But one small hut its chimney thrust
Between the timbers, close as they;
Twice round and with a desperate trust
Lord Herman muttered: "die I must:
_There_, CHARGE!" and spurred through beam and clay--
"By heaven! he is away!"

VI.--THE KILLS.

In clouds of dust the muskets fire,
And volleying oaths old Stuyvesant from:
"Turn out! In yonder Kills he'll mire,
Or drown, unless the fiends conspire.
Mount! Follow! Still he must succumb--
That tide was never swum."

Through hut and chimney, down the ditch
And up the bank, plunge horse and man;
And down the Kills of bramble pitch,
Oft-stumbling, those old gray knees which,
Hunting the raccoon, led the van;
Now, limp yet game he ran.

But cool and supple, Herman sat,
His mind at work, his frame the horse's,
And knew with each pulsation, that
Past foe and fen, past crag, and flat,
And marsh, the steed he nearer forces
To the broad sea's recourses.