Altsheler, Joseph - [Novel 05] Read online

  8 A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  " Do you believe that promise? " asked Mr. Clay from his chair.

  " Certainly," said the New-Englander.

  " I have just received a letter from New York," said the Kentuckian, "announcing that a fleet of five ships which sailed from that port three months ago, loaded with grain for the Baltic, has been seized by the English and confiscated under a pretended violation of their Or ders in Council, their paper blockade. Does the honour able senator still preach submission?"

  Then the debate became hot, the war party increasing in fire, and the resistance of the peace party becoming feebler.

  " The nation of which you boast so much is a nation of robbers; you have just heard a fresh proof," I said to Major Northcote.

  " It is a necessity," he said excusingly and still with out anger. " We can not permit any trade that would contribute to the strength of the arch-villain, Bona parte."

  " The robbers' plea of necessity added to the robbers' practice," I said, wishing to speak plainly.

  " I am afraid we can not agree on that point," replied Major Northcote smilingly; " and since we can not, the debate probably has ceased to be of interest to us. Sup pose we go ? "

  I had come only at his request and in order to bring him, since in virtue of my own office I had privileges in the Capitol not always accorded to the public. But I was willing enough to go, and slipping unnoticed from the chamber we sought the air.

  " An unfriendly visitor might take this as a true type of the nation ," said Major Northcote, as he marked the unfinished building, the smoke driven by draughts through the corridors, the loose skylights which dripped water when it rained, and the general air of chill and dis comfort.

  MR. CLAY IS SPEAKING. 9

  " You can not expect a nation to come forth finished in a few years, any more than you could expect a building like this to be completed in a few days," I replied.

  I resented his slur, slight though it was, upon our Capitol. To me, despite its incompleteness and discom forts, which would be remedied, it seemed beautiful and grand. He did not reply, and we walked in silence down the new-cut road, which we called Pennsylvania Avenue, between the cabins and clumps of alder bushes toward the White House. The February wind was sharp, and we shivered in our cloaks. The sight of the cabins and the bushes and the mud puddles which gave such point to Major Northcote's remark depressed me, but I was cheered when I looked back at the Capitol. It rose grand and white in the brilliant sunshine, the unfinished portions hidden by the distance, and in its majesty seemed to me to typify the coming greatness of our na tion, which had fought so hard for its place, and still had a good fight to make.

  I kept these thoughts to myself, knowing how Major ISTorthcote would receive them, and we picked our way between the mud puddles down the avenue toward the White House.

  If one did not see completion, one at least saw effort, for at times we passed brick-kilns and the temporary huts of the labourers. There was, too, a brisk sound of hammering, and of timbers creaking against timbers as they were lifted into place, which was encouraging and told of future results. I thought once of calling my kinsman's attention to the grandeur of the situation, the swelling hills, the expanse of slope and level, the fine river, but I concluded it would be better not to do so; he would fail to appreciate them, and most likely would reply with some slight sarcasm which would sting all the more because of its faintness.

  It had been my purpose to go to my room in the Six Buildings, on the road from the White House to

  2

  10 A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  Georgetown, and prepare a letter for the Kentucky mail. We clerks in the departments had been forced to find quarters where we could, and Washington was not a town of homes then; but, profiting by the advice and influence of some friends, I had fared well and secured a cosy place. Major Northcote, I supposed, was going to the building occupied by the British ministry, now without a minister since the departure of the intolerable Jackson, and under the charge of a secretary, but before I could leave him I saw Cyrus Pendleton approaching, the man in whose graces I wished to stand well, though I feared to the contrary just then.

  He came with the long, easy stride which marks the man of the West, used in the earlier days to walking vast distances through forests impervious .to horsemen. Every line, every movement of his tall and spare figure showed strength and the iron endurance of the borderer, though he was fully sixty years of age, and had passed through more hardships than fall to the lot of the ten-thousandth man.

  He greeted me in a manner marked by cold courtesy and constraint. I had been a favourite with him once when I was a bo} r , and perhaps I would have been yet had I not paid attentions of some warmth to Marian Pendleton, for whom her father had other and more ambitious designs. I was sorry, too, that he saw me at that moment with Major Northcote, whose opinions were unpopular in Washington, and whose companionship might be considered to my prejudice by Cyrus Pen dleton, a hater of England, though I might plead the tie of kinship, which is very strong with us of Ken tucky.

  He gave my kinsman a slight nod, a matter for which I did not care, but I resented a little his cold manner to me, and in a spirit into which perhaps some malice entered I told him of the ships confiscated in the Baltic by the English, and I added that one of those ships was

  MR. CLAY IS SPEAKING. H

  the True Blue, on which I knew he had shipped a valu- ahle lot of furs for the Russian market. He expressed no grief at the loss of his goods, but his eyes blazed with anger at the name of the robber nation, and he said that the sooner we declared war upon England and ran the risk the better it would be for us j a position which he had taken long ago and defended always.

