In view of all he lost,--his youth, his love,
And possibilities that wait the brave,
Inward and outward bound dim visions move
Like passing sails upon the Hudson's wave.

_Charlotte Fiske Bates._

* * *

It is impossible even in these later years, not to speak of
twenty-five or fifty years ago, to travel along the shores of
Haverstraw Bay or among the passes of the Highlands, without hearing
some old-time stories about Arnold and Andre, and it would be strange
indeed if a little romance had not here and there become blended with
the real facts. Uncle Richard's account is undoubtedly the best since
the days of Knickerbocker. "Benedict Arnold, you know, had command of
West Point, and he knew that the place was essential to the success of
the Continental cause. He plotted, as everybody knows, to turn it
over to the enemy, and in the correspondence which he carried on with
General Clinton, young Andre, Clinton's aid, did all the writing.
Things were coming to a focus, when a meeting took place between
Arnold and Clinton's representative, Andre, at the house of Joshua
Hett Smith, near Haverstraw. Andre came on the British ship "Vulture,"
which he left at Croton Point, in Haverstraw Bay. Well," so runs Uncle
Richard's story, "it took a long time to get matters settled; they
'confabbed' till after daybreak. Then Arnold started back to the post
which he had plotted to surrender. But daylight was no time for Andre
to return to the "Vulture," so he hung round waiting for night.

"During that day, some men who were working for James Horton, a farmer