“
Merne, my boy,” said Thomas Jefferson, when at length they two were alone once more in the little office, “I cannot say what your return means to me. You come as one from the grave—you resurrect another from the grave.”
“Meaning, Mr. Jefferson?——”
“You surely have heard that my administration is in sad disrepute? There is no man in the country hated so bitterly as myself. We are struggling on the very verge of war.”
“I heard some talk in the West, Mr. Jefferson,” hesitated Meriwether Lewis.
“Yes, they called this Louisiana Purchase, on which I had set my heart, nothing but extravagance. The machinations of Colonel Burr have added nothing to its reputation. General Jackson is with Burr, and many other strong friends. And meantime you know where Burr himself is—in the Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration! You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for which I have planned so much, your failure would have cost us all the Mississippi Valley, besides all the valley of the Missouri and the Columbia. Yes, had you not succeeded, Aaron Burr would have succeeded! Instead of a great republic reaching from ocean to ocean, we should have had a scattered coterie of States of no endurance, no continuity, no power. Thank God for the presence of one great, splendid thing gloriously done! You cannot, do not, begin to measure its importance.”
“We are glad that you have been pleased, Mr. Jefferson,” said Lewis simply.
“Pleased! Pleased! Say rather that I am saved! Say rather that this country is saved! Had you proved disloyal to me—had you for any cause turned back,” he went on, “think what had been the result! What a load, although you knew it not, was placed on your shoulders! Suppose that you had turned back on the trail last year, or the summer before—suppose you had not gotten beyond the Mandans—can you measure the difference for this republic? Can you begin to see what responsibility rested on you? Had you failed, you would have dragged the flag of your country in the dust. Had you come back any time before you did, then you might have called yourself the man who ruined his President, his friend, his country!”
“And I nearly did, Mr. Jefferson!” broke out Meriwether Lewis. “Do not praise me too much. I was tempted——”
The old man turned toward him, his face grave.
“You are honest! I value that above all in you—you are punctilious to have no praise not honestly won. Listen, now!” He leaned toward the young man, who sat beside him. “I know—I knew all along—how you were tempted. She came here—Theodosia—the very day you left!”
Lewis nodded, mute.
“In some way, I knew, the conspirators fought against your success and mine. I knew what agencies they intended to use against you—it was this woman! Had you failed, I should have known why. I know many things, whether or not you do. I know the character of Aaron Burr well enough. He has been crazed, carried away by his own ambitions—God alone knows where he would have stopped. He has been a man not surpassed in duplicity. He would stop at nothing. Moreover, he could make black look white. He did so for his daughter. She believed in him absolutely. And knowing somewhat of his plans, I imagined that he would use the attraction of that young lady for you—the power which, all things considered, she might be supposed to possess with you. I knew the depth of your regard for her, the deeper for its hopelessness. And more than all, I knew the intentness and resolution of your character. It was one motive against the other! Which was the stronger? You were a young man—the hot blood of youth was yours, and I know its power. Had the woman not been married, I should have lost! You would have sold a crown for her. It was honor saved you—your personal honor—that was what brought us success. No country is bigger than the personal honor of its gentlemen.”
The bowed head of Meriwether Lewis was his only answer. The keen-faced old man went on:
“I knew that before you had left the mouth of the Ohio River he would do his best to stop you—I knew it before you had left Harper’s Ferry; but I placed the issue in the lap of the gods. I applied to you all the tests—the severest tests—that one man can to another. I let you alone! For a year, two years, three years, I did not know. But now I do know; and the answer is yonder flag which you have carried from one ocean to the other. The answer is in this map, all these hides scrawled in coal—all those new thousands of miles of land—our land. God keep it safe for us always! And may the people one day know who really secured it for them! It was not so much Thomas Jefferson as it was Meriwether Lewis.
“Each time I dreamed that my subtle enemies were tempting you, I prayed in my own soul that you would be strong; that you would go on; that you would be loyal to your duty, no matter what the cost. God answered those prayers, my boy! Whatever was your need, whatever price you paid, you did what I prayed you would do. When the months passed and you did not come back, I knew that not even the woman you loved could have called you back. I knew that you had learned the priceless lesson of renunciation, of sacrifice, through which alone the great deeds of the world always have been done.”
Meriwether Lewis stood before his chief, cold and pale, unable to complete much speech. Thomas Jefferson looked at him for a moment before he went on.
“My boy, you are so simple that you will not understand. You do not understand how well I understand you! These things are not done without cost. If there was punishment for you, you took that punishment—or you will! You kept your oath as an officer and your unwritten oath as a gentleman. It is a great thing for a man to have his honor altogether unsullied.”
“Mr. Jefferson!” The young man before him lifted a hand. His face was ghastly pale. “Do not,” said he. “Do not, I beg of you!”
“What is it, Merne?” exclaimed the old man. “What have I done?”
“You speak of my honor. Do not! Indeed, you touch me deep.”
Thomas Jefferson, wise old man, raised a hand.
