The Bald Eagle Read online

  The sharp report of the gun rang far and wide through the hush of noontide, awakening many a drowsy echo that grumbled in the distance, like a man aroused untimely from his rest. At the sound of the long-expected signal-gun, the whole village was put in motion. The drum beat to order, the ranks were formed in haste, and the whole military force moved off to escort the general in, amid the waving of banners, the roll of drums, the scream of fifes, and the twang of the horse trumpet.

  All was now anxious expectation at the village. The moments passed like hours. The lawyer appeared at the tavern door, with his speech in his hand; the schoolmaster and his scholars stood broiling in the sun; and many a searching look was cast along the dusty highway to descry some indication of their guest’s approach. Sometimes a little cloud of dust, rolling along the distant road, would cheat them with a vain illusion. Then the report of musketry, and the roll of drums, rattling among the hills, and dying on the breeze, would inspire the fugitive hope, that he had at length arrived, and a murmur of eager expectation would run from mouth to mouth. “There he comes!--that’s he;” and the people would crowd into the street to be again disappointed.

  One o’clock arrived; two, three, but no general! The dinner was overdone, the landlady in great tribulation, the cook in a great passion. The gloom of disappointment began to settle on many a countenance. The people looked doubtingly at each other, and guessed. The sky, too, began to lower. Volumes of black clouds piled themselves up in the west, and threatened a storm. The ducks were unusually noisy and quarrelsome around the green pool in the stable yard; and a flock of ill-boding crows were holding ominous consultation round the top of a tall pine. Every thing gave indication of an approaching thunder-gust. A distant, irregular peal rattled along the sky, like a volley of musketry. They thought it was a salute to the general. Soon after the air grew damp and misty; it began to drizzle; a few scattered drops pattered on the roofs, and it set in to rain.

  A scene of confusion ensued. The pedagogue and his disciples took shelter in the school-house; the crowd dispersed in all directions, with handkerchiefs thrown over their heads, and their gowns tucked up, and every thing looked dismal and disheartening. The bar-room was full of disconsolate faces. Some tried to keep their spirits up by drinking; others wished to laugh the matter off; and others stood, with their hands in their pockets, looking out of the window, to see it rain, and making wry faces.

  Night drew on apace, and the rain continued. Still nothing was to be heard of the general. Some were for despatching a messenger to ascertain the cause of this delay; but who would go out in such a storm! At length the monotonous too-too of the horse trumpet was heard; there was a great clattering and splashing of hoofs at the door; and the troop reined up, spattered with mud, drenched through and through, and completely crest-fallen. Not long after, the foot company came straggling in, dripping wet, and diminished to one half its number by desertions. The tailor entered the bar-room reeking and disconsolate, a complete epitome of the miseries of human life written in his face. The feathers were torn out of his clam-shell hat, his coat was thoroughly sponged, his boots full of water, and his buff pantaloons clung tighter than ever to his little legs. He trembled like a leaf; one might have taken him for Fever and Ague personified. The blacksmith, on the contrary, seemed to dread the water as little as if it were his element. The rain did not penetrate him, and he rolled into the bar-room like a great sea-calf, that, after sporting about in the waves, tumbles himself out upon the sand to dry.

  A thousand questions were asked at once about the general, but there was nobody to answer them. They had seen nothing of him, they had heard nothing of him, they knew nothing of him! Their spirit and patience were completely soaked out of them; no patriotism was proof against such torrents of rain.

  Every heart seemed now to sink in despair. Every hope had given way, when the twang of the stage-horn was heard, sending forth its long-drawn cadences, and enlivening the gloom of a rainy twilight. The coach dashed up to the door. It was empty--not a solitary passenger. The coachman came in without a dry thread about him. A little stream of water trickled down his back from the rim of his hat. There was something dismally ominous in his look; he seemed to be a messenger of bad news.

  “The gin’ral!--the gin’ral!--where’s the gin’ral?”

  “He’s gone on by another road. So much for the opposition line and the new turnpike!” said the coachman, as he tossed off a glass of New England.

  “He has lost a speech!” said the lawyer.

  “He has lost a coat!” said the tailor.

  “He has lost a dinner!” said the landlord.

  It was a gloomy night at the Bald Eagle. A few boon companions sat late over their bottle, drank hard, and tried to be merry; but it would not do. Good-humor flagged, the jokes were bad, the laughter forced, and one after another slunk away to bed, full of bad liquor, and reeling with the fumes of brandy and beer.