The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1876-09-09

With the toll of his stout arm, plying
there on the anvil, he would build a
fairer home for wife and child; fresh
flowers should bloom over the garden
walks, and more lovely vines trail along
the easement.
With this resolve kindling over his
face, the blacksmith stood there, with n
cheerful light beaming from his large
gray eyes, when hand was laid upon
his shoulder.
He turned and beheld the face of q
neighbor.
It was neighbours face, but there was
an awful agony stamping those plain
features-there was an awful agony
flashing from those dilating eyes-there
was dark and n terrible mystery speak
ing from those thin lips, that moved but
made no sound.
At last, forcing the blacksmith along
the brown graveled walk, now strewn
with cinders, he pointed to the smoking
embers. There, there-amid that heap
of black and smoking ruins. the black
smith beheld dark mass of burnt flesh
and blackened bones.
" Your wife !" shrieked the farmer, as
his agony found words. "The British
they came in the night; they" And
then he spoke that outrage which the
lip quivers to think on, which the heart
palsied to tell" Your wife," he shrek
ed, pointing to that hideous thing
amid the smoking ruins; the British
they murdered your wife, they flung her
dead body in the fames-they dashed
your child against the hearthstone u
This was the farmers story.
And there, as the light of breaking
day fell around the spot, there stood the
husband, the father, gazing upon that
mass of burned flesh and blackened
bones-all that was once his wife.
Do you ask me for the words that
trembled from his white lips? Do you
| ask me for the fire that blazed in his
eve?
cannot tell you. But can tell you
that there was a vow going up to Heaven
from that blacksmith's heart; that there
was u clenched hand, appraised in the
light of the breaking day.
, Yes, yes. us the first CLEAN OF the the
autumnal dawn broke around the spot,
as the first long CLEAN of sunlight
streamed over the peeled skull of that
fair young wife-slie that was last night
there was VOW going up to heaven,
the vow of maddened heart and an
guished brain.
/ How was that vow kept? Go there to
Brandywine, and where the carnage
gathers thickest, where the fight is most
bloody, there YOU may see stout form
striding on. lifting huge hammer into
light. Where that hammer falls, it
kills-where that hammer strikes it
brushes ! 1t is the blacksmiths form.
And the war-cry that he shouts? Is it
q mad cry of vengeance-half howl, hall
hurrah? Is it but fierce yell, break
ing up from his heaving chest?
All, no! All, no!
1t is the name of-Mary 1t is the
name of his young wife
Oh. Mary-sweetest name of woman
name 80 soft. SO ripping, so musical
name of the mother of Jesus, made holy
by poetry and religion-how strangely
did your syllables of music ring out
from that biacksmith's lips, as he went
numbering on
Muv!" he shouts, as he drags the
red.coated trooper from his steed;
"NIary - he shrieks, rs his hammer
crashes down, laying that officer in the
dust. LOOK! AuOthcI OACoI, WIZ" I"
gallant face and form-another officer,
glittering in tinsel, clasps that black
smith by the kuees and begs for mercy.
81 have a wife-mercy 1 have q
wife yonder in Eng'and-spare m"
The blacksmith, crazed rs he is, trem-
bles; there is tear in his eye.
~ would spare you, but there is
form before me-the form of my dead
wife! That form has gone before me
all day She calls on me to strike!
And the hammer fell, and then rang
out that strange war cry" Mary "
At last, when the battle was over, he
was found by WAGNER, who had ut
least shoulder u cart whip in his coun-
trv's service ne was found sitting by
the roadside las head sunken, his leg
broken-the life-blood yelling from his
many wounds.
The WAGNER would have carried him
from the field, but the stout blacksmith
refused.
"You see, neighbour" he said, in
voice husky with death, 81 never med
died with the British till they burned
my home, till they" He could not
speak the outrage, but his wife. his child,
were there before his dying eyes. "And
now I've but five minutes life in me.
I'd like to give shot ut the British be.
fore die. Dye see that cherry tree ?
Dye think YOU could drag man of my
build up thar? Place me thar; give
me powder-horn. three rifle balls, an
| n ron1 rifle. that's all I ask ~