  Major Northcote received the attack with his usual calm, and looked at Mr. Pendleton with an air of iron ical superiority which could not be other than galling to any man. The two were in strong contrast, each a perfect type of his own: the Westerner thin, big- boned, alert, clean shaven, darkened by weather, an ac cent peculiar, dress careless, the whole type new and original; the Loyalist ruddier, European to the last touch, his attire elegant and careful, his bearing easy, graceful, and indifferent, the advantage of manners whol ly on his side, save in the important particular of sin cerity.

  " Mr. Pendleton is angry," he said. " There is noth ing like a personal loss to influence one's political feelings."

  " Perhaps," said the Westerner with composure; and then to me, " I see, Philip, that you are willing to listen to both sides."

  It was an allusion to my companionship with Major Northcote, a hint that I might not be faithful to the West, and, giving me no chance to reply, he walked on with swift steps, an impatience, due no doubt to his en counter with Major Northcote, showing in his stride. One of his strongest characteristics was his hatred of the English power, which never kept faith with us, and so often fought us with the methods and weapons of sav ages. Nor was he unlike the other people of the West, as I knew them, who hated the English as the English of Elizabeth's time hated Philip's Spaniards, and for reasons similar in nature. The tide of our dislike of

  12 A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  Great Britain was rising far higher than in the Kevolu- tion, and with even greater justice.

  As he walked up the slope leading toward the Capi tol I saw a short, hroad-backed man, whom I knew to be the French minister Serurier, overtake him. I could guess, too, his object in joining Mr. Pendleton, for the Frenchman, like everybody else in Washington, was aware that the Kentuckian was a man of wealth and in fluence, and he wished to urge on in him, as in all others, the growing hostility to Britain.

  It may seem strange, but I felt a bitter resentment toward the Frenchman, who was merely seeking to push us along the way we wished to go; but it was our busi ness, and not his, and his interference, or that of France, was an impertinence. In fact, we had little cause to like France then as little as we had to like England. We owed France a debt, but it was in abeyance in those j'ea
rs, and I wished we were strong enough to give Eng land and France a beating at the same time.

  The two walked slowly up the steps of the Capitol. The Frenchman had taken the American by the arm, as if they were friends of a lifetime, and was talking to him earnestly. Thus they passed into the building, and bidding Major Northcote good day I resumed my jour ney to my quarters. I was a clerk in the Treasury De partment, one of the two or three that were needed, for we were truly republican in our simplicity then, as I hope we are yet, but my work being finished in the morn ing, Mr. Gallatin had kindly given me leave of absence until the next morning.

  The day was late, the dusk was beginning to show in the east, but in the west the sun was a great blazing ball. The red light fell in broad bands across the river, and its surface shone as if with fire. The Virginia hills and forests on the other shore were edged with red, and tree and slope glowed alike in the shining twilight. The red tints faded into pink, which in turn grew dimmer as the

  MR. CLAY IS SPEAKING. 13

  sun sank lower; then the darkness came and hid slopes and hills alike, with only the river gleaming through it, a band of silver.

  Around me were the clatter of metal and the chatter of cheerful voices as the workmen on the new buildings put away their tools and started for home. The Feb ruary wind was rising. It was chill in the night. I shivered, and, walking briskly to keep myself warm, went to my home in the Six Buildings.

  CHAPTEE II.

  Li' LADY AND OTHERS.

  THE Six Buildings was crowded, for Washington was hard put to it then to hold the Government, small in numhers of men though the latter was. It was a large structure, complete in its ugliness, hut the lights of can dle and hearth fire were heginning to flame from the windows and cast bright streaks across the clumps of bushes and the heaps of fresh earth thrown up by the shovels from new streets. It was a cheerful sight, tell ing of warmth and comfort within, and I hastened to my room on the second floor, where I found that Caesar, the black boy bound to my service by various presents of silver coin of the republic, had provided well for me.

  It was a small room with two windows, in which the white wooden sash rattled loudly when the wind was strong; a rag carpet partly covered the floor, and print pictures of General Washington and Mr. Jefferson, pasted on the plastered walls, looked across at each other. But a fine fire blazed on the brick hearth, and the hickory logs popped most merrily as the blaze ate into them. More over, Caesar handed me a warm glass of water and some thing else, a habit we have in Kentucky, and which I hope I have never abused. When I had drunk the grateful mixture and drawn a chair up to the fire, Ca2sar gave me a copy of the National Intelligencer and went out, leav ing me to interest myself in the news as became one who lived in times that were full of stress and change.

