"The Frere into the dark gazed forth;
The sounds went onward towards the north
The murmur of tongues, the tramp and tread
Of a mighty army to battle led."
BALLAD OF THE CID.
Life's tragedy and comedy are never far apart. The ludicrous and the
sublime, the grotesque and the pathetic, jostle each other on the stage;
the jester, with his cap and bells, struts alongside of the hero; the
lord mayor's pageant loses itself in the mob around Punch and Judy; the
pomp and circumstance of war become mirth-provoking in a militia muster;
and the majesty of the law is ridiculous in the mock dignity of a
justice's court. The laughing philosopher of old looked on one side of
life and his weeping contemporary on the other; but he who has an eye to
both must often experience that contrariety of feeling which Sterne
compares to "the contest in the moist eyelids of an April morning,
whether to laugh or cry."
The circumstance we are about to relate, may serve as an illustration of
the way in which the woof of comedy interweaves with the warp of tragedy.
It occurred in the early stages of the American Revolution, and is part
and parcel of its history in the northeastern section of Massachusetts.
About midway between Salem and the ancient town of Newburyport, the
traveller on the Eastern Railroad sees on the right, between him and the
sea, a tall church-spire, rising above a semicircle of brown roofs and
venerable elms; to which a long scalloping range of hills, sweeping off
to the seaside, forms a green background. This is Ipswich, the ancient
Agawam; one of those steady, conservative villages, of which a few are
still left in New England, wherein a contemporary of Cotton Mather and
Governor Endicott, were he permitted to revisit the scenes of his painful
probation, would scarcely feel himself a stranger. Law and Gospel,
embodied in an orthodox steeple and a court-house, occupy the steep,
rocky eminence in its midst; below runs the small river under its
picturesque stone bridge; and beyond is the famous female seminary, where
Andover theological students are wont to take unto themselves wives of
the daughters of the Puritans. An air of comfort and quiet broods over
the whole town. Yellow moss clings to the seaward sides of the roofs;
one's eyes are not endangered by the intense glare of painted shingles
and clapboards. The smoke of hospitable kitchens curls up through the
overshadowing elms from huge-throated chimneys, whose hearth-stones have
been worn by the feet of many generations. The tavern was once renowned
throughout New England, and it is still a creditable hostelry. During
court time it is crowded with jocose lawyers, anxious clients, sleepy
jurors, and miscellaneous hangers on; disinterested gentlemen, who have
no particular business of their own in court, but who regularly attend
its sessions, weighing evidence, deciding upon the merits of a lawyer's
plea or a judge's charge, getting up extempore trials upon the piazza or
in the bar-room of cases still involved in the glorious uncertainty of
the law in the court-house, proffering gratuitous legal advice to
irascible plaintiffs and desponding defendants, and in various other ways
seeing that the Commonwealth receives no detriment. In the autumn old
sportsmen make the tavern their headquarters while scouring the marshes
for sea-birds; and slim young gentlemen from the city return thither with
empty game-bags, as guiltless in respect to the snipes and wagtails as
Winkle was in the matter of the rooks, after his shooting excursion at
Dingle Dell. Twice, nay, three times, a year, since third parties have
been in fashion, the delegates of the political churches assemble in
Ipswich to pass patriotic resolutions, and designate the candidates whom
the good people of Essex County, with implicit faith in the wisdom of the
selection, are expected to vote for. For the rest there are pleasant
walks and drives around the picturesque village. The people are noted
for their hospitality; in summer the sea-wind blows cool over its healthy
hills, and, take it for all in all, there is not a better preserved or
pleasanter specimen of a Puritan town remaining in the ancient
Commonwealth.
The 21st of April, 1775, witnessed an awful commotion in the little
village of Ipswich. Old men, and boys, (the middle-aged had marched to
Lexington some days before) and all the women in the place who were not
bedridden or sick, came rushing as with one accord to the green in front
of the meeting-house. A rumor, which no one attempted to trace or
authenticate, spread from lip to lip that the British regulars had landed
on the coast and were marching upon the town. A scene of indescribable
terror and confusion followed. Defence was out of the question, as the
young and able-bodied men of the entire region round about had marched to
Cambridge and Lexington. The news of the battle at the latter place,
exaggerated in all its details, had been just received; terrible stories
of the atrocities committed by the dreaded "regulars" had been related;
and it was believed that nothing short of a general extermination of the
patriots--men, women, and children--was contemplated by the British
commander.--Almost simultaneously the people of Beverly, a village a few
miles distant, were smitten with the same terror. How the rumor was
communicated no one could tell. It was there believed that the enemy had
fallen upon Ipswich, and massacred the inhabitants without regard to age
or sex.
It was about the middle of the afternoon of this day that the people of
Newbury, ten miles farther north, assembled in an informal meeting, at
the town-house to hear accounts from the Lexington fight, and to consider
what action was necessary in consequence of that event. Parson Carey was
about opening the meeting with prayer when hurried hoof-beats sounded up
the street, and a messenger, loose-haired and panting for breath, rushed
up the staircase. "Turn out, turn out, for God's sake," he cried, "or
you will be all killed! The regulars are marching onus; they are at
Ipswich now, cutting and slashing all before them!" Universal
consternation was the immediate result of this fearful announcement;
Parson Carey's prayer died on his lips; the congregation dispersed over
the town, carrying to every house the tidings that the regulars had come.
Men on horseback went galloping up and down the streets, shouting the
alarm. Women and children echoed it from every corner. The panic became
irresistible, uncontrollable. Cries were heard that the dreaded invaders
had reached Oldtown Bridge, a little distance from the village, and that
they were killing all whom they encountered. Flight was resolved upon.
