Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 5 | Page 2

boat in which three sisters had
gone out for a row was swung against one of these rocks. The day was
gusty and the boat was upset. All three of the girls were drowned.
Either the sisters remain about this perilous spot or the rocks have
prescience; at least, those who live near them on the shore hold one

view or the other, for they declare that before every death on the river
the sisters moan, the sound being heard above the lapping of the waves.
It is different from any other sound in nature. Besides, it is an
unquestioned fact that more accidents happen here than at any other
point on the river.
Many are the upsets that have occurred and many are the swimmers
who have gone down, the dark forms of the sisters being the last shapes
that their water-blurred eyes have seen. It is only before a human life is
to be yielded that this low wailing comes from the rocks, and when, on
a night in May, 1889, the sound floated shoreward, just as the clock in
Georgetown struck twelve, good people who were awake sighed and
uttered a prayer for the one whose doom was so near at hand. Twelve
hours later, at noon, a shell came speeding down the Potomac, with a
young athlete jauntily pulling at the oars. As he neared the Three
Sisters his boat appeared to be caught in an eddy; it swerved suddenly,
as if struck; then it upset and the rower sank to his death.

A RIDE FOR A BRIDE
When the story of bloodshed at Bunker Hill reached Bohemia Hall, in
Cecil County, Maryland, Albert De Courcy left his brother Ernest to
support the dignity of the house and make patriotic speeches, while he
went to the front, conscious that Helen Carmichael, his affianced wife,
was watching, in pride and sadness, the departure of his company.
Letters came and went, as they always do, until rumor came of a sore
defeat to the colonials at Long Island; then the letters ceased.
It was a year later when a ragged soldier, who had stopped at the hall
for supper, told of Albert's heroism in covering the retreat of
Washington. The gallant young officer had been shot, he said, as he
attempted to swim the morasses of Gowanus. But this soldier was in
error. Albert had been vexatiously bogged on the edge of the creek.
While floundering in the mud a half dozen sturdy red-coats had lugged
him out and he was packed off to the prison-ships anchored in the
Wallabout. In these dread hulks, amid darkness and miasma, living on
scant, unwholesome food, compelled to see his comrades die by dozens
every day and their bodies flung ashore where the tide lapped away the
sand thrown over them, De Courcy wished that death instead of capture
had been his lot, for next to his love he prized his liberty.

One day he was told off, with a handful of others, for transfer to a
stockade on the Delaware, and how his heart beat when he learned that
the new prison was within twenty miles of home! His flow of spirits
returned, and his new jailers liked him for his frankness and laughed at
his honest expletives against the king. He had the liberty of the
enclosure, and was not long in finding where the wall was low, the
ditch narrow, and the abatis decayed--knowledge that came useful to
him sooner than he expected, for one day a captured horse was led in
that made straight for him with a whinny and rubbed his nose against
his breast.
"Why!" he cried,--it's Cecil! My horse, gentlemen--or, was. Not a better
hunter in Maryland!"
"Yes," answered one of the officers. We've just taken him from your
brother. He's been stirring trouble with his speeches and has got to be
quieted. But we'll have him to-day, for he's to be married, and a
scouting party is on the road to nab him at the altar."
"Married! My brother! What! Ernest, the lawyer, the orator? Ho, ho!
Ah, but it's rather hard to break off a match in that style!"
"Hard for him, maybe; but they say the lady feels no great love for him.
He made it seem like a duty to her, after her lover died."
"How's that? Her own--what's her name?"
"Helen--Helen Carmichael, or something like that."
Field and sky swam before De Courcy's eyes for a moment; then he
resumed, in a calm voice, and with a pale, set face, "Well, you're
making an unhappy wedding-day for him. If he had Cecil here he
would outride you all. Ah, when I was in practice I could ride this horse
and snatch a pebble from the ground without losing pace!"
"Could