It was during the troubled times which mark'd our American
Revolution that the incidents occurr'd which are the foundation of my
story. Some time before the commencement of the war, the owner, whom I
shall call Vanhome, was taken sick and died. For some time before his
death he had lived a widower; and his only child, a lad of ten years
old, was thus left an orphan. By his father's will this child was
placed implicitly under the guardianship of an uncle, a middle-aged
man, who had been of late a resident in the family. His care and
interest, however, were needed but a little while--not two years
claps'd after the parents were laid away to their last repose before
another grave had to be prepared for the son--the child who had been
so haplessly deprived of their fostering care.
The period now arrived when the great national convulsion burst forth.
Sounds of strife and the clash of arms, and the angry voices of
disputants, were borne along by the air, and week after week grew to
still louder clamor. Families were divided; adherents to the crown,
and ardent upholders of the rebellion, were often found in the bosom
of the same domestic circle. Vanhome, the uncle spoken of as guardian
to the young heir, was a man who lean'd to the stern, the high-handed
and the severe. He soon became known among the most energetic of the
loyalists. So decided were his sentiments that, leaving the estate
which he had inherited from his brother and nephew, he join'd the
forces of the British king.
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