PARRICIDE OF THE WISSAHICKON

Farmer Derwent and his four stout sons set off on an autumn night for the
meeting of patriots at a house on the Wissahickon,--a meeting that bodes
no good to the British encamped in Philadelphia, let the red-coats laugh
as they will at the rag-tag and bob-tail that are joining the army of Mr.
Washington in the wilds of the Skippack. The farmer sighs as he thinks
that his younger son alone should be missing from the company, and
wonders for the thousandth time what has become of the boy. They sit by a
rock that juts into the road to trim their lantern, and while they talk
together they are startled by an exclamation. It is from Ellen, the
adopted daughter of Derwent and the betrothed of his missing son. On the
night that the boy stole away from his father's house he asked her to
meet him in this place in a year's time, and the year is up to-night.

But it is not to meet him that she is hastening now: she has heard that
the British have learned of the patriot gathering and will try to make
prisoners of the company. Even as she tells of this there is a sound to
the southward: the column is on the march. The farmer's eye blazes with
rage and hate. "Boys," he says, "yonder come those who intend to kill us.
Let them taste of their own warfare. Stand here in the shadow and fire as
they pass this rock."

The troopers ride on, chuckling over their sure success, when there is a
report of rifles and four of the red-coats are in the dust. The
survivors, though taken by surprise, prove their courage by halting to