“I shall never listen, my son,” said he. “I will accord to you the right of hot blood to run hot—you would not be a man worth knowing were it not so. All I know or will know is that whatever the price, you have paid it—or will pay it! But tell me, Merne, can you not tear her from your soul? It will ruin you, this hopeless attachment which you cherish. Is it always to remain with you? I bid you find some other woman. The best in the land are waiting for you.”
“Mr. Jefferson, I shall never marry.”
The two sat looking into each other’s eyes for just a moment. Said Thomas Jefferson at length, slowly:
“So! You have come back with all happiness, all success, for me and for others—but not for yourself! Such proving as you have had has fallen to the lot of but few men. I know now how great has been the cost—I see it in your face. The fifteen millions I paid for yonder lands was nothing. We have bought them with the happiness of a human soul! The transient gratitude of this republic—the honor of that little paper—bah, they are nothing! But perhaps it may be something for you to know that at least one friend understands.”
Lewis did not speak.
“What is lost is lost,” the President began again after a time. “What is broken is broken. But see how clearly I look into your soul. You are not thinking now of what you can do for yourself. You are not thinking of your new rank, your honors. You are asking now, at this moment, what you can do for her! Is it not so?”
The smile that came upon the young man’s face was a beautiful, a wonderful thing to see. It made the wise old man sad to see it—but thoughtful, too.
“She is at Richmond, Merne?” said Mr. Jefferson a moment later.
The young man nodded.
“And the greatest boon she could ask would be her father’s freedom—the freedom of the man who sought to ruin this country—the man whom I scarcely dare release.”
The thin lips compressed for a moment. It was not in implacable, vengeful zeal—it was but in thought.
“Now, then,” said Thomas Jefferson sharply, “there comes a veil, a curtain, between you and me and all the world. No record must show that either of us raised a hand against the full action of the law, or planned that Colonel Burr should not suffer the full penalty of the code. Yes, for him that is true—but not for his daughter!”
“Mr. Jefferson!” The face of Meriwether Lewis was strangely moved. “I see the actual greatness of your soul; but I ask nothing.”
“Why, in my heart I feel like flinging open every prison door in the world. If you have gained an empire for your country, and paid for it as you have, could not a great and rich country afford to pay to the extent of a woman’s happiness? When a king is crowned, he sets free the criminals. And this day I feel as proud and happy as if I were a king—and king of the greatest empire of all the world! I know well who assured that kingdom. Let me be, then”—he raised his long hand—“say nothing, do nothing. And let this end all talk between us of these matters. I know you can keep your own counsel.”
Lewis bowed silently.
“Go to Richmond, Merne. You will find there a broken conspirator and his unhappy daughter. Both are ostracized. None is so poor as to do either of them reverence. She has no door opened to her now, though but lately she was daughter of the Vice-President, the rich Mrs. Alston, wife of the Governor of her State. Go to them now. Tell Colonel Burr that the President will not ask mercy for him. John Marshall is on the bench there; but before him is a jury—John Randolph is foreman of that jury. It is there that case will be tried—in the jury room; and politics will try it! Go to Theodosia, Merne, in her desperate need.”
“But what can I do, Mr. Jefferson?” broke out his listener.
“Do precisely what I tell you. Go to that social outcast. Take her on your arm before all the world—and before that jury! Sit there, before all Richmond—and that jury. An hour or so will do. Do that, and then, as I did when I trusted you, ask no questions, but leave it on the knees of the gods. If you can call me chief in other matters,” the President concluded, “and can call me chief in that fashion of thought which men call religion as well, let me give you unction and absolution, my son. It is all that I have to give to one whom I have always loved as if he were my own son. This is all I can do for you. It may fail; but I would rather trust that jury to be right than trust myself today; because, I repeat, I feel like flinging open every prison door in all the world, and telling every erring, stumbling man to try once more to do what his soul tells him he ought to do!”
In Richmond jail lay Aaron Burr, the great conspirator, the ruins of his ambition fallen about him. He had found a prison instead of a palace. He was eager no longer to gain a scepter, but only to escape a noose.
The great conspiracy was at an end. The only question was of the punishment the accused should have—for in the general belief he was certain of conviction. That he never was convicted has always been one of the most mysterious facts of a mysterious chapter in our national development.
So crowded were the hostelries of Richmond that a stranger would have had difficulty in finding lodging there during the six months of the Burr trial. Not so with Meriwether Lewis, now one of the country’s famous men. A score of homes opened their doors to him. The town buzzed over his appearance. He had once been the friend of Burr, always the friend of Jefferson. To which side now would he lean.
Luther Martin, chief of Burr’s counsel, was eager above all to have a word with Meriwether Lewis, so close to affairs in Washington, possibly so useful to himself. Washington Irving, too, assistant to Martin in the great trial, would gladly have had talk with him. All asked what his errand might be. What was the leaning of the Governor of the new Territory, a man closer to the administration at Washington than any other?
Meriwether Lewis kept his own counsel. He arranged first to see Burr himself. The meagerly furnished anteroom of the Federal prison in Richmond was the discredited adventurer’s reception-hall in those days.
