It had iron and steel in it. The men lying on their guns in the ambuscade
along the fence heard the dirge rise and grow to its mighty fulness, and
they shivered. One of them, posted nearest the advance, had his rifle
carefully levelled at Lige Willetts, a fair target in the road. When he
heard the singing, he turned to the man next behind him and laughed
harshly: "I reckon we'll see a big jamboree in hell to-night, huh?"
The huge murmur of the chorus expanded, and gathered in rhythmic strength,
and swelled to power, and rolled and thundered across the plain.
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
His soul goes marching on!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul goes marching on!"
A gun spat from the higher ground, and Willetts dropped where he stood,
but was up again in a second, with a red line across his forehead where
the ball had grazed his temple. Then the mob spread out like a fan,
hundreds of men climbing the fence and beginning the advance through the
fields, dosing on the ambuscade from both sides. Mr. Watts, wading through
the high grass in the field north of the road, perceived the barrel of a
gun shining from a bush some distance in front of him, and, although in
the same second no weapon was seen in his hand, discharged a revolver at
the bush behind the gun.
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