A certain pastor, much
esteemed for benevolence, proposed to Pepperrell, who had at last accepted
the command, a plan, unknown to Vauban, for confounding the devices of the
enemy. He advised that two trustworthy persons should cautiously walk
together along the front of the French ramparts under cover of night, one
of them carrying a mallet, with which he was to hammer the ground at short
intervals. The French sentinels, it seems to have been supposed, on hearing
this mysterious thumping, would be so bewildered as to give no alarm. While
one of the two partners was thus employed, the other was to lay his ear to
the ground, which, as the adviser thought, would return a hollow sound if
the artful foe had dug a mine under it; and whenever such secret danger was
detected, a mark was to be set on the spot, to warn off the soldiers.
[Footnote: Belknap, _Hist. New Hampshire_, II. 208.]
Equally zealous, after another fashion, was the Reverend Samuel Moody,
popularly known as Father Moody, or Parson Moody, minister of York and
senior chaplain of the expedition. Though about seventy years old, he was
amazingly tough and sturdy.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140