Burr advanced to meet his visitor with something of his own old haughtiness of mien, a little of the former brilliance of his eye.
“Governor, I am delighted to see you, back safe and sound from your journey. My congratulations, sir!”
Meriwether Lewis made no reply, but gazed at him steadily, well aware of the stinging sarcasm of his words.
“I have few friends now,” said Aaron Burr. “You have many. You are on the flood tide—it ebbs for me. When one loses, what mercy is shown to him? That scoundrel Merry—he promised everything and gave nothing! Yrujo—he is worse yet in his treachery. Even the French minister, Turreau—who surely might listen to the wishes of the great French population of the Mississippi Valley—pays no attention to their petitions whatever, and none to mine. These were my former friends! I promised them a country.”
“You promised them a country, Colonel Burr—from what?”
“From that great ownerless land yonder, the West. But they waited and waited, until your success was sure. Why, that scoundrel Merry is here this very day—the effrontery of him! He wants nothing more to do with me. No, he is here to undertake to recoup himself in his own losses by reasons of moneys he advanced to me some time ago. He is importuning my son-in-law, Mr. Alston, to pay him back those funds—which once he was so ready to furnish to us. But Mr. Alston is ruined—I am ruined—we are all ruined. No, they waited too long!”
“They waited until it was too late, yes,” Lewis returned. “That country is American now, not British or Spanish or French. Our men are passing across the river in thousands. They will never loose their hold on the West. It was treason to the future that you planned—but it was hopeless from the first!”
“It would seem, sir,” said Aaron Burr, a cynical smile twisting his thin lip, “that I may not count upon your friendship!”
“That is a hard speech, Colonel Burr. I was your friend.”
“More than your chief ever was! I fancy Mr. Jefferson would like to see me pilloried, drawn and quartered, after the old way.”
“You are unjust to him. You struck at the greatest ambition of his life—struck at his heart and the heart of his country—when you undertook to separate the West from this republic.”
“I am a plain man, and a busy man,” said Aaron Burr coldly. “I must employ my time now to the betterment of my situation. I have failed, and you have won. But let me throw the cloak aside, since I know you can be of no service to me. I care not what punishment you may have—what suffering—because I recognize in you the one great cause of my failure. It was you, sir, with your cursed expedition, that defeated Aaron Burr!”
He turned, proud and defiant even in his failure, and when Meriwether Lewis looked up he was gone.
Even as Burr passed, Meriwether Lewis heard a light step in the long corridor. Under guard of the turnkey, some one stood at the door. It was the figure of a woman—a figure which caused him to halt, caused his heart to leap!
She came toward him now, all in mourning black—hat, gown, and gloves. Her face was pale, her eyes deep, her mouth drooping. Theodosia Alston was always thus on her daily visit to her father’s cell.
Herself the picture of failure and despair, she was used to avoiding the eyes of all; but she saw Meriwether Lewis standing before her, strong, tall, splendid in his manhood and vigor, in the full tide of his success. She was almost in touch of his hand when she raised her eyes to his.
These two had met at last, after what far wanderings apart! They had met as if each came from the Valley of the Shadows. Out of the vastness of the unknown, over all those long and devious trails, into what now seemed to him a world still more vast, more fraught with desperate peril, he had come back to her. And she—what had been her perils? What were her thoughts?
As his eye fell upon her, even as his keen ear had known her coming, the hand of Meriwether Lewis half unconsciously went to his breast. He felt under it the packet of faded letters which he had so long kept with him—which in some way he felt to be his talisman.
Yes, it was for this that he had had them! His love and hers—this had been his shield through all. What he saw in her grave face, her mournful eyes uplifted to his own—this was the solution of the riddle of his life, the reason for his moods of melancholy, the answer to a thousand unspoken prayers. He felt his heart thrill strong and full, felt his blood spring in strong current through his veins, until they strained, until he felt his nerves tingle as he stood, silent, endeavoring to still the tumult within him, now that he knew the great and satisfying truth of truths.
To her he was—what? A tall and handsome gentleman, immaculately clad, Governor of the newest of our Territories—the largest and richest realm ever laid under the rule of any viceroy. A bystander might have pondered on such things, but Meriwether Lewis had no thought of them, nor had the woman who looked up at him. No, to her eyes there stood only the man who made her blood leap, her soul cry out:
“Yea! Yea! Now I know!”
To her also, from the divine compassion, was given answer for her questionings. She knew that life for her, even though it ended now, had been no blind puzzle, after all, but was a glorious and perfect thing. She had called to him across the deep, and he had heard and come! From the very grave itself he had arisen and come again to her!
Even here under the shadow of the gallows—even if, as both knew in their supreme renunciation, they must part and never meet again—for them both there could be peaceful calm, with all life’s questions answered, beautifully and surely answered, never again to rise for conquering.
“Sir—Captain—that is to say, Governor Lewis,” she corrected herself, “I was not expecting you.”
Her tone seemed icy, though her soul was in her eyes. She was all upon the defense, as Lewis instantly understood. He took her hand in both of his own, and looked into her face.
