Martha Finley - Elsie and Her Namesakes

"On the morning of the third day the brother said to them, 'I have bad news to tell you.' 'Aye, what is it?' asked William. His brother replied that ten or a dozen prisoners had been brought in that morning, as deserters from Savannah; that they were to be sent there immediately, and from all he could learn, it would be likely to go hard with them, as it seemed they had all taken the King's bounty."

"What does that mean, grandma?" asked Ned.

"That they had agreed to remain British subjects instead of fighting for their country; and for that the British were to protect them against the Americans. But it seems they had changed their minds and gone over to the cause of their country.

"Jasper asked to see the poor fellows, and his brother took him and Newton to the spot where the poor fellows were, handcuffed, and sitting or lying upon the ground. With them was a young woman, wife of one of the prisoners, sitting on the ground opposite to her husband, with her little boy leaning on her lap. Her dress showed that she was poor, and her coal-black hair spread in long, neglected tresses on her neck and bosom. Sometimes she would sit silent, like a statue of grief, her eyes fixed upon the ground; then she would start convulsively, lift her eyes and gaze on her husband's face with as sad a look as if she already saw him struggling in the halter, herself a widow and her child an orphan. The child was evidently distressed by his mother's anguish, and weeping with her.

"Jasper and Newton felt keenly for them in their misery. They silently walked away into a neighboring wood, tears in the eyes of both. Jasper presently spoke. 'Newton,' he said, 'my days have been but few, but I believe their course is nearly finished.' Newton asked why he thought so, and he answered, because he felt that he must rescue those poor prisoners or die with them, otherwise the remembrance of that poor woman and her child would haunt him to his grave.

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