  The first thing in the type that my eye alighted 14

  A LADY AND OTHERS. 15

  upon was an account of the new Indian war in the North west. It was likely to be the most formidable, so the newspaper said, in all our long list of conflicts with the red men. As was well known, the Northwestern tribes were the most valiant on the continent, and the English agents from Canada were visiting them at their villages, bringing presents of whisky and money and guns, and urging them to take up the hatchet against the Long Knives, as they called us. The great chief Tecumseh, and his brother the Prophet, reverenced by all the tribes as the wisest and most powerful of medicine men, were eager for the war, and while one spoke incessantly for it, the other made medicine, and always drew from his spells the omen that the time had come to destroy the Long Knives, and their women and children with them. I put the paper down, the reading of the article ended, and stared into the fire, wondering how we would meet the new danger. I knew also that there was to be a great rising of the tribes in the Southwest, and thus we would be belted round by a ring of enemies, white and red, by land and by sea, and, if we declared war on the English, would have to struggle in good truth for our lives. It seems to me that no nation has been forced to fight for existence as ours, even from the first settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth. What with the English and the French and the many warlike tribes, we have found it wise to keep our guns loaded and beside us; and of all our enemies, we have found the red men of the forests the most wary, the most daring, and the most to be dreaded. Many a winter's night have I, a little boy sit ting on the hearthstone in my Kentucky home, gazing into the red coals, listened to my mother's tales of the scalping parties, and how they would come down from the North and attack in the darkness and silence. I would tremble on my stool, and creep closer to my fa ther's side as I heard the whistle of wind and rustle of irees outside, and would think that the war parties had

  16 A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  come again, though the last to visit our region had gone long since.

  I have learned that it is not well for one who wishes to keep a cheerful and balanced mind to sit alone and nurse his wrongs; and, improving my toilet in the manner that my intentions demanded, I threw a cloak over my shoulders to protect me from the cool night air, and went out.

  The raw little city, which by day rose only in spots from wood, bush, and swamp, was hid by night. The wilderness reclaimed its own in the darkness. The unfin ished walls of the Capitol glimmered faintly from their hill, a blur showed where the Treasury stood, and darker splotches on the ordinary darkness marked a few of Wash ington's scattered buildings. Some points of light, one or two from street lamps and the others from the win dows of houses, twinkled feebly, as if they were making last and useless struggles before the invading night.

  I was accustomed to all this; in truth, I had known nothing better, and one who has ridden all night over muddy paths, through endless forests, thinks but little of unlighted streets. But on this evening the rawness, the incompleteness of everything, discouraged me and gave me a sense of personal mortification. I knew well, without any tedious process of self-analysis, that it was Major Northcote's manner in the Senate chamber that had put the poison in me, the half-concealed sneer, the faint suggestion of contempt that passed quickly over his face as if he would hide the slight affectation of aristocratic scorn which was so galling, because there were certain aspects of time and place which supplied some cause for it. Just then I was not disposed to give the proper credit for what had been achieved, great though it was when our difficulties and the fewness of our years were considered.

  But I recalled my thoughts again and turned them toward one of the points of flame which seemed, to me at least, to twinkle more steadily than the others. This

  A LADY AND OTHERS. 17

  light shone from the house of Cyrus Pendleton, a con spicuous two-story wooden structure which had been built by one of the Notleys, great landowners in that vicin ity, long before the Government had thought of found ing a capital there. As I approached I saw other lights, and I concluded that I was not the only guest who had come. Cyrus Pendleton himself received me at the door. He wore black broadcloth and very white linen, above which rose his brown and seamed face. He could afford broadcloth, but he had worn tanned buckskin much oftener in his life, which had known many hardships and dangers. His manner to me at that moment was a curi ous mixture of welcome and suspicion, as if he were glad to see me and yet preferred that I would not come. I understood it, though pretending not to notice, from the double motive of policy and pride, and inquired politely, after the custom, about the health of his daughter and himself.

  Then I passed into the house, and the old man fol lowed me, his manner still bearing traces of embarrass ment, as if he would detain me.

  The room into which I had come was large, and every where showed a woman's taste and supervision, though there was one feature which no visitor could fail to no tice. Most conspicuous over the mantel were a rifle and an axe, crossed. The rifle had a beautiful carved stock and a long, slender barrel of fine steel, highly polished. The axe was of heavy steel, with a long, strong handle.

  " There, Philip," Cyrus Pendleton once ha
d said to me, " are the weapons which we Americans should always keep before us, for with them we are winning the New World, which will all be ours some day if we want it. I used that old axe myself many and many a time, and that rifle is the best comrade I ever had. An American's toast should be to the axe and rifle, which are his real coat of arms."

  Marian was coming toward me. She wore a flowered

  18 A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  silk dress, and falls of creamy lace were about her throat and wrists, setting off their whiteness. In her hair, which was drawn up in the Eastern fashion, sparkled a jewelled comb. A brilliant complexion is perhaps the distinguishing mark of our Kentucky women, who are all kissed by the sun, but I thought I had never seen a face that equalled Marian's that night. The red in her cheeks deepened perhaps a little at my coming, but the trace of embarrassment in her father's manner was not in hers as she gave me her hand and bade me welcome, calling me by iny first name. I saw her cast one swift glance at her father, and there seemed to be a note of defiance in her look. My heart warmed and my blood thrilled at this look more than if she had given one of another kind to me instead, for I knew that the defiance, or what I took to be such, was made in my cause.

  I took a chair beside Marian. Bidwell, the man whom I disliked, dressed in the extreme of the European fashion, which he had learned in London and Paris, was on the other side. He must have taken his cue at some time from Cyrus Pendleton, for he said to me in a lan guid tone, though I could see easily enough the sneering meaning in his words: