Nathan Hale, "being suspected by his movements
that he wanted to get out of New York, was taken
up and examined by the general [Howe] and some
minutes being found upon him, orders were immediately
given that he should be hanged. When at
the gallows, he spoke and told that he was a Capt.
in the Continental army, by name Nathan Hale."

To those who have experienced the long weeks of
distressing anxiety that often fall to the lot of
those whose friends are in battle, or carried prisoners
to unknown camps, no words are needed to depict
the anxiety among Nathan Hale's family until
particulars of his noble death were finally learned.

It is a solemn but perhaps a comforting fact,
that the deepest human distress seems, after a few
generations have passed, to have been "writ
in water." Bitter as must have been those early
sorrowful hours, the only later reminder of the
tears that then flowed is given in the statement that
one who had loved him could not speak of him
fifty years later without tears in her eyes.

Of how many wept for him we can form no conception.
Indeed, we should have pitied any warmhearted
girl or young man who knew him, and had
shared his joyous young life, who could have heard
of his tragic death without tears almost as bitter
as for one intensely loved.

[[92]]

p091 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p092w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p093

v?