The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter A tale illustrative of the revolutionary history of Vermont by Thompson, D. P., 1795-1868

Eager to obey, the supple tools of arbitrary power now commenced driving all those of their prisoners who had not been too much disabled by their wounds to stand, together into the prison-rooms. They then seized hold of the wounded, who lay weltering in their blood in different parts of the floor of the long passage, and began dragging them along by their limbs to the same destination.

"Monster!" exclaimed Woodburn, looking back from the felon's cell which he was about to enter, and addressing Redding, who stood mimicking, with fiendish glee, the groans and contortions of French, as he lay gasping and writhing in mortal agony on the spot where he fell, just beyond the short passage dividing the prison-rooms--"monster," he repeated, "would you insult the dying?"

"Yes, d--n you!" savagely interposed Gale, stepping forward; "he has got just what he deserved; and I wish there were forty more of you in the same predicament. Drag him along in there with the rest of 'em, Redding!"

"Ay, ay," responded Patterson, "in with him! And I can tell the rest of them, they had better be saving their pity for themselves, for they will all be in hell before to-morrow night!"

It is needless to say that this brutal order was promptly obeyed. And when the dying and insensible victim, pierced through head and body, and all the wounded, had been drawn in and thrown promiscuously together, on the cold, damp floors of the prison-rooms, the keys were turned upon them; and their remorseless butchers, making not the least provision for the sufferers, by way of medical aid or otherwise, returned, after posting a strong guard at the doors, to the tavern or the house of Brush, to celebrate their victory in a drunken carousal.

CHAPTER VI.

Whatever may be the result of the present public movement for the abolition of capital punishment, and however far future experiments may go towards establishing the expediency and safety of such a change in criminal jurisprudence, the history of every nation and people will show, we believe, the remarkable fact, that ever since Cain stood before his Maker with his hands reeking with the blood of his murdered brother, and his heart so deeply smitten with the consciousness of having justly forfeited his own life by taking the life of another, that he could not divest himself of the belief that all men would seek to slay him, no one principle has been found to be more deeply implanted in the human breast than the desire to see the wilful shedding of blood atoned for by the blood of the perpetrator. So strong, so active, and so impelling, indeed, seems this principle, that no sooner goes forth the dread tale of homicide, than all community rise up, as one man, instinctively impressed with the duty of hunting down the guilty and bringing them to justice; while the guilty themselves seem no less instinctively impressed with the abiding consciousness that the doom, which heaven and earth has decreed to their crimes, must inevitably overtake them.