She gazed up at him, and swiftly, mercifully, the tears came. Gently, as if she had been a child, he dried them for her—as once when a boy, he had promised to do. They were alone now. The cold silence of the prison was about them; but their own long silence seemed a golden, glowing thing. Thus only—in their silence—could they speak. They did not know that they stood hand in hand.
“My husband is not here,” said she at length, gently disengaging her hand from his. “No one knows me now, every one avoids me. You must not be seen with me—a pariah, an outcast! I am my father’s only friend. Already they condemn him; yet he is as innocent as any man ever was.”
“I shall say no word to change that belief,” said Meriwether Lewis. “But your husband is not here? It is he whom I must see at once.”
“Why must you see him?”
“You must know! It is my duty to go to him and to tell him that I am the man who—who made you weep. He must have his satisfaction. Nothing that he can do will punish me as my own conscience has already punished me. It is no use—I shall not ask you to forgive me—I will not be so cheap.”
“But—suppose he does not know?”
He could only stand silent, regarding her fixedly.
“He must never know!” she went on. “It is no time for quixotism to make yet another suffer. We two must be strong enough to carry our own secret. It is better and kinder that it should be between two than among three. I thought you dead. Let the past remain past—let it bury its own dead!”
“It is our time of reckoning,” said he, at length. “Guilty as I have been, sinning as I have sinned—tell me, was I alone in the wrong? Listen. Those who joined your father’s cause were asked to join in treason to their country. What he purposed was treason. Tell me, did you know this when you came to me?”
He saw the quick pain upon her face, the flush that rose to her pale cheek. She drew herself up proudly.
“I shall not answer that!” said she.
“No!” he exclaimed, swiftly contrite. “Nor shall I ask it. Forgive me! You never knew—you were innocent. You do right not to answer such a question.”
“I only wanted you to be happy—that was my one desire.”
She looked aside, and a moment passed before she heard his deep voice reply.
“Happy! I am the most unhappy man in all the world. Happiness? No—rags, shreds, patches of happiness—that is all that is left of happiness for us, as men and women usually count it. But tell me, what would make you most happy now, of these things remaining? I have come back to pay my debts. Is there anything I can do? What would make you happiest?”
“My father’s freedom!”
“I cannot promise that; but all that I can do I will.”
“Were my father guilty, that would be the act of a noble mind. But how? You are Mr. Jefferson’s friend, not the friend of Aaron Burr. All the world knows that.”
“Precisely. All the world knows that, or thinks it does. It thinks it knows that Mr. Jefferson is implacable. But suppose all the world were set to wondering? I am just wondering myself if it would be right to suborn a juryman, like John Randolph of Roanoke!”[6]
“That is impossible. What do you mean?”
“I mean this. This afternoon you and I will go into the trial-room together. I have not yet attended a session of the court. Today I will hand you to your seat in full sight of the jury box.”
“You—give your presence to one who is now a social pariah? The ladies of Richmond no longer speak to me. But to what purpose?”
“Perhaps to small purpose. I cannot tell. But let us suppose that I go with you, and that we sit there in sight of all. I am known to be the intimate friend of Mr. Jefferson. Ergo——”
“Ergo, Mr. Jefferson is not hostile to us! And you would do that—you would take that chance?”
“For you.”
And he did—for her! That afternoon all the crowded court-room saw the beadle make way for two persons of importance. One was a tall, grave, distinguished-looking man, impassive, calm, a man whose face was known to all—the new Governor of Louisiana, viceroy of the country that Burr had lost. Upon his arm, pale, clad all in black, walked the daughter of the prisoner at the bar!
Was it in defiance or in compliance that this act was done? Was it by orders, or against orders, or without orders, that the President’s best friend walked in public, before all the world, with the daughter of the President’s worst enemy? It was the guess of anybody and the query of all.
There, in full view of all the attendants, in full view of the jury—and of John Randolph of Roanoke, its foreman—sat the two persons who had had most to do with this scene of which they now made a part. There sat the man who had explored the great West, and the woman who had done her best to prevent that exploration; Mr. Jefferson’s friend, and the daughter of the great conspirator, Aaron Burr. Ergo, ergo, said many tongues swiftly—and leaned head to head to whisper it. Mind sometimes speaks to mind—even across the rail of a jury-box. Sympathy runs deep and swift sometimes. All the world loved Meriwether Lewis then, would favor him—or favor what he favored.
The issue of that great trial was not to come for weeks as yet; but when it came, and by whatever process, Aaron Burr was acquitted of the charges brought against him. The republic for whose downfall he had plotted set him free and bade him begone.
But now, at the close of this day, the two central figures of the tragic drama found themselves together once more. They could be alone nowhere but in the prison room; and it was there that they parted.
Between them, as they stood now at last, about to part, there stretched an abysmal gulf which might never personally be passed by either.
She faced him at length, trembling, pleading, helpless.
“How mighty a thing is a man’s sense of honor!” she said slowly. “You have done what I never would have asked you to do, and I am glad that you did. I once asked you to do what you would not do, and I am glad that you did not. How can I repay you for what you have done today? I cannot tell how, but I feel that you have turned the tide for us. Ah, if ever you felt that you owed me anything, it is paid—all your debt to me and mine. See, I no longer weep. You have dried my tears!”
