty fabric of our nation. Their story is one of true, brave hearts; and it is told in a voice that will be heard until the earth itself shall have passed away.

It was the men of Marblehead who stepped forward that bitter winter's night on the banks of the Delaware, when Washington and his little army looked with dismayed eyes upon the powerful current sweeping before them, and which must be crossed, despite the great masses of ice that threatened destruction to whosoever should venture upon its roaring flood. They were the men who responded to his demand when he turned from the menacing dangers of the river and asked, "Who of you will lead on, and put us upon the other side?"

The monument that commemorates the success at Trenton is no less a tribute to the unflinching courage and sturdiness of the fishermen of Marblehead, who made that victory possible.

And, as there, so stands their record during all the days of the Revolutionary struggle. Wherever they were – on land or water – in the attack they led, in the retreat they covered; and through all their deeds shone the ardent patriotism, the calm bravery, the unflinching devotion, that made them ever faithful in the performance of duty.

"When anything is done,People see not the patient doing of it,Nor think how great would be the loss to manIf it had not been done. As in a buildingStone rests on stone, and, wanting a foundation,All would be wanting; so in human life,Each action rests on the foregone eventThat made it possible, but is forgotten,And buried in the earth."

When the dawn of peace came, nowhere was it hailed with more exultant joy than in Marblehead.

Nowhere in all the land had there been such sacrifices made as by the people of this little town by the sea. Many of those who had been wealthy were now reduced to poverty, – their commerce was ruined, their blood had been poured out like water.

But for all this there was no complaining by those who were left, no upbraiding sorrow for those who would never return. There was only joy that the struggle was ended, and independence achieved for themselves and the nation they had helped to create. And down the long vista of years between their day and our own, the hallowed memory of their loyalty shines out as do the lights of the old town over the night sea, whose waves sing for its heroes a fitting requiem.

THE END

1

"Rock them!" i.e. "Throw rocks at them!"

2

Spoiled work.

3

This mansion was afterwards the home of Longfellow.