All the horses and vehicles in the town were put in requisition; men,
women, and children hurried as for life towards the north. Some threw
their silver and pewter ware and other valuables into wells. Large
numbers crossed the Merrimac, and spent the night in the deserted houses
of Salisbury, whose inhabitants, stricken by the strange terror, had fled
into New Hampshire, to take up their lodgings in dwellings also abandoned
by their owners. A few individuals refused to fly with the multitude;
some, unable to move by reason of sickness, were left behind by their
relatives. One old gentleman, whose excessive corpulence rendered
retreat on his part impossible, made a virtue of necessity; and, seating
himself in his doorway with his loaded king's arm, upbraided his more
nimble neighbors, advising them to do as he did, and "stop and shoot the
devils." Many ludicrous instances of the intensity of the terror might
be related. One man got his family into a boat to go to Ram Island for
safety. He imagined he was pursued by the enemy through the dusk of the
evening, and was annoyed by the crying of an infant in the after part of
the boat. "Do throw that squalling brat overboard," he called to his
wife, "or we shall be all discovered and killed!" A poor woman ran four
or five miles up the river, and stopped to take breath and nurse her
child, when she found to her great horror that she had brought off the
cat instead of the baby!
All through that memorable night the terror swept onward towards the
north with a speed which seems almost miraculous, producing everywhere
the same results. At midnight a horseman, clad only in shirt and
breeches, dashed by our grandfather's door, in Haverhill, twenty miles up
the river. "Turn out! Get a musket! Turn out!" he shouted; "the
regulars are landing on Plum Island!" "I'm glad of it," responded the
old gentleman from his chamber window; "I wish they were all there, and
obliged to stay there." When it is understood that Plum Island is little
more than a naked sand-ridge, the benevolence of this wish can be readily
appreciated.
All the boats on the river were constantly employed for several hours in
conveying across the terrified fugitives. Through "the dead waste and
middle of the night" they fled over the border into New Hampshire. Some
feared to take the frequented roads, and wandered over wooded hills and
through swamps where the snows of the late winter had scarcely melted.
They heard the tramp and outcry of those behind them, and fancied that
the sounds were made by pursuing enemies. Fast as they fled, the terror,
by some unaccountable means, outstripped them. They found houses
deserted and streets strewn with household stuffs, abandoned in the hurry
of escape. Towards morning, however, the tide partially turned. Grown
men began to feel ashamed of their fears. The old Anglo-Saxon hardihood
paused and looked the terror in its face. Single or in small parties,
armed with such weapons as they found at hand,--among which long poles,
sharpened and charred at the end, were conspicuous,--they began to
retrace their steps. In the mean time such of the good people of Ipswich
as were unable or unwilling to leave their homes became convinced that
the terrible rumor which had nearly depopulated their settlement was
unfounded.
Among those who had there awaited the onslaught of the regulars was a
young man from Exeter, New Hampshire. Becoming satisfied that the whole
matter was a delusion, he mounted his horse and followed after the
retreating multitude, undeceiving all whom he overtook. Late at night
he reached Newburyport, greatly to the relief of its sleepless
inhabitants, and hurried across the river, proclaiming as he rode the
welcome tidings. The sun rose upon haggard and jaded fugitives, worn
with excitement and fatigue, slowly returning homeward, their
satisfaction at the absence of danger somewhat moderated by an unpleasant
consciousness of the ludicrous scenes of their premature night flitting.
Any inference which might be drawn from the foregoing narrative
derogatory to the character of the people of New England at that day, on
the score of courage, would be essentially erroneous. It is true, they
were not the men to court danger or rashly throw away their lives for the
mere glory of the sacrifice. They had always a prudent and wholesome
regard to their own comfort and safety; they justly looked upon sound
heads and limbs as better than broken ones; life was to them too serious
and important, and their hard-gained property too valuable, to be lightly
hazarded. They never attempted to cheat themselves by under-estimating
the difficulty to be encountered, or shutting their eyes to its probable
consequences. Cautious, wary, schooled in the subtle strategy of Indian
warfare, where self-preservation is by no means a secondary object, they
had little in common with the reckless enthusiasm of their French allies,
or the stolid indifference of the fighting machines of the British
regular army. When danger could no longer be avoided, they met it with
firmness and iron endurance, but with a very vivid appreciation of its
magnitude. Indeed, it must be admitted by all who are familiar with the
history of our fathers that the element of fear held an important place
among their characteristics. It exaggerated all the dangers of their
earthly pilgrimage, and peopled the future with shapes of evil. Their
fear of Satan invested him with some of the attributes of Omnipotence,
and almost reached the point of reverence. The slightest shock of an
earthquake filled all hearts with terror. Stout men trembled by their
hearths with dread of some paralytic old woman supposed to be a witch.
And when they believed themselves called upon to grapple with these
terrors and endure the afflictions of their allotment, they brought to
the trial a capability of suffering undiminished by the chloroform of
modern philosophy. They were heroic in endurance. Panics like the one
we have described might bow and sway them like reeds in the wind; but
they stood up like the oaks of their own forests beneath the thunder and
the hail of actual calamity.
It was certainly lucky for the good people of Essex County that no wicked
wag of a Tory undertook to immortalize in rhyme their ridiculous hegira,
as Judge Hopkinson did the famous Battle of the Kegs in Philadelphia.
Like the more recent Madawaska war in Maine, the great Chepatchet
demonstration in Rhode Island, and the "Sauk fuss" of Wisconsin, it
remains to this day "unsyllabled, unsung;" and the fast-fading memory of
age alone preserves the unwritten history of the great Ipswich fright.