“We cannot balance debits and credits,” he replied. “There is no way in the world in which you and I can cry quits. Only one thing is sure—I must go!”
“I cannot say good-by!” said she. “Ah, do not ask me that! We are but beginning now. Oh, see! see!”
He looked at her still, an unspeakable sadness in his gaze—at her hand, extended pleadingly toward him.
“Won’t you take my hand, Merne?” said she. “Won’t you?”
“I dare not,” said he hoarsely. “No, I dare not!”
“Why? Do you wish to leave me still feeling that I am in your debt? You can afford so much now,” she said brokenly, “for those who have not won!”
“Think you that I have won?” he broke out. “Theodosia—Theo—I shall call you by your old name just once—I do not take your hand—I dare not touch you—because I love you! I always shall. God help me, it is the truth!”
“Did you get my letters?” she said suddenly, and looked him fair in the face.
Meriwether Lewis stood searching her countenance with his own grave eyes.
“Letters?” said he at length. “What letters?”
Her eyes looked up at him luminously.
“You are glorious!” said she. “Yes, a woman’s name would be safe with you. You are strong. How terrible a thing is a sense of honor! But you are glorious! Good-by!”
Allied in fortunes as they had been in friendship, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark went on side by side in their new labors in the capital of that great land which they had won for the republic. Their offices in title were distinct, yet scarcely so in fact, for each helped the other, as they had always done.
To these two men the new Territory of Louisiana owed not only its discovery, but its early passing over to the day of law and order. No other men could have done what they did in that time of disorder and change, when, rolling to the West in countless waves, came the white men, following the bee, crossing the great river, striking out into the new lands, a headstrong, turbulent, and lawless population.
A thousand new and petty cares came to Governor Lewis. He passed from one duty to another, from one part of his vast province to another, traveling continually with the crude methods of transportation of that period, and busy night and day. Courts must be established. The compilation of the archives must be cared for. Records must be instituted to clear up the swarm of conflicts over land-titles. Scores of new duties arose, and scores of new remedies needed to be devised.
The first figure of the growing capital of St. Louis, the new Governor was also the central figure of all social activities, the cynosure of all eyes. But the laughing belles of St. Louis at length sighed and gave him up—they loved him as Governor, since they might not as man. Wise, firm, deliberate, kind, sad—he was an old man now, though still young in years.
Scattered up and down the great valley, above and below St. Louis, and harboring in that town, were many of the late adherents of Burr’s broken conspiracy. These liked not the oncoming of the American government, enforced by so rigid an executive as the one who now held power. Threats came to the ears of Meriwether Lewis, who was hated by the Burr adherents as the cause of their discomfiture; but he, wholly devoid of the fear of any man, only laughed at them. Honest and blameless, it was difficult for any enemy to injure him, and no man cared to meet Meriwether Lewis in the open.
But at last one means of attack was found. Once more—the last time—the great heart of a noble man was pierced.
“Will,” said he to his friend, as they met at William Clark’s home, according to their frequent custom, “I am in trouble.”
“Fancied trouble, Merne,” said Clark. “You’re always finding it!”
“Would I might call it fancied! But this is something in the way of facts, and very stubborn facts. See here”—he held out certain papers in his hand—“by this morning’s mail I get back these bills protested—protested by the government at Washington! And they are bills that I have drawn to pay the expenses of administering my office here.”
“Tut, tut!” said William Clark gravely. “Come, let us see.”
“Look here, and here! Will, you know that I am a man of no great fortune. You also know that I have made certain enemies in this country. But now I am not supported by my own government. I am ruined—I am a broken man! Did you think that this country could do that for either of us?”
“But Merne, you, the soul of honor——”
“Some enemy has done this! What influences have been set to work, I cannot say; but here are the bills, and there are others out in other hands—also protested, I have no doubt. I am publicly discredited, disgraced. I know not what has been said of me at Washington.”
“That is the trouble,” said William Clark slowly. “Washington is so far. But now, you must not let this trouble you. ’Tis only some six-dollar-a-week clerk in Washington that has done it. You must not consider it to be the deliberate act of any responsible head of the government. You take things too hard, Merne. I will not have you brooding over this—it will never do. You have the megrims often enough, as it is. Come here and kiss the baby! He is named for you, Meriwether Lewis—and he has two teeth. Sit down and behave yourself. Judy will be here in a minute. You are among your friends. Do not grieve. ’Twill all come well!”
This was in the year 1809. Mr. Jefferson’s embargo on foreign trade had paralyzed all Western commerce. Our ships lay idle; our crops rotted; there was no market. The name of Jefferson was now in general execration. In March, when his second term as President expired, he had retired to private life at Monticello. He had written his last message to Congress that very spring, in which he said of the people of his country:
I trust that in their steady character, unshaken by difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and support of the public authorities, I see a sure guarantee of the permanence of our republic; and retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry with me the consolation of a firm persuasion that Heaven has in store for our beloved country long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.
