At the same hour that the Hessians were parading through the village streets a horseman was speeding along the river road on the opposite side of the Delaware. As he came opposite the town, the blare of the hautboys sounded faintly across the water, and he checked his horse to listen for a moment, and then spurred on.

“Ay, prick up your ears,” he muttered to his steed. “Your friends are holding high carnival, and I wonder not that you long to be with them, ’stead of carrying vain messages in a lost cause. But for this damned floe of ice you ’d have had your wish this very night.”

A hundred rods brought the rider within sight of the cross-road at Yardley’s Ferry, just as a second horseman issued from it. The first hastily unbuckled and threw back his holster flap, even while he pressed his horse to come up with the new arrival; while the latter, hearing the sound of hoofs, halted and twisted about in his saddle.

“Well met, Brereton,” he called when the space between had lessened. “I am seeking his Excellency, who, I was told at Newtown, was to be found at Mackonkey’s Ferry. Canst give me a guidance?”

“You could find your way, Wilkinson, by following the track of Mercer’s brigade. For the last three miles I could have kept the route, even if I knew not the road, by the bloody footprints. Look at the stains on the snow.”

“Poor fellows!” responded Wilkinson, feelingly.

“Seven miles they’ve marched to-day, with scarce a sound boot to a company, and now they’ll be marched back with not so much as a sight of the enemy.”

“You think the attack impossible?”

“Impossible!” ejaculated Brereton. “Look at the rush of ice, man. ’T would be absolute madness to attempt a crossing. The plan was for Cadwallader’s brigade to attack Burlington at the same time we made our attempt, but I bring word from there that the river is impassable and the plan abandoned. His Excellency cannot fight both the British and such weather.”

“I thought the game up when my general refused the command and set out for Philadelphia,” remarked Wilkinson.

“Gates is too good a politician and too little of a fighter to like forlorn hopes,” sneered Brereton. “He leaves Washington to bear the risk, and, Lee being out of the way, sets off at once to make favour with Congress, hoping, I have little doubt, that another discomfiture or miscarriage will serve to put him in the saddle. If we are finally conquered, ’t will not be by defeat in the field, but by the dirty politics with which this nation is riddled, and which makes a man general because he comes from the right State, and knows how to wire-pull and intrigue. Faugh!”

A half-hour served to bring them to their destination, a rude wooden pier, employed to conduct teams to the ferry-boat. Now, however, the ice was drifted and wedged in layers and hummocks some feet beyond its end, and outside this rushed the river, black and silent, save for the dull crunch of the ice-floes as they ground against one another in their race down the stream. On the end of the dock stood a solitary figure watching a number of men, who, with pick and axe, were cutting away the lodged ice that blocked the pier, while already a motley variety of boats being filled with men could be seen at each point of the shore where the ground ice made embarkation possible. Along the banks groups of soldiers were clustered about fires of fence-rails wherever timber or wall offered the slightest shelter.

Dismounting, the two aides walked to the dock and delivered their letters to the commander. Taking the papers, Washington gave a final exhortation to the sappers and miners: “Look alive there, men. Every minute now is worth an hour to-morrow,” and, followed by Brereton, walked to the ferry-house that he might find light with which to read the despatches. By the aid of the besmoked hall lantern, he glanced hastily through the two letters. “General Gates leaves to us all the honour to be gained to-night. Colonel Cadwallader declares it impossible to get his guns across,” he told his aide, without a trace of emotion in his voice, as he refolded the despatches and handed them to him. Then his eye flashed with a sudden exultation as he continued: “It seems there are some in our own force, as well as the enemy, who need a lesson in winter campaigning.”

“Then your Excellency intends to attempt a crossing?” deprecated Brereton.

“We shall attack Trenton before daybreak, Brereton; and as we are like to have a cold and wet march, stay you within doors and warm yourself after your ride. You are not needed, and there is a good fire in the kitchen.”

Brereton, with a disapproving shake of his head, stepped from the hallway into the kitchen. Only one man was in the room, and he, seated at the table, was occupied in rolling cartridges.

“Ho, parson, this is new work for you,” greeted Brereton, giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. “You are putting your sulphur and brimstone in concrete form.”

“Ay,” assented McClave, “and, as befits my calling, properly combining them with religion.”

“How so?” demanded Brereton, taking his position before the fire.

“You see, man,” explained the presbyter, “it occurred to me that, on so wet a night, ’t would be almost impossible for the troops to keep their cartridges dry, since scarce a one in ten has a proper cartouch-box; so I set to making some new ones, and, having no paper, I’m e’en using the leaves of my own copy of Watts’ Hymns.”

“A good thought,” said Brereton; “and if you will give them to me I will see to it that they be kept dry and ready for use. Not that they will need much care; there is small danger that Watts will ever be anything but dry.”

“Tut, tut, man,” reproved the clergyman. “Dry or not dry, he has done God’s work in the past, and, with the aid of Heaven, he’ll do it again to-night.”

The rumble of artillery at this point warned the aide that the embarkation was actually beginning, and, hastily catching up the cartridges already made, he unbuttoned the flannel shirt he wore and stuffed them in. Throwing his cloak about him, he hurried out.

The ice had finally been removed, and a hay barge dragged up to the pier. Without delay two 12-pounders were rolled upon it, with their complement of men and horses; and, leaving further superintendence of the embarkation to Greene and Knox, Washington and his staff took their places between the guns. Two row galleys having been made fast to the front, the men in them bent to their oars, and the barge moved slowly from the shore, its start being the signal to all the other craft to put off.

The instant the shelter of the land was lost, the struggle with the elements began. The wind, blowing savagely from the northeast, swept upon them, and, churning the river into foam, drove the bitterly cold spray against man and beast. Masses of ice, impelled by the current and blast, were only kept from colliding with the boat by the artillerymen, who, with the rammers and sponges of the guns, thrust them back, while the bowsmen in the tractive boats had much ado to keep a space clear for the oars to swing. To make the stress the greater, before a fifty yards had been compassed the air was filled with snow, sweeping now one way and now another, quite shutting out all sight of the shores, and making the rushing current of the black, sullen river the sole means by which direction could be judged.

“Damn this weather!” swore Brereton, as an especially biting sweep of wind and water made him crouch the lower behind his shivering horse.

“Nothing short of that would serve to put warmth into it,” asserted Colonel Webb. “You ’re not like to obtain your wish, Jack, though your cursing may put you where you’ll long for a touch of it.”

“Thou canst not fright me with threat of hell-fire damnation on such a night as this, Sam,” retorted Brereton.

“Gentlemen,” interposed Washington, drily, “let me call your attention to the General Order of last August, relative to profane language.”

“Can your Excellency suggest any more moderate terms to apply to such a night?” asked Brereton, with a laugh.

“Be thankful you’ve something between you and the river, my boy. Twenty-four years ago this very week I was returning from a mission to the Ohio, and to cross a river we made a raft of logs. The ice surged against us so forcibly that I set out my pole to prevent our being swept down the stream; but the rapidity of the current threw the raft with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, and I was like to have drowned. This wind and sleet seem warm when I remember that; and had Gates and Cadwallader been there, the storm and ice of to-night would not have seemed to them such obstacles. ’T was my first public service,” he added after a slight pause. “Who knows that to-night may not be my last?”

“’T is ever a possibility,” spoke up Webb, “since your Excellency is so reckless in exposing yourself to the enemy’s fire.”

Washington shrugged his shoulders. “I am in more danger from the rear than from the enemy,” he said equably.

“Ay,” agreed Jack, “but we fight both to-night. Give us victory at Trenton, and we need not spend thought on Baltimore.”

“Congress is too frightened itself—” began Baylor, but a touch on his arm from the commander-in-chief checked the indiscreet speech.

Departure had been taken from the Pennsylvania shore before ten; but ice, wind, and current made the crossing so laborious and slow that a landing of the first detachment was not effected till nearly twelve. Then the boats were sent back for their second load, the advance meanwhile huddling together wherever there was the slightest shelter from the blast and the hail that was now cutting mercilessly. Not till three o’clock did the second division land, and another hour was lost in the formation of the column. At last, however, the order to march could be given, and the twenty-four hundred weary, besoaked, and wellnigh frozen men set off through the blinding storm on the nine-mile march to Trenton.

At Yardley’s Ferry the force divided, Sullivan’s division keeping to the river turnpike, intending to enter Trenton from the south, while the main division took the cross-road, so as to come out to the north of the town, the plan being to place the enemy thus betwixt two fires.

Owing to the delay in crossing the river, it was daylight when the outskirts of the town were reached, but the falling snow veiled the advance, and here the column was halted temporarily to permit of a reconnoissance. While the troops stood at ease an aide from Sullivan’s detachment reported that it had arrived on the other side of the village, and was ready for the attack, save that their cartridges were too damp to use.

“Very well, sir,” ordered Washington. “Return and tell General Sullivan he must rely on the bayonet.”

“Your Excellency,” said Colonel Hand, stepping up, “my regiment is in the same plight, and our rifles carry no bayonets.”

“We kin club both them and the Hessians all the same,” spoke up a voice from the ranks.

“Here are some dry cartridges,” broke in Brereton.

“Let your men draw their charges and reload, Colonel Hand,” commanded Washington.

In a moment the order to advance was issued, and the column debouched upon the post road leading toward Princeton. The first sign of life was a man in a front yard, engaged in cutting wood; the commander-in-chief, who was leading the advance, called to him:—

“Which way is the Hessian picket?”

“Find out for yourself,” retorted the chopper.

“Speak out, man,” roared Webb, hotly, “this is General Washington.”

“God bless and prosper you, sir!” shouted the man. “Follow me, and I’ll show you,” he added, starting down the road at a run. As he came to the house, without a pause, he swung his axe and burst open the door with a single blow. “Come on,” he shrieked, and darted in, followed by some of the riflemen.

Leaving them to secure the picket, the regiments went forward, just as a desultory firing from the front showed that the alarm had been given by Sullivan’s attack. Pushing on, a sight of the enemy was gained,—a confused mass of men some three hundred yards away, but in front of them two guns were already being wheeled into position by artillerists, with the obvious purpose of checking the advance till the regiments had time to form.

“Capture the battery!” came the stern voice of the commander.

“Forward, double quick!” shouted Colonel Hand.

Brereton, putting spurs to his horse, joined in the rush of men as the regiment broke into a run. “Look Out, Hand!” he yelled. “They’ll be ready to fire before we can get there, and in this narrow road we’ll be cut to pieces. Give them a dose of Watts.”

“Halt!” roared Hand, and then in quick succession came the orders, “Deploy! Take aim! Fire!”

“Hurrah for the Hymns!” cheered Brereton, as a number of the gunners and matross men dropped, and the remainder, deserting the cannon, fell back on the infantry. “Come on!” he roared, as the Virginia light horse, taking advantage of the open order, raced the riflemen to the guns. Barely were they reached, when a mounted officer rode up to the Hessian regiments and cried: “Forwärts!” waving his sword toward the cannon.

“We can’t hold the guns against them!” yelled Brereton. "Over with them, men!”

In an instant the soldiers with rifles and the cavalry with the rammers that had been dropped were clustered about the cannon, some prying, some lifting, some pulling, and before the foe could reach them the two pieces of artillery were tipped over and rolled into the side ditches, the Americans scattering the moment the guns were made useless to the British.

This gave the Continental infantry in the rear their opportunity, and they poured in a scathing volley, quickly followed by the roar of Colonel Forrest’s battery, which unlimbered and opened fire. A wild confusion followed, the enemy advancing, until the American regiments charged them in face of their volleys. Upon this they broke, and falling back in disorder, endeavoured to escape to the east road through an orchard. Checking the charge, Washington threw Stevens’ brigade and Hand’s riflemen, now re-formed, out through the fields, heading them off. Flight in this direction made impossible, the enemy retreated toward the town, but the column under Sullivan now blocked this outlet. Forrest’s fieldpieces were pushed forward, Washington riding with them, utterly unheeding of both the enemy’s fire, though the bullets were burying themselves in the snow all about him, and of the expostulations of his staff. Indicating the new position for the guns, he ordered them loaded with canister.

Colonel Forrest himself stooped to sight one of the 12-pounders, then cried: “Sir, they have struck.”

“Struck!” exclaimed Washington.

“Yes,” averred Forrest, exultingly. “Their colours are down, and they have grounded their arms.”

Washington cantered toward the enemy.

“Your Excellency,” shouted Baylor, who with the infantry had been well forward, “the Hessians have surrendered. Here is Colonel Rahl.”

Washington rode to where, supported by two sergeants, the officer stood, his brilliant uniform already darkened by the blood flowing from two wounds, and took from his hand the sword the Hessian commander, with bowed head, due to both shame and faintness, held out to him.

“Let his wounds receive instant attention,” the general ordered. Wheeling his horse, he looked at the three regiments of Hessians. “’T is a glorious day for our country, Baylor!” he said, the personal triumph already forgotten in the greater one.