← Harold's Old Time Radio
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The rest of the story it was in a little colonial house in Eastern Virginia that Henry lived, apparently alone. One late evening, friends came to visit. Henry and his guests sat in the candlelit parlor, quietly talking, watching the flickering shadows on the walls. There was a lull in the conversation and a noise, faint at first and then louder. A scratching sound beneath the floor. Everyone had heard it. Henry pretended not to. There were light hearted remarks about ghosts and such. And after a minute or so, Henry stretched and yawned and asked to be excused so that he might retire for the night when his visitors had gone. Henry tugged at his collar, sighing. He was alone again, and none too soon. For as Henry's friends rode off into the dark, against the fading counterpoint of their horses hoofs, another noise like the first, followed by the sound of dragging along the floor joists under Henry's feet. Henry stiffened silently regarding the inconspicuous trapdoor in the hallway floor. Then he reached for a lantern and approached the secret entrance and bent down and took hold of the smooth iron ring and pulled the false panel away. Henry peered into the gaping blackness, lowered his lantern, then himself into the cold cellar. As the kerosene flame cast a soft yellow light all about. There was a rustling in the corner. A figure, barely visible through the gloom, cringing in terror in the brightness, waiting. Henry walked toward that figure. Henry lifted the lantern and the light fell directly upon a. Upon a face. A horribly animated countenance with twisted features which snarled one moment and cried the next. A blanched wild eyed visage filled with torment. The face of Henry's wife. Henry could not recall the duration of her madness. Nor could he recount the endless procession of days and months that he had descended the cellar stairs to feed and to care for her. All of the hours of Henry's life had by now blended into one solitary hour of despair. For Henry, the anguish had not diminished. To watch his wife tug against her straitjacket restraint. To see his love imprisoned through no wrong of her own. Once in a great while, like the pulsing glow of a near cold ember, the faint recollection of a happiness long past shone in the beleaguered woman's face. And then, like a flash of black lightning, the horror would return. These were the visions that stalked Henry from the depths of that secret place. The waking dreams that he took to bed with him night after night and then at morning into the warm sun. Was this on his mind, do you suppose? Did these visions haunt him as he addressed the assembly of St. John's Church the next day? That was March 23, 1775. For here are the words he spoke. Shall we try argument? Shall we resort to entreaty? What terms shall we find that have not already been exhausted? We've petitioned, we've remonstrated, we've supplicated, we've been spurned with contempt. There's no longer any room for hope. Is life so dear. I'm still quoting. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take. But as for me, give me liberty or give me death. Patrick Henry. Only now you know the rest of the.