Whatever the veering self-interest of others led them to think or do regarding the memory of that great man, Meriwether Lewis trusted Thomas Jefferson absolutely, and relied wholly on his friendship and his counsel. Now, in the hour of trouble, he resolved to journey to Monticello to ask the advice of his old chief, as he had always done.
In this he was well supported by his friend Dr. Saugrain.
“You are ill, Governor—you have the fever of these lands,” urged that worthy. “By all means leave this country and go back to the East. Go by way of New Orleans and the sea. The voyage will do you much good.”
“Peria,” said Meriwether Lewis to his French servant and attendant, “make ready my papers for my journey. Have a small case, such as can be carried on horseback. I must take with me all my journals, my maps, and certain of the records of my office here. Get my old spyglass; I may need it, and I always fancy to have it with me when I travel, as was my custom in the West. Secure for our costs in travel some gold—three or four hundred dollars, I imagine. I will take some in my belt, and give the rest to you for the saddle-trunk.”
“Your Excellency plans to go by land, then, and not by sea?”
“I do not know. I must save all the time possible. And Peria——”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Have my pistols well cared for, and your own as well. See that my small powder-canister, with bullets, is with them in the holsters. The trails are none too safe. Be careful whom you advise of our plans. My business is of private nature, and I do not wish to be disturbed. And here, take my watch,” he concluded. “It was given to me by a friend—a good friend, Mr. Wirt, and I prize it very much—so much that I fear to have it on my person. Care for it in the saddle-trunk.”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Do not call me ‘Excellency’—I detest the title! I am Governor Lewis, and may so be distinguished. Go now, and do as I have told you. We shall need about ten men to man the barge. Arrange it. Have our goods ready for an early start tomorrow morning.”
All that night, sleepless, fevered, almost distracted, Meriwether Lewis sat at his desk, writing, or endeavoring to write, with what matters upon his soul we may not ask. But the long night wore away at last, and morning came, a morning of the early fall, beautiful as it may be only in that latitude. Without having closed his eyes in sleep, the Governor made ready for his journey to the East.
Whether or not Peria was faithful to all his instructions one cannot say, but certainly all St. Louis knew of the intended departure of the Governor. They loved him, these folk, trusted him, would miss him now, and they gathered almost en masse to bid him godspeed upon his journey.
“These papers for Mr. Jefferson, Governor—certain land-titles, of which we spoke to him last year. Do you not remember?” Thus Chouteau, always busy with affairs.
“These samples of cloth and of satin, Governor,” said a dark-eyed French girl, smiling up at him. “Would you match them for me in the East? I am to be married in the spring!”
“The price of furs—learn of that, Governor, if you can, while on your journey. The embargo has ruined the trade in all this inland country!” It was Manuel Liza, swarthy, taciturn, who thus voiced a general feeling.
“Books, more books, my son!” implored Dr. Saugrain. “We are growing here—I must keep up with the surgery of the day; I must know the new discoveries in medicine. Bring me books. And take this little case of medicines. You are ill, my son—the fever has you!”
“My people—they mourn for me as dead,” said Big White, the Mandan, who had never returned to his people up the Missouri River since the repulse of his convoy by the Sioux. “Tell the Great Father that he must send me soldiers to take me back home to my people. My heart is poor!”
“Governor, see if you can get me an artificial limb of some sort while you are in the East.”
It was young George Shannon who said this, leaning on his crutch. Shannon had not long ago returned from another trip up the river, where in an encounter with the Sioux he had received a wound which cost him a leg and almost cost him his life—though later, as has already been said, he was to become a noted figure at the bar of the State of Kentucky.
“Yes! Yes, and yes!” Their leader, punctilious as he was kind, agreed to all these commissions—prizing them, indeed, as proof of the confidence of his people.
He was ready to depart, but stood still, looking about for the tall figure which presently he saw advancing through the throng—a tall man with wide mouth and sunny hair, with blue eye and stalwart frame—William Clark—the friend whom he loved so much, and whom he was now to see for the last time.
General Clark carried upon his arm the baby which had been named after the Governor of the new Territory. Lewis took him from his father’s arms and pressed the child’s cool face to his own, suddenly trembling a little about his own lips as he felt the tender flesh of the infant. No child of his own might he ever hold thus! He gave him back with a last look into the face of his friend.
“Good-by, Will!” said he.
The Governor’s barge swept down the rolling flood of the Mississippi, impelled by the blades of ten sturdy oarsmen. Little by little the blue smoke of St. Louis town faded beyond the level of the forest. The stone tower of the old Spanish stockade, where floated the American flag, disappeared finally.
Meriwether Lewis sat staring back, but seeming not to note what passed. He did not even notice a long bateau which left the wharf just before his own and preceded him down the river, now loafing along aimlessly, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind that of the Governor and his party. In time he turned to his lap-desk and began his endless task of writing, examining, revising. Now and again he muttered to himself. The fever was indeed in his blood!
