Daily National Intelligencer

A HEROINE

The following singular achievement occurred in this neighborhood a few nights since. We record it as an example of that happy presence of mind and resolution in the weaker sex, which are worthy of imitation.

The heroine of the story is the wife of a militia man, who is now serving his tour of duty at Norfolk. They are poor but respectable persons, who live in the county of Hanover, about 10 or 12 miles from this city. Their house is near the farm of a Mr. Bootwright: it is small, and has but a single room to it.—The woman is a mother, with an infant about 4 months old. A few nights since she had retired to bed, lonely and unprotected, with no one but her sleeping infant beside her. The night was dark and rainy—the feeble light of the fire, alone glimmered in the room.

Amidst such a scene, so cheerless and full of gloom: so well calculated to excite the fears of women, she was disturbed by a sudden rap at the door.—She asked who was there? A gruff and authoritative voice demanded an entrance. She again enquired the name of the intruder. The person without replied, that if she did not open the door immediately, he would break it open? She begged him to wait for a moment and she would let him in.—Having huddled on a few clothes and thrown some lightwood upon the fire, she opened the door, and was surprised to find a negro, a male, a slave of her neighbor, Mr. Bootwright's! She demanded of him what he wanted.—He informed her, with an authoritative air, that he had come to sleep with her. Being acquainted with the fellow, she replied with more confidence than she could otherwise have assumed, that he must be drunk and out of his senses. "None of your airs, (replied the ruffian) my mind is made up, I will sleep in that bed to-night, or take your life." Terrified by his manner, made desperate by her situation, yet determined to yield her life rather than submit to his wishes, she yet had courage enough to devise a scheme for her escape, which she carried into instant execution. Looking down at his feet, she discovered that they were muddy—"Why (says she) you cannot think to sleep in my bed with such feet as these—you must wash them." The fellow thinking himself on the eve of accomplishing his wishes, very readily assented to the terms. And she pouring some water into a noggin, seated him in a chair, on the hearth, with his back towards the rest of the room. Stepping back, she seized an axe which lay on the table near the door, and ere the splushing of the water over his feet permitted him to suspect her intentions, she whirled the axe with such tremendous effect upon his skull, that he fell dead from his seat. She caught up her child, rushed out of the house, and made the best of her way through the rain and gloom of the night to her neighbor Mr Bootwright. To him she disclosed the terrific events which had just transpired; when he replied, in a manner that does him credit, 'that he was sorry to lose such a fellow: but, that so far from blaming her, he commended the spirit which she had exhibited in the defence of her virtue.' Persons were immediately sent to the scene of these transactions, when the evidence of her heroism were placed before them. So effectual was the blow which he had received, so powerfully had her arm, nerved by desperation and terror, fallen upon his skull, that in the act of tumbling into the hearth from his stooping posture, his brains had fallen from their cavity into the noggin between his feet.

Richmond Enq.