, my child. My memory won't
pass muster any more; but if there's one event that will never escape
its grasp, it is the singular death of Jonathan Riley. He was a sergeant
in our regiment.

[Illustration: RILEY GOING TO THE PLACE OF EXECUTION.]

He had served in the old French war, and, being a man of tried
courage and presence of mind, he was usually selected for dangerous and
trying situations. He was at length placed on a recruiting station, and
in a short period he enlisted a great number of men. Among his recruits
was Frank Lilly, a boy about sixteen years old, who was so weak and
small that he would not have passed muster if the array had not been
greatly in want of men. The soldiers made this boy the butt of their
ridicule, and many a joke was perpetrated at his expense. Yet there was
a spirit in the boy beyond his years. Riley was greatly attached to him;
and it was reported, on good authority, that he was the fruit of one of
Riley's love affairs with a beautiful and unfortunate girl.

"Often on our long and fatiguing marches, dying almost from want,
harassed incessantly by the enemy, did Riley carry the boy's knapsack
for miles, and many a crust for the poor wretch was saved from his
scanty allowance. But Frank Lilly's resolution was once the cause
of saving the whole detachment. The American army was encamped at
Elizabethtown. The soldiers stationed about four miles from the main
body, near the bay that separated the continent from Staten-Island,
forming an advance picket-guard, were chosen from a southern regiment,
and were continually deserting. It was a post of some danger, as the
young ambitious British officers, or experienced sergeants, often headed
parties that approached the shore in silence, during the night, and
attacked our outposts. Once they succeeded in surprising and capturing
an officer and twenty men, without the loss of a man on their part.
General Washington determined to relieve the forces near the bay,
and our regiment was the one from which the selection was made. The
arrangement of our guard, as near as I can recollect, was as follows:

"A body of two hundred and fifty men was stationed a short distance
inland. In advance of these were several outposts, consisting of an
officer and thirty men each. The sentinels were so near as to meet in
their rounds, and were relieved every two hours. It chanced one dark and
windy night, that Lilly and myself were sentinels on adjoining posts.
All t