They proceeded thus, after the usual fashion of boat travel in those days, down the great river, until they had passed the mouth of the Ohio and reached what was known as the Chickasaw Bluffs, below the confluence of the two streams. Here was a little post of the army, arranged for the commander, Major Neely, Indian agent at that point.
As was the custom, all barges tied up here; and the Governor’s craft moored at the foot of the bluff. Its chief passenger was so weak that he hardly could walk up the steep steps cut in the muddy front of the bank.
“Governor Lewis!” exclaimed Major Neely, as he met him. “You are ill! You are in an ague!”
“Perhaps, perhaps. Give me rest here for a day or two, if you please. Then I fancy I shall be strong enough to travel East. See if you can get horses for myself and my party—I am resolved not to go by sea. I have not time.”
The Governor of Louisiana, haggard, flushed with fever, staggered as he followed his friend into the apartment assigned to him in one of the cabins of the little post. He wore his usual traveling-garb; but now, for some strange reason he seemed to lack his usual immaculate neatness. Instead of the formal dress of his office, he wore an old, stained, faded uniform coat, its pocket bulging with papers. This he kept at the head of his bed when at length he flung himself down, almost in the delirium of fever.
He lay here for two days, restless, sleepless. But at length, having in the mean time scarcely tasted food, he rose and declared that he must go on.
“Major,” said he, “I can ride now. Have you horses for the journey?”
“Are you sure, Governor, that your strength is sufficient?” Neely hesitated as he looked at the wasted form before him, at the hollow eye, the fevered face.
“It is not a question of my personal convenience, Major,” said Meriwether Lewis. “Time presses for me. I must go on!”
“At least you shall not go alone,” said Major Neely. “You should have some escort. Doubtless you have important papers?”
Meriwether Lewis nodded.
“My servant has arranged everything, I fancy. Can you get an extra man or two? The Natchez Trace is none too safe.”
That military road, as they both knew, was indeed no more than a horse path cut through the trackless forest which lay across the States of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. Its reputation was not good. Many a trader passing north from New Orleans with coin, many a settler passing west with packhorses and household effects, had disappeared on this wilderness road, and left no sign. It was customary for parties of any consequence to ride in companies of some force.
It was a considerable cavalcade, therefore, which presently set forth from Chickasaw Bluffs on the long ride eastward to cross the Alleghanies, which meant some days or weeks spent in the saddle. Apprehension sat upon all, even as they started out. Their eyes rested upon the wasted form of their leader, the delirium of whose fever seemed still to hold him. He muttered to himself as he rode, resented the near approach of any traveling companion, demanded to be alone. They looked at him in silence.
“He talks to himself all the time,” said one of the party—a new man, hired by Neely at the army post. He rode with Peria now; and none but Peria knew that he had come from the long barge which had clung to the Governor’s craft all the way down the river—and which, unknown to Lewis himself, had tied up and waited at Chickasaw Bluffs. He was a stranger to Neely and to all the others, but seemed ready enough to take pay for service along the Trace, declaring that he himself was intending to go that way. He was a man well dressed, apparently of education and of some means. He rode armed.
“What is wrong with the Governor, think you?” inquired this man once more of Peria, Lewis’s servant.
“It is his way,” shrugged Peria. “We leave him alone. His hand is heavy when he is angry.”
“He rides always with his rifle across his saddle?”
“Always, on the trail.”
“Loaded, I presume—and his pistols?”
“You may well suppose that,” said Peria.
“Oh, well,” said the new member of the party, “’tis just as well to be safe. I lifted his saddlebags and the desk, or trunk, whatever you call it, that is on the pack horse yonder. Heavy, eh?”
“Naturally,” grinned Peria.
They looked at one another. And thereafter the two, as was well noted, conversed often and more intimately together as the journey progressed.
“Now it’s an odd thing about his coat,” volunteered the stranger later in that same day. “He always keeps it on—that ragged old uniform. Was it a uniform, do you believe? Can’t the Governor of the new Territory wear a coat that shows his own quality? This one’s a dozen years old, you might say.”
“He always wears it on the trail,” said Peria. “At home he watches it as if it held some treasure.”
“Treasure?” The shifty eyes of the new man flashed in sudden interest. “What treasure? Papers, perhaps—bills—documents—money? His pocket bulges at the side. Something there—yes, eh?”
“Hush!” said Peria. “You do not know that man, the Governor. He has the eye of a hawk, the ear of a fox—you can keep nothing from him. He fears nothing in the world, and in his moods—you’d best leave him alone. Don’t let him suspect, or——” And Peria shook his head.
The cavalcade was well out into the wilderness east of the Mississippi on that afternoon of October 8, in the year 1809. Stopping at the wayside taverns which now and then were found, they had progressed perhaps a hundred miles to the eastward. The day was drawing toward its close when Peria rode up and announced that one or two of the horses had strayed from the trail.
“I have told you to be more careful, Peria,” expostulated Governor Lewis. “There are articles on the packhorse which I need at night. Who is this new man that is so careless? Why do you not keep the horses up? Go, then, and get them. Major Neely, would you be so kind as to join the men and assure them of bringing on the horses?”
