Dear Reader, this was penned for a recent writing class. If I remember correctly, I wanted the scene to take place in Autumn and so adjusted Philip's date of death accordingly. Enjoy!

Mrs. Hortence Rutherford stood just where the fading light could not quite reach beneath the leaves of gold and brown. They stirred as the wind whispered through the frosty twilight, and the sound may have reminded an ordinary observer of the death that hedged in the old oak. But to Mrs. Hortense, the sound brought comfort, for the dead surrounding her merely served as a reminder that the souls of some had risen to eternal glory. Her own husband and son, in fact, were here, resting in the calm and silence, awaiting the resurrection.

But that night in the Trinity churchyard, there was a man bent over freshly turned earth, and his presence disquieted the good Mrs. Hortence; for while she had lost everything, it had been in the name of Freedom, and Freedom was worth any sacrifice, no matter how severe the cost.

As she watched him, she undertook to despise him, for he-he-had lost his son by his own folly. It was a waste, a shame, and worse than that, a scandal. The boy had not even reached a score of years before his father's vanity and pride had cut him down.

Mrs. Hortence, upon hearing the news, upon hearing that Philip Hamilton would be buried at Trinity, had held to the conviction that if his father the colonel were the decent fellow his country had believed him to be before he had published his shocking confession, he would not show his face at this grave.

But the cries of affliction that reached her there under the tree rent her heart. The leaves fell around the father's trembling figure like so many spent dreams, dreams which had withered the moment his son's body had slipped to the bloody dueling ground. The colonel sank to his knees as if the ball that had taken his son had also cut into him. His shoulders heaved with grief, and his anguished words shattered the quiet.

"It should have been me! Would that I could take your place, my darling boy!"

She walked up the stone path toward him. The lamplighter, doing his rounds on the outside of the fence that separated the living from the dead, unknowingly softened the colonel's worn features with gentle light. He had once been a handsome man and still might be called so had despair and loss not pursued him so cruelly.

His sobs softened when he sensed he was not alone. She read the markings on the stone though she had read them every evening for a fortnight on her daily visits to the churchyard.

To the memory of Philip Hamilton

Beloved son of Alexander and Eliza Hamilton

Born at Albany January 22nd, 1782

Died at Weehawken November 24th, 1801

He has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity.

It surprised Mrs. Hortence that she longed to touch the sleeve of the colonel's coat to offer him some solace. If her son had survived the Revolution, he would have been the same age as this grieving man.

"Sooth, colonel," she said. "He has forgiven you."

He turned his tearstained face upon her, took both her hands in his, and wept anew.

And that is how Mrs. Hortence found that not only had all the papers been wrong about this man, but that even compassion may be resurrected.