“And what of you, Governor?”
“I shall go on ahead, if you please. Is there no house near by? You know the trail. Perhaps we can get lodgings not far on.”
“The first white man’s house beyond here,” answered Neely, “belongs to an old man named Grinder. ’Tis no more than a few miles ahead. Suppose we join you there?”
“Agreed,” said Lewis, and setting spurs to his horse, he left them.
It was late in the evening when at length Meriwether Lewis reined up in front of the somewhat unattractive Grinder homestead cabin, squatted down alongside the Natchez Trace; a place where sometimes hospitality of a sort was dispensed. It was an ordinary double cabin that he saw, two cob-house apartments with a covered space between such as might have been found anywhere for hundreds of miles on either side of the Alleghanies at that time. At his call there appeared a woman—Mrs. Grinder, she announced herself.
“Madam,” he inquired, “could you entertain me and my party for the night? I am alone at present, but my servants will soon be up. They are on the trail in search of some horses which have strayed.”
“My husband is not here,” said the woman. “We are not well fixed, but I reckon if we can stand it all the time, you can for a night. How many air there in your party?”
“A half-dozen, with an extra horse or two.”
“I reckon we can fix ye up. Light down and come in.”
She was noting well her guest, and her shrewd eyes determined him to be no common man. He had the bearing of a gentleman, the carriage of a man used to command. Certain of his garments seemed to show wealth, although she noted, when he stripped off his traveling-smock, that he wore not a new coat, but an old one—very old, she would have said, soiled, stained, faded. It looked as if it had once been part of a uniform.
Her guest, whoever he was—and she neither knew nor asked, for the wilderness tavern held no register, and few questions were asked or answered—paid small attention to the woman. He carried his saddlebags into the room pointed out to him, flung them down, and began to pace up and down, sometimes talking to himself. The woman eyed him from time to time as she went about her duties.
“Set up and eat,” she said at last. “I reckon your men are not coming.”
“I thank you, Madam,” said the stranger, with gentle courtesy. “Do not let me trouble you too much. I have been ill of late, and do not as yet experience much hunger.”
Indeed, he scarcely tasted the food. He sat, as she noted, a long time, gazing fixedly out of the door, over the forest, toward the West.
“Is it not a beautiful world, Madam?” said he, after a time, in a voice of great gentleness and charm. “I have seen the forest often thus in the West in the evening, when the day was done. It is wonderful!”
“Yes. Some of my folks is thinking of going out further into the West.”
He turned to her abstractedly, yet endeavoring to be courteous.
“A wonderful country, Madam!” said he; and so he fell again into his moody staring out beyond the door.
After a time the hostess of the backwoods cabin sought to make up a bed for him, but he motioned to her to desist.
“It is not necessary,” said he. “I have slept so much in the open that ’tis rarely I use a bed at all. I see now that my servant has come up, and is in the yard yonder. Tell him to bring my robes and blankets and spread them here on the floor, as I always have them. That will answer quite well enough, thank you.”
Peria, it seemed, had by this time found his way to the cabin along the trail. He was alone.
“Come, man!” said Lewis. “Make down my bed for me—I am ill. And tell me, where is my powder? Where are the bullets for my pistols? I find them empty. Haven’t I told you to be more careful about these things? And where is my rifle-powder? The canister is here, but ’tis empty. Come, come, I must have better service than this!”
But even as he chided the remissness of his servant, he seemed to forget the matter in his mind. Presently he was again pacing apart, stopping now and then to stare out over the forest.
“I must have a place to write,” said he at length. “I shall be awake for a time tonight, occupied with business matters of importance. Where is Major Neely? Where are the other men? Why have they not come up?”
Peria could not or did not answer these questions, but sullenly went about the business of making his master as comfortable as he might, and then departed to his own quarters, down the hill, in another building. The old backwoods woman herself withdrew to the other apartment, beyond the open space of the double cabin.
The soft, velvet darkness of night in the forest now came on apace—a night of silence. There was not even the call of a tree toad. The voice of the whippoorwill was stilled at that season of the year. If there were human beings awake, alert, at that time, they made no sound. Meriwether Lewis was alone—alone in the wilderness again. Its silences, its mysteries, drew about him.
But now he stood, not enjoying in his usual fashion the familiar feeling of the night in the forest, the calm, the repose it customarily brought to him. He stood looking intently, as if he expected some one—nay, indeed, as if he saw some one—as if he saw a face! What face was it?
At last he made his way across the room to the heavy saddle-case which had been placed there. He flung the lid open, and felt among the contents. It seemed to him there was not so much within the case as there should have been. He missed certain papers, and resolved to ask Peria about them. He could not find the little bags of coin which he expected; but he found the watch, lying covered in a corner of the case. He drew it out and, stepping toward the flickering candle, opened it, gazing fixedly at the little silhouette cut round to fit in the back of the case.
It was a face that he had seen before—a hundred times he had gazed thus at it on the far Western trails.
He brought the little portrait close up to his eyes—but not close to his lips. No, he did not kiss the face of the woman who once had written to him: