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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..807b710 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51911 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51911) diff --git a/old/51911-0.txt b/old/51911-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1044963..0000000 --- a/old/51911-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7618 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr - Illustrated - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51911] -Last Updated: November 10, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN OR THE STORY OF AARON BURR - -By Alfred Henry Lewis - -Author of “When Men Grew Tall or The Story of Andrew Jackson” - -Illustrated - -D. Appleton And Company New York - -1908 - -[Illustration: 0010] - -[Illustration: 0011] - - -TO - -ELBERT HUBBARD - -FOR THE PLEASURE HIS WRITINGS HAVE GIVEN ME, AND AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION -FOR THE GLOSS AND PURITY OF HIS ENGLISH, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED A. H. -L. - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN - - - - -CHAPTER I--FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW - - -THE Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy is a personage of churchly -consequence in Bethlehem. Indeed, the doctor is a personage of churchly -consequence throughout all Connecticut. For he took his theology from -that well-head of divinity and metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards himself, -and possesses an immense library of five hundred volumes, mostly on -religion. Also, he is the author of “True Religion Delineated”; -which work shines out across the tumbling seas of New England -Congregationalism like a lighthouse on a difficult coast. Peculiarly is -it of guiding moment to storm-vexed student ones, who, wanting it, -might go crashing on controversial reefs, and so miss those pulpit -snug-harbors toward which the pious prows of their hopes are pointed. - -The doctor has a round, florid face, which, with his well-fed stomach, -gives no hint of thin living. From the suave propriety of his cue to -the silver buckles on his shoes, his atmosphere is wholly clerical. Just -now, however, he wears a disturbed, fussy air, as though something has -rubbed wrong-wise the fur of his feelings. He shows this by the way in -which he trots up and down his study floor. Doubtless, some portion of -that fussiness is derived from the doctor’s short fat legs; for none -save your long-legged folk may walk to and fro with dignity. Still, it -is clear there be reasons of disturbance which go deeper than mere short -fat legs, and set his spirits in a tumult. - -The good doctor, as he trots up and down, is not alone. Madam Bellamy is -with him, chair drawn just out of reach of the June sunshine as it comes -streaming through the open lattice. In her plump hands she holds her -sewing; for she is strong in the New England virtue of industry, and -regards hand-idleness as a species of viciousness. While she stitches, -she bends appreciative ear to the whistle of a robin in an apple tree -outside. - -“No, mother,” observes the doctor, breaking in on the robin, “the lad -does himself no credit. He is careless, callous, rebellious, foppish, -and altogether of the flesh. I warrant you I shall take him in hand; it -is my duty.”. “But no harshness, Joseph!” - -“No, mother; as you say, I must not be harsh. None the less I shall be -firm. He must study; he is not to become a preacher by mere wishing.” - -Shod hoofs are heard on the graveled driveway; a voice is lifted: - -“Walk Warlock up and down until he is cooled out. Then give him a rub, -and a mouthful of water.” - -Madam Bellamy steps to the window. The master of the voice is swinging -from the saddle, while the doctor’s groom takes his horse--sweating from -a brisk gallop--by the bridle. - -“Here he comes now,” says Madam Bellamy, at the sound of a springy step -in the hall. - -The youth, who so confidently enters the doctor’s study, is in his -nineteenth year. His face is sensitive and fine, and its somewhat -overbred look is strengthened and restored by a high hawkish nose. The -dark hair is clubbed in an elegant cue. The skin, fair as a girl’s, -gives to the black eyes a glitter beyond their due. These eyes are the -striking feature; for, while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their -inky depths a hard, ophidian sparkle both dangerous and fascinating--the -sort of eyes that warn a man and blind a woman. - -The youth is but five feet six inches tall, with little hands and -feet, and ears ridiculously small. And yet, his light, slim form is so -accurately proportioned that, besides grace and a catlike quickness, it -hides in its molded muscles the strength of steel. Also, any impression -of insignificance is defeated by the wide brow and well-shaped head, -which, coupled with a steady self-confidence that envelops him like an -atmosphere, give the effect of power. - -As he lounges languidly and pantherwise into the study, he bows to Madam -Bellamy and the good doctor. - -“You had quite a canter, Aaron,” remarks Madam Bellamy. - -“I went half way to Litchfield,” returns the youth, smiting his glossy -riding boot with the whip he carries. “For a moment I thought of seeing -my sister Sally; but it would have been too long a run for so warm a -day. As it is, poor Warlock looks as though he’d forded a river.” - -The youth throws himself carelessly into the doctor’s easy-chair. That -divine clears his throat professionally. Foreseeing earnestness if not -severity in the discourse which is to follow, Madam Bellamy picks up her -needlework and retires. - -When she is gone, the doctor establishes himself opposite the youth. His -manner is admonitory; which is not out of place, when one remembers that -the doctor is fifty-five and the youth but nineteen. - -“You’ve been with me, Aaron, something like eight months.” - -The black eyes are fastened upon the doctor, and their ophidian glitter -makes the latter uneasy. For relief he rebegins his short-paced trot up -and down. - -Renewed by action, and his confidence returning, the doctor commences -with vast gravity a kind of speech. His manner is unconsciously pompous; -for, as the village preacher, he is wont to have his wisdom accepted -without discount or dispute. - -“You will believe me, Aaron,” says the doctor, spacing off his words and -calling up his best pulpit voice--“you will believe me, when I tell -you that I am more than commonly concerned for your welfare. I was the -friend of your father, both when he held the pulpit in Newark, and later -when he was President of Princeton University. I studied my divinity -at the knee of your mother’s father, the pious Jonathan Edwards. Need -I say, then, that when you came to me fresh from your own Princeton -graduation my heart was open to you? It seemed as though I were about to -pay an old debt. I would regive you those lessons which your grandfather -Edwards gave me. In addition, I would--so far as I might--take the place -of that father whom you lost so many years ago. That was my feeling. -Now, when you’ve been with me eight months, I tell you plainly that I’m -far from satisfied.” - -“In what, sir, have I disappointed?” - -The voice is confidently careless, while the ophidian eyes keep up their -black glitter unabashed. - -“Sir, you are passively rebellious, and refuse direction. I place -in your hands those best works of your mighty grandsire, namely, his -‘Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church’ and ‘The -Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,’ and you cast them aside for the -‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’ and the ‘Comedies of Terence.’ Bah! the -‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’! of which Dr. Johnson says, ‘They teach -the morals of a harlot and the manners of a dancing master.’” - -“And if so,” drawls the youth, with icy impenitence, “is not that a -pretty good equipment for such a world as this?” - -At the gross outrage of such a question, the doctor pauses in that -to-and-fro trot as though planet-struck. - -“What!” he gasps. - -“Doctor, I meant to tell you a month later what--since the ice is so -happily broken--I may as well say now. My dip into the teachings of my -reverend grandsire has taught me that I have no genius for divinity. To -be frank, I lack the pulpit heart. Every day augments my contempt for -that ministry to which you design me. The thought of drawing a salary -for being good, and agreeing to be moral for so much a year, disgusts -me.” - -“And this from you--the son of a minister of the Gospel!” The doctor -holds up his hands in pudgy horror. - -“Precisely so! In which connection it is well to recall that German -proverb: ‘The preacher’s son is ever the devil’s grandson.’” The doctor -sits down and mops his fretted brow; the manner in which he waves his -lace handkerchief is like a publication of despair. He fixes his gaze on -the youth resignedly, as who should say, “Strike home, and spare not!” - -This last tacit invitation the youth seems disposed to accept. It is -now his turn to walk the study floor. But he does it better than did the -fussy doctor, his every motion the climax of composed grace. - -“Listen, my friend,” says the youth. - -For all the confident egotism of his manner, there is in it no smell of -conceit. He speaks of himself; but he does so as though discussing some -object outside of himself to which he is indifferent. - -“Those eight months of which you complain have not been wasted. If I -have drawn no other lesson from my excellent grandsire’s ‘Doctrine of -Original Sin Defended,’ it has taught me to exhaustively examine my -own breast. I discover that I have strong points as well as points of -weakness. I read Latin and Greek; and I talk French and German, besides -English, indifferently well. Also, I fence, shoot, box, ride, row, sail, -walk, run, wrestle and jump superbly. Beyond the merits chronicled I -have tried my courage, and find that I may trust it like Gibraltar. -These, you will note, are not the virtues of a clergyman, but of a -soldier. My weaknesses likewise turn me away from the pulpit. - -“I have no hot sympathies; and, while not mean in the money sense, -holding such to be beneath a gentleman, I may say that my first concern -is not for others but for myself.” - -“It is as though I listened to Satan!” exclaims the dismayed doctor, -fidgeting with his ruffles. - -“And if it were indeed Satan!” goes on the youth, with a gleam of -sarcasm, “I have heard you characterize that arch demon from your -pulpit, and even you, while making him malicious, never made him -mean. But to get on with this picture of myself, which I show you -as preliminary to laying bare a resolution. As I say, I have no -sympathies, no hopes which go beyond myself. I think on this world, -not the next; I believe only in the gospel according to Philip Dormer -Stanhope--that Lord Chesterfield, whom, with the help of Dr. Johnson, -you so much succeed in despising.” - -“To talk thus at nineteen!” whispers the doctor, his face ghastly. - -“Nineteen, truly! But you must reflect that I have not had, since I may -remember, the care of either father or mother, which is an upbringing to -rapidly age one.” - -“Were you not carefully reared by your kind Uncle Timothy?” This -indignantly. - -“Indeed, sir, I was, as you say, well reared in that dull town of -Elizabeth, which for goodness and dullness may compare with your -Bethlehem here. It was a rearing, too, from which--as I think my kind -Uncle Timothy has informed you--I fled.” - -“He did! He said you played truant twice, once running away to sea.” - -“It was no great voyage, then!” The imperturbable youth, hard of eye, -soft of voice, smiles cynically. “No, I was cabin boy two days, during -all of which the ship lay tied bow and stern to her New York wharf. -However, that is of no consequence as part of what we now consider.” - -“No!” interrupts the doctor miserably, “only so far as it displays the -young workings of your sinfully rebellious nature. As a child, too, you -mocked your elders, as you do now. Later, as a student, you were the -horror of Princeton.” - -“All that, sir, I confess; and yet I say that it is of the past. I hold -it time lost to think on aught save the present or the future.” - -“Think, then, on your soul’s future!--your soul’s eternal future!” - -“I shall think on what lies this side of the grave. I shall devote my -faculties to this world; which, from what I have seen, is more than -likely to keep me handsomely engaged. The next world is a bridge, the -crossing of which I reserve until I come to it.” - -“Have you then no religious convictions? no fears?” - -“I have said that I fear nothing, apprehend nothing. Timidity, of either -soul or body, was pleasantly absent at my birth. As for convictions, -I’d no more have one than I’d have the plague. What is a conviction -but something wherewith a man vexes himself and worries his neighbor. -Conclusions, yes, as many as you like; but, thank my native star! I am -incapable of a conviction.” - -The doctor’s earlier horror is fast giving way to anger. He almost -sneers as he asks: - -“But you pretend to honesty, I trust?” - -“Why, sir,” returns the youth, with an air which narrowly misses the -patronizing, and reminds one of nothing so much as polished brass--“why, -sir, honesty, like generosity or gratitude, is a gentlemanly trait, the -absence of which would be inexpressibly vulgar. Naturally, I’m honest; -but with the understanding that I have my honesty under control. It -shall never injure me, I tell you! When its plain effect will be to -strengthen an enemy or weaken myself, I shall prove no such fool as to -give way to it.” - -“While you talk, I think,” breaks in the doctor; “and now I begin to see -the source of your pride and your satanism. It is your own riches that -tempt you! Your soul is to be undone because your body has four hundred -pounds a year.” - -“Not so fast, sir! I am glad I have four hundred pounds a year. It -relieves me of much that is gross. I turn my back on the Church, -however, only because I am unfitted for it, and accept the world simply -for that it fits me. I have given you the truth. As a minister of the -Gospel I should fail; as a man of the world I shall succeed. The pulpit -is beyond me as religion is beyond me; for I am not one who could allay -present pain by some imagined bliss to follow after death, or find joy -in stripping himself of a benefit to promote another.” - -“Now this is the very theology of Beelzebub for sure!” cries the -incensed doctor. - -“It is anything you like, sir, so it be understood as a description of -myself.” - -“Marriage might save him!” muses the desperate doctor. “To love and be -loved by a beautiful woman might yet lead his heart to grace!” - -The pale flicker of a smile comes about the lips of the black-eyed one. - -“Love! beauty!” he begins. “Sir, while I might strive to possess myself -of both, I should no more love beauty in a woman than riches in a man. I -could love a woman only for her fineness of mind; wed no one who did not -meet me mentally and sentimentally half way. And since your Hypatia is -quite as rare as your Phoenix, I cannot think my nuptials near at hand.” - -“Well,” observes the doctor, assuming politeness sudden and vast, “since -I understand you throw overboard the Church, may I know what other -avenue you will render honorable by walking therein?” - -“You did not give me your attention, if you failed to note that what -elements of strength I’ve ascribed to myself all point to the camp. -So soon as there is a war, I shall turn soldier with my whole heart.” - -“You will wait some time, I fear!” - -“Not so long as I could wish. There will be war between these colonies -and England before I reach my majority. It would be better were it -put off ten years; for now my youth will get between the heels of my -prospects to trip them up.” - -“Then, if there be war with England, you will go? I do not think such -bloody trouble will soon dawn; still--for a first time to-day--I -am pleased to hear you thus speak. It shows that at least you are a -patriot.” - -“I lay no claim to the title. England oppresses us; and, since one only -oppresses what one hates, she hates us. And hate for hate I give her. I -shall go to war, because I am fitted to shine in war, and as a shortest, -surest step to fame and power--those solitary targets worthy the aim of -man!” - -“Dross! dross!” retorts the scandalized doctor. “Fame! power! Dead sea -apples, which will turn to ashes on your lips! And yet, since that war -which is to be the ladder whereon you will go climbing into fame and -power is not here, what, pending its appearance, will you do?” - -“Now there is a query which brings us to the close. Here is my answer -ready. I shall just ride over to Sally, and her husband, Tappan -Reeve, and take up Blackstone. If I may not serve the spirit and study -theology, I’ll even serve the flesh and study law.” - -And so the hero of these memoirs rides over to Litchfield, to study -the law and wait for a war. The doctor and he separate in friendly -son-and-father fashion, while Madam Bellamy urges him to always call -her house his home. He is not so hard as he thinks, not so cynical as -he feels; still, his self-etched portrait possesses the broader lines -of truth. He is one whom men will follow, but not trust; admire, but -not love. There is enough of the unconscious serpent in him to rouse one -man’s hate, while putting an edge on another’s fear. Also, because--from -the fig-leaf day of Eve--the serpent attracts and fascinates a woman, -many tender ones will lose their hearts for him. They will dash -themselves and break themselves against him, like wild fowl against a -lighthouse in the night. Even as he rides out of Bethlehem that June -morning, bright young eyes peer at him from behind safe lattices, until -their brightness dies away in tears. As for him thus sighed over, his -lashes are dry enough. Bethlehem, and all who home therein, from the -doctor with Madam Bellamy, to her whose rose-red lips he kissed the -latest, are already of the unregarded past. He wears nothing but the -future on his agate slope of fancy; he is thinking only on himself and -his hunger to become a god of the popular--clothed with power, wreathed -of fame! - -“Mother,” exclaims the doctor, “the boy is lost! Ambitious as Lucifer, -he will fall like Lucifer!” - -“Joseph!” - -“I cannot harbor hope! As lucidly clear as glass, he was yet as hard as -glass. If I were to read his fortune, I should say that Aaron Burr will -soar as high to fall as low as any soul alive.” - - - - -CHAPTER II--THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER - - -YOUNG Aaron establishes himself in Litchfield with his pretty sister -Sally, who, because he is brilliant and handsome, is proud of him. Also, -Tappan Reeve, her husband, takes to him in a slow, bookish way, and is -much held by his trenchant powers of mind. - -Young Aaron assumes the law, and makes little flights into Bracton’s -“Fleeta,” and reads Hawkins and Hobart, delighting in them for their -limpid English. More seriously, yet more privately, he buries himself in -every volume of military lore upon which he may lay hands; for already -he feels that Bunker Hill is on its way, without knowing the name of it, -and would have himself prepared for its advent. - -In leisure hours, young Aaron gives Litchfield society the glory of his -countenance. He flourishes as a village Roquelaure, with plumcolored -coats, embroidered waistcoats, silken hose, and satin smalls, sent up -from New York. Likewise, his ruffles are miracles, his neckcloths works -of starched and spotless art, while at his hip he wears a sword--hilt of -gilt, and sharkskin scabbard white as snow. - -Now, because he is splendid, with a fortune of four hundred annual -pounds, and since no girl’s heart may resist the mystery of those eyes, -the village belles come sighing against him in a melting phalanx -of loveliness. This is flattering; but young Aaron declines to be -impressed. Polished, courteous, in amiable possession of himself, he -furnishes the thought of a bright coldness, like sunshine on a field -of ice. Not that anyone is to blame. The difference between him and the -sighing ones, is a difference of shrines and altars. They sacrifice to -Venus; he worships Mars. While he has visions of battle, they dream of -wedding bells. - -For one moment only arises some tender confusion. There is an Uncle -Thaddeus--a dotard ass far gone in years! Uncle Thaddeus undertakes, -behind young Aaron’s back, to make him happy. The liberal Uncle Thaddeus -goes so blindly far as to explore the heart of a particular fair one, -who mayhap sighs more deeply than do the others. It grows embarrassing; -for, while the sighing one thus softly met accepts, when Uncle Thaddeus -flies to young Aaron with the dulcet news, that favored personage -transfixes him with so black a stare, wherefrom such baleful serpent -rage glares forth, that our dotard meddler is fear-frozen in the very -midst of his ingenuous assiduities. And thereupon the sighing one is -left to sigh uncomforted, while Uncle Thaddeus finds himself the scorn -of all good village opinion. - -While young Aaron goes stepping up and down the Litchfield causeways, -as though strutting in Jermyn Street or Leicester Square; while thus he -plays the fine gentleman with ruffles and silks and shark-skin sword, -skimming now the law, now flattering the sighing belles, now devouring -the literature of war, he has ever his finger on the pulse, and his ear -to the heart of his throbbing times. It is he of Litchfield who hears -earliest of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In a moment he is all action. Off -come the fine feathers, and that shark-skin, gilt-hilt sword. Warlock is -saddled; pistols thrust into holsters. In roughest of costumes the -fop surrenders to the soldier. It takes but a day, and he is ready for -Cambridge and the American camp. - -As he goes upon these doughty preparations, young Aaron finds himself -abetted by the pretty Sally, who proves as martial as himself. Her -husband, Tappan Reeve, easy, quiet, loving his unvexed life, from the -law book on his table to the pillow whereon he nightly sleeps, cannot -understand this headlong war hurry. - -“You may lose your life!” cries Tappan Reeve. - -“What then?” rejoins young Aaron. “Whether the day be far or near, that -life you speak of is already lost. I shall play this game. My life is my -stake; and I shall freely hazard it upon the chance of winning glory.” - -“And have you no fear?” - -The timid Tappan’s thoughts of death are ashen; he likes to live. - -Young Aaron bends upon him his black gaze. “What I fear more than any -death,” says he, “is stagnation--the currentless village life!” - -Young Aaron, arriving at Cambridge, attaches himself to General Putnam. -The grizzled old wolf killer likes him, being of broadest tolerations, -and no analyst of the psychic. - -There are seventeen thousand Americans scattered in a ragged fringe -about Boston, in which town the English, taught by Lexington and Bunker -Hill, are cautiously prone to lie close. Young Aaron makes the round of -the camps. He is amazed by the unrule and want of discipline. Besides, -he cannot understand the inaction, feeling that each new day should have -its Bunker Hill. That there is not enough powder among the Americans -to load and fire those seventeen thousand rifles twice, is a piece of -military information of which he lives ignorant, for the grave Virginian -in command confides it only to a merest few. Had young Aaron been aware -of this paucity of powder, those long days, idle, vacant of event, might -not have troubled him. The wearisome wonder of them at least would have -been made plain. - -Young Aaron learns of an expedition against Quebec, to be led by Colonel -Benedict Arnold, and resolves to join it. That all may be by military -rule, he seeks General Washington to ask permission. He finds that -commander in talk with General Putnam; the old wolf killer does him the -favor of a presentation. - -“From where do you come?” asks Washington, closely scanning young Aaron -whom he instantly dislikes. - -“From Connecticut. I am a gentleman volunteer, attached to General -Putnam with the rank of captain.” - -Something of repulsion shows cloudily on the brow of Washington. -Obviously he is offended by this cool stripling, who clothes his -hairless boy’s face with a confident maturity that has the effect of -impertinence. Also the phrase “gentleman volunteer,” sticks in his -throat like a fish bone. - -“Ah, a ‘gentleman volunteer!’” he repeats in a tone of sarcasm scarcely -veiled. “I have now and then heard of such a trinket of war, albeit, -never to the trinket’s advantage. Doubtless, sir, you have made the -rounds of our array!” - -Young Aaron, from his beardless five feet six inches, looks up at the -tall Virginian, and cannot avoid envying him his door-wide shoulders -and that extra half foot of height. He perceives, too, with a resentful -glow, that he is being mocked. However, he controls himself to answer -coldly: - -“As you surmise, sir, I have made the rounds of your forces.” - -“And having made them”--this ironically--“I trust you found all to your -satisfaction.” - -“As to that,” remarks young Aaron, “while I did not look to find trained -soldiers, I think that a better discipline might be maintained.” - -“Indeed! I shall make a note of it. And yet I must express the hope -that, while you occupy a subordinate place, you will give way as little -as may be to your perilous trick of thinking, leaving it rather to our -experienced friend Putnam, here, he being trained in these matters.” - -The old wolf killer takes advantage of this reference to himself, to -help the interview into less trying channels. - -“You were seeking me?” he says to the youthful critic of camps and -discipline. - -“I was seeking the commander in chief,” returns young Aaron, again -facing Washington. “I came to ask permission to go with Colonel Arnold -against Quebec.” - -“Against Quebec?” repeats Washington. “Go, with all my heart!” - -There is a cut concealed in that consent, to the biting smart of which -young Aaron is not insensible. However, he finds in the towering -manner of its delivery something which checks even his audacity. After -saluting, he withdraws without added word. - -“General,” observes Washington, when young Aaron has gone, “I fear I -cannot congratulate you on your new captain.” - -“If you knew him better, general,” protests the good-hearted old wolf -killer, “you would like him better. He is a boy; but he has an old head -on his young shoulders.” - -[Illustration: 0043] - -“The very thing I most fear,” rejoins Washington. “A boy has no more -business with an old head than with old lungs or old legs. It is -unnatural, sir; and the unnatural is the wrong. I want only heads and -shoulders about me that were born the same day. For that reason, I am -glad your ‘gentleman volunteer’”--this with a shade of irony--“goes to -Quebec with that turbulent Norwich apothecary, Arnold. The army will be -bettered just now by the absence of these lofty spirits. They disturb -more than they help. Besides, a tramp of sixty days through the Maine -woods will improve such Hotspurs vastly. There is nothing like a -six-hundred mile march through an unbroken wilderness, with a fight in -the snow at the far end of it, to take the edge off beardless arrogance -and young conceit.” - -What young Aaron carries away from that interview, as an impression -of the big commander in chief, crops out in converse with his former -college chum, young Ogden. The latter, like himself, is attached to the -military family of General Putnam. - -“Ogden, we have begun wrong as soldiers--you and I!” says young Aaron. -“By flint and steel, man, we should have commenced like Washington, by -hoeing tobacco!” - -“Now this is not right!” cries young Ogden, in reproof. “General -Washington is a soldier who has seen service.” - -“Why,” retorts young Aaron, “I believe he was trounced with Braddock.” - Then, warmly: “Ogden, the man is Failure walking about in blue and -buff and high boots! I read him like a page of print! He is slow, dull, -bovine, proud, and of no decision. He lacks initiative; and, while he -might defend, he is incapable of attacking. Worst of all he has the soul -of a planter--a plantation soul! A big movement like this, which brings -the thirteen colonies to the field, is beyond his grasp.” - -“Your great defect, Aaron,” cries young Ogden, not without indignation, -“is that you regard your most careless judgment as final. Half the time, -too, your decision is the product of prejudice, not reason. General -Washington offends you--as, to be frank, he did me--by putting a lower -estimate on your powers than that at which you yourself are pleased -to hold them. I warrant now had he flattered you a bit, you would have -found in him a very Alexander.” - -“I should have found him what I tell you,” retorts young Aaron stoutly, -“a glaring instance of misplaced mediocrity. He is even wanting in -dignity!” - -“For my side, then, I found him dignified enough.” - -“Friend Ogden, you took dullness for dignity. Or I will change it; I’ll -even consent that he is dignified. But only in the torpid, cud-chewing -fashion in which a bullock is dignified. Still, he does very well by me; -for he says I may go with Colonel Arnold. And so, Ogden, I’ve but -time for ‘good-by!’ and then off to make myself ready to accompany our -swashbuckler druggist against Quebec.” - - - - -CHAPTER III--COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD EXPLAINS - - -IT is September, brilliant and golden. Newburyport is brave with -warlike excitement. Drums roll, fifes shriek, armed men fill the single -village street. These latter are not seasoned troops, as one may see -by their careless array and the want of uniformity in their homespun, -homemade garbs. No two are armed alike, for each has brought his own -weapon. These are rifles--long, eight-square flintlocks. Also every -rifleman wears a powderhorn and bullet pouch of buckskin, while most of -them carry knives and hatchets in their rawhide belts. - -As our rude soldiery stand at ease in the village street, cheering -crowds line the sidewalk. The shouts rise above the screaming fifes and -rumbling drums. The soldiers are the force which Colonel Arnold will -lead against Quebec. Young, athletic--to the last man they have been -drawn from the farms. Resenting discipline, untaught of drill, their -disorder has in it more of the mob than the military. However, their -eyes like their hopes are bright, and one may read in the healthy, -cheerful faces that each holds himself privily to be of the raw -materials from which generals are made. - -Down in the harbor eleven smallish vessels ride at anchor. They are of -brigantine rig, each equal to transporting one hundred men. These will -carry Colonel Arnold and his eleven hundred militant young rustics to -the mouth of the Kennebec. In the waist of every vessel, packed one -inside the other as a housewife arranges teacups on her shelves, are -twenty bateaux. They are wide, shallow craft, blunt at bow and stern, -and will be used to convey the expedition up the Kennebec. Each is large -enough to hold five men, and so light that the five, at portages or -rapids, can shoulder it with the dunnage which belongs to them and carry -it across to the better water beyond. - -The word of command runs along the unpolished ranks; the column begins -to move toward the water front, taking its step from the incessant drums -and fifes. Once at the water, the embarkation goes briskly forward. As -the troops march away, the crowds follow; for the day in Newburyport is -a gala occasion and partakes of the character of a celebration. No one -considers the possibility of defeat. Everywhere one finds optimism, as -though Quebec is already a captured city. - -Now when the throngs have departed with the soldiery, the street shows -comparatively deserted. This brings to view the Eagle Inn, a hostelry of -the village. In the doorway of the Eagle a man and woman are standing. -The woman is dashingly handsome, with cheek full of color and a bold -eye. The man is about thirty-five in years. He swaggers with a forward, -bragging, gamecock air, which--the basis being a coarse, berserk -courage--is not altogether affectation. His features are vain, sensual, -turbulent; his expression shows him to be proud in a crude way, and is -noticeable because of an absence of any slightest glint of principle. -There is, too, an extravagance of gold braid on his coat, which goes -well with the superfluous feather in the three-cornered hat, and those -russet boots of stamped Spanish leather. These swashbuckley excesses -of costume bear out the vulgar promise of his face, and guarantee that -intimated lack of fineness. - -The pair are Colonel Arnold and Madam - -Arnold. She has come to see the last of her husband as he sails away. -While they stand in the door, the coach in which she will make the -homeward journey to Norwich pulls up in front of the Eagle. - -As Colonel Arnold leads his wife to the coach, he is saying: “No; I -shall be aboard within the hour. After that we start at once. I want a -word with a certain Captain Burr before I embark. I’ve offended him, it -seems; for he is of your proud, high-stomached full-pursed aristocrats -who look for softer treatment than does a commoner clay. I’ve ordered -a bottle of wine. As we drink, I shall make shift to smooth down his -ruffled plumage.” - -“Captain Burr,” repeats Madam Arnold, not without a sniff of scorn. “And -you are a colonel! How long is it since colonels have found it necessary -to truckle to captains, and, when they pout, placate them into good -humor?” - -“My dear madam,” returns Colonel Arnold as he helps her into the clumsy -vehicle, “permit me to know my own affairs. I tell you this thin-skinned -boy is rich, and what is better was born with his hands open. He parts -with money like a royal prince. One has but to drop a hint, and presto! -his hand is in his purse. The gold I gave you I had from him.” - -As the coach with Madam Arnold drives away, young Aaron is observed -coming up from the water front. His costume, while as rough as that of -the soldiers, has a fit and a finish to it which accents the graceful -gentility of his manner beyond what satins and silks might do. Madam -Arnold’s bold eyes cover him. He takes off his hat with a gravely -accurate flourish, whereat the bold eyes glance their pleasure at the -polite attention. - -Coach gone, Colonel Arnold seizes young Aaron’s arm, with a familiarity -which fails of its purpose by being overdone, and draws him into -the inn. He carries him to a room where a table is spread. The stout -landlady by way of topping out the feast is adding thereunto an apple -pie, moonlike as her face and its sister for size and roundness. This, -and the roast fowl which adorns the center, together with a bottle -of burgundy to keep all in countenance, invest the situation with an -atmosphere of hope. - -“Be seated, Captain Burr,” exclaims the hearty Colonel Arnold, as -the two draw up to the table. “A roast pullet, a pie, and a bottle of -burgundy, let me tell you, should make no mean beginning to what is like -to prove a hard campaign. I warrant you, sir, we see worse fare in -the pine wilderness of upper Maine. Let me help you to wine, sir,” he -continues, after carving for himself and young Aaron. The latter, as -cold and imperturbable as when, in Dr. Bellamy’s study, he shattered the -designs of that excellent preacher by preferring law to theology and war -to either, responds to this hospitable politeness with a bow. “Take your -glass, Captain Burr. I desire to drink down all irritations. Yes, sir,” - replacing the drained glass, “I may say, without lowering myself as -a gentleman in your esteem, that, in giving you the order to see the -troops aboard, I had no thought of affronting you.” - -“It was not your orders to which I objected; it was to your manner. If -I may say so, sir, it was a manner of intolerable arrogance, one which I -shall brook from no man.” - -“Tush, sir, tush! In war we must thicken our hides. We are not to be -sensitive. We should not look in the camps for the manners of a king’s -court. What you mistook for arrogance was no more than just a tone of -command.” - -Colonel Arnold’s delivery of this is meant to be conciliating. Through -it, however, runs an exasperating vein of patronage, due, doubtless, to -his superior rank, and those extra fifteen years wherein he overlooks -young Aaron. - -“Let us be plain, colonel,” observes young Aaron, studying his wine -between eye and windowpane. “I hope for nothing better than concord -between us. Also, every order you give me I shall obey. None the less I -ask you to observe that I have no purpose of lowering my self-respect in -coming to this war. As your subordinate I shall take your commands; as a -gentleman, the equal of any, I must be treated as such.” - -Colonel Arnold’s brow is red; but he fills his mouth with chicken which -he drenches down with wine, and so restrains every fretful expression. -After a moment filled of wine and chicken, he observes carelessly: - -“Say no more! Say no more, Captain Burr! We understand one another!” - -“There is no more to say,” returns young Aaron steadily. “And I beg you -to remember that the subject is one which you, yourself, proposed. I am -through when I state that, while I object to no man’s vanity, no man’s -arrogance, I shall never permit him to transact them at the expense of -my self-respect.” - -Colonel Arnold turns the talk to what, in a wilderness as well as a -fighting way, lies ahead. They linger over pullet and burgundy for the -better part of an hour, and get on as well as should gentlemen who -have no mighty mutual liking. As they prepare to go aboard, the stout -landlady meets them in the hall. Her modest’ charges are to be met with -a handful of shillings. Colonel Arnold rummages his pockets, wearing the -while a baffled angry air; then he falls to cursing in a spirit truly -military. - -“May the black fiend seize me!” says he, “if my purse has not gone -aboard with my baggage!” - -Young Aaron pays the score with an indifference which does not betray -a conviction that the pocket-rummaging is a pretence, and the native -money-meanness of his coarse-faced colonel designed such finale from the -first. Score settled, they repair to the water front. As the two depart, -the stout landlady of the Eagle follows the retreating Colonel Arnold -with shocked, insulted glance. She is a religious woman, and those -curses have moved her soul. - -“Blaspheming upstart!” she mutters. “And the airs he takes on! As though -folk have forgotten that within the year he stood behind his Norwich -counter selling pills and plasters!” - -The eleven little ships voyage to the mouth of the Kennebec without -event. The bateaux are launched, and the eleven hundred highhearted -youngsters proceed to pole and paddle their way up the river. Where the -currents are overswift they tow with lines from the banks. Finally they -abandon the Kennebec, and shoulder the bateaux for a scrambling tramp -across the pine-sown watershed. It takes days, but in the end they find -themselves again afloat on the Dead River. This stream leads them to -the St. Lawrence. It is the march of the century! These buoyant young -rustics through the untraced wilderness have come six hundred miles in -fifty days. - -Woodmen born and bred, this long push through the forests is no -surprising feat to these who perform it. They scarcely discuss the -matter as they crouch about their camp fires. The big topic among -them is their hatred of Colonel Arnold. From that September day in -Newbury-port his tyranny has been in hourly expression. Also, it seems -to grow with time. He hectors, raves, vituperates, until there isn’t -a trigger finger in the command which does not itch to shoot him down. -Disdaining to aid the march by carrying so much as a pound’s weight--as -being work beneath his exalted rank--this Caesar of the apothecaries -must needs have his special cooking kit along. Also his tent must be -pitched with the coming down of every night. Men hungry and unsheltered -all around him, he sees no reason why he should not sleep warmly soft, -and breakfast and dine and sup like a wilderness Lucullus. Thereat the -farmer youth grumble, and console themselves with slighting remarks and -looks of contumely. - -To these remarks and looks, Colonel Arnold is driven to deafen his -ears and offer his back. It would be inconvenient to hear and see these -things; since, for all his bullying attitude, he dare not crowd his -followers too far. Their unbroken mouths are but new to the military -bit; a too cruel pressure on the bridle reins might mean the unhorsing -of our vanity-eaten apothecary. As it is, by twos and tens and twenties, -the command dwindles away. Every roll call discloses fresh desertions. -Wroth with their commander, resolved against the mean tyranny of his -rule, when the party reaches the St. Lawrence, half have gone to a -right-about and are on their way home. The feather-headed Colonel Arnold -finds himself with a muster of five hundred and fifty where he should -have had eleven hundred. And the five hundred and fifty with him are on -the darkling edge of revolt. - -“Think on such cur hearts!” cries Colonel Arnold, as he speaks with -young Aaron of those desertions which have cut his force in two. “Half -have already turned tail, and the other half are of a coward mind to -follow their mongrel example. I would sooner command a brigade of dogs!” - -“Believe me,” observes young Aaron, icily acquiescent, “I shall not -contradict your peculiar fitness for the command you describe.” - -Being thus happily delivered, young Aaron goes round on his -imperturbable heel and strolls away, leaving the angry Colonel Arnold -glaring with rage-congested eye. - -“Insolent puppy!” the latter grits between his teeth. - -He is heedful, however, to avoid the epithet in the presence of young -Aaron; for, in spite of that rude courage which, when all is said, -lies at the root of his nature, the ex-apothecary dreads the “gentleman -volunteer,” with his black ophidian glance--so balanced, so hard, so -vacant of fear! - -It is toward the last of November; the valley of the St. Lawrence seems -the home of snow. Colonel Arnold grows afraid of the temper of his -people. As they push slowly through the drifts, their angry wrath -against the Caligula who leads them is only too thinly veiled. At -this, the insolent oppressions of our ex-apothecary cease; he seeks to -conciliate, but the time is overlate. - -Colonel Arnold goes into camp, and considers the situation. Even if his -followers do not wheel suddenly southward for home, he fears that on -some final battle day they will refuse to fight at his command. -With despair gnawing at his heart, he decides to get word to General -Montgomery, who has conquered and is holding Montreal. The giant -Irishman is the idol of the army. Once he appears, the grumblings and -mutinous murmurings will abate. The rebellious ones will go wherever he -points, fight like lions at his merest word. - -True, the coming of Montgomery will mean his own loss of command, and -that is a bitter pill. Still, since he may do no better, he resolves -to gulp it. Thus resolving, he calls young Aaron into conference. The -uneasy tyrant hates young Aaron--hates him for the gold he has borrowed -from him, hates him for his scarcely concealed contempt of himself. None -the less he calls him into council. It is wisdom not friendship his case -requires, and he early learned to value the long head of our “gentleman -volunteer.” - -“It is this,” explains Colonel Arnold, desperately. “We have not -the force demanded for the capture of Quebec. We must get word to -Montgomery. He is one hundred and twenty miles away in Montreal. -The puzzle is to find some one, whom we can trust among these -French-speaking native Canadians, who will carry my message.” - -Young Aaron knots his brows. Colonel Arnold watches him anxiously, for -he is at the end of his resources. Finally young Aaron consults his -watch. - -“It is now ten o’clock,” he says. “Nothing can be done to-night. And -yet I think I know the man for your occasion. By daybreak I’ll have him -before you.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV--THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST - - -THERE are many deserted log huts along the St. Lawrence. Colonel Arnold -has taken up his quarters in one of these. It is eight o’clock of the -morning following the talk with young Aaron when the sentinel at the -door reports that a priest is asking admission. - -“What have I to do with priests!” demands Colonel Arnold. “However, -bring him in! He must give good reasons for disturbing me, or his black -coat will do him little good.” - -The priest is clothed from head to heel in the black frock of his order. -The frock is caught in about the waist with a heavy cord. Down the front -depend a crucifix and beads. The frock is thickly lined with fur; the -peaked hood, also fur-lined, is drawn forward over the priest’s face. In -figure he is short and slight. As he peers out from his hood at Colonel -Arnold, his black eyes give that commander a start of uncertainty. - -“I suppose you speak no French?” says the priest. - -His accent is wretched. Colonel Arnold might be justified in retorting -that his visitor speaks no English. He restricts himself, however, to an -admission that, as the priest surmises, he has no French, and follows it -with a bluff demand that the latter make plain his errand. - -“Why, sir,” returns the priest, glancing about as though in quest of -some one, “I expected to find Captain Burr here. He tells me you wish to -send a message to Montreal.” - -Colonel Arnold is alert in a moment; his manner undergoes a change from -harsh to suave. - -“Ah!” he cries amiably; “you are the man.” Then, to the sentinel at the -door: “Send word, sir, to Captain Burr, and ask him to come at once to -my quarters.” - -While waiting the coming of young Aaron, Colonel Arnold enters into -conversation with his clerkly visitor. The priest explains that he hates -the English, as do all Canadians of French stock. He is only too willing -to do Colonel Arnold any service that shall tell against them. Also, he -adds, in response to a query, that he can make his way to Montreal in -ten days. - -“There are farmer and fisher people all along the St. Lawrence,” says -he. “They are French, and good sons of mother church. I am sure they -will give me food and shelter.” - -The sentinel comes lumbering in, and reports that young Aaron is not to -be found. - -“That is sheer nonsense, sir!” fumes Colonel Arnold. “Why should he not -be found? He is somewhere about camp. Fetch him instantly!” - -When the sentinel again departs, the priest frees his face of the -obscuring hood. - -“Your sentinel is right,” he says. “Captain Burr is not at his -quarters.” - -Colonel Arnold stares in amazement; the priest is none other than our -“gentleman volunteer.” Perceiving Colonel Arnold gazing in curious -wonder at his clerkly frock, young Aaron explains. - -“I got it five days back, at that monastery we passed. You recall how I -dined there with the Brothers. I thought then that just such a peaceful -coat as this might find a use.” - -“Marvelous!” exclaims Colonel Arnold. “And you speak French, too?” - -“French and Latin. I have, you see, the verbal as well as outward -furnishings of a priest of these parts.” - -“And you think you can reach Montgomery? I have to warn you, sir, that -the work will be extremely delicate and the danger great.” - -“I shall be equal to the work. As for the peril, if I feared it I should -not be here.” - -It is arranged; and young Aaron explains that he is prepared, indeed, -prefers, to start at once. Moreover, he counsels secrecy. - -“You have an Indian guide or two, about you,” says he, “whom I do not -trust. If my errand were known, one of them might cut me off and sell my -scalp to the English.” - -When Colonel Arnold is left alone, he gives himself up to a -consideration of the chances of his message going safely to Montreal. He -sits long, with puckered lips and brooding eye. - -“In any event,” he murmurs, “I cannot fail to be the better off. If he -reach Montgomery, that is what I want. On the other hand, should he fall -a prey to the English I shall think it a settlement of what debts I owe -him. Yes; the latter event would mean three hundred pounds to me. Either -way I am rid of one whose cool superiorities begin to smart. Himself a -gentleman, he seems never to forget that I am an apothecary.” - -Young Aaron is twenty miles nearer Montreal when the early winter sun -goes down. For ten days he plods onward, now and again lying by to avoid -a roving party of English. As he foretold, every cabin is open to the -“young priest.” He but explains that he has cause to fear the redcoats, -and with that those French Canadians, whom he meets with, keep nightly -watch, while couching him warmest and softest, and feeding him on the -best. At last he reaches General Montgomery, and tells of Colonel Arnold -below Quebec. - -General Montgomery, a giant in stature, has none of that sluggishness -so common with folk of size. In twenty-four hours after receiving young -Aaron’s word, he is off to make a junction with Colonel Arnold. He takes -with him three hundred followers, all that may be spared from Montreal, -and asks young Aaron to serve on his personal staff. - -[Illustration: 0067] - -They find Colonel Arnold, with his five hundred and fifty, camped under -the very heights of Quebec. The garrison, while quite as strong as is -his force, have not once molested him. They leave his undoing to the -cold and snow, and that starvation which is making gaunt the faces and -shortening the belts of his men. - -General Montgomery upon his arrival takes command. Colonel Arnold, -while foreseeing this--since even his vanity does not conceive of a -war condition so upside down that a colonel gives orders to a -general--cannot avoid a fit of the sulks. He is the more inclined to be -moody, because the coming of the big Irishman has visibly brightened his -people, who for months have been scowls and clouds to him. Now the face -of affairs is changed; the mutinous ones have nothing save cheers for -the big general whenever he appears. - -General Montgomery calls a conference, and Colonel Arnold comes with all -his officers. At the request of young Aaron, the big general retains -him by his side. This does not please the ex-apothecary, it hurts his -self-love that the “gentleman volunteer” is so obviously pleased to be -free of his company. At the conference, General Montgomery advises all -to hold themselves in readiness for an assault upon the English walls. - -“I cannot tell the night,” he observes; “I only say that we shall -attack during the first snowstorm that occurs. It may come in an hour, -wherefore be ready!” - -The storm which is to mask the movements of General Montgomery does not -keep folk waiting. There soon falls a midnight which is nothing save -a blinding whirling sheet of snow. Thereupon the word goes through the -camp. - -The assault is to be made in two columns, General Montgomery leading -one, Colonel Arnold the other. Young Aaron will be by the elbow of the -big Irishman. By way of aiding, a feigned attack is ordered for a far -corner of the English works. - -As the soldiers fall into their ranks, the storm fairly swallows them -up. It would seem as though none might live in such a tempest--white, -ferociously cold, Arctic in its fury! It is desperate weather! the -more desperate when faced by ones whose courage has been diminished -by privation. But the strong heart of General Montgomery listens to no -doubts. He will lead out his eight hundred and fifty against an equal -force that have been sleeping warm and eating full, while his own were -freezing and starving. Also, those warm, full-fed ones are behind stone -walls, which the lean, frozen ones must scale and capture. - -“I shall give you ten minutes’ start,” observes General Montgomery to -Colonel Arnold. “You have farther to go than we to gain your position. I -shall wait ten minutes; then I shall press forward.” - -Colonel Arnold moves off with his column through the driving storm. When -those ten minutes of grace have elapsed, General Montgomery gives his -men the word to advance. - -They urge their difficult way up a ravine, snow belt-deep. There is an -outer work of blockhouse sort at the head of the defile. It is of solid -mason work, two stories, crenelled above for muskets, pierced below for -two twelve-pounders. This must be reduced before the main assault can -begin. - -As General Montgomery, with young Aaron on the right, the column in -broken disorder at his heels, nears the blockhouse, a dog, more wakeful -than the English, is heard to bark. That bark turns out the redcoat -garrison as though a trumpet called. - -“Forward!” cries General Montgomery. - -The men respond; they rush bravely on. The blockhouse, dully looming -through the storm, is no more than forty yards away. - -Suddenly a red tongue of flame licks out into the snow swirl, to be -followed by the roar of one of the twelve-pounders. In quick response -comes the roar of its sister gun, while, from the loopholes above, the -muskets crackle and splutter. - -It is blind cannonading; but it does its work as though the best -artillerist is training the guns at brightest noonday. The head of the -assaulting column is met flush in the face with a sleet of grapeshot. - -General Montgomery staggers; and then, without a word, falls forward on -his face in the snow. Young Aaron stoops to raise him to his feet. It is -of no avail; the big Irishman is dead. - -The bursting roar of the twelve-pounders is heard again. As if to keep -their general company, a dozen more give up their lives. - -“Montgomery is slain!” - -The word zigzags along the ragged column. - -It is a daunting word! The men begin to give way. - -Young Aaron rushes into their midst, and seeks to rally them. He might -as well attempt to stay the whirling snow in its dance! The men will -follow none save General Montgomery; and he is dead. - -Slowly they fall backward along the ravine up which they climbed. Again -the two twelve-pounders roar, and a raking hail of grape sings through -the shaking ranks. More men are struck down! That backward movement -becomes a rout. - -Young Aaron loses the icy self-control which is his distinguishing -trait. He buries the retreating ones beneath an avalanche of curses, -drowns them with a cataract of scorn. - -“What!” he cries. “Will you leave your general’s body in their hands?” - -He might have spared himself the shouting effort. Already he is alone -with the dead. - -“It is better company than that of cowards!” is his bitter cry, as he -bends above the stark form of his chief. - -The English are pouring from the blockhouse. Still young Aaron will not -leave the dead Montgomery behind. Now are the steel-like powers of his -slight frame manifest. With one effort, he swings the giant body to -his shoulder, and plunges off down the defile, the eager blood-hungry -redcoats not a dozen rods behind. - - - - -CHAPTER V--THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON - - -THE gray morning finds the routed ones in their old camp by the St. -Lawrence. Colonel Arnold’s assault has also failed. The ex-apothecary -received a slight wound, and is vastly proud. It is his left arm that -was hurt, and of it he makes a mighty parade, slinging it in a rich -crimson sash. - -Colonel Arnold, now in command, does not attempt another assault, but -contents himself with maneuvering his slender forces on the plain in -tantalizing view of the redcoat foe. He sends a flag of truce to the -foot of the walls, with a sprightly challenge to their defenders, -inviting them to come out and fight. The Quebec commander, being a -soldier and no mad knight errant, refuses to be thus romantic. The -winter is deepening; he will leave the vaporing Colonel Arnold to fight -a battle with the thermometer. Also, General Burgoyne, at the head of an -army, is pointed that way. - -His maneuverings ignored, his challenge declined, Colonel Arnold puts -in an entire night framing a demand for the instant surrender of Quebec. -This he is at pains to couch in terms of insult, peppering it from top -to bottom with biting taunts. He closes with a threat that, should the -English commander fail to lower his flag, he will conquer the city at -the point of the sword, and put the garrison to disgraceful death by -gibbet and halter. When he has completed this precious manifesto, he -seeks out young Aaron, and commands him to carry it in person to the -city’s gates. As Colonel Arnold tenders the letter, young Aaron puts his -hands behind him. - -“Before I take it, sir,” says he, “I should like to hear it read.” - -Young Aaron’s contempt for the ex-apothecary has found increase with -every day since the death of Montgomery. Those braggadocio maneuverings, -the foolish challenge to come out and fight, have filled him with -disgust. They shock by stress of their innate cheap vulgarity. He is of -no mind to lend himself to any kindred buffoonery. - -“Do you refuse my orders, sirrah?” cries Colonel Arnold, falling into a -dramatic fume. - -“I refuse nothing! I say that I shall carry no letter until I know its -contents. I warn you, sir, I am not to be ‘ordered,’ as you call it, -into a false position by any man alive.” - -Young Aaron’s face is getting white; there is a dangerous sparkle in -the black ophidian eyes. Colonel Arnold reads these symptoms, and draws -back. Still, he maintains a ruffling front. - -“Sir!” says he haughtily; “you should think on your subordinate rank, -and on your youth, before you pretend to overlook my conduct.” - -“My subordinate rank shall not detract from my quality as a gentleman. -As for my youth, I shall prove old enough, I trust, to make safe my -honor. I say again, I’ll not touch your letter till I hear it read.” - -“Remember, sir, to whom you speak!” - -“I shall remember what I mentioned at the Eagle Inn; I shall remember my -self-respect.” - -Colonel Arnold fixes young Aaron with a superior stare. If it be meant -for his confusion, it meets failure beyond hope. The black eyes stare -back with so much of iron menace in them, as to disconcert the personage -of former drugs. - -He feels them play upon him like two black rapier points. His assurance -breaks down; his lofty determination oozes away. With gaze seeking the -floor, his ruddy, wine-marked countenance flushes doubly red. - -“Since you make such a swelter of the business,” he grumbles, “I, for my -own sake, shall now ask you to read it. I would have you know, sir, -that I understand the requirements as well as the proprieties of my -position.” - -Colonel Arnold tears open the letter with a flourish, and gives it to -young Aaron. The latter reads it; and then, with no attempt to palliate -the insult, throws it on the floor. - -“Sir,” cries Colonel Arnold, exploding into a sudden blaze of wrath, “I -was told in Cambridge, what my officers have often told me since, that -you are a bumptious young fool! Many times have I been told it, sir; -and, until now, I did you the honor to disbelieve it.” Young Aaron is -cold and sneering. “Sir,” he retorts, “see how much more credulous I -am than are you. I was told but once that you are a bragging, empty -vulgarian, and I instantly believed it.” - -The pair stand opposite one another, glances crossing like sword blades, -the insulted letter on the floor between. It is Colonel Arnold who again -gives ground. Snapping his fingers, as though breaking off an incident -beneath his exalted notice, he goes about on his heel. - -“Ah!” says young Aaron; “now that I see your back, sir, I shall take my -leave.” - -The winter days, heavy and leaden and chill, go by. Colonel Arnold -continues those maneuverings and challengings, those struttings and -vaporings. At last even his coxcomb vanity grows weary, and he thinks -on Montreal. One morning, with all his followers, he marches off to -that city, still held by the garrison that Montgomery left behind. -Established in Montreal he comports himself as becomes a conqueror, -expanding into pomp and license, living on the fat, drinking of the -strong. And day by day Burgoyne is drawing nearer. - -Broad spring descends; a green mist is visible in the winter-stripped -trees. The rumors of Burgoyne’s approach increase and prove disquieting. -Colonel Arnold leads his people out of Montreal, and plunges southward -into the wilderness. He pitches camp on the river Sorel. - -Since the incident of the letter, young Aaron has held no traffic, -polite or otherwise, with Colonel Arnold. The “gentleman volunteer” sees -lonesome days; for he has made no friends about the camp. The men admire -him, but offer him no place in their hearts. A boy in years, with a -beardless girl’s face, he gives himself the airs of gravest manhood. His -atmosphere, while it does not repel, is not inviting. Men hold aloof, -as though separated from him by a gulf. He tells no stories, cracks no -jests. His manner is one of careless nonchalance. In truth, he is so -much engaged in upholding his young dignity as to leave him no time -to be popular. His bringing off the dead Montgomery, under fire of the -English, has been told and retold in every corner of the camp. This -gains him credit for a heart of fire, and a fortitude without a flaw. On -the march, too, he faces every hardship, shirks no work, but meets and -does his duty equal with the best. And yet there is that cool reserve, -which denies the thought of comradeship and holds friendly folk at bay. -With them, yet not of them, the men about him cannot solve the conundrum -of his nature; and so they leave him to himself. They value him, they -respect him, they hold his courage above proof; there it ends. - -Young Aaron, aware of his lonely position, does nothing to change it. -He is conceitedly pleased with things as they are. It is the old head on -the young shoulders that thus gets in his way; Washington was right in -his philosophy. Young Aaron, however, is as content with that head, -as in those old Bethlehem days, when he patronized Dr. Bellamy, and -declared for the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield. - -None the less young Aaron is not wholly satisfied. As he idles about the -camp by the Sorel, he feels that any present chance of conquering the -fame and power he came seeking in this war is closed against him. - -“Plainly,” counsels the old head on the young shoulders, “it is time to -bring about a change.” - -Colonel Arnold is smitten of surprise one afternoon, when young Aaron -walks into his tent. He does his best to hide that surprise, as an -emotion at war with his high military station. Young Aaron, ever equal -to a rigid etiquette, salutes profoundly. - -“Colonel Arnold,” says he, “I am here to return into your hands that -rank of captain, which I hold only by courtesy. Also, I desire to tell -you that I leave for Albany at once.” - -“Albany!” - -“My canoe is waiting, sir. I start immediately.” - -“I forbid your going, sir!” - -Colonel Arnold has recovered his breath, and makes this proclamation -grandly. Privately, he is a-quake; for he does not know what stories -young Aaron might tell in the south. - -“Sir,” he repeats, “I forbid your departure! You must not go!” - -“Must not?” - -As though answering his own query, young Aaron leaves Colonel Arnold -without further remark, and walks down to the river, where a canoe -is waiting. The latter cranky contrivance is manned by a quartette of -Canadians, who sit, paddle in fist, ready for the word to start. - -[Illustration: 0081] - -At this decisive action, Colonel Arnold is roused. He springs to his -feet and follows to the waiting canoe. Young Aaron has just taken his -place. - -“Captain Burr,” cries Colonel Arnold, “what does this mean? You heard my -orders, sir! You must not go!” - -Young Aaron is ashore like a flash. “Colonel Arnold,” says he, “it -is quite possible that you have force enough at hand to detain me. Be -warned, however, that the exercise of such force will have a sequel -serious to yourself.” - -“Oh, as to that,” responds Colonel Arnold sullenly, “I shall not attempt -to detain you. I simply leave you to the responsibility of departing in -the teeth of my orders, sir.” - -In a moment young Aaron is back in the canoe; the four paddles churn -the water into baby whirlpools, and the slight craft glides out upon the -bosom of the Sorel. - -Young Aaron encounters a party of Indians, and conquers their friendship -with diplomatic rum. He reaches Albany, and tastes the delights of fame; -for the story of Quebec has preceded him, and he finds himself a hero. -Thereupon, while outwardly unmoved, he swells in the proud but secret -recesses of his heart. - -In New York he meets his college friend Ogden, who tells him that he has -sold Warlock and spent the proceeds. Likewise, Colonel Troup explains -how he received a thousand pounds for him from his estate, but was moved -to borrow the half of it, having a call for such sum. Colonel Troup -gives five hundred pounds to young Aaron, who receives it carelessly, -the while assuring his debtor, as well as young Ogden, who spent the -price of Warlock, that they are cheerfully welcome to his gold. At -that, both young Ogden and Colonel Troup pluck up a generous spirit, and -borrow each another fifty pounds; which sums our “gentleman volunteer” - puts into their impoverished fingers, as readily as though pounds -mean groats and farthings. For he holds that to be niggard of money is -impossible to a soldier and a gentleman. Did not the knight-errant of -old romaunts go chucking gold-lined purses right and left, into every -empty outstretched hand? And shall not young Aaron be the modern -knight-errant if he chooses? These are the questions which he puts to -himself, as he ministers to the famished finances of his friends. - -General Washington learns of the incident of the dead Montgomery. Having -a conscience, he is distressed by the thought that he may have been -harshly unjust, one Cambridge day, to our “gentleman volunteer.” The -conscience-smitten general has headquarters in New York, and now, when -young Aaron arrives, strives to make amends. He invites that youthful -campaigner to a place upon his personal staff, with the rank of major. -Young Aaron accepts, and becomes part of Washington’s military family. -The general is living at Richmond Hill, a mansion which in after years -young Aaron will buy and make his residence. - -For six weeks young Aaron is with Washington. Sometimes he rides out -with him; sometimes he writes reports and orders at his dictation; -always he dislikes him. He finds nothing in the Virginian to invoke his -confidence or compel his esteem. In the finale he detests him. - -This latter mind condition is vastly built up by the lack of notice -he receives from the ever-taciturn, often-abstracted, overworried -Washington. The big general will sit for hours, with brows of thought -and pondering eye, as heedless of young Aaron--albeit in the same room -with him--as though our sucking Marlborough owns no existence. This -irritates the latter’s pride; for he has military views which he longs -to unfold, but cannot because of the grim wordlessness of his chief. He -resolves to break the ice. - -Washington is sitting lost in thought. “Sir,” exclaims young Aaron, -boldly rushing in upon the general’s meditations, “the English grow -stronger. Every day their fleet is augmented by new ships, bringing -fresh troops. Eventually they will land and drive us from the city. When -that time comes, it will be my advice to burn New York to the ground, -and leave them naught save the charred ruins.” - -Washington pays no attention; it is as though a starling spoke. -Presently he mounts his horse, and soberly rides off to an inspection of -troops. Young Aaron is mightily mortified, and, by way of reestablishing -his dignity on the pedestal from which it has been thrust, neglects a -line of clerical work that should claim his attention. Washington upon -his return discovers this, and having a temper like gunpowder flashes -into a rage. - -“What does this mean, sir?” he demands, angry to the eyes. - -“Why, sir,” responds young Aaron coolly, “I should think it might mean -that I brought a sword not a pen to this war.” - -“You are insolent, sir!” - -“As you please, sir. But since you say it, I must ask to be relieved -from further duty on your staff.” - -The big general stalks from the room. The next day he transfers young -Aaron to the staff of Putnam. - -“I’m sorry he offended you, general,” says the old wolf killer. “For -myself, I’m bound to say that I think well of the boy.” - -“There is a word,” returns Washington, “as to the meaning of which, -until I met him, I was ignorant; that is the word ‘prig.’ It is strange, -too; for he is as brave as Cæsar. I have it on the words of twenty. Yes, -general, your ‘gentleman-volunteer’ is altogether a strangeling; for he -is one of those anomalies, a courageous prig.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI--POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE - - -ON that day when the farmers of Concord turn their rifles upon King -George, there dwells in Elizabeth a certain English Major Moncrieffe. -With him is his daughter, just ceasing to be a girl and beginning to -be a woman. Peggy Moncrieffe is a beauty, and, to tell a whole truth, -confident thereof to the verge of brazen. When her father is ordered -to his regiment he leaves her behind. The war to him is no more than a -riot; he looks to be back in Elizabeth before the month expires. - -The optimistic Major Moncrieffe is wrong. That riot, which is not a riot -but a revolution, spreads and spreads like fire among dry grass. At last -a hostile line divides him from his daughter Peggy. This is serious; -for, aside from forbidding any word between them, it prevents him -sending what money she requires for her care. In her distress she writes -General Putnam, her father’s comrade in the last war with the French. -The old wolf killer invites the desolate Peggy to make one of his -own household. When young Aaron leaves the staff of Washington, Peggy -Moncrieffe is with the Putnams, whose house stands at the corner of -Broadway and the Battery. - -The family of the old wolf killer is made up of Madam Putnam and two -daughters. Peggy Moncrieffe is received as a third daughter by the -kindly Madam Putnam. Also, like a third daughter, she is set to the -spinning wheel; for, while the old wolf killer fights the English, Madam -Putnam and her daughters work early and late, with spinning wheel and -loom, clothmaking for the continental troops. Peggy Moncrieffe offers -no demur; but goes at the spinning and weaving as though she is as much -puritan and patriot as are those about her. She is busy at the spinning -when young Aaron is presented. And in that presentation lurks a peril; -for she is eighteen and he is twenty. - -Young Aaron, selfish, gallant, pleased with a pretty face as with a -poem, becomes flatteringly attentive to pretty Peggy Moncrieffe. She, -for her side, turns restless when he leaves her, to glow like the sun -when he returns. She forgets the spinning wheel for his conversation. -The two walk under the trees in the Battery, or, from the quiet steps of -St. Paul’s, watch the evening sun go down beyond the Jersey hills. - -Madam Putnam is prudent, and does not like these symptoms. She issues -a whispered mandate to the old wolf killer, with whom her word is law. -Thereupon he sends the pretty Peggy to safer quarters near Kingsbridge. - -That is to say, the Kingsbridge refuge, to which pretty Peggy -reluctantly retires, is safe until she arrives. It presently becomes -a theater of danger, since young Aaron is not a day in discovering a -complete military reason for visiting it. The old wolf killer is not -like Washington; there are no foolish orders or tedious dispatches for -his aide to write. This gives leisure to young Aaron, which he improves -in daily gallops to Kingsbridge. It is to be feared that he and pretty -Peggy Moncrieffe find walks as shady, and prospects as pleasant, and -moments as sweet, as when they had the Battery for a promenade and took -in the Jersey hills from the twilight steps of St. Paul’s. Also, the -pretty Peggy no longer pleads to join her father; albeit that parent has -just been sent with his regiment to Staten Island, not an hour’s sail -away. - -This contentment of the pretty Peggy with things as they are, re-alarms -the prudence of Madam Putnam, who regards it as a sign most sinister. -Having a genius to be military, quite equal to that of her old -wolf-killing husband, she attacks this dangerously tender situation in -flank. She gives her commands to the old wolf killer, and at once he -blindly obeys. He dispatches young Aaron on a mission to Long Island. -The latter is to look up positions of defense, so as to be prepared for -the English, should they carry their arms in that direction. - -In two days young Aaron returns, and makes an exhaustive report; whereat -the old wolf killer breaks into words of praise. This duty discharged, -young Aaron is into the saddle and off, clatteringly, for Kingsbridge. -The old wolf killer sees him depart and says nothing, while a cunning -twinkle dances in the old gray eye. Then the twinkle subsides, and is -succeeded by a self-reproachful doubt. - -“He might have married her,” he observes tentatively to Madam Putnam. - -“Never!” returns that clear matron. “Your young Major Burr is too coolly -the selfish calculating egotist. He would win her and wear her as he -might some bauble ornament, and cast her aside when the glitter was -gone. As for marrying her, he’d as soon think of marrying the rings on -his fingers, or the buckles on his shoes.” - -Young Aaron comes clattering back from Kingsbridge. His black eyes -sparkle wickedly; his face, usually so imperturbable, is the seat of an -obvious anger. Moreover, he seems chokingly full of a question, which -even his ingenious self-confidence is at a loss how to ask. He gets the -old wolf killer alone. - -“Miss Moncrieffe!” he breaks forth. Then he proceeds blunderingly: “I -had occasion to go to Kingsbridge, and was surprised to find her gone.” - The last concludes with a rising inflection. - -“Why, yes!” retorts the old wolf killer, summoning the innocence of a -sheep. “I forgot to tell you that, seeing an opportunity, I yesterday -sent little Peg to Staten Island under a flag of truce. She is with her -father. Between us”--here he sinks his voice mysteriously--“I was afraid -the enemy might find some way to use little Peg as a spy.” Young Aaron -clicks his teeth savagely, but says nothing; the old wolf killer watches -him with the tail of his eye. - -The “gentleman volunteer” strides down to the sea wall, and takes a long -and mayhap loving look at Staten Island, with the wind-ruffled expanse -of bay between. - -And there the romance ends. - -Two days later young Aaron is sipping his wine in black Sam Fraunces’ -long room, the picture of that elegant indifference which he cultivates -as a virtue. Already the fancy for poor Peggy Moncrieffe has faded -from the agate surface of his nature, as the breath mists fade from the -mirror’s face, and he thinks only on how and when he shall lay down his -title of major for that of lieutenant colonel. - -The woman’s heart is the heart loyal. While he sips wine at Fraunces’, -and weighs the chances of promotion, Peggy the forgotten finds in Staten -Island another Naxos, and like another Ariadne goes weeping for that -Theseus who has already lost her from out his thoughts. - -It is unfortunate that, as aide to the old wolf killer, young Aaron is -not provided with more work for hand and head. As it is, his unfilled -hours afford him opportunity to think and talk unprofitably. He falls to -criticising Washington to the old wolf killer; which is about as sapient -as though he fell to criticising Madam Putnam to the old wolf killer. - -“Of what avail,” cries young Aaron one afternoon, as he and his grizzled -chief stroll in the Bowling Green--“of what avail for General Washington -to hold the city, when he must give it up at last? New English ships -show in the bay with the coming up of every sun. He would be wiser if -he withdrew into the interior, and so forced the foe to follow him. This -would lose them the backing of their fleet, from which they gain not -only supplies, but what is of more consequence a kind of moral support.” - -The old wolf killer looks at his opinionated aide for a moment. Then -without replying directly, he observes: - -“Just as the Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity, so the -military virtues are courage, endurance, and silence. And the greatest -of these is silence. You ought always to remember that a soldier’s sword -should be immeasurably longer than his tongue.” - -Young Aaron reddens at what he feels is a rebuke. The following day, -when he is directed to join General McDougal on Long Island, he is glad -to go. - -“He has had too little to do,” explains the old wolf killer to Madam -Putnam. “Like all workless folk he is beginning to talk; and his is the -sort of conversation that breeds enemies and brews trouble.” - -Young Aaron is in the fight on Long Island. Upon the retreating back of -that lost battle, he supervises the crossing of the troops to Manhattan. -All night, cool and quick and vigilant, he labors on the Brooklyn side -to put the men aboard the transports. When the last is across the East -River, he himself embarks, bringing with him his horse, hog-tied, in the -bottom of the barge. It is early dawn when he leads the released animal -ashore on the Manhattan side. Mounting it, with two fellow officers, -he rides northward at a leisurely gait, a half mile to the rear of the -retreating army. - -As young Aaron and his companions push north toward Kingsbridge, they -come across the baggage and stores of a battery of artillery. The -baggage and stores have been but the moment before abandoned. - -“It looks,” observes young Aaron, who is as unruffled as upon the day -when he laid down theology for law, to the horrified distress of Dr. -Bellamy--“it looks as though the captain of that battery, whoever he is, -has permitted these English in our rear to get unnecessarily upon his -nerves. There is no such close occasion as to justify the abandonment of -these stores. At least he should have destroyed them.” - -Twenty rods beyond, he finds one of the battery’s guns. He points to the -lost piece scornfully. - -“There,” says he, “is the pure proof of some one’s cowardice!” - -Spurring on, and led by the rumbling sounds of field guns in full -retreat, he overtakes the timid ones who have thrown away baggage and -gun. The captain who commands is a youth no older than young Aaron. As -the latter comes up, the boy captain is urging his cannoneers to double -speed. - -“Let me congratulate you, captain,” observes young Aaron, extravagantly -polite the better to set off the sneer that marks his manner, “on not -having thrown away your colors. May I ask your name?” - -“I, sir,” returns the artillery youth, as much moved of resentment at -young Aaron’s sneer, as is possible for one in his perturbed frame, “I, -sir, am Captain Alexander Hamilton.” - -“And I, sir, am Major Burr. Let me compliment you, Captain Hamilton, -for the ardor you display in carrying your battery forward. One might -suppose from your headlong zeal that the English forces lie in that -direction. I must needs say, however, that the zeal which casts away its -stores and baggage, and leaves a gun behind, is ill considered.” - -Captain Hamilton’s face clouds angrily; but, since he is thinking more -on the English than on insults that perilous morning, he does not reply -to the taunt. Young Aaron, feeling the better for his expressions of -contempt, wheels off to the left toward the Hudson, leaving the other to -bring on his battery with what breathless speed he may. - -“Now, had that Captain Hamilton been in the light on Long Island,” - remarks young Aaron to his companions, “the hurry he shows might have -found partial excuse. As it is, I hold his flight too feverish, when -one remembers that it is from an enemy which as yet he has personally -neither faced nor seen.” - -Young Aaron puts in divers idle months at Kingsbridge. His conduct on -Long Island, and during the retreat of the army toward the north, has -multiplied his fame for an indomitable hardihood. Indeed he is inclined -to compliment himself; though he hides the fact defensively in his own -breast. - -This good opinion of his services teaches him to entertain ambitions of -the vaulting, not to say o’er-leaping sort. As he now, by the light of -recent achievement, measures his merits nothing short of a colonelcy -and the leadership of a regiment will do him justice. Conceive then, how -deeply he feels slighted when Washington fails to share these liberal -views, and promotes him to nothing higher than that lieutenant colonelcy -which his hopes have so much outgrown. He accepts; but he feels the -title fit him with an awkward nearness, as might a coat that some -blundering tailor has cut too small. The letter of acceptance which he -indites to Washington includes such paragraphs as this: - -_I am constrained to observe that the late date of my appointment as -lieutenant colonel, subjects me to the command of officers who, in the -late campaign, were my juniors. With due submission, sir, I should like -to know whether it was misconduct on my part or extraordinary merit on -theirs, which has thus given them the preference. I desire, on my part, -to avoid equally the character of turbulent or passive, but as a decent -regard to rank is proper and necessary I hope the concern I feel in this -matter will be found excusable in one who regards his honor next to the -welfare of his country._ - -The old wolf killer is with Washington when that harassed commander -reads young Aaron’s effusion. With an exclamation of wrath the big -general tosses it across. - -“By all that is ineffable!” he cries, “read that. Now here is a boy gone -stark staring mad for vanity! A stripling of twenty-one, with face as -hairless as an egg, and yet the second rank in a regiment is no match -for his majestic deserts! Putnam,” he continues, as the old wolf killer -runs his eye over the letter, “that young friend of yours will be the -death of me yet! As I told you, sir, he is a courageous prig--yes, sir, -a mere courageous prig!” - -“What reply will you make? It should be a sharp one.” - -“It shall be none at all. I’ll make no reply to such bombastic -fault-finding. One might as well pelt a pig with pearls, as waste common -sense on such self-conceit as we have here. Do me the honor, Putnam, to -write this boy-conqueror a note, saying it is my orders that he join his -regiment at once.” - -Young Aaron finds the regiment to which he has been assigned on the -Ramapo, a day’s ride back from the Hudson. His superior in command, -Colonel Malcolm, is a shop-keeping, amiable gentleman, as short of -breath as of courage, who would as soon think of thrusting his hand -into the embers as his fat body into battle. Preeminently is he of that -peculiar war-feather that, for every reason in favor of going forward, -can give a dozen for falling back. Perceiving with delight young -Aaron to be possessed of a taste for carnage as well as command, the -peace-loving Colonel Malcolm promptly surrenders the regiment into his -hands. - -“You shall drill it and fight it,” says he, “while I will be its -father.” - -With this, the fat Colonel Malcolm retires twenty miles farther into the -interior; where he joins Madam Malcolm, as fat as himself, who unites -with five fat children, their offspring, to fatly welcome him. - -Young Aaron, now when he finds himself in sole control, parades the -regiment, and does not like its appearance. He makes it a speech, and -is exceeding frank. He explains that it is more fitted to shine at -barbecues and barn-raisings than in war. Then he grasps it with a daily -hand of steel, and begins to crush it into disciplined shape. From break -of morning until the sun goes down, he puts it through its paces. As one -of the onlookers remarks: - -“He drills ‘em till their tongues hang out.” - -The fruits of this iron rule, so much a change from that picnic -character of control but lately exercised by the amiable Colonel -Malcolm, are twofold. Young Aaron is hated and respected by every soul -on the rolls. Caring nothing for the one and everything for the other, -he continues to drill the boots off their feet. Finally, the regiment -ceases to look like a mob, and dons a military expression. At which -young Aaron is privily exalted. - -There still remain, however, a round score of thorns in his militant -flesh, being as many captains and lieutenants, who are better qualified -for the drawing-room than the field. He must rid himself of this element -of popinjay. - -Since young Aaron is clothed of no power of dismissal over the offensive -popinjays, the situation bristles with difficulties. For all that they -must go. After one night’s thought, he gets up from his cogitations -inclined to exclaim, like another Archimedes: “I have found it!” - -Young Aaron’s device is simplicity itself. Having no power of dismissal, -he will usurp it. Also, he will assert it in such fashion that not a -popinjay of them all will be able to make his dismissal the basis of -military inquiry, and keep his credit clean. - -Young Aaron writes, word for word, the same letter to each of the -undesirable popinjay ones. He words it, skillfully, in this wise: - -_Sir: You are unfitted for the duties you have assumed. For the good -of the service therefore, I demand the immediate resignation or your -commission. To be frank, sir, I think you lack the courage to lead your -men in the presence of a foe. Should I be wrong in this assumption, you -of course will demonstrate that fact by methods which readily suggest -themselves to every gentleman of spirit. Let me therefore urge that you -either forward your resignation as herein demanded by me, or dispatch -in its stead a request for that satisfaction which I, as a man of honor, -shall not for one moment deny. I beg leave to remain, sir,_ - -_Your very humble servant,_ - -_Aaron Burr, Acting Colonel._ - -“There!” thinks he, when the last letter is signed, sealed, and sent -upon its way to the popinjay hand for which it is designed, “that -should do nicely. I’ve ever held that the way to successfully deal with -humanity is to take humanity by the horns. That I’ve done. Likewise, -I flatter myself I’ve constructed my net so fine that none of them can -wriggle through. And as for breaking through by the dueling method I -hint at, I shall have guessed vastly to one side, if the best among them -own either the force or courage to so much as make the attempt.” - -Young Aaron is justified of his perspicacity. The resignations of the -popinjays come pouring in, each seeming to take the initiative, and -basing his “voluntary” abandonment of a military career on grounds -wholly invented and highly honorable to himself. No reference, even of -the blindest, is made to that brilliant usurpation of authority. Neither -is young Aaron’s letter alluded to in any conversation. - -There is one exception; a popinjay personage named Rawls, retorts in -a hectic epistle which, while conveying his resignation, avows a -determination to welter in young Aaron’s blood as a slight solace for -the outrage done his feelings. To this, young Aaron replies that he -shall, on the very next day, do himself the honor of a call upon the -ill-used and flaming Rawls, whose paternal roof is not an hour’s gallop -from the Ramapo. Accordingly, young Aaron repairs to the Rawls’s mansion -at eleven of next day’s clock. He has with him two officers, who are -dark as to the true purpose of the excursion. - -Young Aaron and the accompanying duo are asked to dinner by the Rawls’s -household. The popinjay fiery Rawls is present, but embarrassed. After -dinner, when young Aaron asks popinjay Rawls to ride with his party a -mile or two on the return journey, the fiery, ill-used one grows more -embarrassed. - -He does not, however, ride forth on that suggested mission of honor; his -alarmed sisters, of whom there are an angelic three, rush to his rescue -in a flood of terrified exclamation. - -“O Colonel Burr!” they chorus, “what are you about to do with Neddy?” - -“My dear young ladies,” protests young Aaron suavely, “believe me, I’m -about to do nothing with Neddy. I intend only to ask him what he desires -or designs to do with me. I am here to place myself at Neddy’s disposal, -in a matter which he well understands.” - -The interfering angelic sisterly ones declare that popinjay Neddy meant -nothing by his letter, and will never write another. Whereupon young -Aaron observes he will be content with the understanding that popinjay -Neddy send him no more letters, unless they have been first submitted to -the sisterly censorship of the angelic three. To this everyone concerned -most rapturously consents; following which young Aaron goes back to his -camp by the Ramapo, while the sisterly angelic ones festoon themselves -about the neck of popinjay Neddy, over whom they weepingly rejoice as -over one returned from out the blackness of the shadow of death. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA - - -WHILE young Aaron, in his camp by the Ramapo, is wringing the withers -of his men with merciless drills, sixteen miles away, in the outskirts -of the village of Paranius dwells Madam Theodosia Prévost. Madam Prévost -is the widow of an English Colonel Prévost, who was swept up by yellow -fever in Jamaica. With her are her mother, her sister, her two little -boys. The family name is De Visme, which is a Swiss name from the French -cantons. - -The hungry English in New York are running short of food. Two thousand -of them cross the Hudson, and commence combing the country for beef. -Word of that cow-driving reaches young Aaron by the Ramapo. Hackensack -is given as the theater of those beef triumphs of the hungry English. - -From rustical ones bewailing vanished kine, young Aaron receives the -tale first hand. Instantly he springs to the defense of the continental -cow. He orders out his regiment, and marches away for that stricken -Hackensack region of ravished flocks and herds. - -At Paramus, excited by stories of a cow-conquering English, the militia -of the neighborhood are fallen to a frenzied building of breastworks. -Certain of these home guards look up from their breastwork building long -enough to decide that Madam Prévost, as the widow of a former English -colonel, is a Tory. - -Arriving at this conclusion, the home guards make the next natural step, -and argue--because of their nearness to Madam Prévost--that the mother -and sister and little boys are Tories. The quietly elegant home of Madam -Prévost is declared a nest of Tories, against which judgment a belief -that the mansion is worth looting is not allowed to militate. - -As young Aaron, on his rescuing way to Hackensack, marches into Paramus, -the judgmatical home guards, in the name of a patriotism which believes -in spoiling the Egyptian, are about to begin their work of sack and -pillage. Young Aaron, who does not think that robbery assists the cause -of freedom, calls a halt. He drives off the home guards at the point of -his sword, and places sentinels upon the premises. Also he promises to -hang the first home guard who, in the name of liberty, or for any more -private reason, touches a shilling’s worth of Madam Prevost’s chattels. - -Having established his protectorate in favor of the threatened Prévost -household, young Aaron enters, hat in hand, with the pardonable purpose -of discovering what manner of folk he has pledged himself to keep -safe. It may be that he is beset by visions of distressed fair -ones--disheveled, tearful, beautiful! If so, his dreams receive a shock. -‘Instead of that flushed, frightened, clinging, tear-stained loveliness, -so common of romance, he is met by a severely angular lady who, plain of -face, with high, harsh cheek bones, and a scar on her forehead, is two -inches taller and twelve years older than himself. - -Madam Prévost owns all these; and yet, beyond and above them, she -also possesses an ineffable, impalpable something, which is like -an atmosphere, a perfume, a melody of manner, and marks her as that -greatest of graceful rarities, a well-bred, cultured woman of the -world. Polished, fine, Madam Prévost is familiar with the society of -two continents. She knows literature, music, art; she is wise, erudite, -nobly high. These attributes invest her with a soft brilliancy, into -which those uglinesses and bony angularities retreat as into a kind of -moonlight, to recur in gentle reassertion as the poetic sublimation of -all that charms. - -Thus does she break upon young Aaron--young Aaron, who has said that he -would no more love a woman for her beauty than a man for his money, and -is to be won only by her who, mentally and sentimentally, meets him half -way. This last Madam Prévost does; and, from the moment he meets her -to the hour of her death, she draws him and holds him like a magnet. It -illustrates the inexplicable in love, that this cool, cynical one, whose -very youth is an iron element of hardest strength, should be fascinated -and fettered by a worn, middle-aged woman with eyes of faded gray. - -Young Aaron, on this first encounter with his goddess, remains no longer -than is required to receive the arrow in his heart. He presses on with -his followers for the Hackensack. A mile from Paramus he halts his -soldiery, and, leaving the great body of them, goes forward in person -with a scouting party of seventeen. In the middle watches of the night, -he discovers a picket post of the cow-collecting English. Only one -is awake; he is shot dead by young Aaron. The others, twenty-eight in -number, are seized in their sleep. - -In the wake of this exploit, young Aaron brings up his whole command. -The cow-hunting redcoats, from the confidence of his advance, infer in -his favor an overwhelming strength. Panic claims them; they make for the -Hudson, leaving those collected cows behind. There is rejoicing among -the Hackensack folk at this happy return of their property, and young -Aaron goes back to the Ramapo rich in encomium and praise. - -The camp by the Ramapo is given up, and young Aaron, love-drawn, brings -his force within a mile of Paramus. Daily he seeks the society of Madam -Prévost, as sick folk seek the sun. She speaks French, Spanish, German; -she reads Voltaire, and is capable of admiring without approving -the cynic of Fernay. More; she is familiar with Petrarch, Le Sage, -Corneille, Rousseau, Chesterfield, Cervantes. Madam Prévost and young -Aaron find much to talk of and agree about, in the way of romance and -poetry and philosophy, and are never dull for lack of topics. And, as -they converse, he worships her with his eyes, from which every least -black trace of that ophidian sparkle has been extinguished. - -The first snowflakes are falling when young Aaron receives orders to -join Washington’s army at Valley Forge. Arriving, his hatred of the big -general is rearoused. He suggests an expedition against the English -on Staten Island, and offers to undertake it with three hundred men. -Washington thinks well of the suggestion, but dispatches Lord Stirling -to carry it out. Young Aaron, hot with disappointment, adds this to the -list of injuries which he believes he has received from the Virginian. - -Food is stinted, fire scarce at Valley Forge; there is a deal of cold -and starving. Folk hungry and frozen are in no humor for work, and look -on labor as an evil. Young Aaron takes no account of this, but has out -his tattered, chilled, thin-flanked followers to those daily drills. - -In the end a spirit of mutiny creeps in among the men. It finds concrete -shape one frosty morning when private John Cook levels his musket at -young Aaron’s heart. Private Cook means murder, and is only kept from it -by the promptitude of young Aaron. With that very motion of the mutineer -which aims the gun, young Aaron’s sword comes rasping from its scabbard, -and a backhanded stroke all but severs the would-be homicide’s right -arm. The wounded man falls bleeding to the ground. With that, young -Aaron details a pale-faced, silent quartette to carry the wounded one to -the hospital, and, drawing his blade through a handkerchief to wipe away -the blood, proceeds with the hated drill. - -[Illustration: 0111] - -While young Aaron serves at Valley Forge, a conspiracy, whereof General -Conway is the animating heart and General Gates the figurehead, is -hatched. The purpose is to remove Washington, and set the conqueror of -Burgoyne in his place. Young Aaron joins the conspiracy, and is looked -upon by his fellow plotters as ardent, but unimportant because of his -youth. - -The design falls to the ground; Washington retains his command, while -Gates goes south to lose his Burgoyne laurels and get drubbed by -Cornwallis. As for young Aaron, he swallows as best he may his -disappointment over the poor upcome of that plot, and takes part in the -battle of Monmouth. Here he has his horse shot under him, and lays -up fresh hatreds against Washington for refusing to let him charge an -English battery. - -Sore, heart-cankered of chagrin, young Aaron asks for leave of absence. -He declares that he is ill, and his hollow cheek and bilious eye sustain -him. He says that, until his health mends, he will take no pay. - -“You shall have leave of absence,” says Washington, to whom young Aaron -prefers his request in person, “but you must draw pay.” - -“And why draw pay, sir!” demands young Aaron warmly, for he somehow -smells an insult. “I shall render no service. I think the proprieties -much preserved by a stoppage of my pay.” - -“If you were the only, one, sir,” returns Washington, “I might say as -you do. But there be others on sick leave, who are not men of fortune -like yourself. Those gentlemen must draw their pay, or see their -people suffer. Should you be granted leave without pay, they might feel -criticised. You note the point, sir.” - -“Why,” replies young Aaron, with a tinge of sarcasm, “the point, I take -it, is that you would not have me shine at the expense of folk of lesser -fortune or more avarice than myself. Because others are not generous to -their country, I must be refused the poor privilege of contributing even -my absence to her cause.” - -At young Aaron’s palpable sneer, the big general’s face darkens with -anger. “You exhibit an insolence, sir,” he says at last, “which I -succeed in overlooking only by remembering that I am twice your age. -I understand, of course, that you intend a covert thrust at myself, -because I draw my three guineas per day as commander in chief. Rather -to enlighten you than defend my own conduct, I may tell you, sir, that I -draw those three guineas upon the precise grounds I state as reasons -why you, during your leave, must accept pay. There are men as brave, -as true, as patriotic as either of us, who cannot--as we might--fight -months on end, without some provision for their families. What, -sir”--here the big general begins to kindle--“is it not enough that men -risk their blood for these colonies? Must wives and children starve? The -cause is not so poor, I tell you, but what it can pay its own cost. You -and I, sir, will draw our pay, to keep in self-respecting countenance -folk as good as ourselves in everything save fortune.” - -Young Aaron shrugs his shoulders. “If it were not, sir,” he begins, -“for that difference in our ages which you so opportunely quote, to say -nothing of my inferior military rank, I might ask if your determination -to make me accept pay, whether I earn it or no, be not due to a latent -dislike for myself personally. I can think of much that justifies the -question.” - -“Colonel Burr,” observes the big general, with a dignity which is not -without rebuking effect upon young Aaron, “because you are young and -will one day be older, I am inclined to justify myself in your eyes. I -make it a rule to seldom take advice and never give it. And yet there -is room for a partial exception in your instance. There is a word, two, -perhaps, which I think you need.” - -“Believe me, sir, I am honored!” - -“My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a -better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more -fame hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, -and give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance -yourself.” - -The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra -six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is -nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with -some self-willed pupil. - -Of all the big general’s irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this -pose of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself -in hand, however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the -bottom of his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which -can come only through the other’s word. - -“Sir,” observes young Aaron, “will you be so good as to make yourself -clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest -meaning.” - -“It should be confessed,” returns the big general, somewhat to one side, -“that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is -that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were -not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for -whom you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall.” - -Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news -that Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools -his features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement -nor dismay. The big general goes on: - -“No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with -your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons, -but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, -sir, to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control -my attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity -in what I say.” - -“Why, sir,” interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness -and self-possession equal with the big general’s; “you give yourself -unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I -shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract -from your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I -shall accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected -by its honorable source.” - -The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron’s manner would have got him -drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites -his lip. - -“What I would tell you,” he resumes, “is this. You possess the raw -material of greatness--but with one element lacking. You may rise to -what heights you choose, if you will but cure yourself of one defect. -Observe, sir! Men are judged, not for deeds but motives. A man injures -you; you excuse him because no injury was meant. A man seeks to injure -you, but fails; and yet you resent it, in spite of that defensive -failure, because of the intent. So it is with humanity at large. It -looks at the motive rather than the act. Sir, I have watched you. You -have no motive but yourself. Patriotism plays no part when you come -to this war; it is not the country, but Aaron Burr, you carry on your -thoughts. Whatever you may believe, you cannot win fame or good repute -on terms, so narrow. A man is so much like a gun that, to carry far, he -must have some elevation of aim. You were born fortunate in your parts, -save for that defective element of aim. There, sir, you fail, and will -continue to fail, unless you work your own redemption. It is as though -you had been born on a dead level--aimed point-blank at birth. You -should have been born at an angle of forty-five degrees. With half the -powder, sir, you would carry twice as far. Wherefore, elevate yourself; -give your life a noble purpose! Make yourself the incident, mankind -the object. Merge egotism in patriotism; forget self in favor of your -country and its flag.” - -The gray eyes of the big general rest upon young Aaron with concern. -Then he abruptly retreats into the soldier, as though ashamed of his own -earnestness. Without giving time for reply to that dissertation on the -proper aim of man, he again takes up the original business of the leave. - -[Illustration: 0119] - -“Colonel Burr,” says he, “you shall have leave of absence. But your -waiver of pay is declined.” - -“Then, sir,” retorts young Aaron, “you must permit me to withdraw my -application. I shall not take the country’s money, without rendering -service for it.” - -“That is as you please, sir.” - -“One thing stands plain,” mutters young Aaron, as he walks away; “the -sooner I quit the army the better. For me it is ‘no thoroughfare,’ and -I may as well save my time. He knows of my part in that Conway-Gates -movement, too; and, for all his platitudes about justice and high aims, -he’s no one to forget it.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--MARRIAGE AND THE LAW - - -YOUNG Aaron, with his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is -dispatched to hold the Westchester lines, being that debatable -ground lying between the Americans at White Plains and the English at -Kingsbridge. It is still his half-formed purpose to resign his sword, -and turn the back of his ambition on every hope of military glory. He -says as much to General Putnam, whose real liking for him he feels and -trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues in favor of patience. - -“Washington is but trying you,” he declares. “It will all come right, -if you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing, -let me tell you! Suck comfort from that!” - -Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go -as far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own -military prospects. - -“General,” he says, “believe me when I tell you that I accept what you -say as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel -to his general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning -Washington; they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as -either a soldier or a man.” - -“And there you are wrong!” breaks in the old wolf killer; “twice wrong.” - -“Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I -have.” - -“You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that -you yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such -conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French -War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to -base opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier -anywhere than Washington.” - -“But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing.” - -“Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling -back and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final -success. Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?” - -“Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?” - -The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly, -he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does -Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not -fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the -ghost of a smile. - -“Where, then, should this war be won?” asks young Aaron. - -“Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I’m not wearing -a sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all -that, I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will -be won in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and -Burke and Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them -the occasion and the argument, and that can be accomplished only by -retreating.” - -Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. “Now I -should call,” says he, “these retreats, by which you and Washington seem -to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to -our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by -retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English -Whigs an argument which shall induce King George to recognize our -independence?” - -“If you were ten years older,” remarks the old wolf killer, “you would -not put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you, -and shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You -think a war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and -guns. It isn’t; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English -are shedding their guineas much faster than they shed their blood. -Presently the taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel -it now. Let the drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will -break down; they will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our -independence.” - -“Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of -it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the -English taxpayer breaks down.” - -“You’ve nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor -the powder, nor--and this last in particular--the bayonets to wage -aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They -would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force -of numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would -win. Our plan--the Washington plan--is, with as little loss as possible -in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe. There is -but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back, to the -close of the chapter.” - -“At least,” says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, “you will admit -that the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of -attractive gallantry.” - -“Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that -Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither -from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered -strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat -than to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he -talks not of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or -nothing of that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws -away practical advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem -slightly of Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The -most I may say to comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows -himself. And”--here the old wolf killer’s voice begins to tremble a -little--“I’ll go further: I’ve seen many men; but none of a courage, a -patriotism, a fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his -exalted ideals or noble genius for justice.” - -Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and -would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause -he observes: - -“Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and -Washington shall be all you say. None the less--and here I believe you -will bear me out--he has of me no good opinion. He will not advance me; -he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all, the question -I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought, and now tell -you I still think, that I might better take off my sword, forget war, -and see what is to be won in the law.” - -“And you ask my advice?” - -“Your honest advice.” - -“Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his -opinion of you is unjust, and he’ll be soonest to admit it. To convince -him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty.” - -“Very good,” observes Aaron, resignedly, “I shall, for the present -at least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice, -general, you have given me something else in this conversation which I -value more; that is, your expressed and friendly confidence.” - -Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws -himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his rôle as warden of the -Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under -Tryon move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town -in hot and fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are -themselves surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten -Duyvel; young Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives. -Likewise, under cloud of night--night, ever the ally of lovers--he -oft plays Leander to Madam Prevost’s Hero; only the Hudson is his -Hellespont, and he does not swim but crosses in a barge. These -love pilgrimages mean forty miles and as many perils. However, the -heart-blinded young Aaron is not counting miles or perils, as he -pictures his gray goddess of Paramus sighing for his coming. - -One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies. -The good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of -paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more -since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He -consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his -resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with -him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as -years wear on. - -Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes; -so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With -war and battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them, -scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion -of the faded Madam Prévost and her boy lover. The discussion, however, -is carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the -shoulder or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prévost and young Aaron -neither hear nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer, -dearer things. - -It is deep evening at the Prévost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate; -the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse -through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron’s memory is for a -moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other -than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he -was dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows -Madam Prévost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands. - -“Oh, I’ve lied and played the hypocrite all day!” - -Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her -husband, and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one -abandoned, to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which -she was privy, and the commission whereof she urged. - -“This gentleman!” cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story--she -has become aware of young Aaron--“this gentleman! May I trust him?” - -[Illustration: 0133] - -“As you would myself,” returns Madam Prévost. - -And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does -not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her -uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the -subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prévost. - -Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam -Prévost is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is -about to return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with -Tappan Reeve. She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity, -were he able to write himself “lawyer” before he became a married man. - -Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to -wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years -and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of -New Jersey--not too far from Paramus--and enters himself as a student -under that philosopher of jurisprudence. - -Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and -looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that -one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste -at any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and -sharply come to a profound knowledge of the law. - -Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young -Aaron remonstrates with his preceptor. - -“This will never do,” he cries. “Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the -bar!” He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of -the law within a year. “Twelve months as a student should be enough,” he -says. - -“Sir,” observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, “to talk of -taking charge of a client’s interests after studying but a year is to -talk of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance, -sir. It would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind.” - -“Possibly now,” urges young Aaron the cynical, “the opposing counsel -might be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either.” - -“Such talk is profanation!” exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult -of the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron’s ribaldry. “Let me -be plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice, -unless I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem -you many months’ journey from it.” - -Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron -bids that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There -he makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English -have driven from New York. While he waits for the day when--English -vanished--he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round sum -in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself -wholly to that impatient gentleman’s education. - -Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold. -Morning, noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron -go hammering at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student -makes astonishing advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks -when Jack proves as good as his master. Still, the sentiment which -animates young Aaron’s efforts is never high. He studies law as some -folk study fencing, his one absorbing thought being to learn how to -defeat an adversary and save himself. His great concern is to make -himself past master of every thrust, parry, and sleighty trick of fence, -whether in attack or guard, with the one object of victory for himself -and the enemy’s destruction. Justice, and to assist thereat, is the -thing distant from his thoughts. - -At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold -his own with any adversary. - -“Mark my words, sir,” he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a -fellow gray member of the guild--“mark my words, sir, he will prove one -of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There is, -of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck -which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be -retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong, -should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed -of this sinister peculiarity. If he’s right, you won’t defeat him; if -he’s wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he’ll defeat you.” - -Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff, -after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a -smartish quip. - -Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits -Albany and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three -years; but the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and -more, basing his generosity on the applicant’s services as a soldier. - -“And so,” says young Aaron, “I at least get something from my soldier -life. It wasn’t all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of -grinding study at the books.” - -Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York -City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat -exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam -Prévost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife, -after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed. - -The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany. -There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia, -and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her -father. Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers, -and walks the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is -well-nigh dead in his heart. - -About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron -gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating -metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to -where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall. - -He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two -little Prévost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of -fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the -Bowling Green, to a gathering cloud of clients. - -The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit. - -“With your few months of study,” observes the reverend doctor dryly, -“I wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going -about its practice.” - -“Law is not so difficult,” responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the -good doctor. “Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology. -That is to say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly -maintained.” - -The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron’s boldness of -assertion. - -“And yet,” continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm, -“the last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and -declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the -midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for -law?” - -“Washington drove me from the army,” responds young Aaron, with -convincing gravity. “As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and -turned lawyer only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX--SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON - - -NOW when young Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds -himself a lawyer and a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green -and a house in fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool -survey of his surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set -forth by the good Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem -and Madam Bellamy. The latter, like all true women, is curious, and -gives the doctor no peace until he relates his experiences. - -“The city,” observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and -muffins, “is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I -walked to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much -opulence there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town -houses, but cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a -fine, noble street!--very wide!--fairer than any in Boston!” - -“Doctor!” expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts. - -“Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty -thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight -hundred tons--an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the -better part painted--even the brick houses.” - -“What! Paint a brick house!” - -“It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One -sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler’s; it -was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present; -Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A -more elegant repast I never ate--all set as it was with a profusion of -massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot-----” - -“Solid silver?” - -“Ay! The king’s hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen, -too--white as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of -peaches and a musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast.” - -“Why, it is a tale of profligacy!” - -“Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and -furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no -modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater -of din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can -answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but -one real gentleman------” - -“Aaron!” - -“Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since, -for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no -better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished -contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background -he shines out like the sun at noon!” - -Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to -the descriptive “young.” He has ever scorned it, as though it were some -epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it. - -“I am not so young,” says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning -of his years--“I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade, -sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You -will oblige me by remembering the title.” - -In view of the gentleman’s tartness, it will be as well perhaps to -hereafter drop the “young”; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, -our tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, “colonel” is but a -word of pewter when no war is on. “Aaron” should do better; and escape -challenge, too, that irritating “young” being dropped. - -As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town’s affairs, he notes -that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion, -the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the -Livingstons--numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor -Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that -ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which -tribe towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. -Aaron, in the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General -Schuyler. He hears more of that austere person’s son-in-law, the -brilliant Alexander Hamilton. - -“I shall be glad to make his acquaintance,” thinks Aaron, when he is -told of the latter. “I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in -his pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns -behind. Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come -to eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side.” - -There is a sneer on Aaron’s face as these thoughts run in his mind; -those praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove. - -Aaron’s opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman’s -acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped -of their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference -of the town’s notables has been called; the local great ones are to come -together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, -they will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory -relief. - -Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge. -The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy -Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten -Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his -wine unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when -son-in-law Hamilton arrives. - -“That is he,” says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the -gentleman. - -Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black -narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is -a short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron -himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely -powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, -a forest of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and -conventional buckled shoes. - -It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses -his most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of -suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to -look one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face -generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer -and a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest -methods, and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is -lurking and secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and -backbiter, who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in -the dark. - -Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes -straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he -at once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking -in a loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own -position as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is -discussed. The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses -the dander of Aaron. Nor is the latter’s wrath the less, when he -discovers that General Schuyler’s self-satisfied young relative thinks -the suppliant Tories should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt -with. - -As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably -concerning that young gentleman’s bumptiousness and pert forwardness, -the company is rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, -arrogant, supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked -to preside. Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, -dictatorial voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits -that the Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural -they should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George -beaten, he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or -a patriot to hold hatred against them. These same Tories are still -Americans. Their names are among the highest in the city. Before the -Revolution they were one and all of a first respectability, many with -pews in Trinity. Now when freedom has won its battle, he feels that -the victors should let bygones be bygones, and restore the Tories, -in property and station, to a place which they occupied before that -pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776. - -All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps -forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one -who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word -of the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes -of every soul in the room. - -The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks -are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general -has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse -than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to -torch and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, -most mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. -As for restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil -share in a government which they did their best to strangle in its -cradle, the thought is preposterous. They may have been “respectable,” - as General Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious--a -mere hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had -pews in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope -to make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last. - -As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement -runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration -cast in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir. - -Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his -chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those -approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones -are high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron -direct, and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be -tolerant, for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, -he must ask that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He -himself, he says, cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better -than a stranger, an interloper, might with a nice propriety remain -silent on occasions such as this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring -that the position taken by Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what -shall be their rights, is un-American. He, himself, has fought for the -Revolution; but, now it is ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and -liberality will not be guided by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would -make the unending punishment of Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. -He fears that Aaron misunderstands the sentiment of those among whom he -has pitched his tent, congratulates him on a youth that offers an excuse -for the rashness of his expressions, and hopes that he may live to gain -a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton does himself proud, and the rusty -old general erects his pleased crest, to find himself so handsomely -defended. - -The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked -Aaron again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following -that orator’s example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton -himself. - -“Our friend,” says Aaron, “reminds me that I am young in years; and I -think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as -many years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered -share he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while -I hold him better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as -a soldier, I concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a -soldier, and while serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our -friend. He does not remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was -upon a day when he had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his -guns, forgotten everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and -I should be much too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful -circumstances, he would remember me. As to my newness in the town, and -that crippled Americanism wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. -I got no one’s consent to come here; I shall ask no one’s permission to -stay. Doubtless I would have been more within a fashion had I gone with -both questions to the gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who -presides here today. These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I -shall content myself with an Americanism which, though it possess none -of those sunburned, West Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in -the gentleman, may at least congratulate itself upon being two hundred -years old.” - -Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton -those courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to -voice again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments -he has earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, -nothing save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud -has been born--a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined -to await its development before pronouncing for either side. The -feeling, however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the -resolution smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table. - - - - -CHAPTER X--THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE - - -WHILE Aaron, frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as -his ruffles, is saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, -that latter young gentleman’s face is a study in black and red. His -expression is a composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron -is so full, so frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not -sure of its purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as -to his own importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron’s attack -is parcel of some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or -envy him, or both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of -the way. He draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life -is good and death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but -stomachs in silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. -What is strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them -some chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim -fineness of Aaron’s manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is -ready to carry discussion to the cold verge of the grave. - -Son-in-law Hamilton’s nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in -Aaron’s, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his -heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown -perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who -look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says -he will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall -pursue. Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat -abruptly, feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after -son-in-law Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way. - -The incident is a nine-days’ food for gossip; wagers are made of a -coming bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those -lose who accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting -is politely peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider -separation is the upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law -Hamilton, who is presented by Colonel Troup. - -“We should know each other better, Colonel Burr,” he observes. - -Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that -of itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays -glance from his chill exterior as from an iceberg. - -“Doubtless we shall,” says he. - -Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his -coming. “General Schuyler,” he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his -father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god--“General Schuyler -would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him.” - -Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one -of Aaron’s youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see -the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler--that Jove who -not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is -shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve. - -“Pardon me, sir!” says Aaron. “Say to General Schuyler that his request -is impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on -their affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I -shall go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come -to me.” - -“You forget General Schuyler’s age!” returns son-in-law Hamilton. There -is a ring of threat in the tones. - -“Sir,” responds Aaron stiffly, “I forget nothing. There is an age cant -which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you -may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall -not in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest -folk, because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize -or, if they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are -fewer than thirty.” - -“I am sorry you take this view,” returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying -Aaron’s stiffness. “You will not, I fear, find many to support you in -it.” - -“I am not looking for support, sir,” observes Aaron, pointing the remark -with one of those black ophidian stares. “I do you also the courtesy to -assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark.” - -There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton -so far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to -say that General Schuyler’s place in the community is of such high and -honorable sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. -As to criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman. - -There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a -trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes. - -“There could be no agreement with that young man,” mutters Aaron, -looking after the retreating Hamilton, “save on a basis of submission to -his leadership. I’ll be chief or nothing.” - -Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the -courts, as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, -convincing, he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; -clients crowd about him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold. - -Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton--himself actively in the -law--before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the -other’s match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy, -however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever -litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law -Hamilton are an added reason for the latter’s jealous hatred. He and -his rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron’s foes, and grasp at every -chance to do him harm. - -And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into -favor with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. -The latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks -them, but declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no -profit, but only loss in politics. - -In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he -rolls up riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of -Richmond Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson--Richmond Hill, -where he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his -vanity from the big general’s loftily abstracted pose. - -Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his -cellars with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the -one and sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; -and, because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him -trenches upon the maternal. - -The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue -instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the -small Prévost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and -reading Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for -baby Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is -to her credit not theirs that she isn’t hopelessly spoiled. - -In his wine and his reading, Aaron’s tastes take opposite directions. -The books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He -reads Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary -Wollstonecraft. - -He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in -decoration furnishes the prudish a pang. - -These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, -social and political, do not help Aaron’s standing with respectable -hypocrites, of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion -and commerce and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers -of society purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron’s name is -mentioned, and speak of him as favoring “Benthamism” and “Godwinism.” - Our dullard pharisee folk know no more of “Benthamism” and “Godwinism” - in their definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their -manner is the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than -murder. Aaron pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes -of these hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men’s -opinions, and has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. -Occupied with the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of -blind and deaf of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up -gold. And never once does his glance rove officeward. - -This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron’s side. He does not pursue -office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the -legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. -As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton -at its head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State’s -public land for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three -shillings an acre; the purchasers number six. The big sale is to -Alexander McComb, who is given a deed for three million six hundred -thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. The public howls over these -surprising transactions in real estate. The popular anger, however, is -leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of Cæsar. Aaron, who dwells -more in the background, escapes unscathed. - -While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a -constitution. Then it elects Washington President, and sets up -government shop in New York. Aaron’s part in these mighty doings is the -quiet part. He does not think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; -he thinks less of Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the -rim of the possible that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington’s -Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, helps the administration to a -lowest place in Aaron’s esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that -feud is in no degree relaxed. - -When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and -Rufus King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in -the two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no -wise weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of -that short term, he will be reëlected for a full term of six years. To -assume otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no -such short-term uneasiness. - -Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge -of men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest -in the Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian’s -administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General -Schuyler, of that latter personage’s reelection. Indeed, if he could be -prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of -all sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is -surest. Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies. - -And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is -watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet -none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his -pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is -to wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator -means a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he -is. More; it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be -even for what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights -which he neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped -smile as he pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look -which will spread across the face of Washington, when he hears of the -rusty Schuyler’s overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. -The smile is quick to die, however, since he who would strip his toga -from the rusty Schuyler must not sit down to dreams and castle building. - -Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution -he foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook -does not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. - -In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two -things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital -importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. -He looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental -catalogue of his approachable points. - -The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were -not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly -loves a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron -shows the old governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton -interest was slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought -home victory for the latter. - -“You owe General Schuyler,” he says, “no help at this pinch. Still less -are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the -field.” - -“And yet,” protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite -convinced--“and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his son-in-law -in the business.” - -“Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last -to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; -in doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water -he could find.” - -What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old -governor. At this the latter’s Irish blood begins to gather heat. - -“It is as you tell me!” he cries at last; “I can see it now! That West -Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!” - -“And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics -‘Schuyler’ and ‘Hamilton’ are interchangeable.” - -“You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, -and I shall not be less than theirs.” - -The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the -rusty Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga -connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six -years as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes -discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed -upon to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. -Such approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched -upon at this time. - -“From your place, sir, as governor,” observes the skillful Aaron, “you -could not of course condescend to go in person to the Livingstons. My -position, however, is not so high nor my years so many as are yours; I -need not scruple to take up the matter with them. As to a candidate, I -can go to them more easily if we leave the question open. I could tell -the Livingstons that you would like a suggestion from them on that -point. It would flatter their pride.” - -The old governor is pleased to regard with favor the reasoning of Aaron. -He remarks, too, that with him the candidate is not important. The main -thought is to defeat the rusty Schuyler, who, with son-in-law Hamilton, -so aforetime played the hypocrite, and pulled treacherous wires against -him, in the hope of compassing his defeat. He declares himself quite -satisfied to let the Livingstons select what fortunate one is to be the -senate successor of the rusty Schuyler. He urges Aaron to wait on the -Livingstons without delay, and discover their feeling. - -Aaron confers with the Livingstons, and shows them many things. Mostly -he shows them that, should he himself be chosen senator, it will -necessitate his resignation as attorney general. Also, he makes it -appear that, if the old governor be properly approached, he will name -Morgan Lewis to fill the vacancy. The Livingston eye glistens; the -mother of Morgan Lewis is a Livingston, and the office of attorney -general should match the gentleman’s fortunes nicely. Besides, there -are several ways wherein an attorney general might be of much Livingston -use. No, the Livingstons do not say these things. They say instead that -none is more nobly equipped for the rôle of senator than Aaron. Finally, -it is the Livingstons who go back to the old governor. Nor do they find -it difficult to convince him that Aaron is the one surest of defeating -the rusty Schuyler. - -“Colonel Burr,” say the Livingstons, “has no record, which is another -way of saying that he has no enemies. We deem this most important; it -will lessen the effort required to bring about him a majority of the -legislature.” - -The old governor, as Aaron feared, is inclined to shy at the not too -many years of our ambitious one; but after a bit Aaron, as a notion, -begins to grow upon him. - -“He has brains, sir,” observes the old governor thoughtfully--“he has -brains; and that is of more consequence than mere years. He has double -the intelligence of Schuyler, although he may not count half his age. I -call that to his credit, sir.” The chief of the clan-Livingston shares -the Clinton view. - -And now takes place a competition in encomium. Between the chief of the -clan-Livingston, and the old governor, so many excellences are ascribed -to Aaron that, did he own but the half, he might call himself a model -for mankind. As for Morgan Lewis, who is a Livingston, the old governor -sees in him almost as many virtues as he perceives in Aaron. He gives -the chief of the clan-Livingston hand and word that, when Aaron steps -out of the attorney generalship, Morgan Lewis shall step in. - -Having drawn to his support the two most powerful influences of the -State, Aaron makes search for an issue. He looks into the mouth of the -public, and there it is. Politicians do not make issues, albeit -poets have sung otherwise. Indeed, issues are so much like the poets -themselves that they are born, not made. Every age has its issue; from -it, as from clay, the politicians mold the bricks wherewith they build -themselves into office. The issue is the question which the people ask; -it is to be found only in the popular mouth. That is where Aaron looks -for it, and his quest is rewarded. - -The issue, so much demanded of Aaron’s destinies, is one of those -big-little questions which now and then arise to agitate the souls of -folk, and demonstrate the greatness of the small. There are twenty-eight -members in the National Senate; and, since it is the first Senate and -has had no predecessor, there exist no precedents for it to guide by. -Also those twenty-eight senators are puffballs of vanity. - -On the first day of their first coming together they prove the purblind -sort of their conceit, by shutting their doors in the public’s face. -They say they will hold their sessions in secret. The public takes this -action in dudgeon, and begins filing its teeth. - -Puffiest among those senate puffballs is the rusty Schuyler. As narrow -as he is arrogant, as dull as vain, his contempt for the herd was -never a secret. As a senator, he declares himself the guardian, not -the servant, of a people too weakly foolish for the safe transaction of -their own affairs. - -It is against this self-sufficient attitude of the rusty Schuyler -touching locked senate doors that Aaron wages war. He urges that, in a -republic, but two keys go with government; one is to the treasury, the -other to the jail. He argues that not even a senate will lock a door -unless it be either ashamed or afraid of what it is about. - -“Of what is our Senate afraid?” he asks. - -“Of what is it ashamed? I cannot answer these questions; the people -cannot answer them. I recommend that those who are interested ask -General Schuyler.” - -The public puts the questions to the rusty Schuyler. Not receiving an -answer, the public carries the questions to the legislature, where the -Clinton and Livingston influences come sharply to the popular support. - -“Shall the Senate lock its door?” - -The Clintons say No; the Livingstons say No; the people say No. Under -such overbearing circumstances, the legislature feels driven to say No; -and, as a best method of saying it, elects to the Senate Aaron, who is -a “door-opener,” over the rusty Schuyler, who is a “door-closer,” by a -majority of thirteen. It is no longer “Aaron Burr,” no longer “Colonel -Burr,” it is “Senator Burr.” The news heaps the full weight of ten years -on the rusty Schuyler. As for son-in-law Hamilton, the blasting word of -it withers and makes sick his heart. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK - - -THE shop of government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief -space between the overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and -the latter taking his seat, the great ones talk of nothing but that -overthrow. Washington vaguely and Jefferson clearly read in the victory -of Aaron the beginning of a new order. It is extravagantly an hour of -classes and masses; and the most dull does not fail to make out in the -Senate unseating of the rusty but aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant -clutch at power by the masses. - -Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President’s -dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams, -those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the -subject. - -“It is the strangest news!” says he--“this word of the Senate success of -Colonel Burr.” - -Then, appealing to Hamilton: “Of what could your folk of New York have -been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of -one of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small -fortune, and no family at all.” - -“Sir,” breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, “you go wide. Colonel -Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan -Edwards; on his father’s side the strain is as high. You would look -long, sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree.” - -“Whatever may be the gentleman’s pedigree,” retorts Hamilton -splenetically, “you will at least confess it to be only a New England -pedigree.” - -“Only a New England pedigree!” exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. -“Why, sir, when you say ‘The best pedigree in New England,’ you have -spoken of the best pedigree in the world!” - -“Waiving that,” returns Hamilton, “I may at least assure you, sir, that -in New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence -which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the -result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson -of Jonathan Edwards or Tom o’ Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and -trickery; by the same methods through which a thief might win possession -of your horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase, -the fellow stole his victory.” At this harshness Adams looks horrified, -while Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide -shoulders. - -Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is -in no wise keen at reading men. Hamilton--quick, supple, subservient, -a brilliant flatterer--has complete possession of him. He admires -Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage. - -[Illustration: 0173] - -The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and -some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself -the mastiff’s satellite. Terrier Hamilton--brisk, busy, overbearing, not -always honest--rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing on -another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue, at -once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington. -And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening -partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love -of flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have -been his evil deeds. - -Washington constitutes Hamilton’s stock in national trade. In New -York, Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler’s son-in-law--heir to his riches, -lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton -traffics on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability -to pull or haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have -a full-blown President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment, -and Hamilton, be sure, makes the fullest, if not the most honest or -honorable, use of it. - -“Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel -Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler.” - -The voice--while not without a note of jeering--is bell-like and deep, -the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances at -his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State. - -“What was it, then,” he asks. - -“I will tell you my thought,” replies Jefferson. “General Schuyler was -beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost -family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election. -The people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their -right, and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I, -what followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy, -but aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient -wing of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold -themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are -becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of -General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse -than a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice -in its own government.” - -“You appear pleased, sir,” observes Hamilton bitterly. - -“Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the -satisfaction I feel.” - -“You amaze me!” interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either -Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. “Do I understand, sir, -that you will welcome the rule of the mob?” - -“The ‘mob,’” retorts Jefferson, “can be trusted to guard its own -liberty.. The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better -prepared to stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely, -who, in the arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste -and call themselves an American peerage.” - -“Government by the mob!” gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his -New England vanity--honest man!--has passed his life on a self-erected -pedestal. “Government by the mob!” - -“And why not, sir?” demands Jefferson sharply. “It is the mob’s -government. Who shall contradict the mob’s right to control its own? -Have we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?” - -Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the -quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid -Jefferson, and, following that democrat’s declarations anent mob right -and mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though -imploring him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins -to unlimber complacently. - -“Government, my dear Jefferson,” he says, wheeling himself like -some great gun into argumentative position, “may be discussed in the -abstract, but must be administered in the concrete. I think a best -picture of government is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He -finds them a safety and a better pasturage than they could find for -themselves. He is necessary to the sheep, as the sheep are necessary -to him. He can be trusted; since his interest is the interest of the -flock.” - -Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom, -patience, courage, but not one gleam of humor. “I cannot,” says he, -“accept your simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people -of this country are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find -our self-selected shepherds”--here he lets his glance rove cynically -to Adams and Hamilton--“such profound scientists of civil rule. Your -shepherd is a dictator. This republic--if it is a republic--might more -justly be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who -appoint agents, but retain among themselves the control.” - -“And yet,” observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his -own hatred for that new senator, “the present question is one, not of -republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him -well. You will find him a crooked gun.” - -“It is ten years since I saw him,” observes Washington. “I did not like -him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became -his years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims. -That, as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the -better.” - -“There has been no bettering change, sir,” returns Hamilton. His manner -is purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression -of one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own -goodness of heart. “Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when -you parted from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have -his place in government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be -a veriest firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril -of this man. Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his -ambition to fly at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He -is both Jack Cade and Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister -attraction for the vulgar herd; like the other, he would not hesitate -to lead the herd against government itself, in furtherance of his vile -projects.” - -Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these -malignancies; while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when -Hamilton speaks, drinks them in like spring water. - -“Well,” observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, “the -gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence, -suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a -basis for it.” - -“You will find,” says Hamilton, “that he is, as I tell you, but a -crooked gun.” - -Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his -reverend fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about -him--cynical, since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the -opening day of the session. Washington as President, severe, of an -implacable dignity, appears and reads a solemn address. Later, -according to custom, both Senate and House send delegations to wait upon -Washington, and read solemn addresses to him. - -His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate, -since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious -document in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the -Senate delegation to the President’s house. They find the big Virginian -awaiting them in the long dining room, which apartment has been -transformed into an audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying -out the table and shoving back the chairs. - -Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to -the rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming, -blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the -politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils -of flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber -and blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The -big Virginian--and that is the worst of it--is as much led by him as any -blind man by his dog. - -Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off -day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty -blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of -superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His -hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In -one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked -hat--brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with -polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in -this notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation, -Aaron and Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal -half-circle about him. - -Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads -Aaron’s address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of -purpose as was Washington’s. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy, -since the mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms -make up the etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience -chamber is less sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George -receiving his ministers, instead of President George receiving a -delegation from the Senate. - -No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty -than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for -Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive -to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out. - -“Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!” he exclaims, when Adams has -finished. “This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt -not you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive.” - -Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at -divers decisions which will have effect in the country’s story, before -the curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out. -His first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself. -He liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president. - -“I shall be no friend to this man,” thinks he, “nor he to me.” - -Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington’s all -but royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is -personal. He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling -upon more probable grounds. - -“I distaste him,” he decides, “because he meets no man on level terms. -He places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody; -everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will -either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain, -conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will -be no man’s friend--this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire -friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none -about him save knee-crooking sycophants--like this smirking parasitish -Hamilton.” - -Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address, -resolves to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him -round. Being in this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which -Hamilton’s remark affords him, to publicly notify those present of his -position. - -“It will be as well,” he ruminates, “to post, not alone these good -people of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall -let them, and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this -republican king of ours.” - -“Yes,” repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the -moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, “yes; you doubtless -find the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do. -However, it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!” Hamilton -throws off this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation. - -“Sir,” returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, “sir, -by these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your -gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed. -There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all--as -though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why -then, the President ‘addresses> the Senate, the Senate ‘addresses’ the -President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole -exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English.” - This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of -the address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He -goes on: “I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined -as it has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer -opinion of my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies -themselves, I should call them now about as edifying as the banging and -the booming of a brace of Chinese gongs.” - -Washington’s brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to -Aaron when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young -successor to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have -not been lost upon him. - -“I think,” mutters Aaron, icily complacent--“I think I pricked him.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII--IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES - - -AARON finds a Senate existence inexpressibly dull. He writes his -Theodosia: “There is nothing to do here. Everybody is idle; and, so far -as I see, the one occupation of a senator is to lie sunning himself in -his own effulgence. My colleague, Rufus King, and others I might name, -succeed in that way in passing their days very pleasantly. For -myself, not having their sublime imagination, and being perhaps better -acquainted with my own measure, I find this sitting in the sunshine of -self a failure.” - -Mindful of his issue, Aaron offers a resolution throwing open the Senate -doors. The Senate, whose notion of greatness is a notion of exclusion, -votes it down. Aaron warns his puffball brothers of the toga: - -“Be assured,” says he, “you fool no one by such trumpery tricks as this -key-turning. You succeed only in bringing republican institutions -into contempt, and getting yourselves laughed at where you are not -condemned.” - -Aaron reintroduces his open-door resolution; in the end he passes it. -Galleries are thrown up in the chamber, and all who will may watch the -Senate as it proceeds upon the transaction of its dignified destinies. -At this but few come; whereupon the Senate feels abashed. It is not, it -discovers, the thrilling spectacle its puffball fancy painted. - -Carked of the weariness of doing nothing, Aaron bursts forth with an -idea. He will write a history of the War of the Revolution. He begins -digging among the papers of the State department, tossing the archives -of his country hither and yon, on the tireless horns of his industry. - -Hamilton creeps with the alarming tale to Washington. “He speaks -of writing a history, sir,” says sycophant Hamilton. “That is mere -subterfuge; he intends a libel against yourself.” - -Washington brings his thin lips together in a tight, straight line, -while his heavy forehead gathers to a half frown. - -“How, sir,” he asks, after a pause, “could he libel me? I am conscious -of nothing in my past which would warrant such a thought.” - -“There is not, sir, a fact of your career that would not, if mentioned, -make for your glory.” Hamilton deprecates with delicately outspread -hands as he says this. “That, however, would not deter this Burr, who is -Satanic in his mendacities. Believe me, sir, he has the power of making -fiction look more like truth than truth itself. And there is another -thought: Suppose he were to assail you with some trumped-up story. You -could not come down from your high place to contradict him; it would -detract from you, stain your dignity. That is the penalty, sir”--this -with a sigh of unspeakable adulation--“which men of your utter eminence -have to pay. Such as you are at the mercy of every gutter-bred vilifier; -whatever his charges, you cannot open your mouth.” - -Aaron hears nothing of this. His first guess of it comes when he is told -by a State department underling that he will no longer be allowed to -inspect and make copies of the papers. - -Without wasting words on the underling, Aaron walks in upon Jefferson. -That secretary receives him courteously, but not warmly. - -“How, sir,” begins Aaron, a wicked light in his eye--“how, sir, am I to -understand this? Is it by your order that the files of the department -are withheld from me?” - -“It is not, sir,” returns Jefferson, coldly frank. “My own theories of -a citizen and his rights would open every public paper to the inspection -of the meanest. I do not understand government by secrecy.” - -“By whose order then am I refused?” - -“By order of the President.” - -Aaron ruminates the situation. At last he speaks out: “I must yield,” - he says, “while realizing the injustice done me. Still I shall not soon -forget the incident. You say it is the order of Washington; you are -mistaken, sir. It is not the lion but his jackal that has put this -affront upon me.” - -Idle in the Senate, precluded from collecting the materials for that -projected history, Aaron discovers little to employ himself about in -Philadelphia. Not that he falls into stagnation; for his business of -the law, and his speculations in land take him often to New York. His -trusted Theodosia is his manager of business, and when he cannot go to -New York she meets him half way in Trenton. - -Aside from his concerns of law and land, Aaron devotes a deal of thought -to little Theodosia--child of his soul’s heart! In his pride, he hurries -her into Horace and Terence at the age of ten; and later sends her -voyaging to Troy with Homer, and all over the world with Herodotus. Nor -is this the whole tale of baby Theodosia’s evil fortunes. She is taught -French, music, drawing, dancing, and whatever else may convey a glory -and a gloss. Love-led, pride-blinded, Aaron takes up the rôle of father -in its most awful form. - -“Believe me, my dear,” he says to Theodosia mere, who pleads for an -educational leniency--“believe me, I shall prove in our darling that -women have souls, a psychic fact which high ones have been heard to -dispute.” - -At the age of twelve, the book-burdened little Theodosia translates -the Constitution into French at Aaron’s request; at sixteen, she finds -celebration as the most learned of her sex since Voltaire’s Emilie. -Theodosia mere, however, is spared the spectacle of her baby’s harrowing -erudition, for in the middle of Aaron’s term as senator death carries -her away. - -With that loss, Aaron is more and more drawn to baby Theodosia; she -becomes his earth, his heaven, and stands for all his tenderest hopes. -While she is yet a child, he makes her the head of Richmond Hill, -and gives a dinner of state, over which she presides, to the limping -Talleyrand, and Volney with his “Ruins of Empire.” For all her -precocities, and that hothouse bookishness which should have spoiled -her, baby Theodosia blossoms roundly into womanhood--beautiful as -brilliant. - -While Aaron finds little or nothing of public sort to engage him, he -does not permit this idleness to shake his hold of politics. Angry -with the royalties of Washington, he drifts into near if not intimate -relations with the arch-democrat Jefferson. Aaron and the loose-framed -secretary are often together; and yet never on terms of confidence -or even liking. They are in each other’s society because they -go politically the same road. Fellow wayfarers of politics, with -“Democracy” their common destination, they are fairly compelled into -one another’s company. But there grows up no spirit of comradeship, no -mutual sentiment of admiration and trust. - -Aaron’s feelings toward Jefferson, and the sources of them, find setting -forth in a conversation which he holds with his new disciple, Senator -Andrew Jackson, who has come on from his wilderness home by the -Cumberland. - -“It is not that I like Jefferson,” he explains, “but that I dislike -Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson will make a splendid tool to destroy -the others with; I mean to use him as the instrument of my vengeance.” - -Jefferson, when speaking of Aaron to the wooden Adams, is neither so -full nor so frank. The Bay State publicist has again made mention of -that impressive ancestry which he thinks is Aaron’s best claim to public -as well as private consideration. - -“You may see evidence of his pure blood,” concludes the wooden one, “in -his perfect, nay, matchless politeness.” - - “He is matchlessly polite, as you say,” assents Jefferson; “and yet I -cannot fight down the fear that his politeness has lies in it.” - -The days drift by, and Minister Gouverneur Morris is recalled from -Paris. Washington makes it known to the Senate that he will adopt any -name it suggests for the vacancy. The Senate decides upon Aaron; a -committee goes with that honorable suggestion to the President. - -Washington hears the committee with cloudy surprise. He is silent for a -moment; then he says: - -“Gentlemen, your proposal of Senator Burr has taken me unawares. I must -crave space for consideration; oblige me by returning in an hour.” - -The senators who constitute the committee retire, and Washington seeks -his jackal Hamilton. - -“Appoint Colonel Burr to France!” exclaims Hamilton. “Sir, it would -shock the best sentiment of the country! The man is an atheist, as -immoral as irreligious. If you will permit me to say so, sir, I should -give the Senate a point-blank refusal.” - -“But my promise!” says Washington. - -“Sir, I should break a dozen such promises, before I consented to -sacrifice the public name, by sending Colonel Burr to France. However, -that is not required. You told the Senate that you would adopt its -suggestion; you have now only to ask it to make a second suggestion.” - -“The thought is of value,” responds Washington, clearing. “I am free to -say, I should not relish turning my back on my word.” - -The committee returns, and is requested to give the Senate the -“President’s compliments,” and say that he will be pleased should that -honorable body submit another name. Washington is studious to avoid any -least of comment on the nomination of Aaron. - -The committee is presently in Washington’s presence for the third time, -with the news that the Senate has no name other than Aaron’s for the -French mission. - -“Then, gentlemen,” exclaims Washington, his hot temper getting the -reins, “please report to the Senate that I refuse. I shall send no one -to France in whom I have not confidence; and I do not trust Senator -Burr.” - -“What blockheads!” comments Aaron, when he hears. “They will one day -wish they had gotten rid of me, though at the price of forty missions.” - -[Illustration: 0197] - -The wooden Adams is elected President to succeed Washington. Aaron’s -colleague, Rufus King, offers a resolution of compliment and thanks -to the retiring one, extolling his presidential honesty and patriotic -breadth. A cold hush falls upon the Senate, when Aaron takes the floor -on the resolution. - -Aaron’s remarks are curt, and to the barbed point. He cannot, he says, -bring himself to regard Washington’s rule as either patriotic or broad. -That President throughout has been subservient to England, who was our -tyrant, is our foe. Equally he has been inimical to France, who was our -ally, is our friend. More; he has subverted the republic and made of -it a monarchy with himself as king, wanting only in those unimportant -embellishments of scepter, throne, and crown. He, Aaron, seeking -to protest against these almost treasons, shall vote against the -resolution. - -The Senate sits aghast. Aaron’s respectable colleague, Rufus King, -cannot believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet. - -“I am amazed at the action of my colleague!” he exclaims. “I----” - -Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. “It is my -duty,” says Aaron, “to warn the senior senator from New York that he -must not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I -do not like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement -become a tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede -the impropriety, to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any -manifestation personally offensive to myself.” - -As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws -off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of -colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a -moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a -gulp whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is -called; Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, -carrying a baker’s dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, -horse-faced Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland. - -Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon. -Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields -the Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than -ever; for Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in -government, and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in -nothing save name; Hamilton--fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and -playing upon that wooden one’s fear of not succeeding himself--is the -actual chief magistrate. - -As Aaron’s term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept -reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved -for that scheming one’s destruction. His plans are fashioned; their -execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will -quit the Senate, quit the capital. - -“My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton,” - he says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his -purposes. “I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on -that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of -Jefferson.” - -“And Hamilton?” asks the Cumberland one. - -“Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of -retirement. Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies -may be trusted to sting him to death.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE GRINDING OF AARON’S MILL - - -AARON tells his friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts -this resolution to retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia’s -loneliness and a consequent paternal necessity of his presence at -Richmond Hill, and the tangled condition of his business; which last -after the death of Theodosia mère falls into a snarl. Never, by the -lifting of an eyelash or the twitching of a lip, does he betray any -corner of his political designs, or of his determination to destroy -Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of white-hot throbbing hate against -that gentleman of diagonal morals and biased veracities; but no sign of -the fires within is visible on the arctic exterior. - -Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton -is mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate -concern in connection with the political destinies of the rusty -Schuyler, now exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler -down from his shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his -cloak, and declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young -community toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought -to send the rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving -up. To such a degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities -of mankind, that the rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to -reassume those honors which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years -before. - -Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality. -Aaron’s astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate, -smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however, -Hamilton’s enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that -Aaron--courage broken--is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship. - -“That is it,” he explains to President Adams. “The fellow has lost -heart. This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace.” - -There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron’s -benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron’s closest friend Van Ness. - -“Schuyler for the Senate!” he exclaims. “What does that mean?” - -“It means,” whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, “that I want to -get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!” - -“And for what?” - -“The destruction of Hamilton.” - -As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door. -One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes; -all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable. - -Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton -forces are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten -North-of-Ireland Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell -more than three millions of the public’s acres to McComb for eightpence. - -And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence--working -out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington--Aaron’s practiced -vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton is as -angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which he -lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills because -its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President’s -cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton--whose policies are ever jealous -and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him the -raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to -the Party-of-things-as-they-are--which is the party of Hamilton. - -One thing irks the pride of Aaron--a pride ever impatient and ready -for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these -gentry--readily eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of -Aaron--never omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They -make a merit of accepting Aaron’s aid, and proceed on the assumption -that he gains honor by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy -this. - -“I must have a following,” says he. “I will call about me every free -lance in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which -I must be the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall -take up position between the Campbell and the Montrose--the Clintons and -the Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control -both. Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the -obstinate Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall -back, march and countermarch by my word.” - -When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to -endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies -ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling’s tavern, at Spruce -and Nassau, meets the “Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order.” The name -is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the “Sons of -Tammany or the Columbian Order,” as they sit swigging Brom Martling’s -cider, call themselves the “Bucktails.” - -The aristocracy of the Revolution--being the officers--created -unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the -Revolution--being the privates--as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not -to say gilded Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian -Order, otherwise the Bucktails, into being. - -The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social -organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of -them--quaffing and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into -the mountaintop of the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the -political world and the glories thereof. Also, he points out that -Hamilton, the head of the hated Cincinnati, is turning that organization -of perfume and purple into a power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe, -and resolve under the chiefship of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals, -the Cincinnati, in every ensuing battle of the ballots to the end of -time. - -The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not -long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the -Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this -formidable body of cider drinkers--with Aaron at its head--they conduct -themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect. They -eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they -would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they -declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as -Aaron forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is -sought for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons--the -Campbell and the Montrose. - -Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful -war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one -might have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany -Bucktails--who obey him with shut eyes--and has brought the perverse -Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb, Aaron -considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science, -has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to -insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must -pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all -quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic -enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches -are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling’s cider flow -without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees -that his plans as well as his party require a bank. - -There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow -of the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act -coercively. They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is -not amenable to the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to -security even somewhat mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion -against Hamilton, plus the best security beneath the commercial sun, -cannot coax a dollar from their strong boxes. - -Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions. -The best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton. -Aaron must free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow -him. How is this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank? -It presents as many difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton -watches the bank situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort -to obtain a charter is knocked on the head. - -Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to -Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full -of war knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank -movement, night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To -capture a bank charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and, -while all but impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if -accomplished. Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way. - -Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin’s bottle, a scheme -begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been -reaping a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres--as -usual--lay it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while -everybody knows full well that science is nothing better than just the -accepted ignorance of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his -knees to it, and to the wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and -the wiseacres lay yellow fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking -the word from them, does the same. The local water is found guilty; the -popular cry goes up for a purer element. The town demands water that is -innocent of homicidal qualities. - -It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of -Yellow Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it -shall be called “The Manhattan Company.” - -With “No more yellow fever!” for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany. -What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With -the fear of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the -Albany authorities--being the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton -Legislature--comply with his demands. The Manhattan Company is -incorporated, capital two millions. - -Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter--which -authorizes a water company--he originates a modest well near the City -Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more -than serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block. - -Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a -bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in -this; it is anti-Hamilton. - -Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton -takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a -matter of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and -the extent of its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton -flag. And Aaron, the indefatigable, is in control. At the new -Manhattan Bank, he turns on or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom -Mart-ling--spigot-busy in the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails--turns -on or shuts off the flow of his own cider. - -After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his -attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority -his Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised -world, in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the -world with water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill -its empty water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its -incorporated back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest -is dead. - -The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with -the charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney -general--first polishing his amazed spectacles--reads the following -clause: - -“The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with -the laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New -York.” - -The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam’s apple goes -up and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental -stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but -lucidly sufficient. - -“The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the -authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus -capital the Manhattan Bank.” - -The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon. - -“And you had the bank in mind from the first!” he cries. - -“Possibly,” says Aaron. - -“Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr,” and the Jay attorney general -cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; “if the authorities -at Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received -your charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been -refused.” - -“Possibly!” says Aaron. - -All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the -Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails -swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan -Bank to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their -accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the -Federal capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as -President, with all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington, -and Jefferson is abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing -shoelaces, cutting off his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President -at the other end of government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these -opposite ones. Jefferson must be his candidate; Adams will be the -candidate of the foe. He himself is to manage for the one, while -Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the situation, he holds it the -part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at these worthies, pulling -against one another, and discover to what extent and in what manner -their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar the nation’s -future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a battle must be -fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to discover aught -in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or Jefferson which -can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy. - -Aaron’s friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach. -Some worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as -talk proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected -bitterness of his feeling--a feeling which goes beyond politics, as the -acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized. - -Van Ness is wonder-smitten. - -“Your enmity to Hamilton,” he says tentatively, “strikes deeper then -than mere politics.” - -“Sir,” returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle -flashing up in his eyes, “the deepest sentiment of my nature is my -hatred for that man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who -furnishes the seed and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I -hear it east, north, west, south. I am his mania--his ‘phobia’. In his -slanderous mouth I am ‘liar,’ ‘thief,’ and ‘scoundrel rogue.’ In such -connection I would have you to remember that I, on my side, give him, -and have given him, the description of a gentleman.” - -“To be frank, sir,” returns Van Ness thoughtfully, “I know every word -you speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade -our epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with -convincing lead.” - -Aaron’s look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. “Kill -him!” he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion; -“kill him! Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for -my perfect vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope -he has shall die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he -lies prone, broken, powerless!--when he is spat upon by those in whose -one-time downcast, servile presence he strutted lord paramount!--when -his past is scoffed at, his future swallowed up!--when his word is -laughed at and his fame become a farce!--then, when every fang of -defeat pierces and poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of -killing! That hour is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness--I am an -artist of revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath, -all goes!--that for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no -past!--I must garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take -pains with my vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my -vengeful pains shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton, -for whom my whole heart flows away in hate!--I shall build for him a -pyramid of misery while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his -death--his grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies -before. I shall take from him every scrap of that power which is his -soul’s food--strip him of each least fragment of position! When he has -nothing left but life, I’ll wrest that from him. Long years after he is -gone I’ll walk this earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and -the thought that by my hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what -the friendship of man or the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him! -There is a grist in the hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill -stones of my plans are grinding!” - -Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his -soul to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in -the spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow -words follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps -over him, as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental, -abnormal, fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor -his tongue can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron -seems not to notice, but falls into a black muse. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE TRIUMPH OF AARON - - -IT is the era of bad feeling, and the breasts of men are reservoirs of -poison. Jefferson and Adams, while known admitted rivals, deplore these -wormwood conditions and strive against them. It is as though they strove -against the tides; party lines were never more fiercely drawn. Some -portrait of the hour may be found in the following: - -Adams gives a dinner; and, because he cannot get over the Jonathan -Edwards emanation of Aaron, he invites him. Also, Van Ness being with -Aaron, the invitation includes Van Ness. Hamilton and Jefferson will be -there; since it is one of the hypocritical affectations of these good -people to keep up a polite appearance of friendship, by way of example, -if not rebuke, to warring followers, who are hopefully fighting duels -and shedding blood and taking life in their interests. On the way to the -President’s house Van Ness, to whom Adams is new, queries Aaron: - -“What sort of a man is Adams?” - -“He is an honest, pragmatic, hot-tempered thick-skull,” says Aaron--“a -New England John Bull!--a masculine Mrs. Malaprop whom Sheridan would -love. You can have no better description of him than was given me but -yesterday by a member of his Cabinet. ‘Adams,’ says the cabineteer, -‘is a man who whether sportful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, -easy, stiff, jealous, careless, cautious, confident, close or open, is -so always in the wrong place and with the wrong man!’” - -“Is he a good executive?” - -“Bad! By nature he is no more in touch with the spirit of a democracy -than with the maritime policies of the Ptolemies. His pet picture of -government is England, with the one amendment that he would call the -king a president. As to his executive labors: why, then, he touches only -to disarrange, talks only to disturb. And all without meaning to do so.” - -The dinner is neither large nor formal. Aaron sits on the right hand of -Adams, while Jefferson has Van Ness and Hamilton at either elbow. In the -cross fire of conversation comes the following: The topic is government. - -“Speaking of the British constitution,” says Adams, “purge that -constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality -of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever -devised by the wit of man.” - -Hamilton cocks his ear. “Sir,” says he, “purge the British constitution -of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of -representation, and it would become an impracticable government. As -it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most -powerful government that ever existed.” - -Presently, the currents of converse shift, and the torrid heats of party -are considered. It is now that Jefferson is heard from. - -“The situation is deplorable!” he exclaims. “You and I, sir”--looking -across at Adams--“have seen warm debates and high political passions. -But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and -separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not -so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to -avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they be obliged -to touch their hats. Men’s passions are boiling over; and one who keeps -himself cool, and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of -ordinary conversation that he finds himself socially cast away. More; -there is a moral breaking down. The interruption of letters is becoming -so notorious”--here he looks hard at Hamilton, whose followers are -supposed to peep into letters not addressed to them--“that I am forming -a resolution of declining correspondence with my friends through the -channels of the post office altogether.” - -Even during Aaron’s short stay at the Capitol, fresh fuel is heaped upon -the fires of his Hamilton hates. A cloud blows up in the sky; war -with France is threatened. Washington at Mount Vernon is commissioned -commander in chief; Hamilton--the active--is placed next to him. Aaron’s -name, sent in for a general’s commission, is secretly vetoed by Hamilton -whispering in the Adams ear. - -Adams does not like the veto; he thinks he should name Aaron, and says -so. - -“If you do,” declares Hamilton warningly, “it will defeat your -reelection.” - -Adams groans and gives way. It is the argument wherewith Hamilton never -fails to drive him or curb him as he will. Aaron hears of this new -offense; he says nothing, but lays it away with the others. - -Candidate Jefferson and Manager Aaron are far apart in their hopes -and fears, the former taking the gloomy view. They come together -confidentially. - -“I have looked over the field,” says Jefferson, “and we are already -beaten.” - -“Sir,” returns Aaron with grim point, “you should look again. I think -you see things wrong end up.” - -“My hatred of Hamilton,” observes Aaron to Van Ness, as their coach -rolls north for home, “is the good fortune of Jefferson. I shall be -fighting my own fight, and so I shall win. If I were fighting only for -Jefferson, I can well see how the strife might have another upcome.” - -[Illustration: 0223] - -The campaign draws down; it is Adams against Jefferson, Federal against -Republican. Hamilton leaves the seat of government, and comes to New -York to take personal charge. At that his designs are Janus-faced. He -says “Adams,” but he means “Pinckney.” He foresees that, if Adams be -given another term, he will defy control. Wherefore he is publicly for -Adams, and privately for Pinckney--he looks at Massachusetts but -sees only South Carolina. This collision of pretense and purpose, on -Hamilton’s false part, gets vastly in the Federal way. That it should -do so will instantly occur to curious ones, if they will but seek to go -south by heading north. - -As Hamilton sets out to take presidential possession of New York, he -has no misgivings. He knows little or nothing of Aaron’s designs or what -that ingenious gentleman has been about. - -“There is the Manhattan Bank of course; but what can it do? There are -the Bucktails--who are vulgar clods! There are the Livingstons and the -Clintons--he has beaten them before!” - -Thus run the reflections of the confident Hamilton. No; he sees only -triumph ahead. He gives Aaron and his candidate Jefferson--with their -borrel issue of Alien and Sedition--not half the thought that he devotes -to ways and means by which he hopes finally to steal the electors from -Adams, and produce Pinckney in the White House. That is Hamilton’s dream -of power--Pinckney! - -Everything pivots on the legislature; since it is the legislature which -will select the electors. - -Hamilton, bearing in mind his intended steal of the State, prepares his -list of candidates for Albany. He does not pick them for either wisdom -or moral worth; what he is after are legislators whom he can certainly -manhandle to match his designs, and who will give him electors--he -himself will furnish the names--of a Pinckney not an Adams complexion. -He makes up his slate to that treasonable end; and the swift Aaron gets -a copy before the ink is dry. - -Aaron smiles when he runs down the ignoble muster of Hamilton’s boneless -nonentities. - -“They are the least in the town!” he mutters. “I shall pit against them -the town’s greatest.” - -Aaron with his Bucktails, now makes ready his own legislative ticket. -At the head he places old North-of-Ireland Clinton--a local Whittington, -ten times governor of the State. General Gates--for whom Aaron, when -time was, plotted the downfall of Washington, and who received the sword -of the vanquished Burgoyne and sent that popinjay back to England to -fail at play-writing--comes next. After General Gates the wily Aaron -writes “Samuel Osgood”--who was Washington’s postmaster general--“Henry -Rutgers, Elias Neusen, Thomas Storms, George Warner, Philip Arcularius, -James Hunt, Ezekiel Robbins, Brockholst Livingston, and John -Swartwout”--every name a tower of strength. - -Hamilton cannot repress a flutter of fear as he reads the noble roster; -but his unflagging vanity, which serves him instead of a more reasonable -optimism, rushes to his rescue. None the less it jars on him a bit -strangely, albeit, he laughs at it for a jest, that the best regarded -of the town should make up the ticket of the yeomanry and the -crude Bucktails, while the aristocratical Federals and the -equally aristocratical Cincinnati--that coterie of perfume and -patricianism!--search the gutters for theirs. - -Seeing himself on the Jefferson ticket, old North-of-Ireland Clinton -makes trouble. He sends for Aaron and his committee, and notifies them -that he cannot consent to run. - -“If you, Colonel Burr, were the candidate,” he says, “I should run -gladly; but Jefferson I hate.” - -In his hope’s heart, old North-of-Ireland Clinton---who, for all his -North-of-Ireland blood, was born in America--thinks he himself may be -struck by the presidential lightning, and does not intend to place any -deflecting obstruction in the path of such descending bolt. - -Aaron has forestalled the Clinton refusal in his thoughts, and is not -surprised by the high Clintonian attitude. He tries persuasion; the -old ex-governor and would-be president only plants himself more firmly. -Under no circumstances shall he agree to run; his honored name must not -be used. - -It is now that Aaron shows his teeth: “Governor Clinton,” says he, “when -it comes to that, our committee’s appearance before you, preferring the -request that you run, is a ceremony rather of courtesy than need. With -the last word, regardless of either your plans or your preferences, the -public we represent is perfect in its right to name you, and compel you -to run. And, sir, making short what might become long, and so saving -time for us all, I must now notify you that, should you continue to -withhold your consent, we stand already determined to retain and use -your name despite refusal, as a course entirely within the lines of -popular right.” - -In the looks and tones of Aaron, the old North-of-Ireland governor -reads decision not to be revoked, and for once in his obstinate life -surrenders gracefully. - -“Gentlemen,” says he, with a bland wave of the hand to Aaron and his -Bucktail committee, “since you put it in that way, refusal is out of -my power. Also let me add, that no man could take a nomination from a -higher, a more honorable, a more patriotic source.” - -The campaign, on in earnest, goes forward with a roar. Not a screaming -item is omitted. Guns boom; flags flaunt; bands of music bray; gay -processions go marching; crackers splutter and snap; orators with iron -throats sweep down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence; -flaming rockets, when the sun goes down, streak the night with fire; the -bold Buck-tails, cidered to the brim, cause Brom Martling’s long-room -to ring again, and make the intersection of Spruce and Nassau a Bedlam -crossroads. - -This is well; yet Aaron desires more. The issue is Alien and Sedition; -he yearns for an overt expression of what villain work may be done by -that black statute. - -Aaron’s strength, as a captain of politics, lies in his intuitive -knowledge of men. He is never popular--never loved while ever admired. -Men may no more love him than they may love a diamond, or a Damascus -sword blade, or a tallest, sun-kissed, snow-capped mountain peak. Still -that innate grasp of men, and what motives will move them, is as an -edged tool in his hands wherewith to carve out triumph. This gift of -man-reading comes in play when now he would exhibit Alien and Sedition -in its baleful workings. - -There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded -him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your -natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman’s block, there he lays his -neck; given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he -thrusts his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake -he takes his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a -despot than a friend. And yet--to defend Yates--that bent for martyrdom -is nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero -reversed. The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a -martyr only a hero who fails. - -Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. “Here is a pamphlet -flaying Adams,” says he. “It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and -circulate it.” - -“Why?” asks Yates. - -“Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do -it.” - -“Doubtless!”--this dryly. “But what advantage do you discover in having -me locked up?” - -“Man! can’t you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure -will be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you -from Otsego to New York. Think what a triumph that should be--you, the -paraded victim of the monarchical Adams!” - -Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron’s -blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has -foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive’s line of march. Yates -is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for -himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is -worth a thousand votes. - -“It is the difference between the eye and the ear,” says Aaron to -his aide, Swartwout. “You might explain the iniquities of Alien and -Sedition, and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and -they take fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed -by a falling tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. -Should you some day _see_ a man crushed by a falling tree, you will -start in your sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. -Wherefore, never address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The -gateway to the imagination is the eye.” - -The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To -the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him -at the polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he -is beaten, Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson’s. The blow shakes -Hamilton to the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. -In the face of such disaster, he sits stricken. - -Presently, as though the bad in him is more vivid than the good and -quicker at recovery, that old instinct of larceny struggles to its -feet. He will steal the State; not from Adams as he planned, but from -Jefferson. He scribbles a note to Jay, who is in town at his home, -urging him as governor to call a special session of the legislature, a -Federal Legislature, and go about the crime. He feels the necessity -of justification; for Jay is of a skittish honor. This on his mind, he -closes with: “It is the only way by which we can prevent an atheist in -religion and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm -of government.” - -Jay reads, and draws down his brows in a frown. Hamilton’s messenger is -waiting. - -“Governor,” says the messenger, “General Hamilton bid me get an answer.” - -“Tell General Hamilton there is no answer.” Jay rereads the note. Then -he takes quill, writes a sentence on the back, and files it away in a -pigeonhole. Years later, when Jay and Hamilton and Adams and Jefferson -and Aaron are dead and under the grass roots, hands yet unformed will -draw the letter forth and unborn eyes will read: “Proposing a measure -for party purposes which I do not think it would become me to adopt. J. -J.” - - - - -CHAPTER XV--THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE - - -HAMILTON writhes and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first -effort before the adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his -courage returns, he bends himself to consider, whether by other means, -fair or foul, the election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends -out a flock of letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily -as their commander in chief of party. - -It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the -cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his -bare word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that -potential name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing -of Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave -his voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. -He finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of -New York and Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney -intrigue as worse than hopeless. They propose instead--and therein lurks -horror--that the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. -They can take the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may -be coaxed from the Jefferson strength, make Aaron President--their -President--the President of the Federalists. - -The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his -discovered loss of power--which latter, of itself, is as a blade of ice -through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to -learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of -Aaron as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken -of heart and hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the -Grange, and sits in mourning with his soul. - -Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses -but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, -who is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South -Carolina. - -Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal -chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great -purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate. -They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as -is the Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of -terror in a democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at -the thought of Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him -less of a leveler. Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him -with promises; for they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a -pig in a poke. They seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange -wreaths and is up to the ears in baby Theo’s wedding. As a preliminary -they send his lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings. - -“If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?” asks Swartwout. - -“Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline--a lady -and a presidency.” - -Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that, -should he be chosen, he will serve. - -“There can be no refusal,” he says. “The electors are free to make their -choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however,” he -goes on, warningly; “I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; -the thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, -yourself, are of those who will select the electors for our own State, -I tell you, as you value my friendship, that New York must go to -Jefferson. We carried the State for him, and he shall have it.” - -Following Swartwout’s visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon -Aaron. They point out that he can be President; but they seek to -condition it upon certain promises. - -“Gentlemen,” returns Aaron, “I know not what in my past has led you to -this journey. I’ve no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I -shall be no man’s president but my own.” - -“Think of the honor, sir!” says Federalist Bayard. - -“Honor?” repeats Aaron. “Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went -into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way -to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet.” - -Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs--all save the broken -Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange--none the less go -forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors will -follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The law-demanded -vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson seventy-three, Aaron -seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one. - -No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the -House. The sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House -delegations and owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a -president. At this the campaign is all to fight over again. But in a -different way, on different ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and -Aaron. - -In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, -in the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second -pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely -married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk. - -Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, “As affairs are,” he -explains--he has made a count of noses--“Jefferson, when the House -convenes, will have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, -Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, -for your side, will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, -Connecticut, South Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The -delegations of Maryland and Vermont, being evenly divided between -yourself and Jefferson, will have no voice. The tally will show eight -for Jefferson, six for you, two not voting. None the less, in the face -of these figures the means of electing you exist. By deceiving one -man--a great blockhead--and tempting two--not incorruptible--you can -still secure a majority of the States. I----” - -“You have said enough, sir,” breaks in Aaron. “I shall deceive no one, -tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of -Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally -fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have -construction as an insult.” - -Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear. -Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron -will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself. - -Jefferson does not share Aaron’s chill indifference. While the latter -comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of -every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels -all the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He -calls on the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his -influence with his party in favor of Aaron’s defeat. - -“It is I, sir,” says Jefferson, “whom the people elected; and you should -see their will respected.” - -Adams grows warm. “Sir,” he retorts, “the event is in your power. Say -that you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will -instantly be put into your hands.” - -“If such be your answer, sir,” returns Jefferson, equaling, if not -surpassing the Adams heat, “I have to tell you that I do not intend to -come into the presidency by capitulation.” - -Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams--who is practical, even if -high-tempered--begins his preparations to create and fill twenty-three -life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession. - -As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at -the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the -war between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. -The action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As -unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot -grasp the reason of his overthrow. - -Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations -tongue. “What is this mighty difference,” he cries, “which the public -discovers between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, -I am for speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I -am for a big dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is -for a daily levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think -a man may curl or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson -preference, sir, convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are -not reasonable creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and -myself is this: I appeal to men’s reason, he flatters their vanity. -The result--a mob result--is that he stands victorious, while I -lie prostrate.” Saying which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his -arrangements for creating and filling those twenty-three life -judgeships--being resolved, in his narrow breast, to make the most of -his dying moments as a president. - -The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are -placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there -are members too ill to occupy their regular seats--one is even attended -by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order which -forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White -House tie determined. - -The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as -foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for -Aaron, with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly -divided delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count -half votes for any name. There being no choice--since no name possesses -a majority of all the States--another vote is called. The upcome is the -same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine -hours of ceaseless balloting. - -Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of -the seventh day, Federalist Bayard--who is the entire delegation from -his little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote -for Aaron--beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. -It is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; -for the Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so -much as the ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, -Federalist Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with -Aaron Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end. - -The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy -indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of -Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next, -feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames -for what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not -fade, until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron’s plans to -send them sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; -for Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against -the curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go -about their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with -little friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between -President and Vice-President have never been the habit. - -In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. -He refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a -half. He knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to -the Jefferson hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, -against the repeal of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which -the practical Adams created and filled in his industrious last days. - -Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but -his home rivals the White House--which leans toward the simple-severe -under Jefferson--as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes -up from South Carolina to preside over it--Theo, loving and lustrous! -Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way -to a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into -gossip with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson -has no bargain in the Franco-Corsican. - -[Illustration: 0245] - -On the lustrous Theo’s second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she -brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it -proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston. -Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than -it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark -one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus -and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he -will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte -and swoop at empire. - -During these days of Aaron’s eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten -Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has -turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on -politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and -pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance. - -He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres. -“And when you return home,” he says, imitating the lightsome and doing -it poorly, “send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of -Carolina melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear -Pinckney”--this, with a sickly smile--“is, as you know, a very usual -refuge for your disappointed politician.” It is now, his acute -bitterness coming uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly -complaint--the complaint of selflove wounded to the heart. “What an odd -destiny is mine! No man has done more for the country, sacrificed more -for it, than have I. No man than myself has stood more loyally by the -Constitution--that frail, worthless fabric which I am still striving to -prop up! And yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the -curses of its foes to pay for it. What can I do better than withdraw -from the arena? Each day proves more and more that America, with its -republics, was never meant for me.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE - - -WHILE Aaron flourishes with Senate gavel, and Hamilton mourns his -downfall at the Grange, new men are springing up and new lines forming. -The Federalists disappear in the presidential going down of the wooden -Adams; Aaron, by that one crushing victory, annihilated them. The new -alignment in New York is personal rather than political, and becomes the -merest separation of Aaron’s friends from Aaron’s enemies. - -At the head of the latter, De Witt Clinton, nephew to old -North-of-Ireland Clinton, takes his stand. Being modern, Clinton starts -a newspaper, the _American Citizen_, and places a scurrilous dog named -Cheetham in charge. As a counterweight, Aaron launches the _Morning -Chronicle_, with Peter Irving editor, and his brother, young Washington -Irving, as its leading writer. Now descends a war of ink, that is -recklessly acrimonious and not at all merry. - -Under that spur of feverish ink, the two sides fall to dueling with -the utmost assiduity. Hamilton’s son Philip insults Mr. Eaker, a lawyer -friend of Aaron; and the insulted Mr. Eaker gives up the law for one day -to parade young Hamilton at the conventional ten paces. It is all highly -honorable, all highly orthodox; and young Hamilton is killed in a way -which reflects credit on those concerned. - -Aaron’s lieutenant, John Swartwout, fastens a quarrel upon De Witt -Clinton, for sundry ink utterances of the latter’s dog-of-types, -Cheetham. The two cross the river to a spot of convenient seclusion. - -“I wish it were your chief instead of you!” cries Clinton, who is not -fine in his politenesses. - -“So do I,” responds Swartwout, being of a rudeness to match Clinton’s. -“For he is a dead shot, and would infallibly kill you; while I am the -poorest hand with a pistol among the Buck-tails.” - -The bickering pair are placed. They fire and miss. A second, and yet a -third time their lead flies shamefully wide. At the fourth shot -Clinton saves his credit by wounding Swartwout in the leg. The stubborn -Swartwout demands a fifth fire, and Clinton plants a second bullet -within two inches of the first. - -“Are you satisfied?” asks Mr. Riker, who acts for Clinton. - -“I am not,” returns Swartwout the stubborn. “Your man must retract, or -continue the fight. Kill or be killed, I am prepared to shoot out the -afternoon with him.” - -At this, both Clinton’s fortitude and manners break down together, and, -refusing to either fight on or apologize, he walks off the field. -This nervous extravagance creates a scandal among our folk of hectic -sensibilities, and shakes the Clinton standing sorely. He is promptly -challenged by Senator Dayton--an adherent of Aaron’s--but evades that -statesman at further loss to his reputation. - -Meanwhile Robert Swartwout, brother to the wounded Swartwout, calls out -Mr. Riker, who acted for Clinton against the stubborn one, and has the -pleasure of dangerously wounding that personage. Also, Editor Coleman -of the Evening Post, weary with that felon scribe, goes after type-dog -Cheetham of Clinton’s American Citizen; whereat dog Cheetham flies -yelping. - -This last so disturbs Harbor Master Thompson of the Clinton forces, -that he offers to take type-dog Cheetham’s place. Editor Coleman -being agreeable, they fight in a snowstorm in (inappropriately) Love’s -Lane--it will be University Place later--and the port loses a harbor -master at the first fire. - -Aaron, gaveling the Senate in the way it should legislatively go, pays -no apparent heed to the smoky doings of his warlike subordinates. -He never takes his eyes from Hamilton, however; and, if that retired -publicist, complaining in his garden, would but cast his glance that -way, he might read in their black ophidian depths a saving warning. But -Hamilton is blind or mad, and thinks only on what he may do to injure -Aaron, and never once on what that perilous Vice-President might be -carrying on the shoulder of his purposes. - -Hamilton devotes his garden leisure to vilifying Aaron. He goes stark -staring raving Aaron-mad; at the mention of the name he pours out a -muddy stream of slander. In talk, in print, in what letters he indites, -Aaron is accused of every infamy. There is nothing so preposterously -vile that he does not charge him with it. Aaron looks on and listens -with a grim, evil smile, saying nothing. It is as though he but waits -for Hamilton’s offenses to ripen in their accumulation, as one waits for -apples to ripen on a tree. - -At last the hour of harvest comes; Aaron leaves Washington for Richmond -Hill, and sends for his friend Van Ness. - -“You once marveled at my Hamilton moderation--wondered that I did not -stop his slanders with convincing lead?” - -“Yes,” says Van Ness. - -“You shall wonder no longer, my friend. The hour of his death is about -to strike.” - -Van Ness breaks into a gale of protest. Hamilton, beaten, disgraced, -deposed, is in political exile! Aaron, powerful, victorious, is on the -crest of fortune! There is no fairness, no equality in an exchange of -shots under such circumstances! Thus runs the opposition of Van Ness. - -“In short,” he concludes, “it would be a fight downhill--a fight that -you, in justice to yourself, have no right to make. Who is Alexander -Hamilton? Nobody--a beaten nobody! Who is Aaron Burr? The second officer -of the nation, on his sure way to a White House! Let me say, sir, that -you must not risk so much against so little.” - -“There is no risk; for I shall kill the man. I shall live and he shall -die.” - -“Cannot you see? There is the White House! Adams went from -the Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; Jefferson went from the -Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; you will do the same. It’s as though -the White House were already yours. And you would throw it away for a -shot at this broken, beaten, disregarded man! For let me tell you, sir; -kill Hamilton and you kill your chance of being President. No one may -hope to go into the White House on the back of a duel.” - -About Aaron’s mouth twinkles a pale smile. It lights up his face with a -cold dimness, as a will-o’-the-wisp lights up the midnight blackness of -a wood. - -“You have a memory only for what I lose. You forget what I gain.” - -“What you gain?” - -“Ay, friend, what I gain. I shall gain vengeance; and I would sooner be -revenged than be President.” - -“Now this is midsummer madness!” wails Van Ness. “To throw away a career -such as yours is simple frenzy!” - -“I do not throw away a career; I begin one.” - -Van Ness stares; Aaron goes slowly on, as though he desires every word -to make an impression. - -“Listen, my friend; I’ve been preparing. Last week I closed out all my -houses and lands! to John Jacob Astor for one hundred and forty thousand -dollars. The one lone thing I own is Richmond Hill--the roof we sit -beneath. I’d have sold this, but I did not care to attract attention. -There would have come questions which I’m not ready to answer.” - -Van Ness fills a glass of Cape, and settles himself to hear; he sees -that this is but the beginning. - -Aaron proceeds: “As we sit here to-night, Napoleon has been declared -hereditary Emperor of the French. It has been on its way for months, and -the next packet will bring us the news.” - -“And what have the Corsican and his empire to do with us?” - -“A President,” continues Aaron, ignoring the question, “is not -comparable to an emperor. The Presidential term is but a stunted -thing--in four years, eight at the most, your President comes to -his end. And what is an ex-President? Look at Adams, peevish, -disgruntled--unhappy in what he is, because he remembers what he was. -To be a President is well enough. To be an ex-President is to seek to -satisfy present hunger with the memories of banquets eaten years ago. -For myself, I would sooner be an emperor; his throne is his for life, -and becomes his son’s or his grandson’s after him.” - -“What does this lead to?” asks Van Ness, vastly puzzled. “Admitting your -imperial preferences, how are they applicable here and now?” - -“Let me show you,” responds Aaron, still slow and measured and -impressive. “What is possible in the East is possible in the West; -what has been done in Europe may be done in America. Napoleon comes to -Paris--lean, epileptic, poor, unknown, not even French. To-day he is -emperor. Also”--this with a laugh which, however, does not prevent Van -Ness from seeing that Aaron is deeply serious--“also, he is two inches -shorter than myself.” - -Van Ness leans back and makes a little gesture with his hand, as who -should say: “Continue!” - -“Very well! Would it be a stranger story if I, Aaron Burr, were to found -an empire in the West--if I became Aaron I, as the Corsican has become -Napoleon I?” - -“You do not talk of overturning our government?” This in tones of -wonder, and not without some flash of angry horror. - -“Don’t hold me so dull. The people of this country are unfitted for king -or emperor. They would throw down a thousand thrones while you set up -one. I’ve studied races and peoples. Let me give you a word; it will -serve should you go to nation building. Never talk of crowns or thrones -to blue-eyed or gray-eyed men. They are inimical, in the very seeds of -their natures, to thrones and crowns.” - -“England?” - -“England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland are monarchies only in name. -In fact and spirit they are republics. If you would have king or emperor -in very truth, you must go to your black-eyed folk. Setting this country -aside, if you cast a glance toward the southwest, you will behold a -people who should be the very raw materials of an empire.” - -“Mexico!” exclaims the astonished Van Ness. - -“Ay, Mexico! There is nothing which Napoleon Bonaparte has done in -France, which Aaron Burr may not do in Mexico. I would have the flower -of this country at my back. Indeed, it should be easier to ascend the -throne of the Montezumas than of the Bourbons. I believe, too--for I -think he would feel safer with a brother emperor in the West--I might -count on Napoleon’s help for that climbing. However, we overrun the -hunt”--Aaron seems to recall himself like one who comes out of a -dream--“I am thinking not on empire, but vengeance. I have thrown out a -rude picture of my plans, however, because I hope to have your company -in them. Also, I wanted to show how utterly in my heart I have given -up America and an American career. It is Mexico and the throne of an -emperor, not Washington and the chair of a President, at which I aim. I -am laying my foundations, not for four years, not for eight years, but -for life. I shall be Aaron I, Emperor of Mexico; with my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, to follow me as Aaron II. There; that should do for ‘Aaron -and empire.’” This, with a return to the cynical: “Now let us get to -Hamilton and vengeance. The scoundrel has spat his toad-venom on my name -and fame for twenty years; the turn shall now be mine.” - -Van Ness is silent; the glimpses he has been given of Aaron’s high -designs have tied his tongue. - -Aaron gets out a letter. “Here,” he says; “you will please carry that -to Hamilton. It marks the beginning of my revenge. I base it on excerpts -taken from a printed letter written by Dr. Cooper, who says: ‘General -Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they look upon -Colonel Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted -with the reins of government. I could detail a still more despicable -opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Colonel Burr.’ I -demand,” concludes Aaron, “that he explain or account to me for having -furnished such an ‘opinion’ to Dr. Cooper.” - -Van Ness purses up his lips, and knots his forehead cogitatively. - -“Why pitch upon this letter of Cooper’s as a _casus belli?_” he asks at -last. “It is ambiguous, and involves a question of Cooper’s construction -of English. If we had nothing better it might do; but there is no such -pressure. Hamilton, on many recent occasions, in speeches and in print, -has applied to you the lowest epithets.” - -“You may recall, sir, that I once told you I was an artist of revenge. -It is this very ambiguity I’m after. I would hook the fellow--hook him -and play him as I would a fish! The man’s a coward. I saw it written on -his face that day when, following ‘Long Island,’ he threw away his gun -and stores. By coming at him with this ambiguity, he will hope in the -beginning to secure himself by evasions. He will write; I shall respond; -there will be quite a correspondence. Days will drag along in agony and -torment to him. And all the time he cannot escape. From the moment I -send him that letter he is mine. It is as if I had him in a narrow -lane; he cannot get by me. On the other hand, if I come upon him, as you -suggest, with some undeniable charge, it will all be over in a moment. -He will be obliged at once to toe the peg. You now understand that I -design only in this letter to hook him hard and fast. When I have so -played him as to satisfy even my hatred, rest secure I’ll reel him in. -He can no more avoid meeting me than he can avoid trembling when he -contemplates the dark promise of that meeting. His wife would despise -him, his very children cut him dead were he to creep aside.” - -Van Ness goes with Aaron’s letter to Hamilton. The latter, as he reads -it, cannot repress a start. The blood rushes from his face to his heart -and back again; for, as though the blind were made to see, he realizes -the snare into which he has walked--a snare that he himself has spread -to his own undoing. - -With an effort he commands his agitation. “You shall have my answer by -the hand of Mr. Pendleton,” he says. - -Hamilton’s reply, long and wordy, is two days on its way. As Aaron -foretold, it is wholly evasive, and comes in its analysis to be nothing -better than a desperate peering about for a hole through which its -author may crawl, and drag with him what he calls his honor. - -Aaron’s reply closes each last loophole of escape. “Your letter,” he -says, “has furnished me new reasons for requiring a definite reply.” - -Hamilton reads his doom in this; and yet he cannot consent to the -sacrifice, but struggles on. He makes a second response, this time at -greater length than before. - -Aaron, implacable as Death, reads what Hamilton has written. - -“I think we should close the business,” he says to Van Ness, as he gives -him Hamilton’s letter. “It has been ten days since I sent my initial -note, and I have had enough of vengeance in anticipation. And so for the -last act.” Aaron dispatches Van Ness with a peremptory challenge. There -being no gateway of relief, Hamilton is driven to accept. Even then -comes a cry for time; Hamilton asks that the hour of final meeting be -fixed ten further days away. Aaron smiles that pale smile of hatred made -content, and grants the prayed-for delay. - -The morning following the challenge and its acceptance, Pendleton -appears with another note from Hamilton--who obviously prefers pens to -pistols for the differences in hand. Aaron, smiling his pale smile of -contented hate, refuses to receive it. - -“There is,” he observes, “no more to be said on either side, a challenge -having been given and accepted. The one thing now is to load the pistols -and step off the ground.” - -It is four days later, and the fight six days away. Aaron and Hamilton -meet at a dinner given on Independence Day. Hamilton is hysterically -gay, and sings his famous song, “The Drum.” Also, he never once looks at -Aaron, who, dark and lowering and silent, the black serpent sparkle -in his eye, seldom shifts his gaze from Hamilton. Aaron’s stare, -remorseless, hungrily steadfast, is the stare of the tiger as it sights -its prey. - -Dr. Hosack calls on Aaron, where the latter sits alone at Richmond Hill. -Wine is brought; the good doctor takes a nervous glass. He has a rosy, -social face, has the good doctor, a face that tells of friendships and -the genial board. Just now, however, he is out of spirits. Desperately -setting down his wineglass, he flounders into the business that has -brought him. - -“I can hardly excuse my coming,” he says, “and I apologize before I -state my errand. I would have you believe, too, that my presence here is -entirely by my own suggestion.” - -Aaron bows. - -The good doctor explains that he has been called upon to go, -professionally, to the fighting ground with Hamilton. - -“That is how I became aware,” he concludes, “of what you have in train. -I resolved to see you, and make one last effort at a peaceful solution.” - -Aaron coldly shakes his head: “There can be no adjustment.” - -“Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!” - -“Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to -him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered -me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!” The good -doctor looks guiltily uneasy. “And now I am asked to sit down with the -scorn he has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur -to you, sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: -Should he fall, there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I -fall, the blow descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those -the slender shoulders of a girl.” - -There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way. - -The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights -of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over -the bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes -his barge at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his -friend Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy -shelf, under the somber Weehawken heights. - -The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend -Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place -of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches -his hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word -and choice of position. - -Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the -up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is -given the other end. The word is to be: - -“Present!--one--two--three--stop!” As the two stand in position, Aaron -is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man already lost. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range. - -“Gentlemen, are you ready?”. - -“Ready!” says Aaron. - -“Ready!” says Hamilton. - -There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes: - -“Present!-------” - -There is a flash and a roar!--a double flash, a double roar! The smoke -curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels, clutches at -nothing, and pitches forward on his face--shot through and through. The -Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron’s head. - -Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like -a man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk -toss aside a tool when the work is done--well done. Then he walks down -to his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful -cedars are smiling just across the river. - -“It was worth the price, Van Ness,” says Aaron. “The taste of that -immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die -out in my heart.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO - - -AARON sits placidly serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his -cigar, he reduces those dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out -his design as architects draw plans and specifications for a house. His -friends call--Van Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and -Washington. - -Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a -prodigious hubbub of mourning--demonstrative if not deeply sincere. -Hamilton, broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. -Was he not a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? -Therefore, come folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it -an opportunity to prove themselves of the town’s Vere de Veres. There -dwells fashionable advantage in tear-shedding at the going out of an -illustrious name. Such tear-shedding provides the noble inference -that the illustrious one was “of us.” Alive to this, those of would-be -fashion lapse into sackcloth and profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and -the ashes ashes of roses. Also they arrange a public funeral at Trinity, -and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local Mark Antony, to deliver an oration. - -To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended -grief of Aaron’s Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of -Hamilton for Aaron’s political destruction. - -At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his -empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or -spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on -the ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn’s shaven -borders in front of Richmond Hill. - -The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, -stubborn Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful -one says “Good-by!” and returns; Aaron is received by his friend -Commodore Truxton. With Truxton he talks “empire” all night. He counts -on English ships, he says; being promised in secret by British Minister -Merry in Washington. Truxton shall command that fleet. - -Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for -Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls “Celeste,” and to -whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in -Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton’s scandalized _American Citizen_: -“He walks openly about the streets!” - -Then to St. Simon’s off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite -Southern circles; and, from St. Simon’s across to South Carolina and -the noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the -summer wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love. - -With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the -grave togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going -out of Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During -those three Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, -goes among friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or -glance averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete -to do him honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of -farewell, and men pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. -So he steps down from American official life; but not from American -interest. - -Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of -empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers--the -Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du -Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their -words are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary -of civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for -conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West -beyond the Mississippi. - -It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside -the rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave -Peter intrudes his black face to announce: - -“Gen’man comin’-up, sah!” - -Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun -Cow, with as little ceremony. - -As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway. - -“Come in, General,” says Aaron. - -General Wilkinson is among Aaron’s older acquaintances. They were -together at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in -an hour of Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that -throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson -is in present command of the military forces of the United States in the -Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of -that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron’s plans. - -The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron’s genial “Come in.” Its owner -takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, -which the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a -glass of whisky. - -Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain, -bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that -tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat -exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid -that speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining -with bear’s grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes -a composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger -liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg. - -The stubborn Swartwout doesn’t like him. On a late occasion he expresses -that dislike. - -“To be frank, Chief,” observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of -Aaron’s headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as -“Chief”--“to be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked -as a dog’s hind leg.” - -“You are right, sir,” says Aaron; “he is both dishonest and treacherous. -It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by ‘blabbing’ -them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and -treacherous is Wilkinson.” - -[Illustration: 0273] - -“Why, then, do you trust him?” - -“Why do I trust him?” repeats Aaron. “For several sufficient reasons. He -has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as -I am with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New -Orleans; and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, -he commands the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count -his dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should -become of importance in my enterprise. - -“As how?” demands the mystified Buck-tail. - -“As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice -will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His -treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies -that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor -me. Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war -department here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual -rôles of filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this -government, he is certain to be often in collision with himself.” - -The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference -to Aaron’s will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the -whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep. - -Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron’s fire, sits in happy -ignorance of the distrustful Bucktail’s views. Confident as to his own -high importance, he plunges freely into Aaron’s plans. - -“Five hundred,” says Aaron, “full five hundred are agreed to go; and -I have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should -crowd round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is -to purchase eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from -which to operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My -excuse for recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to -settle on those eight hundred thousand Washita acres.” - -“Eight hundred thousand acres!” This, between sips of whisky: “That -should take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?” - -“It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from -everywhere--but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to -mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million.” - -“How do you succeed with the English?” asks Wilkinson, taking a new -direction. - -“It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me -yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, -to return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans. -Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz, -where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera -Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico.” - -Wilkinson helps himself to another glass. - -Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger. - -“Well,” he observes, “it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I’ll -make you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches -and almost the wisdom of Solomon. He’ll embrace the enterprise; once he -does he’ll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; -with his merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in -provisions in Vera Cruz.” - -“That is well bethought,” cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle. - -“Clark’s relations with the bishop are likewise close,” adds Wilkinson. - -Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction. - -“Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time -with a claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a -republic?” - -“The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the ‘Empire of -Mexico.’ I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made -hereditary in the male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, heir presumptive.” - -“And I?” interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol -and interest. “What are to be my rank and powers?” - -“You will be generalissimo of the army.” - -“Second only to you?” - -“Second only to me. Here; I’ve drawn an outline of the civil fabric -we’re to set up. The government, as I’ve said, is to be imperial, myself -emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who -will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor; -Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees -and secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess -mother of the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; -Truxton, lord high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, -ministers, consuls, and the usual furniture of government. The grandees -should be limited to one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring -with us. There may be minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and -friendly among the natives.” - -Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of -the night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his -leave, he says: - -“We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to -follow in two weeks, you say?” - -“Yes,” responds Aaron. “There should be months of travel ahead, before -my arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith -in Ohio, Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New -Orleans, and arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. -In my running about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as -questions come up.” - -“I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don’t forget two several -matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the -civil as well as the military control of the empire, I’m to be second to -no one save yourself.” - -“I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill -to-morrow for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and -signed.” - -“Oh, we shall find money enough,” returns Wilkinson contentedly. “Only -it’s well never to lose sight of the fact that we’re going to need it. -Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome--something -that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank -of generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could -ask. Popularly,” concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his -leave--“popularly, I shall be known as ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer.’ -Coming, as I shall, at the head of those gallant conquering armies which -are to relieve the groaning Mexicans from the yoke of Spain, I think it -a natural and an appropriate title--‘Wilkinson the Deliverer!’” - -“Not only an appropriate title,” observes the courtly Aaron, who -remembers his generalissimo’s recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, “but -admirably adapted to fill the trump of fame.” - -The door closes on the broad back of the coming “Deliverer.” As Aaron -again bends over his “Empire,” he hears that personage’s footsteps, -uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious -prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen. - -“Bah!” mutters Aaron; “Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous -and disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation -of this conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my -situation, I am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, -if Jefferson were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of -abstractions, bookshelves and alcoves!--a closet philosopher in whose -veins runs no drop of red aggressive fighting blood!--he would as soon -think of treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into -the error of imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me -for that presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of -his own unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the -natural child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust -him. His judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most -innocent act a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making -Aaron Burr an outlaw.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--THE TREASON OF WILKINSON - - -NOW begin days crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends -the Potomac, and crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined -flatboat and floats down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, -romantic, eccentric, living on an island below. He visits the island; -the lord of the isle is absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, -not beautiful, welcomes him and bids him come again. - -Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, -where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find -General Jackson--his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served -colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King. - -Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. -Processions march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of -oxen, drinking of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; -and all after the hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero -in its clutches. - -To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of -Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. -Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon’s hate; each is a Francis Drake at -bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal -pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make -clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them -less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals -with folk who are congenital republicans. - -The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into -Aaron’s plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow -him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in -Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious -culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson -himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson. - -Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does -not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam -Houston--the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in his -ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with -his sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the -bedplates of an empire truly; but not _his_ empire--not the empire -of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on the -grave’s edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart will -warm at the news of it, and know it for his work. - -Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets -Wilkinson, who--nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul--is as much in -ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The only -change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to whether, -instead of “Wilkinson the Deliverer,” he might not better fill the -wondering measure of futurity as “Washington of the West.” Both titles -are full of majesty--a thing important to a taste streaked of rum--but -the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson -says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, -committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both. - -Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight -hundred miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The -latter city is a bubbling community of nine thousand souls--American, -Spanish, French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, -up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a -more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a -whole roast ox. - -The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It -is agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston’s, Clark shall be -of the grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New -Orleans, and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy -out the land. For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not -fostered the Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not -only be protected, but become the national Church. - -Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, -keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill -along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom -he sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the -coming work. - -[Illustration: 0287] - -Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron -heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight -he spends with that muddled exile, he wins him--life and fortune. -Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell -of the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, -feels with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will -be a grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire -of Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing -himself at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of -anticipation the exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends. - -“Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers -his greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when -they meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, -Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ -It’ll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their -mouths; for I cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in -the past.” - -Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. -He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his -plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! -Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that. - -While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the -fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one -returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to -Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston -join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as -the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads -for the West. There will be no return--the lustrous Theo and the heir -presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law -Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, -promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan -on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s -interference with the exportation of rice. - -Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and -kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present -headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to -Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and -north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one -hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, -and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland -flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand -dollars--a royal sum!--with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in -outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise. - -Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, -he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he -forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who -is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and -decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley -in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson--as suspicious as -any Morgan! - -Having aroused Morgan the wrong way, - -Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight -hundred thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate -transaction, he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a -suggestion. As commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into -the Spanish country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians -into a clash. Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the -Spaniards and the United States, a war fury will seize the country, and -furnish an admirable background of sentiment for his own descent upon -Mexico. Wilkinson, full of bottle valor, receives Aaron’s suggestion -with rapture, and starts for the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the -Sabine, to bring down the desired trouble, Aaron again pushes up for -Blennerhassett and that exile’s island. - -While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the -soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the -papers, descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with -milk and honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming -ambassador buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on -the island. They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon -the broad Ohio in those fifteen Marietta bateaux. - -Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and -Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that -Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has -moved the court at Frankfort for an order “commanding the appearance -of Aaron Burr.” The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious -Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground. - -Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs -to Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into -court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but -does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give -their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a -ball in his honor. - -Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach -completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with -letters to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards -on the Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When -Swartwout and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta -preparations, urging speed with those bateaux. - -Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron’s letters. -These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice -and native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built -up doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the -conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. -Why should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for -betraying Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the -Credulous Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico -but the United States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose -as the saviour of his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his -country, what might not he demand?--what might not he receive? Surely, a -saved country, even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful! - -The red-nosed one’s genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends -posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to -break up the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the -revolt. Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the -shorter cut to that coveted title, “Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington -of the West.” Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! -Wilkinson the red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging -Aaron and his scheme of empire into ruin. - -While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance -concerning them, is driving matters with a master’s hand at Marietta and -the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves, -with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which -call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand -acres. Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson. - -At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a -Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of -frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States -west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on -peril of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, -treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, -Samuel Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to -Baltimore, to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all -his fortitude to command himself. - -The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of -doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; -after which he calls into counsel his attorney general. - -The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He -believes that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country’s -integrity threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his -own sublime powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk -the treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor--nobly -willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on -the altars of a common good--bids him try what he can eloquently do. - -The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be -conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake -it would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant -territory of Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron -surrender without a struggle, and come into court and be tried. - -Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, -and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically -hailed by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand -dollars. - -The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue -grass, find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his -honorable release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, -to indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. -Cool counsel intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without -difficulty, are convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon -they content themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter -let “honest settlers” coming into the country alone. Having discharged -their duty in the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and -the governor draws a long breath of relief. - -Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson’s anti-treason proclamation. The West -will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure -to be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his -enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, -it makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not -name him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will -supply the omission. - -There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and -yet Aaron’s dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront -him. - -As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which -the perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go -to Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose, -mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out. - -It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of -Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets -Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes’ study, Perkins is flooded of a -great light. - -“Aaron Burr!” he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart. - -Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours -later, as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines -and a sober file of soldiers. - -The captain salutes: - -“You are Colonel Burr,” he says. “I arrest you by order of President -Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be -treated with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second -highest post of Government.” - -“Sir,” responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, “I am Colonel Burr. I -yield myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it -is not possible to do otherwise.” Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the -fort. As the two dismount at the captain’s quarters, a beautiful woman -greets them. - -“This is my wife, Colonel Burr,” says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam -Gaines: “Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner.” - -Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two -sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. -Aaron beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which -has cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is -forever thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant--the -beautiful Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! -Aaron is never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than -now when power and empire vanish for all time. - -“You appreciate my position, sir,” says Captain Gaines, as they rise -from the table. “I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty.” - -“Sir,” returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, “I blame only the -hateful, thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in -trusting a scoundrel.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--HOW AARON IS INDICTED - - -IT is evening at the White House. The few dinner guests have departed, -and Jefferson is alone in his study. As he stands at the open window, -and gazes out across the sweep of lawn to the Potomac, shining like -silver in the rays of the full May moon, his face is cloudy and angry. -The face of the sage of Monticello has put aside its usual expression of -philosophy. In place of the calm that should reign there, the look which -prevails is one of narrowness, prejudice and wrathful passion. - -Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without -surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant. - -“Ah, Wirt!” he cries; “be seated, please. You got my note?” - -William Wirt is thirty-five--a clean, well-bred example of the -conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but -with the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the -reason of his White House presence. - -“Your note, Mr. President?” he repeats. “Oh, yes; I received it. What -you propose is highly flattering. And yet--and yet----” - -“And yet what, sir?” breaks in Jefferson impatiently. “Surely, I propose -nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to -conduct the case against Colonel Burr.” - -“Nothing unusual, of course,” returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen -political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what -he is about. “And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which -should be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the -Government’s attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as -well as duty to prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled -upon him. Have you thought of Mr. Hay?” - -“Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity! -no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have -about him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, -sir; he seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, -he has done quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; -there is much depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr -must be convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and -set a monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single -item, must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to -be on trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be -‘The People against Aaron Burr.’ but ‘The Federalists against Thomas -Jefferson.’ Do you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as -much as is the Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, -will be on the bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their -instrument, Colonel Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a -support as George Hay. It is you who must conduct this cause.” - -Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless -dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much -the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his -speech. - -“You surely do not mean to say,” he begins, “that the chief justice----” - -“I mean to say,” interrupts Jefferson, “that you must be ready to meet -every trick that Marshall can play against the Government. For all his -black robe, is he of different clay than any other? Believe me, he’s -a Federalist long before he’s a judge! Let me ask a question: Why did -Marshall, the chief justice, mind you, hold the preliminary examination -of Burr? Why, having held it, did he not commit him for treason? Why did -he hold him only for a misdemeanor, and admit him to bail? Does not -that look as though Marshall had taken possession of the case in Burr’s -interest? You spoke a moment ago of the propriety of Hay prosecuting the -charge against Burr, being, as he is, the Government’s attorney for that -district. Does not it occur to you that his honor, Judge Griffin, is the -judge for that district? And yet Marshall shoves him aside to make room -on the bench for himself. Sir, there is chicanery in this. We must watch -Marshall. A chief justice, indeed! A chief Federalist, rather! Why, he -even so much lacked selfrespect as to become a guest at a dinner given -in Colonel Burr’s honor, after he had committed that traitor in ten -thousand dollars bail! An excellent, a dignified chief justice, -truly!--doing dinner table honor to one whom he must presently try for a -capital offense!” - -“Justice Marshall’s appearance at the Burr dinner”--Wirt makes the -admission doubtfully--“was not, I admit, in the very flower of good -taste. None the less, I should infer honesty rather than baseness from -such appearance. If he contemplated any wrong in Colonel Burr’s favor, -he would have remained away. Coming to the case itself,” says Wirt, -anxious to avoid further discussion of Judge Marshall, as a topic -whereon he and Jefferson are not likely to agree, “what is the specific -act of treason with which the Government charges Colonel Burr?” - -“The conspiracy, wherein he was prime mover, aimed first to take Mexico -from, the Spanish. Having taken Mexico, the plotters--Colonel Burr at -the head--purposed seizing New Orleans. That would give them a hold -in the vast region drained by the Mississippi. Everything west of the -Alleghenies was expected to flock round their standards. With an -empire reaching from Darien to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific to the -Alleghenies, their final move was to be made upon Washington itself. -Sir, the Federalists hate this republic--have always hated it! What they -desire is a monarchy. They want a king, not a president, in the White -House.” - -“I learn,” observes Wirt--“I learn, since my arrival, that Colonel Burr -has been in Washington.” - -“That was three days ago. He demanded copies of my orders to General -Wilkinson. When I prevented his obtaining them, he said he would move -for a _subpoena duces tecum_, addressed to me personally. Think of that, -sir! Can you conceive of greater impudence? He will sue out a subpoena -against the President of this country, and compel him to come into court -bringing the archives of Government!” - -Wirt shrugs his shoulders. “And why not, sir?” he asks at last. “In the -eye of the law a president is no more sacred than a pathmaster. A murder -might be committed in the White House grounds. You, looking from that -window, might chance to witness it--might, indeed, be the only witness. -You yourself are a lawyer, Mr. President. You will not tell me that an -innocent man, accused of murder, is to be denied your testimony?--that -he is to hang rather than ruffle a presidential dignity? What is the -difference between the case I’ve supposed and that against Colonel -Burr? He is to be charged with treason, you say! Very well; treason is a -hanging matter as much as murder.” - -Jefferson and Wirt, step by step, go over the arrest of Aaron, and what -led to it. It is settled that Wirt shall control for the prosecution. -Also, when the Grand Jury is struck, he must see to it that Aaron is -indicted for treason. - -“Marshall has confined the inquiry,” says Jefferson, “to what Burr -contemplated against Mexico--a mere misdemeanor! You, Wirt, must have -the Grand Jury take up that part of the conspiracy which was leveled -against this country. There is abundant testimony. Burr talked it to -Eaton in Washington, to Morgan in Ohio, to Wilkinson at Fort Massac.” - -“You speak of his _talking_ treason,” returns Wirt with a thoughtful, -non-committal air. “Did he anywhere or on any occasion _act_ it? Was -there any overt act of war?” - -“What should you call the doings at Blennerhassett Island?--the -gathering of men and stores?--the boat-building at Marietta and -Nashville? Are not those, taken with the intention, hostile acts?--overt -acts of war?” - -Wirt falls into deep study. “We must,” he says after a moment’s silence, -“leave those questions, I fear, for Justice Marshall to decide.” - -Jefferson relates how he has written Governor Pinckney of South -Carolina, advising the arrest of Alston. - -“To be sure, Alston is not so bad as Colonel Burr,” he observes, “for -the reason that he is not so big as Colonel Burr; just as a young -rattlesnake is not so venomous as an old one.” Then, impressively: -“Wirt, Colonel Burr is a dangerous man! He will find his place in -history as the Catiline of America.” - -Wirt cannot hide a smile. “It is but fair you should say so, Mr. -President, since at the Richmond hearing he spoke of you as a -presidential Jack Straw.” Seeing that Jefferson does not enjoy the -reference, Wirt hastens to another subject. “Colonel Burr will have -formidable counsel. Aside from Wickham, and Botts, and Edmund Randolph, -across from Maryland will come Luther Martin.” - -“Luther Martin!” cries Jefferson. “So they are to unloose that Federal -bulldog against me! But then the whisky-swilling beast is never sober.” - -“No more safe as an adversary for that,” retorts Wirt. “If I am ever -called upon to write Luther Martin’s epitaph, I shall make it ‘Ever -drunk and ever dangerous!’” - -On the bench sits Chief Justice Marshall--tall, slender--eyes as black -as Aaron’s own--face high, dignified--brow noble, full--the whole -man breathing distinction. By his side, like some small thing lost in -shadow, no one noticing him, no one addressing him, a picture of silent -humility, sits District Judge Griffin. - -For the Government comes Wirt, sneering, harsh--as cold and hard and -fine and keen as thrice-tempered steel. With him is Hay--slow, pompous, -of much respectability and dull weakness. Assisting Wirt and Hay and -filling a minor place, is one McRae. - -Leading for the defense, is Aaron himself--confident, unshaken. -Already he has begun to relay his plans of Mexican conquest. He assures -Blennerhassett, who is with him, that the present interruption should -mean no more than a time-waste of six months. With Aaron sit Edmund -Randolph, the local Nestor; Wickham, clear, sure of law and fact; and -Botts, the Bayard of the Richmond bar. Most formidable is Aaron’s rear -guard, the thunderous Luther Martin--coarse, furious, fearless--gay -clothes stained and soiled--ruffles foul and grimy--eye fierce, -bleary, bloodshot--nose bulbous, red as a carbuncle--a hoarse, roaring, -threatening voice--the Thersites of the hour. Never sober, he rolls into -court as drunk as a Plantagenet. Ever dangerous, he reads, hears, -sees everything, and forgets nothing. Quick, rancorous, headlong as a -fighting bull, he lowers his horns against Wirt, whenever that polished -one puts himself within forensic reach. Also, for all his cool, sneering -skill, Toreador Wirt never meets the charge squarely, but steps aside -from it. - -Apropos of nothing, as Martin takes his place by the trial table, he -roars out: - -“Why is this trial ordered for Richmond? Why is it not heard in -Washington? It is by command of Jefferson, sir. He thinks that in -his own State of Virginia, where he is invincible and Colonel Burr a -stranger, the name of ‘Jefferson’ will compel a verdict of guilt. There -is fairness for you!” - -Wirt glances across, but makes no response to the tirade; for Martin, -purple of face, snorting ferociously, seems only waiting a word from him -to utter worse things. - -The Grand Jury is chosen: foreman, John Randolph of Roanoke--sour, -inimical, hateful, voice high and spiteful like the voice of a -scolding woman! The Grand Jury is sent to its room to deliberate as to -indictments, while the court adjourns for the day. - -It is well into the evening when the parties in interest leave the -courtroom. As Wirt and Hay, arm in arm, are crossing the courthouse -green, they become aware of an orator who, loud of tone and careless of -his English, is addressing a crowd from the steps of a corner grocery. -Just as the two arrive within earshot, the orator, lean, hawklike of -face, tosses aloft a rake-handle arm, and shouts: - -“When Jefferson says that Colonel Burr is a traitor, Jefferson lies in -his throat!” The crowd applaud enthusiastically. - -Hay looks at Wirt. “Who is the fellow?” he asks. - -“Oh! he’s a swashbuckler militia general,” returns Wirt, carelessly. -“He’s a low fellow, I’m told; his name is Andrew Jackson. He was one of -Colonel Burr’s confederates. They say he’s the greatest blackguard in -Tennessee.” - -Just now, did some Elijah touch the Wirtian elbow and tell of a day -to come when he, Wirt, will be driven to resign that coveted attorney -generalship into the presidential hands of the “blackguard,” who will -receive it promptly, and dismiss him into private life no more than half -thanked for what public service he has rendered, the ambitious Virginian -would hold the soothsayer to be a madman, not a prophet. - -Scores upon scores of witnesses are sent one by one to the Grand Jury. -The days run into weeks. Every hour the question is asked: “Where is -Wilkinson?” The red-nosed one is strangely, exasperatingly absent. - -Wirt seeks to explain that absence. The journey is long, he says. He -will pledge his honor for the red-nosed one’s appearance. - -Meanwhile the friends of Aaron pour in from North and West and South. -The stubborn, faithful Swartwout is there, with his brother Samuel; -for, Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden and Adair and Bollman, shipped -aforetime per schooner to Baltimore by the red-nosed one as traitors, -have been declared innocent, and are all in Richmond attending upon -their chief. - -One morning the whisper goes about that “Wilkinson is here.” The -whisper is confirmed by the red-nosed one’s appearance in court. Young -Washington Irving, who has come down from New York in the interest of -Aaron, writes concerning that red-nosed advent: - -_Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line -with Colonel Burr. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey -cock, and bracing himself to meet Colonel Burr’s eye. The latter took no -notice of him, until Judge Marshall directed the clerk to “swear General -Wilkinson.” At the mention of the name, Colonel Burr turned and looked -him full in the face, with one of his piercing regards, swept him from -head to foot, and then went on conversing with his counsel as before. -The whole look was over in a moment; and yet it was admirable. There -was no appearance of study or constraint, no affectation of disdain -or defiance; only a slight expression of contempt played across -the countenance, such as one might show on seeing a person whom one -considers mean and vile._ - -That evening Samuel Swartwout meets the red-nosed one, as the latter -warrior is strutting on the walk for the admiration of men, and -thrusts him into a mud hole. The lean Jackson is so delighted at this -disposition of the rednosed one, that he clasps the warlike Swartwout -in his rake-handle arms. Later, by twenty-two years, he will make him -collector of the port of New York for it. Just now, however, he advises -a duel, holding that the mudhole episode will be otherwise incomplete. - -Since Swartwout has had the duel in his mind from the beginning, he and -the lean Jackson combine in the production of a challenge, which is duly -sent to the red-nosed one in the name of Swartwout. The red-nosed one -has no heart for duels, and crawls from under the challenge by saying, -“I refuse to hold communication with a traitor.” Thereupon Swartwout, -with the lean Jackson to aid him, again lapses into the clerical, and -prints the following gorgeous outburst in the _Richmond Gazette:_ - -_Brigadier General Wilkinson: Sir: When once the chain of infamy -grapples to a knave, every new link creates a fresh sensation of -detestation and horror. As it gradually or precipitately unfolds itself, -we behold in each succeeding connection, and arising from the same -corrupt and contaminated source, the same base and degenerated -conduct. I could not have supposed that you would have completed the -catalogue of your crimes by adding to the guilt of treachery forgery and -perjury the accomplishment of cowardice. Having failed in two different -attempts to procure an interview with you, such as no gentleman of honor -could refuse, I have only to pronounce and publish you to the world as a -coward._ - -_Samuel Swartwout._ - -The Grand Jury comes into court, and by the shrill mouth of Foreman -Randolph reports two indictments against Aaron: one for treason, “as -having levied war against the United States,” and one for “having levied -war upon a country, to wit, Mexico, with which the United States are at -peace”--the latter a misdemeanor. - - - - -CHAPTER XX--HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT - - -THE indictments are read, and Aaron pleads “Not guilty!” Thereupon -Luther Martin moves for a _subpoena duces tecum_ against Jefferson, -commanding him to bring into court those written orders from the files -of the War Department, which he, as President and _ex officio_ commander -in chief of the army, issued to the red-nosed Wilkinson. Arguing the -motion, the violent Martin proceeds in these words: - -“We intend to show that these orders were contrary to the Constitution -and the laws. We intend to show that by these orders Colonel Burr’s -property and person were to be destroyed; yes, by these tyrannical -orders the life and property of an innocent man were to be exposed to -destruction. This is a peculiar case, sirs. President Jefferson has -undertaken to prejudge my client by declaring that ‘of his guilt there -can be no doubt!’ He has assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme -Being, and pretended to search the heart of my client. He has proclaimed -him a traitor in the face of the country. He has let slip the dogs of -war, the hell-hounds of persecution, to hunt down my client. And now, -would the President of the United States, who has himself raised all -this clamor, pretend to keep back the papers wanted for a trial where -life itself is at stake? It is a sacred principle that the accused has a -right to the evidence needed for his defense, and whosoever--whether -he be a president or some lesser man--withholds such evidence is -substantially a murderer, and will, be so recorded in the register of -heaven.” - -Argument ended, Marshall, chief justice, sustains the motion. He holds -that the _subpoena duces tecum_ may issue, and goes so far as to say -that, if it be necessary to the ends of justice, the personal attendance -of Jefferson himself shall be compelled. - -The charge is treason, and no bail can be taken; Aaron must be locked -up. The Governor of Virginia offers as a place of detention a superb -suite of rooms, meant for official occupation, on the third floor of the -penitentiary building. Marshall, chief justice, accepting such proffer, -orders Aaron’s confinement in the superb official suite. Aaron takes -possession, stocks the larder, loads the sideboards, and, with a cloud -of servitors, gives a dinner party to twenty friends. - -The lustrous Theo arrives, and makes her residence with Aaron in -the official suite, as lady of the establishment. Each day a hundred -visitors call, among them the aristocracy of the town. Also dinner -follows dinner; the official suite assumes a gala, not to say a gallant -look, and no one would think it a prison, or dream for one urbane -moment that Aaron--that follower of the gospel according to Lord -Chesterfield--is fighting for his life. - -Following the order for the _subpoena duces tecum_, and Aaron’s -dinner-giving incarceration in the official suite, Marshall, chief -justice, directs that court be adjourned until August--a month away. - -Wirt, during the vacation, goes over to Washington. He finds Jefferson -in a mood of double anger. - -“What did I tell you,” cries Jefferson--“what did I tell you of -Marshall?” Then he rushes on to the utterances of the violent Luther -Martin. “Shall you not move,” he demands, “to commit Martin as -_particeps criminis_ with Colonel Burr? There should be evidence to fix -upon him misprision of treason, at least. At any rate, such a step would -put down our impudent Federal bulldog, and show that the most clamorous -defenders of Colonel Burr are one and all his accomplices.” - -Meanwhile, the “impudent Federal bulldog” attends a Fourth-of-July -dinner in Baltimore. Every man at table, save himself, is an adherent of -Jefferson. Eager to demonstrate that loyal fact to the administration, -sundry of the guests make speeches full of uncompliment for Martin, and -propose a toast: - -“Aaron Burr! May his treachery to his country exalt him to the -scaffold!” - -More speeches, replete of venom, are aimed at Martin; whereupon that -undaunted drunkard gets upon his feet. - -“Who is this Aaron Burr,” he roars, “whose guilt you have pronounced, -and for whose blood your parched throats so thirst? Was not he, a -few years back, adored by you next to your God? Were not you then his -warmest admirers? Did not he then possess every virtue? He was then in -power. He had influence. You were proud of his notice. His merest smile -brightened all your faces. His merest frown lengthened all your visages. -Go, ye holiday, ye sunshine friends!--ye time-servers, ye criers of -hosannah to-day and crucifiers to-morrow!--go; hide your heads from the -contempt and detestation of every honorable, every right-minded man!” - -August: The day of trial arrives. Wirt, with the dull, deferent Hay, has -gone over the testimony against Aaron, and arranged the procession -of its introduction. Wirt will begin far back. By the mouth of the -red-nosed Wilkinson--somewhat in hiding from Swartwout--and by others, -he will relate from the beginning Aaron’s dream of Mexican conquest. -He will show how the vision grew and expanded until it reacted upon the -United States, and the downfall of Washington became as much parcel of -Aaron’s design as was the capture of Mexico. He will trace Aaron through -his many conferences in Washington, in Marietta, in Nashville, in -Cincinnati; and then on to New Orleans, where he is closeted with -Merchant Clark and the Bishop of Louisiana. - -And so the parties go into court. - -The jury being sworn, Marshall, chief justice, at once overthrows those -well-laid plans of Wirt. - -“You must go to the act, sir,” says Marshall. - -“Treason, like murder, is an act. You can’t think treason, you can’t -plot treason, you can’t talk treason; you can only act it. In murder you -must first prove the killing--the murderous act, before you may offer -evidence of an intent. And so in treason. You must begin by proving the -overt act of war against the country, before I can permit evidence of an -intent which led up to it.” - -This ruling throws Wirt abroad in his calculations. The “Federal -bulldog” Martin grows vulgarly gleeful, Wirt correspondingly glum. - -Being prodded by Marshall, chief justice, Wirt declares that the “act -of war” was the assembling of forty armed men, under one Taylor, at -Blennerhassett Island. They stopped at the island but a moment, and -Aaron himself was in Lexington. None the less there were forty of them; -they were armed; they were there by design and plan of Aaron, with an -ultimate purpose of levying war against this Government. Wirt urges that -constructive war was at that very island moment being waged, with Aaron -personally absent but constructively present, and constructively waging -such war. - -At this setting forth, Marshall, chief justice, puckers his lips, as -might one who thinks the argument far-fetched and overfinely spun. -Martin, the “Federal bulldog,” does not scruple to laugh outright. - -“Was ever heard such hash!” cries Martin. “Men may bear arms without -waging war! Forty men no more mean war than four! Men may float down -the Ohio, and still no war be waged. Because the hypochondriac Jefferson -imagined war, we are to receive the thing as _res adjudicata_, and -now give way while a pleasantly concocted tale, of that carnage of a -presidential nightmare, is recited from the witness box. Sirs, you are -not to fiddle folk onto a scaffold to any such tune as that, though a -president furnish the music.” - -Marshall, chief justice, still with pursed lips and knotted forehead, -directs Wirt to proceed with his evidence of what, at Blennerhassett -Island, he relies upon to constitute, constructively or otherwise, a -state of war. Having heard the evidence, he will pass upon the points of -law presented. - -Wirt, desperate because he may do no better, puts forward one Eaton as -a witness. The latter tells a long, involved story, which sounds vastly -like fiction and not at all like fact, of conversations with Aaron. -Aaron brings out in cross examination, that within ten days after -he, Eaton, went with this tale to Jefferson, a claim for ten thousand -dollars, which he had been pressing without success against the -Government, was paid. Aaron suggests that Eaton, to induce payment -of such claim, invented his narrative; and the suggestion is plainly -acceptable to the jury. - -Following Eaton, Wirt calls Truxton; and next the suspicious Morgan, -who first wrote to Jefferson touching Aaron and his plans. Then -follow Blennerhassett’s gardener and groom, and one Woodbridge, -Blennerhassett’s man of business. Wirt, by these, proves Aaron’s -frequent presence on the island; the boats building at Marietta; the -advent of Taylor with his forty armed men, and there the relation ends. -In all--the testimony, not a knife is ground, not a flint is picked, not -a rifle fired; the forty armed men do not so much as indulge in drill. -For all they said or did or acted, the forty might have been explorers, -or sightseers, or settlers, or any other form of peaceful whatnot. - -“I suppose,” observes Marshall, chief justice, bending his black eyes -warningly upon Wirt--“I suppose it unnecessary to instruct counsel that -guilt will not be presumed?” - -Wirt replies stiffly that counsel for the Government, at least, require -no instructions; whereat Martin the “Federal bulldog” barks hoarsely -up, that what counsel for the Government most require, and are most -deficient in, is a case and the evidence of it. Wirt pays no heed to -the jeer, but announces that under the ruling of the court, made before -evidence was introduced, he has nothing more to offer touching acts of -overt war. He rests his case, he says, on that point; and thereupon, the -defense take issue with him. The Government, Aaron declares, has failed -to make out even the shadow of a treason. There is nothing which demands -reply; he will call no witnesses. - -Marshall, chief justice, directs that the arguments to the jury be -proceeded with. Wirt is heard. Being imaginative, and having no facts, -he unchains his fancy and paints a paradise, whereof Aaron is the -serpent and Blennerhassett and his moon-visaged spouse are Adam and Eve. -It is a beautiful picture, and might be effective did it carry any grain -of truth. However, it is well received by the jury as a romance full -of entertaining glow and glitter; and then it is put aside from serious -consideration. - -While Wirt the fanciful is thus coloring his invented paradise, with -Aaron as the serpent and the Blennerhassetts the betrayed Adam and Eve, -the “betrayed” Blennerhassett, sitting by Aaron’s side, is reading the -“serpent” a letter, that day received from Madam Blennerhassett. The -missive closes: - -“Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and -Theo’s kind remembrances. Tell him to assure her that she has inspired -me with a warmth of attachment that never can diminish.” - -On the oratorical back of Wirt come Wickham, Hay, Randolph, Botts, -and McRae. Lastly Martin is heard, the “Federal bulldog” seizing the -occasion to bay Jefferson even more violently than before. When they -are done, Marshall, chief justice, lays down the law as to what should -constitute an “overt act of war”; and, since it is plain, even to the -court crier, that no such act has been proven, the jury hurry forward a -finding: - -“Not guilty!” - -Jefferson, full of prejudice, hears the news. He writes wrathfully to -Wirt: - -“Let no witness depart without taking a copy of his evidence, which is -now more important than ever. The criminal Burr is preserved, it seems, -to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worthless of -the United States, and to be the pivot on which all the conspiracies and -intrigues, that foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to -turn. There is still, however, the misdemeanor; and, if he be convicted -of that, Judge Marshall must, for very decency, give us some respite by -a confinement of him; but we must expect it to be very short.” There -is a day’s recess; then the charge of “levying war against Mexico” is -called. The red-nosed Wilkinson now tells his story; and is made -to admit--the painful sweat standing in great drops upon his purple -visage--that he has altered in important respects several of Aaron’s -letters. Being, by his own mouth, a forger, the jury marks its estimate -of the red-nosed one by again acquitting Aaron, and pronouncing a second -finding: “Not guilty!” - -Thus ends the great trial which has rocked a continent. Aaron is free; -his friends crowd about him jubilantly, while the loving, lustrous Theo -weeps upon his shoulder. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI--THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. - - -SIX months creep by; May is painting Manhattan with its flowers. The -house of the stubborn, loyal Swartwout is in Stone Street. Long ago, -in the old Dutch beaver-peltry days, the home of the poet Steen-dam was -there. Now it is the dwelling place of John Swartwout, and Aaron is his -guest. - -The lustrous Theo is with Aaron this sunny afternoon, luster something -dimmed; for the hour is one sad and tearful with parting. It is a last -parting; though the pair--the loving father! the adoring, clinging -daughter!--hopefully, happily blind, believe otherwise. - -“Yes,” Aaron is saying, “I must sail tonight. The ship is at anchor in -the lower bay.” Theo, the lustrous, is too bravely the child of Aaron -to break into lamentation, though the wrung heart fills her eyes with -tears. “And should your plans fail,” she says, “you will come to us at -the ‘Oaks.’ Joseph, you know, is no longer ‘Mr. Alston,’ but ‘Governor -Alston.’ As father to the Governor of the State, and with your own high -name, you may take what place you will in South Carolina. You promise, -do you not? If by any trip of fortune your prospects are overthrown, you -will come to us in the South?” - -“But, dearling, my plans will not fail. I have had letters from Lords -Mulgrave and Castlereagh, I bear with me the indorsement of the British -Minister in Washington. Openly or secretly, England will support my -project with men and money and ships. If, in some caprice of politics or -a changing cabinet, she should refuse, I shall seek Napoleon. Mexico and -an empire!--that should match finely the native color of his Corsican -feeling.” - -Night draws on; Aaron and the lustrous Theo say the sorrowful words of -separation, and within the hour he is aboard the _Clarissa_, outward -bound for England. - -In London, full of new fire, Aaron throws away no time. Each day he -is closeted with Mulgrave, Castlereagh and Canning. He goes to Holland -House, and its noble master is seized with the fever for Montezuman -conquest. The inventive Earl of Bridgewater--who is radical and goes -readily to novel enterprises--catches the Mexican fury. The spirit of -Cortez is abroad; the nobility of England fall quickly in with Aaron’s -Western design. It will mean an augmentation of the world’s peerage. -Also, Mexico should furnish an admirable grazing ground for second sons. -Aaron’s affairs go swimmingly; he is full of hopeful anticipation. He -writes the lustrous Theo at the “Oaks” that, “save for the unforeseen,” - little Aaron Burr Alston shall yet wear an imperial crown as Aaron II. - -Save for the unforeseen! The reservation is well put in. As Aaron sits -in conference, one foggy London evening, with Mulgrave and Castlereagh, -who have become principal figures in those Mexican designs, Canning -comes hurriedly in. - -“I am from the Foreign Office,” says he, “and I come with bad news. -There is a lion in our path--two lions. Secret news was just received -that Napoleon has driven the king and queen from Madrid, and established -his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Mexico by that: stroke belongs -to the Bonapartes; they will hardly consent to its loss.” - -“That is one lion,” observes Mulgrave; “now for the other.” - -“The other is England,” proceeds Canning. “Already we are mustering our -forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are -to become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish -power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain’s ally, fighting her -battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit -the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon.” - -Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. -He understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is -through talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No -chance now of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so -bright but the moment before, are on the instant darkened. - -“Delay! always delay!” he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the -chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and -quickly pulls himself together. “Yes,” says he, “the word you bring -shuts double doors against us. The best we may do is wait--wait for -Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across -the Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again.” - -“Indubitably,” returns Canning. “Should England save Spain from the -Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico -as a recompense for her exertions.” - -Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron -compelled to fold away his ambitions. - -While waiting the turn of fortune’s wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his -leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. “The celebrated Colonel -Burr!” is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as -instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It -shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks. - -Jeremy Bentham--honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for bettering -governments--finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham loves admiration -and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from letter-writing friends -in America that “the celebrated Colonel Burr” reads his works with -satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy, praise-loving Bentham, -and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow Green. - -“You,” cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the “celebrated Colonel -Burr” as a member of his family--“you and Albert Gallatin are the -only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common -mind--which is as dull and crawling as a tortoise--my theories travel -too fast.” - -Aaron lives with Bentham--fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham--now at -Barrow Green, now at the philosopher’s London house in Queen Square -Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William -Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with -Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal: - -“Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb’s. He is a writer, and lives with a -maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs.” - -At the Lambs he encounters Faseli the painter; and thereupon Aaron, -the Godwins, Faseli, and the Lambs brew a bowl of punch, and thresh out -questions social, artistic, literary, and political until the hours grow -small. - -Cobbett talks with Aaron; and straight off runs to Bentham with the -suggestion that they send him to Parliament. Aaron laughs. - -“I’m afraid,” says he, “that whatever may be my genius for law-giving, -it would fit but badly with English prejudice and English inclination. -You would find me in the British Commons but a sorry case of a square -peg in a round hole.” - -That Aaron is the fashion at Holland House, which is the gathering point -of opposition to Government, does not help him at the Home Office. Also, -the Spanish allies of England, through their minister, complain. - -“He is fomenting his Mexican design,” cries the Spaniard. “It shows but -poorly for England’s friendship that she harbors him, and that he is -feted and feasted by her nobility.” - -Lord Hawkesbury leans to the Spanish view. He will assert his powers -under the “Alien Act.” It will please the Spaniards. Likewise, it will -offend Holland House. Two birds; one stone. Hawkesbury sends a request -that Aaron call upon him at his office; and Aaron calls. - -“This, you will understand,” observes Hawkesbury, “is not a personal -but an official interview, Colonel Burr. I might hope to make it more -pleasant were it personal. Speaking as one of the crown’s secretaries, I -must notify you to quit England.” - -“What is your authority for this?” asks Aaron. - -“You will find it in the ‘Alien Act.’ Under that statute, Government -is invested with power to order the departure of any alien without -assigning cause.” - -“Precisely! Your Government is now engaged in searching American ships -for English sailors. It was, I recall, the basis of bitter complaint in -America when I left. In seizing those whom you call English sailors and -subjects, you refuse to recognize their naturalization as citizens of -America. Do I state the fact?” - -“Assuredly! No Englishman has a right to shift his allegiance from his -king. That is British doctrine. Once a subject, always a subject.” - -“The very point!” returns Aaron. “Once a subject, always a subject. I -suppose you will not deny that I was in 1756 born in New Jersey, then a -province of England. I was born a British subject, was I not?” - -“There is no doubt of that.” - -“Then, sir, being born a British subject, under your doctrine of ‘Once a -subject, always a subject,’ I am still a British subject. Therefore, -I am no alien. Therefore, I do not fall within the description of your -‘Alien Act.’ You can hardly order me to quit England as an alien at the -very moment when you say I am a British subject. My lord”--this with a -smile like a warning--“the story, if told in the papers, would get your -lordship laughed at.” - -Hawkesbury falls back baffled. He keeps his face, however, and tells -Aaron the matter may rest until he further considers it. - -Aaron visits Oxford, and is wined and dined by the grave college heads. -He talks Bentham and religion to his hosts, and they fall to amiable -disagreement with him. - -“We then,” he writes in his journal, “got upon American politics and -geography, upon which subjects a most profound and learned ignorance was -displayed.” - -Birmingham entertains Aaron; Stratford makes him welcome. He travels -to Edinburgh, and is the victim of parties, dinners, balls, sermons, -assemblies, plays, lectures, and other Scottish dissipations. The bench -and bar cannot get too much of him. Mackenzie, who wrote the “Man -of Feeling,” and Walter Scott, who is in the “Marmion” stage of his -development, seek his acquaintance. Aaron sees a deal of these lettered -ones, and sets down in his diary that: - -“Mackenzie has twelve children; six of them daughters, all interesting, -and two handsome. He is sprightly, amiable, witty. Scott, with less -softness, has more animation--talks much and is very agreeable.” - -Aaron stays a month with his Scotch friends, and returns to London. He -resumes the old round of club and drawing-room, with Holland, Melville, -Mulgrave, Castlereagh, Canning, Bentham, Cobbett, Godwin, Lamb, Faseli, -and others political, philosophical, social, literary, and artistic. - -One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note -on his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland, -insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that “The presence -of Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty’s -Government, and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he -remove.” - -The note continues to the courteous effect that “passports will be -furnished Colonel Burr,” and a free passage in an English ship to any -port--not English. - -Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool’s note, and says that having become, as -his Lordship declares, “embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government,” he -must, of course, as a gentleman “gratify the wishes of Government by -withdrawing.” He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England, -is his preference. - -Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with -the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he -is called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and -does it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and -two in traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the -lack of toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish -honesty. He makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads -on his journal: - -“There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none -in which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and -promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch -and so little expense.” - -Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the -Swedish appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the -Norsemen. Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes: - -“What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon -degree of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was -affected by those emotions which the music expressed. In England you -see no expression painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All -is somber and grim. They cry ‘Bravo! bravissimo!’ with the same -countenance wherewith they curse.” - -From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in -Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends -the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that -amiable feature called the “Committees on Conciliation,” and resolves to -recommend its adoption in America. - -Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not -immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more -easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron -is visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the -king. - -Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany. - -He sees Hanover, Brunswick, Gottingen, Gotha, Weimar. At Weimar, Goethe -brings him to his house, where he meets “the amiable, good Wieland,” - and is dragged off by Goethe to the theater, and sits through a “serious -comedy” with the Baroness de Stein. He is presented at court, and is -welcomed by the grand duke--Goethe’s duke--and the grand duchess. Here, -too, he falls temporarily in love with the noble d’Or, a beautiful lady -of the ducal court. His love begins to alarm him; he fears he may wed -the d’Or, remain in Weimar, and “lapse into a Dutchman.” To avoid this -fate, he beats a hasty retreat to Erfurth. Being safe, he cheers his -spirits by writing: - -“Another interview, and I would have been lost! The danger was so -imminent, and the d’Or so beautiful, that I ordered post horses, gave a -crown extra to the postilions to whip like the devil, and lo! here I am -in a warm room, with a neat, good bed, safe locked within four Erfurth -walls, rejoicing and repining.” - -As Aaron writes this, he lays aside his “repining” for the lovely -d’Or, and so far emerges from his gloom as to “draw a dirk,” and put to -thick-soled clattering flight one of the local police, who invades -his room with the purpose of putting out the candle. Erfurth being a -garrison town, lights are ordered “out” at nine o’clock. As a mark of -respect to his dirk, however, Aaron’s candles are permitted to gutter -and sputter unrebuked until long after midnight. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII--HOW AARON RETURNS HOME - - -THE belated passports arrive, and Aaron journeys to Paris. It is -now with him as it was with the unfortunate gentleman, celebrated in -Scripture, who went down into a certain city only to fall among -thieves. Fouché orders his police to dog him. The post office is given -instructions; his letters are stolen--those he writes as well as those -he should receive. - -What is at the bottom of all this French scoundrelism? Madison the weak -is president in Washington. That is to say, he is called “president,” - the actual power abiding in Mon-ticello with Jefferson, at whose -political knee he was reared. Armstrong is Madison’s minister to France. -Armstrong is a New York politician married to a Livingston, and, per -incident, a promoted puppet of Jefferson’s. McRae is American consul at -Paris--McRae, who sat at the back of Wirt and Hay during the Richmond -trial. It is these influences, directed from Mon-ticello, which, in each -of its bureaus, oppose the government of Napoleon to Aaron. By orders -from Monticello, “every captain, French or American, is instructed -to convey no letter or message or parcel for Colonel Burr. Also such -captain is required to make anyone handing him a letter or parcel for -delivery in the United States, to pledge his honor that it contains -nothing from Colonel Burr.” In this way is Aaron shut off from his -friends and his supplies. He writes in his diary: - -“These vexations arise from the machinations of Minister Armstrong, who -is indefatigable in his exertions to my prejudice, being goaded on by -personal hatred, political rancor, and the native malevolence of his -temper.” - -Aaron waits on Savary, and finds that minister polite but helpless. He -sees Fouché; the policeman is as polite and as helpless as Savary. - -He calls upon Talleyrand. That ingrate and congenital traitor skulks out -of an interview. Aaron smiles as he recalls the skulking, limping one -fawning upon him aforetime at Richmond Hill. - -Talleyrand puts Aaron in mind of Jerome Bonaparte, now King of -Westphalia, made so by that kingmonger, his brother. His Royal Highness -of Westphalia was, like Talleyrand, a guest at Richmond Hill. He, too, -has nibbled American crusts, and was thankful for American crumbs in -an hour when his official rating, had he been given one, could not have -soared above that of a vagrant out of Corsica by way of France. Aaron -applies for an interview. - -“His Royal Highness is engaged; he cannot see Colonel Burr,” is the -response. - -“I am not surprised,” says Aaron. “He who will desert a wife will desert -a friend, and I am not to suppose that one can remember friendship who -forgets love.” - -Official France shuts and bolts its doors in the face of Aaron to please -the Man of Monticello. Thereupon Aaron demands his passports of the -American minister. - -Armstrong, minister, is out of Paris for the moment, and Aaron goes -to Consul McRae. That official, feeling the pressure of the Monticello -thumb, replies: - -“My knowledge of the circumstances under which Colonel Burr left the -United States, render it my duty to decline giving him a passport.” - -Five weeks eaten up in disappointment! - -Aaron, who intended remaining but a month in Paris, finds his money -running out. He confides to his diary: - -“Behold me, a prisoner of state, and almost without a sou.” - -Aaron resolves to economize. He removes from his hotel, dismisses his -servants, and takes up garret lodgings in a back street. He jokes with -his poverty: - -“How sedate and sage one is,” he writes, “on only three sous. Eating my -bread and cheese, and seeing half a bottle of the twenty-five sous wine -left, I thought it too extravagant to open a bottle of the good. I tried -to get down the bad, constantly thinking on the other, which was in -sight. I stuck to the bad and got it all down. Then to pay myself -for this heroism, I treated myself to a large tumbler of the true -Roussillon. I am of Santara’s opinion that though a man may be a little -the poorer for drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much -more able to bear poverty.” Farther on he sets down: “It is now so -cold that I should be glad of a fire, but to that there are financial -objections. I was near going to bed without writing, for it is very -cold, and I have but two stumps of wood left. By the way, I wear no -surtout these days, for a great many philosophic reasons, the principal -being that I have not got one. The old greatcoat, which I brought from -America, will serve for traveling if I ever travel again.” - -Although official France shuts its doors on Aaron, unofficial France -does not. The excellent Volney, of a better memory than the King of -Westphalia or the slily skulking Talleyrand, remembers Richmond Hill. -Volney hunts out Aaron in his poor lodgings, laughs at his penury, and -offers gold. Aaron also laughs, and puts back the kindly gold-filled -hand. - -“Very well,” says Volney. “Some other day, when you are a little more -starved. Meanwhile, come with me; there are beautiful women and brave -men who are dying to meet the renowned Colonel Burr.” - -Again in salon and drawing-room is Aaron the lion--leaving the most -splendid scenes to return to his poor, barren den in the back street. -And yet he likes the contrast. He goes home from the Duchess d’Alberg’s -and writes this: - -“The night bad, and the wind blowing down my chimney into the room. -After several experiments as to how to weather the gale, I discovered -that I could exist by lying flat on the floor. Here, on the floor, -reposing on my elbows, a candle by my side, I have been reading -‘L’Espion Anglos,’ and writing this. When I got up just now for pen and -ink, I found myself buried in ashes and cinders. One might have thought -I had lain a month at the foot of Vesuvius.” - -Aaron, having leisure and a Yankee fancy for invention, decides to -remedy the chimney. He calls in a chimney doctor, of whom there are many -in chimney-smoking Paris, and assumes to direct the bricklaying energies -of that scientist. The _fumiste_ rebels; he objects that to follow -Aaron’s directions will spoil the chimney. - -“Monsieur,” returns Aaron grandly, “that is my affair.” - -The rebellious _fumiste_ is quelled, and lays bricks according to -directions. The work is completed; the inmates of the house gather -about, as a fire is lighted, to enjoy the discomfiture of the “insane -American”; for the _fumiste_ has told. The fire is lighted; the chimney -draws to perfection; the convinced _fumiste_ sheds tears, and tries to -kiss Aaron, but is repelled. - -“Monsieur,” cries the repentant _fumiste_, “if you will but announce -yourself as a chimney doctor, your fortune is made.” - -Aaron’s friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway -begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys--a forest of them, -all sick! Aaron writes: - -“Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was -assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the -bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my -breakfast--coffee, blanc and honey--in the adjoining room, and laughing -at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much wit -and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large fire. -The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a -hero, especially to the professional _fumiste_, who bent to the floor -before me, such was the burden of his respect.” - -Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two -take a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made -richer by several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for -the evening before he entered in his journal: - -“Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my -present amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. -Have been ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou -piece might not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am -out of cigars. However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve -as a substitute.” - -With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know “the -celebrated Colonel Burr.” Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is -a privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will -do but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon -and Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him. - -“Get me my passports,” says Aaron. - -Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae, -consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor’s -post office is tired of stealing Aaron’s letters, Fouché’s police weary -of dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor’s wish that Aaron depart. -Maret and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting -as one man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing -passports to Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is -quite willing, and makes his way to Amsterdam. - -Lowering in the world’s sky is the cloud of possible war between England -and America. “Once a subject, always a subject,” does not match the -wants of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war -fever. The feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and -hangs back. In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war -cloud grows large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they -avoid the ports of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the -perilous shadow of England. - -This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in -Aaron’s way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship -for New York can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland -Company’s shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the -swamps and canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with -their long pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, -and, best of good fortunes! discovers the American ship _Vigilant_, -Captain Combes. - -“Can he arrange passage for America?” - -Captain Combes replies that he can. There is a difficulty, however. -Captain Combes and his good ship _Vigilant_ are in debt to the Dutch -in the sum of five hundred guilders. If Aaron will advance the sum, it -shall be repaid the moment the _Vigilant’s_ anchors are down in New York -mud. Aaron advances the five hundred guilders. The _Vigilant_ sails out -of the Helder with Aaron a passenger. Once in blue water, the _Vigilant_ -is swooped upon by an English frigate, which carries her gayly into -Yarmouth, a prize. - -Aaron writes to the English Alien Office, relates how his homeward -voyage has been brought to an end, and asks permission to go ashore. -Since England has somewhat lost interest in Spain, and is on the -threshold of war with the United States, her objections to Aaron -expressed aforetime by Lord Liverpool have cooled. Aaron will not now -“embarrass his Majesty’s Government.” He is granted permission to -land; indeed, as though to make amends for a past rudeness, the English -Government offers Aaron every courtesy. Thus he goes to London, and is -instantly in the midst of Bentham, Godwin, Mulgrave, Canning, Cobbett, -and the rest of his old friends. - -Aaron’s funds are at their old Parisian ebb; that loan to Captain -Combes, which ransomed the _Vigilant_ from the Dutch, well-nigh -bankrupted him. He got to like poverty in France, however, and does not -repine. He refuses to go home with Bentham, and takes to cheap London -lodgings instead. He explains to the fussy, kindly philosopher that his -sole purpose now is to watch for a home-bound ship, and he can keep no -sharp lookout from Barrow Green. - -Once in his poor lodgings, Aaron resumes that iron economy he learned to -practice in Paris. He sets down this in his diary: - -“On my way home discovered that I must dine. I find my appetite in the -inverse ratio to my purse, and I can now conceive why the poor eat -so much when they can get it. Considering the state of my finances, I -bought half a pound of boiled beef, eightpence; a quarter of a pound -of ham, sixpence; one pound of brown sugar, eightpence; two pounds -of bread, eight-pence; ten pounds of potatoes, fivepence; and then, -treating myself to a pot of ale, eightpence, proceeded to read the -second volume of ‘Ida.’ As I read, I boiled my potatoes, and made a -great dinner, eating half my beef. Of the two necessaries, coffee and -tobacco, I have at least a week’s allowance, so that without spending -another penny, I can keep the machinery going for eight days.” - -At last Aaron’s money is nearly gone. He makes a memorandum of the -stringency in this wise: - -“Dined at the Hole in the Wall off a chop. Had two halfpence left, which -are better than a penny would be, because they jingle, and thus one may -refresh one’s self with the music.” - -Aaron, at this pinch in his fortunes, seeks out a friendly bibliophile, -and sells him an armful of rare books. In this manner he lifts himself -to affluence, since he receives sixty pounds. - -Practicing his economies, and filling his treasury by the sale of -his books, Aaron is still the center of a brilliant circle. He goes -everywhere, is received everywhere; for in England poverty comes not -amiss with the honor of an exile, and is held to be no drawing-room bar. -Exiled opulence, on the other hand, is at once the subject of gravest -British suspicions. - -That Aaron’s experiences have not warmed him toward France, finds -exhibition one evening at Holland House. He is in talk with the -inquisitive Lord Balgray, who asks about Napoleon and France. - -“Sir,” says Aaron, “France, under Napoleon, is fast -rebarberizing--retrograding to the darkest ages of intellectual and -moral degradation. All that has been seen or heard or felt or read of -despotism is freedom and ease compared with that which now dissolves -France. The science of tyranny was in its infancy; Napoleon has matured -it. In France all the efforts of genius, all the nobler sentiments and -finer feelings are depressed and paralyzed. Private faith, personal -confidence, the whole train of social virtues are condemned and -eradicated. They are crimes. You, sir, with your generous propensities, -your chivalrous notions of honor, were you condemned to live within the -grasp of that tyrant, would be driven to discard them or be sacrificed -as a dangerous subject.” - -“What a contrast to England!” cries Bal-gray--“England, free and great!” - -“England!” retorts Aaron, with a grimace. “There are friends here whom I -love. But for England as mere England, why, then, I hope never to visit -it again, once I am free of it, unless at the head of fifty thousand -fighting men!” - -Balgray sits aghast.--Meanwhile the chance of war between America and -England broadens, the cloud in the sky grows blacker. Aaron is all -impatience to find a ship for home; war might fence him in for years. At -last his hopes are rewarded. The _Aurora_, outward bound for Boston, -is reported lying off Gravesend. The captain says he will land Aaron in -Boston for thirty pounds. - -And now he is really going; the ship will sail on the morrow. At -midnight he takes up his diary: - -“It is twelve o’clock--midnight. Having packed up my residue of duds, -and stowed my papers in the writing desk, I sit smoking my pipe and -contemplating the certainty of escaping from this country. As to my -reception in my own country, so far as depends on J. Madison & Co., I -expect all the efforts of their implacable malice. This, however, does -not give me uneasiness. I shall meet those efforts and repel them. My -confidence in my own resources does not permit me to despond or even -doubt. The incapacity of J. Madison & Co. for every purpose of public -administration, their want of energy and firmness, make it impossible -they should stand. They are too feeble and corrupt to hold together -long. Mem.: To write to Alston to hold his influence in his State, and -not again degrade himself by compromising with rascals and cowards.” - -It is in this high vein that Aaron sails away for home, and, thirty-five -days later, sits down to beef and potatoes with the pilot and the -_Auroras_ captain, in the harbor of Boston. He goes ashore without a -shilling, and sells his “Bayle” and “Moreri” to President Kirtland of -Harvard for forty dollars. This makes up his passage money for New York. -He negotiates with the skipper of a coasting sloop, and nine days later, -in the evening’s dusk, he lands at the Battery. - -It is the next day. The sun is shining into narrow Stone Street. It -lights up the Swartwout parlor where Aaron, home at last, is hearing -the news from the stubborn, changeless one--Swartwout of the true, -unflagging breed! - -“It is precisely four years,” says Aaron, following a conversational -lull, “since I left this very room to go aboard the _Clarissa_ for -England.” - -“Aye! Four years!” repeats the stubborn one, meditatively. “Much water -runs under the bridges in four years! It has carried away some of your -friends, colonel; but also it has carried away as many of your enemies.” - -For one day and night, Aaron and the stubborn, loyal Swartwout smoke and -exchange news. On the second day, Aaron opens offices in Nassau Street. -Three lines appear in the _Evening Post_. The notice reads: - -“Colonel Burr has returned to the city, and will resume his practice of -the law. He has opened offices in Nassau Street.” - -The town sits up and rubs its eyes. Aaron’s enemies--the old fashionable -Hamilton-Schuyler coterie--are scandalized; his friends are exalted. -What is most important, a cataract of clients swamps his offices, and -when the sun goes down, he has received over two thousand dollars in -retainers. Instantly, he is overwhelmed with business; never again will -he cumber his journals with ha’penny registrations of groat and farthing -economies. As redoubts are carried by storm, so, with a rush, to the -astonishment of friend and foe alike, Aaron retakes his old place as -foremost among the foremost at the New York bar. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII--GRIEF COMES KNOCKING - - -BUSINESS rushes in upon Aaron; its volume overwhelms him. - -“This is too much,” says he, “for a gentleman whose years have reached -the middle fifties,” and he takes unto himself a partner. - -Later he takes another partner; the work of the firm overflows into a -quartette of rooms and keeps busy a dozen clerks. - -“Why labor so hard?” asks the stubborn Swartwout. “Your income is the -largest at the bar. You have no such need of money.” - -“Ay! but my creditors have!” - -“Your creditors? Who are they?” - -“Every soul who lost a dollar by my Southwestern ambitions--you, with -others. Man, I owe millions!” - -Aaron works like a horse and lives like a Spartan. He rises with the -blue of dawn. His servant appears with his breakfast--an egg, a plate -of toast, a pot of coffee. He is at his desk in the midst of his papers -when the clerks begin to arrive. All day he is insatiable to work. He -sends messages, receives them, examines authorities, confers with fellow -lawyers, counsels clients, dictates letters. Business incarnate--he -pushes every affair with incredible dispatch. And the last thing he will -agree to is defeat. - -“Accept only the inevitable!” is his war-word, in law as in life. - -Aaron’s day ends with seven o’clock. He shoves everything of litigation -sort aside, helps himself to a glass of wine, and refuses further -thought or hint of business. It is then he calls about him his friends. -The evening is merry with laughter, jest and reminiscence. At midnight -he retires, and sleeps like a tree. - -[Illustration: 0357] - -“Colonel Burr,” observes Dr. Hosack--he who attended Hamilton at -Weehawken--“you do not sleep enough; six hours is not enough. Also, you -eat too little.” - -Aaron gazes, with comic eye at the rotund, well-fed doctor, the purple -of good burgundy in his full cheeks. - -“If I were a doctor, now,” he retorts, “I should grant your word to be -true. But I am a lawyer, and must keep myself on edge.” - -Aaron’s earliest care is to write his arrival to the lustrous Theo. The -reply he receives makes the world black. - -“Less than a fortnight ago,” she says, “your letters would have -gladdened my soul. Now there is no more joy, and life a blank. My boy is -gone--forever dead and gone.” - -While Aaron sits with the fatal letter in his fingers, his friend Van -Ness comes in. He turns his black eyes on the visitor--eyes misty, dim, -the brightness lost from them. - -“What dreams were mine,” he sighs--“what dreams for my brave little boy! -He is dead, and half my world has died.” - -Toward the end of summer, Alston sends word that the lustrous Theo is in -danger. The loss of her boy has struck at the roots of her life. Aaron, -in new alarm, writes urging that she come North. He sends a physician -from New York to bring her to him. Alston consents; he himself cannot -come. His duties as governor tie him. The lustrous Theo, eager to meet -her father with whom she parted on that tearful evening in Stone Street -so many years ago, will start at once. He, Alston, shall later follow -her. - -Alston sees the lustrous Theo aboard the schooner _Patriot_, then lying -in Charleston harbor. It is rough December weather when the _Patriot_ -clears for New York. The message of her sailing reaches Aaron overland, -and he is on strain for the schooner’s arrival. Days come, days go; the -schooner is due--overdue. Still no sign of those watched-for topsails -down _the_ lower bay! And so time passes. The days become weeks, the -weeks months. Hope sickens, then dies. Aaron, face white and drawn, a -ghost’s face, reads the awful truth in that long waiting. The lustrous -Theo is dead--like the baby! It is then the iron of a measureless -adversity enters his soul! - -Aaron goes about the daily concerns of life, making no moan. He does not -speak of his loss, but saves his grief for solitude. One day a friend -relates a rumor that the schooner was captured by buccaneers, and the -lustrous Theo lives. The broken Aaron shakes his head. - -“She is dead!” says he. “Thus is severed the last tie that binds me to -my kind.” - -Aaron hides his heart from friend and foe alike. As though flying from -his own thoughts, he plunges more furiously than ever into the law. - -While Aaron’s first concern is work, and to earn money for those whom he -calls his creditors, he finds time for politics. - -“Not that I want office,” he observes; “for he who was Vice-President -and tied Jefferson for a presidency, cannot think on place. But I owe -debts--debts of gratitude, debts of vengeance. These must be paid.” - -Aaron’s foes are in the ascendant. De Witt Clinton is mayor--the -aristocrats with the Livingstons, the Schuylers and the Clintons, are -everywhere dominant. They control the town; they control the State. -At Washington, Madison a marionette President, is in apparent command, -while Jefferson pulls the White House wires from Monticello. All these -Aaron sees at a glance; he can, however, take up but one at a time. - -“We will begin with the town,” says he, to the stubborn, loyal -Swartwout. “We must go at the town like a good wife at her -house-cleaning. Once that is politically spick and span, we shall clean -up the State and the nation.” - -Aaron calls about him his old circle of indomitables. - -They have been overrun in his absence by the aristocrats--by the -Clintons, the Schuylers and the Livingstons. They gather at his rooms in -the Jay House--a noble mansion, once the home of Governor Jay. - -“I shall make no appearance in your politics,” says he. “It would not -fit my years and my past. None the less, I’ll show you the road to -victory.” Then, with a smile: “You must do the work; I’ll be the Old Man -of the Mountain. From behind a screen I’ll give directions.” - -[Illustration: 0363] - -Aaron’s lieutenants include the Swartwouts, Buckmaster, Strong, Prince, -Radcliff, Rutgers, Ogden, Davis, Noah, and Van Buren, the last a rising -young lawyer from Kinderhook. - -“Become a member of Tammany,” is Aaron’s word to young Van Buren. “Our -work must be done by Tammany Hall. You must enroll yourself beneath its -banner. We must bring about a revival of the old Bucktail spirit.” - -Van Buren enters Tammany; the others are already members. - -Aaron, through his lieutenants, brings his old Tammany Bucktails -together within eight weeks after his return. The Clintons, and their -fellow aristocrats are horrified at what they call “his effrontery.” - Also, they are somewhat panic-smitten. They fall to vilification. -Aaron is “traitor!” “murderer!” “demon!” “fiend!” They pay a phalanx of -scribblers to assail him in the press. His band of Bucktail lieutenants -are dubbed “Burrites,” “Burr’s Mob,” and “the Tenth Legion.” The -epithets go by Aaron like the mindless wind. - -The Bucktail spirit revived, the stubborn Swartwout and the others ask: - -“What shall we do?” - -The popular cry is for war with England. At Washington--Jefferson at -Monticello pulling on the peace string--Madison is against war. Mayor -De Witt Clinton stands with Jefferson and Marionette Madison. He is for -peace, as are his caste of aristocrats--the Schuylers and those other -left-over fragments of Federalism, all lovers of England from their -cradles. - -“What shall we do?” cry the Bucktails. - -“Demand war!” says Aaron. Then, calling attention to Clinton and his -purple tribe, he adds: “They could not occupy a better position for our -purposes. They invite destruction.” Tammany demands war vociferously. It -is, indeed, the cry all over the land. The administration is carried -off its feet. Jefferson at last orders war; for he sees that otherwise -Marionette Madison will be defeated of a second term. - -Mayor Clinton and his aristocrats are frantic. - -The more frantic, since with “War!” for their watchword, Aaron’s -Bucktails conquer the city, and two years later the State. As though by -a tidal wave, every Clinton is swept out of official Albany. - -Aaron sends for Van Ness, the stubborn Swartwout, and their fellow -Bucktails. - -“Go to Albany,” says he. “Demand of Governor Tompkins the removal -of Mayor Clinton. Say that he is inefficient and was the friend of -England.” - -Governor Tompkins--being a politician--hesitates at the bold step. -The Bucktails, Aaron-guided, grow menacing. Seeing himself in danger, -Governor Tompkins hesitates no longer. Mayor Clinton is ignominiously -thrust from office into private life. With him go those hopes of a -presidency which for half a decade he has been sedulously cultivating. -Under the blight of that removal, those hopes of a future White House -wither like uprooted flowers. - -Broken of purse and prospects, Clinton is in despair. - -“He will never rise again!” exclaims Van Ness. - -“My friend,” says Aaron, “he will be your governor. He will never -be president, but the governorship is yet to be his; and all by your -negligence--yours and your brother Buck-tails.” - -“As how?” demands Van Ness. - -“You let him declare for the Erie Canal,” returns Aaron. “You were so -purblind as to oppose the project. You should have taken the business -out of his hands. If I had been here it would have been done. Mark -my words! The canal will be dug, and it will make Clinton governor. -However, we shall hold the town against him; and, since we have been -given a candidate for the presidency, we shall later have Washington -also.” - -“Who is that presidential candidate to whom you refer?” - -“Sir, he is your friend and my friend. Who, but Andrew Jackson? Since -New Orleans, it is bound to be he.” - -“Andrew Jackson!” exclaims Van Ness. “But, sir, the Congressional -caucus at Washington will never consider him. You know the power of -Jefferson--he will hold that caucus in the hollow of his hand. It is -he who will name Madison’s successor; and, after those street-corner -speeches and his friendship for you in Richmond, it can never be Andrew -Jackson.” - -“I know the Jefferson power,” returns Aaron; “none knows it better. At -the head of his Virginia junta he has controlled the country for years. -He will control it four years more, perchance eight. Our war upon him -and his caucus methods must begin at once. And our candidate should be, -and shall be, Andrew Jackson.” - -“Whom will Jefferson select to follow Madison?” - -“Monroe, sir; he will put forward Monroe.” - -“Monroe!” repeats Van Ness. “Has he force?--brains? Some one spoke of -him as a soldier.” - -“Soldier!” observes Aaron, his lip curling. “Sir, Monroe never commanded -so much as a platoon--never was fit to command one. He acted as aide to -Lord Stirling, who was a sot, not a soldier. Monroe’s whole duty was -to fill his lordship’s tankard, and hear with admiration his drunken -lordship’s long tales about himself. As a lawyer, Monroe is below -mediocrity. He never rose to the honor of trying a cause wherein so -much as one hundred pounds was at stake. He is dull, stupid, illiterate, -pusillanimous, hypocritical, and therefore a character suited to the -wants of Jefferson and his Virginia coterie. As a man, he is everything -that Jackson isn’t and nothing that he is.” - -Van Ness and his brother Bucktails do the bidding of Aaron blindly. On -every chance they shout for Jackson. Aaron writes “Jackson” letters to -all whom, far or near, he calls his friends. Also the better to have -New York in political hand, he demands--through Tammany--of Governor -Tompkins and Mayor Rad-cliff that every Clinton, every Schuyler, every -Livingston, as well as any who has the taint of Federalism about him be -relegated to private life. In town as well as country, he sweeps the New -York official situation free of opposition. - -The Bucktails are in full sway. Aaron privily coaches young Van Buren, -who is suave and dexterous, and for politeness almost the urbane peer of -Aaron himself, in what local party diplomacies are required, and sends -him forward as the apparent controlling spirit of Tammany Hall. What -Jefferson is doing with Monroe in Virginia, Aaron duplicates with the -compliant Van Buren in New York. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV--THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS - - -Marionette madison is withdrawn from the White House boards at -the close of his second term. Jefferson, working the machinery from -Monticello, replaces him with Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins -his war on the system of Congressional nomination--a system which has -obtained since the days of Washington. He writes to Alston: - -“_Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and -controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for -twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling, -‘Support the administration!’ have so far succeeded in duping the -public. The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must -break down this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country -are impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. -Its administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely -to preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, -there be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it -is your duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man--Andrew -Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of -a boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a -respectable convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth -of the caucus system--so beloved of scheming Virginians--his final -victory is assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; -for ‘caucus,’ which is wrong, must go down; and ‘convention,’ which is -right, must prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning -the caucus system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South -Carolina, and the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of -the convention, and Jackson’s open nomination._” - -Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson’s neighbor and -man of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this: - -“_Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is -announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta -with menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and -favors._” - -On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that -his candidate Jackson may have a proper début, Aaron pulls a Swartwout -string, pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer -a dinner in Jackson’s honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The -town is rent with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and -nights of Martling, never mounted more wildly high. - -Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the -excitement. It is there Jackson finds him. - -“I shall not be at the dinner, general,” says Aaron; “but with Van Buren -and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the -rest, you will find friends and good company about you.” - -“But you?” - -“There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors -and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and -slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and -bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well--better! After a man sees -sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live -to see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief -it will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must -save myself from wine and late hours--I must keep myself with care.” - -Aaron and the general talk for an hour. - -“And if I should become President some day,” says Jackson, as they -separate, “you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived.” - -“It will be too late for me,” responds Aaron. “I am old, and shall be -older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead--are in the grave. -Still”--and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way--“I shall be glad -to have younger men take up the work. It should serve somewhat to wipe -‘treason’ from my fame.” - -“Treason!” snorts the fiery Jackson. “Sir, no one, not fool or liar, -ever spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!” - -There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson--the -“hero,” the “conqueror,” the “nation’s hope and pride,” according to -orators then and there present and eloquent--is toasted to the skies. At -the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the -Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron’s arch enemy. - -The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly -gives: - -“De Witt Clinton!” - -The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren, -Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it. -Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude -of offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in -words, but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word -“Clinton” were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. -The thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its -friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since -that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also, -it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron’s place in -event of Jackson’s occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden, -intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes -stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, -and shouts of “Burr! Burr!” with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the -galling background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, -Aaron urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King -Caucus. His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for -convention nominations; his candidate is Jackson. - -In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his -voice and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate -their control of the town. He tells them to break down a property -qualification, and extend the voting franchise to every man, whether he -be landholder or no. - -“Let’s make Jack as good as his master,” says Aaron. “It will please -Jack, and hurt his master’s pride--both good things in their way.” - -It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, -but drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the -Livingstons and the Schuylers. - -“Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a -man!” cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout. - -The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron -destroys caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and -town, bound hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful -Bucktails. - -Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down; -Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a -convention. - -In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other -three, but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral -college. In the House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, -and Adams goes to the White House. - -Aaron is unmoved. - -“I am threescore years and ten,” says he--“the allotted space of man. -Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see -Jackson President.” - -Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win -his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments. - -“Take them,” says Aaron to his Bucktails. “They are yours, not -his--those offices. He but gives you your own.” - -Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires -like a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm. - -“I should think you’d rest,” says he. - -“Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now.” - -“But I don’t understand! You get nothing.” - -The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. “Sir, I get -vengeance--and forget feelings!” - -[Illustration: 0377] - -Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his -place. Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter’s -rooms--pleasant rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their -long pipes, and sit opposite one another, smoking like dragons. - -Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says: - -“Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory.” - -“General,” returns Aaron, “the best favor you can show me is show favor -to my friends.” - -“That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout -collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State. -Also I shall say to your enemies--the Clintons and those other proud -ones--that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson’s appointment, must -come with the approval of Colonel Burr.” - -Jackson is inaugurated. - -“I am through,” says Aaron--“through at four and seventy. Now I shall -work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics--no more -politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to -Providence and Andrew Jackson.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXV--THE SERENE LAST DAYS - - -AARON goes forward with his business--his cases in court, his -conferences with clients. Accurate as an Alvan-ley in dress, slim, -light, with the quick step of a boy, no one might guess his years. The -bar respects him; his friends crowd about him; his enemies shrink away -from the black, unblinking stare of those changeless ophidian eyes. And -so with his books and his wine and his pipe he sits through the serene -evenings in his rooms by the Bowling Green. He is a lion, and strangers -from England and Germany and France ask to be presented. They talk--not -always wisely or with taste. - -“Was Hamilton a gentleman?” asks a popinjay Frenchman. - -Aaron’s black eyes blaze: “Sir,” says he, “I met him!” - -“Colonel Burr,” observes a dull, thick Englishman, who imagines himself -a student of governments--“Colonel Burr, I have read your Constitution. -I find it not always clear. Who is to expound it?” - -Aaron leads our student of governments to the window, and points, with a -whimsical smile, at the Broadway throngs that march below. - -“Sir,” he remarks, “they are the expounders of our Constitution.” - -Aaron, at seventy-eight, does a foolish thing; he marries--marries the -wealthy Madam Jumel. - -They live in the madam’s great mansion on the heights overlooking the -Harlem. Three months later they part, and Aaron goes back to his books -and his pipe and his wine, in his rooms by the Bowling Green. - -It is a bright morning; Aaron and his friend Van Ness are walking -in Broadway. Suddenly Aaron halts and leans against the wall of a -house--the City Hotel. - -“It is a numbness,” says he. “I cannot walk!” - -The good, purple, puffy Dr. Hosack comes panting to the rescue. He finds -the stricken one in his rooms where Van Ness has brought him. - -“Paralysis!” says the good anxious Hosack. - -Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later -comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed. - -There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and -then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and -reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of -company. - -The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper. - -“See!” he cries. “Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That -marks the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White -House! Sir, thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, -Houston and San Jacinto, it is patriotism.” - -Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron’s strength is going. The hubbub, -the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town’s life wearies. He -takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives -him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His -visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who -one day brings up the name of Hamilton. - -“Colonel, it was an error--a fearful error!” says the doctor. - -“Sir,” rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, -“it was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? -He heaped obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his -prospects; I mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was -malevolent--cowardly! You have seen what he wrote the night before he -fought me. It sounds like the confession of a sick monk. When he stood -before me at Weehawken, his eye caught mine and he quailed like a -convicted felon. They say he did not fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard -the bullet whistle over my head and saw the severed twigs. I have lived -more than eighty years; I dwell now in the shadow of death. I shall soon -go; and I shall go saying that the destruction of Hamilton was an act of -justice.” - -“Colonel Burr,” observes the kindly doctor, “I am made sorry by your -words--sorry by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of -enmity?” - -The black eyes do not soften. - -“I shall die as I have lived--hating where I’m hated, loving where I’m -loved.” - -The last day breaks, and Aaron dies--dies - -“What lies beyond?” asks one shortly before he goes. - -“Who knows?” he returns. - -“But do you never ask?” - -“Why ask? Who should reply to such a question?--the old, old question -ever offered, never answered.” - -“But you have hopes?” - -“None,” says Aaron steadily. “And I want none. I am resolved to die -without fear; and he who would have no fear must have no hope.” So he -departs; he, of whom the good Dr. Bellamy said: “He will soar as high to -fall as low as any soul alive.” - -THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - -***** This file should be named 51911-0.txt or 51911-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51911/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51911-0.zip b/old/51911-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index eb98c1f..0000000 --- a/old/51911-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51911-8.txt b/old/51911-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 74fe5f7..0000000 --- a/old/51911-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7617 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr - Illustrated - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51911] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN OR THE STORY OF AARON BURR - -By Alfred Henry Lewis - -Author of "When Men Grew Tall or The Story of Andrew Jackson" - -Illustrated - -D. Appleton And Company New York - -1908 - -[Illustration: 0010] - -[Illustration: 0011] - - -TO - -ELBERT HUBBARD - -FOR THE PLEASURE HIS WRITINGS HAVE GIVEN ME, AND AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION -FOR THE GLOSS AND PURITY OF HIS ENGLISH, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED A. H. -L. - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN - - - - -CHAPTER I--FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW - - -THE Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy is a personage of churchly -consequence in Bethlehem. Indeed, the doctor is a personage of churchly -consequence throughout all Connecticut. For he took his theology from -that well-head of divinity and metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards himself, -and possesses an immense library of five hundred volumes, mostly on -religion. Also, he is the author of "True Religion Delineated"; -which work shines out across the tumbling seas of New England -Congregationalism like a lighthouse on a difficult coast. Peculiarly is -it of guiding moment to storm-vexed student ones, who, wanting it, -might go crashing on controversial reefs, and so miss those pulpit -snug-harbors toward which the pious prows of their hopes are pointed. - -The doctor has a round, florid face, which, with his well-fed stomach, -gives no hint of thin living. From the suave propriety of his cue to -the silver buckles on his shoes, his atmosphere is wholly clerical. Just -now, however, he wears a disturbed, fussy air, as though something has -rubbed wrong-wise the fur of his feelings. He shows this by the way in -which he trots up and down his study floor. Doubtless, some portion of -that fussiness is derived from the doctor's short fat legs; for none -save your long-legged folk may walk to and fro with dignity. Still, it -is clear there be reasons of disturbance which go deeper than mere short -fat legs, and set his spirits in a tumult. - -The good doctor, as he trots up and down, is not alone. Madam Bellamy is -with him, chair drawn just out of reach of the June sunshine as it comes -streaming through the open lattice. In her plump hands she holds her -sewing; for she is strong in the New England virtue of industry, and -regards hand-idleness as a species of viciousness. While she stitches, -she bends appreciative ear to the whistle of a robin in an apple tree -outside. - -"No, mother," observes the doctor, breaking in on the robin, "the lad -does himself no credit. He is careless, callous, rebellious, foppish, -and altogether of the flesh. I warrant you I shall take him in hand; it -is my duty.". "But no harshness, Joseph!" - -"No, mother; as you say, I must not be harsh. None the less I shall be -firm. He must study; he is not to become a preacher by mere wishing." - -Shod hoofs are heard on the graveled driveway; a voice is lifted: - -"Walk Warlock up and down until he is cooled out. Then give him a rub, -and a mouthful of water." - -Madam Bellamy steps to the window. The master of the voice is swinging -from the saddle, while the doctor's groom takes his horse--sweating from -a brisk gallop--by the bridle. - -"Here he comes now," says Madam Bellamy, at the sound of a springy step -in the hall. - -The youth, who so confidently enters the doctor's study, is in his -nineteenth year. His face is sensitive and fine, and its somewhat -overbred look is strengthened and restored by a high hawkish nose. The -dark hair is clubbed in an elegant cue. The skin, fair as a girl's, -gives to the black eyes a glitter beyond their due. These eyes are the -striking feature; for, while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their -inky depths a hard, ophidian sparkle both dangerous and fascinating--the -sort of eyes that warn a man and blind a woman. - -The youth is but five feet six inches tall, with little hands and -feet, and ears ridiculously small. And yet, his light, slim form is so -accurately proportioned that, besides grace and a catlike quickness, it -hides in its molded muscles the strength of steel. Also, any impression -of insignificance is defeated by the wide brow and well-shaped head, -which, coupled with a steady self-confidence that envelops him like an -atmosphere, give the effect of power. - -As he lounges languidly and pantherwise into the study, he bows to Madam -Bellamy and the good doctor. - -"You had quite a canter, Aaron," remarks Madam Bellamy. - -"I went half way to Litchfield," returns the youth, smiting his glossy -riding boot with the whip he carries. "For a moment I thought of seeing -my sister Sally; but it would have been too long a run for so warm a -day. As it is, poor Warlock looks as though he'd forded a river." - -The youth throws himself carelessly into the doctor's easy-chair. That -divine clears his throat professionally. Foreseeing earnestness if not -severity in the discourse which is to follow, Madam Bellamy picks up her -needlework and retires. - -When she is gone, the doctor establishes himself opposite the youth. His -manner is admonitory; which is not out of place, when one remembers that -the doctor is fifty-five and the youth but nineteen. - -"You've been with me, Aaron, something like eight months." - -The black eyes are fastened upon the doctor, and their ophidian glitter -makes the latter uneasy. For relief he rebegins his short-paced trot up -and down. - -Renewed by action, and his confidence returning, the doctor commences -with vast gravity a kind of speech. His manner is unconsciously pompous; -for, as the village preacher, he is wont to have his wisdom accepted -without discount or dispute. - -"You will believe me, Aaron," says the doctor, spacing off his words and -calling up his best pulpit voice--"you will believe me, when I tell -you that I am more than commonly concerned for your welfare. I was the -friend of your father, both when he held the pulpit in Newark, and later -when he was President of Princeton University. I studied my divinity -at the knee of your mother's father, the pious Jonathan Edwards. Need -I say, then, that when you came to me fresh from your own Princeton -graduation my heart was open to you? It seemed as though I were about to -pay an old debt. I would regive you those lessons which your grandfather -Edwards gave me. In addition, I would--so far as I might--take the place -of that father whom you lost so many years ago. That was my feeling. -Now, when you've been with me eight months, I tell you plainly that I'm -far from satisfied." - -"In what, sir, have I disappointed?" - -The voice is confidently careless, while the ophidian eyes keep up their -black glitter unabashed. - -"Sir, you are passively rebellious, and refuse direction. I place -in your hands those best works of your mighty grandsire, namely, his -'Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church' and 'The -Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,' and you cast them aside for the -'Letters of Lord Chesterfield' and the 'Comedies of Terence.' Bah! the -'Letters of Lord Chesterfield'! of which Dr. Johnson says, 'They teach -the morals of a harlot and the manners of a dancing master.'" - -"And if so," drawls the youth, with icy impenitence, "is not that a -pretty good equipment for such a world as this?" - -At the gross outrage of such a question, the doctor pauses in that -to-and-fro trot as though planet-struck. - -"What!" he gasps. - -"Doctor, I meant to tell you a month later what--since the ice is so -happily broken--I may as well say now. My dip into the teachings of my -reverend grandsire has taught me that I have no genius for divinity. To -be frank, I lack the pulpit heart. Every day augments my contempt for -that ministry to which you design me. The thought of drawing a salary -for being good, and agreeing to be moral for so much a year, disgusts -me." - -"And this from you--the son of a minister of the Gospel!" The doctor -holds up his hands in pudgy horror. - -"Precisely so! In which connection it is well to recall that German -proverb: 'The preacher's son is ever the devil's grandson.'" The doctor -sits down and mops his fretted brow; the manner in which he waves his -lace handkerchief is like a publication of despair. He fixes his gaze on -the youth resignedly, as who should say, "Strike home, and spare not!" - -This last tacit invitation the youth seems disposed to accept. It is -now his turn to walk the study floor. But he does it better than did the -fussy doctor, his every motion the climax of composed grace. - -"Listen, my friend," says the youth. - -For all the confident egotism of his manner, there is in it no smell of -conceit. He speaks of himself; but he does so as though discussing some -object outside of himself to which he is indifferent. - -"Those eight months of which you complain have not been wasted. If I -have drawn no other lesson from my excellent grandsire's 'Doctrine of -Original Sin Defended,' it has taught me to exhaustively examine my -own breast. I discover that I have strong points as well as points of -weakness. I read Latin and Greek; and I talk French and German, besides -English, indifferently well. Also, I fence, shoot, box, ride, row, sail, -walk, run, wrestle and jump superbly. Beyond the merits chronicled I -have tried my courage, and find that I may trust it like Gibraltar. -These, you will note, are not the virtues of a clergyman, but of a -soldier. My weaknesses likewise turn me away from the pulpit. - -"I have no hot sympathies; and, while not mean in the money sense, -holding such to be beneath a gentleman, I may say that my first concern -is not for others but for myself." - -"It is as though I listened to Satan!" exclaims the dismayed doctor, -fidgeting with his ruffles. - -"And if it were indeed Satan!" goes on the youth, with a gleam of -sarcasm, "I have heard you characterize that arch demon from your -pulpit, and even you, while making him malicious, never made him -mean. But to get on with this picture of myself, which I show you -as preliminary to laying bare a resolution. As I say, I have no -sympathies, no hopes which go beyond myself. I think on this world, -not the next; I believe only in the gospel according to Philip Dormer -Stanhope--that Lord Chesterfield, whom, with the help of Dr. Johnson, -you so much succeed in despising." - -"To talk thus at nineteen!" whispers the doctor, his face ghastly. - -"Nineteen, truly! But you must reflect that I have not had, since I may -remember, the care of either father or mother, which is an upbringing to -rapidly age one." - -"Were you not carefully reared by your kind Uncle Timothy?" This -indignantly. - -"Indeed, sir, I was, as you say, well reared in that dull town of -Elizabeth, which for goodness and dullness may compare with your -Bethlehem here. It was a rearing, too, from which--as I think my kind -Uncle Timothy has informed you--I fled." - -"He did! He said you played truant twice, once running away to sea." - -"It was no great voyage, then!" The imperturbable youth, hard of eye, -soft of voice, smiles cynically. "No, I was cabin boy two days, during -all of which the ship lay tied bow and stern to her New York wharf. -However, that is of no consequence as part of what we now consider." - -"No!" interrupts the doctor miserably, "only so far as it displays the -young workings of your sinfully rebellious nature. As a child, too, you -mocked your elders, as you do now. Later, as a student, you were the -horror of Princeton." - -"All that, sir, I confess; and yet I say that it is of the past. I hold -it time lost to think on aught save the present or the future." - -"Think, then, on your soul's future!--your soul's eternal future!" - -"I shall think on what lies this side of the grave. I shall devote my -faculties to this world; which, from what I have seen, is more than -likely to keep me handsomely engaged. The next world is a bridge, the -crossing of which I reserve until I come to it." - -"Have you then no religious convictions? no fears?" - -"I have said that I fear nothing, apprehend nothing. Timidity, of either -soul or body, was pleasantly absent at my birth. As for convictions, -I'd no more have one than I'd have the plague. What is a conviction -but something wherewith a man vexes himself and worries his neighbor. -Conclusions, yes, as many as you like; but, thank my native star! I am -incapable of a conviction." - -The doctor's earlier horror is fast giving way to anger. He almost -sneers as he asks: - -"But you pretend to honesty, I trust?" - -"Why, sir," returns the youth, with an air which narrowly misses the -patronizing, and reminds one of nothing so much as polished brass--"why, -sir, honesty, like generosity or gratitude, is a gentlemanly trait, the -absence of which would be inexpressibly vulgar. Naturally, I'm honest; -but with the understanding that I have my honesty under control. It -shall never injure me, I tell you! When its plain effect will be to -strengthen an enemy or weaken myself, I shall prove no such fool as to -give way to it." - -"While you talk, I think," breaks in the doctor; "and now I begin to see -the source of your pride and your satanism. It is your own riches that -tempt you! Your soul is to be undone because your body has four hundred -pounds a year." - -"Not so fast, sir! I am glad I have four hundred pounds a year. It -relieves me of much that is gross. I turn my back on the Church, -however, only because I am unfitted for it, and accept the world simply -for that it fits me. I have given you the truth. As a minister of the -Gospel I should fail; as a man of the world I shall succeed. The pulpit -is beyond me as religion is beyond me; for I am not one who could allay -present pain by some imagined bliss to follow after death, or find joy -in stripping himself of a benefit to promote another." - -"Now this is the very theology of Beelzebub for sure!" cries the -incensed doctor. - -"It is anything you like, sir, so it be understood as a description of -myself." - -"Marriage might save him!" muses the desperate doctor. "To love and be -loved by a beautiful woman might yet lead his heart to grace!" - -The pale flicker of a smile comes about the lips of the black-eyed one. - -"Love! beauty!" he begins. "Sir, while I might strive to possess myself -of both, I should no more love beauty in a woman than riches in a man. I -could love a woman only for her fineness of mind; wed no one who did not -meet me mentally and sentimentally half way. And since your Hypatia is -quite as rare as your Phoenix, I cannot think my nuptials near at hand." - -"Well," observes the doctor, assuming politeness sudden and vast, "since -I understand you throw overboard the Church, may I know what other -avenue you will render honorable by walking therein?" - -"You did not give me your attention, if you failed to note that what -elements of strength I've ascribed to myself all point to the camp. -So soon as there is a war, I shall turn soldier with my whole heart." - -"You will wait some time, I fear!" - -"Not so long as I could wish. There will be war between these colonies -and England before I reach my majority. It would be better were it -put off ten years; for now my youth will get between the heels of my -prospects to trip them up." - -"Then, if there be war with England, you will go? I do not think such -bloody trouble will soon dawn; still--for a first time to-day--I -am pleased to hear you thus speak. It shows that at least you are a -patriot." - -"I lay no claim to the title. England oppresses us; and, since one only -oppresses what one hates, she hates us. And hate for hate I give her. I -shall go to war, because I am fitted to shine in war, and as a shortest, -surest step to fame and power--those solitary targets worthy the aim of -man!" - -"Dross! dross!" retorts the scandalized doctor. "Fame! power! Dead sea -apples, which will turn to ashes on your lips! And yet, since that war -which is to be the ladder whereon you will go climbing into fame and -power is not here, what, pending its appearance, will you do?" - -"Now there is a query which brings us to the close. Here is my answer -ready. I shall just ride over to Sally, and her husband, Tappan -Reeve, and take up Blackstone. If I may not serve the spirit and study -theology, I'll even serve the flesh and study law." - -And so the hero of these memoirs rides over to Litchfield, to study -the law and wait for a war. The doctor and he separate in friendly -son-and-father fashion, while Madam Bellamy urges him to always call -her house his home. He is not so hard as he thinks, not so cynical as -he feels; still, his self-etched portrait possesses the broader lines -of truth. He is one whom men will follow, but not trust; admire, but -not love. There is enough of the unconscious serpent in him to rouse one -man's hate, while putting an edge on another's fear. Also, because--from -the fig-leaf day of Eve--the serpent attracts and fascinates a woman, -many tender ones will lose their hearts for him. They will dash -themselves and break themselves against him, like wild fowl against a -lighthouse in the night. Even as he rides out of Bethlehem that June -morning, bright young eyes peer at him from behind safe lattices, until -their brightness dies away in tears. As for him thus sighed over, his -lashes are dry enough. Bethlehem, and all who home therein, from the -doctor with Madam Bellamy, to her whose rose-red lips he kissed the -latest, are already of the unregarded past. He wears nothing but the -future on his agate slope of fancy; he is thinking only on himself and -his hunger to become a god of the popular--clothed with power, wreathed -of fame! - -"Mother," exclaims the doctor, "the boy is lost! Ambitious as Lucifer, -he will fall like Lucifer!" - -"Joseph!" - -"I cannot harbor hope! As lucidly clear as glass, he was yet as hard as -glass. If I were to read his fortune, I should say that Aaron Burr will -soar as high to fall as low as any soul alive." - - - - -CHAPTER II--THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER - - -YOUNG Aaron establishes himself in Litchfield with his pretty sister -Sally, who, because he is brilliant and handsome, is proud of him. Also, -Tappan Reeve, her husband, takes to him in a slow, bookish way, and is -much held by his trenchant powers of mind. - -Young Aaron assumes the law, and makes little flights into Bracton's -"Fleeta," and reads Hawkins and Hobart, delighting in them for their -limpid English. More seriously, yet more privately, he buries himself in -every volume of military lore upon which he may lay hands; for already -he feels that Bunker Hill is on its way, without knowing the name of it, -and would have himself prepared for its advent. - -In leisure hours, young Aaron gives Litchfield society the glory of his -countenance. He flourishes as a village Roquelaure, with plumcolored -coats, embroidered waistcoats, silken hose, and satin smalls, sent up -from New York. Likewise, his ruffles are miracles, his neckcloths works -of starched and spotless art, while at his hip he wears a sword--hilt of -gilt, and sharkskin scabbard white as snow. - -Now, because he is splendid, with a fortune of four hundred annual -pounds, and since no girl's heart may resist the mystery of those eyes, -the village belles come sighing against him in a melting phalanx -of loveliness. This is flattering; but young Aaron declines to be -impressed. Polished, courteous, in amiable possession of himself, he -furnishes the thought of a bright coldness, like sunshine on a field -of ice. Not that anyone is to blame. The difference between him and the -sighing ones, is a difference of shrines and altars. They sacrifice to -Venus; he worships Mars. While he has visions of battle, they dream of -wedding bells. - -For one moment only arises some tender confusion. There is an Uncle -Thaddeus--a dotard ass far gone in years! Uncle Thaddeus undertakes, -behind young Aaron's back, to make him happy. The liberal Uncle Thaddeus -goes so blindly far as to explore the heart of a particular fair one, -who mayhap sighs more deeply than do the others. It grows embarrassing; -for, while the sighing one thus softly met accepts, when Uncle Thaddeus -flies to young Aaron with the dulcet news, that favored personage -transfixes him with so black a stare, wherefrom such baleful serpent -rage glares forth, that our dotard meddler is fear-frozen in the very -midst of his ingenuous assiduities. And thereupon the sighing one is -left to sigh uncomforted, while Uncle Thaddeus finds himself the scorn -of all good village opinion. - -While young Aaron goes stepping up and down the Litchfield causeways, -as though strutting in Jermyn Street or Leicester Square; while thus he -plays the fine gentleman with ruffles and silks and shark-skin sword, -skimming now the law, now flattering the sighing belles, now devouring -the literature of war, he has ever his finger on the pulse, and his ear -to the heart of his throbbing times. It is he of Litchfield who hears -earliest of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In a moment he is all action. Off -come the fine feathers, and that shark-skin, gilt-hilt sword. Warlock is -saddled; pistols thrust into holsters. In roughest of costumes the -fop surrenders to the soldier. It takes but a day, and he is ready for -Cambridge and the American camp. - -As he goes upon these doughty preparations, young Aaron finds himself -abetted by the pretty Sally, who proves as martial as himself. Her -husband, Tappan Reeve, easy, quiet, loving his unvexed life, from the -law book on his table to the pillow whereon he nightly sleeps, cannot -understand this headlong war hurry. - -"You may lose your life!" cries Tappan Reeve. - -"What then?" rejoins young Aaron. "Whether the day be far or near, that -life you speak of is already lost. I shall play this game. My life is my -stake; and I shall freely hazard it upon the chance of winning glory." - -"And have you no fear?" - -The timid Tappan's thoughts of death are ashen; he likes to live. - -Young Aaron bends upon him his black gaze. "What I fear more than any -death," says he, "is stagnation--the currentless village life!" - -Young Aaron, arriving at Cambridge, attaches himself to General Putnam. -The grizzled old wolf killer likes him, being of broadest tolerations, -and no analyst of the psychic. - -There are seventeen thousand Americans scattered in a ragged fringe -about Boston, in which town the English, taught by Lexington and Bunker -Hill, are cautiously prone to lie close. Young Aaron makes the round of -the camps. He is amazed by the unrule and want of discipline. Besides, -he cannot understand the inaction, feeling that each new day should have -its Bunker Hill. That there is not enough powder among the Americans -to load and fire those seventeen thousand rifles twice, is a piece of -military information of which he lives ignorant, for the grave Virginian -in command confides it only to a merest few. Had young Aaron been aware -of this paucity of powder, those long days, idle, vacant of event, might -not have troubled him. The wearisome wonder of them at least would have -been made plain. - -Young Aaron learns of an expedition against Quebec, to be led by Colonel -Benedict Arnold, and resolves to join it. That all may be by military -rule, he seeks General Washington to ask permission. He finds that -commander in talk with General Putnam; the old wolf killer does him the -favor of a presentation. - -"From where do you come?" asks Washington, closely scanning young Aaron -whom he instantly dislikes. - -"From Connecticut. I am a gentleman volunteer, attached to General -Putnam with the rank of captain." - -Something of repulsion shows cloudily on the brow of Washington. -Obviously he is offended by this cool stripling, who clothes his -hairless boy's face with a confident maturity that has the effect of -impertinence. Also the phrase "gentleman volunteer," sticks in his -throat like a fish bone. - -"Ah, a 'gentleman volunteer!'" he repeats in a tone of sarcasm scarcely -veiled. "I have now and then heard of such a trinket of war, albeit, -never to the trinket's advantage. Doubtless, sir, you have made the -rounds of our array!" - -Young Aaron, from his beardless five feet six inches, looks up at the -tall Virginian, and cannot avoid envying him his door-wide shoulders -and that extra half foot of height. He perceives, too, with a resentful -glow, that he is being mocked. However, he controls himself to answer -coldly: - -"As you surmise, sir, I have made the rounds of your forces." - -"And having made them"--this ironically--"I trust you found all to your -satisfaction." - -"As to that," remarks young Aaron, "while I did not look to find trained -soldiers, I think that a better discipline might be maintained." - -"Indeed! I shall make a note of it. And yet I must express the hope -that, while you occupy a subordinate place, you will give way as little -as may be to your perilous trick of thinking, leaving it rather to our -experienced friend Putnam, here, he being trained in these matters." - -The old wolf killer takes advantage of this reference to himself, to -help the interview into less trying channels. - -"You were seeking me?" he says to the youthful critic of camps and -discipline. - -"I was seeking the commander in chief," returns young Aaron, again -facing Washington. "I came to ask permission to go with Colonel Arnold -against Quebec." - -"Against Quebec?" repeats Washington. "Go, with all my heart!" - -There is a cut concealed in that consent, to the biting smart of which -young Aaron is not insensible. However, he finds in the towering -manner of its delivery something which checks even his audacity. After -saluting, he withdraws without added word. - -"General," observes Washington, when young Aaron has gone, "I fear I -cannot congratulate you on your new captain." - -"If you knew him better, general," protests the good-hearted old wolf -killer, "you would like him better. He is a boy; but he has an old head -on his young shoulders." - -[Illustration: 0043] - -"The very thing I most fear," rejoins Washington. "A boy has no more -business with an old head than with old lungs or old legs. It is -unnatural, sir; and the unnatural is the wrong. I want only heads and -shoulders about me that were born the same day. For that reason, I am -glad your 'gentleman volunteer'"--this with a shade of irony--"goes to -Quebec with that turbulent Norwich apothecary, Arnold. The army will be -bettered just now by the absence of these lofty spirits. They disturb -more than they help. Besides, a tramp of sixty days through the Maine -woods will improve such Hotspurs vastly. There is nothing like a -six-hundred mile march through an unbroken wilderness, with a fight in -the snow at the far end of it, to take the edge off beardless arrogance -and young conceit." - -What young Aaron carries away from that interview, as an impression -of the big commander in chief, crops out in converse with his former -college chum, young Ogden. The latter, like himself, is attached to the -military family of General Putnam. - -"Ogden, we have begun wrong as soldiers--you and I!" says young Aaron. -"By flint and steel, man, we should have commenced like Washington, by -hoeing tobacco!" - -"Now this is not right!" cries young Ogden, in reproof. "General -Washington is a soldier who has seen service." - -"Why," retorts young Aaron, "I believe he was trounced with Braddock." -Then, warmly: "Ogden, the man is Failure walking about in blue and -buff and high boots! I read him like a page of print! He is slow, dull, -bovine, proud, and of no decision. He lacks initiative; and, while he -might defend, he is incapable of attacking. Worst of all he has the soul -of a planter--a plantation soul! A big movement like this, which brings -the thirteen colonies to the field, is beyond his grasp." - -"Your great defect, Aaron," cries young Ogden, not without indignation, -"is that you regard your most careless judgment as final. Half the time, -too, your decision is the product of prejudice, not reason. General -Washington offends you--as, to be frank, he did me--by putting a lower -estimate on your powers than that at which you yourself are pleased -to hold them. I warrant now had he flattered you a bit, you would have -found in him a very Alexander." - -"I should have found him what I tell you," retorts young Aaron stoutly, -"a glaring instance of misplaced mediocrity. He is even wanting in -dignity!" - -"For my side, then, I found him dignified enough." - -"Friend Ogden, you took dullness for dignity. Or I will change it; I'll -even consent that he is dignified. But only in the torpid, cud-chewing -fashion in which a bullock is dignified. Still, he does very well by me; -for he says I may go with Colonel Arnold. And so, Ogden, I've but -time for 'good-by!' and then off to make myself ready to accompany our -swashbuckler druggist against Quebec." - - - - -CHAPTER III--COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD EXPLAINS - - -IT is September, brilliant and golden. Newburyport is brave with -warlike excitement. Drums roll, fifes shriek, armed men fill the single -village street. These latter are not seasoned troops, as one may see -by their careless array and the want of uniformity in their homespun, -homemade garbs. No two are armed alike, for each has brought his own -weapon. These are rifles--long, eight-square flintlocks. Also every -rifleman wears a powderhorn and bullet pouch of buckskin, while most of -them carry knives and hatchets in their rawhide belts. - -As our rude soldiery stand at ease in the village street, cheering -crowds line the sidewalk. The shouts rise above the screaming fifes and -rumbling drums. The soldiers are the force which Colonel Arnold will -lead against Quebec. Young, athletic--to the last man they have been -drawn from the farms. Resenting discipline, untaught of drill, their -disorder has in it more of the mob than the military. However, their -eyes like their hopes are bright, and one may read in the healthy, -cheerful faces that each holds himself privily to be of the raw -materials from which generals are made. - -Down in the harbor eleven smallish vessels ride at anchor. They are of -brigantine rig, each equal to transporting one hundred men. These will -carry Colonel Arnold and his eleven hundred militant young rustics to -the mouth of the Kennebec. In the waist of every vessel, packed one -inside the other as a housewife arranges teacups on her shelves, are -twenty bateaux. They are wide, shallow craft, blunt at bow and stern, -and will be used to convey the expedition up the Kennebec. Each is large -enough to hold five men, and so light that the five, at portages or -rapids, can shoulder it with the dunnage which belongs to them and carry -it across to the better water beyond. - -The word of command runs along the unpolished ranks; the column begins -to move toward the water front, taking its step from the incessant drums -and fifes. Once at the water, the embarkation goes briskly forward. As -the troops march away, the crowds follow; for the day in Newburyport is -a gala occasion and partakes of the character of a celebration. No one -considers the possibility of defeat. Everywhere one finds optimism, as -though Quebec is already a captured city. - -Now when the throngs have departed with the soldiery, the street shows -comparatively deserted. This brings to view the Eagle Inn, a hostelry of -the village. In the doorway of the Eagle a man and woman are standing. -The woman is dashingly handsome, with cheek full of color and a bold -eye. The man is about thirty-five in years. He swaggers with a forward, -bragging, gamecock air, which--the basis being a coarse, berserk -courage--is not altogether affectation. His features are vain, sensual, -turbulent; his expression shows him to be proud in a crude way, and is -noticeable because of an absence of any slightest glint of principle. -There is, too, an extravagance of gold braid on his coat, which goes -well with the superfluous feather in the three-cornered hat, and those -russet boots of stamped Spanish leather. These swashbuckley excesses -of costume bear out the vulgar promise of his face, and guarantee that -intimated lack of fineness. - -The pair are Colonel Arnold and Madam - -Arnold. She has come to see the last of her husband as he sails away. -While they stand in the door, the coach in which she will make the -homeward journey to Norwich pulls up in front of the Eagle. - -As Colonel Arnold leads his wife to the coach, he is saying: "No; I -shall be aboard within the hour. After that we start at once. I want a -word with a certain Captain Burr before I embark. I've offended him, it -seems; for he is of your proud, high-stomached full-pursed aristocrats -who look for softer treatment than does a commoner clay. I've ordered -a bottle of wine. As we drink, I shall make shift to smooth down his -ruffled plumage." - -"Captain Burr," repeats Madam Arnold, not without a sniff of scorn. "And -you are a colonel! How long is it since colonels have found it necessary -to truckle to captains, and, when they pout, placate them into good -humor?" - -"My dear madam," returns Colonel Arnold as he helps her into the clumsy -vehicle, "permit me to know my own affairs. I tell you this thin-skinned -boy is rich, and what is better was born with his hands open. He parts -with money like a royal prince. One has but to drop a hint, and presto! -his hand is in his purse. The gold I gave you I had from him." - -As the coach with Madam Arnold drives away, young Aaron is observed -coming up from the water front. His costume, while as rough as that of -the soldiers, has a fit and a finish to it which accents the graceful -gentility of his manner beyond what satins and silks might do. Madam -Arnold's bold eyes cover him. He takes off his hat with a gravely -accurate flourish, whereat the bold eyes glance their pleasure at the -polite attention. - -Coach gone, Colonel Arnold seizes young Aaron's arm, with a familiarity -which fails of its purpose by being overdone, and draws him into -the inn. He carries him to a room where a table is spread. The stout -landlady by way of topping out the feast is adding thereunto an apple -pie, moonlike as her face and its sister for size and roundness. This, -and the roast fowl which adorns the center, together with a bottle -of burgundy to keep all in countenance, invest the situation with an -atmosphere of hope. - -"Be seated, Captain Burr," exclaims the hearty Colonel Arnold, as -the two draw up to the table. "A roast pullet, a pie, and a bottle of -burgundy, let me tell you, should make no mean beginning to what is like -to prove a hard campaign. I warrant you, sir, we see worse fare in -the pine wilderness of upper Maine. Let me help you to wine, sir," he -continues, after carving for himself and young Aaron. The latter, as -cold and imperturbable as when, in Dr. Bellamy's study, he shattered the -designs of that excellent preacher by preferring law to theology and war -to either, responds to this hospitable politeness with a bow. "Take your -glass, Captain Burr. I desire to drink down all irritations. Yes, sir," -replacing the drained glass, "I may say, without lowering myself as -a gentleman in your esteem, that, in giving you the order to see the -troops aboard, I had no thought of affronting you." - -"It was not your orders to which I objected; it was to your manner. If -I may say so, sir, it was a manner of intolerable arrogance, one which I -shall brook from no man." - -"Tush, sir, tush! In war we must thicken our hides. We are not to be -sensitive. We should not look in the camps for the manners of a king's -court. What you mistook for arrogance was no more than just a tone of -command." - -Colonel Arnold's delivery of this is meant to be conciliating. Through -it, however, runs an exasperating vein of patronage, due, doubtless, to -his superior rank, and those extra fifteen years wherein he overlooks -young Aaron. - -"Let us be plain, colonel," observes young Aaron, studying his wine -between eye and windowpane. "I hope for nothing better than concord -between us. Also, every order you give me I shall obey. None the less I -ask you to observe that I have no purpose of lowering my self-respect in -coming to this war. As your subordinate I shall take your commands; as a -gentleman, the equal of any, I must be treated as such." - -Colonel Arnold's brow is red; but he fills his mouth with chicken which -he drenches down with wine, and so restrains every fretful expression. -After a moment filled of wine and chicken, he observes carelessly: - -"Say no more! Say no more, Captain Burr! We understand one another!" - -"There is no more to say," returns young Aaron steadily. "And I beg you -to remember that the subject is one which you, yourself, proposed. I am -through when I state that, while I object to no man's vanity, no man's -arrogance, I shall never permit him to transact them at the expense of -my self-respect." - -Colonel Arnold turns the talk to what, in a wilderness as well as a -fighting way, lies ahead. They linger over pullet and burgundy for the -better part of an hour, and get on as well as should gentlemen who -have no mighty mutual liking. As they prepare to go aboard, the stout -landlady meets them in the hall. Her modest' charges are to be met with -a handful of shillings. Colonel Arnold rummages his pockets, wearing the -while a baffled angry air; then he falls to cursing in a spirit truly -military. - -"May the black fiend seize me!" says he, "if my purse has not gone -aboard with my baggage!" - -Young Aaron pays the score with an indifference which does not betray -a conviction that the pocket-rummaging is a pretence, and the native -money-meanness of his coarse-faced colonel designed such finale from the -first. Score settled, they repair to the water front. As the two depart, -the stout landlady of the Eagle follows the retreating Colonel Arnold -with shocked, insulted glance. She is a religious woman, and those -curses have moved her soul. - -"Blaspheming upstart!" she mutters. "And the airs he takes on! As though -folk have forgotten that within the year he stood behind his Norwich -counter selling pills and plasters!" - -The eleven little ships voyage to the mouth of the Kennebec without -event. The bateaux are launched, and the eleven hundred highhearted -youngsters proceed to pole and paddle their way up the river. Where the -currents are overswift they tow with lines from the banks. Finally they -abandon the Kennebec, and shoulder the bateaux for a scrambling tramp -across the pine-sown watershed. It takes days, but in the end they find -themselves again afloat on the Dead River. This stream leads them to -the St. Lawrence. It is the march of the century! These buoyant young -rustics through the untraced wilderness have come six hundred miles in -fifty days. - -Woodmen born and bred, this long push through the forests is no -surprising feat to these who perform it. They scarcely discuss the -matter as they crouch about their camp fires. The big topic among -them is their hatred of Colonel Arnold. From that September day in -Newbury-port his tyranny has been in hourly expression. Also, it seems -to grow with time. He hectors, raves, vituperates, until there isn't -a trigger finger in the command which does not itch to shoot him down. -Disdaining to aid the march by carrying so much as a pound's weight--as -being work beneath his exalted rank--this Caesar of the apothecaries -must needs have his special cooking kit along. Also his tent must be -pitched with the coming down of every night. Men hungry and unsheltered -all around him, he sees no reason why he should not sleep warmly soft, -and breakfast and dine and sup like a wilderness Lucullus. Thereat the -farmer youth grumble, and console themselves with slighting remarks and -looks of contumely. - -To these remarks and looks, Colonel Arnold is driven to deafen his -ears and offer his back. It would be inconvenient to hear and see these -things; since, for all his bullying attitude, he dare not crowd his -followers too far. Their unbroken mouths are but new to the military -bit; a too cruel pressure on the bridle reins might mean the unhorsing -of our vanity-eaten apothecary. As it is, by twos and tens and twenties, -the command dwindles away. Every roll call discloses fresh desertions. -Wroth with their commander, resolved against the mean tyranny of his -rule, when the party reaches the St. Lawrence, half have gone to a -right-about and are on their way home. The feather-headed Colonel Arnold -finds himself with a muster of five hundred and fifty where he should -have had eleven hundred. And the five hundred and fifty with him are on -the darkling edge of revolt. - -"Think on such cur hearts!" cries Colonel Arnold, as he speaks with -young Aaron of those desertions which have cut his force in two. "Half -have already turned tail, and the other half are of a coward mind to -follow their mongrel example. I would sooner command a brigade of dogs!" - -"Believe me," observes young Aaron, icily acquiescent, "I shall not -contradict your peculiar fitness for the command you describe." - -Being thus happily delivered, young Aaron goes round on his -imperturbable heel and strolls away, leaving the angry Colonel Arnold -glaring with rage-congested eye. - -"Insolent puppy!" the latter grits between his teeth. - -He is heedful, however, to avoid the epithet in the presence of young -Aaron; for, in spite of that rude courage which, when all is said, -lies at the root of his nature, the ex-apothecary dreads the "gentleman -volunteer," with his black ophidian glance--so balanced, so hard, so -vacant of fear! - -It is toward the last of November; the valley of the St. Lawrence seems -the home of snow. Colonel Arnold grows afraid of the temper of his -people. As they push slowly through the drifts, their angry wrath -against the Caligula who leads them is only too thinly veiled. At -this, the insolent oppressions of our ex-apothecary cease; he seeks to -conciliate, but the time is overlate. - -Colonel Arnold goes into camp, and considers the situation. Even if his -followers do not wheel suddenly southward for home, he fears that on -some final battle day they will refuse to fight at his command. -With despair gnawing at his heart, he decides to get word to General -Montgomery, who has conquered and is holding Montreal. The giant -Irishman is the idol of the army. Once he appears, the grumblings and -mutinous murmurings will abate. The rebellious ones will go wherever he -points, fight like lions at his merest word. - -True, the coming of Montgomery will mean his own loss of command, and -that is a bitter pill. Still, since he may do no better, he resolves -to gulp it. Thus resolving, he calls young Aaron into conference. The -uneasy tyrant hates young Aaron--hates him for the gold he has borrowed -from him, hates him for his scarcely concealed contempt of himself. None -the less he calls him into council. It is wisdom not friendship his case -requires, and he early learned to value the long head of our "gentleman -volunteer." - -"It is this," explains Colonel Arnold, desperately. "We have not -the force demanded for the capture of Quebec. We must get word to -Montgomery. He is one hundred and twenty miles away in Montreal. -The puzzle is to find some one, whom we can trust among these -French-speaking native Canadians, who will carry my message." - -Young Aaron knots his brows. Colonel Arnold watches him anxiously, for -he is at the end of his resources. Finally young Aaron consults his -watch. - -"It is now ten o'clock," he says. "Nothing can be done to-night. And -yet I think I know the man for your occasion. By daybreak I'll have him -before you." - - - - -CHAPTER IV--THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST - - -THERE are many deserted log huts along the St. Lawrence. Colonel Arnold -has taken up his quarters in one of these. It is eight o'clock of the -morning following the talk with young Aaron when the sentinel at the -door reports that a priest is asking admission. - -"What have I to do with priests!" demands Colonel Arnold. "However, -bring him in! He must give good reasons for disturbing me, or his black -coat will do him little good." - -The priest is clothed from head to heel in the black frock of his order. -The frock is caught in about the waist with a heavy cord. Down the front -depend a crucifix and beads. The frock is thickly lined with fur; the -peaked hood, also fur-lined, is drawn forward over the priest's face. In -figure he is short and slight. As he peers out from his hood at Colonel -Arnold, his black eyes give that commander a start of uncertainty. - -"I suppose you speak no French?" says the priest. - -His accent is wretched. Colonel Arnold might be justified in retorting -that his visitor speaks no English. He restricts himself, however, to an -admission that, as the priest surmises, he has no French, and follows it -with a bluff demand that the latter make plain his errand. - -"Why, sir," returns the priest, glancing about as though in quest of -some one, "I expected to find Captain Burr here. He tells me you wish to -send a message to Montreal." - -Colonel Arnold is alert in a moment; his manner undergoes a change from -harsh to suave. - -"Ah!" he cries amiably; "you are the man." Then, to the sentinel at the -door: "Send word, sir, to Captain Burr, and ask him to come at once to -my quarters." - -While waiting the coming of young Aaron, Colonel Arnold enters into -conversation with his clerkly visitor. The priest explains that he hates -the English, as do all Canadians of French stock. He is only too willing -to do Colonel Arnold any service that shall tell against them. Also, he -adds, in response to a query, that he can make his way to Montreal in -ten days. - -"There are farmer and fisher people all along the St. Lawrence," says -he. "They are French, and good sons of mother church. I am sure they -will give me food and shelter." - -The sentinel comes lumbering in, and reports that young Aaron is not to -be found. - -"That is sheer nonsense, sir!" fumes Colonel Arnold. "Why should he not -be found? He is somewhere about camp. Fetch him instantly!" - -When the sentinel again departs, the priest frees his face of the -obscuring hood. - -"Your sentinel is right," he says. "Captain Burr is not at his -quarters." - -Colonel Arnold stares in amazement; the priest is none other than our -"gentleman volunteer." Perceiving Colonel Arnold gazing in curious -wonder at his clerkly frock, young Aaron explains. - -"I got it five days back, at that monastery we passed. You recall how I -dined there with the Brothers. I thought then that just such a peaceful -coat as this might find a use." - -"Marvelous!" exclaims Colonel Arnold. "And you speak French, too?" - -"French and Latin. I have, you see, the verbal as well as outward -furnishings of a priest of these parts." - -"And you think you can reach Montgomery? I have to warn you, sir, that -the work will be extremely delicate and the danger great." - -"I shall be equal to the work. As for the peril, if I feared it I should -not be here." - -It is arranged; and young Aaron explains that he is prepared, indeed, -prefers, to start at once. Moreover, he counsels secrecy. - -"You have an Indian guide or two, about you," says he, "whom I do not -trust. If my errand were known, one of them might cut me off and sell my -scalp to the English." - -When Colonel Arnold is left alone, he gives himself up to a -consideration of the chances of his message going safely to Montreal. He -sits long, with puckered lips and brooding eye. - -"In any event," he murmurs, "I cannot fail to be the better off. If he -reach Montgomery, that is what I want. On the other hand, should he fall -a prey to the English I shall think it a settlement of what debts I owe -him. Yes; the latter event would mean three hundred pounds to me. Either -way I am rid of one whose cool superiorities begin to smart. Himself a -gentleman, he seems never to forget that I am an apothecary." - -Young Aaron is twenty miles nearer Montreal when the early winter sun -goes down. For ten days he plods onward, now and again lying by to avoid -a roving party of English. As he foretold, every cabin is open to the -"young priest." He but explains that he has cause to fear the redcoats, -and with that those French Canadians, whom he meets with, keep nightly -watch, while couching him warmest and softest, and feeding him on the -best. At last he reaches General Montgomery, and tells of Colonel Arnold -below Quebec. - -General Montgomery, a giant in stature, has none of that sluggishness -so common with folk of size. In twenty-four hours after receiving young -Aaron's word, he is off to make a junction with Colonel Arnold. He takes -with him three hundred followers, all that may be spared from Montreal, -and asks young Aaron to serve on his personal staff. - -[Illustration: 0067] - -They find Colonel Arnold, with his five hundred and fifty, camped under -the very heights of Quebec. The garrison, while quite as strong as is -his force, have not once molested him. They leave his undoing to the -cold and snow, and that starvation which is making gaunt the faces and -shortening the belts of his men. - -General Montgomery upon his arrival takes command. Colonel Arnold, -while foreseeing this--since even his vanity does not conceive of a -war condition so upside down that a colonel gives orders to a -general--cannot avoid a fit of the sulks. He is the more inclined to be -moody, because the coming of the big Irishman has visibly brightened his -people, who for months have been scowls and clouds to him. Now the face -of affairs is changed; the mutinous ones have nothing save cheers for -the big general whenever he appears. - -General Montgomery calls a conference, and Colonel Arnold comes with all -his officers. At the request of young Aaron, the big general retains -him by his side. This does not please the ex-apothecary, it hurts his -self-love that the "gentleman volunteer" is so obviously pleased to be -free of his company. At the conference, General Montgomery advises all -to hold themselves in readiness for an assault upon the English walls. - -"I cannot tell the night," he observes; "I only say that we shall -attack during the first snowstorm that occurs. It may come in an hour, -wherefore be ready!" - -The storm which is to mask the movements of General Montgomery does not -keep folk waiting. There soon falls a midnight which is nothing save -a blinding whirling sheet of snow. Thereupon the word goes through the -camp. - -The assault is to be made in two columns, General Montgomery leading -one, Colonel Arnold the other. Young Aaron will be by the elbow of the -big Irishman. By way of aiding, a feigned attack is ordered for a far -corner of the English works. - -As the soldiers fall into their ranks, the storm fairly swallows them -up. It would seem as though none might live in such a tempest--white, -ferociously cold, Arctic in its fury! It is desperate weather! the -more desperate when faced by ones whose courage has been diminished -by privation. But the strong heart of General Montgomery listens to no -doubts. He will lead out his eight hundred and fifty against an equal -force that have been sleeping warm and eating full, while his own were -freezing and starving. Also, those warm, full-fed ones are behind stone -walls, which the lean, frozen ones must scale and capture. - -"I shall give you ten minutes' start," observes General Montgomery to -Colonel Arnold. "You have farther to go than we to gain your position. I -shall wait ten minutes; then I shall press forward." - -Colonel Arnold moves off with his column through the driving storm. When -those ten minutes of grace have elapsed, General Montgomery gives his -men the word to advance. - -They urge their difficult way up a ravine, snow belt-deep. There is an -outer work of blockhouse sort at the head of the defile. It is of solid -mason work, two stories, crenelled above for muskets, pierced below for -two twelve-pounders. This must be reduced before the main assault can -begin. - -As General Montgomery, with young Aaron on the right, the column in -broken disorder at his heels, nears the blockhouse, a dog, more wakeful -than the English, is heard to bark. That bark turns out the redcoat -garrison as though a trumpet called. - -"Forward!" cries General Montgomery. - -The men respond; they rush bravely on. The blockhouse, dully looming -through the storm, is no more than forty yards away. - -Suddenly a red tongue of flame licks out into the snow swirl, to be -followed by the roar of one of the twelve-pounders. In quick response -comes the roar of its sister gun, while, from the loopholes above, the -muskets crackle and splutter. - -It is blind cannonading; but it does its work as though the best -artillerist is training the guns at brightest noonday. The head of the -assaulting column is met flush in the face with a sleet of grapeshot. - -General Montgomery staggers; and then, without a word, falls forward on -his face in the snow. Young Aaron stoops to raise him to his feet. It is -of no avail; the big Irishman is dead. - -The bursting roar of the twelve-pounders is heard again. As if to keep -their general company, a dozen more give up their lives. - -"Montgomery is slain!" - -The word zigzags along the ragged column. - -It is a daunting word! The men begin to give way. - -Young Aaron rushes into their midst, and seeks to rally them. He might -as well attempt to stay the whirling snow in its dance! The men will -follow none save General Montgomery; and he is dead. - -Slowly they fall backward along the ravine up which they climbed. Again -the two twelve-pounders roar, and a raking hail of grape sings through -the shaking ranks. More men are struck down! That backward movement -becomes a rout. - -Young Aaron loses the icy self-control which is his distinguishing -trait. He buries the retreating ones beneath an avalanche of curses, -drowns them with a cataract of scorn. - -"What!" he cries. "Will you leave your general's body in their hands?" - -He might have spared himself the shouting effort. Already he is alone -with the dead. - -"It is better company than that of cowards!" is his bitter cry, as he -bends above the stark form of his chief. - -The English are pouring from the blockhouse. Still young Aaron will not -leave the dead Montgomery behind. Now are the steel-like powers of his -slight frame manifest. With one effort, he swings the giant body to -his shoulder, and plunges off down the defile, the eager blood-hungry -redcoats not a dozen rods behind. - - - - -CHAPTER V--THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON - - -THE gray morning finds the routed ones in their old camp by the St. -Lawrence. Colonel Arnold's assault has also failed. The ex-apothecary -received a slight wound, and is vastly proud. It is his left arm that -was hurt, and of it he makes a mighty parade, slinging it in a rich -crimson sash. - -Colonel Arnold, now in command, does not attempt another assault, but -contents himself with maneuvering his slender forces on the plain in -tantalizing view of the redcoat foe. He sends a flag of truce to the -foot of the walls, with a sprightly challenge to their defenders, -inviting them to come out and fight. The Quebec commander, being a -soldier and no mad knight errant, refuses to be thus romantic. The -winter is deepening; he will leave the vaporing Colonel Arnold to fight -a battle with the thermometer. Also, General Burgoyne, at the head of an -army, is pointed that way. - -His maneuverings ignored, his challenge declined, Colonel Arnold puts -in an entire night framing a demand for the instant surrender of Quebec. -This he is at pains to couch in terms of insult, peppering it from top -to bottom with biting taunts. He closes with a threat that, should the -English commander fail to lower his flag, he will conquer the city at -the point of the sword, and put the garrison to disgraceful death by -gibbet and halter. When he has completed this precious manifesto, he -seeks out young Aaron, and commands him to carry it in person to the -city's gates. As Colonel Arnold tenders the letter, young Aaron puts his -hands behind him. - -"Before I take it, sir," says he, "I should like to hear it read." - -Young Aaron's contempt for the ex-apothecary has found increase with -every day since the death of Montgomery. Those braggadocio maneuverings, -the foolish challenge to come out and fight, have filled him with -disgust. They shock by stress of their innate cheap vulgarity. He is of -no mind to lend himself to any kindred buffoonery. - -"Do you refuse my orders, sirrah?" cries Colonel Arnold, falling into a -dramatic fume. - -"I refuse nothing! I say that I shall carry no letter until I know its -contents. I warn you, sir, I am not to be 'ordered,' as you call it, -into a false position by any man alive." - -Young Aaron's face is getting white; there is a dangerous sparkle in -the black ophidian eyes. Colonel Arnold reads these symptoms, and draws -back. Still, he maintains a ruffling front. - -"Sir!" says he haughtily; "you should think on your subordinate rank, -and on your youth, before you pretend to overlook my conduct." - -"My subordinate rank shall not detract from my quality as a gentleman. -As for my youth, I shall prove old enough, I trust, to make safe my -honor. I say again, I'll not touch your letter till I hear it read." - -"Remember, sir, to whom you speak!" - -"I shall remember what I mentioned at the Eagle Inn; I shall remember my -self-respect." - -Colonel Arnold fixes young Aaron with a superior stare. If it be meant -for his confusion, it meets failure beyond hope. The black eyes stare -back with so much of iron menace in them, as to disconcert the personage -of former drugs. - -He feels them play upon him like two black rapier points. His assurance -breaks down; his lofty determination oozes away. With gaze seeking the -floor, his ruddy, wine-marked countenance flushes doubly red. - -"Since you make such a swelter of the business," he grumbles, "I, for my -own sake, shall now ask you to read it. I would have you know, sir, -that I understand the requirements as well as the proprieties of my -position." - -Colonel Arnold tears open the letter with a flourish, and gives it to -young Aaron. The latter reads it; and then, with no attempt to palliate -the insult, throws it on the floor. - -"Sir," cries Colonel Arnold, exploding into a sudden blaze of wrath, "I -was told in Cambridge, what my officers have often told me since, that -you are a bumptious young fool! Many times have I been told it, sir; -and, until now, I did you the honor to disbelieve it." Young Aaron is -cold and sneering. "Sir," he retorts, "see how much more credulous I -am than are you. I was told but once that you are a bragging, empty -vulgarian, and I instantly believed it." - -The pair stand opposite one another, glances crossing like sword blades, -the insulted letter on the floor between. It is Colonel Arnold who again -gives ground. Snapping his fingers, as though breaking off an incident -beneath his exalted notice, he goes about on his heel. - -"Ah!" says young Aaron; "now that I see your back, sir, I shall take my -leave." - -The winter days, heavy and leaden and chill, go by. Colonel Arnold -continues those maneuverings and challengings, those struttings and -vaporings. At last even his coxcomb vanity grows weary, and he thinks -on Montreal. One morning, with all his followers, he marches off to -that city, still held by the garrison that Montgomery left behind. -Established in Montreal he comports himself as becomes a conqueror, -expanding into pomp and license, living on the fat, drinking of the -strong. And day by day Burgoyne is drawing nearer. - -Broad spring descends; a green mist is visible in the winter-stripped -trees. The rumors of Burgoyne's approach increase and prove disquieting. -Colonel Arnold leads his people out of Montreal, and plunges southward -into the wilderness. He pitches camp on the river Sorel. - -Since the incident of the letter, young Aaron has held no traffic, -polite or otherwise, with Colonel Arnold. The "gentleman volunteer" sees -lonesome days; for he has made no friends about the camp. The men admire -him, but offer him no place in their hearts. A boy in years, with a -beardless girl's face, he gives himself the airs of gravest manhood. His -atmosphere, while it does not repel, is not inviting. Men hold aloof, -as though separated from him by a gulf. He tells no stories, cracks no -jests. His manner is one of careless nonchalance. In truth, he is so -much engaged in upholding his young dignity as to leave him no time -to be popular. His bringing off the dead Montgomery, under fire of the -English, has been told and retold in every corner of the camp. This -gains him credit for a heart of fire, and a fortitude without a flaw. On -the march, too, he faces every hardship, shirks no work, but meets and -does his duty equal with the best. And yet there is that cool reserve, -which denies the thought of comradeship and holds friendly folk at bay. -With them, yet not of them, the men about him cannot solve the conundrum -of his nature; and so they leave him to himself. They value him, they -respect him, they hold his courage above proof; there it ends. - -Young Aaron, aware of his lonely position, does nothing to change it. -He is conceitedly pleased with things as they are. It is the old head on -the young shoulders that thus gets in his way; Washington was right in -his philosophy. Young Aaron, however, is as content with that head, -as in those old Bethlehem days, when he patronized Dr. Bellamy, and -declared for the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield. - -None the less young Aaron is not wholly satisfied. As he idles about the -camp by the Sorel, he feels that any present chance of conquering the -fame and power he came seeking in this war is closed against him. - -"Plainly," counsels the old head on the young shoulders, "it is time to -bring about a change." - -Colonel Arnold is smitten of surprise one afternoon, when young Aaron -walks into his tent. He does his best to hide that surprise, as an -emotion at war with his high military station. Young Aaron, ever equal -to a rigid etiquette, salutes profoundly. - -"Colonel Arnold," says he, "I am here to return into your hands that -rank of captain, which I hold only by courtesy. Also, I desire to tell -you that I leave for Albany at once." - -"Albany!" - -"My canoe is waiting, sir. I start immediately." - -"I forbid your going, sir!" - -Colonel Arnold has recovered his breath, and makes this proclamation -grandly. Privately, he is a-quake; for he does not know what stories -young Aaron might tell in the south. - -"Sir," he repeats, "I forbid your departure! You must not go!" - -"Must not?" - -As though answering his own query, young Aaron leaves Colonel Arnold -without further remark, and walks down to the river, where a canoe -is waiting. The latter cranky contrivance is manned by a quartette of -Canadians, who sit, paddle in fist, ready for the word to start. - -[Illustration: 0081] - -At this decisive action, Colonel Arnold is roused. He springs to his -feet and follows to the waiting canoe. Young Aaron has just taken his -place. - -"Captain Burr," cries Colonel Arnold, "what does this mean? You heard my -orders, sir! You must not go!" - -Young Aaron is ashore like a flash. "Colonel Arnold," says he, "it -is quite possible that you have force enough at hand to detain me. Be -warned, however, that the exercise of such force will have a sequel -serious to yourself." - -"Oh, as to that," responds Colonel Arnold sullenly, "I shall not attempt -to detain you. I simply leave you to the responsibility of departing in -the teeth of my orders, sir." - -In a moment young Aaron is back in the canoe; the four paddles churn -the water into baby whirlpools, and the slight craft glides out upon the -bosom of the Sorel. - -Young Aaron encounters a party of Indians, and conquers their friendship -with diplomatic rum. He reaches Albany, and tastes the delights of fame; -for the story of Quebec has preceded him, and he finds himself a hero. -Thereupon, while outwardly unmoved, he swells in the proud but secret -recesses of his heart. - -In New York he meets his college friend Ogden, who tells him that he has -sold Warlock and spent the proceeds. Likewise, Colonel Troup explains -how he received a thousand pounds for him from his estate, but was moved -to borrow the half of it, having a call for such sum. Colonel Troup -gives five hundred pounds to young Aaron, who receives it carelessly, -the while assuring his debtor, as well as young Ogden, who spent the -price of Warlock, that they are cheerfully welcome to his gold. At -that, both young Ogden and Colonel Troup pluck up a generous spirit, and -borrow each another fifty pounds; which sums our "gentleman volunteer" -puts into their impoverished fingers, as readily as though pounds -mean groats and farthings. For he holds that to be niggard of money is -impossible to a soldier and a gentleman. Did not the knight-errant of -old romaunts go chucking gold-lined purses right and left, into every -empty outstretched hand? And shall not young Aaron be the modern -knight-errant if he chooses? These are the questions which he puts to -himself, as he ministers to the famished finances of his friends. - -General Washington learns of the incident of the dead Montgomery. Having -a conscience, he is distressed by the thought that he may have been -harshly unjust, one Cambridge day, to our "gentleman volunteer." The -conscience-smitten general has headquarters in New York, and now, when -young Aaron arrives, strives to make amends. He invites that youthful -campaigner to a place upon his personal staff, with the rank of major. -Young Aaron accepts, and becomes part of Washington's military family. -The general is living at Richmond Hill, a mansion which in after years -young Aaron will buy and make his residence. - -For six weeks young Aaron is with Washington. Sometimes he rides out -with him; sometimes he writes reports and orders at his dictation; -always he dislikes him. He finds nothing in the Virginian to invoke his -confidence or compel his esteem. In the finale he detests him. - -This latter mind condition is vastly built up by the lack of notice -he receives from the ever-taciturn, often-abstracted, overworried -Washington. The big general will sit for hours, with brows of thought -and pondering eye, as heedless of young Aaron--albeit in the same room -with him--as though our sucking Marlborough owns no existence. This -irritates the latter's pride; for he has military views which he longs -to unfold, but cannot because of the grim wordlessness of his chief. He -resolves to break the ice. - -Washington is sitting lost in thought. "Sir," exclaims young Aaron, -boldly rushing in upon the general's meditations, "the English grow -stronger. Every day their fleet is augmented by new ships, bringing -fresh troops. Eventually they will land and drive us from the city. When -that time comes, it will be my advice to burn New York to the ground, -and leave them naught save the charred ruins." - -Washington pays no attention; it is as though a starling spoke. -Presently he mounts his horse, and soberly rides off to an inspection of -troops. Young Aaron is mightily mortified, and, by way of reestablishing -his dignity on the pedestal from which it has been thrust, neglects a -line of clerical work that should claim his attention. Washington upon -his return discovers this, and having a temper like gunpowder flashes -into a rage. - -"What does this mean, sir?" he demands, angry to the eyes. - -"Why, sir," responds young Aaron coolly, "I should think it might mean -that I brought a sword not a pen to this war." - -"You are insolent, sir!" - -"As you please, sir. But since you say it, I must ask to be relieved -from further duty on your staff." - -The big general stalks from the room. The next day he transfers young -Aaron to the staff of Putnam. - -"I'm sorry he offended you, general," says the old wolf killer. "For -myself, I'm bound to say that I think well of the boy." - -"There is a word," returns Washington, "as to the meaning of which, -until I met him, I was ignorant; that is the word 'prig.' It is strange, -too; for he is as brave as Csar. I have it on the words of twenty. Yes, -general, your 'gentleman-volunteer' is altogether a strangeling; for he -is one of those anomalies, a courageous prig." - - - - -CHAPTER VI--POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE - - -ON that day when the farmers of Concord turn their rifles upon King -George, there dwells in Elizabeth a certain English Major Moncrieffe. -With him is his daughter, just ceasing to be a girl and beginning to -be a woman. Peggy Moncrieffe is a beauty, and, to tell a whole truth, -confident thereof to the verge of brazen. When her father is ordered -to his regiment he leaves her behind. The war to him is no more than a -riot; he looks to be back in Elizabeth before the month expires. - -The optimistic Major Moncrieffe is wrong. That riot, which is not a riot -but a revolution, spreads and spreads like fire among dry grass. At last -a hostile line divides him from his daughter Peggy. This is serious; -for, aside from forbidding any word between them, it prevents him -sending what money she requires for her care. In her distress she writes -General Putnam, her father's comrade in the last war with the French. -The old wolf killer invites the desolate Peggy to make one of his -own household. When young Aaron leaves the staff of Washington, Peggy -Moncrieffe is with the Putnams, whose house stands at the corner of -Broadway and the Battery. - -The family of the old wolf killer is made up of Madam Putnam and two -daughters. Peggy Moncrieffe is received as a third daughter by the -kindly Madam Putnam. Also, like a third daughter, she is set to the -spinning wheel; for, while the old wolf killer fights the English, Madam -Putnam and her daughters work early and late, with spinning wheel and -loom, clothmaking for the continental troops. Peggy Moncrieffe offers -no demur; but goes at the spinning and weaving as though she is as much -puritan and patriot as are those about her. She is busy at the spinning -when young Aaron is presented. And in that presentation lurks a peril; -for she is eighteen and he is twenty. - -Young Aaron, selfish, gallant, pleased with a pretty face as with a -poem, becomes flatteringly attentive to pretty Peggy Moncrieffe. She, -for her side, turns restless when he leaves her, to glow like the sun -when he returns. She forgets the spinning wheel for his conversation. -The two walk under the trees in the Battery, or, from the quiet steps of -St. Paul's, watch the evening sun go down beyond the Jersey hills. - -Madam Putnam is prudent, and does not like these symptoms. She issues -a whispered mandate to the old wolf killer, with whom her word is law. -Thereupon he sends the pretty Peggy to safer quarters near Kingsbridge. - -That is to say, the Kingsbridge refuge, to which pretty Peggy -reluctantly retires, is safe until she arrives. It presently becomes -a theater of danger, since young Aaron is not a day in discovering a -complete military reason for visiting it. The old wolf killer is not -like Washington; there are no foolish orders or tedious dispatches for -his aide to write. This gives leisure to young Aaron, which he improves -in daily gallops to Kingsbridge. It is to be feared that he and pretty -Peggy Moncrieffe find walks as shady, and prospects as pleasant, and -moments as sweet, as when they had the Battery for a promenade and took -in the Jersey hills from the twilight steps of St. Paul's. Also, the -pretty Peggy no longer pleads to join her father; albeit that parent has -just been sent with his regiment to Staten Island, not an hour's sail -away. - -This contentment of the pretty Peggy with things as they are, re-alarms -the prudence of Madam Putnam, who regards it as a sign most sinister. -Having a genius to be military, quite equal to that of her old -wolf-killing husband, she attacks this dangerously tender situation in -flank. She gives her commands to the old wolf killer, and at once he -blindly obeys. He dispatches young Aaron on a mission to Long Island. -The latter is to look up positions of defense, so as to be prepared for -the English, should they carry their arms in that direction. - -In two days young Aaron returns, and makes an exhaustive report; whereat -the old wolf killer breaks into words of praise. This duty discharged, -young Aaron is into the saddle and off, clatteringly, for Kingsbridge. -The old wolf killer sees him depart and says nothing, while a cunning -twinkle dances in the old gray eye. Then the twinkle subsides, and is -succeeded by a self-reproachful doubt. - -"He might have married her," he observes tentatively to Madam Putnam. - -"Never!" returns that clear matron. "Your young Major Burr is too coolly -the selfish calculating egotist. He would win her and wear her as he -might some bauble ornament, and cast her aside when the glitter was -gone. As for marrying her, he'd as soon think of marrying the rings on -his fingers, or the buckles on his shoes." - -Young Aaron comes clattering back from Kingsbridge. His black eyes -sparkle wickedly; his face, usually so imperturbable, is the seat of an -obvious anger. Moreover, he seems chokingly full of a question, which -even his ingenious self-confidence is at a loss how to ask. He gets the -old wolf killer alone. - -"Miss Moncrieffe!" he breaks forth. Then he proceeds blunderingly: "I -had occasion to go to Kingsbridge, and was surprised to find her gone." -The last concludes with a rising inflection. - -"Why, yes!" retorts the old wolf killer, summoning the innocence of a -sheep. "I forgot to tell you that, seeing an opportunity, I yesterday -sent little Peg to Staten Island under a flag of truce. She is with her -father. Between us"--here he sinks his voice mysteriously--"I was afraid -the enemy might find some way to use little Peg as a spy." Young Aaron -clicks his teeth savagely, but says nothing; the old wolf killer watches -him with the tail of his eye. - -The "gentleman volunteer" strides down to the sea wall, and takes a long -and mayhap loving look at Staten Island, with the wind-ruffled expanse -of bay between. - -And there the romance ends. - -Two days later young Aaron is sipping his wine in black Sam Fraunces' -long room, the picture of that elegant indifference which he cultivates -as a virtue. Already the fancy for poor Peggy Moncrieffe has faded -from the agate surface of his nature, as the breath mists fade from the -mirror's face, and he thinks only on how and when he shall lay down his -title of major for that of lieutenant colonel. - -The woman's heart is the heart loyal. While he sips wine at Fraunces', -and weighs the chances of promotion, Peggy the forgotten finds in Staten -Island another Naxos, and like another Ariadne goes weeping for that -Theseus who has already lost her from out his thoughts. - -It is unfortunate that, as aide to the old wolf killer, young Aaron is -not provided with more work for hand and head. As it is, his unfilled -hours afford him opportunity to think and talk unprofitably. He falls to -criticising Washington to the old wolf killer; which is about as sapient -as though he fell to criticising Madam Putnam to the old wolf killer. - -"Of what avail," cries young Aaron one afternoon, as he and his grizzled -chief stroll in the Bowling Green--"of what avail for General Washington -to hold the city, when he must give it up at last? New English ships -show in the bay with the coming up of every sun. He would be wiser if -he withdrew into the interior, and so forced the foe to follow him. This -would lose them the backing of their fleet, from which they gain not -only supplies, but what is of more consequence a kind of moral support." - -The old wolf killer looks at his opinionated aide for a moment. Then -without replying directly, he observes: - -"Just as the Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity, so the -military virtues are courage, endurance, and silence. And the greatest -of these is silence. You ought always to remember that a soldier's sword -should be immeasurably longer than his tongue." - -Young Aaron reddens at what he feels is a rebuke. The following day, -when he is directed to join General McDougal on Long Island, he is glad -to go. - -"He has had too little to do," explains the old wolf killer to Madam -Putnam. "Like all workless folk he is beginning to talk; and his is the -sort of conversation that breeds enemies and brews trouble." - -Young Aaron is in the fight on Long Island. Upon the retreating back of -that lost battle, he supervises the crossing of the troops to Manhattan. -All night, cool and quick and vigilant, he labors on the Brooklyn side -to put the men aboard the transports. When the last is across the East -River, he himself embarks, bringing with him his horse, hog-tied, in the -bottom of the barge. It is early dawn when he leads the released animal -ashore on the Manhattan side. Mounting it, with two fellow officers, -he rides northward at a leisurely gait, a half mile to the rear of the -retreating army. - -As young Aaron and his companions push north toward Kingsbridge, they -come across the baggage and stores of a battery of artillery. The -baggage and stores have been but the moment before abandoned. - -"It looks," observes young Aaron, who is as unruffled as upon the day -when he laid down theology for law, to the horrified distress of Dr. -Bellamy--"it looks as though the captain of that battery, whoever he is, -has permitted these English in our rear to get unnecessarily upon his -nerves. There is no such close occasion as to justify the abandonment of -these stores. At least he should have destroyed them." - -Twenty rods beyond, he finds one of the battery's guns. He points to the -lost piece scornfully. - -"There," says he, "is the pure proof of some one's cowardice!" - -Spurring on, and led by the rumbling sounds of field guns in full -retreat, he overtakes the timid ones who have thrown away baggage and -gun. The captain who commands is a youth no older than young Aaron. As -the latter comes up, the boy captain is urging his cannoneers to double -speed. - -"Let me congratulate you, captain," observes young Aaron, extravagantly -polite the better to set off the sneer that marks his manner, "on not -having thrown away your colors. May I ask your name?" - -"I, sir," returns the artillery youth, as much moved of resentment at -young Aaron's sneer, as is possible for one in his perturbed frame, "I, -sir, am Captain Alexander Hamilton." - -"And I, sir, am Major Burr. Let me compliment you, Captain Hamilton, -for the ardor you display in carrying your battery forward. One might -suppose from your headlong zeal that the English forces lie in that -direction. I must needs say, however, that the zeal which casts away its -stores and baggage, and leaves a gun behind, is ill considered." - -Captain Hamilton's face clouds angrily; but, since he is thinking more -on the English than on insults that perilous morning, he does not reply -to the taunt. Young Aaron, feeling the better for his expressions of -contempt, wheels off to the left toward the Hudson, leaving the other to -bring on his battery with what breathless speed he may. - -"Now, had that Captain Hamilton been in the light on Long Island," -remarks young Aaron to his companions, "the hurry he shows might have -found partial excuse. As it is, I hold his flight too feverish, when -one remembers that it is from an enemy which as yet he has personally -neither faced nor seen." - -Young Aaron puts in divers idle months at Kingsbridge. His conduct on -Long Island, and during the retreat of the army toward the north, has -multiplied his fame for an indomitable hardihood. Indeed he is inclined -to compliment himself; though he hides the fact defensively in his own -breast. - -This good opinion of his services teaches him to entertain ambitions of -the vaulting, not to say o'er-leaping sort. As he now, by the light of -recent achievement, measures his merits nothing short of a colonelcy -and the leadership of a regiment will do him justice. Conceive then, how -deeply he feels slighted when Washington fails to share these liberal -views, and promotes him to nothing higher than that lieutenant colonelcy -which his hopes have so much outgrown. He accepts; but he feels the -title fit him with an awkward nearness, as might a coat that some -blundering tailor has cut too small. The letter of acceptance which he -indites to Washington includes such paragraphs as this: - -_I am constrained to observe that the late date of my appointment as -lieutenant colonel, subjects me to the command of officers who, in the -late campaign, were my juniors. With due submission, sir, I should like -to know whether it was misconduct on my part or extraordinary merit on -theirs, which has thus given them the preference. I desire, on my part, -to avoid equally the character of turbulent or passive, but as a decent -regard to rank is proper and necessary I hope the concern I feel in this -matter will be found excusable in one who regards his honor next to the -welfare of his country._ - -The old wolf killer is with Washington when that harassed commander -reads young Aaron's effusion. With an exclamation of wrath the big -general tosses it across. - -"By all that is ineffable!" he cries, "read that. Now here is a boy gone -stark staring mad for vanity! A stripling of twenty-one, with face as -hairless as an egg, and yet the second rank in a regiment is no match -for his majestic deserts! Putnam," he continues, as the old wolf killer -runs his eye over the letter, "that young friend of yours will be the -death of me yet! As I told you, sir, he is a courageous prig--yes, sir, -a mere courageous prig!" - -"What reply will you make? It should be a sharp one." - -"It shall be none at all. I'll make no reply to such bombastic -fault-finding. One might as well pelt a pig with pearls, as waste common -sense on such self-conceit as we have here. Do me the honor, Putnam, to -write this boy-conqueror a note, saying it is my orders that he join his -regiment at once." - -Young Aaron finds the regiment to which he has been assigned on the -Ramapo, a day's ride back from the Hudson. His superior in command, -Colonel Malcolm, is a shop-keeping, amiable gentleman, as short of -breath as of courage, who would as soon think of thrusting his hand -into the embers as his fat body into battle. Preeminently is he of that -peculiar war-feather that, for every reason in favor of going forward, -can give a dozen for falling back. Perceiving with delight young -Aaron to be possessed of a taste for carnage as well as command, the -peace-loving Colonel Malcolm promptly surrenders the regiment into his -hands. - -"You shall drill it and fight it," says he, "while I will be its -father." - -With this, the fat Colonel Malcolm retires twenty miles farther into the -interior; where he joins Madam Malcolm, as fat as himself, who unites -with five fat children, their offspring, to fatly welcome him. - -Young Aaron, now when he finds himself in sole control, parades the -regiment, and does not like its appearance. He makes it a speech, and -is exceeding frank. He explains that it is more fitted to shine at -barbecues and barn-raisings than in war. Then he grasps it with a daily -hand of steel, and begins to crush it into disciplined shape. From break -of morning until the sun goes down, he puts it through its paces. As one -of the onlookers remarks: - -"He drills 'em till their tongues hang out." - -The fruits of this iron rule, so much a change from that picnic -character of control but lately exercised by the amiable Colonel -Malcolm, are twofold. Young Aaron is hated and respected by every soul -on the rolls. Caring nothing for the one and everything for the other, -he continues to drill the boots off their feet. Finally, the regiment -ceases to look like a mob, and dons a military expression. At which -young Aaron is privily exalted. - -There still remain, however, a round score of thorns in his militant -flesh, being as many captains and lieutenants, who are better qualified -for the drawing-room than the field. He must rid himself of this element -of popinjay. - -Since young Aaron is clothed of no power of dismissal over the offensive -popinjays, the situation bristles with difficulties. For all that they -must go. After one night's thought, he gets up from his cogitations -inclined to exclaim, like another Archimedes: "I have found it!" - -Young Aaron's device is simplicity itself. Having no power of dismissal, -he will usurp it. Also, he will assert it in such fashion that not a -popinjay of them all will be able to make his dismissal the basis of -military inquiry, and keep his credit clean. - -Young Aaron writes, word for word, the same letter to each of the -undesirable popinjay ones. He words it, skillfully, in this wise: - -_Sir: You are unfitted for the duties you have assumed. For the good -of the service therefore, I demand the immediate resignation or your -commission. To be frank, sir, I think you lack the courage to lead your -men in the presence of a foe. Should I be wrong in this assumption, you -of course will demonstrate that fact by methods which readily suggest -themselves to every gentleman of spirit. Let me therefore urge that you -either forward your resignation as herein demanded by me, or dispatch -in its stead a request for that satisfaction which I, as a man of honor, -shall not for one moment deny. I beg leave to remain, sir,_ - -_Your very humble servant,_ - -_Aaron Burr, Acting Colonel._ - -"There!" thinks he, when the last letter is signed, sealed, and sent -upon its way to the popinjay hand for which it is designed, "that -should do nicely. I've ever held that the way to successfully deal with -humanity is to take humanity by the horns. That I've done. Likewise, -I flatter myself I've constructed my net so fine that none of them can -wriggle through. And as for breaking through by the dueling method I -hint at, I shall have guessed vastly to one side, if the best among them -own either the force or courage to so much as make the attempt." - -Young Aaron is justified of his perspicacity. The resignations of the -popinjays come pouring in, each seeming to take the initiative, and -basing his "voluntary" abandonment of a military career on grounds -wholly invented and highly honorable to himself. No reference, even of -the blindest, is made to that brilliant usurpation of authority. Neither -is young Aaron's letter alluded to in any conversation. - -There is one exception; a popinjay personage named Rawls, retorts in -a hectic epistle which, while conveying his resignation, avows a -determination to welter in young Aaron's blood as a slight solace for -the outrage done his feelings. To this, young Aaron replies that he -shall, on the very next day, do himself the honor of a call upon the -ill-used and flaming Rawls, whose paternal roof is not an hour's gallop -from the Ramapo. Accordingly, young Aaron repairs to the Rawls's mansion -at eleven of next day's clock. He has with him two officers, who are -dark as to the true purpose of the excursion. - -Young Aaron and the accompanying duo are asked to dinner by the Rawls's -household. The popinjay fiery Rawls is present, but embarrassed. After -dinner, when young Aaron asks popinjay Rawls to ride with his party a -mile or two on the return journey, the fiery, ill-used one grows more -embarrassed. - -He does not, however, ride forth on that suggested mission of honor; his -alarmed sisters, of whom there are an angelic three, rush to his rescue -in a flood of terrified exclamation. - -"O Colonel Burr!" they chorus, "what are you about to do with Neddy?" - -"My dear young ladies," protests young Aaron suavely, "believe me, I'm -about to do nothing with Neddy. I intend only to ask him what he desires -or designs to do with me. I am here to place myself at Neddy's disposal, -in a matter which he well understands." - -The interfering angelic sisterly ones declare that popinjay Neddy meant -nothing by his letter, and will never write another. Whereupon young -Aaron observes he will be content with the understanding that popinjay -Neddy send him no more letters, unless they have been first submitted to -the sisterly censorship of the angelic three. To this everyone concerned -most rapturously consents; following which young Aaron goes back to his -camp by the Ramapo, while the sisterly angelic ones festoon themselves -about the neck of popinjay Neddy, over whom they weepingly rejoice as -over one returned from out the blackness of the shadow of death. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA - - -WHILE young Aaron, in his camp by the Ramapo, is wringing the withers -of his men with merciless drills, sixteen miles away, in the outskirts -of the village of Paranius dwells Madam Theodosia Prvost. Madam Prvost -is the widow of an English Colonel Prvost, who was swept up by yellow -fever in Jamaica. With her are her mother, her sister, her two little -boys. The family name is De Visme, which is a Swiss name from the French -cantons. - -The hungry English in New York are running short of food. Two thousand -of them cross the Hudson, and commence combing the country for beef. -Word of that cow-driving reaches young Aaron by the Ramapo. Hackensack -is given as the theater of those beef triumphs of the hungry English. - -From rustical ones bewailing vanished kine, young Aaron receives the -tale first hand. Instantly he springs to the defense of the continental -cow. He orders out his regiment, and marches away for that stricken -Hackensack region of ravished flocks and herds. - -At Paramus, excited by stories of a cow-conquering English, the militia -of the neighborhood are fallen to a frenzied building of breastworks. -Certain of these home guards look up from their breastwork building long -enough to decide that Madam Prvost, as the widow of a former English -colonel, is a Tory. - -Arriving at this conclusion, the home guards make the next natural step, -and argue--because of their nearness to Madam Prvost--that the mother -and sister and little boys are Tories. The quietly elegant home of Madam -Prvost is declared a nest of Tories, against which judgment a belief -that the mansion is worth looting is not allowed to militate. - -As young Aaron, on his rescuing way to Hackensack, marches into Paramus, -the judgmatical home guards, in the name of a patriotism which believes -in spoiling the Egyptian, are about to begin their work of sack and -pillage. Young Aaron, who does not think that robbery assists the cause -of freedom, calls a halt. He drives off the home guards at the point of -his sword, and places sentinels upon the premises. Also he promises to -hang the first home guard who, in the name of liberty, or for any more -private reason, touches a shilling's worth of Madam Prevost's chattels. - -Having established his protectorate in favor of the threatened Prvost -household, young Aaron enters, hat in hand, with the pardonable purpose -of discovering what manner of folk he has pledged himself to keep -safe. It may be that he is beset by visions of distressed fair -ones--disheveled, tearful, beautiful! If so, his dreams receive a shock. -'Instead of that flushed, frightened, clinging, tear-stained loveliness, -so common of romance, he is met by a severely angular lady who, plain of -face, with high, harsh cheek bones, and a scar on her forehead, is two -inches taller and twelve years older than himself. - -Madam Prvost owns all these; and yet, beyond and above them, she -also possesses an ineffable, impalpable something, which is like -an atmosphere, a perfume, a melody of manner, and marks her as that -greatest of graceful rarities, a well-bred, cultured woman of the -world. Polished, fine, Madam Prvost is familiar with the society of -two continents. She knows literature, music, art; she is wise, erudite, -nobly high. These attributes invest her with a soft brilliancy, into -which those uglinesses and bony angularities retreat as into a kind of -moonlight, to recur in gentle reassertion as the poetic sublimation of -all that charms. - -Thus does she break upon young Aaron--young Aaron, who has said that he -would no more love a woman for her beauty than a man for his money, and -is to be won only by her who, mentally and sentimentally, meets him half -way. This last Madam Prvost does; and, from the moment he meets her -to the hour of her death, she draws him and holds him like a magnet. It -illustrates the inexplicable in love, that this cool, cynical one, whose -very youth is an iron element of hardest strength, should be fascinated -and fettered by a worn, middle-aged woman with eyes of faded gray. - -Young Aaron, on this first encounter with his goddess, remains no longer -than is required to receive the arrow in his heart. He presses on with -his followers for the Hackensack. A mile from Paramus he halts his -soldiery, and, leaving the great body of them, goes forward in person -with a scouting party of seventeen. In the middle watches of the night, -he discovers a picket post of the cow-collecting English. Only one -is awake; he is shot dead by young Aaron. The others, twenty-eight in -number, are seized in their sleep. - -In the wake of this exploit, young Aaron brings up his whole command. -The cow-hunting redcoats, from the confidence of his advance, infer in -his favor an overwhelming strength. Panic claims them; they make for the -Hudson, leaving those collected cows behind. There is rejoicing among -the Hackensack folk at this happy return of their property, and young -Aaron goes back to the Ramapo rich in encomium and praise. - -The camp by the Ramapo is given up, and young Aaron, love-drawn, brings -his force within a mile of Paramus. Daily he seeks the society of Madam -Prvost, as sick folk seek the sun. She speaks French, Spanish, German; -she reads Voltaire, and is capable of admiring without approving -the cynic of Fernay. More; she is familiar with Petrarch, Le Sage, -Corneille, Rousseau, Chesterfield, Cervantes. Madam Prvost and young -Aaron find much to talk of and agree about, in the way of romance and -poetry and philosophy, and are never dull for lack of topics. And, as -they converse, he worships her with his eyes, from which every least -black trace of that ophidian sparkle has been extinguished. - -The first snowflakes are falling when young Aaron receives orders to -join Washington's army at Valley Forge. Arriving, his hatred of the big -general is rearoused. He suggests an expedition against the English -on Staten Island, and offers to undertake it with three hundred men. -Washington thinks well of the suggestion, but dispatches Lord Stirling -to carry it out. Young Aaron, hot with disappointment, adds this to the -list of injuries which he believes he has received from the Virginian. - -Food is stinted, fire scarce at Valley Forge; there is a deal of cold -and starving. Folk hungry and frozen are in no humor for work, and look -on labor as an evil. Young Aaron takes no account of this, but has out -his tattered, chilled, thin-flanked followers to those daily drills. - -In the end a spirit of mutiny creeps in among the men. It finds concrete -shape one frosty morning when private John Cook levels his musket at -young Aaron's heart. Private Cook means murder, and is only kept from it -by the promptitude of young Aaron. With that very motion of the mutineer -which aims the gun, young Aaron's sword comes rasping from its scabbard, -and a backhanded stroke all but severs the would-be homicide's right -arm. The wounded man falls bleeding to the ground. With that, young -Aaron details a pale-faced, silent quartette to carry the wounded one to -the hospital, and, drawing his blade through a handkerchief to wipe away -the blood, proceeds with the hated drill. - -[Illustration: 0111] - -While young Aaron serves at Valley Forge, a conspiracy, whereof General -Conway is the animating heart and General Gates the figurehead, is -hatched. The purpose is to remove Washington, and set the conqueror of -Burgoyne in his place. Young Aaron joins the conspiracy, and is looked -upon by his fellow plotters as ardent, but unimportant because of his -youth. - -The design falls to the ground; Washington retains his command, while -Gates goes south to lose his Burgoyne laurels and get drubbed by -Cornwallis. As for young Aaron, he swallows as best he may his -disappointment over the poor upcome of that plot, and takes part in the -battle of Monmouth. Here he has his horse shot under him, and lays -up fresh hatreds against Washington for refusing to let him charge an -English battery. - -Sore, heart-cankered of chagrin, young Aaron asks for leave of absence. -He declares that he is ill, and his hollow cheek and bilious eye sustain -him. He says that, until his health mends, he will take no pay. - -"You shall have leave of absence," says Washington, to whom young Aaron -prefers his request in person, "but you must draw pay." - -"And why draw pay, sir!" demands young Aaron warmly, for he somehow -smells an insult. "I shall render no service. I think the proprieties -much preserved by a stoppage of my pay." - -"If you were the only, one, sir," returns Washington, "I might say as -you do. But there be others on sick leave, who are not men of fortune -like yourself. Those gentlemen must draw their pay, or see their -people suffer. Should you be granted leave without pay, they might feel -criticised. You note the point, sir." - -"Why," replies young Aaron, with a tinge of sarcasm, "the point, I take -it, is that you would not have me shine at the expense of folk of lesser -fortune or more avarice than myself. Because others are not generous to -their country, I must be refused the poor privilege of contributing even -my absence to her cause." - -At young Aaron's palpable sneer, the big general's face darkens with -anger. "You exhibit an insolence, sir," he says at last, "which I -succeed in overlooking only by remembering that I am twice your age. -I understand, of course, that you intend a covert thrust at myself, -because I draw my three guineas per day as commander in chief. Rather -to enlighten you than defend my own conduct, I may tell you, sir, that I -draw those three guineas upon the precise grounds I state as reasons -why you, during your leave, must accept pay. There are men as brave, -as true, as patriotic as either of us, who cannot--as we might--fight -months on end, without some provision for their families. What, -sir"--here the big general begins to kindle--"is it not enough that men -risk their blood for these colonies? Must wives and children starve? The -cause is not so poor, I tell you, but what it can pay its own cost. You -and I, sir, will draw our pay, to keep in self-respecting countenance -folk as good as ourselves in everything save fortune." - -Young Aaron shrugs his shoulders. "If it were not, sir," he begins, -"for that difference in our ages which you so opportunely quote, to say -nothing of my inferior military rank, I might ask if your determination -to make me accept pay, whether I earn it or no, be not due to a latent -dislike for myself personally. I can think of much that justifies the -question." - -"Colonel Burr," observes the big general, with a dignity which is not -without rebuking effect upon young Aaron, "because you are young and -will one day be older, I am inclined to justify myself in your eyes. I -make it a rule to seldom take advice and never give it. And yet there -is room for a partial exception in your instance. There is a word, two, -perhaps, which I think you need." - -"Believe me, sir, I am honored!" - -"My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a -better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more -fame hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, -and give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance -yourself." - -The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra -six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is -nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with -some self-willed pupil. - -Of all the big general's irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this -pose of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself -in hand, however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the -bottom of his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which -can come only through the other's word. - -"Sir," observes young Aaron, "will you be so good as to make yourself -clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest -meaning." - -"It should be confessed," returns the big general, somewhat to one side, -"that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is -that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were -not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for -whom you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall." - -Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news -that Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools -his features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement -nor dismay. The big general goes on: - -"No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with -your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons, -but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, -sir, to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control -my attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity -in what I say." - -"Why, sir," interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness -and self-possession equal with the big general's; "you give yourself -unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I -shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract -from your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I -shall accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected -by its honorable source." - -The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron's manner would have got him -drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites -his lip. - -"What I would tell you," he resumes, "is this. You possess the raw -material of greatness--but with one element lacking. You may rise to -what heights you choose, if you will but cure yourself of one defect. -Observe, sir! Men are judged, not for deeds but motives. A man injures -you; you excuse him because no injury was meant. A man seeks to injure -you, but fails; and yet you resent it, in spite of that defensive -failure, because of the intent. So it is with humanity at large. It -looks at the motive rather than the act. Sir, I have watched you. You -have no motive but yourself. Patriotism plays no part when you come -to this war; it is not the country, but Aaron Burr, you carry on your -thoughts. Whatever you may believe, you cannot win fame or good repute -on terms, so narrow. A man is so much like a gun that, to carry far, he -must have some elevation of aim. You were born fortunate in your parts, -save for that defective element of aim. There, sir, you fail, and will -continue to fail, unless you work your own redemption. It is as though -you had been born on a dead level--aimed point-blank at birth. You -should have been born at an angle of forty-five degrees. With half the -powder, sir, you would carry twice as far. Wherefore, elevate yourself; -give your life a noble purpose! Make yourself the incident, mankind -the object. Merge egotism in patriotism; forget self in favor of your -country and its flag." - -The gray eyes of the big general rest upon young Aaron with concern. -Then he abruptly retreats into the soldier, as though ashamed of his own -earnestness. Without giving time for reply to that dissertation on the -proper aim of man, he again takes up the original business of the leave. - -[Illustration: 0119] - -"Colonel Burr," says he, "you shall have leave of absence. But your -waiver of pay is declined." - -"Then, sir," retorts young Aaron, "you must permit me to withdraw my -application. I shall not take the country's money, without rendering -service for it." - -"That is as you please, sir." - -"One thing stands plain," mutters young Aaron, as he walks away; "the -sooner I quit the army the better. For me it is 'no thoroughfare,' and -I may as well save my time. He knows of my part in that Conway-Gates -movement, too; and, for all his platitudes about justice and high aims, -he's no one to forget it." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--MARRIAGE AND THE LAW - - -YOUNG Aaron, with his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is -dispatched to hold the Westchester lines, being that debatable -ground lying between the Americans at White Plains and the English at -Kingsbridge. It is still his half-formed purpose to resign his sword, -and turn the back of his ambition on every hope of military glory. He -says as much to General Putnam, whose real liking for him he feels and -trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues in favor of patience. - -"Washington is but trying you," he declares. "It will all come right, -if you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing, -let me tell you! Suck comfort from that!" - -Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go -as far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own -military prospects. - -"General," he says, "believe me when I tell you that I accept what you -say as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel -to his general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning -Washington; they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as -either a soldier or a man." - -"And there you are wrong!" breaks in the old wolf killer; "twice wrong." - -"Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I -have." - -"You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that -you yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such -conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French -War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to -base opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier -anywhere than Washington." - -"But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing." - -"Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling -back and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final -success. Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?" - -"Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?" - -The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly, -he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does -Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not -fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the -ghost of a smile. - -"Where, then, should this war be won?" asks young Aaron. - -"Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I'm not wearing -a sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all -that, I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will -be won in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and -Burke and Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them -the occasion and the argument, and that can be accomplished only by -retreating." - -Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. "Now I -should call," says he, "these retreats, by which you and Washington seem -to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to -our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by -retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English -Whigs an argument which shall induce King George to recognize our -independence?" - -"If you were ten years older," remarks the old wolf killer, "you would -not put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you, -and shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You -think a war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and -guns. It isn't; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English -are shedding their guineas much faster than they shed their blood. -Presently the taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel -it now. Let the drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will -break down; they will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our -independence." - -"Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of -it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the -English taxpayer breaks down." - -"You've nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor -the powder, nor--and this last in particular--the bayonets to wage -aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They -would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force -of numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would -win. Our plan--the Washington plan--is, with as little loss as possible -in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe. There is -but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back, to the -close of the chapter." - -"At least," says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, "you will admit -that the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of -attractive gallantry." - -"Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that -Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither -from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered -strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat -than to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he -talks not of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or -nothing of that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws -away practical advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem -slightly of Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The -most I may say to comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows -himself. And"--here the old wolf killer's voice begins to tremble a -little--"I'll go further: I've seen many men; but none of a courage, a -patriotism, a fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his -exalted ideals or noble genius for justice." - -Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and -would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause -he observes: - -"Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and -Washington shall be all you say. None the less--and here I believe you -will bear me out--he has of me no good opinion. He will not advance me; -he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all, the question -I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought, and now tell -you I still think, that I might better take off my sword, forget war, -and see what is to be won in the law." - -"And you ask my advice?" - -"Your honest advice." - -"Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his -opinion of you is unjust, and he'll be soonest to admit it. To convince -him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty." - -"Very good," observes Aaron, resignedly, "I shall, for the present -at least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice, -general, you have given me something else in this conversation which I -value more; that is, your expressed and friendly confidence." - -Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws -himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his rle as warden of the -Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under -Tryon move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town -in hot and fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are -themselves surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten -Duyvel; young Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives. -Likewise, under cloud of night--night, ever the ally of lovers--he -oft plays Leander to Madam Prevost's Hero; only the Hudson is his -Hellespont, and he does not swim but crosses in a barge. These -love pilgrimages mean forty miles and as many perils. However, the -heart-blinded young Aaron is not counting miles or perils, as he -pictures his gray goddess of Paramus sighing for his coming. - -One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies. -The good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of -paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more -since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He -consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his -resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with -him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as -years wear on. - -Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes; -so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With -war and battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them, -scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion -of the faded Madam Prvost and her boy lover. The discussion, however, -is carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the -shoulder or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prvost and young Aaron -neither hear nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer, -dearer things. - -It is deep evening at the Prvost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate; -the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse -through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron's memory is for a -moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other -than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he -was dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows -Madam Prvost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands. - -"Oh, I've lied and played the hypocrite all day!" - -Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her -husband, and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one -abandoned, to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which -she was privy, and the commission whereof she urged. - -"This gentleman!" cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story--she -has become aware of young Aaron--"this gentleman! May I trust him?" - -[Illustration: 0133] - -"As you would myself," returns Madam Prvost. - -And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does -not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her -uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the -subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prvost. - -Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam -Prvost is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is -about to return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with -Tappan Reeve. She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity, -were he able to write himself "lawyer" before he became a married man. - -Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to -wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years -and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of -New Jersey--not too far from Paramus--and enters himself as a student -under that philosopher of jurisprudence. - -Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and -looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that -one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste -at any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and -sharply come to a profound knowledge of the law. - -Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young -Aaron remonstrates with his preceptor. - -"This will never do," he cries. "Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the -bar!" He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of -the law within a year. "Twelve months as a student should be enough," he -says. - -"Sir," observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, "to talk of -taking charge of a client's interests after studying but a year is to -talk of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance, -sir. It would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind." - -"Possibly now," urges young Aaron the cynical, "the opposing counsel -might be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either." - -"Such talk is profanation!" exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult -of the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron's ribaldry. "Let me -be plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice, -unless I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem -you many months' journey from it." - -Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron -bids that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There -he makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English -have driven from New York. While he waits for the day when--English -vanished--he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round sum -in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself -wholly to that impatient gentleman's education. - -Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold. -Morning, noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron -go hammering at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student -makes astonishing advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks -when Jack proves as good as his master. Still, the sentiment which -animates young Aaron's efforts is never high. He studies law as some -folk study fencing, his one absorbing thought being to learn how to -defeat an adversary and save himself. His great concern is to make -himself past master of every thrust, parry, and sleighty trick of fence, -whether in attack or guard, with the one object of victory for himself -and the enemy's destruction. Justice, and to assist thereat, is the -thing distant from his thoughts. - -At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold -his own with any adversary. - -"Mark my words, sir," he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a -fellow gray member of the guild--"mark my words, sir, he will prove one -of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There is, -of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck -which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be -retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong, -should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed -of this sinister peculiarity. If he's right, you won't defeat him; if -he's wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he'll defeat you." - -Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff, -after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a -smartish quip. - -Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits -Albany and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three -years; but the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and -more, basing his generosity on the applicant's services as a soldier. - -"And so," says young Aaron, "I at least get something from my soldier -life. It wasn't all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of -grinding study at the books." - -Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York -City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat -exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam -Prvost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife, -after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed. - -The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany. -There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia, -and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her -father. Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers, -and walks the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is -well-nigh dead in his heart. - -About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron -gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating -metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to -where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall. - -He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two -little Prvost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of -fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the -Bowling Green, to a gathering cloud of clients. - -The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit. - -"With your few months of study," observes the reverend doctor dryly, -"I wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going -about its practice." - -"Law is not so difficult," responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the -good doctor. "Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology. -That is to say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly -maintained." - -The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron's boldness of -assertion. - -"And yet," continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm, -"the last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and -declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the -midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for -law?" - -"Washington drove me from the army," responds young Aaron, with -convincing gravity. "As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and -turned lawyer only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity." - - - - -CHAPTER IX--SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON - - -NOW when young Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds -himself a lawyer and a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green -and a house in fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool -survey of his surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set -forth by the good Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem -and Madam Bellamy. The latter, like all true women, is curious, and -gives the doctor no peace until he relates his experiences. - -"The city," observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and -muffins, "is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I -walked to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much -opulence there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town -houses, but cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a -fine, noble street!--very wide!--fairer than any in Boston!" - -"Doctor!" expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts. - -"Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty -thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight -hundred tons--an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the -better part painted--even the brick houses." - -"What! Paint a brick house!" - -"It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One -sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler's; it -was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present; -Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A -more elegant repast I never ate--all set as it was with a profusion of -massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot-----" - -"Solid silver?" - -"Ay! The king's hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen, -too--white as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of -peaches and a musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast." - -"Why, it is a tale of profligacy!" - -"Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and -furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no -modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater -of din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can -answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but -one real gentleman------" - -"Aaron!" - -"Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since, -for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no -better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished -contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background -he shines out like the sun at noon!" - -Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to -the descriptive "young." He has ever scorned it, as though it were some -epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it. - -"I am not so young," says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning -of his years--"I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade, -sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You -will oblige me by remembering the title." - -In view of the gentleman's tartness, it will be as well perhaps to -hereafter drop the "young"; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, -our tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, "colonel" is but a -word of pewter when no war is on. "Aaron" should do better; and escape -challenge, too, that irritating "young" being dropped. - -As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town's affairs, he notes -that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion, -the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the -Livingstons--numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor -Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that -ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which -tribe towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. -Aaron, in the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General -Schuyler. He hears more of that austere person's son-in-law, the -brilliant Alexander Hamilton. - -"I shall be glad to make his acquaintance," thinks Aaron, when he is -told of the latter. "I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in -his pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns -behind. Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come -to eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side." - -There is a sneer on Aaron's face as these thoughts run in his mind; -those praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove. - -Aaron's opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman's -acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped -of their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference -of the town's notables has been called; the local great ones are to come -together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, -they will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory -relief. - -Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge. -The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy -Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten -Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his -wine unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when -son-in-law Hamilton arrives. - -"That is he," says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the -gentleman. - -Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black -narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is -a short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron -himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely -powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, -a forest of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and -conventional buckled shoes. - -It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses -his most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of -suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to -look one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face -generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer -and a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest -methods, and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is -lurking and secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and -backbiter, who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in -the dark. - -Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes -straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he -at once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking -in a loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own -position as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is -discussed. The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses -the dander of Aaron. Nor is the latter's wrath the less, when he -discovers that General Schuyler's self-satisfied young relative thinks -the suppliant Tories should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt -with. - -As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably -concerning that young gentleman's bumptiousness and pert forwardness, -the company is rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, -arrogant, supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked -to preside. Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, -dictatorial voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits -that the Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural -they should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George -beaten, he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or -a patriot to hold hatred against them. These same Tories are still -Americans. Their names are among the highest in the city. Before the -Revolution they were one and all of a first respectability, many with -pews in Trinity. Now when freedom has won its battle, he feels that -the victors should let bygones be bygones, and restore the Tories, -in property and station, to a place which they occupied before that -pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776. - -All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps -forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one -who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word -of the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes -of every soul in the room. - -The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks -are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general -has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse -than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to -torch and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, -most mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. -As for restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil -share in a government which they did their best to strangle in its -cradle, the thought is preposterous. They may have been "respectable," -as General Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious--a -mere hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had -pews in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope -to make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last. - -As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement -runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration -cast in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir. - -Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his -chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those -approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones -are high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron -direct, and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be -tolerant, for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, -he must ask that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He -himself, he says, cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better -than a stranger, an interloper, might with a nice propriety remain -silent on occasions such as this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring -that the position taken by Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what -shall be their rights, is un-American. He, himself, has fought for the -Revolution; but, now it is ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and -liberality will not be guided by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would -make the unending punishment of Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. -He fears that Aaron misunderstands the sentiment of those among whom he -has pitched his tent, congratulates him on a youth that offers an excuse -for the rashness of his expressions, and hopes that he may live to gain -a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton does himself proud, and the rusty -old general erects his pleased crest, to find himself so handsomely -defended. - -The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked -Aaron again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following -that orator's example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton -himself. - -"Our friend," says Aaron, "reminds me that I am young in years; and I -think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as -many years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered -share he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while -I hold him better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as -a soldier, I concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a -soldier, and while serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our -friend. He does not remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was -upon a day when he had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his -guns, forgotten everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and -I should be much too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful -circumstances, he would remember me. As to my newness in the town, and -that crippled Americanism wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. -I got no one's consent to come here; I shall ask no one's permission to -stay. Doubtless I would have been more within a fashion had I gone with -both questions to the gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who -presides here today. These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I -shall content myself with an Americanism which, though it possess none -of those sunburned, West Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in -the gentleman, may at least congratulate itself upon being two hundred -years old." - -Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton -those courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to -voice again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments -he has earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, -nothing save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud -has been born--a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined -to await its development before pronouncing for either side. The -feeling, however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the -resolution smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table. - - - - -CHAPTER X--THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE - - -WHILE Aaron, frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as -his ruffles, is saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, -that latter young gentleman's face is a study in black and red. His -expression is a composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron -is so full, so frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not -sure of its purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as -to his own importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron's attack -is parcel of some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or -envy him, or both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of -the way. He draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life -is good and death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but -stomachs in silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. -What is strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them -some chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim -fineness of Aaron's manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is -ready to carry discussion to the cold verge of the grave. - -Son-in-law Hamilton's nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in -Aaron's, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his -heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown -perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who -look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says -he will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall -pursue. Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat -abruptly, feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after -son-in-law Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way. - -The incident is a nine-days' food for gossip; wagers are made of a -coming bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those -lose who accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting -is politely peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider -separation is the upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law -Hamilton, who is presented by Colonel Troup. - -"We should know each other better, Colonel Burr," he observes. - -Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that -of itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays -glance from his chill exterior as from an iceberg. - -"Doubtless we shall," says he. - -Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his -coming. "General Schuyler," he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his -father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god--"General Schuyler -would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him." - -Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one -of Aaron's youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see -the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler--that Jove who -not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is -shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve. - -"Pardon me, sir!" says Aaron. "Say to General Schuyler that his request -is impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on -their affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I -shall go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come -to me." - -"You forget General Schuyler's age!" returns son-in-law Hamilton. There -is a ring of threat in the tones. - -"Sir," responds Aaron stiffly, "I forget nothing. There is an age cant -which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you -may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall -not in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest -folk, because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize -or, if they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are -fewer than thirty." - -"I am sorry you take this view," returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying -Aaron's stiffness. "You will not, I fear, find many to support you in -it." - -"I am not looking for support, sir," observes Aaron, pointing the remark -with one of those black ophidian stares. "I do you also the courtesy to -assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark." - -There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton -so far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to -say that General Schuyler's place in the community is of such high and -honorable sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. -As to criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman. - -There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a -trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes. - -"There could be no agreement with that young man," mutters Aaron, -looking after the retreating Hamilton, "save on a basis of submission to -his leadership. I'll be chief or nothing." - -Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the -courts, as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, -convincing, he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; -clients crowd about him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold. - -Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton--himself actively in the -law--before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the -other's match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy, -however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever -litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law -Hamilton are an added reason for the latter's jealous hatred. He and -his rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron's foes, and grasp at every -chance to do him harm. - -And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into -favor with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. -The latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks -them, but declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no -profit, but only loss in politics. - -In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he -rolls up riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of -Richmond Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson--Richmond Hill, -where he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his -vanity from the big general's loftily abstracted pose. - -Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his -cellars with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the -one and sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; -and, because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him -trenches upon the maternal. - -The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue -instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the -small Prvost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and -reading Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for -baby Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is -to her credit not theirs that she isn't hopelessly spoiled. - -In his wine and his reading, Aaron's tastes take opposite directions. -The books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He -reads Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary -Wollstonecraft. - -He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in -decoration furnishes the prudish a pang. - -These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, -social and political, do not help Aaron's standing with respectable -hypocrites, of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion -and commerce and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers -of society purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron's name is -mentioned, and speak of him as favoring "Benthamism" and "Godwinism." -Our dullard pharisee folk know no more of "Benthamism" and "Godwinism" -in their definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their -manner is the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than -murder. Aaron pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes -of these hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men's -opinions, and has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. -Occupied with the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of -blind and deaf of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up -gold. And never once does his glance rove officeward. - -This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron's side. He does not pursue -office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the -legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. -As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton -at its head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State's -public land for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three -shillings an acre; the purchasers number six. The big sale is to -Alexander McComb, who is given a deed for three million six hundred -thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. The public howls over these -surprising transactions in real estate. The popular anger, however, is -leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of Csar. Aaron, who dwells -more in the background, escapes unscathed. - -While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a -constitution. Then it elects Washington President, and sets up -government shop in New York. Aaron's part in these mighty doings is the -quiet part. He does not think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; -he thinks less of Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the -rim of the possible that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington's -Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, helps the administration to a -lowest place in Aaron's esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that -feud is in no degree relaxed. - -When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and -Rufus King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in -the two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no -wise weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of -that short term, he will be relected for a full term of six years. To -assume otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no -such short-term uneasiness. - -Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge -of men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest -in the Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian's -administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General -Schuyler, of that latter personage's reelection. Indeed, if he could be -prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of -all sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is -surest. Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies. - -And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is -watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet -none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his -pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is -to wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator -means a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he -is. More; it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be -even for what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights -which he neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped -smile as he pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look -which will spread across the face of Washington, when he hears of the -rusty Schuyler's overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. -The smile is quick to die, however, since he who would strip his toga -from the rusty Schuyler must not sit down to dreams and castle building. - -Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution -he foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook -does not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. - -In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two -things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital -importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. -He looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental -catalogue of his approachable points. - -The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were -not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly -loves a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron -shows the old governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton -interest was slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought -home victory for the latter. - -"You owe General Schuyler," he says, "no help at this pinch. Still less -are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the -field." - -"And yet," protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite -convinced--"and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his son-in-law -in the business." - -"Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last -to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; -in doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water -he could find." - -What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old -governor. At this the latter's Irish blood begins to gather heat. - -"It is as you tell me!" he cries at last; "I can see it now! That West -Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!" - -"And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics -'Schuyler' and 'Hamilton' are interchangeable." - -"You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, -and I shall not be less than theirs." - -The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the -rusty Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga -connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six -years as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes -discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed -upon to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. -Such approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched -upon at this time. - -"From your place, sir, as governor," observes the skillful Aaron, "you -could not of course condescend to go in person to the Livingstons. My -position, however, is not so high nor my years so many as are yours; I -need not scruple to take up the matter with them. As to a candidate, I -can go to them more easily if we leave the question open. I could tell -the Livingstons that you would like a suggestion from them on that -point. It would flatter their pride." - -The old governor is pleased to regard with favor the reasoning of Aaron. -He remarks, too, that with him the candidate is not important. The main -thought is to defeat the rusty Schuyler, who, with son-in-law Hamilton, -so aforetime played the hypocrite, and pulled treacherous wires against -him, in the hope of compassing his defeat. He declares himself quite -satisfied to let the Livingstons select what fortunate one is to be the -senate successor of the rusty Schuyler. He urges Aaron to wait on the -Livingstons without delay, and discover their feeling. - -Aaron confers with the Livingstons, and shows them many things. Mostly -he shows them that, should he himself be chosen senator, it will -necessitate his resignation as attorney general. Also, he makes it -appear that, if the old governor be properly approached, he will name -Morgan Lewis to fill the vacancy. The Livingston eye glistens; the -mother of Morgan Lewis is a Livingston, and the office of attorney -general should match the gentleman's fortunes nicely. Besides, there -are several ways wherein an attorney general might be of much Livingston -use. No, the Livingstons do not say these things. They say instead that -none is more nobly equipped for the rle of senator than Aaron. Finally, -it is the Livingstons who go back to the old governor. Nor do they find -it difficult to convince him that Aaron is the one surest of defeating -the rusty Schuyler. - -"Colonel Burr," say the Livingstons, "has no record, which is another -way of saying that he has no enemies. We deem this most important; it -will lessen the effort required to bring about him a majority of the -legislature." - -The old governor, as Aaron feared, is inclined to shy at the not too -many years of our ambitious one; but after a bit Aaron, as a notion, -begins to grow upon him. - -"He has brains, sir," observes the old governor thoughtfully--"he has -brains; and that is of more consequence than mere years. He has double -the intelligence of Schuyler, although he may not count half his age. I -call that to his credit, sir." The chief of the clan-Livingston shares -the Clinton view. - -And now takes place a competition in encomium. Between the chief of the -clan-Livingston, and the old governor, so many excellences are ascribed -to Aaron that, did he own but the half, he might call himself a model -for mankind. As for Morgan Lewis, who is a Livingston, the old governor -sees in him almost as many virtues as he perceives in Aaron. He gives -the chief of the clan-Livingston hand and word that, when Aaron steps -out of the attorney generalship, Morgan Lewis shall step in. - -Having drawn to his support the two most powerful influences of the -State, Aaron makes search for an issue. He looks into the mouth of the -public, and there it is. Politicians do not make issues, albeit -poets have sung otherwise. Indeed, issues are so much like the poets -themselves that they are born, not made. Every age has its issue; from -it, as from clay, the politicians mold the bricks wherewith they build -themselves into office. The issue is the question which the people ask; -it is to be found only in the popular mouth. That is where Aaron looks -for it, and his quest is rewarded. - -The issue, so much demanded of Aaron's destinies, is one of those -big-little questions which now and then arise to agitate the souls of -folk, and demonstrate the greatness of the small. There are twenty-eight -members in the National Senate; and, since it is the first Senate and -has had no predecessor, there exist no precedents for it to guide by. -Also those twenty-eight senators are puffballs of vanity. - -On the first day of their first coming together they prove the purblind -sort of their conceit, by shutting their doors in the public's face. -They say they will hold their sessions in secret. The public takes this -action in dudgeon, and begins filing its teeth. - -Puffiest among those senate puffballs is the rusty Schuyler. As narrow -as he is arrogant, as dull as vain, his contempt for the herd was -never a secret. As a senator, he declares himself the guardian, not -the servant, of a people too weakly foolish for the safe transaction of -their own affairs. - -It is against this self-sufficient attitude of the rusty Schuyler -touching locked senate doors that Aaron wages war. He urges that, in a -republic, but two keys go with government; one is to the treasury, the -other to the jail. He argues that not even a senate will lock a door -unless it be either ashamed or afraid of what it is about. - -"Of what is our Senate afraid?" he asks. - -"Of what is it ashamed? I cannot answer these questions; the people -cannot answer them. I recommend that those who are interested ask -General Schuyler." - -The public puts the questions to the rusty Schuyler. Not receiving an -answer, the public carries the questions to the legislature, where the -Clinton and Livingston influences come sharply to the popular support. - -"Shall the Senate lock its door?" - -The Clintons say No; the Livingstons say No; the people say No. Under -such overbearing circumstances, the legislature feels driven to say No; -and, as a best method of saying it, elects to the Senate Aaron, who is -a "door-opener," over the rusty Schuyler, who is a "door-closer," by a -majority of thirteen. It is no longer "Aaron Burr," no longer "Colonel -Burr," it is "Senator Burr." The news heaps the full weight of ten years -on the rusty Schuyler. As for son-in-law Hamilton, the blasting word of -it withers and makes sick his heart. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK - - -THE shop of government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief -space between the overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and -the latter taking his seat, the great ones talk of nothing but that -overthrow. Washington vaguely and Jefferson clearly read in the victory -of Aaron the beginning of a new order. It is extravagantly an hour of -classes and masses; and the most dull does not fail to make out in the -Senate unseating of the rusty but aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant -clutch at power by the masses. - -Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President's -dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams, -those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the -subject. - -"It is the strangest news!" says he--"this word of the Senate success of -Colonel Burr." - -Then, appealing to Hamilton: "Of what could your folk of New York have -been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of -one of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small -fortune, and no family at all." - -"Sir," breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, "you go wide. Colonel -Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan -Edwards; on his father's side the strain is as high. You would look -long, sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree." - -"Whatever may be the gentleman's pedigree," retorts Hamilton -splenetically, "you will at least confess it to be only a New England -pedigree." - -"Only a New England pedigree!" exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. -"Why, sir, when you say 'The best pedigree in New England,' you have -spoken of the best pedigree in the world!" - -"Waiving that," returns Hamilton, "I may at least assure you, sir, that -in New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence -which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the -result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson -of Jonathan Edwards or Tom o' Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and -trickery; by the same methods through which a thief might win possession -of your horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase, -the fellow stole his victory." At this harshness Adams looks horrified, -while Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide -shoulders. - -Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is -in no wise keen at reading men. Hamilton--quick, supple, subservient, -a brilliant flatterer--has complete possession of him. He admires -Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage. - -[Illustration: 0173] - -The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and -some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself -the mastiff's satellite. Terrier Hamilton--brisk, busy, overbearing, not -always honest--rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing on -another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue, at -once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington. -And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening -partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love -of flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have -been his evil deeds. - -Washington constitutes Hamilton's stock in national trade. In New -York, Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler's son-in-law--heir to his riches, -lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton -traffics on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability -to pull or haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have -a full-blown President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment, -and Hamilton, be sure, makes the fullest, if not the most honest or -honorable, use of it. - -"Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel -Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler." - -The voice--while not without a note of jeering--is bell-like and deep, -the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances at -his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State. - -"What was it, then," he asks. - -"I will tell you my thought," replies Jefferson. "General Schuyler was -beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost -family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election. -The people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their -right, and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I, -what followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy, -but aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient -wing of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold -themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are -becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of -General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse -than a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice -in its own government." - -"You appear pleased, sir," observes Hamilton bitterly. - -"Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the -satisfaction I feel." - -"You amaze me!" interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either -Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. "Do I understand, sir, -that you will welcome the rule of the mob?" - -"The 'mob,'" retorts Jefferson, "can be trusted to guard its own -liberty.. The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better -prepared to stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely, -who, in the arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste -and call themselves an American peerage." - -"Government by the mob!" gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his -New England vanity--honest man!--has passed his life on a self-erected -pedestal. "Government by the mob!" - -"And why not, sir?" demands Jefferson sharply. "It is the mob's -government. Who shall contradict the mob's right to control its own? -Have we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?" - -Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the -quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid -Jefferson, and, following that democrat's declarations anent mob right -and mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though -imploring him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins -to unlimber complacently. - -"Government, my dear Jefferson," he says, wheeling himself like -some great gun into argumentative position, "may be discussed in the -abstract, but must be administered in the concrete. I think a best -picture of government is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He -finds them a safety and a better pasturage than they could find for -themselves. He is necessary to the sheep, as the sheep are necessary -to him. He can be trusted; since his interest is the interest of the -flock." - -Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom, -patience, courage, but not one gleam of humor. "I cannot," says he, -"accept your simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people -of this country are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find -our self-selected shepherds"--here he lets his glance rove cynically -to Adams and Hamilton--"such profound scientists of civil rule. Your -shepherd is a dictator. This republic--if it is a republic--might more -justly be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who -appoint agents, but retain among themselves the control." - -"And yet," observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his -own hatred for that new senator, "the present question is one, not of -republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him -well. You will find him a crooked gun." - -"It is ten years since I saw him," observes Washington. "I did not like -him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became -his years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims. -That, as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the -better." - -"There has been no bettering change, sir," returns Hamilton. His manner -is purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression -of one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own -goodness of heart. "Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when -you parted from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have -his place in government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be -a veriest firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril -of this man. Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his -ambition to fly at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He -is both Jack Cade and Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister -attraction for the vulgar herd; like the other, he would not hesitate -to lead the herd against government itself, in furtherance of his vile -projects." - -Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these -malignancies; while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when -Hamilton speaks, drinks them in like spring water. - -"Well," observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, "the -gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence, -suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a -basis for it." - -"You will find," says Hamilton, "that he is, as I tell you, but a -crooked gun." - -Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his -reverend fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about -him--cynical, since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the -opening day of the session. Washington as President, severe, of an -implacable dignity, appears and reads a solemn address. Later, -according to custom, both Senate and House send delegations to wait upon -Washington, and read solemn addresses to him. - -His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate, -since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious -document in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the -Senate delegation to the President's house. They find the big Virginian -awaiting them in the long dining room, which apartment has been -transformed into an audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying -out the table and shoving back the chairs. - -Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to -the rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming, -blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the -politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils -of flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber -and blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The -big Virginian--and that is the worst of it--is as much led by him as any -blind man by his dog. - -Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off -day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty -blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of -superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His -hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In -one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked -hat--brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with -polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in -this notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation, -Aaron and Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal -half-circle about him. - -Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads -Aaron's address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of -purpose as was Washington's. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy, -since the mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms -make up the etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience -chamber is less sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George -receiving his ministers, instead of President George receiving a -delegation from the Senate. - -No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty -than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for -Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive -to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out. - -"Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!" he exclaims, when Adams has -finished. "This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt -not you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive." - -Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at -divers decisions which will have effect in the country's story, before -the curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out. -His first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself. -He liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president. - -"I shall be no friend to this man," thinks he, "nor he to me." - -Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington's all -but royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is -personal. He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling -upon more probable grounds. - -"I distaste him," he decides, "because he meets no man on level terms. -He places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody; -everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will -either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain, -conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will -be no man's friend--this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire -friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none -about him save knee-crooking sycophants--like this smirking parasitish -Hamilton." - -Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address, -resolves to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him -round. Being in this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which -Hamilton's remark affords him, to publicly notify those present of his -position. - -"It will be as well," he ruminates, "to post, not alone these good -people of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall -let them, and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this -republican king of ours." - -"Yes," repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the -moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, "yes; you doubtless -find the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do. -However, it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!" Hamilton -throws off this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation. - -"Sir," returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, "sir, -by these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your -gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed. -There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all--as -though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why -then, the President 'addresses> the Senate, the Senate 'addresses' the -President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole -exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English." -This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of -the address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He -goes on: "I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined -as it has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer -opinion of my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies -themselves, I should call them now about as edifying as the banging and -the booming of a brace of Chinese gongs." - -Washington's brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to -Aaron when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young -successor to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have -not been lost upon him. - -"I think," mutters Aaron, icily complacent--"I think I pricked him." - - - - -CHAPTER XII--IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES - - -AARON finds a Senate existence inexpressibly dull. He writes his -Theodosia: "There is nothing to do here. Everybody is idle; and, so far -as I see, the one occupation of a senator is to lie sunning himself in -his own effulgence. My colleague, Rufus King, and others I might name, -succeed in that way in passing their days very pleasantly. For -myself, not having their sublime imagination, and being perhaps better -acquainted with my own measure, I find this sitting in the sunshine of -self a failure." - -Mindful of his issue, Aaron offers a resolution throwing open the Senate -doors. The Senate, whose notion of greatness is a notion of exclusion, -votes it down. Aaron warns his puffball brothers of the toga: - -"Be assured," says he, "you fool no one by such trumpery tricks as this -key-turning. You succeed only in bringing republican institutions -into contempt, and getting yourselves laughed at where you are not -condemned." - -Aaron reintroduces his open-door resolution; in the end he passes it. -Galleries are thrown up in the chamber, and all who will may watch the -Senate as it proceeds upon the transaction of its dignified destinies. -At this but few come; whereupon the Senate feels abashed. It is not, it -discovers, the thrilling spectacle its puffball fancy painted. - -Carked of the weariness of doing nothing, Aaron bursts forth with an -idea. He will write a history of the War of the Revolution. He begins -digging among the papers of the State department, tossing the archives -of his country hither and yon, on the tireless horns of his industry. - -Hamilton creeps with the alarming tale to Washington. "He speaks -of writing a history, sir," says sycophant Hamilton. "That is mere -subterfuge; he intends a libel against yourself." - -Washington brings his thin lips together in a tight, straight line, -while his heavy forehead gathers to a half frown. - -"How, sir," he asks, after a pause, "could he libel me? I am conscious -of nothing in my past which would warrant such a thought." - -"There is not, sir, a fact of your career that would not, if mentioned, -make for your glory." Hamilton deprecates with delicately outspread -hands as he says this. "That, however, would not deter this Burr, who is -Satanic in his mendacities. Believe me, sir, he has the power of making -fiction look more like truth than truth itself. And there is another -thought: Suppose he were to assail you with some trumped-up story. You -could not come down from your high place to contradict him; it would -detract from you, stain your dignity. That is the penalty, sir"--this -with a sigh of unspeakable adulation--"which men of your utter eminence -have to pay. Such as you are at the mercy of every gutter-bred vilifier; -whatever his charges, you cannot open your mouth." - -Aaron hears nothing of this. His first guess of it comes when he is told -by a State department underling that he will no longer be allowed to -inspect and make copies of the papers. - -Without wasting words on the underling, Aaron walks in upon Jefferson. -That secretary receives him courteously, but not warmly. - -"How, sir," begins Aaron, a wicked light in his eye--"how, sir, am I to -understand this? Is it by your order that the files of the department -are withheld from me?" - -"It is not, sir," returns Jefferson, coldly frank. "My own theories of -a citizen and his rights would open every public paper to the inspection -of the meanest. I do not understand government by secrecy." - -"By whose order then am I refused?" - -"By order of the President." - -Aaron ruminates the situation. At last he speaks out: "I must yield," -he says, "while realizing the injustice done me. Still I shall not soon -forget the incident. You say it is the order of Washington; you are -mistaken, sir. It is not the lion but his jackal that has put this -affront upon me." - -Idle in the Senate, precluded from collecting the materials for that -projected history, Aaron discovers little to employ himself about in -Philadelphia. Not that he falls into stagnation; for his business of -the law, and his speculations in land take him often to New York. His -trusted Theodosia is his manager of business, and when he cannot go to -New York she meets him half way in Trenton. - -Aside from his concerns of law and land, Aaron devotes a deal of thought -to little Theodosia--child of his soul's heart! In his pride, he hurries -her into Horace and Terence at the age of ten; and later sends her -voyaging to Troy with Homer, and all over the world with Herodotus. Nor -is this the whole tale of baby Theodosia's evil fortunes. She is taught -French, music, drawing, dancing, and whatever else may convey a glory -and a gloss. Love-led, pride-blinded, Aaron takes up the rle of father -in its most awful form. - -"Believe me, my dear," he says to Theodosia mere, who pleads for an -educational leniency--"believe me, I shall prove in our darling that -women have souls, a psychic fact which high ones have been heard to -dispute." - -At the age of twelve, the book-burdened little Theodosia translates -the Constitution into French at Aaron's request; at sixteen, she finds -celebration as the most learned of her sex since Voltaire's Emilie. -Theodosia mere, however, is spared the spectacle of her baby's harrowing -erudition, for in the middle of Aaron's term as senator death carries -her away. - -With that loss, Aaron is more and more drawn to baby Theodosia; she -becomes his earth, his heaven, and stands for all his tenderest hopes. -While she is yet a child, he makes her the head of Richmond Hill, -and gives a dinner of state, over which she presides, to the limping -Talleyrand, and Volney with his "Ruins of Empire." For all her -precocities, and that hothouse bookishness which should have spoiled -her, baby Theodosia blossoms roundly into womanhood--beautiful as -brilliant. - -While Aaron finds little or nothing of public sort to engage him, he -does not permit this idleness to shake his hold of politics. Angry -with the royalties of Washington, he drifts into near if not intimate -relations with the arch-democrat Jefferson. Aaron and the loose-framed -secretary are often together; and yet never on terms of confidence -or even liking. They are in each other's society because they -go politically the same road. Fellow wayfarers of politics, with -"Democracy" their common destination, they are fairly compelled into -one another's company. But there grows up no spirit of comradeship, no -mutual sentiment of admiration and trust. - -Aaron's feelings toward Jefferson, and the sources of them, find setting -forth in a conversation which he holds with his new disciple, Senator -Andrew Jackson, who has come on from his wilderness home by the -Cumberland. - -"It is not that I like Jefferson," he explains, "but that I dislike -Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson will make a splendid tool to destroy -the others with; I mean to use him as the instrument of my vengeance." - -Jefferson, when speaking of Aaron to the wooden Adams, is neither so -full nor so frank. The Bay State publicist has again made mention of -that impressive ancestry which he thinks is Aaron's best claim to public -as well as private consideration. - -"You may see evidence of his pure blood," concludes the wooden one, "in -his perfect, nay, matchless politeness." - - "He is matchlessly polite, as you say," assents Jefferson; "and yet I -cannot fight down the fear that his politeness has lies in it." - -The days drift by, and Minister Gouverneur Morris is recalled from -Paris. Washington makes it known to the Senate that he will adopt any -name it suggests for the vacancy. The Senate decides upon Aaron; a -committee goes with that honorable suggestion to the President. - -Washington hears the committee with cloudy surprise. He is silent for a -moment; then he says: - -"Gentlemen, your proposal of Senator Burr has taken me unawares. I must -crave space for consideration; oblige me by returning in an hour." - -The senators who constitute the committee retire, and Washington seeks -his jackal Hamilton. - -"Appoint Colonel Burr to France!" exclaims Hamilton. "Sir, it would -shock the best sentiment of the country! The man is an atheist, as -immoral as irreligious. If you will permit me to say so, sir, I should -give the Senate a point-blank refusal." - -"But my promise!" says Washington. - -"Sir, I should break a dozen such promises, before I consented to -sacrifice the public name, by sending Colonel Burr to France. However, -that is not required. You told the Senate that you would adopt its -suggestion; you have now only to ask it to make a second suggestion." - -"The thought is of value," responds Washington, clearing. "I am free to -say, I should not relish turning my back on my word." - -The committee returns, and is requested to give the Senate the -"President's compliments," and say that he will be pleased should that -honorable body submit another name. Washington is studious to avoid any -least of comment on the nomination of Aaron. - -The committee is presently in Washington's presence for the third time, -with the news that the Senate has no name other than Aaron's for the -French mission. - -"Then, gentlemen," exclaims Washington, his hot temper getting the -reins, "please report to the Senate that I refuse. I shall send no one -to France in whom I have not confidence; and I do not trust Senator -Burr." - -"What blockheads!" comments Aaron, when he hears. "They will one day -wish they had gotten rid of me, though at the price of forty missions." - -[Illustration: 0197] - -The wooden Adams is elected President to succeed Washington. Aaron's -colleague, Rufus King, offers a resolution of compliment and thanks -to the retiring one, extolling his presidential honesty and patriotic -breadth. A cold hush falls upon the Senate, when Aaron takes the floor -on the resolution. - -Aaron's remarks are curt, and to the barbed point. He cannot, he says, -bring himself to regard Washington's rule as either patriotic or broad. -That President throughout has been subservient to England, who was our -tyrant, is our foe. Equally he has been inimical to France, who was our -ally, is our friend. More; he has subverted the republic and made of -it a monarchy with himself as king, wanting only in those unimportant -embellishments of scepter, throne, and crown. He, Aaron, seeking -to protest against these almost treasons, shall vote against the -resolution. - -The Senate sits aghast. Aaron's respectable colleague, Rufus King, -cannot believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet. - -"I am amazed at the action of my colleague!" he exclaims. "I----" - -Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. "It is my -duty," says Aaron, "to warn the senior senator from New York that he -must not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I -do not like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement -become a tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede -the impropriety, to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any -manifestation personally offensive to myself." - -As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws -off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of -colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a -moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a -gulp whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is -called; Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, -carrying a baker's dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, -horse-faced Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland. - -Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon. -Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields -the Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than -ever; for Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in -government, and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in -nothing save name; Hamilton--fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and -playing upon that wooden one's fear of not succeeding himself--is the -actual chief magistrate. - -As Aaron's term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept -reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved -for that scheming one's destruction. His plans are fashioned; their -execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will -quit the Senate, quit the capital. - -"My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton," -he says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his -purposes. "I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on -that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of -Jefferson." - -"And Hamilton?" asks the Cumberland one. - -"Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of -retirement. Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies -may be trusted to sting him to death." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE GRINDING OF AARON'S MILL - - -AARON tells his friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts -this resolution to retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia's -loneliness and a consequent paternal necessity of his presence at -Richmond Hill, and the tangled condition of his business; which last -after the death of Theodosia mre falls into a snarl. Never, by the -lifting of an eyelash or the twitching of a lip, does he betray any -corner of his political designs, or of his determination to destroy -Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of white-hot throbbing hate against -that gentleman of diagonal morals and biased veracities; but no sign of -the fires within is visible on the arctic exterior. - -Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton -is mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate -concern in connection with the political destinies of the rusty -Schuyler, now exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler -down from his shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his -cloak, and declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young -community toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought -to send the rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving -up. To such a degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities -of mankind, that the rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to -reassume those honors which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years -before. - -Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality. -Aaron's astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate, -smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however, -Hamilton's enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that -Aaron--courage broken--is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship. - -"That is it," he explains to President Adams. "The fellow has lost -heart. This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace." - -There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron's -benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron's closest friend Van Ness. - -"Schuyler for the Senate!" he exclaims. "What does that mean?" - -"It means," whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, "that I want to -get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!" - -"And for what?" - -"The destruction of Hamilton." - -As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door. -One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes; -all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable. - -Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton -forces are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten -North-of-Ireland Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell -more than three millions of the public's acres to McComb for eightpence. - -And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence--working -out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington--Aaron's practiced -vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton is as -angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which he -lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills because -its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President's -cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton--whose policies are ever jealous -and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him the -raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to -the Party-of-things-as-they-are--which is the party of Hamilton. - -One thing irks the pride of Aaron--a pride ever impatient and ready -for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these -gentry--readily eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of -Aaron--never omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They -make a merit of accepting Aaron's aid, and proceed on the assumption -that he gains honor by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy -this. - -"I must have a following," says he. "I will call about me every free -lance in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which -I must be the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall -take up position between the Campbell and the Montrose--the Clintons and -the Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control -both. Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the -obstinate Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall -back, march and countermarch by my word." - -When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to -endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies -ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling's tavern, at Spruce -and Nassau, meets the "Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order." The name -is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the "Sons of -Tammany or the Columbian Order," as they sit swigging Brom Martling's -cider, call themselves the "Bucktails." - -The aristocracy of the Revolution--being the officers--created -unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the -Revolution--being the privates--as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not -to say gilded Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian -Order, otherwise the Bucktails, into being. - -The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social -organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of -them--quaffing and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into -the mountaintop of the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the -political world and the glories thereof. Also, he points out that -Hamilton, the head of the hated Cincinnati, is turning that organization -of perfume and purple into a power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe, -and resolve under the chiefship of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals, -the Cincinnati, in every ensuing battle of the ballots to the end of -time. - -The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not -long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the -Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this -formidable body of cider drinkers--with Aaron at its head--they conduct -themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect. They -eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they -would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they -declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as -Aaron forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is -sought for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons--the -Campbell and the Montrose. - -Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful -war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one -might have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany -Bucktails--who obey him with shut eyes--and has brought the perverse -Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb, Aaron -considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science, -has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to -insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must -pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all -quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic -enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches -are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling's cider flow -without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees -that his plans as well as his party require a bank. - -There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow -of the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act -coercively. They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is -not amenable to the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to -security even somewhat mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion -against Hamilton, plus the best security beneath the commercial sun, -cannot coax a dollar from their strong boxes. - -Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions. -The best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton. -Aaron must free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow -him. How is this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank? -It presents as many difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton -watches the bank situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort -to obtain a charter is knocked on the head. - -Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to -Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full -of war knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank -movement, night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To -capture a bank charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and, -while all but impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if -accomplished. Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way. - -Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin's bottle, a scheme -begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been -reaping a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres--as -usual--lay it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while -everybody knows full well that science is nothing better than just the -accepted ignorance of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his -knees to it, and to the wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and -the wiseacres lay yellow fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking -the word from them, does the same. The local water is found guilty; the -popular cry goes up for a purer element. The town demands water that is -innocent of homicidal qualities. - -It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of -Yellow Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it -shall be called "The Manhattan Company." - -With "No more yellow fever!" for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany. -What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With -the fear of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the -Albany authorities--being the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton -Legislature--comply with his demands. The Manhattan Company is -incorporated, capital two millions. - -Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter--which -authorizes a water company--he originates a modest well near the City -Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more -than serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block. - -Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a -bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in -this; it is anti-Hamilton. - -Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton -takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a -matter of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and -the extent of its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton -flag. And Aaron, the indefatigable, is in control. At the new -Manhattan Bank, he turns on or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom -Mart-ling--spigot-busy in the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails--turns -on or shuts off the flow of his own cider. - -After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his -attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority -his Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised -world, in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the -world with water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill -its empty water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its -incorporated back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest -is dead. - -The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with -the charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney -general--first polishing his amazed spectacles--reads the following -clause: - -"The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with -the laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New -York." - -The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam's apple goes -up and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental -stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but -lucidly sufficient. - -"The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the -authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus -capital the Manhattan Bank." - -The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon. - -"And you had the bank in mind from the first!" he cries. - -"Possibly," says Aaron. - -"Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr," and the Jay attorney general -cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; "if the authorities -at Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received -your charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been -refused." - -"Possibly!" says Aaron. - -All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the -Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails -swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan -Bank to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their -accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the -Federal capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as -President, with all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington, -and Jefferson is abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing -shoelaces, cutting off his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President -at the other end of government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these -opposite ones. Jefferson must be his candidate; Adams will be the -candidate of the foe. He himself is to manage for the one, while -Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the situation, he holds it the -part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at these worthies, pulling -against one another, and discover to what extent and in what manner -their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar the nation's -future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a battle must be -fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to discover aught -in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or Jefferson which -can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy. - -Aaron's friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach. -Some worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as -talk proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected -bitterness of his feeling--a feeling which goes beyond politics, as the -acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized. - -Van Ness is wonder-smitten. - -"Your enmity to Hamilton," he says tentatively, "strikes deeper then -than mere politics." - -"Sir," returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle -flashing up in his eyes, "the deepest sentiment of my nature is my -hatred for that man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who -furnishes the seed and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I -hear it east, north, west, south. I am his mania--his 'phobia'. In his -slanderous mouth I am 'liar,' 'thief,' and 'scoundrel rogue.' In such -connection I would have you to remember that I, on my side, give him, -and have given him, the description of a gentleman." - -"To be frank, sir," returns Van Ness thoughtfully, "I know every word -you speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade -our epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with -convincing lead." - -Aaron's look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. "Kill -him!" he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion; -"kill him! Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for -my perfect vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope -he has shall die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he -lies prone, broken, powerless!--when he is spat upon by those in whose -one-time downcast, servile presence he strutted lord paramount!--when -his past is scoffed at, his future swallowed up!--when his word is -laughed at and his fame become a farce!--then, when every fang of -defeat pierces and poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of -killing! That hour is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness--I am an -artist of revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath, -all goes!--that for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no -past!--I must garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take -pains with my vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my -vengeful pains shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton, -for whom my whole heart flows away in hate!--I shall build for him a -pyramid of misery while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his -death--his grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies -before. I shall take from him every scrap of that power which is his -soul's food--strip him of each least fragment of position! When he has -nothing left but life, I'll wrest that from him. Long years after he is -gone I'll walk this earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and -the thought that by my hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what -the friendship of man or the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him! -There is a grist in the hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill -stones of my plans are grinding!" - -Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his -soul to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in -the spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow -words follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps -over him, as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental, -abnormal, fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor -his tongue can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron -seems not to notice, but falls into a black muse. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE TRIUMPH OF AARON - - -IT is the era of bad feeling, and the breasts of men are reservoirs of -poison. Jefferson and Adams, while known admitted rivals, deplore these -wormwood conditions and strive against them. It is as though they strove -against the tides; party lines were never more fiercely drawn. Some -portrait of the hour may be found in the following: - -Adams gives a dinner; and, because he cannot get over the Jonathan -Edwards emanation of Aaron, he invites him. Also, Van Ness being with -Aaron, the invitation includes Van Ness. Hamilton and Jefferson will be -there; since it is one of the hypocritical affectations of these good -people to keep up a polite appearance of friendship, by way of example, -if not rebuke, to warring followers, who are hopefully fighting duels -and shedding blood and taking life in their interests. On the way to the -President's house Van Ness, to whom Adams is new, queries Aaron: - -"What sort of a man is Adams?" - -"He is an honest, pragmatic, hot-tempered thick-skull," says Aaron--"a -New England John Bull!--a masculine Mrs. Malaprop whom Sheridan would -love. You can have no better description of him than was given me but -yesterday by a member of his Cabinet. 'Adams,' says the cabineteer, -'is a man who whether sportful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, -easy, stiff, jealous, careless, cautious, confident, close or open, is -so always in the wrong place and with the wrong man!'" - -"Is he a good executive?" - -"Bad! By nature he is no more in touch with the spirit of a democracy -than with the maritime policies of the Ptolemies. His pet picture of -government is England, with the one amendment that he would call the -king a president. As to his executive labors: why, then, he touches only -to disarrange, talks only to disturb. And all without meaning to do so." - -The dinner is neither large nor formal. Aaron sits on the right hand of -Adams, while Jefferson has Van Ness and Hamilton at either elbow. In the -cross fire of conversation comes the following: The topic is government. - -"Speaking of the British constitution," says Adams, "purge that -constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality -of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever -devised by the wit of man." - -Hamilton cocks his ear. "Sir," says he, "purge the British constitution -of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of -representation, and it would become an impracticable government. As -it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most -powerful government that ever existed." - -Presently, the currents of converse shift, and the torrid heats of party -are considered. It is now that Jefferson is heard from. - -"The situation is deplorable!" he exclaims. "You and I, sir"--looking -across at Adams--"have seen warm debates and high political passions. -But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and -separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not -so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to -avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they be obliged -to touch their hats. Men's passions are boiling over; and one who keeps -himself cool, and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of -ordinary conversation that he finds himself socially cast away. More; -there is a moral breaking down. The interruption of letters is becoming -so notorious"--here he looks hard at Hamilton, whose followers are -supposed to peep into letters not addressed to them--"that I am forming -a resolution of declining correspondence with my friends through the -channels of the post office altogether." - -Even during Aaron's short stay at the Capitol, fresh fuel is heaped upon -the fires of his Hamilton hates. A cloud blows up in the sky; war -with France is threatened. Washington at Mount Vernon is commissioned -commander in chief; Hamilton--the active--is placed next to him. Aaron's -name, sent in for a general's commission, is secretly vetoed by Hamilton -whispering in the Adams ear. - -Adams does not like the veto; he thinks he should name Aaron, and says -so. - -"If you do," declares Hamilton warningly, "it will defeat your -reelection." - -Adams groans and gives way. It is the argument wherewith Hamilton never -fails to drive him or curb him as he will. Aaron hears of this new -offense; he says nothing, but lays it away with the others. - -Candidate Jefferson and Manager Aaron are far apart in their hopes -and fears, the former taking the gloomy view. They come together -confidentially. - -"I have looked over the field," says Jefferson, "and we are already -beaten." - -"Sir," returns Aaron with grim point, "you should look again. I think -you see things wrong end up." - -"My hatred of Hamilton," observes Aaron to Van Ness, as their coach -rolls north for home, "is the good fortune of Jefferson. I shall be -fighting my own fight, and so I shall win. If I were fighting only for -Jefferson, I can well see how the strife might have another upcome." - -[Illustration: 0223] - -The campaign draws down; it is Adams against Jefferson, Federal against -Republican. Hamilton leaves the seat of government, and comes to New -York to take personal charge. At that his designs are Janus-faced. He -says "Adams," but he means "Pinckney." He foresees that, if Adams be -given another term, he will defy control. Wherefore he is publicly for -Adams, and privately for Pinckney--he looks at Massachusetts but -sees only South Carolina. This collision of pretense and purpose, on -Hamilton's false part, gets vastly in the Federal way. That it should -do so will instantly occur to curious ones, if they will but seek to go -south by heading north. - -As Hamilton sets out to take presidential possession of New York, he -has no misgivings. He knows little or nothing of Aaron's designs or what -that ingenious gentleman has been about. - -"There is the Manhattan Bank of course; but what can it do? There are -the Bucktails--who are vulgar clods! There are the Livingstons and the -Clintons--he has beaten them before!" - -Thus run the reflections of the confident Hamilton. No; he sees only -triumph ahead. He gives Aaron and his candidate Jefferson--with their -borrel issue of Alien and Sedition--not half the thought that he devotes -to ways and means by which he hopes finally to steal the electors from -Adams, and produce Pinckney in the White House. That is Hamilton's dream -of power--Pinckney! - -Everything pivots on the legislature; since it is the legislature which -will select the electors. - -Hamilton, bearing in mind his intended steal of the State, prepares his -list of candidates for Albany. He does not pick them for either wisdom -or moral worth; what he is after are legislators whom he can certainly -manhandle to match his designs, and who will give him electors--he -himself will furnish the names--of a Pinckney not an Adams complexion. -He makes up his slate to that treasonable end; and the swift Aaron gets -a copy before the ink is dry. - -Aaron smiles when he runs down the ignoble muster of Hamilton's boneless -nonentities. - -"They are the least in the town!" he mutters. "I shall pit against them -the town's greatest." - -Aaron with his Bucktails, now makes ready his own legislative ticket. -At the head he places old North-of-Ireland Clinton--a local Whittington, -ten times governor of the State. General Gates--for whom Aaron, when -time was, plotted the downfall of Washington, and who received the sword -of the vanquished Burgoyne and sent that popinjay back to England to -fail at play-writing--comes next. After General Gates the wily Aaron -writes "Samuel Osgood"--who was Washington's postmaster general--"Henry -Rutgers, Elias Neusen, Thomas Storms, George Warner, Philip Arcularius, -James Hunt, Ezekiel Robbins, Brockholst Livingston, and John -Swartwout"--every name a tower of strength. - -Hamilton cannot repress a flutter of fear as he reads the noble roster; -but his unflagging vanity, which serves him instead of a more reasonable -optimism, rushes to his rescue. None the less it jars on him a bit -strangely, albeit, he laughs at it for a jest, that the best regarded -of the town should make up the ticket of the yeomanry and the -crude Bucktails, while the aristocratical Federals and the -equally aristocratical Cincinnati--that coterie of perfume and -patricianism!--search the gutters for theirs. - -Seeing himself on the Jefferson ticket, old North-of-Ireland Clinton -makes trouble. He sends for Aaron and his committee, and notifies them -that he cannot consent to run. - -"If you, Colonel Burr, were the candidate," he says, "I should run -gladly; but Jefferson I hate." - -In his hope's heart, old North-of-Ireland Clinton---who, for all his -North-of-Ireland blood, was born in America--thinks he himself may be -struck by the presidential lightning, and does not intend to place any -deflecting obstruction in the path of such descending bolt. - -Aaron has forestalled the Clinton refusal in his thoughts, and is not -surprised by the high Clintonian attitude. He tries persuasion; the -old ex-governor and would-be president only plants himself more firmly. -Under no circumstances shall he agree to run; his honored name must not -be used. - -It is now that Aaron shows his teeth: "Governor Clinton," says he, "when -it comes to that, our committee's appearance before you, preferring the -request that you run, is a ceremony rather of courtesy than need. With -the last word, regardless of either your plans or your preferences, the -public we represent is perfect in its right to name you, and compel you -to run. And, sir, making short what might become long, and so saving -time for us all, I must now notify you that, should you continue to -withhold your consent, we stand already determined to retain and use -your name despite refusal, as a course entirely within the lines of -popular right." - -In the looks and tones of Aaron, the old North-of-Ireland governor -reads decision not to be revoked, and for once in his obstinate life -surrenders gracefully. - -"Gentlemen," says he, with a bland wave of the hand to Aaron and his -Bucktail committee, "since you put it in that way, refusal is out of -my power. Also let me add, that no man could take a nomination from a -higher, a more honorable, a more patriotic source." - -The campaign, on in earnest, goes forward with a roar. Not a screaming -item is omitted. Guns boom; flags flaunt; bands of music bray; gay -processions go marching; crackers splutter and snap; orators with iron -throats sweep down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence; -flaming rockets, when the sun goes down, streak the night with fire; the -bold Buck-tails, cidered to the brim, cause Brom Martling's long-room -to ring again, and make the intersection of Spruce and Nassau a Bedlam -crossroads. - -This is well; yet Aaron desires more. The issue is Alien and Sedition; -he yearns for an overt expression of what villain work may be done by -that black statute. - -Aaron's strength, as a captain of politics, lies in his intuitive -knowledge of men. He is never popular--never loved while ever admired. -Men may no more love him than they may love a diamond, or a Damascus -sword blade, or a tallest, sun-kissed, snow-capped mountain peak. Still -that innate grasp of men, and what motives will move them, is as an -edged tool in his hands wherewith to carve out triumph. This gift of -man-reading comes in play when now he would exhibit Alien and Sedition -in its baleful workings. - -There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded -him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your -natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman's block, there he lays his -neck; given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he -thrusts his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake -he takes his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a -despot than a friend. And yet--to defend Yates--that bent for martyrdom -is nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero -reversed. The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a -martyr only a hero who fails. - -Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. "Here is a pamphlet -flaying Adams," says he. "It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and -circulate it." - -"Why?" asks Yates. - -"Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do -it." - -"Doubtless!"--this dryly. "But what advantage do you discover in having -me locked up?" - -"Man! can't you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure -will be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you -from Otsego to New York. Think what a triumph that should be--you, the -paraded victim of the monarchical Adams!" - -Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron's -blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has -foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive's line of march. Yates -is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for -himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is -worth a thousand votes. - -"It is the difference between the eye and the ear," says Aaron to -his aide, Swartwout. "You might explain the iniquities of Alien and -Sedition, and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and -they take fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed -by a falling tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. -Should you some day _see_ a man crushed by a falling tree, you will -start in your sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. -Wherefore, never address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The -gateway to the imagination is the eye." - -The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To -the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him -at the polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he -is beaten, Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson's. The blow shakes -Hamilton to the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. -In the face of such disaster, he sits stricken. - -Presently, as though the bad in him is more vivid than the good and -quicker at recovery, that old instinct of larceny struggles to its -feet. He will steal the State; not from Adams as he planned, but from -Jefferson. He scribbles a note to Jay, who is in town at his home, -urging him as governor to call a special session of the legislature, a -Federal Legislature, and go about the crime. He feels the necessity -of justification; for Jay is of a skittish honor. This on his mind, he -closes with: "It is the only way by which we can prevent an atheist in -religion and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm -of government." - -Jay reads, and draws down his brows in a frown. Hamilton's messenger is -waiting. - -"Governor," says the messenger, "General Hamilton bid me get an answer." - -"Tell General Hamilton there is no answer." Jay rereads the note. Then -he takes quill, writes a sentence on the back, and files it away in a -pigeonhole. Years later, when Jay and Hamilton and Adams and Jefferson -and Aaron are dead and under the grass roots, hands yet unformed will -draw the letter forth and unborn eyes will read: "Proposing a measure -for party purposes which I do not think it would become me to adopt. J. -J." - - - - -CHAPTER XV--THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE - - -HAMILTON writhes and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first -effort before the adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his -courage returns, he bends himself to consider, whether by other means, -fair or foul, the election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends -out a flock of letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily -as their commander in chief of party. - -It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the -cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his -bare word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that -potential name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing -of Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave -his voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. -He finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of -New York and Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney -intrigue as worse than hopeless. They propose instead--and therein lurks -horror--that the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. -They can take the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may -be coaxed from the Jefferson strength, make Aaron President--their -President--the President of the Federalists. - -The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his -discovered loss of power--which latter, of itself, is as a blade of ice -through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to -learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of -Aaron as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken -of heart and hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the -Grange, and sits in mourning with his soul. - -Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses -but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, -who is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South -Carolina. - -Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal -chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great -purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate. -They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as -is the Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of -terror in a democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at -the thought of Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him -less of a leveler. Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him -with promises; for they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a -pig in a poke. They seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange -wreaths and is up to the ears in baby Theo's wedding. As a preliminary -they send his lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings. - -"If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?" asks Swartwout. - -"Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline--a lady -and a presidency." - -Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that, -should he be chosen, he will serve. - -"There can be no refusal," he says. "The electors are free to make their -choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however," he -goes on, warningly; "I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; -the thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, -yourself, are of those who will select the electors for our own State, -I tell you, as you value my friendship, that New York must go to -Jefferson. We carried the State for him, and he shall have it." - -Following Swartwout's visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon -Aaron. They point out that he can be President; but they seek to -condition it upon certain promises. - -"Gentlemen," returns Aaron, "I know not what in my past has led you to -this journey. I've no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I -shall be no man's president but my own." - -"Think of the honor, sir!" says Federalist Bayard. - -"Honor?" repeats Aaron. "Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went -into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way -to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet." - -Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs--all save the broken -Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange--none the less go -forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors will -follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The law-demanded -vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson seventy-three, Aaron -seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one. - -No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the -House. The sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House -delegations and owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a -president. At this the campaign is all to fight over again. But in a -different way, on different ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and -Aaron. - -In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, -in the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second -pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely -married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk. - -Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, "As affairs are," he -explains--he has made a count of noses--"Jefferson, when the House -convenes, will have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, -Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, -for your side, will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, -Connecticut, South Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The -delegations of Maryland and Vermont, being evenly divided between -yourself and Jefferson, will have no voice. The tally will show eight -for Jefferson, six for you, two not voting. None the less, in the face -of these figures the means of electing you exist. By deceiving one -man--a great blockhead--and tempting two--not incorruptible--you can -still secure a majority of the States. I----" - -"You have said enough, sir," breaks in Aaron. "I shall deceive no one, -tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of -Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally -fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have -construction as an insult." - -Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear. -Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron -will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself. - -Jefferson does not share Aaron's chill indifference. While the latter -comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of -every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels -all the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He -calls on the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his -influence with his party in favor of Aaron's defeat. - -"It is I, sir," says Jefferson, "whom the people elected; and you should -see their will respected." - -Adams grows warm. "Sir," he retorts, "the event is in your power. Say -that you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will -instantly be put into your hands." - -"If such be your answer, sir," returns Jefferson, equaling, if not -surpassing the Adams heat, "I have to tell you that I do not intend to -come into the presidency by capitulation." - -Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams--who is practical, even if -high-tempered--begins his preparations to create and fill twenty-three -life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession. - -As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at -the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the -war between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. -The action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As -unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot -grasp the reason of his overthrow. - -Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations -tongue. "What is this mighty difference," he cries, "which the public -discovers between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, -I am for speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I -am for a big dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is -for a daily levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think -a man may curl or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson -preference, sir, convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are -not reasonable creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and -myself is this: I appeal to men's reason, he flatters their vanity. -The result--a mob result--is that he stands victorious, while I -lie prostrate." Saying which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his -arrangements for creating and filling those twenty-three life -judgeships--being resolved, in his narrow breast, to make the most of -his dying moments as a president. - -The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are -placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there -are members too ill to occupy their regular seats--one is even attended -by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order which -forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White -House tie determined. - -The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as -foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for -Aaron, with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly -divided delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count -half votes for any name. There being no choice--since no name possesses -a majority of all the States--another vote is called. The upcome is the -same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine -hours of ceaseless balloting. - -Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of -the seventh day, Federalist Bayard--who is the entire delegation from -his little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote -for Aaron--beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. -It is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; -for the Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so -much as the ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, -Federalist Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with -Aaron Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end. - -The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy -indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of -Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next, -feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames -for what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not -fade, until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron's plans to -send them sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; -for Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against -the curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go -about their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with -little friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between -President and Vice-President have never been the habit. - -In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. -He refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a -half. He knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to -the Jefferson hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, -against the repeal of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which -the practical Adams created and filled in his industrious last days. - -Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but -his home rivals the White House--which leans toward the simple-severe -under Jefferson--as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes -up from South Carolina to preside over it--Theo, loving and lustrous! -Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way -to a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into -gossip with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson -has no bargain in the Franco-Corsican. - -[Illustration: 0245] - -On the lustrous Theo's second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she -brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it -proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston. -Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than -it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark -one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus -and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he -will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte -and swoop at empire. - -During these days of Aaron's eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten -Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has -turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on -politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and -pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance. - -He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres. -"And when you return home," he says, imitating the lightsome and doing -it poorly, "send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of -Carolina melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear -Pinckney"--this, with a sickly smile--"is, as you know, a very usual -refuge for your disappointed politician." It is now, his acute -bitterness coming uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly -complaint--the complaint of selflove wounded to the heart. "What an odd -destiny is mine! No man has done more for the country, sacrificed more -for it, than have I. No man than myself has stood more loyally by the -Constitution--that frail, worthless fabric which I am still striving to -prop up! And yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the -curses of its foes to pay for it. What can I do better than withdraw -from the arena? Each day proves more and more that America, with its -republics, was never meant for me." - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE - - -WHILE Aaron flourishes with Senate gavel, and Hamilton mourns his -downfall at the Grange, new men are springing up and new lines forming. -The Federalists disappear in the presidential going down of the wooden -Adams; Aaron, by that one crushing victory, annihilated them. The new -alignment in New York is personal rather than political, and becomes the -merest separation of Aaron's friends from Aaron's enemies. - -At the head of the latter, De Witt Clinton, nephew to old -North-of-Ireland Clinton, takes his stand. Being modern, Clinton starts -a newspaper, the _American Citizen_, and places a scurrilous dog named -Cheetham in charge. As a counterweight, Aaron launches the _Morning -Chronicle_, with Peter Irving editor, and his brother, young Washington -Irving, as its leading writer. Now descends a war of ink, that is -recklessly acrimonious and not at all merry. - -Under that spur of feverish ink, the two sides fall to dueling with -the utmost assiduity. Hamilton's son Philip insults Mr. Eaker, a lawyer -friend of Aaron; and the insulted Mr. Eaker gives up the law for one day -to parade young Hamilton at the conventional ten paces. It is all highly -honorable, all highly orthodox; and young Hamilton is killed in a way -which reflects credit on those concerned. - -Aaron's lieutenant, John Swartwout, fastens a quarrel upon De Witt -Clinton, for sundry ink utterances of the latter's dog-of-types, -Cheetham. The two cross the river to a spot of convenient seclusion. - -"I wish it were your chief instead of you!" cries Clinton, who is not -fine in his politenesses. - -"So do I," responds Swartwout, being of a rudeness to match Clinton's. -"For he is a dead shot, and would infallibly kill you; while I am the -poorest hand with a pistol among the Buck-tails." - -The bickering pair are placed. They fire and miss. A second, and yet a -third time their lead flies shamefully wide. At the fourth shot -Clinton saves his credit by wounding Swartwout in the leg. The stubborn -Swartwout demands a fifth fire, and Clinton plants a second bullet -within two inches of the first. - -"Are you satisfied?" asks Mr. Riker, who acts for Clinton. - -"I am not," returns Swartwout the stubborn. "Your man must retract, or -continue the fight. Kill or be killed, I am prepared to shoot out the -afternoon with him." - -At this, both Clinton's fortitude and manners break down together, and, -refusing to either fight on or apologize, he walks off the field. -This nervous extravagance creates a scandal among our folk of hectic -sensibilities, and shakes the Clinton standing sorely. He is promptly -challenged by Senator Dayton--an adherent of Aaron's--but evades that -statesman at further loss to his reputation. - -Meanwhile Robert Swartwout, brother to the wounded Swartwout, calls out -Mr. Riker, who acted for Clinton against the stubborn one, and has the -pleasure of dangerously wounding that personage. Also, Editor Coleman -of the Evening Post, weary with that felon scribe, goes after type-dog -Cheetham of Clinton's American Citizen; whereat dog Cheetham flies -yelping. - -This last so disturbs Harbor Master Thompson of the Clinton forces, -that he offers to take type-dog Cheetham's place. Editor Coleman -being agreeable, they fight in a snowstorm in (inappropriately) Love's -Lane--it will be University Place later--and the port loses a harbor -master at the first fire. - -Aaron, gaveling the Senate in the way it should legislatively go, pays -no apparent heed to the smoky doings of his warlike subordinates. -He never takes his eyes from Hamilton, however; and, if that retired -publicist, complaining in his garden, would but cast his glance that -way, he might read in their black ophidian depths a saving warning. But -Hamilton is blind or mad, and thinks only on what he may do to injure -Aaron, and never once on what that perilous Vice-President might be -carrying on the shoulder of his purposes. - -Hamilton devotes his garden leisure to vilifying Aaron. He goes stark -staring raving Aaron-mad; at the mention of the name he pours out a -muddy stream of slander. In talk, in print, in what letters he indites, -Aaron is accused of every infamy. There is nothing so preposterously -vile that he does not charge him with it. Aaron looks on and listens -with a grim, evil smile, saying nothing. It is as though he but waits -for Hamilton's offenses to ripen in their accumulation, as one waits for -apples to ripen on a tree. - -At last the hour of harvest comes; Aaron leaves Washington for Richmond -Hill, and sends for his friend Van Ness. - -"You once marveled at my Hamilton moderation--wondered that I did not -stop his slanders with convincing lead?" - -"Yes," says Van Ness. - -"You shall wonder no longer, my friend. The hour of his death is about -to strike." - -Van Ness breaks into a gale of protest. Hamilton, beaten, disgraced, -deposed, is in political exile! Aaron, powerful, victorious, is on the -crest of fortune! There is no fairness, no equality in an exchange of -shots under such circumstances! Thus runs the opposition of Van Ness. - -"In short," he concludes, "it would be a fight downhill--a fight that -you, in justice to yourself, have no right to make. Who is Alexander -Hamilton? Nobody--a beaten nobody! Who is Aaron Burr? The second officer -of the nation, on his sure way to a White House! Let me say, sir, that -you must not risk so much against so little." - -"There is no risk; for I shall kill the man. I shall live and he shall -die." - -"Cannot you see? There is the White House! Adams went from -the Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; Jefferson went from the -Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; you will do the same. It's as though -the White House were already yours. And you would throw it away for a -shot at this broken, beaten, disregarded man! For let me tell you, sir; -kill Hamilton and you kill your chance of being President. No one may -hope to go into the White House on the back of a duel." - -About Aaron's mouth twinkles a pale smile. It lights up his face with a -cold dimness, as a will-o'-the-wisp lights up the midnight blackness of -a wood. - -"You have a memory only for what I lose. You forget what I gain." - -"What you gain?" - -"Ay, friend, what I gain. I shall gain vengeance; and I would sooner be -revenged than be President." - -"Now this is midsummer madness!" wails Van Ness. "To throw away a career -such as yours is simple frenzy!" - -"I do not throw away a career; I begin one." - -Van Ness stares; Aaron goes slowly on, as though he desires every word -to make an impression. - -"Listen, my friend; I've been preparing. Last week I closed out all my -houses and lands! to John Jacob Astor for one hundred and forty thousand -dollars. The one lone thing I own is Richmond Hill--the roof we sit -beneath. I'd have sold this, but I did not care to attract attention. -There would have come questions which I'm not ready to answer." - -Van Ness fills a glass of Cape, and settles himself to hear; he sees -that this is but the beginning. - -Aaron proceeds: "As we sit here to-night, Napoleon has been declared -hereditary Emperor of the French. It has been on its way for months, and -the next packet will bring us the news." - -"And what have the Corsican and his empire to do with us?" - -"A President," continues Aaron, ignoring the question, "is not -comparable to an emperor. The Presidential term is but a stunted -thing--in four years, eight at the most, your President comes to -his end. And what is an ex-President? Look at Adams, peevish, -disgruntled--unhappy in what he is, because he remembers what he was. -To be a President is well enough. To be an ex-President is to seek to -satisfy present hunger with the memories of banquets eaten years ago. -For myself, I would sooner be an emperor; his throne is his for life, -and becomes his son's or his grandson's after him." - -"What does this lead to?" asks Van Ness, vastly puzzled. "Admitting your -imperial preferences, how are they applicable here and now?" - -"Let me show you," responds Aaron, still slow and measured and -impressive. "What is possible in the East is possible in the West; -what has been done in Europe may be done in America. Napoleon comes to -Paris--lean, epileptic, poor, unknown, not even French. To-day he is -emperor. Also"--this with a laugh which, however, does not prevent Van -Ness from seeing that Aaron is deeply serious--"also, he is two inches -shorter than myself." - -Van Ness leans back and makes a little gesture with his hand, as who -should say: "Continue!" - -"Very well! Would it be a stranger story if I, Aaron Burr, were to found -an empire in the West--if I became Aaron I, as the Corsican has become -Napoleon I?" - -"You do not talk of overturning our government?" This in tones of -wonder, and not without some flash of angry horror. - -"Don't hold me so dull. The people of this country are unfitted for king -or emperor. They would throw down a thousand thrones while you set up -one. I've studied races and peoples. Let me give you a word; it will -serve should you go to nation building. Never talk of crowns or thrones -to blue-eyed or gray-eyed men. They are inimical, in the very seeds of -their natures, to thrones and crowns." - -"England?" - -"England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland are monarchies only in name. -In fact and spirit they are republics. If you would have king or emperor -in very truth, you must go to your black-eyed folk. Setting this country -aside, if you cast a glance toward the southwest, you will behold a -people who should be the very raw materials of an empire." - -"Mexico!" exclaims the astonished Van Ness. - -"Ay, Mexico! There is nothing which Napoleon Bonaparte has done in -France, which Aaron Burr may not do in Mexico. I would have the flower -of this country at my back. Indeed, it should be easier to ascend the -throne of the Montezumas than of the Bourbons. I believe, too--for I -think he would feel safer with a brother emperor in the West--I might -count on Napoleon's help for that climbing. However, we overrun the -hunt"--Aaron seems to recall himself like one who comes out of a -dream--"I am thinking not on empire, but vengeance. I have thrown out a -rude picture of my plans, however, because I hope to have your company -in them. Also, I wanted to show how utterly in my heart I have given -up America and an American career. It is Mexico and the throne of an -emperor, not Washington and the chair of a President, at which I aim. I -am laying my foundations, not for four years, not for eight years, but -for life. I shall be Aaron I, Emperor of Mexico; with my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, to follow me as Aaron II. There; that should do for 'Aaron -and empire.'" This, with a return to the cynical: "Now let us get to -Hamilton and vengeance. The scoundrel has spat his toad-venom on my name -and fame for twenty years; the turn shall now be mine." - -Van Ness is silent; the glimpses he has been given of Aaron's high -designs have tied his tongue. - -Aaron gets out a letter. "Here," he says; "you will please carry that -to Hamilton. It marks the beginning of my revenge. I base it on excerpts -taken from a printed letter written by Dr. Cooper, who says: 'General -Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they look upon -Colonel Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted -with the reins of government. I could detail a still more despicable -opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Colonel Burr.' I -demand," concludes Aaron, "that he explain or account to me for having -furnished such an 'opinion' to Dr. Cooper." - -Van Ness purses up his lips, and knots his forehead cogitatively. - -"Why pitch upon this letter of Cooper's as a _casus belli?_" he asks at -last. "It is ambiguous, and involves a question of Cooper's construction -of English. If we had nothing better it might do; but there is no such -pressure. Hamilton, on many recent occasions, in speeches and in print, -has applied to you the lowest epithets." - -"You may recall, sir, that I once told you I was an artist of revenge. -It is this very ambiguity I'm after. I would hook the fellow--hook him -and play him as I would a fish! The man's a coward. I saw it written on -his face that day when, following 'Long Island,' he threw away his gun -and stores. By coming at him with this ambiguity, he will hope in the -beginning to secure himself by evasions. He will write; I shall respond; -there will be quite a correspondence. Days will drag along in agony and -torment to him. And all the time he cannot escape. From the moment I -send him that letter he is mine. It is as if I had him in a narrow -lane; he cannot get by me. On the other hand, if I come upon him, as you -suggest, with some undeniable charge, it will all be over in a moment. -He will be obliged at once to toe the peg. You now understand that I -design only in this letter to hook him hard and fast. When I have so -played him as to satisfy even my hatred, rest secure I'll reel him in. -He can no more avoid meeting me than he can avoid trembling when he -contemplates the dark promise of that meeting. His wife would despise -him, his very children cut him dead were he to creep aside." - -Van Ness goes with Aaron's letter to Hamilton. The latter, as he reads -it, cannot repress a start. The blood rushes from his face to his heart -and back again; for, as though the blind were made to see, he realizes -the snare into which he has walked--a snare that he himself has spread -to his own undoing. - -With an effort he commands his agitation. "You shall have my answer by -the hand of Mr. Pendleton," he says. - -Hamilton's reply, long and wordy, is two days on its way. As Aaron -foretold, it is wholly evasive, and comes in its analysis to be nothing -better than a desperate peering about for a hole through which its -author may crawl, and drag with him what he calls his honor. - -Aaron's reply closes each last loophole of escape. "Your letter," he -says, "has furnished me new reasons for requiring a definite reply." - -Hamilton reads his doom in this; and yet he cannot consent to the -sacrifice, but struggles on. He makes a second response, this time at -greater length than before. - -Aaron, implacable as Death, reads what Hamilton has written. - -"I think we should close the business," he says to Van Ness, as he gives -him Hamilton's letter. "It has been ten days since I sent my initial -note, and I have had enough of vengeance in anticipation. And so for the -last act." Aaron dispatches Van Ness with a peremptory challenge. There -being no gateway of relief, Hamilton is driven to accept. Even then -comes a cry for time; Hamilton asks that the hour of final meeting be -fixed ten further days away. Aaron smiles that pale smile of hatred made -content, and grants the prayed-for delay. - -The morning following the challenge and its acceptance, Pendleton -appears with another note from Hamilton--who obviously prefers pens to -pistols for the differences in hand. Aaron, smiling his pale smile of -contented hate, refuses to receive it. - -"There is," he observes, "no more to be said on either side, a challenge -having been given and accepted. The one thing now is to load the pistols -and step off the ground." - -It is four days later, and the fight six days away. Aaron and Hamilton -meet at a dinner given on Independence Day. Hamilton is hysterically -gay, and sings his famous song, "The Drum." Also, he never once looks at -Aaron, who, dark and lowering and silent, the black serpent sparkle -in his eye, seldom shifts his gaze from Hamilton. Aaron's stare, -remorseless, hungrily steadfast, is the stare of the tiger as it sights -its prey. - -Dr. Hosack calls on Aaron, where the latter sits alone at Richmond Hill. -Wine is brought; the good doctor takes a nervous glass. He has a rosy, -social face, has the good doctor, a face that tells of friendships and -the genial board. Just now, however, he is out of spirits. Desperately -setting down his wineglass, he flounders into the business that has -brought him. - -"I can hardly excuse my coming," he says, "and I apologize before I -state my errand. I would have you believe, too, that my presence here is -entirely by my own suggestion." - -Aaron bows. - -The good doctor explains that he has been called upon to go, -professionally, to the fighting ground with Hamilton. - -"That is how I became aware," he concludes, "of what you have in train. -I resolved to see you, and make one last effort at a peaceful solution." - -Aaron coldly shakes his head: "There can be no adjustment." - -"Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!" - -"Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to -him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered -me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!" The good -doctor looks guiltily uneasy. "And now I am asked to sit down with the -scorn he has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur -to you, sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: -Should he fall, there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I -fall, the blow descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those -the slender shoulders of a girl." - -There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way. - -The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights -of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over -the bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes -his barge at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his -friend Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy -shelf, under the somber Weehawken heights. - -The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend -Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place -of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches -his hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word -and choice of position. - -Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the -up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is -given the other end. The word is to be: - -"Present!--one--two--three--stop!" As the two stand in position, Aaron -is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man already lost. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range. - -"Gentlemen, are you ready?". - -"Ready!" says Aaron. - -"Ready!" says Hamilton. - -There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes: - -"Present!-------" - -There is a flash and a roar!--a double flash, a double roar! The smoke -curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels, clutches at -nothing, and pitches forward on his face--shot through and through. The -Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron's head. - -Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like -a man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk -toss aside a tool when the work is done--well done. Then he walks down -to his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful -cedars are smiling just across the river. - -"It was worth the price, Van Ness," says Aaron. "The taste of that -immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die -out in my heart." - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO - - -AARON sits placidly serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his -cigar, he reduces those dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out -his design as architects draw plans and specifications for a house. His -friends call--Van Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and -Washington. - -Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a -prodigious hubbub of mourning--demonstrative if not deeply sincere. -Hamilton, broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. -Was he not a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? -Therefore, come folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it -an opportunity to prove themselves of the town's Vere de Veres. There -dwells fashionable advantage in tear-shedding at the going out of an -illustrious name. Such tear-shedding provides the noble inference -that the illustrious one was "of us." Alive to this, those of would-be -fashion lapse into sackcloth and profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and -the ashes ashes of roses. Also they arrange a public funeral at Trinity, -and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local Mark Antony, to deliver an oration. - -To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended -grief of Aaron's Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of -Hamilton for Aaron's political destruction. - -At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his -empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or -spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on -the ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn's shaven -borders in front of Richmond Hill. - -The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, -stubborn Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful -one says "Good-by!" and returns; Aaron is received by his friend -Commodore Truxton. With Truxton he talks "empire" all night. He counts -on English ships, he says; being promised in secret by British Minister -Merry in Washington. Truxton shall command that fleet. - -Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for -Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls "Celeste," and to -whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in -Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton's scandalized _American Citizen_: -"He walks openly about the streets!" - -Then to St. Simon's off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite -Southern circles; and, from St. Simon's across to South Carolina and -the noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the -summer wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love. - -With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the -grave togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going -out of Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During -those three Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, -goes among friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or -glance averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete -to do him honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of -farewell, and men pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. -So he steps down from American official life; but not from American -interest. - -Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of -empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers--the -Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du -Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their -words are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary -of civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for -conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West -beyond the Mississippi. - -It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside -the rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave -Peter intrudes his black face to announce: - -"Gen'man comin'-up, sah!" - -Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun -Cow, with as little ceremony. - -As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway. - -"Come in, General," says Aaron. - -General Wilkinson is among Aaron's older acquaintances. They were -together at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in -an hour of Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that -throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson -is in present command of the military forces of the United States in the -Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of -that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron's plans. - -The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron's genial "Come in." Its owner -takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, -which the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a -glass of whisky. - -Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain, -bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that -tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat -exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid -that speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining -with bear's grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes -a composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger -liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg. - -The stubborn Swartwout doesn't like him. On a late occasion he expresses -that dislike. - -"To be frank, Chief," observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of -Aaron's headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as -"Chief"--"to be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked -as a dog's hind leg." - -"You are right, sir," says Aaron; "he is both dishonest and treacherous. -It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by 'blabbing' -them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and -treacherous is Wilkinson." - -[Illustration: 0273] - -"Why, then, do you trust him?" - -"Why do I trust him?" repeats Aaron. "For several sufficient reasons. He -has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as -I am with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New -Orleans; and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, -he commands the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count -his dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should -become of importance in my enterprise. - -"As how?" demands the mystified Buck-tail. - -"As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice -will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His -treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies -that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor -me. Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war -department here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual -rles of filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this -government, he is certain to be often in collision with himself." - -The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference -to Aaron's will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the -whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep. - -Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron's fire, sits in happy -ignorance of the distrustful Bucktail's views. Confident as to his own -high importance, he plunges freely into Aaron's plans. - -"Five hundred," says Aaron, "full five hundred are agreed to go; and -I have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should -crowd round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is -to purchase eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from -which to operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My -excuse for recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to -settle on those eight hundred thousand Washita acres." - -"Eight hundred thousand acres!" This, between sips of whisky: "That -should take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?" - -"It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from -everywhere--but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to -mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million." - -"How do you succeed with the English?" asks Wilkinson, taking a new -direction. - -"It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me -yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, -to return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans. -Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz, -where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera -Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico." - -Wilkinson helps himself to another glass. - -Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger. - -"Well," he observes, "it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I'll -make you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches -and almost the wisdom of Solomon. He'll embrace the enterprise; once he -does he'll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; -with his merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in -provisions in Vera Cruz." - -"That is well bethought," cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle. - -"Clark's relations with the bishop are likewise close," adds Wilkinson. - -Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction. - -"Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time -with a claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a -republic?" - -"The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the 'Empire of -Mexico.' I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made -hereditary in the male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, heir presumptive." - -"And I?" interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol -and interest. "What are to be my rank and powers?" - -"You will be generalissimo of the army." - -"Second only to you?" - -"Second only to me. Here; I've drawn an outline of the civil fabric -we're to set up. The government, as I've said, is to be imperial, myself -emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who -will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor; -Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees -and secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess -mother of the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; -Truxton, lord high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, -ministers, consuls, and the usual furniture of government. The grandees -should be limited to one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring -with us. There may be minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and -friendly among the natives." - -Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of -the night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his -leave, he says: - -"We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to -follow in two weeks, you say?" - -"Yes," responds Aaron. "There should be months of travel ahead, before -my arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith -in Ohio, Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New -Orleans, and arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. -In my running about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as -questions come up." - -"I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don't forget two several -matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the -civil as well as the military control of the empire, I'm to be second to -no one save yourself." - -"I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill -to-morrow for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and -signed." - -"Oh, we shall find money enough," returns Wilkinson contentedly. "Only -it's well never to lose sight of the fact that we're going to need it. -Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome--something -that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank -of generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could -ask. Popularly," concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his -leave--"popularly, I shall be known as 'Wilkinson the Deliverer.' -Coming, as I shall, at the head of those gallant conquering armies which -are to relieve the groaning Mexicans from the yoke of Spain, I think it -a natural and an appropriate title--'Wilkinson the Deliverer!'" - -"Not only an appropriate title," observes the courtly Aaron, who -remembers his generalissimo's recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, "but -admirably adapted to fill the trump of fame." - -The door closes on the broad back of the coming "Deliverer." As Aaron -again bends over his "Empire," he hears that personage's footsteps, -uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious -prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen. - -"Bah!" mutters Aaron; "Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous -and disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation -of this conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my -situation, I am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, -if Jefferson were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of -abstractions, bookshelves and alcoves!--a closet philosopher in whose -veins runs no drop of red aggressive fighting blood!--he would as soon -think of treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into -the error of imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me -for that presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of -his own unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the -natural child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust -him. His judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most -innocent act a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making -Aaron Burr an outlaw." - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--THE TREASON OF WILKINSON - - -NOW begin days crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends -the Potomac, and crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined -flatboat and floats down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, -romantic, eccentric, living on an island below. He visits the island; -the lord of the isle is absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, -not beautiful, welcomes him and bids him come again. - -Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, -where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find -General Jackson--his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served -colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King. - -Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. -Processions march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of -oxen, drinking of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; -and all after the hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero -in its clutches. - -To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of -Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. -Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon's hate; each is a Francis Drake at -bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal -pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make -clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them -less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals -with folk who are congenital republicans. - -The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into -Aaron's plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow -him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in -Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious -culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson -himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson. - -Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does -not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam -Houston--the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in his -ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with -his sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the -bedplates of an empire truly; but not _his_ empire--not the empire -of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on the -grave's edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart will -warm at the news of it, and know it for his work. - -Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets -Wilkinson, who--nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul--is as much in -ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The only -change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to whether, -instead of "Wilkinson the Deliverer," he might not better fill the -wondering measure of futurity as "Washington of the West." Both titles -are full of majesty--a thing important to a taste streaked of rum--but -the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson -says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, -committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both. - -Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight -hundred miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The -latter city is a bubbling community of nine thousand souls--American, -Spanish, French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, -up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a -more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a -whole roast ox. - -The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It -is agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston's, Clark shall be -of the grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New -Orleans, and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy -out the land. For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not -fostered the Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not -only be protected, but become the national Church. - -Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, -keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill -along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom -he sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the -coming work. - -[Illustration: 0287] - -Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron -heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight -he spends with that muddled exile, he wins him--life and fortune. -Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell -of the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, -feels with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will -be a grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire -of Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing -himself at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of -anticipation the exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends. - -"Ay! they'll change their tune!" cries Blennerhassett, as he considers -his greatness to come. "It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when -they meet me as 'Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, -Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.' -It'll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their -mouths; for I cannot remember that they've been over-respectful to me in -the past." - -Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. -He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his -plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat's table! -Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that. - -While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the -fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one -returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to -Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston -join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as -the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads -for the West. There will be no return--the lustrous Theo and the heir -presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law -Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, -promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan -on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson's -interference with the exportation of rice. - -Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and -kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present -headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to -Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and -north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one -hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, -and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland -flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand -dollars--a royal sum!--with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in -outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise. - -Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, -he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he -forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who -is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and -decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley -in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson--as suspicious as -any Morgan! - -Having aroused Morgan the wrong way, - -Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight -hundred thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate -transaction, he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a -suggestion. As commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into -the Spanish country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians -into a clash. Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the -Spaniards and the United States, a war fury will seize the country, and -furnish an admirable background of sentiment for his own descent upon -Mexico. Wilkinson, full of bottle valor, receives Aaron's suggestion -with rapture, and starts for the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the -Sabine, to bring down the desired trouble, Aaron again pushes up for -Blennerhassett and that exile's island. - -While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the -soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the -papers, descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with -milk and honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming -ambassador buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on -the island. They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon -the broad Ohio in those fifteen Marietta bateaux. - -Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and -Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that -Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has -moved the court at Frankfort for an order "commanding the appearance -of Aaron Burr." The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious -Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground. - -Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs -to Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into -court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but -does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give -their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a -ball in his honor. - -Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach -completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with -letters to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards -on the Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When -Swartwout and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta -preparations, urging speed with those bateaux. - -Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron's letters. -These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice -and native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built -up doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the -conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. -Why should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for -betraying Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the -Credulous Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico -but the United States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose -as the saviour of his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his -country, what might not he demand?--what might not he receive? Surely, a -saved country, even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful! - -The red-nosed one's genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends -posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to -break up the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the -revolt. Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the -shorter cut to that coveted title, "Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington -of the West." Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! -Wilkinson the red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging -Aaron and his scheme of empire into ruin. - -While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance -concerning them, is driving matters with a master's hand at Marietta and -the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves, -with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which -call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand -acres. Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson. - -At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a -Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of -frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States -west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on -peril of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, -treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, -Samuel Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to -Baltimore, to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all -his fortitude to command himself. - -The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of -doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; -after which he calls into counsel his attorney general. - -The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He -believes that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country's -integrity threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his -own sublime powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk -the treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor--nobly -willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on -the altars of a common good--bids him try what he can eloquently do. - -The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be -conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake -it would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant -territory of Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron -surrender without a struggle, and come into court and be tried. - -Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, -and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically -hailed by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand -dollars. - -The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue -grass, find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his -honorable release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, -to indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. -Cool counsel intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without -difficulty, are convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon -they content themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter -let "honest settlers" coming into the country alone. Having discharged -their duty in the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and -the governor draws a long breath of relief. - -Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson's anti-treason proclamation. The West -will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure -to be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his -enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, -it makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not -name him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will -supply the omission. - -There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and -yet Aaron's dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront -him. - -As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which -the perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go -to Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose, -mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out. - -It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of -Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets -Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes' study, Perkins is flooded of a -great light. - -"Aaron Burr!" he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart. - -Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours -later, as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines -and a sober file of soldiers. - -The captain salutes: - -"You are Colonel Burr," he says. "I arrest you by order of President -Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be -treated with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second -highest post of Government." - -"Sir," responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, "I am Colonel Burr. I -yield myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it -is not possible to do otherwise." Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the -fort. As the two dismount at the captain's quarters, a beautiful woman -greets them. - -"This is my wife, Colonel Burr," says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam -Gaines: "Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner." - -Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two -sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. -Aaron beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which -has cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is -forever thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant--the -beautiful Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! -Aaron is never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than -now when power and empire vanish for all time. - -"You appreciate my position, sir," says Captain Gaines, as they rise -from the table. "I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty." - -"Sir," returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, "I blame only the -hateful, thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in -trusting a scoundrel." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--HOW AARON IS INDICTED - - -IT is evening at the White House. The few dinner guests have departed, -and Jefferson is alone in his study. As he stands at the open window, -and gazes out across the sweep of lawn to the Potomac, shining like -silver in the rays of the full May moon, his face is cloudy and angry. -The face of the sage of Monticello has put aside its usual expression of -philosophy. In place of the calm that should reign there, the look which -prevails is one of narrowness, prejudice and wrathful passion. - -Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without -surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant. - -"Ah, Wirt!" he cries; "be seated, please. You got my note?" - -William Wirt is thirty-five--a clean, well-bred example of the -conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but -with the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the -reason of his White House presence. - -"Your note, Mr. President?" he repeats. "Oh, yes; I received it. What -you propose is highly flattering. And yet--and yet----" - -"And yet what, sir?" breaks in Jefferson impatiently. "Surely, I propose -nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to -conduct the case against Colonel Burr." - -"Nothing unusual, of course," returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen -political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what -he is about. "And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which -should be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the -Government's attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as -well as duty to prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled -upon him. Have you thought of Mr. Hay?" - -"Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity! -no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have -about him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, -sir; he seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, -he has done quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; -there is much depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr -must be convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and -set a monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single -item, must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to -be on trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be -'The People against Aaron Burr.' but 'The Federalists against Thomas -Jefferson.' Do you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as -much as is the Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, -will be on the bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their -instrument, Colonel Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a -support as George Hay. It is you who must conduct this cause." - -Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless -dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much -the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his -speech. - -"You surely do not mean to say," he begins, "that the chief justice----" - -"I mean to say," interrupts Jefferson, "that you must be ready to meet -every trick that Marshall can play against the Government. For all his -black robe, is he of different clay than any other? Believe me, he's -a Federalist long before he's a judge! Let me ask a question: Why did -Marshall, the chief justice, mind you, hold the preliminary examination -of Burr? Why, having held it, did he not commit him for treason? Why did -he hold him only for a misdemeanor, and admit him to bail? Does not -that look as though Marshall had taken possession of the case in Burr's -interest? You spoke a moment ago of the propriety of Hay prosecuting the -charge against Burr, being, as he is, the Government's attorney for that -district. Does not it occur to you that his honor, Judge Griffin, is the -judge for that district? And yet Marshall shoves him aside to make room -on the bench for himself. Sir, there is chicanery in this. We must watch -Marshall. A chief justice, indeed! A chief Federalist, rather! Why, he -even so much lacked selfrespect as to become a guest at a dinner given -in Colonel Burr's honor, after he had committed that traitor in ten -thousand dollars bail! An excellent, a dignified chief justice, -truly!--doing dinner table honor to one whom he must presently try for a -capital offense!" - -"Justice Marshall's appearance at the Burr dinner"--Wirt makes the -admission doubtfully--"was not, I admit, in the very flower of good -taste. None the less, I should infer honesty rather than baseness from -such appearance. If he contemplated any wrong in Colonel Burr's favor, -he would have remained away. Coming to the case itself," says Wirt, -anxious to avoid further discussion of Judge Marshall, as a topic -whereon he and Jefferson are not likely to agree, "what is the specific -act of treason with which the Government charges Colonel Burr?" - -"The conspiracy, wherein he was prime mover, aimed first to take Mexico -from, the Spanish. Having taken Mexico, the plotters--Colonel Burr at -the head--purposed seizing New Orleans. That would give them a hold -in the vast region drained by the Mississippi. Everything west of the -Alleghenies was expected to flock round their standards. With an -empire reaching from Darien to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific to the -Alleghenies, their final move was to be made upon Washington itself. -Sir, the Federalists hate this republic--have always hated it! What they -desire is a monarchy. They want a king, not a president, in the White -House." - -"I learn," observes Wirt--"I learn, since my arrival, that Colonel Burr -has been in Washington." - -"That was three days ago. He demanded copies of my orders to General -Wilkinson. When I prevented his obtaining them, he said he would move -for a _subpoena duces tecum_, addressed to me personally. Think of that, -sir! Can you conceive of greater impudence? He will sue out a subpoena -against the President of this country, and compel him to come into court -bringing the archives of Government!" - -Wirt shrugs his shoulders. "And why not, sir?" he asks at last. "In the -eye of the law a president is no more sacred than a pathmaster. A murder -might be committed in the White House grounds. You, looking from that -window, might chance to witness it--might, indeed, be the only witness. -You yourself are a lawyer, Mr. President. You will not tell me that an -innocent man, accused of murder, is to be denied your testimony?--that -he is to hang rather than ruffle a presidential dignity? What is the -difference between the case I've supposed and that against Colonel -Burr? He is to be charged with treason, you say! Very well; treason is a -hanging matter as much as murder." - -Jefferson and Wirt, step by step, go over the arrest of Aaron, and what -led to it. It is settled that Wirt shall control for the prosecution. -Also, when the Grand Jury is struck, he must see to it that Aaron is -indicted for treason. - -"Marshall has confined the inquiry," says Jefferson, "to what Burr -contemplated against Mexico--a mere misdemeanor! You, Wirt, must have -the Grand Jury take up that part of the conspiracy which was leveled -against this country. There is abundant testimony. Burr talked it to -Eaton in Washington, to Morgan in Ohio, to Wilkinson at Fort Massac." - -"You speak of his _talking_ treason," returns Wirt with a thoughtful, -non-committal air. "Did he anywhere or on any occasion _act_ it? Was -there any overt act of war?" - -"What should you call the doings at Blennerhassett Island?--the -gathering of men and stores?--the boat-building at Marietta and -Nashville? Are not those, taken with the intention, hostile acts?--overt -acts of war?" - -Wirt falls into deep study. "We must," he says after a moment's silence, -"leave those questions, I fear, for Justice Marshall to decide." - -Jefferson relates how he has written Governor Pinckney of South -Carolina, advising the arrest of Alston. - -"To be sure, Alston is not so bad as Colonel Burr," he observes, "for -the reason that he is not so big as Colonel Burr; just as a young -rattlesnake is not so venomous as an old one." Then, impressively: -"Wirt, Colonel Burr is a dangerous man! He will find his place in -history as the Catiline of America." - -Wirt cannot hide a smile. "It is but fair you should say so, Mr. -President, since at the Richmond hearing he spoke of you as a -presidential Jack Straw." Seeing that Jefferson does not enjoy the -reference, Wirt hastens to another subject. "Colonel Burr will have -formidable counsel. Aside from Wickham, and Botts, and Edmund Randolph, -across from Maryland will come Luther Martin." - -"Luther Martin!" cries Jefferson. "So they are to unloose that Federal -bulldog against me! But then the whisky-swilling beast is never sober." - -"No more safe as an adversary for that," retorts Wirt. "If I am ever -called upon to write Luther Martin's epitaph, I shall make it 'Ever -drunk and ever dangerous!'" - -On the bench sits Chief Justice Marshall--tall, slender--eyes as black -as Aaron's own--face high, dignified--brow noble, full--the whole -man breathing distinction. By his side, like some small thing lost in -shadow, no one noticing him, no one addressing him, a picture of silent -humility, sits District Judge Griffin. - -For the Government comes Wirt, sneering, harsh--as cold and hard and -fine and keen as thrice-tempered steel. With him is Hay--slow, pompous, -of much respectability and dull weakness. Assisting Wirt and Hay and -filling a minor place, is one McRae. - -Leading for the defense, is Aaron himself--confident, unshaken. -Already he has begun to relay his plans of Mexican conquest. He assures -Blennerhassett, who is with him, that the present interruption should -mean no more than a time-waste of six months. With Aaron sit Edmund -Randolph, the local Nestor; Wickham, clear, sure of law and fact; and -Botts, the Bayard of the Richmond bar. Most formidable is Aaron's rear -guard, the thunderous Luther Martin--coarse, furious, fearless--gay -clothes stained and soiled--ruffles foul and grimy--eye fierce, -bleary, bloodshot--nose bulbous, red as a carbuncle--a hoarse, roaring, -threatening voice--the Thersites of the hour. Never sober, he rolls into -court as drunk as a Plantagenet. Ever dangerous, he reads, hears, -sees everything, and forgets nothing. Quick, rancorous, headlong as a -fighting bull, he lowers his horns against Wirt, whenever that polished -one puts himself within forensic reach. Also, for all his cool, sneering -skill, Toreador Wirt never meets the charge squarely, but steps aside -from it. - -Apropos of nothing, as Martin takes his place by the trial table, he -roars out: - -"Why is this trial ordered for Richmond? Why is it not heard in -Washington? It is by command of Jefferson, sir. He thinks that in -his own State of Virginia, where he is invincible and Colonel Burr a -stranger, the name of 'Jefferson' will compel a verdict of guilt. There -is fairness for you!" - -Wirt glances across, but makes no response to the tirade; for Martin, -purple of face, snorting ferociously, seems only waiting a word from him -to utter worse things. - -The Grand Jury is chosen: foreman, John Randolph of Roanoke--sour, -inimical, hateful, voice high and spiteful like the voice of a -scolding woman! The Grand Jury is sent to its room to deliberate as to -indictments, while the court adjourns for the day. - -It is well into the evening when the parties in interest leave the -courtroom. As Wirt and Hay, arm in arm, are crossing the courthouse -green, they become aware of an orator who, loud of tone and careless of -his English, is addressing a crowd from the steps of a corner grocery. -Just as the two arrive within earshot, the orator, lean, hawklike of -face, tosses aloft a rake-handle arm, and shouts: - -"When Jefferson says that Colonel Burr is a traitor, Jefferson lies in -his throat!" The crowd applaud enthusiastically. - -Hay looks at Wirt. "Who is the fellow?" he asks. - -"Oh! he's a swashbuckler militia general," returns Wirt, carelessly. -"He's a low fellow, I'm told; his name is Andrew Jackson. He was one of -Colonel Burr's confederates. They say he's the greatest blackguard in -Tennessee." - -Just now, did some Elijah touch the Wirtian elbow and tell of a day -to come when he, Wirt, will be driven to resign that coveted attorney -generalship into the presidential hands of the "blackguard," who will -receive it promptly, and dismiss him into private life no more than half -thanked for what public service he has rendered, the ambitious Virginian -would hold the soothsayer to be a madman, not a prophet. - -Scores upon scores of witnesses are sent one by one to the Grand Jury. -The days run into weeks. Every hour the question is asked: "Where is -Wilkinson?" The red-nosed one is strangely, exasperatingly absent. - -Wirt seeks to explain that absence. The journey is long, he says. He -will pledge his honor for the red-nosed one's appearance. - -Meanwhile the friends of Aaron pour in from North and West and South. -The stubborn, faithful Swartwout is there, with his brother Samuel; -for, Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden and Adair and Bollman, shipped -aforetime per schooner to Baltimore by the red-nosed one as traitors, -have been declared innocent, and are all in Richmond attending upon -their chief. - -One morning the whisper goes about that "Wilkinson is here." The -whisper is confirmed by the red-nosed one's appearance in court. Young -Washington Irving, who has come down from New York in the interest of -Aaron, writes concerning that red-nosed advent: - -_Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line -with Colonel Burr. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey -cock, and bracing himself to meet Colonel Burr's eye. The latter took no -notice of him, until Judge Marshall directed the clerk to "swear General -Wilkinson." At the mention of the name, Colonel Burr turned and looked -him full in the face, with one of his piercing regards, swept him from -head to foot, and then went on conversing with his counsel as before. -The whole look was over in a moment; and yet it was admirable. There -was no appearance of study or constraint, no affectation of disdain -or defiance; only a slight expression of contempt played across -the countenance, such as one might show on seeing a person whom one -considers mean and vile._ - -That evening Samuel Swartwout meets the red-nosed one, as the latter -warrior is strutting on the walk for the admiration of men, and -thrusts him into a mud hole. The lean Jackson is so delighted at this -disposition of the rednosed one, that he clasps the warlike Swartwout -in his rake-handle arms. Later, by twenty-two years, he will make him -collector of the port of New York for it. Just now, however, he advises -a duel, holding that the mudhole episode will be otherwise incomplete. - -Since Swartwout has had the duel in his mind from the beginning, he and -the lean Jackson combine in the production of a challenge, which is duly -sent to the red-nosed one in the name of Swartwout. The red-nosed one -has no heart for duels, and crawls from under the challenge by saying, -"I refuse to hold communication with a traitor." Thereupon Swartwout, -with the lean Jackson to aid him, again lapses into the clerical, and -prints the following gorgeous outburst in the _Richmond Gazette:_ - -_Brigadier General Wilkinson: Sir: When once the chain of infamy -grapples to a knave, every new link creates a fresh sensation of -detestation and horror. As it gradually or precipitately unfolds itself, -we behold in each succeeding connection, and arising from the same -corrupt and contaminated source, the same base and degenerated -conduct. I could not have supposed that you would have completed the -catalogue of your crimes by adding to the guilt of treachery forgery and -perjury the accomplishment of cowardice. Having failed in two different -attempts to procure an interview with you, such as no gentleman of honor -could refuse, I have only to pronounce and publish you to the world as a -coward._ - -_Samuel Swartwout._ - -The Grand Jury comes into court, and by the shrill mouth of Foreman -Randolph reports two indictments against Aaron: one for treason, "as -having levied war against the United States," and one for "having levied -war upon a country, to wit, Mexico, with which the United States are at -peace"--the latter a misdemeanor. - - - - -CHAPTER XX--HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT - - -THE indictments are read, and Aaron pleads "Not guilty!" Thereupon -Luther Martin moves for a _subpoena duces tecum_ against Jefferson, -commanding him to bring into court those written orders from the files -of the War Department, which he, as President and _ex officio_ commander -in chief of the army, issued to the red-nosed Wilkinson. Arguing the -motion, the violent Martin proceeds in these words: - -"We intend to show that these orders were contrary to the Constitution -and the laws. We intend to show that by these orders Colonel Burr's -property and person were to be destroyed; yes, by these tyrannical -orders the life and property of an innocent man were to be exposed to -destruction. This is a peculiar case, sirs. President Jefferson has -undertaken to prejudge my client by declaring that 'of his guilt there -can be no doubt!' He has assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme -Being, and pretended to search the heart of my client. He has proclaimed -him a traitor in the face of the country. He has let slip the dogs of -war, the hell-hounds of persecution, to hunt down my client. And now, -would the President of the United States, who has himself raised all -this clamor, pretend to keep back the papers wanted for a trial where -life itself is at stake? It is a sacred principle that the accused has a -right to the evidence needed for his defense, and whosoever--whether -he be a president or some lesser man--withholds such evidence is -substantially a murderer, and will, be so recorded in the register of -heaven." - -Argument ended, Marshall, chief justice, sustains the motion. He holds -that the _subpoena duces tecum_ may issue, and goes so far as to say -that, if it be necessary to the ends of justice, the personal attendance -of Jefferson himself shall be compelled. - -The charge is treason, and no bail can be taken; Aaron must be locked -up. The Governor of Virginia offers as a place of detention a superb -suite of rooms, meant for official occupation, on the third floor of the -penitentiary building. Marshall, chief justice, accepting such proffer, -orders Aaron's confinement in the superb official suite. Aaron takes -possession, stocks the larder, loads the sideboards, and, with a cloud -of servitors, gives a dinner party to twenty friends. - -The lustrous Theo arrives, and makes her residence with Aaron in -the official suite, as lady of the establishment. Each day a hundred -visitors call, among them the aristocracy of the town. Also dinner -follows dinner; the official suite assumes a gala, not to say a gallant -look, and no one would think it a prison, or dream for one urbane -moment that Aaron--that follower of the gospel according to Lord -Chesterfield--is fighting for his life. - -Following the order for the _subpoena duces tecum_, and Aaron's -dinner-giving incarceration in the official suite, Marshall, chief -justice, directs that court be adjourned until August--a month away. - -Wirt, during the vacation, goes over to Washington. He finds Jefferson -in a mood of double anger. - -"What did I tell you," cries Jefferson--"what did I tell you of -Marshall?" Then he rushes on to the utterances of the violent Luther -Martin. "Shall you not move," he demands, "to commit Martin as -_particeps criminis_ with Colonel Burr? There should be evidence to fix -upon him misprision of treason, at least. At any rate, such a step would -put down our impudent Federal bulldog, and show that the most clamorous -defenders of Colonel Burr are one and all his accomplices." - -Meanwhile, the "impudent Federal bulldog" attends a Fourth-of-July -dinner in Baltimore. Every man at table, save himself, is an adherent of -Jefferson. Eager to demonstrate that loyal fact to the administration, -sundry of the guests make speeches full of uncompliment for Martin, and -propose a toast: - -"Aaron Burr! May his treachery to his country exalt him to the -scaffold!" - -More speeches, replete of venom, are aimed at Martin; whereupon that -undaunted drunkard gets upon his feet. - -"Who is this Aaron Burr," he roars, "whose guilt you have pronounced, -and for whose blood your parched throats so thirst? Was not he, a -few years back, adored by you next to your God? Were not you then his -warmest admirers? Did not he then possess every virtue? He was then in -power. He had influence. You were proud of his notice. His merest smile -brightened all your faces. His merest frown lengthened all your visages. -Go, ye holiday, ye sunshine friends!--ye time-servers, ye criers of -hosannah to-day and crucifiers to-morrow!--go; hide your heads from the -contempt and detestation of every honorable, every right-minded man!" - -August: The day of trial arrives. Wirt, with the dull, deferent Hay, has -gone over the testimony against Aaron, and arranged the procession -of its introduction. Wirt will begin far back. By the mouth of the -red-nosed Wilkinson--somewhat in hiding from Swartwout--and by others, -he will relate from the beginning Aaron's dream of Mexican conquest. -He will show how the vision grew and expanded until it reacted upon the -United States, and the downfall of Washington became as much parcel of -Aaron's design as was the capture of Mexico. He will trace Aaron through -his many conferences in Washington, in Marietta, in Nashville, in -Cincinnati; and then on to New Orleans, where he is closeted with -Merchant Clark and the Bishop of Louisiana. - -And so the parties go into court. - -The jury being sworn, Marshall, chief justice, at once overthrows those -well-laid plans of Wirt. - -"You must go to the act, sir," says Marshall. - -"Treason, like murder, is an act. You can't think treason, you can't -plot treason, you can't talk treason; you can only act it. In murder you -must first prove the killing--the murderous act, before you may offer -evidence of an intent. And so in treason. You must begin by proving the -overt act of war against the country, before I can permit evidence of an -intent which led up to it." - -This ruling throws Wirt abroad in his calculations. The "Federal -bulldog" Martin grows vulgarly gleeful, Wirt correspondingly glum. - -Being prodded by Marshall, chief justice, Wirt declares that the "act -of war" was the assembling of forty armed men, under one Taylor, at -Blennerhassett Island. They stopped at the island but a moment, and -Aaron himself was in Lexington. None the less there were forty of them; -they were armed; they were there by design and plan of Aaron, with an -ultimate purpose of levying war against this Government. Wirt urges that -constructive war was at that very island moment being waged, with Aaron -personally absent but constructively present, and constructively waging -such war. - -At this setting forth, Marshall, chief justice, puckers his lips, as -might one who thinks the argument far-fetched and overfinely spun. -Martin, the "Federal bulldog," does not scruple to laugh outright. - -"Was ever heard such hash!" cries Martin. "Men may bear arms without -waging war! Forty men no more mean war than four! Men may float down -the Ohio, and still no war be waged. Because the hypochondriac Jefferson -imagined war, we are to receive the thing as _res adjudicata_, and -now give way while a pleasantly concocted tale, of that carnage of a -presidential nightmare, is recited from the witness box. Sirs, you are -not to fiddle folk onto a scaffold to any such tune as that, though a -president furnish the music." - -Marshall, chief justice, still with pursed lips and knotted forehead, -directs Wirt to proceed with his evidence of what, at Blennerhassett -Island, he relies upon to constitute, constructively or otherwise, a -state of war. Having heard the evidence, he will pass upon the points of -law presented. - -Wirt, desperate because he may do no better, puts forward one Eaton as -a witness. The latter tells a long, involved story, which sounds vastly -like fiction and not at all like fact, of conversations with Aaron. -Aaron brings out in cross examination, that within ten days after -he, Eaton, went with this tale to Jefferson, a claim for ten thousand -dollars, which he had been pressing without success against the -Government, was paid. Aaron suggests that Eaton, to induce payment -of such claim, invented his narrative; and the suggestion is plainly -acceptable to the jury. - -Following Eaton, Wirt calls Truxton; and next the suspicious Morgan, -who first wrote to Jefferson touching Aaron and his plans. Then -follow Blennerhassett's gardener and groom, and one Woodbridge, -Blennerhassett's man of business. Wirt, by these, proves Aaron's -frequent presence on the island; the boats building at Marietta; the -advent of Taylor with his forty armed men, and there the relation ends. -In all--the testimony, not a knife is ground, not a flint is picked, not -a rifle fired; the forty armed men do not so much as indulge in drill. -For all they said or did or acted, the forty might have been explorers, -or sightseers, or settlers, or any other form of peaceful whatnot. - -"I suppose," observes Marshall, chief justice, bending his black eyes -warningly upon Wirt--"I suppose it unnecessary to instruct counsel that -guilt will not be presumed?" - -Wirt replies stiffly that counsel for the Government, at least, require -no instructions; whereat Martin the "Federal bulldog" barks hoarsely -up, that what counsel for the Government most require, and are most -deficient in, is a case and the evidence of it. Wirt pays no heed to -the jeer, but announces that under the ruling of the court, made before -evidence was introduced, he has nothing more to offer touching acts of -overt war. He rests his case, he says, on that point; and thereupon, the -defense take issue with him. The Government, Aaron declares, has failed -to make out even the shadow of a treason. There is nothing which demands -reply; he will call no witnesses. - -Marshall, chief justice, directs that the arguments to the jury be -proceeded with. Wirt is heard. Being imaginative, and having no facts, -he unchains his fancy and paints a paradise, whereof Aaron is the -serpent and Blennerhassett and his moon-visaged spouse are Adam and Eve. -It is a beautiful picture, and might be effective did it carry any grain -of truth. However, it is well received by the jury as a romance full -of entertaining glow and glitter; and then it is put aside from serious -consideration. - -While Wirt the fanciful is thus coloring his invented paradise, with -Aaron as the serpent and the Blennerhassetts the betrayed Adam and Eve, -the "betrayed" Blennerhassett, sitting by Aaron's side, is reading the -"serpent" a letter, that day received from Madam Blennerhassett. The -missive closes: - -"Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and -Theo's kind remembrances. Tell him to assure her that she has inspired -me with a warmth of attachment that never can diminish." - -On the oratorical back of Wirt come Wickham, Hay, Randolph, Botts, -and McRae. Lastly Martin is heard, the "Federal bulldog" seizing the -occasion to bay Jefferson even more violently than before. When they -are done, Marshall, chief justice, lays down the law as to what should -constitute an "overt act of war"; and, since it is plain, even to the -court crier, that no such act has been proven, the jury hurry forward a -finding: - -"Not guilty!" - -Jefferson, full of prejudice, hears the news. He writes wrathfully to -Wirt: - -"Let no witness depart without taking a copy of his evidence, which is -now more important than ever. The criminal Burr is preserved, it seems, -to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worthless of -the United States, and to be the pivot on which all the conspiracies and -intrigues, that foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to -turn. There is still, however, the misdemeanor; and, if he be convicted -of that, Judge Marshall must, for very decency, give us some respite by -a confinement of him; but we must expect it to be very short." There -is a day's recess; then the charge of "levying war against Mexico" is -called. The red-nosed Wilkinson now tells his story; and is made -to admit--the painful sweat standing in great drops upon his purple -visage--that he has altered in important respects several of Aaron's -letters. Being, by his own mouth, a forger, the jury marks its estimate -of the red-nosed one by again acquitting Aaron, and pronouncing a second -finding: "Not guilty!" - -Thus ends the great trial which has rocked a continent. Aaron is free; -his friends crowd about him jubilantly, while the loving, lustrous Theo -weeps upon his shoulder. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI--THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. - - -SIX months creep by; May is painting Manhattan with its flowers. The -house of the stubborn, loyal Swartwout is in Stone Street. Long ago, -in the old Dutch beaver-peltry days, the home of the poet Steen-dam was -there. Now it is the dwelling place of John Swartwout, and Aaron is his -guest. - -The lustrous Theo is with Aaron this sunny afternoon, luster something -dimmed; for the hour is one sad and tearful with parting. It is a last -parting; though the pair--the loving father! the adoring, clinging -daughter!--hopefully, happily blind, believe otherwise. - -"Yes," Aaron is saying, "I must sail tonight. The ship is at anchor in -the lower bay." Theo, the lustrous, is too bravely the child of Aaron -to break into lamentation, though the wrung heart fills her eyes with -tears. "And should your plans fail," she says, "you will come to us at -the 'Oaks.' Joseph, you know, is no longer 'Mr. Alston,' but 'Governor -Alston.' As father to the Governor of the State, and with your own high -name, you may take what place you will in South Carolina. You promise, -do you not? If by any trip of fortune your prospects are overthrown, you -will come to us in the South?" - -"But, dearling, my plans will not fail. I have had letters from Lords -Mulgrave and Castlereagh, I bear with me the indorsement of the British -Minister in Washington. Openly or secretly, England will support my -project with men and money and ships. If, in some caprice of politics or -a changing cabinet, she should refuse, I shall seek Napoleon. Mexico and -an empire!--that should match finely the native color of his Corsican -feeling." - -Night draws on; Aaron and the lustrous Theo say the sorrowful words of -separation, and within the hour he is aboard the _Clarissa_, outward -bound for England. - -In London, full of new fire, Aaron throws away no time. Each day he -is closeted with Mulgrave, Castlereagh and Canning. He goes to Holland -House, and its noble master is seized with the fever for Montezuman -conquest. The inventive Earl of Bridgewater--who is radical and goes -readily to novel enterprises--catches the Mexican fury. The spirit of -Cortez is abroad; the nobility of England fall quickly in with Aaron's -Western design. It will mean an augmentation of the world's peerage. -Also, Mexico should furnish an admirable grazing ground for second sons. -Aaron's affairs go swimmingly; he is full of hopeful anticipation. He -writes the lustrous Theo at the "Oaks" that, "save for the unforeseen," -little Aaron Burr Alston shall yet wear an imperial crown as Aaron II. - -Save for the unforeseen! The reservation is well put in. As Aaron sits -in conference, one foggy London evening, with Mulgrave and Castlereagh, -who have become principal figures in those Mexican designs, Canning -comes hurriedly in. - -"I am from the Foreign Office," says he, "and I come with bad news. -There is a lion in our path--two lions. Secret news was just received -that Napoleon has driven the king and queen from Madrid, and established -his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Mexico by that: stroke belongs -to the Bonapartes; they will hardly consent to its loss." - -"That is one lion," observes Mulgrave; "now for the other." - -"The other is England," proceeds Canning. "Already we are mustering our -forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are -to become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish -power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain's ally, fighting her -battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit -the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon." - -Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. -He understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is -through talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No -chance now of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so -bright but the moment before, are on the instant darkened. - -"Delay! always delay!" he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the -chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and -quickly pulls himself together. "Yes," says he, "the word you bring -shuts double doors against us. The best we may do is wait--wait for -Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across -the Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again." - -"Indubitably," returns Canning. "Should England save Spain from the -Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico -as a recompense for her exertions." - -Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron -compelled to fold away his ambitions. - -While waiting the turn of fortune's wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his -leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. "The celebrated Colonel -Burr!" is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as -instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It -shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks. - -Jeremy Bentham--honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for bettering -governments--finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham loves admiration -and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from letter-writing friends -in America that "the celebrated Colonel Burr" reads his works with -satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy, praise-loving Bentham, -and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow Green. - -"You," cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the "celebrated Colonel -Burr" as a member of his family--"you and Albert Gallatin are the -only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common -mind--which is as dull and crawling as a tortoise--my theories travel -too fast." - -Aaron lives with Bentham--fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham--now at -Barrow Green, now at the philosopher's London house in Queen Square -Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William -Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with -Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal: - -"Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb's. He is a writer, and lives with a -maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs." - -At the Lambs he encounters Faseli the painter; and thereupon Aaron, -the Godwins, Faseli, and the Lambs brew a bowl of punch, and thresh out -questions social, artistic, literary, and political until the hours grow -small. - -Cobbett talks with Aaron; and straight off runs to Bentham with the -suggestion that they send him to Parliament. Aaron laughs. - -"I'm afraid," says he, "that whatever may be my genius for law-giving, -it would fit but badly with English prejudice and English inclination. -You would find me in the British Commons but a sorry case of a square -peg in a round hole." - -That Aaron is the fashion at Holland House, which is the gathering point -of opposition to Government, does not help him at the Home Office. Also, -the Spanish allies of England, through their minister, complain. - -"He is fomenting his Mexican design," cries the Spaniard. "It shows but -poorly for England's friendship that she harbors him, and that he is -feted and feasted by her nobility." - -Lord Hawkesbury leans to the Spanish view. He will assert his powers -under the "Alien Act." It will please the Spaniards. Likewise, it will -offend Holland House. Two birds; one stone. Hawkesbury sends a request -that Aaron call upon him at his office; and Aaron calls. - -"This, you will understand," observes Hawkesbury, "is not a personal -but an official interview, Colonel Burr. I might hope to make it more -pleasant were it personal. Speaking as one of the crown's secretaries, I -must notify you to quit England." - -"What is your authority for this?" asks Aaron. - -"You will find it in the 'Alien Act.' Under that statute, Government -is invested with power to order the departure of any alien without -assigning cause." - -"Precisely! Your Government is now engaged in searching American ships -for English sailors. It was, I recall, the basis of bitter complaint in -America when I left. In seizing those whom you call English sailors and -subjects, you refuse to recognize their naturalization as citizens of -America. Do I state the fact?" - -"Assuredly! No Englishman has a right to shift his allegiance from his -king. That is British doctrine. Once a subject, always a subject." - -"The very point!" returns Aaron. "Once a subject, always a subject. I -suppose you will not deny that I was in 1756 born in New Jersey, then a -province of England. I was born a British subject, was I not?" - -"There is no doubt of that." - -"Then, sir, being born a British subject, under your doctrine of 'Once a -subject, always a subject,' I am still a British subject. Therefore, -I am no alien. Therefore, I do not fall within the description of your -'Alien Act.' You can hardly order me to quit England as an alien at the -very moment when you say I am a British subject. My lord"--this with a -smile like a warning--"the story, if told in the papers, would get your -lordship laughed at." - -Hawkesbury falls back baffled. He keeps his face, however, and tells -Aaron the matter may rest until he further considers it. - -Aaron visits Oxford, and is wined and dined by the grave college heads. -He talks Bentham and religion to his hosts, and they fall to amiable -disagreement with him. - -"We then," he writes in his journal, "got upon American politics and -geography, upon which subjects a most profound and learned ignorance was -displayed." - -Birmingham entertains Aaron; Stratford makes him welcome. He travels -to Edinburgh, and is the victim of parties, dinners, balls, sermons, -assemblies, plays, lectures, and other Scottish dissipations. The bench -and bar cannot get too much of him. Mackenzie, who wrote the "Man -of Feeling," and Walter Scott, who is in the "Marmion" stage of his -development, seek his acquaintance. Aaron sees a deal of these lettered -ones, and sets down in his diary that: - -"Mackenzie has twelve children; six of them daughters, all interesting, -and two handsome. He is sprightly, amiable, witty. Scott, with less -softness, has more animation--talks much and is very agreeable." - -Aaron stays a month with his Scotch friends, and returns to London. He -resumes the old round of club and drawing-room, with Holland, Melville, -Mulgrave, Castlereagh, Canning, Bentham, Cobbett, Godwin, Lamb, Faseli, -and others political, philosophical, social, literary, and artistic. - -One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note -on his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland, -insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that "The presence -of Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty's -Government, and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he -remove." - -The note continues to the courteous effect that "passports will be -furnished Colonel Burr," and a free passage in an English ship to any -port--not English. - -Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool's note, and says that having become, as -his Lordship declares, "embarrassing to His Majesty's Government," he -must, of course, as a gentleman "gratify the wishes of Government by -withdrawing." He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England, -is his preference. - -Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with -the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he -is called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and -does it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and -two in traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the -lack of toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish -honesty. He makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads -on his journal: - -"There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none -in which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and -promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch -and so little expense." - -Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the -Swedish appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the -Norsemen. Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes: - -"What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon -degree of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was -affected by those emotions which the music expressed. In England you -see no expression painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All -is somber and grim. They cry 'Bravo! bravissimo!' with the same -countenance wherewith they curse." - -From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in -Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends -the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that -amiable feature called the "Committees on Conciliation," and resolves to -recommend its adoption in America. - -Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not -immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more -easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron -is visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the -king. - -Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany. - -He sees Hanover, Brunswick, Gottingen, Gotha, Weimar. At Weimar, Goethe -brings him to his house, where he meets "the amiable, good Wieland," -and is dragged off by Goethe to the theater, and sits through a "serious -comedy" with the Baroness de Stein. He is presented at court, and is -welcomed by the grand duke--Goethe's duke--and the grand duchess. Here, -too, he falls temporarily in love with the noble d'Or, a beautiful lady -of the ducal court. His love begins to alarm him; he fears he may wed -the d'Or, remain in Weimar, and "lapse into a Dutchman." To avoid this -fate, he beats a hasty retreat to Erfurth. Being safe, he cheers his -spirits by writing: - -"Another interview, and I would have been lost! The danger was so -imminent, and the d'Or so beautiful, that I ordered post horses, gave a -crown extra to the postilions to whip like the devil, and lo! here I am -in a warm room, with a neat, good bed, safe locked within four Erfurth -walls, rejoicing and repining." - -As Aaron writes this, he lays aside his "repining" for the lovely -d'Or, and so far emerges from his gloom as to "draw a dirk," and put to -thick-soled clattering flight one of the local police, who invades -his room with the purpose of putting out the candle. Erfurth being a -garrison town, lights are ordered "out" at nine o'clock. As a mark of -respect to his dirk, however, Aaron's candles are permitted to gutter -and sputter unrebuked until long after midnight. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII--HOW AARON RETURNS HOME - - -THE belated passports arrive, and Aaron journeys to Paris. It is -now with him as it was with the unfortunate gentleman, celebrated in -Scripture, who went down into a certain city only to fall among -thieves. Fouch orders his police to dog him. The post office is given -instructions; his letters are stolen--those he writes as well as those -he should receive. - -What is at the bottom of all this French scoundrelism? Madison the weak -is president in Washington. That is to say, he is called "president," -the actual power abiding in Mon-ticello with Jefferson, at whose -political knee he was reared. Armstrong is Madison's minister to France. -Armstrong is a New York politician married to a Livingston, and, per -incident, a promoted puppet of Jefferson's. McRae is American consul at -Paris--McRae, who sat at the back of Wirt and Hay during the Richmond -trial. It is these influences, directed from Mon-ticello, which, in each -of its bureaus, oppose the government of Napoleon to Aaron. By orders -from Monticello, "every captain, French or American, is instructed -to convey no letter or message or parcel for Colonel Burr. Also such -captain is required to make anyone handing him a letter or parcel for -delivery in the United States, to pledge his honor that it contains -nothing from Colonel Burr." In this way is Aaron shut off from his -friends and his supplies. He writes in his diary: - -"These vexations arise from the machinations of Minister Armstrong, who -is indefatigable in his exertions to my prejudice, being goaded on by -personal hatred, political rancor, and the native malevolence of his -temper." - -Aaron waits on Savary, and finds that minister polite but helpless. He -sees Fouch; the policeman is as polite and as helpless as Savary. - -He calls upon Talleyrand. That ingrate and congenital traitor skulks out -of an interview. Aaron smiles as he recalls the skulking, limping one -fawning upon him aforetime at Richmond Hill. - -Talleyrand puts Aaron in mind of Jerome Bonaparte, now King of -Westphalia, made so by that kingmonger, his brother. His Royal Highness -of Westphalia was, like Talleyrand, a guest at Richmond Hill. He, too, -has nibbled American crusts, and was thankful for American crumbs in -an hour when his official rating, had he been given one, could not have -soared above that of a vagrant out of Corsica by way of France. Aaron -applies for an interview. - -"His Royal Highness is engaged; he cannot see Colonel Burr," is the -response. - -"I am not surprised," says Aaron. "He who will desert a wife will desert -a friend, and I am not to suppose that one can remember friendship who -forgets love." - -Official France shuts and bolts its doors in the face of Aaron to please -the Man of Monticello. Thereupon Aaron demands his passports of the -American minister. - -Armstrong, minister, is out of Paris for the moment, and Aaron goes -to Consul McRae. That official, feeling the pressure of the Monticello -thumb, replies: - -"My knowledge of the circumstances under which Colonel Burr left the -United States, render it my duty to decline giving him a passport." - -Five weeks eaten up in disappointment! - -Aaron, who intended remaining but a month in Paris, finds his money -running out. He confides to his diary: - -"Behold me, a prisoner of state, and almost without a sou." - -Aaron resolves to economize. He removes from his hotel, dismisses his -servants, and takes up garret lodgings in a back street. He jokes with -his poverty: - -"How sedate and sage one is," he writes, "on only three sous. Eating my -bread and cheese, and seeing half a bottle of the twenty-five sous wine -left, I thought it too extravagant to open a bottle of the good. I tried -to get down the bad, constantly thinking on the other, which was in -sight. I stuck to the bad and got it all down. Then to pay myself -for this heroism, I treated myself to a large tumbler of the true -Roussillon. I am of Santara's opinion that though a man may be a little -the poorer for drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much -more able to bear poverty." Farther on he sets down: "It is now so -cold that I should be glad of a fire, but to that there are financial -objections. I was near going to bed without writing, for it is very -cold, and I have but two stumps of wood left. By the way, I wear no -surtout these days, for a great many philosophic reasons, the principal -being that I have not got one. The old greatcoat, which I brought from -America, will serve for traveling if I ever travel again." - -Although official France shuts its doors on Aaron, unofficial France -does not. The excellent Volney, of a better memory than the King of -Westphalia or the slily skulking Talleyrand, remembers Richmond Hill. -Volney hunts out Aaron in his poor lodgings, laughs at his penury, and -offers gold. Aaron also laughs, and puts back the kindly gold-filled -hand. - -"Very well," says Volney. "Some other day, when you are a little more -starved. Meanwhile, come with me; there are beautiful women and brave -men who are dying to meet the renowned Colonel Burr." - -Again in salon and drawing-room is Aaron the lion--leaving the most -splendid scenes to return to his poor, barren den in the back street. -And yet he likes the contrast. He goes home from the Duchess d'Alberg's -and writes this: - -"The night bad, and the wind blowing down my chimney into the room. -After several experiments as to how to weather the gale, I discovered -that I could exist by lying flat on the floor. Here, on the floor, -reposing on my elbows, a candle by my side, I have been reading -'L'Espion Anglos,' and writing this. When I got up just now for pen and -ink, I found myself buried in ashes and cinders. One might have thought -I had lain a month at the foot of Vesuvius." - -Aaron, having leisure and a Yankee fancy for invention, decides to -remedy the chimney. He calls in a chimney doctor, of whom there are many -in chimney-smoking Paris, and assumes to direct the bricklaying energies -of that scientist. The _fumiste_ rebels; he objects that to follow -Aaron's directions will spoil the chimney. - -"Monsieur," returns Aaron grandly, "that is my affair." - -The rebellious _fumiste_ is quelled, and lays bricks according to -directions. The work is completed; the inmates of the house gather -about, as a fire is lighted, to enjoy the discomfiture of the "insane -American"; for the _fumiste_ has told. The fire is lighted; the chimney -draws to perfection; the convinced _fumiste_ sheds tears, and tries to -kiss Aaron, but is repelled. - -"Monsieur," cries the repentant _fumiste_, "if you will but announce -yourself as a chimney doctor, your fortune is made." - -Aaron's friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway -begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys--a forest of them, -all sick! Aaron writes: - -"Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was -assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the -bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my -breakfast--coffee, blanc and honey--in the adjoining room, and laughing -at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much wit -and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large fire. -The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a -hero, especially to the professional _fumiste_, who bent to the floor -before me, such was the burden of his respect." - -Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two -take a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made -richer by several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for -the evening before he entered in his journal: - -"Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my -present amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. -Have been ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou -piece might not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am -out of cigars. However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve -as a substitute." - -With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know "the -celebrated Colonel Burr." Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is -a privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will -do but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon -and Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him. - -"Get me my passports," says Aaron. - -Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae, -consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor's -post office is tired of stealing Aaron's letters, Fouch's police weary -of dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor's wish that Aaron depart. -Maret and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting -as one man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing -passports to Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is -quite willing, and makes his way to Amsterdam. - -Lowering in the world's sky is the cloud of possible war between England -and America. "Once a subject, always a subject," does not match the -wants of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war -fever. The feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and -hangs back. In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war -cloud grows large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they -avoid the ports of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the -perilous shadow of England. - -This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in -Aaron's way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship -for New York can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland -Company's shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the -swamps and canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with -their long pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, -and, best of good fortunes! discovers the American ship _Vigilant_, -Captain Combes. - -"Can he arrange passage for America?" - -Captain Combes replies that he can. There is a difficulty, however. -Captain Combes and his good ship _Vigilant_ are in debt to the Dutch -in the sum of five hundred guilders. If Aaron will advance the sum, it -shall be repaid the moment the _Vigilant's_ anchors are down in New York -mud. Aaron advances the five hundred guilders. The _Vigilant_ sails out -of the Helder with Aaron a passenger. Once in blue water, the _Vigilant_ -is swooped upon by an English frigate, which carries her gayly into -Yarmouth, a prize. - -Aaron writes to the English Alien Office, relates how his homeward -voyage has been brought to an end, and asks permission to go ashore. -Since England has somewhat lost interest in Spain, and is on the -threshold of war with the United States, her objections to Aaron -expressed aforetime by Lord Liverpool have cooled. Aaron will not now -"embarrass his Majesty's Government." He is granted permission to -land; indeed, as though to make amends for a past rudeness, the English -Government offers Aaron every courtesy. Thus he goes to London, and is -instantly in the midst of Bentham, Godwin, Mulgrave, Canning, Cobbett, -and the rest of his old friends. - -Aaron's funds are at their old Parisian ebb; that loan to Captain -Combes, which ransomed the _Vigilant_ from the Dutch, well-nigh -bankrupted him. He got to like poverty in France, however, and does not -repine. He refuses to go home with Bentham, and takes to cheap London -lodgings instead. He explains to the fussy, kindly philosopher that his -sole purpose now is to watch for a home-bound ship, and he can keep no -sharp lookout from Barrow Green. - -Once in his poor lodgings, Aaron resumes that iron economy he learned to -practice in Paris. He sets down this in his diary: - -"On my way home discovered that I must dine. I find my appetite in the -inverse ratio to my purse, and I can now conceive why the poor eat -so much when they can get it. Considering the state of my finances, I -bought half a pound of boiled beef, eightpence; a quarter of a pound -of ham, sixpence; one pound of brown sugar, eightpence; two pounds -of bread, eight-pence; ten pounds of potatoes, fivepence; and then, -treating myself to a pot of ale, eightpence, proceeded to read the -second volume of 'Ida.' As I read, I boiled my potatoes, and made a -great dinner, eating half my beef. Of the two necessaries, coffee and -tobacco, I have at least a week's allowance, so that without spending -another penny, I can keep the machinery going for eight days." - -At last Aaron's money is nearly gone. He makes a memorandum of the -stringency in this wise: - -"Dined at the Hole in the Wall off a chop. Had two halfpence left, which -are better than a penny would be, because they jingle, and thus one may -refresh one's self with the music." - -Aaron, at this pinch in his fortunes, seeks out a friendly bibliophile, -and sells him an armful of rare books. In this manner he lifts himself -to affluence, since he receives sixty pounds. - -Practicing his economies, and filling his treasury by the sale of -his books, Aaron is still the center of a brilliant circle. He goes -everywhere, is received everywhere; for in England poverty comes not -amiss with the honor of an exile, and is held to be no drawing-room bar. -Exiled opulence, on the other hand, is at once the subject of gravest -British suspicions. - -That Aaron's experiences have not warmed him toward France, finds -exhibition one evening at Holland House. He is in talk with the -inquisitive Lord Balgray, who asks about Napoleon and France. - -"Sir," says Aaron, "France, under Napoleon, is fast -rebarberizing--retrograding to the darkest ages of intellectual and -moral degradation. All that has been seen or heard or felt or read of -despotism is freedom and ease compared with that which now dissolves -France. The science of tyranny was in its infancy; Napoleon has matured -it. In France all the efforts of genius, all the nobler sentiments and -finer feelings are depressed and paralyzed. Private faith, personal -confidence, the whole train of social virtues are condemned and -eradicated. They are crimes. You, sir, with your generous propensities, -your chivalrous notions of honor, were you condemned to live within the -grasp of that tyrant, would be driven to discard them or be sacrificed -as a dangerous subject." - -"What a contrast to England!" cries Bal-gray--"England, free and great!" - -"England!" retorts Aaron, with a grimace. "There are friends here whom I -love. But for England as mere England, why, then, I hope never to visit -it again, once I am free of it, unless at the head of fifty thousand -fighting men!" - -Balgray sits aghast.--Meanwhile the chance of war between America and -England broadens, the cloud in the sky grows blacker. Aaron is all -impatience to find a ship for home; war might fence him in for years. At -last his hopes are rewarded. The _Aurora_, outward bound for Boston, -is reported lying off Gravesend. The captain says he will land Aaron in -Boston for thirty pounds. - -And now he is really going; the ship will sail on the morrow. At -midnight he takes up his diary: - -"It is twelve o'clock--midnight. Having packed up my residue of duds, -and stowed my papers in the writing desk, I sit smoking my pipe and -contemplating the certainty of escaping from this country. As to my -reception in my own country, so far as depends on J. Madison & Co., I -expect all the efforts of their implacable malice. This, however, does -not give me uneasiness. I shall meet those efforts and repel them. My -confidence in my own resources does not permit me to despond or even -doubt. The incapacity of J. Madison & Co. for every purpose of public -administration, their want of energy and firmness, make it impossible -they should stand. They are too feeble and corrupt to hold together -long. Mem.: To write to Alston to hold his influence in his State, and -not again degrade himself by compromising with rascals and cowards." - -It is in this high vein that Aaron sails away for home, and, thirty-five -days later, sits down to beef and potatoes with the pilot and the -_Auroras_ captain, in the harbor of Boston. He goes ashore without a -shilling, and sells his "Bayle" and "Moreri" to President Kirtland of -Harvard for forty dollars. This makes up his passage money for New York. -He negotiates with the skipper of a coasting sloop, and nine days later, -in the evening's dusk, he lands at the Battery. - -It is the next day. The sun is shining into narrow Stone Street. It -lights up the Swartwout parlor where Aaron, home at last, is hearing -the news from the stubborn, changeless one--Swartwout of the true, -unflagging breed! - -"It is precisely four years," says Aaron, following a conversational -lull, "since I left this very room to go aboard the _Clarissa_ for -England." - -"Aye! Four years!" repeats the stubborn one, meditatively. "Much water -runs under the bridges in four years! It has carried away some of your -friends, colonel; but also it has carried away as many of your enemies." - -For one day and night, Aaron and the stubborn, loyal Swartwout smoke and -exchange news. On the second day, Aaron opens offices in Nassau Street. -Three lines appear in the _Evening Post_. The notice reads: - -"Colonel Burr has returned to the city, and will resume his practice of -the law. He has opened offices in Nassau Street." - -The town sits up and rubs its eyes. Aaron's enemies--the old fashionable -Hamilton-Schuyler coterie--are scandalized; his friends are exalted. -What is most important, a cataract of clients swamps his offices, and -when the sun goes down, he has received over two thousand dollars in -retainers. Instantly, he is overwhelmed with business; never again will -he cumber his journals with ha'penny registrations of groat and farthing -economies. As redoubts are carried by storm, so, with a rush, to the -astonishment of friend and foe alike, Aaron retakes his old place as -foremost among the foremost at the New York bar. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII--GRIEF COMES KNOCKING - - -BUSINESS rushes in upon Aaron; its volume overwhelms him. - -"This is too much," says he, "for a gentleman whose years have reached -the middle fifties," and he takes unto himself a partner. - -Later he takes another partner; the work of the firm overflows into a -quartette of rooms and keeps busy a dozen clerks. - -"Why labor so hard?" asks the stubborn Swartwout. "Your income is the -largest at the bar. You have no such need of money." - -"Ay! but my creditors have!" - -"Your creditors? Who are they?" - -"Every soul who lost a dollar by my Southwestern ambitions--you, with -others. Man, I owe millions!" - -Aaron works like a horse and lives like a Spartan. He rises with the -blue of dawn. His servant appears with his breakfast--an egg, a plate -of toast, a pot of coffee. He is at his desk in the midst of his papers -when the clerks begin to arrive. All day he is insatiable to work. He -sends messages, receives them, examines authorities, confers with fellow -lawyers, counsels clients, dictates letters. Business incarnate--he -pushes every affair with incredible dispatch. And the last thing he will -agree to is defeat. - -"Accept only the inevitable!" is his war-word, in law as in life. - -Aaron's day ends with seven o'clock. He shoves everything of litigation -sort aside, helps himself to a glass of wine, and refuses further -thought or hint of business. It is then he calls about him his friends. -The evening is merry with laughter, jest and reminiscence. At midnight -he retires, and sleeps like a tree. - -[Illustration: 0357] - -"Colonel Burr," observes Dr. Hosack--he who attended Hamilton at -Weehawken--"you do not sleep enough; six hours is not enough. Also, you -eat too little." - -Aaron gazes, with comic eye at the rotund, well-fed doctor, the purple -of good burgundy in his full cheeks. - -"If I were a doctor, now," he retorts, "I should grant your word to be -true. But I am a lawyer, and must keep myself on edge." - -Aaron's earliest care is to write his arrival to the lustrous Theo. The -reply he receives makes the world black. - -"Less than a fortnight ago," she says, "your letters would have -gladdened my soul. Now there is no more joy, and life a blank. My boy is -gone--forever dead and gone." - -While Aaron sits with the fatal letter in his fingers, his friend Van -Ness comes in. He turns his black eyes on the visitor--eyes misty, dim, -the brightness lost from them. - -"What dreams were mine," he sighs--"what dreams for my brave little boy! -He is dead, and half my world has died." - -Toward the end of summer, Alston sends word that the lustrous Theo is in -danger. The loss of her boy has struck at the roots of her life. Aaron, -in new alarm, writes urging that she come North. He sends a physician -from New York to bring her to him. Alston consents; he himself cannot -come. His duties as governor tie him. The lustrous Theo, eager to meet -her father with whom she parted on that tearful evening in Stone Street -so many years ago, will start at once. He, Alston, shall later follow -her. - -Alston sees the lustrous Theo aboard the schooner _Patriot_, then lying -in Charleston harbor. It is rough December weather when the _Patriot_ -clears for New York. The message of her sailing reaches Aaron overland, -and he is on strain for the schooner's arrival. Days come, days go; the -schooner is due--overdue. Still no sign of those watched-for topsails -down _the_ lower bay! And so time passes. The days become weeks, the -weeks months. Hope sickens, then dies. Aaron, face white and drawn, a -ghost's face, reads the awful truth in that long waiting. The lustrous -Theo is dead--like the baby! It is then the iron of a measureless -adversity enters his soul! - -Aaron goes about the daily concerns of life, making no moan. He does not -speak of his loss, but saves his grief for solitude. One day a friend -relates a rumor that the schooner was captured by buccaneers, and the -lustrous Theo lives. The broken Aaron shakes his head. - -"She is dead!" says he. "Thus is severed the last tie that binds me to -my kind." - -Aaron hides his heart from friend and foe alike. As though flying from -his own thoughts, he plunges more furiously than ever into the law. - -While Aaron's first concern is work, and to earn money for those whom he -calls his creditors, he finds time for politics. - -"Not that I want office," he observes; "for he who was Vice-President -and tied Jefferson for a presidency, cannot think on place. But I owe -debts--debts of gratitude, debts of vengeance. These must be paid." - -Aaron's foes are in the ascendant. De Witt Clinton is mayor--the -aristocrats with the Livingstons, the Schuylers and the Clintons, are -everywhere dominant. They control the town; they control the State. -At Washington, Madison a marionette President, is in apparent command, -while Jefferson pulls the White House wires from Monticello. All these -Aaron sees at a glance; he can, however, take up but one at a time. - -"We will begin with the town," says he, to the stubborn, loyal -Swartwout. "We must go at the town like a good wife at her -house-cleaning. Once that is politically spick and span, we shall clean -up the State and the nation." - -Aaron calls about him his old circle of indomitables. - -They have been overrun in his absence by the aristocrats--by the -Clintons, the Schuylers and the Livingstons. They gather at his rooms in -the Jay House--a noble mansion, once the home of Governor Jay. - -"I shall make no appearance in your politics," says he. "It would not -fit my years and my past. None the less, I'll show you the road to -victory." Then, with a smile: "You must do the work; I'll be the Old Man -of the Mountain. From behind a screen I'll give directions." - -[Illustration: 0363] - -Aaron's lieutenants include the Swartwouts, Buckmaster, Strong, Prince, -Radcliff, Rutgers, Ogden, Davis, Noah, and Van Buren, the last a rising -young lawyer from Kinderhook. - -"Become a member of Tammany," is Aaron's word to young Van Buren. "Our -work must be done by Tammany Hall. You must enroll yourself beneath its -banner. We must bring about a revival of the old Bucktail spirit." - -Van Buren enters Tammany; the others are already members. - -Aaron, through his lieutenants, brings his old Tammany Bucktails -together within eight weeks after his return. The Clintons, and their -fellow aristocrats are horrified at what they call "his effrontery." -Also, they are somewhat panic-smitten. They fall to vilification. -Aaron is "traitor!" "murderer!" "demon!" "fiend!" They pay a phalanx of -scribblers to assail him in the press. His band of Bucktail lieutenants -are dubbed "Burrites," "Burr's Mob," and "the Tenth Legion." The -epithets go by Aaron like the mindless wind. - -The Bucktail spirit revived, the stubborn Swartwout and the others ask: - -"What shall we do?" - -The popular cry is for war with England. At Washington--Jefferson at -Monticello pulling on the peace string--Madison is against war. Mayor -De Witt Clinton stands with Jefferson and Marionette Madison. He is for -peace, as are his caste of aristocrats--the Schuylers and those other -left-over fragments of Federalism, all lovers of England from their -cradles. - -"What shall we do?" cry the Bucktails. - -"Demand war!" says Aaron. Then, calling attention to Clinton and his -purple tribe, he adds: "They could not occupy a better position for our -purposes. They invite destruction." Tammany demands war vociferously. It -is, indeed, the cry all over the land. The administration is carried -off its feet. Jefferson at last orders war; for he sees that otherwise -Marionette Madison will be defeated of a second term. - -Mayor Clinton and his aristocrats are frantic. - -The more frantic, since with "War!" for their watchword, Aaron's -Bucktails conquer the city, and two years later the State. As though by -a tidal wave, every Clinton is swept out of official Albany. - -Aaron sends for Van Ness, the stubborn Swartwout, and their fellow -Bucktails. - -"Go to Albany," says he. "Demand of Governor Tompkins the removal -of Mayor Clinton. Say that he is inefficient and was the friend of -England." - -Governor Tompkins--being a politician--hesitates at the bold step. -The Bucktails, Aaron-guided, grow menacing. Seeing himself in danger, -Governor Tompkins hesitates no longer. Mayor Clinton is ignominiously -thrust from office into private life. With him go those hopes of a -presidency which for half a decade he has been sedulously cultivating. -Under the blight of that removal, those hopes of a future White House -wither like uprooted flowers. - -Broken of purse and prospects, Clinton is in despair. - -"He will never rise again!" exclaims Van Ness. - -"My friend," says Aaron, "he will be your governor. He will never -be president, but the governorship is yet to be his; and all by your -negligence--yours and your brother Buck-tails." - -"As how?" demands Van Ness. - -"You let him declare for the Erie Canal," returns Aaron. "You were so -purblind as to oppose the project. You should have taken the business -out of his hands. If I had been here it would have been done. Mark -my words! The canal will be dug, and it will make Clinton governor. -However, we shall hold the town against him; and, since we have been -given a candidate for the presidency, we shall later have Washington -also." - -"Who is that presidential candidate to whom you refer?" - -"Sir, he is your friend and my friend. Who, but Andrew Jackson? Since -New Orleans, it is bound to be he." - -"Andrew Jackson!" exclaims Van Ness. "But, sir, the Congressional -caucus at Washington will never consider him. You know the power of -Jefferson--he will hold that caucus in the hollow of his hand. It is -he who will name Madison's successor; and, after those street-corner -speeches and his friendship for you in Richmond, it can never be Andrew -Jackson." - -"I know the Jefferson power," returns Aaron; "none knows it better. At -the head of his Virginia junta he has controlled the country for years. -He will control it four years more, perchance eight. Our war upon him -and his caucus methods must begin at once. And our candidate should be, -and shall be, Andrew Jackson." - -"Whom will Jefferson select to follow Madison?" - -"Monroe, sir; he will put forward Monroe." - -"Monroe!" repeats Van Ness. "Has he force?--brains? Some one spoke of -him as a soldier." - -"Soldier!" observes Aaron, his lip curling. "Sir, Monroe never commanded -so much as a platoon--never was fit to command one. He acted as aide to -Lord Stirling, who was a sot, not a soldier. Monroe's whole duty was -to fill his lordship's tankard, and hear with admiration his drunken -lordship's long tales about himself. As a lawyer, Monroe is below -mediocrity. He never rose to the honor of trying a cause wherein so -much as one hundred pounds was at stake. He is dull, stupid, illiterate, -pusillanimous, hypocritical, and therefore a character suited to the -wants of Jefferson and his Virginia coterie. As a man, he is everything -that Jackson isn't and nothing that he is." - -Van Ness and his brother Bucktails do the bidding of Aaron blindly. On -every chance they shout for Jackson. Aaron writes "Jackson" letters to -all whom, far or near, he calls his friends. Also the better to have -New York in political hand, he demands--through Tammany--of Governor -Tompkins and Mayor Rad-cliff that every Clinton, every Schuyler, every -Livingston, as well as any who has the taint of Federalism about him be -relegated to private life. In town as well as country, he sweeps the New -York official situation free of opposition. - -The Bucktails are in full sway. Aaron privily coaches young Van Buren, -who is suave and dexterous, and for politeness almost the urbane peer of -Aaron himself, in what local party diplomacies are required, and sends -him forward as the apparent controlling spirit of Tammany Hall. What -Jefferson is doing with Monroe in Virginia, Aaron duplicates with the -compliant Van Buren in New York. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV--THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS - - -Marionette madison is withdrawn from the White House boards at -the close of his second term. Jefferson, working the machinery from -Monticello, replaces him with Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins -his war on the system of Congressional nomination--a system which has -obtained since the days of Washington. He writes to Alston: - -"_Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and -controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for -twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling, -'Support the administration!' have so far succeeded in duping the -public. The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must -break down this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country -are impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. -Its administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely -to preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, -there be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it -is your duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man--Andrew -Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of -a boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a -respectable convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth -of the caucus system--so beloved of scheming Virginians--his final -victory is assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; -for 'caucus,' which is wrong, must go down; and 'convention,' which is -right, must prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning -the caucus system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South -Carolina, and the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of -the convention, and Jackson's open nomination._" - -Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson's neighbor and -man of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this: - -"_Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is -announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta -with menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and -favors._" - -On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that -his candidate Jackson may have a proper dbut, Aaron pulls a Swartwout -string, pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer -a dinner in Jackson's honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The -town is rent with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and -nights of Martling, never mounted more wildly high. - -Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the -excitement. It is there Jackson finds him. - -"I shall not be at the dinner, general," says Aaron; "but with Van Buren -and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the -rest, you will find friends and good company about you." - -"But you?" - -"There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors -and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and -slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and -bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well--better! After a man sees -sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live -to see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief -it will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must -save myself from wine and late hours--I must keep myself with care." - -Aaron and the general talk for an hour. - -"And if I should become President some day," says Jackson, as they -separate, "you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived." - -"It will be too late for me," responds Aaron. "I am old, and shall be -older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead--are in the grave. -Still"--and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way--"I shall be glad -to have younger men take up the work. It should serve somewhat to wipe -'treason' from my fame." - -"Treason!" snorts the fiery Jackson. "Sir, no one, not fool or liar, -ever spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!" - -There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson--the -"hero," the "conqueror," the "nation's hope and pride," according to -orators then and there present and eloquent--is toasted to the skies. At -the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the -Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron's arch enemy. - -The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly -gives: - -"De Witt Clinton!" - -The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren, -Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it. -Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude -of offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in -words, but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word -"Clinton" were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. -The thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its -friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since -that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also, -it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron's place in -event of Jackson's occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden, -intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes -stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, -and shouts of "Burr! Burr!" with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the -galling background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, -Aaron urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King -Caucus. His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for -convention nominations; his candidate is Jackson. - -In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his -voice and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate -their control of the town. He tells them to break down a property -qualification, and extend the voting franchise to every man, whether he -be landholder or no. - -"Let's make Jack as good as his master," says Aaron. "It will please -Jack, and hurt his master's pride--both good things in their way." - -It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, -but drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the -Livingstons and the Schuylers. - -"Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a -man!" cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout. - -The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron -destroys caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and -town, bound hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful -Bucktails. - -Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down; -Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a -convention. - -In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other -three, but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral -college. In the House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, -and Adams goes to the White House. - -Aaron is unmoved. - -"I am threescore years and ten," says he--"the allotted space of man. -Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see -Jackson President." - -Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win -his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments. - -"Take them," says Aaron to his Bucktails. "They are yours, not -his--those offices. He but gives you your own." - -Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires -like a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm. - -"I should think you'd rest," says he. - -"Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now." - -"But I don't understand! You get nothing." - -The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. "Sir, I get -vengeance--and forget feelings!" - -[Illustration: 0377] - -Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his -place. Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter's -rooms--pleasant rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their -long pipes, and sit opposite one another, smoking like dragons. - -Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says: - -"Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory." - -"General," returns Aaron, "the best favor you can show me is show favor -to my friends." - -"That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout -collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State. -Also I shall say to your enemies--the Clintons and those other proud -ones--that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson's appointment, must -come with the approval of Colonel Burr." - -Jackson is inaugurated. - -"I am through," says Aaron--"through at four and seventy. Now I shall -work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics--no more -politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to -Providence and Andrew Jackson." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV--THE SERENE LAST DAYS - - -AARON goes forward with his business--his cases in court, his -conferences with clients. Accurate as an Alvan-ley in dress, slim, -light, with the quick step of a boy, no one might guess his years. The -bar respects him; his friends crowd about him; his enemies shrink away -from the black, unblinking stare of those changeless ophidian eyes. And -so with his books and his wine and his pipe he sits through the serene -evenings in his rooms by the Bowling Green. He is a lion, and strangers -from England and Germany and France ask to be presented. They talk--not -always wisely or with taste. - -"Was Hamilton a gentleman?" asks a popinjay Frenchman. - -Aaron's black eyes blaze: "Sir," says he, "I met him!" - -"Colonel Burr," observes a dull, thick Englishman, who imagines himself -a student of governments--"Colonel Burr, I have read your Constitution. -I find it not always clear. Who is to expound it?" - -Aaron leads our student of governments to the window, and points, with a -whimsical smile, at the Broadway throngs that march below. - -"Sir," he remarks, "they are the expounders of our Constitution." - -Aaron, at seventy-eight, does a foolish thing; he marries--marries the -wealthy Madam Jumel. - -They live in the madam's great mansion on the heights overlooking the -Harlem. Three months later they part, and Aaron goes back to his books -and his pipe and his wine, in his rooms by the Bowling Green. - -It is a bright morning; Aaron and his friend Van Ness are walking -in Broadway. Suddenly Aaron halts and leans against the wall of a -house--the City Hotel. - -"It is a numbness," says he. "I cannot walk!" - -The good, purple, puffy Dr. Hosack comes panting to the rescue. He finds -the stricken one in his rooms where Van Ness has brought him. - -"Paralysis!" says the good anxious Hosack. - -Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later -comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed. - -There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and -then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and -reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of -company. - -The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper. - -"See!" he cries. "Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That -marks the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White -House! Sir, thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, -Houston and San Jacinto, it is patriotism." - -Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron's strength is going. The hubbub, -the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town's life wearies. He -takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives -him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His -visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who -one day brings up the name of Hamilton. - -"Colonel, it was an error--a fearful error!" says the doctor. - -"Sir," rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, -"it was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? -He heaped obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his -prospects; I mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was -malevolent--cowardly! You have seen what he wrote the night before he -fought me. It sounds like the confession of a sick monk. When he stood -before me at Weehawken, his eye caught mine and he quailed like a -convicted felon. They say he did not fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard -the bullet whistle over my head and saw the severed twigs. I have lived -more than eighty years; I dwell now in the shadow of death. I shall soon -go; and I shall go saying that the destruction of Hamilton was an act of -justice." - -"Colonel Burr," observes the kindly doctor, "I am made sorry by your -words--sorry by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of -enmity?" - -The black eyes do not soften. - -"I shall die as I have lived--hating where I'm hated, loving where I'm -loved." - -The last day breaks, and Aaron dies--dies - -"What lies beyond?" asks one shortly before he goes. - -"Who knows?" he returns. - -"But do you never ask?" - -"Why ask? Who should reply to such a question?--the old, old question -ever offered, never answered." - -"But you have hopes?" - -"None," says Aaron steadily. "And I want none. I am resolved to die -without fear; and he who would have no fear must have no hope." So he -departs; he, of whom the good Dr. Bellamy said: "He will soar as high to -fall as low as any soul alive." - -THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - -***** This file should be named 51911-8.txt or 51911-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51911/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr - Illustrated - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51911] -Last Updated: November 10, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN,<br /> OR THE STORY OF AARON BURR - </h1> - <h2> - By Alfred Henry Lewis - </h2> - <h5> - Author of “When Men Grew Tall or The Story of Andrew Jackson” - </h5> - <h3> - Illustrated - </h3> - <h4> - D. Appleton And Company New York - </h4> - <h3> - 1908 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0010.jpg" alt="0010 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0010.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0011.jpg" alt="0011 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0011.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <h4> - TO - </h4> - <h4> - ELBERT HUBBARD - </h4> - <h4> - FOR THE PLEASURE HIS WRITINGS HAVE GIVEN ME, AND AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION - FOR THE GLOSS AND PURITY OF HIS ENGLISH, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED <br /> A. - H. L. - </h4> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD - EXPLAINS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—MARRIAGE AND THE LAW </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—THE GRINDING OF AARON’S MILL - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE TRIUMPH OF AARON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—THE TREASON OF WILKINSON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—HOW AARON IS INDICTED </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—HOW AARON RETURNS HOME </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—GRIEF COMES KNOCKING </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—THE SERENE LAST DAYS </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN - </h1> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER I—FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE Right Reverend - Doctor Bellamy is a personage of churchly consequence in Bethlehem. - Indeed, the doctor is a personage of churchly consequence throughout all - Connecticut. For he took his theology from that well-head of divinity and - metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards himself, and possesses an immense library of - five hundred volumes, mostly on religion. Also, he is the author of “True - Religion Delineated”; which work shines out across the tumbling seas of - New England Congregationalism like a lighthouse on a difficult coast. - Peculiarly is it of guiding moment to storm-vexed student ones, who, - wanting it, might go crashing on controversial reefs, and so miss those - pulpit snug-harbors toward which the pious prows of their hopes are - pointed. - </p> - <p> - The doctor has a round, florid face, which, with his well-fed stomach, - gives no hint of thin living. From the suave propriety of his cue to the - silver buckles on his shoes, his atmosphere is wholly clerical. Just now, - however, he wears a disturbed, fussy air, as though something has rubbed - wrong-wise the fur of his feelings. He shows this by the way in which he - trots up and down his study floor. Doubtless, some portion of that - fussiness is derived from the doctor’s short fat legs; for none save your - long-legged folk may walk to and fro with dignity. Still, it is clear - there be reasons of disturbance which go deeper than mere short fat legs, - and set his spirits in a tumult. - </p> - <p> - The good doctor, as he trots up and down, is not alone. Madam Bellamy is - with him, chair drawn just out of reach of the June sunshine as it comes - streaming through the open lattice. In her plump hands she holds her - sewing; for she is strong in the New England virtue of industry, and - regards hand-idleness as a species of viciousness. While she stitches, she - bends appreciative ear to the whistle of a robin in an apple tree outside. - </p> - <p> - “No, mother,” observes the doctor, breaking in on the robin, “the lad does - himself no credit. He is careless, callous, rebellious, foppish, and - altogether of the flesh. I warrant you I shall take him in hand; it is my - duty.”. “But no harshness, Joseph!” - </p> - <p> - “No, mother; as you say, I must not be harsh. None the less I shall be - firm. He must study; he is not to become a preacher by mere wishing.” - </p> - <p> - Shod hoofs are heard on the graveled driveway; a voice is lifted: - </p> - <p> - “Walk Warlock up and down until he is cooled out. Then give him a rub, and - a mouthful of water.” - </p> - <p> - Madam Bellamy steps to the window. The master of the voice is swinging - from the saddle, while the doctor’s groom takes his horse—sweating - from a brisk gallop—by the bridle. - </p> - <p> - “Here he comes now,” says Madam Bellamy, at the sound of a springy step in - the hall. - </p> - <p> - The youth, who so confidently enters the doctor’s study, is in his - nineteenth year. His face is sensitive and fine, and its somewhat overbred - look is strengthened and restored by a high hawkish nose. The dark hair is - clubbed in an elegant cue. The skin, fair as a girl’s, gives to the black - eyes a glitter beyond their due. These eyes are the striking feature; for, - while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their inky depths a hard, ophidian - sparkle both dangerous and fascinating—the sort of eyes that warn a - man and blind a woman. - </p> - <p> - The youth is but five feet six inches tall, with little hands and feet, - and ears ridiculously small. And yet, his light, slim form is so - accurately proportioned that, besides grace and a catlike quickness, it - hides in its molded muscles the strength of steel. Also, any impression of - insignificance is defeated by the wide brow and well-shaped head, which, - coupled with a steady self-confidence that envelops him like an - atmosphere, give the effect of power. - </p> - <p> - As he lounges languidly and pantherwise into the study, he bows to Madam - Bellamy and the good doctor. - </p> - <p> - “You had quite a canter, Aaron,” remarks Madam Bellamy. - </p> - <p> - “I went half way to Litchfield,” returns the youth, smiting his glossy - riding boot with the whip he carries. “For a moment I thought of seeing my - sister Sally; but it would have been too long a run for so warm a day. As - it is, poor Warlock looks as though he’d forded a river.” - </p> - <p> - The youth throws himself carelessly into the doctor’s easy-chair. That - divine clears his throat professionally. Foreseeing earnestness if not - severity in the discourse which is to follow, Madam Bellamy picks up her - needlework and retires. - </p> - <p> - When she is gone, the doctor establishes himself opposite the youth. His - manner is admonitory; which is not out of place, when one remembers that - the doctor is fifty-five and the youth but nineteen. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve been with me, Aaron, something like eight months.” - </p> - <p> - The black eyes are fastened upon the doctor, and their ophidian glitter - makes the latter uneasy. For relief he rebegins his short-paced trot up - and down. - </p> - <p> - Renewed by action, and his confidence returning, the doctor commences with - vast gravity a kind of speech. His manner is unconsciously pompous; for, - as the village preacher, he is wont to have his wisdom accepted without - discount or dispute. - </p> - <p> - “You will believe me, Aaron,” says the doctor, spacing off his words and - calling up his best pulpit voice—“you will believe me, when I tell - you that I am more than commonly concerned for your welfare. I was the - friend of your father, both when he held the pulpit in Newark, and later - when he was President of Princeton University. I studied my divinity at - the knee of your mother’s father, the pious Jonathan Edwards. Need I say, - then, that when you came to me fresh from your own Princeton graduation my - heart was open to you? It seemed as though I were about to pay an old - debt. I would regive you those lessons which your grandfather Edwards gave - me. In addition, I would—so far as I might—take the place of - that father whom you lost so many years ago. That was my feeling. Now, - when you’ve been with me eight months, I tell you plainly that I’m far - from satisfied.” - </p> - <p> - “In what, sir, have I disappointed?” - </p> - <p> - The voice is confidently careless, while the ophidian eyes keep up their - black glitter unabashed. - </p> - <p> - “Sir, you are passively rebellious, and refuse direction. I place in your - hands those best works of your mighty grandsire, namely, his - ‘Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church’ and ‘The - Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,’ and you cast them aside for the - ‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’ and the ‘Comedies of Terence.’ Bah! the - ‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’! of which Dr. Johnson says, ‘They teach the - morals of a harlot and the manners of a dancing master.’” - </p> - <p> - “And if so,” drawls the youth, with icy impenitence, “is not that a pretty - good equipment for such a world as this?” - </p> - <p> - At the gross outrage of such a question, the doctor pauses in that - to-and-fro trot as though planet-struck. - </p> - <p> - “What!” he gasps. - </p> - <p> - “Doctor, I meant to tell you a month later what—since the ice is so - happily broken—I may as well say now. My dip into the teachings of - my reverend grandsire has taught me that I have no genius for divinity. To - be frank, I lack the pulpit heart. Every day augments my contempt for that - ministry to which you design me. The thought of drawing a salary for being - good, and agreeing to be moral for so much a year, disgusts me.” - </p> - <p> - “And this from you—the son of a minister of the Gospel!” The doctor - holds up his hands in pudgy horror. - </p> - <p> - “Precisely so! In which connection it is well to recall that German - proverb: ‘The preacher’s son is ever the devil’s grandson.’” The doctor - sits down and mops his fretted brow; the manner in which he waves his lace - handkerchief is like a publication of despair. He fixes his gaze on the - youth resignedly, as who should say, “Strike home, and spare not!” - </p> - <p> - This last tacit invitation the youth seems disposed to accept. It is now - his turn to walk the study floor. But he does it better than did the fussy - doctor, his every motion the climax of composed grace. - </p> - <p> - “Listen, my friend,” says the youth. - </p> - <p> - For all the confident egotism of his manner, there is in it no smell of - conceit. He speaks of himself; but he does so as though discussing some - object outside of himself to which he is indifferent. - </p> - <p> - “Those eight months of which you complain have not been wasted. If I have - drawn no other lesson from my excellent grandsire’s ‘Doctrine of Original - Sin Defended,’ it has taught me to exhaustively examine my own breast. I - discover that I have strong points as well as points of weakness. I read - Latin and Greek; and I talk French and German, besides English, - indifferently well. Also, I fence, shoot, box, ride, row, sail, walk, run, - wrestle and jump superbly. Beyond the merits chronicled I have tried my - courage, and find that I may trust it like Gibraltar. These, you will - note, are not the virtues of a clergyman, but of a soldier. My weaknesses - likewise turn me away from the pulpit. - </p> - <p> - “I have no hot sympathies; and, while not mean in the money sense, holding - such to be beneath a gentleman, I may say that my first concern is not for - others but for myself.” - </p> - <p> - “It is as though I listened to Satan!” exclaims the dismayed doctor, - fidgeting with his ruffles. - </p> - <p> - “And if it were indeed Satan!” goes on the youth, with a gleam of sarcasm, - “I have heard you characterize that arch demon from your pulpit, and even - you, while making him malicious, never made him mean. But to get on with - this picture of myself, which I show you as preliminary to laying bare a - resolution. As I say, I have no sympathies, no hopes which go beyond - myself. I think on this world, not the next; I believe only in the gospel - according to Philip Dormer Stanhope—that Lord Chesterfield, whom, - with the help of Dr. Johnson, you so much succeed in despising.” - </p> - <p> - “To talk thus at nineteen!” whispers the doctor, his face ghastly. - </p> - <p> - “Nineteen, truly! But you must reflect that I have not had, since I may - remember, the care of either father or mother, which is an upbringing to - rapidly age one.” - </p> - <p> - “Were you not carefully reared by your kind Uncle Timothy?” This - indignantly. - </p> - <p> - “Indeed, sir, I was, as you say, well reared in that dull town of - Elizabeth, which for goodness and dullness may compare with your Bethlehem - here. It was a rearing, too, from which—as I think my kind Uncle - Timothy has informed you—I fled.” - </p> - <p> - “He did! He said you played truant twice, once running away to sea.” - </p> - <p> - “It was no great voyage, then!” The imperturbable youth, hard of eye, soft - of voice, smiles cynically. “No, I was cabin boy two days, during all of - which the ship lay tied bow and stern to her New York wharf. However, that - is of no consequence as part of what we now consider.” - </p> - <p> - “No!” interrupts the doctor miserably, “only so far as it displays the - young workings of your sinfully rebellious nature. As a child, too, you - mocked your elders, as you do now. Later, as a student, you were the - horror of Princeton.” - </p> - <p> - “All that, sir, I confess; and yet I say that it is of the past. I hold it - time lost to think on aught save the present or the future.” - </p> - <p> - “Think, then, on your soul’s future!—your soul’s eternal future!” - </p> - <p> - “I shall think on what lies this side of the grave. I shall devote my - faculties to this world; which, from what I have seen, is more than likely - to keep me handsomely engaged. The next world is a bridge, the crossing of - which I reserve until I come to it.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you then no religious convictions? no fears?” - </p> - <p> - “I have said that I fear nothing, apprehend nothing. Timidity, of either - soul or body, was pleasantly absent at my birth. As for convictions, I’d - no more have one than I’d have the plague. What is a conviction but - something wherewith a man vexes himself and worries his neighbor. - Conclusions, yes, as many as you like; but, thank my native star! I am - incapable of a conviction.” - </p> - <p> - The doctor’s earlier horror is fast giving way to anger. He almost sneers - as he asks: - </p> - <p> - “But you pretend to honesty, I trust?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, sir,” returns the youth, with an air which narrowly misses the - patronizing, and reminds one of nothing so much as polished brass—“why, - sir, honesty, like generosity or gratitude, is a gentlemanly trait, the - absence of which would be inexpressibly vulgar. Naturally, I’m honest; but - with the understanding that I have my honesty under control. It shall - never injure me, I tell you! When its plain effect will be to strengthen - an enemy or weaken myself, I shall prove no such fool as to give way to - it.” - </p> - <p> - “While you talk, I think,” breaks in the doctor; “and now I begin to see - the source of your pride and your satanism. It is your own riches that - tempt you! Your soul is to be undone because your body has four hundred - pounds a year.” - </p> - <p> - “Not so fast, sir! I am glad I have four hundred pounds a year. It - relieves me of much that is gross. I turn my back on the Church, however, - only because I am unfitted for it, and accept the world simply for that it - fits me. I have given you the truth. As a minister of the Gospel I should - fail; as a man of the world I shall succeed. The pulpit is beyond me as - religion is beyond me; for I am not one who could allay present pain by - some imagined bliss to follow after death, or find joy in stripping - himself of a benefit to promote another.” - </p> - <p> - “Now this is the very theology of Beelzebub for sure!” cries the incensed - doctor. - </p> - <p> - “It is anything you like, sir, so it be understood as a description of - myself.” - </p> - <p> - “Marriage might save him!” muses the desperate doctor. “To love and be - loved by a beautiful woman might yet lead his heart to grace!” - </p> - <p> - The pale flicker of a smile comes about the lips of the black-eyed one. - </p> - <p> - “Love! beauty!” he begins. “Sir, while I might strive to possess myself of - both, I should no more love beauty in a woman than riches in a man. I - could love a woman only for her fineness of mind; wed no one who did not - meet me mentally and sentimentally half way. And since your Hypatia is - quite as rare as your Phoenix, I cannot think my nuptials near at hand.” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” observes the doctor, assuming politeness sudden and vast, “since I - understand you throw overboard the Church, may I know what other avenue - you will render honorable by walking therein?” - </p> - <p> - “You did not give me your attention, if you failed to note that what - elements of strength I’ve ascribed to myself all point to the camp. So - soon as there is a war, I shall turn soldier with my whole heart.” - </p> - <p> - “You will wait some time, I fear!” - </p> - <p> - “Not so long as I could wish. There will be war between these colonies and - England before I reach my majority. It would be better were it put off ten - years; for now my youth will get between the heels of my prospects to trip - them up.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, if there be war with England, you will go? I do not think such - bloody trouble will soon dawn; still—for a first time to-day—I - am pleased to hear you thus speak. It shows that at least you are a - patriot.” - </p> - <p> - “I lay no claim to the title. England oppresses us; and, since one only - oppresses what one hates, she hates us. And hate for hate I give her. I - shall go to war, because I am fitted to shine in war, and as a shortest, - surest step to fame and power—those solitary targets worthy the aim - of man!” - </p> - <p> - “Dross! dross!” retorts the scandalized doctor. “Fame! power! Dead sea - apples, which will turn to ashes on your lips! And yet, since that war - which is to be the ladder whereon you will go climbing into fame and power - is not here, what, pending its appearance, will you do?” - </p> - <p> - “Now there is a query which brings us to the close. Here is my answer - ready. I shall just ride over to Sally, and her husband, Tappan Reeve, and - take up Blackstone. If I may not serve the spirit and study theology, I’ll - even serve the flesh and study law.” - </p> - <p> - And so the hero of these memoirs rides over to Litchfield, to study the - law and wait for a war. The doctor and he separate in friendly - son-and-father fashion, while Madam Bellamy urges him to always call her - house his home. He is not so hard as he thinks, not so cynical as he - feels; still, his self-etched portrait possesses the broader lines of - truth. He is one whom men will follow, but not trust; admire, but not - love. There is enough of the unconscious serpent in him to rouse one man’s - hate, while putting an edge on another’s fear. Also, because—from - the fig-leaf day of Eve—the serpent attracts and fascinates a woman, - many tender ones will lose their hearts for him. They will dash themselves - and break themselves against him, like wild fowl against a lighthouse in - the night. Even as he rides out of Bethlehem that June morning, bright - young eyes peer at him from behind safe lattices, until their brightness - dies away in tears. As for him thus sighed over, his lashes are dry - enough. Bethlehem, and all who home therein, from the doctor with Madam - Bellamy, to her whose rose-red lips he kissed the latest, are already of - the unregarded past. He wears nothing but the future on his agate slope of - fancy; he is thinking only on himself and his hunger to become a god of - the popular—clothed with power, wreathed of fame! - </p> - <p> - “Mother,” exclaims the doctor, “the boy is lost! Ambitious as Lucifer, he - will fall like Lucifer!” - </p> - <p> - “Joseph!” - </p> - <p> - “I cannot harbor hope! As lucidly clear as glass, he was yet as hard as - glass. If I were to read his fortune, I should say that Aaron Burr will - soar as high to fall as low as any soul alive.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER II—THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG Aaron - establishes himself in Litchfield with his pretty sister Sally, who, - because he is brilliant and handsome, is proud of him. Also, Tappan Reeve, - her husband, takes to him in a slow, bookish way, and is much held by his - trenchant powers of mind. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron assumes the law, and makes little flights into Bracton’s - “Fleeta,” and reads Hawkins and Hobart, delighting in them for their - limpid English. More seriously, yet more privately, he buries himself in - every volume of military lore upon which he may lay hands; for already he - feels that Bunker Hill is on its way, without knowing the name of it, and - would have himself prepared for its advent. - </p> - <p> - In leisure hours, young Aaron gives Litchfield society the glory of his - countenance. He flourishes as a village Roquelaure, with plumcolored - coats, embroidered waistcoats, silken hose, and satin smalls, sent up from - New York. Likewise, his ruffles are miracles, his neckcloths works of - starched and spotless art, while at his hip he wears a sword—hilt of - gilt, and sharkskin scabbard white as snow. - </p> - <p> - Now, because he is splendid, with a fortune of four hundred annual pounds, - and since no girl’s heart may resist the mystery of those eyes, the - village belles come sighing against him in a melting phalanx of - loveliness. This is flattering; but young Aaron declines to be impressed. - Polished, courteous, in amiable possession of himself, he furnishes the - thought of a bright coldness, like sunshine on a field of ice. Not that - anyone is to blame. The difference between him and the sighing ones, is a - difference of shrines and altars. They sacrifice to Venus; he worships - Mars. While he has visions of battle, they dream of wedding bells. - </p> - <p> - For one moment only arises some tender confusion. There is an Uncle - Thaddeus—a dotard ass far gone in years! Uncle Thaddeus undertakes, - behind young Aaron’s back, to make him happy. The liberal Uncle Thaddeus - goes so blindly far as to explore the heart of a particular fair one, who - mayhap sighs more deeply than do the others. It grows embarrassing; for, - while the sighing one thus softly met accepts, when Uncle Thaddeus flies - to young Aaron with the dulcet news, that favored personage transfixes him - with so black a stare, wherefrom such baleful serpent rage glares forth, - that our dotard meddler is fear-frozen in the very midst of his ingenuous - assiduities. And thereupon the sighing one is left to sigh uncomforted, - while Uncle Thaddeus finds himself the scorn of all good village opinion. - </p> - <p> - While young Aaron goes stepping up and down the Litchfield causeways, as - though strutting in Jermyn Street or Leicester Square; while thus he plays - the fine gentleman with ruffles and silks and shark-skin sword, skimming - now the law, now flattering the sighing belles, now devouring the - literature of war, he has ever his finger on the pulse, and his ear to the - heart of his throbbing times. It is he of Litchfield who hears earliest of - Lexington and Bunker Hill. In a moment he is all action. Off come the fine - feathers, and that shark-skin, gilt-hilt sword. Warlock is saddled; - pistols thrust into holsters. In roughest of costumes the fop surrenders - to the soldier. It takes but a day, and he is ready for Cambridge and the - American camp. - </p> - <p> - As he goes upon these doughty preparations, young Aaron finds himself - abetted by the pretty Sally, who proves as martial as himself. Her - husband, Tappan Reeve, easy, quiet, loving his unvexed life, from the law - book on his table to the pillow whereon he nightly sleeps, cannot - understand this headlong war hurry. - </p> - <p> - “You may lose your life!” cries Tappan Reeve. - </p> - <p> - “What then?” rejoins young Aaron. “Whether the day be far or near, that - life you speak of is already lost. I shall play this game. My life is my - stake; and I shall freely hazard it upon the chance of winning glory.” - </p> - <p> - “And have you no fear?” - </p> - <p> - The timid Tappan’s thoughts of death are ashen; he likes to live. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron bends upon him his black gaze. “What I fear more than any - death,” says he, “is stagnation—the currentless village life!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, arriving at Cambridge, attaches himself to General Putnam. - The grizzled old wolf killer likes him, being of broadest tolerations, and - no analyst of the psychic. - </p> - <p> - There are seventeen thousand Americans scattered in a ragged fringe about - Boston, in which town the English, taught by Lexington and Bunker Hill, - are cautiously prone to lie close. Young Aaron makes the round of the - camps. He is amazed by the unrule and want of discipline. Besides, he - cannot understand the inaction, feeling that each new day should have its - Bunker Hill. That there is not enough powder among the Americans to load - and fire those seventeen thousand rifles twice, is a piece of military - information of which he lives ignorant, for the grave Virginian in command - confides it only to a merest few. Had young Aaron been aware of this - paucity of powder, those long days, idle, vacant of event, might not have - troubled him. The wearisome wonder of them at least would have been made - plain. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron learns of an expedition against Quebec, to be led by Colonel - Benedict Arnold, and resolves to join it. That all may be by military - rule, he seeks General Washington to ask permission. He finds that - commander in talk with General Putnam; the old wolf killer does him the - favor of a presentation. - </p> - <p> - “From where do you come?” asks Washington, closely scanning young Aaron - whom he instantly dislikes. - </p> - <p> - “From Connecticut. I am a gentleman volunteer, attached to General Putnam - with the rank of captain.” - </p> - <p> - Something of repulsion shows cloudily on the brow of Washington. Obviously - he is offended by this cool stripling, who clothes his hairless boy’s face - with a confident maturity that has the effect of impertinence. Also the - phrase “gentleman volunteer,” sticks in his throat like a fish bone. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, a ‘gentleman volunteer!’” he repeats in a tone of sarcasm scarcely - veiled. “I have now and then heard of such a trinket of war, albeit, never - to the trinket’s advantage. Doubtless, sir, you have made the rounds of - our array!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, from his beardless five feet six inches, looks up at the tall - Virginian, and cannot avoid envying him his door-wide shoulders and that - extra half foot of height. He perceives, too, with a resentful glow, that - he is being mocked. However, he controls himself to answer coldly: - </p> - <p> - “As you surmise, sir, I have made the rounds of your forces.” - </p> - <p> - “And having made them”—this ironically—“I trust you found all - to your satisfaction.” - </p> - <p> - “As to that,” remarks young Aaron, “while I did not look to find trained - soldiers, I think that a better discipline might be maintained.” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed! I shall make a note of it. And yet I must express the hope that, - while you occupy a subordinate place, you will give way as little as may - be to your perilous trick of thinking, leaving it rather to our - experienced friend Putnam, here, he being trained in these matters.” - </p> - <p> - The old wolf killer takes advantage of this reference to himself, to help - the interview into less trying channels. - </p> - <p> - “You were seeking me?” he says to the youthful critic of camps and - discipline. - </p> - <p> - “I was seeking the commander in chief,” returns young Aaron, again facing - Washington. “I came to ask permission to go with Colonel Arnold against - Quebec.” - </p> - <p> - “Against Quebec?” repeats Washington. “Go, with all my heart!” - </p> - <p> - There is a cut concealed in that consent, to the biting smart of which - young Aaron is not insensible. However, he finds in the towering manner of - its delivery something which checks even his audacity. After saluting, he - withdraws without added word. - </p> - <p> - “General,” observes Washington, when young Aaron has gone, “I fear I - cannot congratulate you on your new captain.” - </p> - <p> - “If you knew him better, general,” protests the good-hearted old wolf - killer, “you would like him better. He is a boy; but he has an old head on - his young shoulders.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0043.jpg" alt="0043 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0043.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - “The very thing I most fear,” rejoins Washington. “A boy has no more - business with an old head than with old lungs or old legs. It is - unnatural, sir; and the unnatural is the wrong. I want only heads and - shoulders about me that were born the same day. For that reason, I am glad - your ‘gentleman volunteer’”—this with a shade of irony—“goes - to Quebec with that turbulent Norwich apothecary, Arnold. The army will be - bettered just now by the absence of these lofty spirits. They disturb more - than they help. Besides, a tramp of sixty days through the Maine woods - will improve such Hotspurs vastly. There is nothing like a six-hundred - mile march through an unbroken wilderness, with a fight in the snow at the - far end of it, to take the edge off beardless arrogance and young - conceit.” - </p> - <p> - What young Aaron carries away from that interview, as an impression of the - big commander in chief, crops out in converse with his former college - chum, young Ogden. The latter, like himself, is attached to the military - family of General Putnam. - </p> - <p> - “Ogden, we have begun wrong as soldiers—you and I!” says young - Aaron. “By flint and steel, man, we should have commenced like Washington, - by hoeing tobacco!” - </p> - <p> - “Now this is not right!” cries young Ogden, in reproof. “General - Washington is a soldier who has seen service.” - </p> - <p> - “Why,” retorts young Aaron, “I believe he was trounced with Braddock.” - Then, warmly: “Ogden, the man is Failure walking about in blue and buff - and high boots! I read him like a page of print! He is slow, dull, bovine, - proud, and of no decision. He lacks initiative; and, while he might - defend, he is incapable of attacking. Worst of all he has the soul of a - planter—a plantation soul! A big movement like this, which brings - the thirteen colonies to the field, is beyond his grasp.” - </p> - <p> - “Your great defect, Aaron,” cries young Ogden, not without indignation, - “is that you regard your most careless judgment as final. Half the time, - too, your decision is the product of prejudice, not reason. General - Washington offends you—as, to be frank, he did me—by putting a - lower estimate on your powers than that at which you yourself are pleased - to hold them. I warrant now had he flattered you a bit, you would have - found in him a very Alexander.” - </p> - <p> - “I should have found him what I tell you,” retorts young Aaron stoutly, “a - glaring instance of misplaced mediocrity. He is even wanting in dignity!” - </p> - <p> - “For my side, then, I found him dignified enough.” - </p> - <p> - “Friend Ogden, you took dullness for dignity. Or I will change it; I’ll - even consent that he is dignified. But only in the torpid, cud-chewing - fashion in which a bullock is dignified. Still, he does very well by me; - for he says I may go with Colonel Arnold. And so, Ogden, I’ve but time for - ‘good-by!’ and then off to make myself ready to accompany our swashbuckler - druggist against Quebec.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER III—COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD EXPLAINS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is September, - brilliant and golden. Newburyport is brave with warlike excitement. Drums - roll, fifes shriek, armed men fill the single village street. These latter - are not seasoned troops, as one may see by their careless array and the - want of uniformity in their homespun, homemade garbs. No two are armed - alike, for each has brought his own weapon. These are rifles—long, - eight-square flintlocks. Also every rifleman wears a powderhorn and bullet - pouch of buckskin, while most of them carry knives and hatchets in their - rawhide belts. - </p> - <p> - As our rude soldiery stand at ease in the village street, cheering crowds - line the sidewalk. The shouts rise above the screaming fifes and rumbling - drums. The soldiers are the force which Colonel Arnold will lead against - Quebec. Young, athletic—to the last man they have been drawn from - the farms. Resenting discipline, untaught of drill, their disorder has in - it more of the mob than the military. However, their eyes like their hopes - are bright, and one may read in the healthy, cheerful faces that each - holds himself privily to be of the raw materials from which generals are - made. - </p> - <p> - Down in the harbor eleven smallish vessels ride at anchor. They are of - brigantine rig, each equal to transporting one hundred men. These will - carry Colonel Arnold and his eleven hundred militant young rustics to the - mouth of the Kennebec. In the waist of every vessel, packed one inside the - other as a housewife arranges teacups on her shelves, are twenty bateaux. - They are wide, shallow craft, blunt at bow and stern, and will be used to - convey the expedition up the Kennebec. Each is large enough to hold five - men, and so light that the five, at portages or rapids, can shoulder it - with the dunnage which belongs to them and carry it across to the better - water beyond. - </p> - <p> - The word of command runs along the unpolished ranks; the column begins to - move toward the water front, taking its step from the incessant drums and - fifes. Once at the water, the embarkation goes briskly forward. As the - troops march away, the crowds follow; for the day in Newburyport is a gala - occasion and partakes of the character of a celebration. No one considers - the possibility of defeat. Everywhere one finds optimism, as though Quebec - is already a captured city. - </p> - <p> - Now when the throngs have departed with the soldiery, the street shows - comparatively deserted. This brings to view the Eagle Inn, a hostelry of - the village. In the doorway of the Eagle a man and woman are standing. The - woman is dashingly handsome, with cheek full of color and a bold eye. The - man is about thirty-five in years. He swaggers with a forward, bragging, - gamecock air, which—the basis being a coarse, berserk courage—is - not altogether affectation. His features are vain, sensual, turbulent; his - expression shows him to be proud in a crude way, and is noticeable because - of an absence of any slightest glint of principle. There is, too, an - extravagance of gold braid on his coat, which goes well with the - superfluous feather in the three-cornered hat, and those russet boots of - stamped Spanish leather. These swashbuckley excesses of costume bear out - the vulgar promise of his face, and guarantee that intimated lack of - fineness. - </p> - <p> - The pair are Colonel Arnold and Madam - </p> - <p> - Arnold. She has come to see the last of her husband as he sails away. - While they stand in the door, the coach in which she will make the - homeward journey to Norwich pulls up in front of the Eagle. - </p> - <p> - As Colonel Arnold leads his wife to the coach, he is saying: “No; I shall - be aboard within the hour. After that we start at once. I want a word with - a certain Captain Burr before I embark. I’ve offended him, it seems; for - he is of your proud, high-stomached full-pursed aristocrats who look for - softer treatment than does a commoner clay. I’ve ordered a bottle of wine. - As we drink, I shall make shift to smooth down his ruffled plumage.” - </p> - <p> - “Captain Burr,” repeats Madam Arnold, not without a sniff of scorn. “And - you are a colonel! How long is it since colonels have found it necessary - to truckle to captains, and, when they pout, placate them into good - humor?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear madam,” returns Colonel Arnold as he helps her into the clumsy - vehicle, “permit me to know my own affairs. I tell you this thin-skinned - boy is rich, and what is better was born with his hands open. He parts - with money like a royal prince. One has but to drop a hint, and presto! - his hand is in his purse. The gold I gave you I had from him.” - </p> - <p> - As the coach with Madam Arnold drives away, young Aaron is observed coming - up from the water front. His costume, while as rough as that of the - soldiers, has a fit and a finish to it which accents the graceful - gentility of his manner beyond what satins and silks might do. Madam - Arnold’s bold eyes cover him. He takes off his hat with a gravely accurate - flourish, whereat the bold eyes glance their pleasure at the polite - attention. - </p> - <p> - Coach gone, Colonel Arnold seizes young Aaron’s arm, with a familiarity - which fails of its purpose by being overdone, and draws him into the inn. - He carries him to a room where a table is spread. The stout landlady by - way of topping out the feast is adding thereunto an apple pie, moonlike as - her face and its sister for size and roundness. This, and the roast fowl - which adorns the center, together with a bottle of burgundy to keep all in - countenance, invest the situation with an atmosphere of hope. - </p> - <p> - “Be seated, Captain Burr,” exclaims the hearty Colonel Arnold, as the two - draw up to the table. “A roast pullet, a pie, and a bottle of burgundy, - let me tell you, should make no mean beginning to what is like to prove a - hard campaign. I warrant you, sir, we see worse fare in the pine - wilderness of upper Maine. Let me help you to wine, sir,” he continues, - after carving for himself and young Aaron. The latter, as cold and - imperturbable as when, in Dr. Bellamy’s study, he shattered the designs of - that excellent preacher by preferring law to theology and war to either, - responds to this hospitable politeness with a bow. “Take your glass, - Captain Burr. I desire to drink down all irritations. Yes, sir,” replacing - the drained glass, “I may say, without lowering myself as a gentleman in - your esteem, that, in giving you the order to see the troops aboard, I had - no thought of affronting you.” - </p> - <p> - “It was not your orders to which I objected; it was to your manner. If I - may say so, sir, it was a manner of intolerable arrogance, one which I - shall brook from no man.” - </p> - <p> - “Tush, sir, tush! In war we must thicken our hides. We are not to be - sensitive. We should not look in the camps for the manners of a king’s - court. What you mistook for arrogance was no more than just a tone of - command.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold’s delivery of this is meant to be conciliating. Through it, - however, runs an exasperating vein of patronage, due, doubtless, to his - superior rank, and those extra fifteen years wherein he overlooks young - Aaron. - </p> - <p> - “Let us be plain, colonel,” observes young Aaron, studying his wine - between eye and windowpane. “I hope for nothing better than concord - between us. Also, every order you give me I shall obey. None the less I - ask you to observe that I have no purpose of lowering my self-respect in - coming to this war. As your subordinate I shall take your commands; as a - gentleman, the equal of any, I must be treated as such.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold’s brow is red; but he fills his mouth with chicken which he - drenches down with wine, and so restrains every fretful expression. After - a moment filled of wine and chicken, he observes carelessly: - </p> - <p> - “Say no more! Say no more, Captain Burr! We understand one another!” - </p> - <p> - “There is no more to say,” returns young Aaron steadily. “And I beg you to - remember that the subject is one which you, yourself, proposed. I am - through when I state that, while I object to no man’s vanity, no man’s - arrogance, I shall never permit him to transact them at the expense of my - self-respect.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold turns the talk to what, in a wilderness as well as a - fighting way, lies ahead. They linger over pullet and burgundy for the - better part of an hour, and get on as well as should gentlemen who have no - mighty mutual liking. As they prepare to go aboard, the stout landlady - meets them in the hall. Her modest’ charges are to be met with a handful - of shillings. Colonel Arnold rummages his pockets, wearing the while a - baffled angry air; then he falls to cursing in a spirit truly military. - </p> - <p> - “May the black fiend seize me!” says he, “if my purse has not gone aboard - with my baggage!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron pays the score with an indifference which does not betray a - conviction that the pocket-rummaging is a pretence, and the native - money-meanness of his coarse-faced colonel designed such finale from the - first. Score settled, they repair to the water front. As the two depart, - the stout landlady of the Eagle follows the retreating Colonel Arnold with - shocked, insulted glance. She is a religious woman, and those curses have - moved her soul. - </p> - <p> - “Blaspheming upstart!” she mutters. “And the airs he takes on! As though - folk have forgotten that within the year he stood behind his Norwich - counter selling pills and plasters!” - </p> - <p> - The eleven little ships voyage to the mouth of the Kennebec without event. - The bateaux are launched, and the eleven hundred highhearted youngsters - proceed to pole and paddle their way up the river. Where the currents are - overswift they tow with lines from the banks. Finally they abandon the - Kennebec, and shoulder the bateaux for a scrambling tramp across the - pine-sown watershed. It takes days, but in the end they find themselves - again afloat on the Dead River. This stream leads them to the St. - Lawrence. It is the march of the century! These buoyant young rustics - through the untraced wilderness have come six hundred miles in fifty days. - </p> - <p> - Woodmen born and bred, this long push through the forests is no surprising - feat to these who perform it. They scarcely discuss the matter as they - crouch about their camp fires. The big topic among them is their hatred of - Colonel Arnold. From that September day in Newbury-port his tyranny has - been in hourly expression. Also, it seems to grow with time. He hectors, - raves, vituperates, until there isn’t a trigger finger in the command - which does not itch to shoot him down. Disdaining to aid the march by - carrying so much as a pound’s weight—as being work beneath his - exalted rank—this Caesar of the apothecaries must needs have his - special cooking kit along. Also his tent must be pitched with the coming - down of every night. Men hungry and unsheltered all around him, he sees no - reason why he should not sleep warmly soft, and breakfast and dine and sup - like a wilderness Lucullus. Thereat the farmer youth grumble, and console - themselves with slighting remarks and looks of contumely. - </p> - <p> - To these remarks and looks, Colonel Arnold is driven to deafen his ears - and offer his back. It would be inconvenient to hear and see these things; - since, for all his bullying attitude, he dare not crowd his followers too - far. Their unbroken mouths are but new to the military bit; a too cruel - pressure on the bridle reins might mean the unhorsing of our vanity-eaten - apothecary. As it is, by twos and tens and twenties, the command dwindles - away. Every roll call discloses fresh desertions. Wroth with their - commander, resolved against the mean tyranny of his rule, when the party - reaches the St. Lawrence, half have gone to a right-about and are on their - way home. The feather-headed Colonel Arnold finds himself with a muster of - five hundred and fifty where he should have had eleven hundred. And the - five hundred and fifty with him are on the darkling edge of revolt. - </p> - <p> - “Think on such cur hearts!” cries Colonel Arnold, as he speaks with young - Aaron of those desertions which have cut his force in two. “Half have - already turned tail, and the other half are of a coward mind to follow - their mongrel example. I would sooner command a brigade of dogs!” - </p> - <p> - “Believe me,” observes young Aaron, icily acquiescent, “I shall not - contradict your peculiar fitness for the command you describe.” - </p> - <p> - Being thus happily delivered, young Aaron goes round on his imperturbable - heel and strolls away, leaving the angry Colonel Arnold glaring with - rage-congested eye. - </p> - <p> - “Insolent puppy!” the latter grits between his teeth. - </p> - <p> - He is heedful, however, to avoid the epithet in the presence of young - Aaron; for, in spite of that rude courage which, when all is said, lies at - the root of his nature, the ex-apothecary dreads the “gentleman - volunteer,” with his black ophidian glance—so balanced, so hard, so - vacant of fear! - </p> - <p> - It is toward the last of November; the valley of the St. Lawrence seems - the home of snow. Colonel Arnold grows afraid of the temper of his people. - As they push slowly through the drifts, their angry wrath against the - Caligula who leads them is only too thinly veiled. At this, the insolent - oppressions of our ex-apothecary cease; he seeks to conciliate, but the - time is overlate. - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold goes into camp, and considers the situation. Even if his - followers do not wheel suddenly southward for home, he fears that on some - final battle day they will refuse to fight at his command. With despair - gnawing at his heart, he decides to get word to General Montgomery, who - has conquered and is holding Montreal. The giant Irishman is the idol of - the army. Once he appears, the grumblings and mutinous murmurings will - abate. The rebellious ones will go wherever he points, fight like lions at - his merest word. - </p> - <p> - True, the coming of Montgomery will mean his own loss of command, and that - is a bitter pill. Still, since he may do no better, he resolves to gulp - it. Thus resolving, he calls young Aaron into conference. The uneasy - tyrant hates young Aaron—hates him for the gold he has borrowed from - him, hates him for his scarcely concealed contempt of himself. None the - less he calls him into council. It is wisdom not friendship his case - requires, and he early learned to value the long head of our “gentleman - volunteer.” - </p> - <p> - “It is this,” explains Colonel Arnold, desperately. “We have not the force - demanded for the capture of Quebec. We must get word to Montgomery. He is - one hundred and twenty miles away in Montreal. The puzzle is to find some - one, whom we can trust among these French-speaking native Canadians, who - will carry my message.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron knots his brows. Colonel Arnold watches him anxiously, for he - is at the end of his resources. Finally young Aaron consults his watch. - </p> - <p> - “It is now ten o’clock,” he says. “Nothing can be done to-night. And yet I - think I know the man for your occasion. By daybreak I’ll have him before - you.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IV—THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HERE are many - deserted log huts along the St. Lawrence. Colonel Arnold has taken up his - quarters in one of these. It is eight o’clock of the morning following the - talk with young Aaron when the sentinel at the door reports that a priest - is asking admission. - </p> - <p> - “What have I to do with priests!” demands Colonel Arnold. “However, bring - him in! He must give good reasons for disturbing me, or his black coat - will do him little good.” - </p> - <p> - The priest is clothed from head to heel in the black frock of his order. - The frock is caught in about the waist with a heavy cord. Down the front - depend a crucifix and beads. The frock is thickly lined with fur; the - peaked hood, also fur-lined, is drawn forward over the priest’s face. In - figure he is short and slight. As he peers out from his hood at Colonel - Arnold, his black eyes give that commander a start of uncertainty. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose you speak no French?” says the priest. - </p> - <p> - His accent is wretched. Colonel Arnold might be justified in retorting - that his visitor speaks no English. He restricts himself, however, to an - admission that, as the priest surmises, he has no French, and follows it - with a bluff demand that the latter make plain his errand. - </p> - <p> - “Why, sir,” returns the priest, glancing about as though in quest of some - one, “I expected to find Captain Burr here. He tells me you wish to send a - message to Montreal.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold is alert in a moment; his manner undergoes a change from - harsh to suave. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” he cries amiably; “you are the man.” Then, to the sentinel at the - door: “Send word, sir, to Captain Burr, and ask him to come at once to my - quarters.” - </p> - <p> - While waiting the coming of young Aaron, Colonel Arnold enters into - conversation with his clerkly visitor. The priest explains that he hates - the English, as do all Canadians of French stock. He is only too willing - to do Colonel Arnold any service that shall tell against them. Also, he - adds, in response to a query, that he can make his way to Montreal in ten - days. - </p> - <p> - “There are farmer and fisher people all along the St. Lawrence,” says he. - “They are French, and good sons of mother church. I am sure they will give - me food and shelter.” - </p> - <p> - The sentinel comes lumbering in, and reports that young Aaron is not to be - found. - </p> - <p> - “That is sheer nonsense, sir!” fumes Colonel Arnold. “Why should he not be - found? He is somewhere about camp. Fetch him instantly!” - </p> - <p> - When the sentinel again departs, the priest frees his face of the - obscuring hood. - </p> - <p> - “Your sentinel is right,” he says. “Captain Burr is not at his quarters.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold stares in amazement; the priest is none other than our - “gentleman volunteer.” Perceiving Colonel Arnold gazing in curious wonder - at his clerkly frock, young Aaron explains. - </p> - <p> - “I got it five days back, at that monastery we passed. You recall how I - dined there with the Brothers. I thought then that just such a peaceful - coat as this might find a use.” - </p> - <p> - “Marvelous!” exclaims Colonel Arnold. “And you speak French, too?” - </p> - <p> - “French and Latin. I have, you see, the verbal as well as outward - furnishings of a priest of these parts.” - </p> - <p> - “And you think you can reach Montgomery? I have to warn you, sir, that the - work will be extremely delicate and the danger great.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall be equal to the work. As for the peril, if I feared it I should - not be here.” - </p> - <p> - It is arranged; and young Aaron explains that he is prepared, indeed, - prefers, to start at once. Moreover, he counsels secrecy. - </p> - <p> - “You have an Indian guide or two, about you,” says he, “whom I do not - trust. If my errand were known, one of them might cut me off and sell my - scalp to the English.” - </p> - <p> - When Colonel Arnold is left alone, he gives himself up to a consideration - of the chances of his message going safely to Montreal. He sits long, with - puckered lips and brooding eye. - </p> - <p> - “In any event,” he murmurs, “I cannot fail to be the better off. If he - reach Montgomery, that is what I want. On the other hand, should he fall a - prey to the English I shall think it a settlement of what debts I owe him. - Yes; the latter event would mean three hundred pounds to me. Either way I - am rid of one whose cool superiorities begin to smart. Himself a - gentleman, he seems never to forget that I am an apothecary.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is twenty miles nearer Montreal when the early winter sun goes - down. For ten days he plods onward, now and again lying by to avoid a - roving party of English. As he foretold, every cabin is open to the “young - priest.” He but explains that he has cause to fear the redcoats, and with - that those French Canadians, whom he meets with, keep nightly watch, while - couching him warmest and softest, and feeding him on the best. At last he - reaches General Montgomery, and tells of Colonel Arnold below Quebec. - </p> - <p> - General Montgomery, a giant in stature, has none of that sluggishness so - common with folk of size. In twenty-four hours after receiving young - Aaron’s word, he is off to make a junction with Colonel Arnold. He takes - with him three hundred followers, all that may be spared from Montreal, - and asks young Aaron to serve on his personal staff. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0067.jpg" alt="0067 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0067.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - They find Colonel Arnold, with his five hundred and fifty, camped under - the very heights of Quebec. The garrison, while quite as strong as is his - force, have not once molested him. They leave his undoing to the cold and - snow, and that starvation which is making gaunt the faces and shortening - the belts of his men. - </p> - <p> - General Montgomery upon his arrival takes command. Colonel Arnold, while - foreseeing this—since even his vanity does not conceive of a war - condition so upside down that a colonel gives orders to a general—cannot - avoid a fit of the sulks. He is the more inclined to be moody, because the - coming of the big Irishman has visibly brightened his people, who for - months have been scowls and clouds to him. Now the face of affairs is - changed; the mutinous ones have nothing save cheers for the big general - whenever he appears. - </p> - <p> - General Montgomery calls a conference, and Colonel Arnold comes with all - his officers. At the request of young Aaron, the big general retains him - by his side. This does not please the ex-apothecary, it hurts his - self-love that the “gentleman volunteer” is so obviously pleased to be - free of his company. At the conference, General Montgomery advises all to - hold themselves in readiness for an assault upon the English walls. - </p> - <p> - “I cannot tell the night,” he observes; “I only say that we shall attack - during the first snowstorm that occurs. It may come in an hour, wherefore - be ready!” - </p> - <p> - The storm which is to mask the movements of General Montgomery does not - keep folk waiting. There soon falls a midnight which is nothing save a - blinding whirling sheet of snow. Thereupon the word goes through the camp. - </p> - <p> - The assault is to be made in two columns, General Montgomery leading one, - Colonel Arnold the other. Young Aaron will be by the elbow of the big - Irishman. By way of aiding, a feigned attack is ordered for a far corner - of the English works. - </p> - <p> - As the soldiers fall into their ranks, the storm fairly swallows them up. - It would seem as though none might live in such a tempest—white, - ferociously cold, Arctic in its fury! It is desperate weather! the more - desperate when faced by ones whose courage has been diminished by - privation. But the strong heart of General Montgomery listens to no - doubts. He will lead out his eight hundred and fifty against an equal - force that have been sleeping warm and eating full, while his own were - freezing and starving. Also, those warm, full-fed ones are behind stone - walls, which the lean, frozen ones must scale and capture. - </p> - <p> - “I shall give you ten minutes’ start,” observes General Montgomery to - Colonel Arnold. “You have farther to go than we to gain your position. I - shall wait ten minutes; then I shall press forward.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold moves off with his column through the driving storm. When - those ten minutes of grace have elapsed, General Montgomery gives his men - the word to advance. - </p> - <p> - They urge their difficult way up a ravine, snow belt-deep. There is an - outer work of blockhouse sort at the head of the defile. It is of solid - mason work, two stories, crenelled above for muskets, pierced below for - two twelve-pounders. This must be reduced before the main assault can - begin. - </p> - <p> - As General Montgomery, with young Aaron on the right, the column in broken - disorder at his heels, nears the blockhouse, a dog, more wakeful than the - English, is heard to bark. That bark turns out the redcoat garrison as - though a trumpet called. - </p> - <p> - “Forward!” cries General Montgomery. - </p> - <p> - The men respond; they rush bravely on. The blockhouse, dully looming - through the storm, is no more than forty yards away. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly a red tongue of flame licks out into the snow swirl, to be - followed by the roar of one of the twelve-pounders. In quick response - comes the roar of its sister gun, while, from the loopholes above, the - muskets crackle and splutter. - </p> - <p> - It is blind cannonading; but it does its work as though the best - artillerist is training the guns at brightest noonday. The head of the - assaulting column is met flush in the face with a sleet of grapeshot. - </p> - <p> - General Montgomery staggers; and then, without a word, falls forward on - his face in the snow. Young Aaron stoops to raise him to his feet. It is - of no avail; the big Irishman is dead. - </p> - <p> - The bursting roar of the twelve-pounders is heard again. As if to keep - their general company, a dozen more give up their lives. - </p> - <p> - “Montgomery is slain!” - </p> - <p> - The word zigzags along the ragged column. - </p> - <p> - It is a daunting word! The men begin to give way. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron rushes into their midst, and seeks to rally them. He might as - well attempt to stay the whirling snow in its dance! The men will follow - none save General Montgomery; and he is dead. - </p> - <p> - Slowly they fall backward along the ravine up which they climbed. Again - the two twelve-pounders roar, and a raking hail of grape sings through the - shaking ranks. More men are struck down! That backward movement becomes a - rout. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron loses the icy self-control which is his distinguishing trait. - He buries the retreating ones beneath an avalanche of curses, drowns them - with a cataract of scorn. - </p> - <p> - “What!” he cries. “Will you leave your general’s body in their hands?” - </p> - <p> - He might have spared himself the shouting effort. Already he is alone with - the dead. - </p> - <p> - “It is better company than that of cowards!” is his bitter cry, as he - bends above the stark form of his chief. - </p> - <p> - The English are pouring from the blockhouse. Still young Aaron will not - leave the dead Montgomery behind. Now are the steel-like powers of his - slight frame manifest. With one effort, he swings the giant body to his - shoulder, and plunges off down the defile, the eager blood-hungry redcoats - not a dozen rods behind. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER V—THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE gray morning - finds the routed ones in their old camp by the St. Lawrence. Colonel - Arnold’s assault has also failed. The ex-apothecary received a slight - wound, and is vastly proud. It is his left arm that was hurt, and of it he - makes a mighty parade, slinging it in a rich crimson sash. - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold, now in command, does not attempt another assault, but - contents himself with maneuvering his slender forces on the plain in - tantalizing view of the redcoat foe. He sends a flag of truce to the foot - of the walls, with a sprightly challenge to their defenders, inviting them - to come out and fight. The Quebec commander, being a soldier and no mad - knight errant, refuses to be thus romantic. The winter is deepening; he - will leave the vaporing Colonel Arnold to fight a battle with the - thermometer. Also, General Burgoyne, at the head of an army, is pointed - that way. - </p> - <p> - His maneuverings ignored, his challenge declined, Colonel Arnold puts in - an entire night framing a demand for the instant surrender of Quebec. This - he is at pains to couch in terms of insult, peppering it from top to - bottom with biting taunts. He closes with a threat that, should the - English commander fail to lower his flag, he will conquer the city at the - point of the sword, and put the garrison to disgraceful death by gibbet - and halter. When he has completed this precious manifesto, he seeks out - young Aaron, and commands him to carry it in person to the city’s gates. - As Colonel Arnold tenders the letter, young Aaron puts his hands behind - him. - </p> - <p> - “Before I take it, sir,” says he, “I should like to hear it read.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron’s contempt for the ex-apothecary has found increase with every - day since the death of Montgomery. Those braggadocio maneuverings, the - foolish challenge to come out and fight, have filled him with disgust. - They shock by stress of their innate cheap vulgarity. He is of no mind to - lend himself to any kindred buffoonery. - </p> - <p> - “Do you refuse my orders, sirrah?” cries Colonel Arnold, falling into a - dramatic fume. - </p> - <p> - “I refuse nothing! I say that I shall carry no letter until I know its - contents. I warn you, sir, I am not to be ‘ordered,’ as you call it, into - a false position by any man alive.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron’s face is getting white; there is a dangerous sparkle in the - black ophidian eyes. Colonel Arnold reads these symptoms, and draws back. - Still, he maintains a ruffling front. - </p> - <p> - “Sir!” says he haughtily; “you should think on your subordinate rank, and - on your youth, before you pretend to overlook my conduct.” - </p> - <p> - “My subordinate rank shall not detract from my quality as a gentleman. As - for my youth, I shall prove old enough, I trust, to make safe my honor. I - say again, I’ll not touch your letter till I hear it read.” - </p> - <p> - “Remember, sir, to whom you speak!” - </p> - <p> - “I shall remember what I mentioned at the Eagle Inn; I shall remember my - self-respect.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold fixes young Aaron with a superior stare. If it be meant for - his confusion, it meets failure beyond hope. The black eyes stare back - with so much of iron menace in them, as to disconcert the personage of - former drugs. - </p> - <p> - He feels them play upon him like two black rapier points. His assurance - breaks down; his lofty determination oozes away. With gaze seeking the - floor, his ruddy, wine-marked countenance flushes doubly red. - </p> - <p> - “Since you make such a swelter of the business,” he grumbles, “I, for my - own sake, shall now ask you to read it. I would have you know, sir, that I - understand the requirements as well as the proprieties of my position.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold tears open the letter with a flourish, and gives it to - young Aaron. The latter reads it; and then, with no attempt to palliate - the insult, throws it on the floor. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” cries Colonel Arnold, exploding into a sudden blaze of wrath, “I - was told in Cambridge, what my officers have often told me since, that you - are a bumptious young fool! Many times have I been told it, sir; and, - until now, I did you the honor to disbelieve it.” Young Aaron is cold and - sneering. “Sir,” he retorts, “see how much more credulous I am than are - you. I was told but once that you are a bragging, empty vulgarian, and I - instantly believed it.” - </p> - <p> - The pair stand opposite one another, glances crossing like sword blades, - the insulted letter on the floor between. It is Colonel Arnold who again - gives ground. Snapping his fingers, as though breaking off an incident - beneath his exalted notice, he goes about on his heel. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” says young Aaron; “now that I see your back, sir, I shall take my - leave.” - </p> - <p> - The winter days, heavy and leaden and chill, go by. Colonel Arnold - continues those maneuverings and challengings, those struttings and - vaporings. At last even his coxcomb vanity grows weary, and he thinks on - Montreal. One morning, with all his followers, he marches off to that - city, still held by the garrison that Montgomery left behind. Established - in Montreal he comports himself as becomes a conqueror, expanding into - pomp and license, living on the fat, drinking of the strong. And day by - day Burgoyne is drawing nearer. - </p> - <p> - Broad spring descends; a green mist is visible in the winter-stripped - trees. The rumors of Burgoyne’s approach increase and prove disquieting. - Colonel Arnold leads his people out of Montreal, and plunges southward - into the wilderness. He pitches camp on the river Sorel. - </p> - <p> - Since the incident of the letter, young Aaron has held no traffic, polite - or otherwise, with Colonel Arnold. The “gentleman volunteer” sees lonesome - days; for he has made no friends about the camp. The men admire him, but - offer him no place in their hearts. A boy in years, with a beardless - girl’s face, he gives himself the airs of gravest manhood. His atmosphere, - while it does not repel, is not inviting. Men hold aloof, as though - separated from him by a gulf. He tells no stories, cracks no jests. His - manner is one of careless nonchalance. In truth, he is so much engaged in - upholding his young dignity as to leave him no time to be popular. His - bringing off the dead Montgomery, under fire of the English, has been told - and retold in every corner of the camp. This gains him credit for a heart - of fire, and a fortitude without a flaw. On the march, too, he faces every - hardship, shirks no work, but meets and does his duty equal with the best. - And yet there is that cool reserve, which denies the thought of - comradeship and holds friendly folk at bay. With them, yet not of them, - the men about him cannot solve the conundrum of his nature; and so they - leave him to himself. They value him, they respect him, they hold his - courage above proof; there it ends. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, aware of his lonely position, does nothing to change it. He - is conceitedly pleased with things as they are. It is the old head on the - young shoulders that thus gets in his way; Washington was right in his - philosophy. Young Aaron, however, is as content with that head, as in - those old Bethlehem days, when he patronized Dr. Bellamy, and declared for - the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield. - </p> - <p> - None the less young Aaron is not wholly satisfied. As he idles about the - camp by the Sorel, he feels that any present chance of conquering the fame - and power he came seeking in this war is closed against him. - </p> - <p> - “Plainly,” counsels the old head on the young shoulders, “it is time to - bring about a change.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold is smitten of surprise one afternoon, when young Aaron - walks into his tent. He does his best to hide that surprise, as an emotion - at war with his high military station. Young Aaron, ever equal to a rigid - etiquette, salutes profoundly. - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Arnold,” says he, “I am here to return into your hands that rank - of captain, which I hold only by courtesy. Also, I desire to tell you that - I leave for Albany at once.” - </p> - <p> - “Albany!” - </p> - <p> - “My canoe is waiting, sir. I start immediately.” - </p> - <p> - “I forbid your going, sir!” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Arnold has recovered his breath, and makes this proclamation - grandly. Privately, he is a-quake; for he does not know what stories young - Aaron might tell in the south. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” he repeats, “I forbid your departure! You must not go!” - </p> - <p> - “Must not?” - </p> - <p> - As though answering his own query, young Aaron leaves Colonel Arnold - without further remark, and walks down to the river, where a canoe is - waiting. The latter cranky contrivance is manned by a quartette of - Canadians, who sit, paddle in fist, ready for the word to start. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0081.jpg" alt="0081 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0081.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - At this decisive action, Colonel Arnold is roused. He springs to his feet - and follows to the waiting canoe. Young Aaron has just taken his place. - </p> - <p> - “Captain Burr,” cries Colonel Arnold, “what does this mean? You heard my - orders, sir! You must not go!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is ashore like a flash. “Colonel Arnold,” says he, “it is - quite possible that you have force enough at hand to detain me. Be warned, - however, that the exercise of such force will have a sequel serious to - yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, as to that,” responds Colonel Arnold sullenly, “I shall not attempt - to detain you. I simply leave you to the responsibility of departing in - the teeth of my orders, sir.” - </p> - <p> - In a moment young Aaron is back in the canoe; the four paddles churn the - water into baby whirlpools, and the slight craft glides out upon the bosom - of the Sorel. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron encounters a party of Indians, and conquers their friendship - with diplomatic rum. He reaches Albany, and tastes the delights of fame; - for the story of Quebec has preceded him, and he finds himself a hero. - Thereupon, while outwardly unmoved, he swells in the proud but secret - recesses of his heart. - </p> - <p> - In New York he meets his college friend Ogden, who tells him that he has - sold Warlock and spent the proceeds. Likewise, Colonel Troup explains how - he received a thousand pounds for him from his estate, but was moved to - borrow the half of it, having a call for such sum. Colonel Troup gives - five hundred pounds to young Aaron, who receives it carelessly, the while - assuring his debtor, as well as young Ogden, who spent the price of - Warlock, that they are cheerfully welcome to his gold. At that, both young - Ogden and Colonel Troup pluck up a generous spirit, and borrow each - another fifty pounds; which sums our “gentleman volunteer” puts into their - impoverished fingers, as readily as though pounds mean groats and - farthings. For he holds that to be niggard of money is impossible to a - soldier and a gentleman. Did not the knight-errant of old romaunts go - chucking gold-lined purses right and left, into every empty outstretched - hand? And shall not young Aaron be the modern knight-errant if he chooses? - These are the questions which he puts to himself, as he ministers to the - famished finances of his friends. - </p> - <p> - General Washington learns of the incident of the dead Montgomery. Having a - conscience, he is distressed by the thought that he may have been harshly - unjust, one Cambridge day, to our “gentleman volunteer.” The - conscience-smitten general has headquarters in New York, and now, when - young Aaron arrives, strives to make amends. He invites that youthful - campaigner to a place upon his personal staff, with the rank of major. - Young Aaron accepts, and becomes part of Washington’s military family. The - general is living at Richmond Hill, a mansion which in after years young - Aaron will buy and make his residence. - </p> - <p> - For six weeks young Aaron is with Washington. Sometimes he rides out with - him; sometimes he writes reports and orders at his dictation; always he - dislikes him. He finds nothing in the Virginian to invoke his confidence - or compel his esteem. In the finale he detests him. - </p> - <p> - This latter mind condition is vastly built up by the lack of notice he - receives from the ever-taciturn, often-abstracted, overworried Washington. - The big general will sit for hours, with brows of thought and pondering - eye, as heedless of young Aaron—albeit in the same room with him—as - though our sucking Marlborough owns no existence. This irritates the - latter’s pride; for he has military views which he longs to unfold, but - cannot because of the grim wordlessness of his chief. He resolves to break - the ice. - </p> - <p> - Washington is sitting lost in thought. “Sir,” exclaims young Aaron, boldly - rushing in upon the general’s meditations, “the English grow stronger. - Every day their fleet is augmented by new ships, bringing fresh troops. - Eventually they will land and drive us from the city. When that time - comes, it will be my advice to burn New York to the ground, and leave them - naught save the charred ruins.” - </p> - <p> - Washington pays no attention; it is as though a starling spoke. Presently - he mounts his horse, and soberly rides off to an inspection of troops. - Young Aaron is mightily mortified, and, by way of reestablishing his - dignity on the pedestal from which it has been thrust, neglects a line of - clerical work that should claim his attention. Washington upon his return - discovers this, and having a temper like gunpowder flashes into a rage. - </p> - <p> - “What does this mean, sir?” he demands, angry to the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Why, sir,” responds young Aaron coolly, “I should think it might mean - that I brought a sword not a pen to this war.” - </p> - <p> - “You are insolent, sir!” - </p> - <p> - “As you please, sir. But since you say it, I must ask to be relieved from - further duty on your staff.” - </p> - <p> - The big general stalks from the room. The next day he transfers young - Aaron to the staff of Putnam. - </p> - <p> - “I’m sorry he offended you, general,” says the old wolf killer. “For - myself, I’m bound to say that I think well of the boy.” - </p> - <p> - “There is a word,” returns Washington, “as to the meaning of which, until - I met him, I was ignorant; that is the word ‘prig.’ It is strange, too; - for he is as brave as Cæsar. I have it on the words of twenty. Yes, - general, your ‘gentleman-volunteer’ is altogether a strangeling; for he is - one of those anomalies, a courageous prig.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VI—POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N that day when - the farmers of Concord turn their rifles upon King George, there dwells in - Elizabeth a certain English Major Moncrieffe. With him is his daughter, - just ceasing to be a girl and beginning to be a woman. Peggy Moncrieffe is - a beauty, and, to tell a whole truth, confident thereof to the verge of - brazen. When her father is ordered to his regiment he leaves her behind. - The war to him is no more than a riot; he looks to be back in Elizabeth - before the month expires. - </p> - <p> - The optimistic Major Moncrieffe is wrong. That riot, which is not a riot - but a revolution, spreads and spreads like fire among dry grass. At last a - hostile line divides him from his daughter Peggy. This is serious; for, - aside from forbidding any word between them, it prevents him sending what - money she requires for her care. In her distress she writes General - Putnam, her father’s comrade in the last war with the French. The old wolf - killer invites the desolate Peggy to make one of his own household. When - young Aaron leaves the staff of Washington, Peggy Moncrieffe is with the - Putnams, whose house stands at the corner of Broadway and the Battery. - </p> - <p> - The family of the old wolf killer is made up of Madam Putnam and two - daughters. Peggy Moncrieffe is received as a third daughter by the kindly - Madam Putnam. Also, like a third daughter, she is set to the spinning - wheel; for, while the old wolf killer fights the English, Madam Putnam and - her daughters work early and late, with spinning wheel and loom, - clothmaking for the continental troops. Peggy Moncrieffe offers no demur; - but goes at the spinning and weaving as though she is as much puritan and - patriot as are those about her. She is busy at the spinning when young - Aaron is presented. And in that presentation lurks a peril; for she is - eighteen and he is twenty. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, selfish, gallant, pleased with a pretty face as with a poem, - becomes flatteringly attentive to pretty Peggy Moncrieffe. She, for her - side, turns restless when he leaves her, to glow like the sun when he - returns. She forgets the spinning wheel for his conversation. The two walk - under the trees in the Battery, or, from the quiet steps of St. Paul’s, - watch the evening sun go down beyond the Jersey hills. - </p> - <p> - Madam Putnam is prudent, and does not like these symptoms. She issues a - whispered mandate to the old wolf killer, with whom her word is law. - Thereupon he sends the pretty Peggy to safer quarters near Kingsbridge. - </p> - <p> - That is to say, the Kingsbridge refuge, to which pretty Peggy reluctantly - retires, is safe until she arrives. It presently becomes a theater of - danger, since young Aaron is not a day in discovering a complete military - reason for visiting it. The old wolf killer is not like Washington; there - are no foolish orders or tedious dispatches for his aide to write. This - gives leisure to young Aaron, which he improves in daily gallops to - Kingsbridge. It is to be feared that he and pretty Peggy Moncrieffe find - walks as shady, and prospects as pleasant, and moments as sweet, as when - they had the Battery for a promenade and took in the Jersey hills from the - twilight steps of St. Paul’s. Also, the pretty Peggy no longer pleads to - join her father; albeit that parent has just been sent with his regiment - to Staten Island, not an hour’s sail away. - </p> - <p> - This contentment of the pretty Peggy with things as they are, re-alarms - the prudence of Madam Putnam, who regards it as a sign most sinister. - Having a genius to be military, quite equal to that of her old - wolf-killing husband, she attacks this dangerously tender situation in - flank. She gives her commands to the old wolf killer, and at once he - blindly obeys. He dispatches young Aaron on a mission to Long Island. The - latter is to look up positions of defense, so as to be prepared for the - English, should they carry their arms in that direction. - </p> - <p> - In two days young Aaron returns, and makes an exhaustive report; whereat - the old wolf killer breaks into words of praise. This duty discharged, - young Aaron is into the saddle and off, clatteringly, for Kingsbridge. The - old wolf killer sees him depart and says nothing, while a cunning twinkle - dances in the old gray eye. Then the twinkle subsides, and is succeeded by - a self-reproachful doubt. - </p> - <p> - “He might have married her,” he observes tentatively to Madam Putnam. - </p> - <p> - “Never!” returns that clear matron. “Your young Major Burr is too coolly - the selfish calculating egotist. He would win her and wear her as he might - some bauble ornament, and cast her aside when the glitter was gone. As for - marrying her, he’d as soon think of marrying the rings on his fingers, or - the buckles on his shoes.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron comes clattering back from Kingsbridge. His black eyes sparkle - wickedly; his face, usually so imperturbable, is the seat of an obvious - anger. Moreover, he seems chokingly full of a question, which even his - ingenious self-confidence is at a loss how to ask. He gets the old wolf - killer alone. - </p> - <p> - “Miss Moncrieffe!” he breaks forth. Then he proceeds blunderingly: “I had - occasion to go to Kingsbridge, and was surprised to find her gone.” The - last concludes with a rising inflection. - </p> - <p> - “Why, yes!” retorts the old wolf killer, summoning the innocence of a - sheep. “I forgot to tell you that, seeing an opportunity, I yesterday sent - little Peg to Staten Island under a flag of truce. She is with her father. - Between us”—here he sinks his voice mysteriously—“I was afraid - the enemy might find some way to use little Peg as a spy.” Young Aaron - clicks his teeth savagely, but says nothing; the old wolf killer watches - him with the tail of his eye. - </p> - <p> - The “gentleman volunteer” strides down to the sea wall, and takes a long - and mayhap loving look at Staten Island, with the wind-ruffled expanse of - bay between. - </p> - <p> - And there the romance ends. - </p> - <p> - Two days later young Aaron is sipping his wine in black Sam Fraunces’ long - room, the picture of that elegant indifference which he cultivates as a - virtue. Already the fancy for poor Peggy Moncrieffe has faded from the - agate surface of his nature, as the breath mists fade from the mirror’s - face, and he thinks only on how and when he shall lay down his title of - major for that of lieutenant colonel. - </p> - <p> - The woman’s heart is the heart loyal. While he sips wine at Fraunces’, and - weighs the chances of promotion, Peggy the forgotten finds in Staten - Island another Naxos, and like another Ariadne goes weeping for that - Theseus who has already lost her from out his thoughts. - </p> - <p> - It is unfortunate that, as aide to the old wolf killer, young Aaron is not - provided with more work for hand and head. As it is, his unfilled hours - afford him opportunity to think and talk unprofitably. He falls to - criticising Washington to the old wolf killer; which is about as sapient - as though he fell to criticising Madam Putnam to the old wolf killer. - </p> - <p> - “Of what avail,” cries young Aaron one afternoon, as he and his grizzled - chief stroll in the Bowling Green—“of what avail for General - Washington to hold the city, when he must give it up at last? New English - ships show in the bay with the coming up of every sun. He would be wiser - if he withdrew into the interior, and so forced the foe to follow him. - This would lose them the backing of their fleet, from which they gain not - only supplies, but what is of more consequence a kind of moral support.” - </p> - <p> - The old wolf killer looks at his opinionated aide for a moment. Then - without replying directly, he observes: - </p> - <p> - “Just as the Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity, so the - military virtues are courage, endurance, and silence. And the greatest of - these is silence. You ought always to remember that a soldier’s sword - should be immeasurably longer than his tongue.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron reddens at what he feels is a rebuke. The following day, when - he is directed to join General McDougal on Long Island, he is glad to go. - </p> - <p> - “He has had too little to do,” explains the old wolf killer to Madam - Putnam. “Like all workless folk he is beginning to talk; and his is the - sort of conversation that breeds enemies and brews trouble.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is in the fight on Long Island. Upon the retreating back of - that lost battle, he supervises the crossing of the troops to Manhattan. - All night, cool and quick and vigilant, he labors on the Brooklyn side to - put the men aboard the transports. When the last is across the East River, - he himself embarks, bringing with him his horse, hog-tied, in the bottom - of the barge. It is early dawn when he leads the released animal ashore on - the Manhattan side. Mounting it, with two fellow officers, he rides - northward at a leisurely gait, a half mile to the rear of the retreating - army. - </p> - <p> - As young Aaron and his companions push north toward Kingsbridge, they come - across the baggage and stores of a battery of artillery. The baggage and - stores have been but the moment before abandoned. - </p> - <p> - “It looks,” observes young Aaron, who is as unruffled as upon the day when - he laid down theology for law, to the horrified distress of Dr. Bellamy—“it - looks as though the captain of that battery, whoever he is, has permitted - these English in our rear to get unnecessarily upon his nerves. There is - no such close occasion as to justify the abandonment of these stores. At - least he should have destroyed them.” - </p> - <p> - Twenty rods beyond, he finds one of the battery’s guns. He points to the - lost piece scornfully. - </p> - <p> - “There,” says he, “is the pure proof of some one’s cowardice!” - </p> - <p> - Spurring on, and led by the rumbling sounds of field guns in full retreat, - he overtakes the timid ones who have thrown away baggage and gun. The - captain who commands is a youth no older than young Aaron. As the latter - comes up, the boy captain is urging his cannoneers to double speed. - </p> - <p> - “Let me congratulate you, captain,” observes young Aaron, extravagantly - polite the better to set off the sneer that marks his manner, “on not - having thrown away your colors. May I ask your name?” - </p> - <p> - “I, sir,” returns the artillery youth, as much moved of resentment at - young Aaron’s sneer, as is possible for one in his perturbed frame, “I, - sir, am Captain Alexander Hamilton.” - </p> - <p> - “And I, sir, am Major Burr. Let me compliment you, Captain Hamilton, for - the ardor you display in carrying your battery forward. One might suppose - from your headlong zeal that the English forces lie in that direction. I - must needs say, however, that the zeal which casts away its stores and - baggage, and leaves a gun behind, is ill considered.” - </p> - <p> - Captain Hamilton’s face clouds angrily; but, since he is thinking more on - the English than on insults that perilous morning, he does not reply to - the taunt. Young Aaron, feeling the better for his expressions of - contempt, wheels off to the left toward the Hudson, leaving the other to - bring on his battery with what breathless speed he may. - </p> - <p> - “Now, had that Captain Hamilton been in the light on Long Island,” remarks - young Aaron to his companions, “the hurry he shows might have found - partial excuse. As it is, I hold his flight too feverish, when one - remembers that it is from an enemy which as yet he has personally neither - faced nor seen.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron puts in divers idle months at Kingsbridge. His conduct on Long - Island, and during the retreat of the army toward the north, has - multiplied his fame for an indomitable hardihood. Indeed he is inclined to - compliment himself; though he hides the fact defensively in his own - breast. - </p> - <p> - This good opinion of his services teaches him to entertain ambitions of - the vaulting, not to say o’er-leaping sort. As he now, by the light of - recent achievement, measures his merits nothing short of a colonelcy and - the leadership of a regiment will do him justice. Conceive then, how - deeply he feels slighted when Washington fails to share these liberal - views, and promotes him to nothing higher than that lieutenant colonelcy - which his hopes have so much outgrown. He accepts; but he feels the title - fit him with an awkward nearness, as might a coat that some blundering - tailor has cut too small. The letter of acceptance which he indites to - Washington includes such paragraphs as this: - </p> - <p> - <i>I am constrained to observe that the late date of my appointment as - lieutenant colonel, subjects me to the command of officers who, in the - late campaign, were my juniors. With due submission, sir, I should like to - know whether it was misconduct on my part or extraordinary merit on - theirs, which has thus given them the preference. I desire, on my part, to - avoid equally the character of turbulent or passive, but as a decent - regard to rank is proper and necessary I hope the concern I feel in this - matter will be found excusable in one who regards his honor next to the - welfare of his country.</i> - </p> - <p> - The old wolf killer is with Washington when that harassed commander reads - young Aaron’s effusion. With an exclamation of wrath the big general - tosses it across. - </p> - <p> - “By all that is ineffable!” he cries, “read that. Now here is a boy gone - stark staring mad for vanity! A stripling of twenty-one, with face as - hairless as an egg, and yet the second rank in a regiment is no match for - his majestic deserts! Putnam,” he continues, as the old wolf killer runs - his eye over the letter, “that young friend of yours will be the death of - me yet! As I told you, sir, he is a courageous prig—yes, sir, a mere - courageous prig!” - </p> - <p> - “What reply will you make? It should be a sharp one.” - </p> - <p> - “It shall be none at all. I’ll make no reply to such bombastic - fault-finding. One might as well pelt a pig with pearls, as waste common - sense on such self-conceit as we have here. Do me the honor, Putnam, to - write this boy-conqueror a note, saying it is my orders that he join his - regiment at once.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron finds the regiment to which he has been assigned on the - Ramapo, a day’s ride back from the Hudson. His superior in command, - Colonel Malcolm, is a shop-keeping, amiable gentleman, as short of breath - as of courage, who would as soon think of thrusting his hand into the - embers as his fat body into battle. Preeminently is he of that peculiar - war-feather that, for every reason in favor of going forward, can give a - dozen for falling back. Perceiving with delight young Aaron to be - possessed of a taste for carnage as well as command, the peace-loving - Colonel Malcolm promptly surrenders the regiment into his hands. - </p> - <p> - “You shall drill it and fight it,” says he, “while I will be its father.” - </p> - <p> - With this, the fat Colonel Malcolm retires twenty miles farther into the - interior; where he joins Madam Malcolm, as fat as himself, who unites with - five fat children, their offspring, to fatly welcome him. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, now when he finds himself in sole control, parades the - regiment, and does not like its appearance. He makes it a speech, and is - exceeding frank. He explains that it is more fitted to shine at barbecues - and barn-raisings than in war. Then he grasps it with a daily hand of - steel, and begins to crush it into disciplined shape. From break of - morning until the sun goes down, he puts it through its paces. As one of - the onlookers remarks: - </p> - <p> - “He drills ‘em till their tongues hang out.” - </p> - <p> - The fruits of this iron rule, so much a change from that picnic character - of control but lately exercised by the amiable Colonel Malcolm, are - twofold. Young Aaron is hated and respected by every soul on the rolls. - Caring nothing for the one and everything for the other, he continues to - drill the boots off their feet. Finally, the regiment ceases to look like - a mob, and dons a military expression. At which young Aaron is privily - exalted. - </p> - <p> - There still remain, however, a round score of thorns in his militant - flesh, being as many captains and lieutenants, who are better qualified - for the drawing-room than the field. He must rid himself of this element - of popinjay. - </p> - <p> - Since young Aaron is clothed of no power of dismissal over the offensive - popinjays, the situation bristles with difficulties. For all that they - must go. After one night’s thought, he gets up from his cogitations - inclined to exclaim, like another Archimedes: “I have found it!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron’s device is simplicity itself. Having no power of dismissal, - he will usurp it. Also, he will assert it in such fashion that not a - popinjay of them all will be able to make his dismissal the basis of - military inquiry, and keep his credit clean. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron writes, word for word, the same letter to each of the - undesirable popinjay ones. He words it, skillfully, in this wise: - </p> - <p> - <i>Sir: You are unfitted for the duties you have assumed. For the good of - the service therefore, I demand the immediate resignation or your - commission. To be frank, sir, I think you lack the courage to lead your - men in the presence of a foe. Should I be wrong in this assumption, you of - course will demonstrate that fact by methods which readily suggest - themselves to every gentleman of spirit. Let me therefore urge that you - either forward your resignation as herein demanded by me, or dispatch in - its stead a request for that satisfaction which I, as a man of honor, - shall not for one moment deny. I beg leave to remain, sir,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Your very humble servant,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Aaron Burr, Acting Colonel.</i> - </p> - <p> - “There!” thinks he, when the last letter is signed, sealed, and sent upon - its way to the popinjay hand for which it is designed, “that should do - nicely. I’ve ever held that the way to successfully deal with humanity is - to take humanity by the horns. That I’ve done. Likewise, I flatter myself - I’ve constructed my net so fine that none of them can wriggle through. And - as for breaking through by the dueling method I hint at, I shall have - guessed vastly to one side, if the best among them own either the force or - courage to so much as make the attempt.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is justified of his perspicacity. The resignations of the - popinjays come pouring in, each seeming to take the initiative, and basing - his “voluntary” abandonment of a military career on grounds wholly - invented and highly honorable to himself. No reference, even of the - blindest, is made to that brilliant usurpation of authority. Neither is - young Aaron’s letter alluded to in any conversation. - </p> - <p> - There is one exception; a popinjay personage named Rawls, retorts in a - hectic epistle which, while conveying his resignation, avows a - determination to welter in young Aaron’s blood as a slight solace for the - outrage done his feelings. To this, young Aaron replies that he shall, on - the very next day, do himself the honor of a call upon the ill-used and - flaming Rawls, whose paternal roof is not an hour’s gallop from the - Ramapo. Accordingly, young Aaron repairs to the Rawls’s mansion at eleven - of next day’s clock. He has with him two officers, who are dark as to the - true purpose of the excursion. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron and the accompanying duo are asked to dinner by the Rawls’s - household. The popinjay fiery Rawls is present, but embarrassed. After - dinner, when young Aaron asks popinjay Rawls to ride with his party a mile - or two on the return journey, the fiery, ill-used one grows more - embarrassed. - </p> - <p> - He does not, however, ride forth on that suggested mission of honor; his - alarmed sisters, of whom there are an angelic three, rush to his rescue in - a flood of terrified exclamation. - </p> - <p> - “O Colonel Burr!” they chorus, “what are you about to do with Neddy?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear young ladies,” protests young Aaron suavely, “believe me, I’m - about to do nothing with Neddy. I intend only to ask him what he desires - or designs to do with me. I am here to place myself at Neddy’s disposal, - in a matter which he well understands.” - </p> - <p> - The interfering angelic sisterly ones declare that popinjay Neddy meant - nothing by his letter, and will never write another. Whereupon young Aaron - observes he will be content with the understanding that popinjay Neddy - send him no more letters, unless they have been first submitted to the - sisterly censorship of the angelic three. To this everyone concerned most - rapturously consents; following which young Aaron goes back to his camp by - the Ramapo, while the sisterly angelic ones festoon themselves about the - neck of popinjay Neddy, over whom they weepingly rejoice as over one - returned from out the blackness of the shadow of death. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VII—THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE young Aaron, - in his camp by the Ramapo, is wringing the withers of his men with - merciless drills, sixteen miles away, in the outskirts of the village of - Paranius dwells Madam Theodosia Prévost. Madam Prévost is the widow of an - English Colonel Prévost, who was swept up by yellow fever in Jamaica. With - her are her mother, her sister, her two little boys. The family name is De - Visme, which is a Swiss name from the French cantons. - </p> - <p> - The hungry English in New York are running short of food. Two thousand of - them cross the Hudson, and commence combing the country for beef. Word of - that cow-driving reaches young Aaron by the Ramapo. Hackensack is given as - the theater of those beef triumphs of the hungry English. - </p> - <p> - From rustical ones bewailing vanished kine, young Aaron receives the tale - first hand. Instantly he springs to the defense of the continental cow. He - orders out his regiment, and marches away for that stricken Hackensack - region of ravished flocks and herds. - </p> - <p> - At Paramus, excited by stories of a cow-conquering English, the militia of - the neighborhood are fallen to a frenzied building of breastworks. Certain - of these home guards look up from their breastwork building long enough to - decide that Madam Prévost, as the widow of a former English colonel, is a - Tory. - </p> - <p> - Arriving at this conclusion, the home guards make the next natural step, - and argue—because of their nearness to Madam Prévost—that the - mother and sister and little boys are Tories. The quietly elegant home of - Madam Prévost is declared a nest of Tories, against which judgment a - belief that the mansion is worth looting is not allowed to militate. - </p> - <p> - As young Aaron, on his rescuing way to Hackensack, marches into Paramus, - the judgmatical home guards, in the name of a patriotism which believes in - spoiling the Egyptian, are about to begin their work of sack and pillage. - Young Aaron, who does not think that robbery assists the cause of freedom, - calls a halt. He drives off the home guards at the point of his sword, and - places sentinels upon the premises. Also he promises to hang the first - home guard who, in the name of liberty, or for any more private reason, - touches a shilling’s worth of Madam Prevost’s chattels. - </p> - <p> - Having established his protectorate in favor of the threatened Prévost - household, young Aaron enters, hat in hand, with the pardonable purpose of - discovering what manner of folk he has pledged himself to keep safe. It - may be that he is beset by visions of distressed fair ones—disheveled, - tearful, beautiful! If so, his dreams receive a shock. ‘Instead of that - flushed, frightened, clinging, tear-stained loveliness, so common of - romance, he is met by a severely angular lady who, plain of face, with - high, harsh cheek bones, and a scar on her forehead, is two inches taller - and twelve years older than himself. - </p> - <p> - Madam Prévost owns all these; and yet, beyond and above them, she also - possesses an ineffable, impalpable something, which is like an atmosphere, - a perfume, a melody of manner, and marks her as that greatest of graceful - rarities, a well-bred, cultured woman of the world. Polished, fine, Madam - Prévost is familiar with the society of two continents. She knows - literature, music, art; she is wise, erudite, nobly high. These attributes - invest her with a soft brilliancy, into which those uglinesses and bony - angularities retreat as into a kind of moonlight, to recur in gentle - reassertion as the poetic sublimation of all that charms. - </p> - <p> - Thus does she break upon young Aaron—young Aaron, who has said that - he would no more love a woman for her beauty than a man for his money, and - is to be won only by her who, mentally and sentimentally, meets him half - way. This last Madam Prévost does; and, from the moment he meets her to - the hour of her death, she draws him and holds him like a magnet. It - illustrates the inexplicable in love, that this cool, cynical one, whose - very youth is an iron element of hardest strength, should be fascinated - and fettered by a worn, middle-aged woman with eyes of faded gray. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, on this first encounter with his goddess, remains no longer - than is required to receive the arrow in his heart. He presses on with his - followers for the Hackensack. A mile from Paramus he halts his soldiery, - and, leaving the great body of them, goes forward in person with a - scouting party of seventeen. In the middle watches of the night, he - discovers a picket post of the cow-collecting English. Only one is awake; - he is shot dead by young Aaron. The others, twenty-eight in number, are - seized in their sleep. - </p> - <p> - In the wake of this exploit, young Aaron brings up his whole command. The - cow-hunting redcoats, from the confidence of his advance, infer in his - favor an overwhelming strength. Panic claims them; they make for the - Hudson, leaving those collected cows behind. There is rejoicing among the - Hackensack folk at this happy return of their property, and young Aaron - goes back to the Ramapo rich in encomium and praise. - </p> - <p> - The camp by the Ramapo is given up, and young Aaron, love-drawn, brings - his force within a mile of Paramus. Daily he seeks the society of Madam - Prévost, as sick folk seek the sun. She speaks French, Spanish, German; - she reads Voltaire, and is capable of admiring without approving the cynic - of Fernay. More; she is familiar with Petrarch, Le Sage, Corneille, - Rousseau, Chesterfield, Cervantes. Madam Prévost and young Aaron find much - to talk of and agree about, in the way of romance and poetry and - philosophy, and are never dull for lack of topics. And, as they converse, - he worships her with his eyes, from which every least black trace of that - ophidian sparkle has been extinguished. - </p> - <p> - The first snowflakes are falling when young Aaron receives orders to join - Washington’s army at Valley Forge. Arriving, his hatred of the big general - is rearoused. He suggests an expedition against the English on Staten - Island, and offers to undertake it with three hundred men. Washington - thinks well of the suggestion, but dispatches Lord Stirling to carry it - out. Young Aaron, hot with disappointment, adds this to the list of - injuries which he believes he has received from the Virginian. - </p> - <p> - Food is stinted, fire scarce at Valley Forge; there is a deal of cold and - starving. Folk hungry and frozen are in no humor for work, and look on - labor as an evil. Young Aaron takes no account of this, but has out his - tattered, chilled, thin-flanked followers to those daily drills. - </p> - <p> - In the end a spirit of mutiny creeps in among the men. It finds concrete - shape one frosty morning when private John Cook levels his musket at young - Aaron’s heart. Private Cook means murder, and is only kept from it by the - promptitude of young Aaron. With that very motion of the mutineer which - aims the gun, young Aaron’s sword comes rasping from its scabbard, and a - backhanded stroke all but severs the would-be homicide’s right arm. The - wounded man falls bleeding to the ground. With that, young Aaron details a - pale-faced, silent quartette to carry the wounded one to the hospital, - and, drawing his blade through a handkerchief to wipe away the blood, - proceeds with the hated drill. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0111.jpg" alt="0111 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0111.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - While young Aaron serves at Valley Forge, a conspiracy, whereof General - Conway is the animating heart and General Gates the figurehead, is - hatched. The purpose is to remove Washington, and set the conqueror of - Burgoyne in his place. Young Aaron joins the conspiracy, and is looked - upon by his fellow plotters as ardent, but unimportant because of his - youth. - </p> - <p> - The design falls to the ground; Washington retains his command, while - Gates goes south to lose his Burgoyne laurels and get drubbed by - Cornwallis. As for young Aaron, he swallows as best he may his - disappointment over the poor upcome of that plot, and takes part in the - battle of Monmouth. Here he has his horse shot under him, and lays up - fresh hatreds against Washington for refusing to let him charge an English - battery. - </p> - <p> - Sore, heart-cankered of chagrin, young Aaron asks for leave of absence. He - declares that he is ill, and his hollow cheek and bilious eye sustain him. - He says that, until his health mends, he will take no pay. - </p> - <p> - “You shall have leave of absence,” says Washington, to whom young Aaron - prefers his request in person, “but you must draw pay.” - </p> - <p> - “And why draw pay, sir!” demands young Aaron warmly, for he somehow smells - an insult. “I shall render no service. I think the proprieties much - preserved by a stoppage of my pay.” - </p> - <p> - “If you were the only, one, sir,” returns Washington, “I might say as you - do. But there be others on sick leave, who are not men of fortune like - yourself. Those gentlemen must draw their pay, or see their people suffer. - Should you be granted leave without pay, they might feel criticised. You - note the point, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Why,” replies young Aaron, with a tinge of sarcasm, “the point, I take - it, is that you would not have me shine at the expense of folk of lesser - fortune or more avarice than myself. Because others are not generous to - their country, I must be refused the poor privilege of contributing even - my absence to her cause.” - </p> - <p> - At young Aaron’s palpable sneer, the big general’s face darkens with - anger. “You exhibit an insolence, sir,” he says at last, “which I succeed - in overlooking only by remembering that I am twice your age. I understand, - of course, that you intend a covert thrust at myself, because I draw my - three guineas per day as commander in chief. Rather to enlighten you than - defend my own conduct, I may tell you, sir, that I draw those three - guineas upon the precise grounds I state as reasons why you, during your - leave, must accept pay. There are men as brave, as true, as patriotic as - either of us, who cannot—as we might—fight months on end, - without some provision for their families. What, sir”—here the big - general begins to kindle—“is it not enough that men risk their blood - for these colonies? Must wives and children starve? The cause is not so - poor, I tell you, but what it can pay its own cost. You and I, sir, will - draw our pay, to keep in self-respecting countenance folk as good as - ourselves in everything save fortune.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron shrugs his shoulders. “If it were not, sir,” he begins, “for - that difference in our ages which you so opportunely quote, to say nothing - of my inferior military rank, I might ask if your determination to make me - accept pay, whether I earn it or no, be not due to a latent dislike for - myself personally. I can think of much that justifies the question.” - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” observes the big general, with a dignity which is not - without rebuking effect upon young Aaron, “because you are young and will - one day be older, I am inclined to justify myself in your eyes. I make it - a rule to seldom take advice and never give it. And yet there is room for - a partial exception in your instance. There is a word, two, perhaps, which - I think you need.” - </p> - <p> - “Believe me, sir, I am honored!” - </p> - <p> - “My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a - better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more fame - hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, and - give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance - yourself.” - </p> - <p> - The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra - six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is - nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with - some self-willed pupil. - </p> - <p> - Of all the big general’s irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this pose - of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself in hand, - however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the bottom of - his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which can come only - through the other’s word. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” observes young Aaron, “will you be so good as to make yourself - clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest - meaning.” - </p> - <p> - “It should be confessed,” returns the big general, somewhat to one side, - “that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is - that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were - not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for whom - you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news that - Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools his - features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement nor - dismay. The big general goes on: - </p> - <p> - “No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with - your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons, - but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, sir, - to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control my - attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity in - what I say.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, sir,” interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness and - self-possession equal with the big general’s; “you give yourself - unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I - shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract from - your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I shall - accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected by its - honorable source.” - </p> - <p> - The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron’s manner would have got him - drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites - his lip. - </p> - <p> - “What I would tell you,” he resumes, “is this. You possess the raw - material of greatness—but with one element lacking. You may rise to - what heights you choose, if you will but cure yourself of one defect. - Observe, sir! Men are judged, not for deeds but motives. A man injures - you; you excuse him because no injury was meant. A man seeks to injure - you, but fails; and yet you resent it, in spite of that defensive failure, - because of the intent. So it is with humanity at large. It looks at the - motive rather than the act. Sir, I have watched you. You have no motive - but yourself. Patriotism plays no part when you come to this war; it is - not the country, but Aaron Burr, you carry on your thoughts. Whatever you - may believe, you cannot win fame or good repute on terms, so narrow. A man - is so much like a gun that, to carry far, he must have some elevation of - aim. You were born fortunate in your parts, save for that defective - element of aim. There, sir, you fail, and will continue to fail, unless - you work your own redemption. It is as though you had been born on a dead - level—aimed point-blank at birth. You should have been born at an - angle of forty-five degrees. With half the powder, sir, you would carry - twice as far. Wherefore, elevate yourself; give your life a noble purpose! - Make yourself the incident, mankind the object. Merge egotism in - patriotism; forget self in favor of your country and its flag.” - </p> - <p> - The gray eyes of the big general rest upon young Aaron with concern. Then - he abruptly retreats into the soldier, as though ashamed of his own - earnestness. Without giving time for reply to that dissertation on the - proper aim of man, he again takes up the original business of the leave. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0119.jpg" alt="0119 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0119.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” says he, “you shall have leave of absence. But your waiver - of pay is declined.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, sir,” retorts young Aaron, “you must permit me to withdraw my - application. I shall not take the country’s money, without rendering - service for it.” - </p> - <p> - “That is as you please, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “One thing stands plain,” mutters young Aaron, as he walks away; “the - sooner I quit the army the better. For me it is ‘no thoroughfare,’ and I - may as well save my time. He knows of my part in that Conway-Gates - movement, too; and, for all his platitudes about justice and high aims, - he’s no one to forget it.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VIII—MARRIAGE AND THE LAW - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG Aaron, with - his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is dispatched to hold the - Westchester lines, being that debatable ground lying between the Americans - at White Plains and the English at Kingsbridge. It is still his - half-formed purpose to resign his sword, and turn the back of his ambition - on every hope of military glory. He says as much to General Putnam, whose - real liking for him he feels and trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues - in favor of patience. - </p> - <p> - “Washington is but trying you,” he declares. “It will all come right, if - you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing, let - me tell you! Suck comfort from that!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go as - far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own - military prospects. - </p> - <p> - “General,” he says, “believe me when I tell you that I accept what you say - as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel to his - general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning Washington; - they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as either a - soldier or a man.” - </p> - <p> - “And there you are wrong!” breaks in the old wolf killer; “twice wrong.” - </p> - <p> - “Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I have.” - </p> - <p> - “You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that you - yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such - conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French - War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to base - opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier - anywhere than Washington.” - </p> - <p> - “But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing.” - </p> - <p> - “Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling back - and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final success. - Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?” - </p> - <p> - “Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?” - </p> - <p> - The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly, - he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does - Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not - fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the ghost - of a smile. - </p> - <p> - “Where, then, should this war be won?” asks young Aaron. - </p> - <p> - “Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I’m not wearing a - sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all that, - I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will be won - in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and Burke and - Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them the occasion and - the argument, and that can be accomplished only by retreating.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. “Now I - should call,” says he, “these retreats, by which you and Washington seem - to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to - our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by - retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English Whigs an - argument which shall induce King George to recognize our independence?” - </p> - <p> - “If you were ten years older,” remarks the old wolf killer, “you would not - put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you, and - shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You think a - war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and guns. It - isn’t; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English are shedding - their guineas much faster than they shed their blood. Presently the - taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel it now. Let the - drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will break down; they - will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our independence.” - </p> - <p> - “Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of - it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the - English taxpayer breaks down.” - </p> - <p> - “You’ve nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor the powder, - nor—and this last in particular—the bayonets to wage - aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They - would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force of - numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would win. - Our plan—the Washington plan—is, with as little loss as - possible in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe. - There is but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back, - to the close of the chapter.” - </p> - <p> - “At least,” says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, “you will admit that - the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of attractive - gallantry.” - </p> - <p> - “Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that - Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither - from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered - strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat than - to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he talks not - of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or nothing of - that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws away practical - advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem slightly of - Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The most I may say to - comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows himself. And”—here - the old wolf killer’s voice begins to tremble a little—“I’ll go - further: I’ve seen many men; but none of a courage, a patriotism, a - fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his exalted ideals - or noble genius for justice.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and - would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause - he observes: - </p> - <p> - “Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and - Washington shall be all you say. None the less—and here I believe - you will bear me out—he has of me no good opinion. He will not - advance me; he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all, - the question I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought, - and now tell you I still think, that I might better take off my sword, - forget war, and see what is to be won in the law.” - </p> - <p> - “And you ask my advice?” - </p> - <p> - “Your honest advice.” - </p> - <p> - “Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his - opinion of you is unjust, and he’ll be soonest to admit it. To convince - him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty.” - </p> - <p> - “Very good,” observes Aaron, resignedly, “I shall, for the present at - least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice, general, - you have given me something else in this conversation which I value more; - that is, your expressed and friendly confidence.” - </p> - <p> - Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws - himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his rôle as warden of the - Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under Tryon - move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town in hot and - fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are themselves - surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten Duyvel; young - Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives. Likewise, under - cloud of night—night, ever the ally of lovers—he oft plays - Leander to Madam Prevost’s Hero; only the Hudson is his Hellespont, and he - does not swim but crosses in a barge. These love pilgrimages mean forty - miles and as many perils. However, the heart-blinded young Aaron is not - counting miles or perils, as he pictures his gray goddess of Paramus - sighing for his coming. - </p> - <p> - One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies. The - good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of - paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more - since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He - consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his - resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with - him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as - years wear on. - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes; - so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With war and - battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them, - scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion of - the faded Madam Prévost and her boy lover. The discussion, however, is - carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the shoulder - or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prévost and young Aaron neither hear - nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer, dearer things. - </p> - <p> - It is deep evening at the Prévost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate; - the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse - through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron’s memory is for a - moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other - than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he was - dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows Madam - Prévost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’ve lied and played the hypocrite all day!” - </p> - <p> - Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her husband, - and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one abandoned, - to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which she was privy, - and the commission whereof she urged. - </p> - <p> - “This gentleman!” cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story—she - has become aware of young Aaron—“this gentleman! May I trust him?” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0133.jpg" alt="0133 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0133.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - “As you would myself,” returns Madam Prévost. - </p> - <p> - And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does - not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her - uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the - subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prévost. - </p> - <p> - Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam Prévost - is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is about to - return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with Tappan Reeve. - She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity, were he able to - write himself “lawyer” before he became a married man. - </p> - <p> - Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to - wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years - and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of New - Jersey—not too far from Paramus—and enters himself as a - student under that philosopher of jurisprudence. - </p> - <p> - Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and - looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that - one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste at - any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and sharply - come to a profound knowledge of the law. - </p> - <p> - Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young Aaron - remonstrates with his preceptor. - </p> - <p> - “This will never do,” he cries. “Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the - bar!” He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of the - law within a year. “Twelve months as a student should be enough,” he says. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, “to talk of - taking charge of a client’s interests after studying but a year is to talk - of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance, sir. It - would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind.” - </p> - <p> - “Possibly now,” urges young Aaron the cynical, “the opposing counsel might - be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either.” - </p> - <p> - “Such talk is profanation!” exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult of - the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron’s ribaldry. “Let me be - plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice, unless - I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem you many - months’ journey from it.” - </p> - <p> - Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron bids - that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There he - makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English have - driven from New York. While he waits for the day when—English - vanished—he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round - sum in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself - wholly to that impatient gentleman’s education. - </p> - <p> - Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold. Morning, - noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron go hammering - at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student makes astonishing - advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks when Jack proves as - good as his master. Still, the sentiment which animates young Aaron’s - efforts is never high. He studies law as some folk study fencing, his one - absorbing thought being to learn how to defeat an adversary and save - himself. His great concern is to make himself past master of every thrust, - parry, and sleighty trick of fence, whether in attack or guard, with the - one object of victory for himself and the enemy’s destruction. Justice, - and to assist thereat, is the thing distant from his thoughts. - </p> - <p> - At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold - his own with any adversary. - </p> - <p> - “Mark my words, sir,” he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a - fellow gray member of the guild—“mark my words, sir, he will prove - one of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There - is, of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck - which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be - retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong, - should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed of - this sinister peculiarity. If he’s right, you won’t defeat him; if he’s - wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he’ll defeat you.” - </p> - <p> - Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff, - after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a - smartish quip. - </p> - <p> - Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits Albany - and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three years; but - the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and more, basing - his generosity on the applicant’s services as a soldier. - </p> - <p> - “And so,” says young Aaron, “I at least get something from my soldier - life. It wasn’t all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of grinding - study at the books.” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York - City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat - exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam - Prévost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife, - after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed. - </p> - <p> - The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany. - There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia, - and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her father. - Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers, and walks - the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is well-nigh dead in - his heart. - </p> - <p> - About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron - gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating - metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to - where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall. - </p> - <p> - He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two - little Prévost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of - fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the Bowling - Green, to a gathering cloud of clients. - </p> - <p> - The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit. - </p> - <p> - “With your few months of study,” observes the reverend doctor dryly, “I - wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going about - its practice.” - </p> - <p> - “Law is not so difficult,” responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the good - doctor. “Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology. That is to - say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.” - </p> - <p> - The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron’s boldness of - assertion. - </p> - <p> - “And yet,” continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm, “the - last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and - declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the - midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for law?” - </p> - <p> - “Washington drove me from the army,” responds young Aaron, with convincing - gravity. “As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and turned lawyer - only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IX—SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW when young - Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds himself a lawyer and - a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green and a house in - fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool survey of his - surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set forth by the good - Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem and Madam Bellamy. - The latter, like all true women, is curious, and gives the doctor no peace - until he relates his experiences. - </p> - <p> - “The city,” observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and - muffins, “is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I walked - to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much opulence - there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town houses, but - cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a fine, noble - street!—very wide!—fairer than any in Boston!” - </p> - <p> - “Doctor!” expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts. - </p> - <p> - “Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty - thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight hundred - tons—an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the better - part painted—even the brick houses.” - </p> - <p> - “What! Paint a brick house!” - </p> - <p> - “It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One - sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler’s; it - was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present; - Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A more - elegant repast I never ate—all set as it was with a profusion of - massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot——-” - </p> - <p> - “Solid silver?” - </p> - <p> - “Ay! The king’s hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen, too—white - as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of peaches and a - musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, it is a tale of profligacy!” - </p> - <p> - “Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and - furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no - modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater of - din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can - answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but - one real gentleman———” - </p> - <p> - “Aaron!” - </p> - <p> - “Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since, - for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no - better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished - contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background he - shines out like the sun at noon!” - </p> - <p> - Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to the - descriptive “young.” He has ever scorned it, as though it were some - epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it. - </p> - <p> - “I am not so young,” says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning of - his years—“I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade, - sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You will - oblige me by remembering the title.” - </p> - <p> - In view of the gentleman’s tartness, it will be as well perhaps to - hereafter drop the “young”; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, our - tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, “colonel” is but a word of - pewter when no war is on. “Aaron” should do better; and escape challenge, - too, that irritating “young” being dropped. - </p> - <p> - As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town’s affairs, he notes - that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion, - the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the - Livingstons—numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor - Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that - ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which tribe - towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. Aaron, in - the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General Schuyler. He hears - more of that austere person’s son-in-law, the brilliant Alexander - Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - “I shall be glad to make his acquaintance,” thinks Aaron, when he is told - of the latter. “I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in his - pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns behind. - Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come to - eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side.” - </p> - <p> - There is a sneer on Aaron’s face as these thoughts run in his mind; those - praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman’s - acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped of - their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference of - the town’s notables has been called; the local great ones are to come - together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, they - will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory relief. - </p> - <p> - Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge. - The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy - Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten - Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his wine - unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when son-in-law - Hamilton arrives. - </p> - <p> - “That is he,” says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the - gentleman. - </p> - <p> - Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black - narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is a - short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron - himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely - powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, a forest - of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and conventional - buckled shoes. - </p> - <p> - It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses his - most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of - suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to look - one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face - generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer and - a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest methods, - and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is lurking and - secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and backbiter, - who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in the dark. - </p> - <p> - Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes - straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he at - once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking in a - loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own position - as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is discussed. - The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses the dander of - Aaron. Nor is the latter’s wrath the less, when he discovers that General - Schuyler’s self-satisfied young relative thinks the suppliant Tories - should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt with. - </p> - <p> - As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably concerning - that young gentleman’s bumptiousness and pert forwardness, the company is - rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, arrogant, - supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked to preside. - Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, dictatorial - voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits that the - Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural they - should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George beaten, - he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or a patriot to hold - hatred against them. These same Tories are still Americans. Their names - are among the highest in the city. Before the Revolution they were one and - all of a first respectability, many with pews in Trinity. Now when freedom - has won its battle, he feels that the victors should let bygones be - bygones, and restore the Tories, in property and station, to a place which - they occupied before that pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776. - </p> - <p> - All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps - forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one - who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word of - the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes of - every soul in the room. - </p> - <p> - The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks - are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general - has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse - than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to torch - and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, most - mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. As for - restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil share in a - government which they did their best to strangle in its cradle, the - thought is preposterous. They may have been “respectable,” as General - Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious—a mere - hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had pews - in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope to - make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last. - </p> - <p> - As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement - runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration cast - in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir. - </p> - <p> - Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his - chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those - approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones are - high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron direct, - and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be tolerant, - for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, he must ask - that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He himself, he says, - cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better than a stranger, an - interloper, might with a nice propriety remain silent on occasions such as - this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring that the position taken by - Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what shall be their rights, is - un-American. He, himself, has fought for the Revolution; but, now it is - ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and liberality will not be guided - by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would make the unending punishment of - Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. He fears that Aaron misunderstands - the sentiment of those among whom he has pitched his tent, congratulates - him on a youth that offers an excuse for the rashness of his expressions, - and hopes that he may live to gain a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton - does himself proud, and the rusty old general erects his pleased crest, to - find himself so handsomely defended. - </p> - <p> - The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked Aaron - again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following that - orator’s example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton - himself. - </p> - <p> - “Our friend,” says Aaron, “reminds me that I am young in years; and I - think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as many - years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered share - he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while I hold him - better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as a soldier, I - concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a soldier, and while - serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our friend. He does not - remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was upon a day when he - had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his guns, forgotten - everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and I should be much - too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful circumstances, he would - remember me. As to my newness in the town, and that crippled Americanism - wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. I got no one’s consent to - come here; I shall ask no one’s permission to stay. Doubtless I would have - been more within a fashion had I gone with both questions to the - gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who presides here today. - These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I shall content myself with - an Americanism which, though it possess none of those sunburned, West - Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in the gentleman, may at least - congratulate itself upon being two hundred years old.” - </p> - <p> - Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton those - courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to voice - again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments he has - earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, nothing - save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud has been - born—a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined to - await its development before pronouncing for either side. The feeling, - however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the resolution - smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER X—THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE Aaron, - frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as his ruffles, is - saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, that latter young - gentleman’s face is a study in black and red. His expression is a - composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron is so full, so - frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not sure of its - purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as to his own - importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron’s attack is parcel of - some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or envy him, or - both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of the way. He - draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life is good and - death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but stomachs in - silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. What is - strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them some - chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim fineness of - Aaron’s manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is ready to carry - discussion to the cold verge of the grave. - </p> - <p> - Son-in-law Hamilton’s nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in - Aaron’s, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his - heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown - perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who - look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says he - will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall pursue. - Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat abruptly, - feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after son-in-law - Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way. - </p> - <p> - The incident is a nine-days’ food for gossip; wagers are made of a coming - bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those lose who - accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting is politely - peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider separation is the - upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law Hamilton, who is presented - by Colonel Troup. - </p> - <p> - “We should know each other better, Colonel Burr,” he observes. - </p> - <p> - Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that of - itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays glance - from his chill exterior as from an iceberg. - </p> - <p> - “Doubtless we shall,” says he. - </p> - <p> - Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his - coming. “General Schuyler,” he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his - father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god—“General Schuyler - would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one - of Aaron’s youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see - the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler—that Jove - who not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is - shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve. - </p> - <p> - “Pardon me, sir!” says Aaron. “Say to General Schuyler that his request is - impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on their - affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I shall - go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come to me.” - </p> - <p> - “You forget General Schuyler’s age!” returns son-in-law Hamilton. There is - a ring of threat in the tones. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” responds Aaron stiffly, “I forget nothing. There is an age cant - which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you - may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall not - in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest folk, - because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize or, if - they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are fewer than - thirty.” - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry you take this view,” returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying - Aaron’s stiffness. “You will not, I fear, find many to support you in it.” - </p> - <p> - “I am not looking for support, sir,” observes Aaron, pointing the remark - with one of those black ophidian stares. “I do you also the courtesy to - assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark.” - </p> - <p> - There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton so - far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to say that - General Schuyler’s place in the community is of such high and honorable - sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. As to - criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman. - </p> - <p> - There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a - trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes. - </p> - <p> - “There could be no agreement with that young man,” mutters Aaron, looking - after the retreating Hamilton, “save on a basis of submission to his - leadership. I’ll be chief or nothing.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the courts, - as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, convincing, - he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; clients crowd about - him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold. - </p> - <p> - Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton—himself actively in the - law—before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the - other’s match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy, - however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever - litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law - Hamilton are an added reason for the latter’s jealous hatred. He and his - rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron’s foes, and grasp at every chance - to do him harm. - </p> - <p> - And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into favor - with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. The - latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks them, but - declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no profit, but - only loss in politics. - </p> - <p> - In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he rolls up - riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of Richmond - Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson—Richmond Hill, where - he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his vanity - from the big general’s loftily abstracted pose. - </p> - <p> - Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his cellars - with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the one and - sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; and, - because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him trenches - upon the maternal. - </p> - <p> - The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue - instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the small - Prévost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and reading - Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for baby - Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is to her - credit not theirs that she isn’t hopelessly spoiled. - </p> - <p> - In his wine and his reading, Aaron’s tastes take opposite directions. The - books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He reads - Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary - Wollstonecraft. - </p> - <p> - He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in decoration - furnishes the prudish a pang. - </p> - <p> - These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, social - and political, do not help Aaron’s standing with respectable hypocrites, - of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion and commerce - and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers of society - purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron’s name is mentioned, and - speak of him as favoring “Benthamism” and “Godwinism.” Our dullard - pharisee folk know no more of “Benthamism” and “Godwinism” in their - definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their manner is - the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than murder. Aaron - pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes of these - hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men’s opinions, and - has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. Occupied with - the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of blind and deaf - of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up gold. And never - once does his glance rove officeward. - </p> - <p> - This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron’s side. He does not pursue - office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the - legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. - As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton at its - head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State’s public land - for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three shillings an acre; the - purchasers number six. The big sale is to Alexander McComb, who is given a - deed for three million six hundred thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. - The public howls over these surprising transactions in real estate. The - popular anger, however, is leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of - Cæsar. Aaron, who dwells more in the background, escapes unscathed. - </p> - <p> - While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a constitution. - Then it elects Washington President, and sets up government shop in New - York. Aaron’s part in these mighty doings is the quiet part. He does not - think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; he thinks less of - Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the rim of the possible - that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary - of the Treasury, helps the administration to a lowest place in Aaron’s - esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that feud is in no degree - relaxed. - </p> - <p> - When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and Rufus - King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in the - two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no wise - weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of that - short term, he will be reëlected for a full term of six years. To assume - otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no such - short-term uneasiness. - </p> - <p> - Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge of - men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest in the - Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian’s - administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General - Schuyler, of that latter personage’s reelection. Indeed, if he could be - prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of all - sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is surest. - Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies. - </p> - <p> - And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is - watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet - none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his - pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is to - wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator means - a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he is. More; - it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be even for - what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights which he - neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped smile as he - pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look which will spread - across the face of Washington, when he hears of the rusty Schuyler’s - overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. The smile is quick to - die, however, since he who would strip his toga from the rusty Schuyler - must not sit down to dreams and castle building. - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution he - foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook does - not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. - </p> - <p> - In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two - things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital - importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. He - looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental - catalogue of his approachable points. - </p> - <p> - The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were - not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly loves - a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron shows the old - governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton interest was - slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought home victory for - the latter. - </p> - <p> - “You owe General Schuyler,” he says, “no help at this pinch. Still less - are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the - field.” - </p> - <p> - “And yet,” protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite - convinced—“and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his - son-in-law in the business.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last - to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; in - doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water he - could find.” - </p> - <p> - What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old - governor. At this the latter’s Irish blood begins to gather heat. - </p> - <p> - “It is as you tell me!” he cries at last; “I can see it now! That West - Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!” - </p> - <p> - “And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics - ‘Schuyler’ and ‘Hamilton’ are interchangeable.” - </p> - <p> - “You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, and - I shall not be less than theirs.” - </p> - <p> - The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the rusty - Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga - connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six years - as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes - discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed upon - to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. Such - approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched upon at - this time. - </p> - <p> - “From your place, sir, as governor,” observes the skillful Aaron, “you - could not of course condescend to go in person to the Livingstons. My - position, however, is not so high nor my years so many as are yours; I - need not scruple to take up the matter with them. As to a candidate, I can - go to them more easily if we leave the question open. I could tell the - Livingstons that you would like a suggestion from them on that point. It - would flatter their pride.” - </p> - <p> - The old governor is pleased to regard with favor the reasoning of Aaron. - He remarks, too, that with him the candidate is not important. The main - thought is to defeat the rusty Schuyler, who, with son-in-law Hamilton, so - aforetime played the hypocrite, and pulled treacherous wires against him, - in the hope of compassing his defeat. He declares himself quite satisfied - to let the Livingstons select what fortunate one is to be the senate - successor of the rusty Schuyler. He urges Aaron to wait on the Livingstons - without delay, and discover their feeling. - </p> - <p> - Aaron confers with the Livingstons, and shows them many things. Mostly he - shows them that, should he himself be chosen senator, it will necessitate - his resignation as attorney general. Also, he makes it appear that, if the - old governor be properly approached, he will name Morgan Lewis to fill the - vacancy. The Livingston eye glistens; the mother of Morgan Lewis is a - Livingston, and the office of attorney general should match the - gentleman’s fortunes nicely. Besides, there are several ways wherein an - attorney general might be of much Livingston use. No, the Livingstons do - not say these things. They say instead that none is more nobly equipped - for the rôle of senator than Aaron. Finally, it is the Livingstons who go - back to the old governor. Nor do they find it difficult to convince him - that Aaron is the one surest of defeating the rusty Schuyler. - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” say the Livingstons, “has no record, which is another way - of saying that he has no enemies. We deem this most important; it will - lessen the effort required to bring about him a majority of the - legislature.” - </p> - <p> - The old governor, as Aaron feared, is inclined to shy at the not too many - years of our ambitious one; but after a bit Aaron, as a notion, begins to - grow upon him. - </p> - <p> - “He has brains, sir,” observes the old governor thoughtfully—“he has - brains; and that is of more consequence than mere years. He has double the - intelligence of Schuyler, although he may not count half his age. I call - that to his credit, sir.” The chief of the clan-Livingston shares the - Clinton view. - </p> - <p> - And now takes place a competition in encomium. Between the chief of the - clan-Livingston, and the old governor, so many excellences are ascribed to - Aaron that, did he own but the half, he might call himself a model for - mankind. As for Morgan Lewis, who is a Livingston, the old governor sees - in him almost as many virtues as he perceives in Aaron. He gives the chief - of the clan-Livingston hand and word that, when Aaron steps out of the - attorney generalship, Morgan Lewis shall step in. - </p> - <p> - Having drawn to his support the two most powerful influences of the State, - Aaron makes search for an issue. He looks into the mouth of the public, - and there it is. Politicians do not make issues, albeit poets have sung - otherwise. Indeed, issues are so much like the poets themselves that they - are born, not made. Every age has its issue; from it, as from clay, the - politicians mold the bricks wherewith they build themselves into office. - The issue is the question which the people ask; it is to be found only in - the popular mouth. That is where Aaron looks for it, and his quest is - rewarded. - </p> - <p> - The issue, so much demanded of Aaron’s destinies, is one of those - big-little questions which now and then arise to agitate the souls of - folk, and demonstrate the greatness of the small. There are twenty-eight - members in the National Senate; and, since it is the first Senate and has - had no predecessor, there exist no precedents for it to guide by. Also - those twenty-eight senators are puffballs of vanity. - </p> - <p> - On the first day of their first coming together they prove the purblind - sort of their conceit, by shutting their doors in the public’s face. They - say they will hold their sessions in secret. The public takes this action - in dudgeon, and begins filing its teeth. - </p> - <p> - Puffiest among those senate puffballs is the rusty Schuyler. As narrow as - he is arrogant, as dull as vain, his contempt for the herd was never a - secret. As a senator, he declares himself the guardian, not the servant, - of a people too weakly foolish for the safe transaction of their own - affairs. - </p> - <p> - It is against this self-sufficient attitude of the rusty Schuyler touching - locked senate doors that Aaron wages war. He urges that, in a republic, - but two keys go with government; one is to the treasury, the other to the - jail. He argues that not even a senate will lock a door unless it be - either ashamed or afraid of what it is about. - </p> - <p> - “Of what is our Senate afraid?” he asks. - </p> - <p> - “Of what is it ashamed? I cannot answer these questions; the people cannot - answer them. I recommend that those who are interested ask General - Schuyler.” - </p> - <p> - The public puts the questions to the rusty Schuyler. Not receiving an - answer, the public carries the questions to the legislature, where the - Clinton and Livingston influences come sharply to the popular support. - </p> - <p> - “Shall the Senate lock its door?” - </p> - <p> - The Clintons say No; the Livingstons say No; the people say No. Under such - overbearing circumstances, the legislature feels driven to say No; and, as - a best method of saying it, elects to the Senate Aaron, who is a - “door-opener,” over the rusty Schuyler, who is a “door-closer,” by a - majority of thirteen. It is no longer “Aaron Burr,” no longer “Colonel - Burr,” it is “Senator Burr.” The news heaps the full weight of ten years - on the rusty Schuyler. As for son-in-law Hamilton, the blasting word of it - withers and makes sick his heart. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XI—THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE shop of - government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief space between the - overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and the latter taking his seat, - the great ones talk of nothing but that overthrow. Washington vaguely and - Jefferson clearly read in the victory of Aaron the beginning of a new - order. It is extravagantly an hour of classes and masses; and the most - dull does not fail to make out in the Senate unseating of the rusty but - aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant clutch at power by the masses. - </p> - <p> - Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President’s - dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams, - those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the - subject. - </p> - <p> - “It is the strangest news!” says he—“this word of the Senate success - of Colonel Burr.” - </p> - <p> - Then, appealing to Hamilton: “Of what could your folk of New York have - been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of one - of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small fortune, - and no family at all.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, “you go wide. Colonel - Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan - Edwards; on his father’s side the strain is as high. You would look long, - sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree.” - </p> - <p> - “Whatever may be the gentleman’s pedigree,” retorts Hamilton - splenetically, “you will at least confess it to be only a New England - pedigree.” - </p> - <p> - “Only a New England pedigree!” exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. “Why, - sir, when you say ‘The best pedigree in New England,’ you have spoken of - the best pedigree in the world!” - </p> - <p> - “Waiving that,” returns Hamilton, “I may at least assure you, sir, that in - New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence - which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the - result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson of - Jonathan Edwards or Tom o’ Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and trickery; - by the same methods through which a thief might win possession of your - horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase, the fellow - stole his victory.” At this harshness Adams looks horrified, while - Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide shoulders. - </p> - <p> - Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is in no - wise keen at reading men. Hamilton—quick, supple, subservient, a - brilliant flatterer—has complete possession of him. He admires - Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0173.jpg" alt="0173 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0173.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and - some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself the - mastiff’s satellite. Terrier Hamilton—brisk, busy, overbearing, not - always honest—rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing - on another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue, - at once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington. - And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening - partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love of - flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have been - his evil deeds. - </p> - <p> - Washington constitutes Hamilton’s stock in national trade. In New York, - Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler’s son-in-law—heir to his riches, - lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton traffics - on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability to pull or - haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have a full-blown - President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment, and Hamilton, be sure, - makes the fullest, if not the most honest or honorable, use of it. - </p> - <p> - “Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel - Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler.” - </p> - <p> - The voice—while not without a note of jeering—is bell-like and - deep, the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances - at his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State. - </p> - <p> - “What was it, then,” he asks. - </p> - <p> - “I will tell you my thought,” replies Jefferson. “General Schuyler was - beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost - family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election. The - people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their right, - and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I, what - followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy, but - aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient wing - of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold - themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are - becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of - General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse than - a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice in its - own government.” - </p> - <p> - “You appear pleased, sir,” observes Hamilton bitterly. - </p> - <p> - “Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the - satisfaction I feel.” - </p> - <p> - “You amaze me!” interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either - Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. “Do I understand, sir, - that you will welcome the rule of the mob?” - </p> - <p> - “The ‘mob,’” retorts Jefferson, “can be trusted to guard its own liberty.. - The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better prepared to - stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely, who, in the - arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste and call - themselves an American peerage.” - </p> - <p> - “Government by the mob!” gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his New - England vanity—honest man!—has passed his life on a - self-erected pedestal. “Government by the mob!” - </p> - <p> - “And why not, sir?” demands Jefferson sharply. “It is the mob’s - government. Who shall contradict the mob’s right to control its own? Have - we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?” - </p> - <p> - Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the - quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid - Jefferson, and, following that democrat’s declarations anent mob right and - mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though imploring - him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins to unlimber - complacently. - </p> - <p> - “Government, my dear Jefferson,” he says, wheeling himself like some great - gun into argumentative position, “may be discussed in the abstract, but - must be administered in the concrete. I think a best picture of government - is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He finds them a safety and a better - pasturage than they could find for themselves. He is necessary to the - sheep, as the sheep are necessary to him. He can be trusted; since his - interest is the interest of the flock.” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom, patience, - courage, but not one gleam of humor. “I cannot,” says he, “accept your - simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people of this country - are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find our self-selected - shepherds”—here he lets his glance rove cynically to Adams and - Hamilton—“such profound scientists of civil rule. Your shepherd is a - dictator. This republic—if it is a republic—might more justly - be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who appoint - agents, but retain among themselves the control.” - </p> - <p> - “And yet,” observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his - own hatred for that new senator, “the present question is one, not of - republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him - well. You will find him a crooked gun.” - </p> - <p> - “It is ten years since I saw him,” observes Washington. “I did not like - him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became his - years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims. That, - as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the better.” - </p> - <p> - “There has been no bettering change, sir,” returns Hamilton. His manner is - purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression of - one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own goodness - of heart. “Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when you parted - from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have his place in - government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be a veriest - firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril of this man. - Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his ambition to fly - at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He is both Jack Cade and - Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister attraction for the vulgar - herd; like the other, he would not hesitate to lead the herd against - government itself, in furtherance of his vile projects.” - </p> - <p> - Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these malignancies; - while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when Hamilton speaks, - drinks them in like spring water. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, “the - gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence, - suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a - basis for it.” - </p> - <p> - “You will find,” says Hamilton, “that he is, as I tell you, but a crooked - gun.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his reverend - fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about him—cynical, - since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the opening day of the - session. Washington as President, severe, of an implacable dignity, - appears and reads a solemn address. Later, according to custom, both - Senate and House send delegations to wait upon Washington, and read solemn - addresses to him. - </p> - <p> - His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate, - since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious document - in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the Senate - delegation to the President’s house. They find the big Virginian awaiting - them in the long dining room, which apartment has been transformed into an - audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying out the table and - shoving back the chairs. - </p> - <p> - Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to the - rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming, - blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the - politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils of - flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber and - blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The big - Virginian—and that is the worst of it—is as much led by him as - any blind man by his dog. - </p> - <p> - Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off - day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty - blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of - superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His - hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In - one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked - hat—brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with - polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in this - notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation, Aaron and - Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal half-circle - about him. - </p> - <p> - Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads - Aaron’s address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of purpose - as was Washington’s. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy, since the - mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms make up the - etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience chamber is less - sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George receiving his - ministers, instead of President George receiving a delegation from the - Senate. - </p> - <p> - No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty - than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for - Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive - to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out. - </p> - <p> - “Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!” he exclaims, when Adams has - finished. “This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt not - you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive.” - </p> - <p> - Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at divers - decisions which will have effect in the country’s story, before the - curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out. His - first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself. He - liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president. - </p> - <p> - “I shall be no friend to this man,” thinks he, “nor he to me.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington’s all but - royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is personal. - He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling upon more - probable grounds. - </p> - <p> - “I distaste him,” he decides, “because he meets no man on level terms. He - places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody; - everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will - either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain, - conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will be no - man’s friend—this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire - friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none about - him save knee-crooking sycophants—like this smirking parasitish - Hamilton.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address, resolves - to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him round. Being in - this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which Hamilton’s remark - affords him, to publicly notify those present of his position. - </p> - <p> - “It will be as well,” he ruminates, “to post, not alone these good people - of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall let them, - and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this republican king - of ours.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the - moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, “yes; you doubtless find - the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do. However, - it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!” Hamilton throws off - this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, “sir, by - these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your - gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed. - There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all—as - though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why then, - the President ‘addresses> the Senate, the Senate ‘addresses’ the - President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole - exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English.” - This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of the - address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He goes - on: “I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined as it - has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer opinion of - my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies themselves, I should - call them now about as edifying as the banging and the booming of a brace - of Chinese gongs.” - </p> - <p> - Washington’s brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to Aaron - when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young successor - to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have not been - lost upon him. - </p> - <p> - “I think,” mutters Aaron, icily complacent—“I think I pricked him.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XII—IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON finds a - Senate existence inexpressibly dull. He writes his Theodosia: “There is - nothing to do here. Everybody is idle; and, so far as I see, the one - occupation of a senator is to lie sunning himself in his own effulgence. - My colleague, Rufus King, and others I might name, succeed in that way in - passing their days very pleasantly. For myself, not having their sublime - imagination, and being perhaps better acquainted with my own measure, I - find this sitting in the sunshine of self a failure.” - </p> - <p> - Mindful of his issue, Aaron offers a resolution throwing open the Senate - doors. The Senate, whose notion of greatness is a notion of exclusion, - votes it down. Aaron warns his puffball brothers of the toga: - </p> - <p> - “Be assured,” says he, “you fool no one by such trumpery tricks as this - key-turning. You succeed only in bringing republican institutions into - contempt, and getting yourselves laughed at where you are not condemned.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron reintroduces his open-door resolution; in the end he passes it. - Galleries are thrown up in the chamber, and all who will may watch the - Senate as it proceeds upon the transaction of its dignified destinies. At - this but few come; whereupon the Senate feels abashed. It is not, it - discovers, the thrilling spectacle its puffball fancy painted. - </p> - <p> - Carked of the weariness of doing nothing, Aaron bursts forth with an idea. - He will write a history of the War of the Revolution. He begins digging - among the papers of the State department, tossing the archives of his - country hither and yon, on the tireless horns of his industry. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton creeps with the alarming tale to Washington. “He speaks of - writing a history, sir,” says sycophant Hamilton. “That is mere - subterfuge; he intends a libel against yourself.” - </p> - <p> - Washington brings his thin lips together in a tight, straight line, while - his heavy forehead gathers to a half frown. - </p> - <p> - “How, sir,” he asks, after a pause, “could he libel me? I am conscious of - nothing in my past which would warrant such a thought.” - </p> - <p> - “There is not, sir, a fact of your career that would not, if mentioned, - make for your glory.” Hamilton deprecates with delicately outspread hands - as he says this. “That, however, would not deter this Burr, who is Satanic - in his mendacities. Believe me, sir, he has the power of making fiction - look more like truth than truth itself. And there is another thought: - Suppose he were to assail you with some trumped-up story. You could not - come down from your high place to contradict him; it would detract from - you, stain your dignity. That is the penalty, sir”—this with a sigh - of unspeakable adulation—“which men of your utter eminence have to - pay. Such as you are at the mercy of every gutter-bred vilifier; whatever - his charges, you cannot open your mouth.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron hears nothing of this. His first guess of it comes when he is told - by a State department underling that he will no longer be allowed to - inspect and make copies of the papers. - </p> - <p> - Without wasting words on the underling, Aaron walks in upon Jefferson. - That secretary receives him courteously, but not warmly. - </p> - <p> - “How, sir,” begins Aaron, a wicked light in his eye—“how, sir, am I - to understand this? Is it by your order that the files of the department - are withheld from me?” - </p> - <p> - “It is not, sir,” returns Jefferson, coldly frank. “My own theories of a - citizen and his rights would open every public paper to the inspection of - the meanest. I do not understand government by secrecy.” - </p> - <p> - “By whose order then am I refused?” - </p> - <p> - “By order of the President.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron ruminates the situation. At last he speaks out: “I must yield,” he - says, “while realizing the injustice done me. Still I shall not soon - forget the incident. You say it is the order of Washington; you are - mistaken, sir. It is not the lion but his jackal that has put this affront - upon me.” - </p> - <p> - Idle in the Senate, precluded from collecting the materials for that - projected history, Aaron discovers little to employ himself about in - Philadelphia. Not that he falls into stagnation; for his business of the - law, and his speculations in land take him often to New York. His trusted - Theodosia is his manager of business, and when he cannot go to New York - she meets him half way in Trenton. - </p> - <p> - Aside from his concerns of law and land, Aaron devotes a deal of thought - to little Theodosia—child of his soul’s heart! In his pride, he - hurries her into Horace and Terence at the age of ten; and later sends her - voyaging to Troy with Homer, and all over the world with Herodotus. Nor is - this the whole tale of baby Theodosia’s evil fortunes. She is taught - French, music, drawing, dancing, and whatever else may convey a glory and - a gloss. Love-led, pride-blinded, Aaron takes up the rôle of father in its - most awful form. - </p> - <p> - “Believe me, my dear,” he says to Theodosia mere, who pleads for an - educational leniency—“believe me, I shall prove in our darling that - women have souls, a psychic fact which high ones have been heard to - dispute.” - </p> - <p> - At the age of twelve, the book-burdened little Theodosia translates the - Constitution into French at Aaron’s request; at sixteen, she finds - celebration as the most learned of her sex since Voltaire’s Emilie. - Theodosia mere, however, is spared the spectacle of her baby’s harrowing - erudition, for in the middle of Aaron’s term as senator death carries her - away. - </p> - <p> - With that loss, Aaron is more and more drawn to baby Theodosia; she - becomes his earth, his heaven, and stands for all his tenderest hopes. - While she is yet a child, he makes her the head of Richmond Hill, and - gives a dinner of state, over which she presides, to the limping - Talleyrand, and Volney with his “Ruins of Empire.” For all her - precocities, and that hothouse bookishness which should have spoiled her, - baby Theodosia blossoms roundly into womanhood—beautiful as - brilliant. - </p> - <p> - While Aaron finds little or nothing of public sort to engage him, he does - not permit this idleness to shake his hold of politics. Angry with the - royalties of Washington, he drifts into near if not intimate relations - with the arch-democrat Jefferson. Aaron and the loose-framed secretary are - often together; and yet never on terms of confidence or even liking. They - are in each other’s society because they go politically the same road. - Fellow wayfarers of politics, with “Democracy” their common destination, - they are fairly compelled into one another’s company. But there grows up - no spirit of comradeship, no mutual sentiment of admiration and trust. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s feelings toward Jefferson, and the sources of them, find setting - forth in a conversation which he holds with his new disciple, Senator - Andrew Jackson, who has come on from his wilderness home by the - Cumberland. - </p> - <p> - “It is not that I like Jefferson,” he explains, “but that I dislike - Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson will make a splendid tool to destroy - the others with; I mean to use him as the instrument of my vengeance.” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson, when speaking of Aaron to the wooden Adams, is neither so full - nor so frank. The Bay State publicist has again made mention of that - impressive ancestry which he thinks is Aaron’s best claim to public as - well as private consideration. - </p> - <p> - “You may see evidence of his pure blood,” concludes the wooden one, “in - his perfect, nay, matchless politeness.” - </p> - <p> - | “He is matchlessly polite, as you say,” assents Jefferson; “and yet I - cannot fight down the fear that his politeness has lies in it.” - </p> - <p> - The days drift by, and Minister Gouverneur Morris is recalled from Paris. - Washington makes it known to the Senate that he will adopt any name it - suggests for the vacancy. The Senate decides upon Aaron; a committee goes - with that honorable suggestion to the President. - </p> - <p> - Washington hears the committee with cloudy surprise. He is silent for a - moment; then he says: - </p> - <p> - “Gentlemen, your proposal of Senator Burr has taken me unawares. I must - crave space for consideration; oblige me by returning in an hour.” - </p> - <p> - The senators who constitute the committee retire, and Washington seeks his - jackal Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - “Appoint Colonel Burr to France!” exclaims Hamilton. “Sir, it would shock - the best sentiment of the country! The man is an atheist, as immoral as - irreligious. If you will permit me to say so, sir, I should give the - Senate a point-blank refusal.” - </p> - <p> - “But my promise!” says Washington. - </p> - <p> - “Sir, I should break a dozen such promises, before I consented to - sacrifice the public name, by sending Colonel Burr to France. However, - that is not required. You told the Senate that you would adopt its - suggestion; you have now only to ask it to make a second suggestion.” - </p> - <p> - “The thought is of value,” responds Washington, clearing. “I am free to - say, I should not relish turning my back on my word.” - </p> - <p> - The committee returns, and is requested to give the Senate the - “President’s compliments,” and say that he will be pleased should that - honorable body submit another name. Washington is studious to avoid any - least of comment on the nomination of Aaron. - </p> - <p> - The committee is presently in Washington’s presence for the third time, - with the news that the Senate has no name other than Aaron’s for the - French mission. - </p> - <p> - “Then, gentlemen,” exclaims Washington, his hot temper getting the reins, - “please report to the Senate that I refuse. I shall send no one to France - in whom I have not confidence; and I do not trust Senator Burr.” - </p> - <p> - “What blockheads!” comments Aaron, when he hears. “They will one day wish - they had gotten rid of me, though at the price of forty missions.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0197.jpg" alt="0197 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0197.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The wooden Adams is elected President to succeed Washington. Aaron’s - colleague, Rufus King, offers a resolution of compliment and thanks to the - retiring one, extolling his presidential honesty and patriotic breadth. A - cold hush falls upon the Senate, when Aaron takes the floor on the - resolution. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s remarks are curt, and to the barbed point. He cannot, he says, - bring himself to regard Washington’s rule as either patriotic or broad. - That President throughout has been subservient to England, who was our - tyrant, is our foe. Equally he has been inimical to France, who was our - ally, is our friend. More; he has subverted the republic and made of it a - monarchy with himself as king, wanting only in those unimportant - embellishments of scepter, throne, and crown. He, Aaron, seeking to - protest against these almost treasons, shall vote against the resolution. - </p> - <p> - The Senate sits aghast. Aaron’s respectable colleague, Rufus King, cannot - believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet. - </p> - <p> - “I am amazed at the action of my colleague!” he exclaims. “I——” - </p> - <p> - Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. “It is my - duty,” says Aaron, “to warn the senior senator from New York that he must - not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I do not - like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement become a - tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede the impropriety, - to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any manifestation personally - offensive to myself.” - </p> - <p> - As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws - off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of - colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a - moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a gulp - whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is called; - Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, carrying a - baker’s dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, horse-faced - Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland. - </p> - <p> - Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon. - Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields the - Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than ever; for - Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in government, - and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in nothing save name; - Hamilton—fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and playing upon - that wooden one’s fear of not succeeding himself—is the actual chief - magistrate. - </p> - <p> - As Aaron’s term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept - reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved - for that scheming one’s destruction. His plans are fashioned; their - execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will quit - the Senate, quit the capital. - </p> - <p> - “My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton,” he - says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his - purposes. “I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on - that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of - Jefferson.” - </p> - <p> - “And Hamilton?” asks the Cumberland one. - </p> - <p> - “Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of retirement. - Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies may be trusted - to sting him to death.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIII—THE GRINDING OF AARON’S MILL - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON tells his - friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts this resolution to - retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia’s loneliness and a - consequent paternal necessity of his presence at Richmond Hill, and the - tangled condition of his business; which last after the death of Theodosia - mère falls into a snarl. Never, by the lifting of an eyelash or the - twitching of a lip, does he betray any corner of his political designs, or - of his determination to destroy Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of - white-hot throbbing hate against that gentleman of diagonal morals and - biased veracities; but no sign of the fires within is visible on the - arctic exterior. - </p> - <p> - Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton is - mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate concern - in connection with the political destinies of the rusty Schuyler, now - exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler down from his - shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his cloak, and - declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young community - toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought to send the - rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving up. To such a - degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities of mankind, that the - rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to reassume those honors - which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years before. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality. - Aaron’s astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate, - smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however, - Hamilton’s enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that Aaron—courage - broken—is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship. - </p> - <p> - “That is it,” he explains to President Adams. “The fellow has lost heart. - This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace.” - </p> - <p> - There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron’s - benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron’s closest friend Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “Schuyler for the Senate!” he exclaims. “What does that mean?” - </p> - <p> - “It means,” whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, “that I want to - get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!” - </p> - <p> - “And for what?” - </p> - <p> - “The destruction of Hamilton.” - </p> - <p> - As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door. - One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes; - all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable. - </p> - <p> - Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton forces - are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten North-of-Ireland - Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell more than three - millions of the public’s acres to McComb for eightpence. - </p> - <p> - And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence—working - out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington—Aaron’s - practiced vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton - is as angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which - he lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills - because its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President’s - cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton—whose policies are ever - jealous and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him - the raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to - the Party-of-things-as-they-are—which is the party of Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - One thing irks the pride of Aaron—a pride ever impatient and ready - for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these gentry—readily - eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of Aaron—never - omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They make a merit of - accepting Aaron’s aid, and proceed on the assumption that he gains honor - by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy this. - </p> - <p> - “I must have a following,” says he. “I will call about me every free lance - in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which I must be - the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall take up - position between the Campbell and the Montrose—the Clintons and the - Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control both. - Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the obstinate - Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall back, march and - countermarch by my word.” - </p> - <p> - When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to - endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies - ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling’s tavern, at Spruce - and Nassau, meets the “Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order.” The name - is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the “Sons of - Tammany or the Columbian Order,” as they sit swigging Brom Martling’s - cider, call themselves the “Bucktails.” - </p> - <p> - The aristocracy of the Revolution—being the officers—created - unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the Revolution—being - the privates—as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not to say gilded - Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order, otherwise - the Bucktails, into being. - </p> - <p> - The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social - organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of them—quaffing - and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into the mountaintop of - the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the political world and the - glories thereof. Also, he points out that Hamilton, the head of the hated - Cincinnati, is turning that organization of perfume and purple into a - power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe, and resolve under the chiefship - of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals, the Cincinnati, in every ensuing - battle of the ballots to the end of time. - </p> - <p> - The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not - long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the - Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this - formidable body of cider drinkers—with Aaron at its head—they - conduct themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect. - They eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they - would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they - declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as Aaron - forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is sought - for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons—the - Campbell and the Montrose. - </p> - <p> - Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful - war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one might - have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany - Bucktails—who obey him with shut eyes—and has brought the - perverse Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb, - Aaron considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science, - has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to - insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must - pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all - quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic - enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches - are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling’s cider flow - without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees - that his plans as well as his party require a bank. - </p> - <p> - There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow of - the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act coercively. - They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is not amenable to - the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to security even somewhat - mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion against Hamilton, plus the - best security beneath the commercial sun, cannot coax a dollar from their - strong boxes. - </p> - <p> - Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions. The - best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton. Aaron must - free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow him. How is - this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank? It presents as many - difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton watches the bank - situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort to obtain a charter - is knocked on the head. - </p> - <p> - Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to - Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full of war - knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank movement, - night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To capture a bank - charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and, while all but - impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if accomplished. - Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way. - </p> - <p> - Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin’s bottle, a scheme - begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been reaping - a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres—as usual—lay - it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while everybody knows - full well that science is nothing better than just the accepted ignorance - of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his knees to it, and to the - wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and the wiseacres lay yellow - fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking the word from them, does the - same. The local water is found guilty; the popular cry goes up for a purer - element. The town demands water that is innocent of homicidal qualities. - </p> - <p> - It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of Yellow - Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it shall be - called “The Manhattan Company.” - </p> - <p> - With “No more yellow fever!” for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany. - What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With the fear - of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the Albany authorities—being - the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton Legislature—comply with his - demands. The Manhattan Company is incorporated, capital two millions. - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter—which - authorizes a water company—he originates a modest well near the City - Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more than - serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block. - </p> - <p> - Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a - bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in - this; it is anti-Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton - takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a matter - of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and the extent of - its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton flag. And Aaron, - the indefatigable, is in control. At the new Manhattan Bank, he turns on - or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom Mart-ling—spigot-busy in - the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails—turns on or shuts off the - flow of his own cider. - </p> - <p> - After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his - attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority his - Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised world, - in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the world with - water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill its empty - water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its incorporated - back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest is dead. - </p> - <p> - The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with the - charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney general—first - polishing his amazed spectacles—reads the following clause: - </p> - <p> - “The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with the - laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New York.” - </p> - <p> - The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam’s apple goes up - and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental - stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but - lucidly sufficient. - </p> - <p> - “The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the - authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus - capital the Manhattan Bank.” - </p> - <p> - The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon. - </p> - <p> - “And you had the bank in mind from the first!” he cries. - </p> - <p> - “Possibly,” says Aaron. - </p> - <p> - “Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr,” and the Jay attorney general - cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; “if the authorities at - Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received your - charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been refused.” - </p> - <p> - “Possibly!” says Aaron. - </p> - <p> - All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the - Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails - swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan Bank - to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their - accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the Federal - capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as President, with - all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington, and Jefferson is - abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing shoelaces, cutting off - his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President at the other end of - government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these opposite ones. Jefferson - must be his candidate; Adams will be the candidate of the foe. He himself - is to manage for the one, while Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the - situation, he holds it the part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at - these worthies, pulling against one another, and discover to what extent - and in what manner their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar - the nation’s future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a - battle must be fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to - discover aught in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or - Jefferson which can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach. Some - worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as talk - proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected - bitterness of his feeling—a feeling which goes beyond politics, as - the acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized. - </p> - <p> - Van Ness is wonder-smitten. - </p> - <p> - “Your enmity to Hamilton,” he says tentatively, “strikes deeper then than - mere politics.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle flashing - up in his eyes, “the deepest sentiment of my nature is my hatred for that - man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who furnishes the seed - and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I hear it east, north, - west, south. I am his mania—his ‘phobia’. In his slanderous mouth I - am ‘liar,’ ‘thief,’ and ‘scoundrel rogue.’ In such connection I would have - you to remember that I, on my side, give him, and have given him, the - description of a gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - “To be frank, sir,” returns Van Ness thoughtfully, “I know every word you - speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade our - epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with - convincing lead.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. “Kill him!” - he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion; “kill him! - Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for my perfect - vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope he has shall - die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he lies prone, broken, - powerless!—when he is spat upon by those in whose one-time downcast, - servile presence he strutted lord paramount!—when his past is - scoffed at, his future swallowed up!—when his word is laughed at and - his fame become a farce!—then, when every fang of defeat pierces and - poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of killing! That hour - is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness—I am an artist of - revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath, all goes!—that - for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no past!—I must - garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take pains with my - vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my vengeful pains - shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton, for whom my whole - heart flows away in hate!—I shall build for him a pyramid of misery - while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his death—his - grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies before. I shall - take from him every scrap of that power which is his soul’s food—strip - him of each least fragment of position! When he has nothing left but life, - I’ll wrest that from him. Long years after he is gone I’ll walk this - earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and the thought that by my - hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what the friendship of man or - the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him! There is a grist in the - hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill stones of my plans are - grinding!” - </p> - <p> - Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his soul - to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in the - spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow words - follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps over him, - as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental, abnormal, - fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor his tongue - can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron seems not to - notice, but falls into a black muse. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIV—THE TRIUMPH OF AARON - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is the era of - bad feeling, and the breasts of men are reservoirs of poison. Jefferson - and Adams, while known admitted rivals, deplore these wormwood conditions - and strive against them. It is as though they strove against the tides; - party lines were never more fiercely drawn. Some portrait of the hour may - be found in the following: - </p> - <p> - Adams gives a dinner; and, because he cannot get over the Jonathan Edwards - emanation of Aaron, he invites him. Also, Van Ness being with Aaron, the - invitation includes Van Ness. Hamilton and Jefferson will be there; since - it is one of the hypocritical affectations of these good people to keep up - a polite appearance of friendship, by way of example, if not rebuke, to - warring followers, who are hopefully fighting duels and shedding blood and - taking life in their interests. On the way to the President’s house Van - Ness, to whom Adams is new, queries Aaron: - </p> - <p> - “What sort of a man is Adams?” - </p> - <p> - “He is an honest, pragmatic, hot-tempered thick-skull,” says Aaron—“a - New England John Bull!—a masculine Mrs. Malaprop whom Sheridan would - love. You can have no better description of him than was given me but - yesterday by a member of his Cabinet. ‘Adams,’ says the cabineteer, ‘is a - man who whether sportful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, easy, - stiff, jealous, careless, cautious, confident, close or open, is so always - in the wrong place and with the wrong man!’” - </p> - <p> - “Is he a good executive?” - </p> - <p> - “Bad! By nature he is no more in touch with the spirit of a democracy than - with the maritime policies of the Ptolemies. His pet picture of government - is England, with the one amendment that he would call the king a - president. As to his executive labors: why, then, he touches only to - disarrange, talks only to disturb. And all without meaning to do so.” - </p> - <p> - The dinner is neither large nor formal. Aaron sits on the right hand of - Adams, while Jefferson has Van Ness and Hamilton at either elbow. In the - cross fire of conversation comes the following: The topic is government. - </p> - <p> - “Speaking of the British constitution,” says Adams, “purge that - constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of - representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever devised - by the wit of man.” - </p> - <p> - Hamilton cocks his ear. “Sir,” says he, “purge the British constitution of - its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, - and it would become an impracticable government. As it stands at present, - with all its supposed defects, it is the most powerful government that - ever existed.” - </p> - <p> - Presently, the currents of converse shift, and the torrid heats of party - are considered. It is now that Jefferson is heard from. - </p> - <p> - “The situation is deplorable!” he exclaims. “You and I, sir”—looking - across at Adams—“have seen warm debates and high political passions. - But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and - separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not so - now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid - meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they be obliged to touch - their hats. Men’s passions are boiling over; and one who keeps himself - cool, and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of ordinary - conversation that he finds himself socially cast away. More; there is a - moral breaking down. The interruption of letters is becoming so notorious”—here - he looks hard at Hamilton, whose followers are supposed to peep into - letters not addressed to them—“that I am forming a resolution of - declining correspondence with my friends through the channels of the post - office altogether.” - </p> - <p> - Even during Aaron’s short stay at the Capitol, fresh fuel is heaped upon - the fires of his Hamilton hates. A cloud blows up in the sky; war with - France is threatened. Washington at Mount Vernon is commissioned commander - in chief; Hamilton—the active—is placed next to him. Aaron’s - name, sent in for a general’s commission, is secretly vetoed by Hamilton - whispering in the Adams ear. - </p> - <p> - Adams does not like the veto; he thinks he should name Aaron, and says so. - </p> - <p> - “If you do,” declares Hamilton warningly, “it will defeat your - reelection.” - </p> - <p> - Adams groans and gives way. It is the argument wherewith Hamilton never - fails to drive him or curb him as he will. Aaron hears of this new - offense; he says nothing, but lays it away with the others. - </p> - <p> - Candidate Jefferson and Manager Aaron are far apart in their hopes and - fears, the former taking the gloomy view. They come together - confidentially. - </p> - <p> - “I have looked over the field,” says Jefferson, “and we are already - beaten.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” returns Aaron with grim point, “you should look again. I think you - see things wrong end up.” - </p> - <p> - “My hatred of Hamilton,” observes Aaron to Van Ness, as their coach rolls - north for home, “is the good fortune of Jefferson. I shall be fighting my - own fight, and so I shall win. If I were fighting only for Jefferson, I - can well see how the strife might have another upcome.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0223.jpg" alt="0223 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0223.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The campaign draws down; it is Adams against Jefferson, Federal against - Republican. Hamilton leaves the seat of government, and comes to New York - to take personal charge. At that his designs are Janus-faced. He says - “Adams,” but he means “Pinckney.” He foresees that, if Adams be given - another term, he will defy control. Wherefore he is publicly for Adams, - and privately for Pinckney—he looks at Massachusetts but sees only - South Carolina. This collision of pretense and purpose, on Hamilton’s - false part, gets vastly in the Federal way. That it should do so will - instantly occur to curious ones, if they will but seek to go south by - heading north. - </p> - <p> - As Hamilton sets out to take presidential possession of New York, he has - no misgivings. He knows little or nothing of Aaron’s designs or what that - ingenious gentleman has been about. - </p> - <p> - “There is the Manhattan Bank of course; but what can it do? There are the - Bucktails—who are vulgar clods! There are the Livingstons and the - Clintons—he has beaten them before!” - </p> - <p> - Thus run the reflections of the confident Hamilton. No; he sees only - triumph ahead. He gives Aaron and his candidate Jefferson—with their - borrel issue of Alien and Sedition—not half the thought that he - devotes to ways and means by which he hopes finally to steal the electors - from Adams, and produce Pinckney in the White House. That is Hamilton’s - dream of power—Pinckney! - </p> - <p> - Everything pivots on the legislature; since it is the legislature which - will select the electors. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton, bearing in mind his intended steal of the State, prepares his - list of candidates for Albany. He does not pick them for either wisdom or - moral worth; what he is after are legislators whom he can certainly - manhandle to match his designs, and who will give him electors—he - himself will furnish the names—of a Pinckney not an Adams - complexion. He makes up his slate to that treasonable end; and the swift - Aaron gets a copy before the ink is dry. - </p> - <p> - Aaron smiles when he runs down the ignoble muster of Hamilton’s boneless - nonentities. - </p> - <p> - “They are the least in the town!” he mutters. “I shall pit against them - the town’s greatest.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron with his Bucktails, now makes ready his own legislative ticket. At - the head he places old North-of-Ireland Clinton—a local Whittington, - ten times governor of the State. General Gates—for whom Aaron, when - time was, plotted the downfall of Washington, and who received the sword - of the vanquished Burgoyne and sent that popinjay back to England to fail - at play-writing—comes next. After General Gates the wily Aaron - writes “Samuel Osgood”—who was Washington’s postmaster general—“Henry - Rutgers, Elias Neusen, Thomas Storms, George Warner, Philip Arcularius, - James Hunt, Ezekiel Robbins, Brockholst Livingston, and John Swartwout”—every - name a tower of strength. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton cannot repress a flutter of fear as he reads the noble roster; - but his unflagging vanity, which serves him instead of a more reasonable - optimism, rushes to his rescue. None the less it jars on him a bit - strangely, albeit, he laughs at it for a jest, that the best regarded of - the town should make up the ticket of the yeomanry and the crude - Bucktails, while the aristocratical Federals and the equally - aristocratical Cincinnati—that coterie of perfume and patricianism!—search - the gutters for theirs. - </p> - <p> - Seeing himself on the Jefferson ticket, old North-of-Ireland Clinton makes - trouble. He sends for Aaron and his committee, and notifies them that he - cannot consent to run. - </p> - <p> - “If you, Colonel Burr, were the candidate,” he says, “I should run gladly; - but Jefferson I hate.” - </p> - <p> - In his hope’s heart, old North-of-Ireland Clinton—-who, for all his - North-of-Ireland blood, was born in America—thinks he himself may be - struck by the presidential lightning, and does not intend to place any - deflecting obstruction in the path of such descending bolt. - </p> - <p> - Aaron has forestalled the Clinton refusal in his thoughts, and is not - surprised by the high Clintonian attitude. He tries persuasion; the old - ex-governor and would-be president only plants himself more firmly. Under - no circumstances shall he agree to run; his honored name must not be used. - </p> - <p> - It is now that Aaron shows his teeth: “Governor Clinton,” says he, “when - it comes to that, our committee’s appearance before you, preferring the - request that you run, is a ceremony rather of courtesy than need. With the - last word, regardless of either your plans or your preferences, the public - we represent is perfect in its right to name you, and compel you to run. - And, sir, making short what might become long, and so saving time for us - all, I must now notify you that, should you continue to withhold your - consent, we stand already determined to retain and use your name despite - refusal, as a course entirely within the lines of popular right.” - </p> - <p> - In the looks and tones of Aaron, the old North-of-Ireland governor reads - decision not to be revoked, and for once in his obstinate life surrenders - gracefully. - </p> - <p> - “Gentlemen,” says he, with a bland wave of the hand to Aaron and his - Bucktail committee, “since you put it in that way, refusal is out of my - power. Also let me add, that no man could take a nomination from a higher, - a more honorable, a more patriotic source.” - </p> - <p> - The campaign, on in earnest, goes forward with a roar. Not a screaming - item is omitted. Guns boom; flags flaunt; bands of music bray; gay - processions go marching; crackers splutter and snap; orators with iron - throats sweep down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence; - flaming rockets, when the sun goes down, streak the night with fire; the - bold Buck-tails, cidered to the brim, cause Brom Martling’s long-room to - ring again, and make the intersection of Spruce and Nassau a Bedlam - crossroads. - </p> - <p> - This is well; yet Aaron desires more. The issue is Alien and Sedition; he - yearns for an overt expression of what villain work may be done by that - black statute. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s strength, as a captain of politics, lies in his intuitive - knowledge of men. He is never popular—never loved while ever - admired. Men may no more love him than they may love a diamond, or a - Damascus sword blade, or a tallest, sun-kissed, snow-capped mountain peak. - Still that innate grasp of men, and what motives will move them, is as an - edged tool in his hands wherewith to carve out triumph. This gift of - man-reading comes in play when now he would exhibit Alien and Sedition in - its baleful workings. - </p> - <p> - There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded - him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your - natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman’s block, there he lays his neck; - given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he thrusts - his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake he takes - his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a despot than - a friend. And yet—to defend Yates—that bent for martyrdom is - nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero reversed. - The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a martyr only - a hero who fails. - </p> - <p> - Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. “Here is a pamphlet flaying - Adams,” says he. “It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and circulate it.” - </p> - <p> - “Why?” asks Yates. - </p> - <p> - “Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do it.” - </p> - <p> - “Doubtless!”—this dryly. “But what advantage do you discover in - having me locked up?” - </p> - <p> - “Man! can’t you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure will - be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you from Otsego - to New York. Think what a triumph that should be—you, the paraded - victim of the monarchical Adams!” - </p> - <p> - Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron’s - blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has - foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive’s line of march. Yates - is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for - himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is worth - a thousand votes. - </p> - <p> - “It is the difference between the eye and the ear,” says Aaron to his - aide, Swartwout. “You might explain the iniquities of Alien and Sedition, - and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and they take - fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed by a falling - tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. Should you some - day <i>see</i> a man crushed by a falling tree, you will start in your - sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. Wherefore, never - address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The gateway to the - imagination is the eye.” - </p> - <p> - The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To - the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him at the - polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he is beaten, - Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson’s. The blow shakes Hamilton to - the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. In the face of - such disaster, he sits stricken. - </p> - <p> - Presently, as though the bad in him is more vivid than the good and - quicker at recovery, that old instinct of larceny struggles to its feet. - He will steal the State; not from Adams as he planned, but from Jefferson. - He scribbles a note to Jay, who is in town at his home, urging him as - governor to call a special session of the legislature, a Federal - Legislature, and go about the crime. He feels the necessity of - justification; for Jay is of a skittish honor. This on his mind, he closes - with: “It is the only way by which we can prevent an atheist in religion - and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm of - government.” - </p> - <p> - Jay reads, and draws down his brows in a frown. Hamilton’s messenger is - waiting. - </p> - <p> - “Governor,” says the messenger, “General Hamilton bid me get an answer.” - </p> - <p> - “Tell General Hamilton there is no answer.” Jay rereads the note. Then he - takes quill, writes a sentence on the back, and files it away in a - pigeonhole. Years later, when Jay and Hamilton and Adams and Jefferson and - Aaron are dead and under the grass roots, hands yet unformed will draw the - letter forth and unborn eyes will read: “Proposing a measure for party - purposes which I do not think it would become me to adopt. J. J.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XV—THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>AMILTON writhes - and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first effort before the - adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his courage returns, he - bends himself to consider, whether by other means, fair or foul, the - election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends out a flock of - letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily as their - commander in chief of party. - </p> - <p> - It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the - cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his bare - word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that potential - name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing of - Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave his - voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. He - finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of New York and - Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney intrigue as worse - than hopeless. They propose instead—and therein lurks horror—that - the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. They can take - the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may be coaxed from the - Jefferson strength, make Aaron President—their President—the - President of the Federalists. - </p> - <p> - The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his - discovered loss of power—which latter, of itself, is as a blade of - ice through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to - learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of Aaron - as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken of heart and - hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the Grange, and sits - in mourning with his soul. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses - but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, who - is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South Carolina. - </p> - <p> - Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal - chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great - purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate. - They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as is the - Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of terror in a - democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at the thought of - Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him less of a leveler. - Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him with promises; for - they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a pig in a poke. They - seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange wreaths and is up to - the ears in baby Theo’s wedding. As a preliminary they send his - lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings. - </p> - <p> - “If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?” asks Swartwout. - </p> - <p> - “Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline—a - lady and a presidency.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that, - should he be chosen, he will serve. - </p> - <p> - “There can be no refusal,” he says. “The electors are free to make their - choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however,” he goes - on, warningly; “I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; the - thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, yourself, - are of those who will select the electors for our own State, I tell you, - as you value my friendship, that New York must go to Jefferson. We carried - the State for him, and he shall have it.” - </p> - <p> - Following Swartwout’s visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon Aaron. - They point out that he can be President; but they seek to condition it - upon certain promises. - </p> - <p> - “Gentlemen,” returns Aaron, “I know not what in my past has led you to - this journey. I’ve no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I - shall be no man’s president but my own.” - </p> - <p> - “Think of the honor, sir!” says Federalist Bayard. - </p> - <p> - “Honor?” repeats Aaron. “Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went - into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way - to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet.” - </p> - <p> - Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs—all save the broken - Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange—none the less - go forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors - will follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The - law-demanded vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson - seventy-three, Aaron seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one. - </p> - <p> - No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the House. The - sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House delegations and - owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a president. At this the - campaign is all to fight over again. But in a different way, on different - ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and Aaron. - </p> - <p> - In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, in - the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second - pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely - married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk. - </p> - <p> - Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, “As affairs are,” he explains—he - has made a count of noses—“Jefferson, when the House convenes, will - have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, - Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, for your side, - will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, South - Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The delegations of Maryland and - Vermont, being evenly divided between yourself and Jefferson, will have no - voice. The tally will show eight for Jefferson, six for you, two not - voting. None the less, in the face of these figures the means of electing - you exist. By deceiving one man—a great blockhead—and tempting - two—not incorruptible—you can still secure a majority of the - States. I——” - </p> - <p> - “You have said enough, sir,” breaks in Aaron. “I shall deceive no one, - tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of - Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally - fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have construction - as an insult.” - </p> - <p> - Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear. - Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron - will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself. - </p> - <p> - Jefferson does not share Aaron’s chill indifference. While the latter - comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of - every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels all - the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He calls on - the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his influence with - his party in favor of Aaron’s defeat. - </p> - <p> - “It is I, sir,” says Jefferson, “whom the people elected; and you should - see their will respected.” - </p> - <p> - Adams grows warm. “Sir,” he retorts, “the event is in your power. Say that - you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will instantly - be put into your hands.” - </p> - <p> - “If such be your answer, sir,” returns Jefferson, equaling, if not - surpassing the Adams heat, “I have to tell you that I do not intend to - come into the presidency by capitulation.” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams—who is practical, even - if high-tempered—begins his preparations to create and fill - twenty-three life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession. - </p> - <p> - As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at - the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the war - between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. The - action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As - unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot - grasp the reason of his overthrow. - </p> - <p> - Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations tongue. - “What is this mighty difference,” he cries, “which the public discovers - between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, I am for - speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I am for a big - dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is for a daily - levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think a man may curl - or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson preference, sir, - convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are not reasonable - creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and myself is this: I - appeal to men’s reason, he flatters their vanity. The result—a mob - result—is that he stands victorious, while I lie prostrate.” Saying - which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his arrangements for creating and - filling those twenty-three life judgeships—being resolved, in his - narrow breast, to make the most of his dying moments as a president. - </p> - <p> - The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are - placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there - are members too ill to occupy their regular seats—one is even - attended by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order - which forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White - House tie determined. - </p> - <p> - The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as - foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for Aaron, - with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly divided - delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count half votes - for any name. There being no choice—since no name possesses a - majority of all the States—another vote is called. The upcome is the - same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine - hours of ceaseless balloting. - </p> - <p> - Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of the - seventh day, Federalist Bayard—who is the entire delegation from his - little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote for - Aaron—beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. It - is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; for the - Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so much as the - ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, Federalist - Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with Aaron - Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end. - </p> - <p> - The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy - indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of - Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next, - feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames for - what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not fade, - until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron’s plans to send them - sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; for - Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against the - curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go about - their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with little - friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between President and - Vice-President have never been the habit. - </p> - <p> - In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. He - refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a half. He - knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to the Jefferson - hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, against the repeal - of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which the practical Adams - created and filled in his industrious last days. - </p> - <p> - Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but - his home rivals the White House—which leans toward the simple-severe - under Jefferson—as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes - up from South Carolina to preside over it—Theo, loving and lustrous! - Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way to - a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into gossip - with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson has no - bargain in the Franco-Corsican. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0245.jpg" alt="0245 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0245.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - On the lustrous Theo’s second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she - brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it - proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston. - Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than - it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark - one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus - and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he - will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte and - swoop at empire. - </p> - <p> - During these days of Aaron’s eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten - Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has - turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on - politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and - pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance. - </p> - <p> - He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres. - “And when you return home,” he says, imitating the lightsome and doing it - poorly, “send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of Carolina - melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear Pinckney”—this, with - a sickly smile—“is, as you know, a very usual refuge for your - disappointed politician.” It is now, his acute bitterness coming - uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly complaint—the complaint of - selflove wounded to the heart. “What an odd destiny is mine! No man has - done more for the country, sacrificed more for it, than have I. No man - than myself has stood more loyally by the Constitution—that frail, - worthless fabric which I am still striving to prop up! And yet I have the - murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes to pay for it. - What can I do better than withdraw from the arena? Each day proves more - and more that America, with its republics, was never meant for me.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVI—THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE Aaron - flourishes with Senate gavel, and Hamilton mourns his downfall at the - Grange, new men are springing up and new lines forming. The Federalists - disappear in the presidential going down of the wooden Adams; Aaron, by - that one crushing victory, annihilated them. The new alignment in New York - is personal rather than political, and becomes the merest separation of - Aaron’s friends from Aaron’s enemies. - </p> - <p> - At the head of the latter, De Witt Clinton, nephew to old North-of-Ireland - Clinton, takes his stand. Being modern, Clinton starts a newspaper, the <i>American - Citizen</i>, and places a scurrilous dog named Cheetham in charge. As a - counterweight, Aaron launches the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, with Peter - Irving editor, and his brother, young Washington Irving, as its leading - writer. Now descends a war of ink, that is recklessly acrimonious and not - at all merry. - </p> - <p> - Under that spur of feverish ink, the two sides fall to dueling with the - utmost assiduity. Hamilton’s son Philip insults Mr. Eaker, a lawyer friend - of Aaron; and the insulted Mr. Eaker gives up the law for one day to - parade young Hamilton at the conventional ten paces. It is all highly - honorable, all highly orthodox; and young Hamilton is killed in a way - which reflects credit on those concerned. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s lieutenant, John Swartwout, fastens a quarrel upon De Witt - Clinton, for sundry ink utterances of the latter’s dog-of-types, Cheetham. - The two cross the river to a spot of convenient seclusion. - </p> - <p> - “I wish it were your chief instead of you!” cries Clinton, who is not fine - in his politenesses. - </p> - <p> - “So do I,” responds Swartwout, being of a rudeness to match Clinton’s. - “For he is a dead shot, and would infallibly kill you; while I am the - poorest hand with a pistol among the Buck-tails.” - </p> - <p> - The bickering pair are placed. They fire and miss. A second, and yet a - third time their lead flies shamefully wide. At the fourth shot Clinton - saves his credit by wounding Swartwout in the leg. The stubborn Swartwout - demands a fifth fire, and Clinton plants a second bullet within two inches - of the first. - </p> - <p> - “Are you satisfied?” asks Mr. Riker, who acts for Clinton. - </p> - <p> - “I am not,” returns Swartwout the stubborn. “Your man must retract, or - continue the fight. Kill or be killed, I am prepared to shoot out the - afternoon with him.” - </p> - <p> - At this, both Clinton’s fortitude and manners break down together, and, - refusing to either fight on or apologize, he walks off the field. This - nervous extravagance creates a scandal among our folk of hectic - sensibilities, and shakes the Clinton standing sorely. He is promptly - challenged by Senator Dayton—an adherent of Aaron’s—but evades - that statesman at further loss to his reputation. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile Robert Swartwout, brother to the wounded Swartwout, calls out - Mr. Riker, who acted for Clinton against the stubborn one, and has the - pleasure of dangerously wounding that personage. Also, Editor Coleman of - the Evening Post, weary with that felon scribe, goes after type-dog - Cheetham of Clinton’s American Citizen; whereat dog Cheetham flies - yelping. - </p> - <p> - This last so disturbs Harbor Master Thompson of the Clinton forces, that - he offers to take type-dog Cheetham’s place. Editor Coleman being - agreeable, they fight in a snowstorm in (inappropriately) Love’s Lane—it - will be University Place later—and the port loses a harbor master at - the first fire. - </p> - <p> - Aaron, gaveling the Senate in the way it should legislatively go, pays no - apparent heed to the smoky doings of his warlike subordinates. He never - takes his eyes from Hamilton, however; and, if that retired publicist, - complaining in his garden, would but cast his glance that way, he might - read in their black ophidian depths a saving warning. But Hamilton is - blind or mad, and thinks only on what he may do to injure Aaron, and never - once on what that perilous Vice-President might be carrying on the - shoulder of his purposes. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton devotes his garden leisure to vilifying Aaron. He goes stark - staring raving Aaron-mad; at the mention of the name he pours out a muddy - stream of slander. In talk, in print, in what letters he indites, Aaron is - accused of every infamy. There is nothing so preposterously vile that he - does not charge him with it. Aaron looks on and listens with a grim, evil - smile, saying nothing. It is as though he but waits for Hamilton’s - offenses to ripen in their accumulation, as one waits for apples to ripen - on a tree. - </p> - <p> - At last the hour of harvest comes; Aaron leaves Washington for Richmond - Hill, and sends for his friend Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “You once marveled at my Hamilton moderation—wondered that I did not - stop his slanders with convincing lead?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” says Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “You shall wonder no longer, my friend. The hour of his death is about to - strike.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness breaks into a gale of protest. Hamilton, beaten, disgraced, - deposed, is in political exile! Aaron, powerful, victorious, is on the - crest of fortune! There is no fairness, no equality in an exchange of - shots under such circumstances! Thus runs the opposition of Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “In short,” he concludes, “it would be a fight downhill—a fight that - you, in justice to yourself, have no right to make. Who is Alexander - Hamilton? Nobody—a beaten nobody! Who is Aaron Burr? The second - officer of the nation, on his sure way to a White House! Let me say, sir, - that you must not risk so much against so little.” - </p> - <p> - “There is no risk; for I shall kill the man. I shall live and he shall - die.” - </p> - <p> - “Cannot you see? There is the White House! Adams went from the - Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; Jefferson went from the Vice-Presidency - to the Presidency; you will do the same. It’s as though the White House - were already yours. And you would throw it away for a shot at this broken, - beaten, disregarded man! For let me tell you, sir; kill Hamilton and you - kill your chance of being President. No one may hope to go into the White - House on the back of a duel.” - </p> - <p> - About Aaron’s mouth twinkles a pale smile. It lights up his face with a - cold dimness, as a will-o’-the-wisp lights up the midnight blackness of a - wood. - </p> - <p> - “You have a memory only for what I lose. You forget what I gain.” - </p> - <p> - “What you gain?” - </p> - <p> - “Ay, friend, what I gain. I shall gain vengeance; and I would sooner be - revenged than be President.” - </p> - <p> - “Now this is midsummer madness!” wails Van Ness. “To throw away a career - such as yours is simple frenzy!” - </p> - <p> - “I do not throw away a career; I begin one.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness stares; Aaron goes slowly on, as though he desires every word to - make an impression. - </p> - <p> - “Listen, my friend; I’ve been preparing. Last week I closed out all my - houses and lands! to John Jacob Astor for one hundred and forty thousand - dollars. The one lone thing I own is Richmond Hill—the roof we sit - beneath. I’d have sold this, but I did not care to attract attention. - There would have come questions which I’m not ready to answer.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness fills a glass of Cape, and settles himself to hear; he sees that - this is but the beginning. - </p> - <p> - Aaron proceeds: “As we sit here to-night, Napoleon has been declared - hereditary Emperor of the French. It has been on its way for months, and - the next packet will bring us the news.” - </p> - <p> - “And what have the Corsican and his empire to do with us?” - </p> - <p> - “A President,” continues Aaron, ignoring the question, “is not comparable - to an emperor. The Presidential term is but a stunted thing—in four - years, eight at the most, your President comes to his end. And what is an - ex-President? Look at Adams, peevish, disgruntled—unhappy in what he - is, because he remembers what he was. To be a President is well enough. To - be an ex-President is to seek to satisfy present hunger with the memories - of banquets eaten years ago. For myself, I would sooner be an emperor; his - throne is his for life, and becomes his son’s or his grandson’s after - him.” - </p> - <p> - “What does this lead to?” asks Van Ness, vastly puzzled. “Admitting your - imperial preferences, how are they applicable here and now?” - </p> - <p> - “Let me show you,” responds Aaron, still slow and measured and impressive. - “What is possible in the East is possible in the West; what has been done - in Europe may be done in America. Napoleon comes to Paris—lean, - epileptic, poor, unknown, not even French. To-day he is emperor. Also”—this - with a laugh which, however, does not prevent Van Ness from seeing that - Aaron is deeply serious—“also, he is two inches shorter than - myself.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness leans back and makes a little gesture with his hand, as who - should say: “Continue!” - </p> - <p> - “Very well! Would it be a stranger story if I, Aaron Burr, were to found - an empire in the West—if I became Aaron I, as the Corsican has - become Napoleon I?” - </p> - <p> - “You do not talk of overturning our government?” This in tones of wonder, - and not without some flash of angry horror. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t hold me so dull. The people of this country are unfitted for king - or emperor. They would throw down a thousand thrones while you set up one. - I’ve studied races and peoples. Let me give you a word; it will serve - should you go to nation building. Never talk of crowns or thrones to - blue-eyed or gray-eyed men. They are inimical, in the very seeds of their - natures, to thrones and crowns.” - </p> - <p> - “England?” - </p> - <p> - “England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland are monarchies only in name. In - fact and spirit they are republics. If you would have king or emperor in - very truth, you must go to your black-eyed folk. Setting this country - aside, if you cast a glance toward the southwest, you will behold a people - who should be the very raw materials of an empire.” - </p> - <p> - “Mexico!” exclaims the astonished Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “Ay, Mexico! There is nothing which Napoleon Bonaparte has done in France, - which Aaron Burr may not do in Mexico. I would have the flower of this - country at my back. Indeed, it should be easier to ascend the throne of - the Montezumas than of the Bourbons. I believe, too—for I think he - would feel safer with a brother emperor in the West—I might count on - Napoleon’s help for that climbing. However, we overrun the hunt”—Aaron - seems to recall himself like one who comes out of a dream—“I am - thinking not on empire, but vengeance. I have thrown out a rude picture of - my plans, however, because I hope to have your company in them. Also, I - wanted to show how utterly in my heart I have given up America and an - American career. It is Mexico and the throne of an emperor, not Washington - and the chair of a President, at which I aim. I am laying my foundations, - not for four years, not for eight years, but for life. I shall be Aaron I, - Emperor of Mexico; with my grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, to follow me as - Aaron II. There; that should do for ‘Aaron and empire.’” This, with a - return to the cynical: “Now let us get to Hamilton and vengeance. The - scoundrel has spat his toad-venom on my name and fame for twenty years; - the turn shall now be mine.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness is silent; the glimpses he has been given of Aaron’s high designs - have tied his tongue. - </p> - <p> - Aaron gets out a letter. “Here,” he says; “you will please carry that to - Hamilton. It marks the beginning of my revenge. I base it on excerpts - taken from a printed letter written by Dr. Cooper, who says: ‘General - Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they look upon - Colonel Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with - the reins of government. I could detail a still more despicable opinion - which General Hamilton has expressed of Colonel Burr.’ I demand,” - concludes Aaron, “that he explain or account to me for having furnished - such an ‘opinion’ to Dr. Cooper.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness purses up his lips, and knots his forehead cogitatively. - </p> - <p> - “Why pitch upon this letter of Cooper’s as a <i>casus belli?</i>” he asks - at last. “It is ambiguous, and involves a question of Cooper’s - construction of English. If we had nothing better it might do; but there - is no such pressure. Hamilton, on many recent occasions, in speeches and - in print, has applied to you the lowest epithets.” - </p> - <p> - “You may recall, sir, that I once told you I was an artist of revenge. It - is this very ambiguity I’m after. I would hook the fellow—hook him - and play him as I would a fish! The man’s a coward. I saw it written on - his face that day when, following ‘Long Island,’ he threw away his gun and - stores. By coming at him with this ambiguity, he will hope in the - beginning to secure himself by evasions. He will write; I shall respond; - there will be quite a correspondence. Days will drag along in agony and - torment to him. And all the time he cannot escape. From the moment I send - him that letter he is mine. It is as if I had him in a narrow lane; he - cannot get by me. On the other hand, if I come upon him, as you suggest, - with some undeniable charge, it will all be over in a moment. He will be - obliged at once to toe the peg. You now understand that I design only in - this letter to hook him hard and fast. When I have so played him as to - satisfy even my hatred, rest secure I’ll reel him in. He can no more avoid - meeting me than he can avoid trembling when he contemplates the dark - promise of that meeting. His wife would despise him, his very children cut - him dead were he to creep aside.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness goes with Aaron’s letter to Hamilton. The latter, as he reads it, - cannot repress a start. The blood rushes from his face to his heart and - back again; for, as though the blind were made to see, he realizes the - snare into which he has walked—a snare that he himself has spread to - his own undoing. - </p> - <p> - With an effort he commands his agitation. “You shall have my answer by the - hand of Mr. Pendleton,” he says. - </p> - <p> - Hamilton’s reply, long and wordy, is two days on its way. As Aaron - foretold, it is wholly evasive, and comes in its analysis to be nothing - better than a desperate peering about for a hole through which its author - may crawl, and drag with him what he calls his honor. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s reply closes each last loophole of escape. “Your letter,” he says, - “has furnished me new reasons for requiring a definite reply.” - </p> - <p> - Hamilton reads his doom in this; and yet he cannot consent to the - sacrifice, but struggles on. He makes a second response, this time at - greater length than before. - </p> - <p> - Aaron, implacable as Death, reads what Hamilton has written. - </p> - <p> - “I think we should close the business,” he says to Van Ness, as he gives - him Hamilton’s letter. “It has been ten days since I sent my initial note, - and I have had enough of vengeance in anticipation. And so for the last - act.” Aaron dispatches Van Ness with a peremptory challenge. There being - no gateway of relief, Hamilton is driven to accept. Even then comes a cry - for time; Hamilton asks that the hour of final meeting be fixed ten - further days away. Aaron smiles that pale smile of hatred made content, - and grants the prayed-for delay. - </p> - <p> - The morning following the challenge and its acceptance, Pendleton appears - with another note from Hamilton—who obviously prefers pens to - pistols for the differences in hand. Aaron, smiling his pale smile of - contented hate, refuses to receive it. - </p> - <p> - “There is,” he observes, “no more to be said on either side, a challenge - having been given and accepted. The one thing now is to load the pistols - and step off the ground.” - </p> - <p> - It is four days later, and the fight six days away. Aaron and Hamilton - meet at a dinner given on Independence Day. Hamilton is hysterically gay, - and sings his famous song, “The Drum.” Also, he never once looks at Aaron, - who, dark and lowering and silent, the black serpent sparkle in his eye, - seldom shifts his gaze from Hamilton. Aaron’s stare, remorseless, hungrily - steadfast, is the stare of the tiger as it sights its prey. - </p> - <p> - Dr. Hosack calls on Aaron, where the latter sits alone at Richmond Hill. - Wine is brought; the good doctor takes a nervous glass. He has a rosy, - social face, has the good doctor, a face that tells of friendships and the - genial board. Just now, however, he is out of spirits. Desperately setting - down his wineglass, he flounders into the business that has brought him. - </p> - <p> - “I can hardly excuse my coming,” he says, “and I apologize before I state - my errand. I would have you believe, too, that my presence here is - entirely by my own suggestion.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron bows. - </p> - <p> - The good doctor explains that he has been called upon to go, - professionally, to the fighting ground with Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - “That is how I became aware,” he concludes, “of what you have in train. I - resolved to see you, and make one last effort at a peaceful solution.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron coldly shakes his head: “There can be no adjustment.” - </p> - <p> - “Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to - him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered - me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!” The good doctor - looks guiltily uneasy. “And now I am asked to sit down with the scorn he - has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur to you, - sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: Should he fall, - there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I fall, the blow - descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those the slender - shoulders of a girl.” - </p> - <p> - There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way. - </p> - <p> - The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights - of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over the - bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes his barge - at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his friend - Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy shelf, - under the somber Weehawken heights. - </p> - <p> - The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend - Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place - of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches his - hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf. - </p> - <p> - Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word - and choice of position. - </p> - <p> - Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the - up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is - given the other end. The word is to be: - </p> - <p> - “Present!—one—two—three—stop!” As the two stand in - position, Aaron is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man - already lost. - </p> - <p> - Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range. - </p> - <p> - “Gentlemen, are you ready?”. - </p> - <p> - “Ready!” says Aaron. - </p> - <p> - “Ready!” says Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes: - </p> - <p> - “Present!———-” - </p> - <p> - There is a flash and a roar!—a double flash, a double roar! The - smoke curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels, - clutches at nothing, and pitches forward on his face—shot through - and through. The Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron’s - head. - </p> - <p> - Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like a - man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk toss - aside a tool when the work is done—well done. Then he walks down to - his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful cedars - are smiling just across the river. - </p> - <p> - “It was worth the price, Van Ness,” says Aaron. “The taste of that - immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die out - in my heart.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVII—AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON sits placidly - serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his cigar, he reduces those - dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out his design as architects - draw plans and specifications for a house. His friends call—Van - Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and Washington. - </p> - <p> - Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a prodigious - hubbub of mourning—demonstrative if not deeply sincere. Hamilton, - broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. Was he not - a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? Therefore, come - folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it an opportunity to prove - themselves of the town’s Vere de Veres. There dwells fashionable advantage - in tear-shedding at the going out of an illustrious name. Such - tear-shedding provides the noble inference that the illustrious one was - “of us.” Alive to this, those of would-be fashion lapse into sackcloth and - profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and the ashes ashes of roses. Also they - arrange a public funeral at Trinity, and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local - Mark Antony, to deliver an oration. - </p> - <p> - To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended - grief of Aaron’s Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of Hamilton - for Aaron’s political destruction. - </p> - <p> - At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his - empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or - spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on the - ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn’s shaven borders - in front of Richmond Hill. - </p> - <p> - The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, stubborn - Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful one says - “Good-by!” and returns; Aaron is received by his friend Commodore Truxton. - With Truxton he talks “empire” all night. He counts on English ships, he - says; being promised in secret by British Minister Merry in Washington. - Truxton shall command that fleet. - </p> - <p> - Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for - Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls “Celeste,” and to - whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in - Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton’s scandalized <i>American Citizen</i>: - “He walks openly about the streets!” - </p> - <p> - Then to St. Simon’s off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite - Southern circles; and, from St. Simon’s across to South Carolina and the - noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the summer - wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love. - </p> - <p> - With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the grave - togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going out of - Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During those three - Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, goes among - friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or glance - averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete to do him - honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of farewell, and men - pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. So he steps down - from American official life; but not from American interest. - </p> - <p> - Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of - empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers—the - Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du - Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their words - are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary of - civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for - conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West - beyond the Mississippi. - </p> - <p> - It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside the - rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave Peter - intrudes his black face to announce: - </p> - <p> - “Gen’man comin’-up, sah!” - </p> - <p> - Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun - Cow, with as little ceremony. - </p> - <p> - As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway. - </p> - <p> - “Come in, General,” says Aaron. - </p> - <p> - General Wilkinson is among Aaron’s older acquaintances. They were together - at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in an hour of - Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that - throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson is - in present command of the military forces of the United States in the - Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of - that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron’s plans. - </p> - <p> - The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron’s genial “Come in.” Its owner - takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, which - the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a glass of - whisky. - </p> - <p> - Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain, - bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that - tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat - exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid that - speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining with - bear’s grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes a - composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger - liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg. - </p> - <p> - The stubborn Swartwout doesn’t like him. On a late occasion he expresses - that dislike. - </p> - <p> - “To be frank, Chief,” observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of Aaron’s - headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as “Chief”—“to - be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked as a dog’s hind - leg.” - </p> - <p> - “You are right, sir,” says Aaron; “he is both dishonest and treacherous. - It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by ‘blabbing’ - them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and - treacherous is Wilkinson.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0273.jpg" alt="0273 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0273.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - “Why, then, do you trust him?” - </p> - <p> - “Why do I trust him?” repeats Aaron. “For several sufficient reasons. He - has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as I am - with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New Orleans; - and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, he commands - the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count his - dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should become of - importance in my enterprise. - </p> - <p> - “As how?” demands the mystified Buck-tail. - </p> - <p> - “As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice - will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His - treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies - that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor me. - Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war department - here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual rôles of - filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this government, - he is certain to be often in collision with himself.” - </p> - <p> - The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference to - Aaron’s will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the - whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep. - </p> - <p> - Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron’s fire, sits in happy ignorance - of the distrustful Bucktail’s views. Confident as to his own high - importance, he plunges freely into Aaron’s plans. - </p> - <p> - “Five hundred,” says Aaron, “full five hundred are agreed to go; and I - have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should crowd - round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is to purchase - eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from which to - operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My excuse for - recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to settle on those - eight hundred thousand Washita acres.” - </p> - <p> - “Eight hundred thousand acres!” This, between sips of whisky: “That should - take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?” - </p> - <p> - “It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from - everywhere—but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to - mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million.” - </p> - <p> - “How do you succeed with the English?” asks Wilkinson, taking a new - direction. - </p> - <p> - “It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me - yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, to - return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans. - Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz, - where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera - Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico.” - </p> - <p> - Wilkinson helps himself to another glass. - </p> - <p> - Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” he observes, “it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I’ll make - you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches and - almost the wisdom of Solomon. He’ll embrace the enterprise; once he does - he’ll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; with his - merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in provisions in Vera - Cruz.” - </p> - <p> - “That is well bethought,” cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle. - </p> - <p> - “Clark’s relations with the bishop are likewise close,” adds Wilkinson. - </p> - <p> - Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction. - </p> - <p> - “Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time with a - claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a republic?” - </p> - <p> - “The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the ‘Empire of Mexico.’ - I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made hereditary in the - male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, heir - presumptive.” - </p> - <p> - “And I?” interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol and - interest. “What are to be my rank and powers?” - </p> - <p> - “You will be generalissimo of the army.” - </p> - <p> - “Second only to you?” - </p> - <p> - “Second only to me. Here; I’ve drawn an outline of the civil fabric we’re - to set up. The government, as I’ve said, is to be imperial, myself - emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who - will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor; - Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees and - secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess mother of - the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; Truxton, lord - high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, ministers, consuls, - and the usual furniture of government. The grandees should be limited to - one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring with us. There may be - minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and friendly among the - natives.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of the - night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his - leave, he says: - </p> - <p> - “We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to - follow in two weeks, you say?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” responds Aaron. “There should be months of travel ahead, before my - arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith in Ohio, - Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New Orleans, and - arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. In my running - about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as questions come - up.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don’t forget two several - matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the - civil as well as the military control of the empire, I’m to be second to - no one save yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill to-morrow - for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and signed.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, we shall find money enough,” returns Wilkinson contentedly. “Only - it’s well never to lose sight of the fact that we’re going to need it. - Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome—something - that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank of - generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could ask. Popularly,” - concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his leave—“popularly, I shall - be known as ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer.’ Coming, as I shall, at the head of - those gallant conquering armies which are to relieve the groaning Mexicans - from the yoke of Spain, I think it a natural and an appropriate title—‘Wilkinson - the Deliverer!’” - </p> - <p> - “Not only an appropriate title,” observes the courtly Aaron, who remembers - his generalissimo’s recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, “but admirably - adapted to fill the trump of fame.” - </p> - <p> - The door closes on the broad back of the coming “Deliverer.” As Aaron - again bends over his “Empire,” he hears that personage’s footsteps, - uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious - prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen. - </p> - <p> - “Bah!” mutters Aaron; “Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous and - disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation of this - conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my situation, I - am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, if Jefferson - were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of abstractions, - bookshelves and alcoves!—a closet philosopher in whose veins runs no - drop of red aggressive fighting blood!—he would as soon think of - treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into the error of - imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me for that - presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of his own - unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the natural - child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust him. His - judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most innocent act - a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making Aaron Burr an - outlaw.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XVIII—THE TREASON OF WILKINSON - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW begin days - crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends the Potomac, and - crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined flatboat and floats - down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, romantic, eccentric, - living on an island below. He visits the island; the lord of the isle is - absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, not beautiful, welcomes him - and bids him come again. - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, - where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find - General Jackson—his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served - colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King. - </p> - <p> - Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. Processions - march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of oxen, drinking - of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; and all after the - hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero in its clutches. - </p> - <p> - To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of - Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. - Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon’s hate; each is a Francis Drake at - bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal - pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make - clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them - less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals - with folk who are congenital republicans. - </p> - <p> - The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into - Aaron’s plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow - him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in - Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious - culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson - himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson. - </p> - <p> - Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does - not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam - Houston—the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in - his ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with his - sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the - bedplates of an empire truly; but not <i>his</i> empire—not the - empire of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on - the grave’s edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart - will warm at the news of it, and know it for his work. - </p> - <p> - Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets - Wilkinson, who—nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul—is as - much in ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The - only change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to - whether, instead of “Wilkinson the Deliverer,” he might not better fill - the wondering measure of futurity as “Washington of the West.” Both titles - are full of majesty—a thing important to a taste streaked of rum—but - the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson - says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, - committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both. - </p> - <p> - Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight hundred - miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The latter city is - a bubbling community of nine thousand souls—American, Spanish, - French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, - up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a - more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a - whole roast ox. - </p> - <p> - The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It is - agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston’s, Clark shall be of the - grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New Orleans, - and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy out the land. - For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not fostered the - Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not only be - protected, but become the national Church. - </p> - <p> - Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, - keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill - along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom he - sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the coming - work. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0287.jpg" alt="0287 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0287.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron - heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight he - spends with that muddled exile, he wins him—life and fortune. - Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell of - the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, feels - with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will be a - grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire of - Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing himself - at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of anticipation the - exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends. - </p> - <p> - “Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers his - greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when they - meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, Ambassador - to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ It’ll cause my - surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their mouths; for I - cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in the past.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. He - dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his plans. No - whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! Aaron is not - so horn-mad as all that. - </p> - <p> - While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the - fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one - returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to - Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston join - Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as the - sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads for the - West. There will be no return—the lustrous Theo and the heir - presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law - Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, promises - to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan on his - plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s - interference with the exportation of rice. - </p> - <p> - Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and - kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present - headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to Madam - Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and north and - south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one hundred men, at - Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, and note the - progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland flotilla. What he - sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand dollars—a royal - sum!—with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in outfitting - the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise. - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, he - drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he forms - the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who is - eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and decides - that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley in a blaze. - He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson—as suspicious as any - Morgan! - </p> - <p> - Having aroused Morgan the wrong way, - </p> - <p> - Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight hundred - thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate transaction, - he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a suggestion. As - commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into the Spanish - country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians into a clash. - Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the Spaniards and the - United States, a war fury will seize the country, and furnish an admirable - background of sentiment for his own descent upon Mexico. Wilkinson, full - of bottle valor, receives Aaron’s suggestion with rapture, and starts for - the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the Sabine, to bring down the desired - trouble, Aaron again pushes up for Blennerhassett and that exile’s island. - </p> - <p> - While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the - soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the papers, - descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with milk and - honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming ambassador - buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on the island. - They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon the broad Ohio - in those fifteen Marietta bateaux. - </p> - <p> - Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and - Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that - Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has - moved the court at Frankfort for an order “commanding the appearance of - Aaron Burr.” The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious - Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground. - </p> - <p> - Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs to - Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into - court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but - does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give - their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a ball - in his honor. - </p> - <p> - Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach - completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with letters - to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards on the - Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When Swartwout - and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta preparations, - urging speed with those bateaux. - </p> - <p> - Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron’s letters. - These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice and - native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built up - doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the - conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. Why - should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for betraying - Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the Credulous - Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico but the United - States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose as the saviour of - his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his country, what might - not he demand?—what might not he receive? Surely, a saved country, - even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful! - </p> - <p> - The red-nosed one’s genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends - posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to break up - the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the revolt. - Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the shorter cut - to that coveted title, “Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington of the West.” - Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! Wilkinson the - red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging Aaron and his scheme - of empire into ruin. - </p> - <p> - While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance - concerning them, is driving matters with a master’s hand at Marietta and - the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves, - with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which - call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand acres. - Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson. - </p> - <p> - At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a - Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of - frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States - west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on peril - of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, - treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, Samuel - Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to Baltimore, - to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all his fortitude - to command himself. - </p> - <p> - The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of - doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; - after which he calls into counsel his attorney general. - </p> - <p> - The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He believes - that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country’s integrity - threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his own sublime - powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk the - treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor—nobly - willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on the - altars of a common good—bids him try what he can eloquently do. - </p> - <p> - The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be - conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake it - would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant territory of - Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron surrender - without a struggle, and come into court and be tried. - </p> - <p> - Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, - and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically hailed - by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand dollars. - </p> - <p> - The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue grass, - find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his honorable - release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, to - indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. Cool counsel - intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without difficulty, are - convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon they content - themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter let “honest - settlers” coming into the country alone. Having discharged their duty in - the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and the governor - draws a long breath of relief. - </p> - <p> - Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson’s anti-treason proclamation. The West - will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure to - be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his - enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, it - makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not name - him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will supply - the omission. - </p> - <p> - There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and - yet Aaron’s dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront - him. - </p> - <p> - As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which the - perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go to - Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose, - mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out. - </p> - <p> - It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of - Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets - Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes’ study, Perkins is flooded of a - great light. - </p> - <p> - “Aaron Burr!” he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart. - </p> - <p> - Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours later, - as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines and a sober - file of soldiers. - </p> - <p> - The captain salutes: - </p> - <p> - “You are Colonel Burr,” he says. “I arrest you by order of President - Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be treated - with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second highest post - of Government.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, “I am Colonel Burr. I yield - myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it is not - possible to do otherwise.” Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the fort. As - the two dismount at the captain’s quarters, a beautiful woman greets them. - </p> - <p> - “This is my wife, Colonel Burr,” says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam - Gaines: “Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two - sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. Aaron - beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which has - cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is forever - thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant—the beautiful - Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! Aaron is - never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than now when - power and empire vanish for all time. - </p> - <p> - “You appreciate my position, sir,” says Captain Gaines, as they rise from - the table. “I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, “I blame only the hateful, - thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in trusting a - scoundrel.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIX—HOW AARON IS INDICTED - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is evening at - the White House. The few dinner guests have departed, and Jefferson is - alone in his study. As he stands at the open window, and gazes out across - the sweep of lawn to the Potomac, shining like silver in the rays of the - full May moon, his face is cloudy and angry. The face of the sage of - Monticello has put aside its usual expression of philosophy. In place of - the calm that should reign there, the look which prevails is one of - narrowness, prejudice and wrathful passion. - </p> - <p> - Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without - surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, Wirt!” he cries; “be seated, please. You got my note?” - </p> - <p> - William Wirt is thirty-five—a clean, well-bred example of the - conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but with - the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the reason - of his White House presence. - </p> - <p> - “Your note, Mr. President?” he repeats. “Oh, yes; I received it. What you - propose is highly flattering. And yet—and yet——” - </p> - <p> - “And yet what, sir?” breaks in Jefferson impatiently. “Surely, I propose - nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to - conduct the case against Colonel Burr.” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing unusual, of course,” returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen - political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what he - is about. “And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which should - be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the Government’s - attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as well as duty to - prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled upon him. Have - you thought of Mr. Hay?” - </p> - <p> - “Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity! - no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have about - him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, sir; he - seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, he has done - quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; there is much - depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr must be - convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and set a - monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single item, - must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to be on - trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be ‘The People - against Aaron Burr.’ but ‘The Federalists against Thomas Jefferson.’ Do - you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as much as is the - Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, will be on the - bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their instrument, Colonel - Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a support as George Hay. - It is you who must conduct this cause.” - </p> - <p> - Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless - dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much - the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his - speech. - </p> - <p> - “You surely do not mean to say,” he begins, “that the chief justice——” - </p> - <p> - “I mean to say,” interrupts Jefferson, “that you must be ready to meet - every trick that Marshall can play against the Government. For all his - black robe, is he of different clay than any other? Believe me, he’s a - Federalist long before he’s a judge! Let me ask a question: Why did - Marshall, the chief justice, mind you, hold the preliminary examination of - Burr? Why, having held it, did he not commit him for treason? Why did he - hold him only for a misdemeanor, and admit him to bail? Does not that look - as though Marshall had taken possession of the case in Burr’s interest? - You spoke a moment ago of the propriety of Hay prosecuting the charge - against Burr, being, as he is, the Government’s attorney for that - district. Does not it occur to you that his honor, Judge Griffin, is the - judge for that district? And yet Marshall shoves him aside to make room on - the bench for himself. Sir, there is chicanery in this. We must watch - Marshall. A chief justice, indeed! A chief Federalist, rather! Why, he - even so much lacked selfrespect as to become a guest at a dinner given in - Colonel Burr’s honor, after he had committed that traitor in ten thousand - dollars bail! An excellent, a dignified chief justice, truly!—doing - dinner table honor to one whom he must presently try for a capital - offense!” - </p> - <p> - “Justice Marshall’s appearance at the Burr dinner”—Wirt makes the - admission doubtfully—“was not, I admit, in the very flower of good - taste. None the less, I should infer honesty rather than baseness from - such appearance. If he contemplated any wrong in Colonel Burr’s favor, he - would have remained away. Coming to the case itself,” says Wirt, anxious - to avoid further discussion of Judge Marshall, as a topic whereon he and - Jefferson are not likely to agree, “what is the specific act of treason - with which the Government charges Colonel Burr?” - </p> - <p> - “The conspiracy, wherein he was prime mover, aimed first to take Mexico - from, the Spanish. Having taken Mexico, the plotters—Colonel Burr at - the head—purposed seizing New Orleans. That would give them a hold - in the vast region drained by the Mississippi. Everything west of the - Alleghenies was expected to flock round their standards. With an empire - reaching from Darien to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific to the - Alleghenies, their final move was to be made upon Washington itself. Sir, - the Federalists hate this republic—have always hated it! What they - desire is a monarchy. They want a king, not a president, in the White - House.” - </p> - <p> - “I learn,” observes Wirt—“I learn, since my arrival, that Colonel - Burr has been in Washington.” - </p> - <p> - “That was three days ago. He demanded copies of my orders to General - Wilkinson. When I prevented his obtaining them, he said he would move for - a <i>subpoena duces tecum</i>, addressed to me personally. Think of that, - sir! Can you conceive of greater impudence? He will sue out a subpoena - against the President of this country, and compel him to come into court - bringing the archives of Government!” - </p> - <p> - Wirt shrugs his shoulders. “And why not, sir?” he asks at last. “In the - eye of the law a president is no more sacred than a pathmaster. A murder - might be committed in the White House grounds. You, looking from that - window, might chance to witness it—might, indeed, be the only - witness. You yourself are a lawyer, Mr. President. You will not tell me - that an innocent man, accused of murder, is to be denied your testimony?—that - he is to hang rather than ruffle a presidential dignity? What is the - difference between the case I’ve supposed and that against Colonel Burr? - He is to be charged with treason, you say! Very well; treason is a hanging - matter as much as murder.” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson and Wirt, step by step, go over the arrest of Aaron, and what - led to it. It is settled that Wirt shall control for the prosecution. - Also, when the Grand Jury is struck, he must see to it that Aaron is - indicted for treason. - </p> - <p> - “Marshall has confined the inquiry,” says Jefferson, “to what Burr - contemplated against Mexico—a mere misdemeanor! You, Wirt, must have - the Grand Jury take up that part of the conspiracy which was leveled - against this country. There is abundant testimony. Burr talked it to Eaton - in Washington, to Morgan in Ohio, to Wilkinson at Fort Massac.” - </p> - <p> - “You speak of his <i>talking</i> treason,” returns Wirt with a thoughtful, - non-committal air. “Did he anywhere or on any occasion <i>act</i> it? Was - there any overt act of war?” - </p> - <p> - “What should you call the doings at Blennerhassett Island?—the - gathering of men and stores?—the boat-building at Marietta and - Nashville? Are not those, taken with the intention, hostile acts?—overt - acts of war?” - </p> - <p> - Wirt falls into deep study. “We must,” he says after a moment’s silence, - “leave those questions, I fear, for Justice Marshall to decide.” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson relates how he has written Governor Pinckney of South Carolina, - advising the arrest of Alston. - </p> - <p> - “To be sure, Alston is not so bad as Colonel Burr,” he observes, “for the - reason that he is not so big as Colonel Burr; just as a young rattlesnake - is not so venomous as an old one.” Then, impressively: “Wirt, Colonel Burr - is a dangerous man! He will find his place in history as the Catiline of - America.” - </p> - <p> - Wirt cannot hide a smile. “It is but fair you should say so, Mr. - President, since at the Richmond hearing he spoke of you as a presidential - Jack Straw.” Seeing that Jefferson does not enjoy the reference, Wirt - hastens to another subject. “Colonel Burr will have formidable counsel. - Aside from Wickham, and Botts, and Edmund Randolph, across from Maryland - will come Luther Martin.” - </p> - <p> - “Luther Martin!” cries Jefferson. “So they are to unloose that Federal - bulldog against me! But then the whisky-swilling beast is never sober.” - </p> - <p> - “No more safe as an adversary for that,” retorts Wirt. “If I am ever - called upon to write Luther Martin’s epitaph, I shall make it ‘Ever drunk - and ever dangerous!’” - </p> - <p> - On the bench sits Chief Justice Marshall—tall, slender—eyes as - black as Aaron’s own—face high, dignified—brow noble, full—the - whole man breathing distinction. By his side, like some small thing lost - in shadow, no one noticing him, no one addressing him, a picture of silent - humility, sits District Judge Griffin. - </p> - <p> - For the Government comes Wirt, sneering, harsh—as cold and hard and - fine and keen as thrice-tempered steel. With him is Hay—slow, - pompous, of much respectability and dull weakness. Assisting Wirt and Hay - and filling a minor place, is one McRae. - </p> - <p> - Leading for the defense, is Aaron himself—confident, unshaken. - Already he has begun to relay his plans of Mexican conquest. He assures - Blennerhassett, who is with him, that the present interruption should mean - no more than a time-waste of six months. With Aaron sit Edmund Randolph, - the local Nestor; Wickham, clear, sure of law and fact; and Botts, the - Bayard of the Richmond bar. Most formidable is Aaron’s rear guard, the - thunderous Luther Martin—coarse, furious, fearless—gay clothes - stained and soiled—ruffles foul and grimy—eye fierce, bleary, - bloodshot—nose bulbous, red as a carbuncle—a hoarse, roaring, - threatening voice—the Thersites of the hour. Never sober, he rolls - into court as drunk as a Plantagenet. Ever dangerous, he reads, hears, - sees everything, and forgets nothing. Quick, rancorous, headlong as a - fighting bull, he lowers his horns against Wirt, whenever that polished - one puts himself within forensic reach. Also, for all his cool, sneering - skill, Toreador Wirt never meets the charge squarely, but steps aside from - it. - </p> - <p> - Apropos of nothing, as Martin takes his place by the trial table, he roars - out: - </p> - <p> - “Why is this trial ordered for Richmond? Why is it not heard in - Washington? It is by command of Jefferson, sir. He thinks that in his own - State of Virginia, where he is invincible and Colonel Burr a stranger, the - name of ‘Jefferson’ will compel a verdict of guilt. There is fairness for - you!” - </p> - <p> - Wirt glances across, but makes no response to the tirade; for Martin, - purple of face, snorting ferociously, seems only waiting a word from him - to utter worse things. - </p> - <p> - The Grand Jury is chosen: foreman, John Randolph of Roanoke—sour, - inimical, hateful, voice high and spiteful like the voice of a scolding - woman! The Grand Jury is sent to its room to deliberate as to indictments, - while the court adjourns for the day. - </p> - <p> - It is well into the evening when the parties in interest leave the - courtroom. As Wirt and Hay, arm in arm, are crossing the courthouse green, - they become aware of an orator who, loud of tone and careless of his - English, is addressing a crowd from the steps of a corner grocery. Just as - the two arrive within earshot, the orator, lean, hawklike of face, tosses - aloft a rake-handle arm, and shouts: - </p> - <p> - “When Jefferson says that Colonel Burr is a traitor, Jefferson lies in his - throat!” The crowd applaud enthusiastically. - </p> - <p> - Hay looks at Wirt. “Who is the fellow?” he asks. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! he’s a swashbuckler militia general,” returns Wirt, carelessly. “He’s - a low fellow, I’m told; his name is Andrew Jackson. He was one of Colonel - Burr’s confederates. They say he’s the greatest blackguard in Tennessee.” - </p> - <p> - Just now, did some Elijah touch the Wirtian elbow and tell of a day to - come when he, Wirt, will be driven to resign that coveted attorney - generalship into the presidential hands of the “blackguard,” who will - receive it promptly, and dismiss him into private life no more than half - thanked for what public service he has rendered, the ambitious Virginian - would hold the soothsayer to be a madman, not a prophet. - </p> - <p> - Scores upon scores of witnesses are sent one by one to the Grand Jury. The - days run into weeks. Every hour the question is asked: “Where is - Wilkinson?” The red-nosed one is strangely, exasperatingly absent. - </p> - <p> - Wirt seeks to explain that absence. The journey is long, he says. He will - pledge his honor for the red-nosed one’s appearance. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile the friends of Aaron pour in from North and West and South. The - stubborn, faithful Swartwout is there, with his brother Samuel; for, - Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden and Adair and Bollman, shipped aforetime - per schooner to Baltimore by the red-nosed one as traitors, have been - declared innocent, and are all in Richmond attending upon their chief. - </p> - <p> - One morning the whisper goes about that “Wilkinson is here.” The whisper - is confirmed by the red-nosed one’s appearance in court. Young Washington - Irving, who has come down from New York in the interest of Aaron, writes - concerning that red-nosed advent: - </p> - <p> - <i>Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line - with Colonel Burr. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey cock, - and bracing himself to meet Colonel Burr’s eye. The latter took no notice - of him, until Judge Marshall directed the clerk to “swear General - Wilkinson.” At the mention of the name, Colonel Burr turned and looked him - full in the face, with one of his piercing regards, swept him from head to - foot, and then went on conversing with his counsel as before. The whole - look was over in a moment; and yet it was admirable. There was no - appearance of study or constraint, no affectation of disdain or defiance; - only a slight expression of contempt played across the countenance, such - as one might show on seeing a person whom one considers mean and vile.</i> - </p> - <p> - That evening Samuel Swartwout meets the red-nosed one, as the latter - warrior is strutting on the walk for the admiration of men, and thrusts - him into a mud hole. The lean Jackson is so delighted at this disposition - of the rednosed one, that he clasps the warlike Swartwout in his - rake-handle arms. Later, by twenty-two years, he will make him collector - of the port of New York for it. Just now, however, he advises a duel, - holding that the mudhole episode will be otherwise incomplete. - </p> - <p> - Since Swartwout has had the duel in his mind from the beginning, he and - the lean Jackson combine in the production of a challenge, which is duly - sent to the red-nosed one in the name of Swartwout. The red-nosed one has - no heart for duels, and crawls from under the challenge by saying, “I - refuse to hold communication with a traitor.” Thereupon Swartwout, with - the lean Jackson to aid him, again lapses into the clerical, and prints - the following gorgeous outburst in the <i>Richmond Gazette:</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Brigadier General Wilkinson: Sir: When once the chain of infamy - grapples to a knave, every new link creates a fresh sensation of - detestation and horror. As it gradually or precipitately unfolds itself, - we behold in each succeeding connection, and arising from the same corrupt - and contaminated source, the same base and degenerated conduct. I could - not have supposed that you would have completed the catalogue of your - crimes by adding to the guilt of treachery forgery and perjury the - accomplishment of cowardice. Having failed in two different attempts to - procure an interview with you, such as no gentleman of honor could refuse, - I have only to pronounce and publish you to the world as a coward.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Samuel Swartwout.</i> - </p> - <p> - The Grand Jury comes into court, and by the shrill mouth of Foreman - Randolph reports two indictments against Aaron: one for treason, “as - having levied war against the United States,” and one for “having levied - war upon a country, to wit, Mexico, with which the United States are at - peace”—the latter a misdemeanor. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XX—HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE indictments are - read, and Aaron pleads “Not guilty!” Thereupon Luther Martin moves for a - <i>subpoena duces tecum</i> against Jefferson, commanding him to bring - into court those written orders from the files of the War Department, - which he, as President and <i>ex officio</i> commander in chief of the - army, issued to the red-nosed Wilkinson. Arguing the motion, the violent - Martin proceeds in these words: - </p> - <p> - “We intend to show that these orders were contrary to the Constitution and - the laws. We intend to show that by these orders Colonel Burr’s property - and person were to be destroyed; yes, by these tyrannical orders the life - and property of an innocent man were to be exposed to destruction. This is - a peculiar case, sirs. President Jefferson has undertaken to prejudge my - client by declaring that ‘of his guilt there can be no doubt!’ He has - assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and pretended to - search the heart of my client. He has proclaimed him a traitor in the face - of the country. He has let slip the dogs of war, the hell-hounds of - persecution, to hunt down my client. And now, would the President of the - United States, who has himself raised all this clamor, pretend to keep - back the papers wanted for a trial where life itself is at stake? It is a - sacred principle that the accused has a right to the evidence needed for - his defense, and whosoever—whether he be a president or some lesser - man—withholds such evidence is substantially a murderer, and will, - be so recorded in the register of heaven.” - </p> - <p> - Argument ended, Marshall, chief justice, sustains the motion. He holds - that the <i>subpoena duces tecum</i> may issue, and goes so far as to say - that, if it be necessary to the ends of justice, the personal attendance - of Jefferson himself shall be compelled. - </p> - <p> - The charge is treason, and no bail can be taken; Aaron must be locked up. - The Governor of Virginia offers as a place of detention a superb suite of - rooms, meant for official occupation, on the third floor of the - penitentiary building. Marshall, chief justice, accepting such proffer, - orders Aaron’s confinement in the superb official suite. Aaron takes - possession, stocks the larder, loads the sideboards, and, with a cloud of - servitors, gives a dinner party to twenty friends. - </p> - <p> - The lustrous Theo arrives, and makes her residence with Aaron in the - official suite, as lady of the establishment. Each day a hundred visitors - call, among them the aristocracy of the town. Also dinner follows dinner; - the official suite assumes a gala, not to say a gallant look, and no one - would think it a prison, or dream for one urbane moment that Aaron—that - follower of the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield—is fighting - for his life. - </p> - <p> - Following the order for the <i>subpoena duces tecum</i>, and Aaron’s - dinner-giving incarceration in the official suite, Marshall, chief - justice, directs that court be adjourned until August—a month away. - </p> - <p> - Wirt, during the vacation, goes over to Washington. He finds Jefferson in - a mood of double anger. - </p> - <p> - “What did I tell you,” cries Jefferson—“what did I tell you of - Marshall?” Then he rushes on to the utterances of the violent Luther - Martin. “Shall you not move,” he demands, “to commit Martin as <i>particeps - criminis</i> with Colonel Burr? There should be evidence to fix upon him - misprision of treason, at least. At any rate, such a step would put down - our impudent Federal bulldog, and show that the most clamorous defenders - of Colonel Burr are one and all his accomplices.” - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile, the “impudent Federal bulldog” attends a Fourth-of-July dinner - in Baltimore. Every man at table, save himself, is an adherent of - Jefferson. Eager to demonstrate that loyal fact to the administration, - sundry of the guests make speeches full of uncompliment for Martin, and - propose a toast: - </p> - <p> - “Aaron Burr! May his treachery to his country exalt him to the scaffold!” - </p> - <p> - More speeches, replete of venom, are aimed at Martin; whereupon that - undaunted drunkard gets upon his feet. - </p> - <p> - “Who is this Aaron Burr,” he roars, “whose guilt you have pronounced, and - for whose blood your parched throats so thirst? Was not he, a few years - back, adored by you next to your God? Were not you then his warmest - admirers? Did not he then possess every virtue? He was then in power. He - had influence. You were proud of his notice. His merest smile brightened - all your faces. His merest frown lengthened all your visages. Go, ye - holiday, ye sunshine friends!—ye time-servers, ye criers of hosannah - to-day and crucifiers to-morrow!—go; hide your heads from the - contempt and detestation of every honorable, every right-minded man!” - </p> - <p> - August: The day of trial arrives. Wirt, with the dull, deferent Hay, has - gone over the testimony against Aaron, and arranged the procession of its - introduction. Wirt will begin far back. By the mouth of the red-nosed - Wilkinson—somewhat in hiding from Swartwout—and by others, he - will relate from the beginning Aaron’s dream of Mexican conquest. He will - show how the vision grew and expanded until it reacted upon the United - States, and the downfall of Washington became as much parcel of Aaron’s - design as was the capture of Mexico. He will trace Aaron through his many - conferences in Washington, in Marietta, in Nashville, in Cincinnati; and - then on to New Orleans, where he is closeted with Merchant Clark and the - Bishop of Louisiana. - </p> - <p> - And so the parties go into court. - </p> - <p> - The jury being sworn, Marshall, chief justice, at once overthrows those - well-laid plans of Wirt. - </p> - <p> - “You must go to the act, sir,” says Marshall. - </p> - <p> - “Treason, like murder, is an act. You can’t think treason, you can’t plot - treason, you can’t talk treason; you can only act it. In murder you must - first prove the killing—the murderous act, before you may offer - evidence of an intent. And so in treason. You must begin by proving the - overt act of war against the country, before I can permit evidence of an - intent which led up to it.” - </p> - <p> - This ruling throws Wirt abroad in his calculations. The “Federal bulldog” - Martin grows vulgarly gleeful, Wirt correspondingly glum. - </p> - <p> - Being prodded by Marshall, chief justice, Wirt declares that the “act of - war” was the assembling of forty armed men, under one Taylor, at - Blennerhassett Island. They stopped at the island but a moment, and Aaron - himself was in Lexington. None the less there were forty of them; they - were armed; they were there by design and plan of Aaron, with an ultimate - purpose of levying war against this Government. Wirt urges that - constructive war was at that very island moment being waged, with Aaron - personally absent but constructively present, and constructively waging - such war. - </p> - <p> - At this setting forth, Marshall, chief justice, puckers his lips, as might - one who thinks the argument far-fetched and overfinely spun. Martin, the - “Federal bulldog,” does not scruple to laugh outright. - </p> - <p> - “Was ever heard such hash!” cries Martin. “Men may bear arms without - waging war! Forty men no more mean war than four! Men may float down the - Ohio, and still no war be waged. Because the hypochondriac Jefferson - imagined war, we are to receive the thing as <i>res adjudicata</i>, and - now give way while a pleasantly concocted tale, of that carnage of a - presidential nightmare, is recited from the witness box. Sirs, you are not - to fiddle folk onto a scaffold to any such tune as that, though a - president furnish the music.” - </p> - <p> - Marshall, chief justice, still with pursed lips and knotted forehead, - directs Wirt to proceed with his evidence of what, at Blennerhassett - Island, he relies upon to constitute, constructively or otherwise, a state - of war. Having heard the evidence, he will pass upon the points of law - presented. - </p> - <p> - Wirt, desperate because he may do no better, puts forward one Eaton as a - witness. The latter tells a long, involved story, which sounds vastly like - fiction and not at all like fact, of conversations with Aaron. Aaron - brings out in cross examination, that within ten days after he, Eaton, - went with this tale to Jefferson, a claim for ten thousand dollars, which - he had been pressing without success against the Government, was paid. - Aaron suggests that Eaton, to induce payment of such claim, invented his - narrative; and the suggestion is plainly acceptable to the jury. - </p> - <p> - Following Eaton, Wirt calls Truxton; and next the suspicious Morgan, who - first wrote to Jefferson touching Aaron and his plans. Then follow - Blennerhassett’s gardener and groom, and one Woodbridge, Blennerhassett’s - man of business. Wirt, by these, proves Aaron’s frequent presence on the - island; the boats building at Marietta; the advent of Taylor with his - forty armed men, and there the relation ends. In all—the testimony, - not a knife is ground, not a flint is picked, not a rifle fired; the forty - armed men do not so much as indulge in drill. For all they said or did or - acted, the forty might have been explorers, or sightseers, or settlers, or - any other form of peaceful whatnot. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose,” observes Marshall, chief justice, bending his black eyes - warningly upon Wirt—“I suppose it unnecessary to instruct counsel - that guilt will not be presumed?” - </p> - <p> - Wirt replies stiffly that counsel for the Government, at least, require no - instructions; whereat Martin the “Federal bulldog” barks hoarsely up, that - what counsel for the Government most require, and are most deficient in, - is a case and the evidence of it. Wirt pays no heed to the jeer, but - announces that under the ruling of the court, made before evidence was - introduced, he has nothing more to offer touching acts of overt war. He - rests his case, he says, on that point; and thereupon, the defense take - issue with him. The Government, Aaron declares, has failed to make out - even the shadow of a treason. There is nothing which demands reply; he - will call no witnesses. - </p> - <p> - Marshall, chief justice, directs that the arguments to the jury be - proceeded with. Wirt is heard. Being imaginative, and having no facts, he - unchains his fancy and paints a paradise, whereof Aaron is the serpent and - Blennerhassett and his moon-visaged spouse are Adam and Eve. It is a - beautiful picture, and might be effective did it carry any grain of truth. - However, it is well received by the jury as a romance full of entertaining - glow and glitter; and then it is put aside from serious consideration. - </p> - <p> - While Wirt the fanciful is thus coloring his invented paradise, with Aaron - as the serpent and the Blennerhassetts the betrayed Adam and Eve, the - “betrayed” Blennerhassett, sitting by Aaron’s side, is reading the - “serpent” a letter, that day received from Madam Blennerhassett. The - missive closes: - </p> - <p> - “Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and Theo’s - kind remembrances. Tell him to assure her that she has inspired me with a - warmth of attachment that never can diminish.” - </p> - <p> - On the oratorical back of Wirt come Wickham, Hay, Randolph, Botts, and - McRae. Lastly Martin is heard, the “Federal bulldog” seizing the occasion - to bay Jefferson even more violently than before. When they are done, - Marshall, chief justice, lays down the law as to what should constitute an - “overt act of war”; and, since it is plain, even to the court crier, that - no such act has been proven, the jury hurry forward a finding: - </p> - <p> - “Not guilty!” - </p> - <p> - Jefferson, full of prejudice, hears the news. He writes wrathfully to - Wirt: - </p> - <p> - “Let no witness depart without taking a copy of his evidence, which is now - more important than ever. The criminal Burr is preserved, it seems, to - become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worthless of the - United States, and to be the pivot on which all the conspiracies and - intrigues, that foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to - turn. There is still, however, the misdemeanor; and, if he be convicted of - that, Judge Marshall must, for very decency, give us some respite by a - confinement of him; but we must expect it to be very short.” There is a - day’s recess; then the charge of “levying war against Mexico” is called. - The red-nosed Wilkinson now tells his story; and is made to admit—the - painful sweat standing in great drops upon his purple visage—that he - has altered in important respects several of Aaron’s letters. Being, by - his own mouth, a forger, the jury marks its estimate of the red-nosed one - by again acquitting Aaron, and pronouncing a second finding: “Not guilty!” - </p> - <p> - Thus ends the great trial which has rocked a continent. Aaron is free; his - friends crowd about him jubilantly, while the loving, lustrous Theo weeps - upon his shoulder. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXI—THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>IX months creep - by; May is painting Manhattan with its flowers. The house of the stubborn, - loyal Swartwout is in Stone Street. Long ago, in the old Dutch - beaver-peltry days, the home of the poet Steen-dam was there. Now it is - the dwelling place of John Swartwout, and Aaron is his guest. - </p> - <p> - The lustrous Theo is with Aaron this sunny afternoon, luster something - dimmed; for the hour is one sad and tearful with parting. It is a last - parting; though the pair—the loving father! the adoring, clinging - daughter!—hopefully, happily blind, believe otherwise. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” Aaron is saying, “I must sail tonight. The ship is at anchor in the - lower bay.” Theo, the lustrous, is too bravely the child of Aaron to break - into lamentation, though the wrung heart fills her eyes with tears. “And - should your plans fail,” she says, “you will come to us at the ‘Oaks.’ - Joseph, you know, is no longer ‘Mr. Alston,’ but ‘Governor Alston.’ As - father to the Governor of the State, and with your own high name, you may - take what place you will in South Carolina. You promise, do you not? If by - any trip of fortune your prospects are overthrown, you will come to us in - the South?” - </p> - <p> - “But, dearling, my plans will not fail. I have had letters from Lords - Mulgrave and Castlereagh, I bear with me the indorsement of the British - Minister in Washington. Openly or secretly, England will support my - project with men and money and ships. If, in some caprice of politics or a - changing cabinet, she should refuse, I shall seek Napoleon. Mexico and an - empire!—that should match finely the native color of his Corsican - feeling.” - </p> - <p> - Night draws on; Aaron and the lustrous Theo say the sorrowful words of - separation, and within the hour he is aboard the <i>Clarissa</i>, outward - bound for England. - </p> - <p> - In London, full of new fire, Aaron throws away no time. Each day he is - closeted with Mulgrave, Castlereagh and Canning. He goes to Holland House, - and its noble master is seized with the fever for Montezuman conquest. The - inventive Earl of Bridgewater—who is radical and goes readily to - novel enterprises—catches the Mexican fury. The spirit of Cortez is - abroad; the nobility of England fall quickly in with Aaron’s Western - design. It will mean an augmentation of the world’s peerage. Also, Mexico - should furnish an admirable grazing ground for second sons. Aaron’s - affairs go swimmingly; he is full of hopeful anticipation. He writes the - lustrous Theo at the “Oaks” that, “save for the unforeseen,” little Aaron - Burr Alston shall yet wear an imperial crown as Aaron II. - </p> - <p> - Save for the unforeseen! The reservation is well put in. As Aaron sits in - conference, one foggy London evening, with Mulgrave and Castlereagh, who - have become principal figures in those Mexican designs, Canning comes - hurriedly in. - </p> - <p> - “I am from the Foreign Office,” says he, “and I come with bad news. There - is a lion in our path—two lions. Secret news was just received that - Napoleon has driven the king and queen from Madrid, and established his - brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Mexico by that: stroke belongs to - the Bonapartes; they will hardly consent to its loss.” - </p> - <p> - “That is one lion,” observes Mulgrave; “now for the other.” - </p> - <p> - “The other is England,” proceeds Canning. “Already we are mustering our - forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are to - become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish - power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain’s ally, fighting her - battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit - the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. He - understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is through - talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No chance now - of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so bright but the - moment before, are on the instant darkened. - </p> - <p> - “Delay! always delay!” he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the - chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and - quickly pulls himself together. “Yes,” says he, “the word you bring shuts - double doors against us. The best we may do is wait—wait for - Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across the - Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again.” - </p> - <p> - “Indubitably,” returns Canning. “Should England save Spain from the - Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico as - a recompense for her exertions.” - </p> - <p> - Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron - compelled to fold away his ambitions. - </p> - <p> - While waiting the turn of fortune’s wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his - leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. “The celebrated Colonel - Burr!” is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as - instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It - shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks. - </p> - <p> - Jeremy Bentham—honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for - bettering governments—finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham - loves admiration and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from - letter-writing friends in America that “the celebrated Colonel Burr” reads - his works with satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy, - praise-loving Bentham, and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow - Green. - </p> - <p> - “You,” cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the “celebrated Colonel - Burr” as a member of his family—“you and Albert Gallatin are the - only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common mind—which - is as dull and crawling as a tortoise—my theories travel too fast.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron lives with Bentham—fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham—now - at Barrow Green, now at the philosopher’s London house in Queen Square - Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William - Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with - Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal: - </p> - <p> - “Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb’s. He is a writer, and lives with a - maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs.” - </p> - <p> - At the Lambs he encounters Faseli the painter; and thereupon Aaron, the - Godwins, Faseli, and the Lambs brew a bowl of punch, and thresh out - questions social, artistic, literary, and political until the hours grow - small. - </p> - <p> - Cobbett talks with Aaron; and straight off runs to Bentham with the - suggestion that they send him to Parliament. Aaron laughs. - </p> - <p> - “I’m afraid,” says he, “that whatever may be my genius for law-giving, it - would fit but badly with English prejudice and English inclination. You - would find me in the British Commons but a sorry case of a square peg in a - round hole.” - </p> - <p> - That Aaron is the fashion at Holland House, which is the gathering point - of opposition to Government, does not help him at the Home Office. Also, - the Spanish allies of England, through their minister, complain. - </p> - <p> - “He is fomenting his Mexican design,” cries the Spaniard. “It shows but - poorly for England’s friendship that she harbors him, and that he is feted - and feasted by her nobility.” - </p> - <p> - Lord Hawkesbury leans to the Spanish view. He will assert his powers under - the “Alien Act.” It will please the Spaniards. Likewise, it will offend - Holland House. Two birds; one stone. Hawkesbury sends a request that Aaron - call upon him at his office; and Aaron calls. - </p> - <p> - “This, you will understand,” observes Hawkesbury, “is not a personal but - an official interview, Colonel Burr. I might hope to make it more pleasant - were it personal. Speaking as one of the crown’s secretaries, I must - notify you to quit England.” - </p> - <p> - “What is your authority for this?” asks Aaron. - </p> - <p> - “You will find it in the ‘Alien Act.’ Under that statute, Government is - invested with power to order the departure of any alien without assigning - cause.” - </p> - <p> - “Precisely! Your Government is now engaged in searching American ships for - English sailors. It was, I recall, the basis of bitter complaint in - America when I left. In seizing those whom you call English sailors and - subjects, you refuse to recognize their naturalization as citizens of - America. Do I state the fact?” - </p> - <p> - “Assuredly! No Englishman has a right to shift his allegiance from his - king. That is British doctrine. Once a subject, always a subject.” - </p> - <p> - “The very point!” returns Aaron. “Once a subject, always a subject. I - suppose you will not deny that I was in 1756 born in New Jersey, then a - province of England. I was born a British subject, was I not?” - </p> - <p> - “There is no doubt of that.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, sir, being born a British subject, under your doctrine of ‘Once a - subject, always a subject,’ I am still a British subject. Therefore, I am - no alien. Therefore, I do not fall within the description of your ‘Alien - Act.’ You can hardly order me to quit England as an alien at the very - moment when you say I am a British subject. My lord”—this with a - smile like a warning—“the story, if told in the papers, would get - your lordship laughed at.” - </p> - <p> - Hawkesbury falls back baffled. He keeps his face, however, and tells Aaron - the matter may rest until he further considers it. - </p> - <p> - Aaron visits Oxford, and is wined and dined by the grave college heads. He - talks Bentham and religion to his hosts, and they fall to amiable - disagreement with him. - </p> - <p> - “We then,” he writes in his journal, “got upon American politics and - geography, upon which subjects a most profound and learned ignorance was - displayed.” - </p> - <p> - Birmingham entertains Aaron; Stratford makes him welcome. He travels to - Edinburgh, and is the victim of parties, dinners, balls, sermons, - assemblies, plays, lectures, and other Scottish dissipations. The bench - and bar cannot get too much of him. Mackenzie, who wrote the “Man of - Feeling,” and Walter Scott, who is in the “Marmion” stage of his - development, seek his acquaintance. Aaron sees a deal of these lettered - ones, and sets down in his diary that: - </p> - <p> - “Mackenzie has twelve children; six of them daughters, all interesting, - and two handsome. He is sprightly, amiable, witty. Scott, with less - softness, has more animation—talks much and is very agreeable.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron stays a month with his Scotch friends, and returns to London. He - resumes the old round of club and drawing-room, with Holland, Melville, - Mulgrave, Castlereagh, Canning, Bentham, Cobbett, Godwin, Lamb, Faseli, - and others political, philosophical, social, literary, and artistic. - </p> - <p> - One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note on - his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland, - insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that “The presence of - Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government, - and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he remove.” - </p> - <p> - The note continues to the courteous effect that “passports will be - furnished Colonel Burr,” and a free passage in an English ship to any port—not - English. - </p> - <p> - Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool’s note, and says that having become, as - his Lordship declares, “embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government,” he - must, of course, as a gentleman “gratify the wishes of Government by - withdrawing.” He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England, - is his preference. - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with - the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he is - called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and does - it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and two in - traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the lack of - toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish honesty. He - makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads on his - journal: - </p> - <p> - “There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none in - which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and - promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch - and so little expense.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the Swedish - appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the Norsemen. - Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes: - </p> - <p> - “What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon degree - of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was affected by - those emotions which the music expressed. In England you see no expression - painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All is somber and grim. - They cry ‘Bravo! bravissimo!’ with the same countenance wherewith they - curse.” - </p> - <p> - From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in - Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends - the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that - amiable feature called the “Committees on Conciliation,” and resolves to - recommend its adoption in America. - </p> - <p> - Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not - immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more - easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron is - visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the king. - </p> - <p> - Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany. - </p> - <p> - He sees Hanover, Brunswick, Gottingen, Gotha, Weimar. At Weimar, Goethe - brings him to his house, where he meets “the amiable, good Wieland,” and - is dragged off by Goethe to the theater, and sits through a “serious - comedy” with the Baroness de Stein. He is presented at court, and is - welcomed by the grand duke—Goethe’s duke—and the grand - duchess. Here, too, he falls temporarily in love with the noble d’Or, a - beautiful lady of the ducal court. His love begins to alarm him; he fears - he may wed the d’Or, remain in Weimar, and “lapse into a Dutchman.” To - avoid this fate, he beats a hasty retreat to Erfurth. Being safe, he - cheers his spirits by writing: - </p> - <p> - “Another interview, and I would have been lost! The danger was so - imminent, and the d’Or so beautiful, that I ordered post horses, gave a - crown extra to the postilions to whip like the devil, and lo! here I am in - a warm room, with a neat, good bed, safe locked within four Erfurth walls, - rejoicing and repining.” - </p> - <p> - As Aaron writes this, he lays aside his “repining” for the lovely d’Or, - and so far emerges from his gloom as to “draw a dirk,” and put to - thick-soled clattering flight one of the local police, who invades his - room with the purpose of putting out the candle. Erfurth being a garrison - town, lights are ordered “out” at nine o’clock. As a mark of respect to - his dirk, however, Aaron’s candles are permitted to gutter and sputter - unrebuked until long after midnight. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXII—HOW AARON RETURNS HOME - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE belated - passports arrive, and Aaron journeys to Paris. It is now with him as it - was with the unfortunate gentleman, celebrated in Scripture, who went down - into a certain city only to fall among thieves. Fouché orders his police - to dog him. The post office is given instructions; his letters are stolen—those - he writes as well as those he should receive. - </p> - <p> - What is at the bottom of all this French scoundrelism? Madison the weak is - president in Washington. That is to say, he is called “president,” the - actual power abiding in Mon-ticello with Jefferson, at whose political - knee he was reared. Armstrong is Madison’s minister to France. Armstrong - is a New York politician married to a Livingston, and, per incident, a - promoted puppet of Jefferson’s. McRae is American consul at Paris—McRae, - who sat at the back of Wirt and Hay during the Richmond trial. It is these - influences, directed from Mon-ticello, which, in each of its bureaus, - oppose the government of Napoleon to Aaron. By orders from Monticello, - “every captain, French or American, is instructed to convey no letter or - message or parcel for Colonel Burr. Also such captain is required to make - anyone handing him a letter or parcel for delivery in the United States, - to pledge his honor that it contains nothing from Colonel Burr.” In this - way is Aaron shut off from his friends and his supplies. He writes in his - diary: - </p> - <p> - “These vexations arise from the machinations of Minister Armstrong, who is - indefatigable in his exertions to my prejudice, being goaded on by - personal hatred, political rancor, and the native malevolence of his - temper.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron waits on Savary, and finds that minister polite but helpless. He - sees Fouché; the policeman is as polite and as helpless as Savary. - </p> - <p> - He calls upon Talleyrand. That ingrate and congenital traitor skulks out - of an interview. Aaron smiles as he recalls the skulking, limping one - fawning upon him aforetime at Richmond Hill. - </p> - <p> - Talleyrand puts Aaron in mind of Jerome Bonaparte, now King of Westphalia, - made so by that kingmonger, his brother. His Royal Highness of Westphalia - was, like Talleyrand, a guest at Richmond Hill. He, too, has nibbled - American crusts, and was thankful for American crumbs in an hour when his - official rating, had he been given one, could not have soared above that - of a vagrant out of Corsica by way of France. Aaron applies for an - interview. - </p> - <p> - “His Royal Highness is engaged; he cannot see Colonel Burr,” is the - response. - </p> - <p> - “I am not surprised,” says Aaron. “He who will desert a wife will desert a - friend, and I am not to suppose that one can remember friendship who - forgets love.” - </p> - <p> - Official France shuts and bolts its doors in the face of Aaron to please - the Man of Monticello. Thereupon Aaron demands his passports of the - American minister. - </p> - <p> - Armstrong, minister, is out of Paris for the moment, and Aaron goes to - Consul McRae. That official, feeling the pressure of the Monticello thumb, - replies: - </p> - <p> - “My knowledge of the circumstances under which Colonel Burr left the - United States, render it my duty to decline giving him a passport.” - </p> - <p> - Five weeks eaten up in disappointment! - </p> - <p> - Aaron, who intended remaining but a month in Paris, finds his money - running out. He confides to his diary: - </p> - <p> - “Behold me, a prisoner of state, and almost without a sou.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron resolves to economize. He removes from his hotel, dismisses his - servants, and takes up garret lodgings in a back street. He jokes with his - poverty: - </p> - <p> - “How sedate and sage one is,” he writes, “on only three sous. Eating my - bread and cheese, and seeing half a bottle of the twenty-five sous wine - left, I thought it too extravagant to open a bottle of the good. I tried - to get down the bad, constantly thinking on the other, which was in sight. - I stuck to the bad and got it all down. Then to pay myself for this - heroism, I treated myself to a large tumbler of the true Roussillon. I am - of Santara’s opinion that though a man may be a little the poorer for - drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much more able to bear - poverty.” Farther on he sets down: “It is now so cold that I should be - glad of a fire, but to that there are financial objections. I was near - going to bed without writing, for it is very cold, and I have but two - stumps of wood left. By the way, I wear no surtout these days, for a great - many philosophic reasons, the principal being that I have not got one. The - old greatcoat, which I brought from America, will serve for traveling if I - ever travel again.” - </p> - <p> - Although official France shuts its doors on Aaron, unofficial France does - not. The excellent Volney, of a better memory than the King of Westphalia - or the slily skulking Talleyrand, remembers Richmond Hill. Volney hunts - out Aaron in his poor lodgings, laughs at his penury, and offers gold. - Aaron also laughs, and puts back the kindly gold-filled hand. - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” says Volney. “Some other day, when you are a little more - starved. Meanwhile, come with me; there are beautiful women and brave men - who are dying to meet the renowned Colonel Burr.” - </p> - <p> - Again in salon and drawing-room is Aaron the lion—leaving the most - splendid scenes to return to his poor, barren den in the back street. And - yet he likes the contrast. He goes home from the Duchess d’Alberg’s and - writes this: - </p> - <p> - “The night bad, and the wind blowing down my chimney into the room. After - several experiments as to how to weather the gale, I discovered that I - could exist by lying flat on the floor. Here, on the floor, reposing on my - elbows, a candle by my side, I have been reading ‘L’Espion Anglos,’ and - writing this. When I got up just now for pen and ink, I found myself - buried in ashes and cinders. One might have thought I had lain a month at - the foot of Vesuvius.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, having leisure and a Yankee fancy for invention, decides to remedy - the chimney. He calls in a chimney doctor, of whom there are many in - chimney-smoking Paris, and assumes to direct the bricklaying energies of - that scientist. The <i>fumiste</i> rebels; he objects that to follow - Aaron’s directions will spoil the chimney. - </p> - <p> - “Monsieur,” returns Aaron grandly, “that is my affair.” - </p> - <p> - The rebellious <i>fumiste</i> is quelled, and lays bricks according to - directions. The work is completed; the inmates of the house gather about, - as a fire is lighted, to enjoy the discomfiture of the “insane American”; - for the <i>fumiste</i> has told. The fire is lighted; the chimney draws to - perfection; the convinced <i>fumiste</i> sheds tears, and tries to kiss - Aaron, but is repelled. - </p> - <p> - “Monsieur,” cries the repentant <i>fumiste</i>, “if you will but announce - yourself as a chimney doctor, your fortune is made.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway - begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys—a forest of - them, all sick! Aaron writes: - </p> - <p> - “Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was - assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the - bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my - breakfast—coffee, blanc and honey—in the adjoining room, and - laughing at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much - wit and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large - fire. The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a - hero, especially to the professional <i>fumiste</i>, who bent to the floor - before me, such was the burden of his respect.” - </p> - <p> - Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two take - a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made richer by - several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for the evening - before he entered in his journal: - </p> - <p> - “Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my present - amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. Have been - ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou piece might - not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am out of cigars. - However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve as a substitute.” - </p> - <p> - With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know “the - celebrated Colonel Burr.” Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is a - privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will do - but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon and - Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him. - </p> - <p> - “Get me my passports,” says Aaron. - </p> - <p> - Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae, - consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor’s post - office is tired of stealing Aaron’s letters, Fouché’s police weary of - dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor’s wish that Aaron depart. Maret - and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting as one - man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing passports to - Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is quite willing, - and makes his way to Amsterdam. - </p> - <p> - Lowering in the world’s sky is the cloud of possible war between England - and America. “Once a subject, always a subject,” does not match the wants - of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war fever. The - feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and hangs back. - In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war cloud grows - large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they avoid the ports - of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the perilous shadow of - England. - </p> - <p> - This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in Aaron’s - way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship for New York - can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland Company’s - shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the swamps and - canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with their long - pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, and, best of - good fortunes! discovers the American ship <i>Vigilant</i>, Captain - Combes. - </p> - <p> - “Can he arrange passage for America?” - </p> - <p> - Captain Combes replies that he can. There is a difficulty, however. - Captain Combes and his good ship <i>Vigilant</i> are in debt to the Dutch - in the sum of five hundred guilders. If Aaron will advance the sum, it - shall be repaid the moment the <i>Vigilant’s</i> anchors are down in New - York mud. Aaron advances the five hundred guilders. The <i>Vigilant</i> - sails out of the Helder with Aaron a passenger. Once in blue water, the <i>Vigilant</i> - is swooped upon by an English frigate, which carries her gayly into - Yarmouth, a prize. - </p> - <p> - Aaron writes to the English Alien Office, relates how his homeward voyage - has been brought to an end, and asks permission to go ashore. Since - England has somewhat lost interest in Spain, and is on the threshold of - war with the United States, her objections to Aaron expressed aforetime by - Lord Liverpool have cooled. Aaron will not now “embarrass his Majesty’s - Government.” He is granted permission to land; indeed, as though to make - amends for a past rudeness, the English Government offers Aaron every - courtesy. Thus he goes to London, and is instantly in the midst of - Bentham, Godwin, Mulgrave, Canning, Cobbett, and the rest of his old - friends. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s funds are at their old Parisian ebb; that loan to Captain Combes, - which ransomed the <i>Vigilant</i> from the Dutch, well-nigh bankrupted - him. He got to like poverty in France, however, and does not repine. He - refuses to go home with Bentham, and takes to cheap London lodgings - instead. He explains to the fussy, kindly philosopher that his sole - purpose now is to watch for a home-bound ship, and he can keep no sharp - lookout from Barrow Green. - </p> - <p> - Once in his poor lodgings, Aaron resumes that iron economy he learned to - practice in Paris. He sets down this in his diary: - </p> - <p> - “On my way home discovered that I must dine. I find my appetite in the - inverse ratio to my purse, and I can now conceive why the poor eat so much - when they can get it. Considering the state of my finances, I bought half - a pound of boiled beef, eightpence; a quarter of a pound of ham, sixpence; - one pound of brown sugar, eightpence; two pounds of bread, eight-pence; - ten pounds of potatoes, fivepence; and then, treating myself to a pot of - ale, eightpence, proceeded to read the second volume of ‘Ida.’ As I read, - I boiled my potatoes, and made a great dinner, eating half my beef. Of the - two necessaries, coffee and tobacco, I have at least a week’s allowance, - so that without spending another penny, I can keep the machinery going for - eight days.” - </p> - <p> - At last Aaron’s money is nearly gone. He makes a memorandum of the - stringency in this wise: - </p> - <p> - “Dined at the Hole in the Wall off a chop. Had two halfpence left, which - are better than a penny would be, because they jingle, and thus one may - refresh one’s self with the music.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, at this pinch in his fortunes, seeks out a friendly bibliophile, - and sells him an armful of rare books. In this manner he lifts himself to - affluence, since he receives sixty pounds. - </p> - <p> - Practicing his economies, and filling his treasury by the sale of his - books, Aaron is still the center of a brilliant circle. He goes - everywhere, is received everywhere; for in England poverty comes not amiss - with the honor of an exile, and is held to be no drawing-room bar. Exiled - opulence, on the other hand, is at once the subject of gravest British - suspicions. - </p> - <p> - That Aaron’s experiences have not warmed him toward France, finds - exhibition one evening at Holland House. He is in talk with the - inquisitive Lord Balgray, who asks about Napoleon and France. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” says Aaron, “France, under Napoleon, is fast rebarberizing—retrograding - to the darkest ages of intellectual and moral degradation. All that has - been seen or heard or felt or read of despotism is freedom and ease - compared with that which now dissolves France. The science of tyranny was - in its infancy; Napoleon has matured it. In France all the efforts of - genius, all the nobler sentiments and finer feelings are depressed and - paralyzed. Private faith, personal confidence, the whole train of social - virtues are condemned and eradicated. They are crimes. You, sir, with your - generous propensities, your chivalrous notions of honor, were you - condemned to live within the grasp of that tyrant, would be driven to - discard them or be sacrificed as a dangerous subject.” - </p> - <p> - “What a contrast to England!” cries Bal-gray—“England, free and - great!” - </p> - <p> - “England!” retorts Aaron, with a grimace. “There are friends here whom I - love. But for England as mere England, why, then, I hope never to visit it - again, once I am free of it, unless at the head of fifty thousand fighting - men!” - </p> - <p> - Balgray sits aghast.—Meanwhile the chance of war between America and - England broadens, the cloud in the sky grows blacker. Aaron is all - impatience to find a ship for home; war might fence him in for years. At - last his hopes are rewarded. The <i>Aurora</i>, outward bound for Boston, - is reported lying off Gravesend. The captain says he will land Aaron in - Boston for thirty pounds. - </p> - <p> - And now he is really going; the ship will sail on the morrow. At midnight - he takes up his diary: - </p> - <p> - “It is twelve o’clock—midnight. Having packed up my residue of duds, - and stowed my papers in the writing desk, I sit smoking my pipe and - contemplating the certainty of escaping from this country. As to my - reception in my own country, so far as depends on J. Madison & Co., I - expect all the efforts of their implacable malice. This, however, does not - give me uneasiness. I shall meet those efforts and repel them. My - confidence in my own resources does not permit me to despond or even - doubt. The incapacity of J. Madison & Co. for every purpose of public - administration, their want of energy and firmness, make it impossible they - should stand. They are too feeble and corrupt to hold together long. Mem.: - To write to Alston to hold his influence in his State, and not again - degrade himself by compromising with rascals and cowards.” - </p> - <p> - It is in this high vein that Aaron sails away for home, and, thirty-five - days later, sits down to beef and potatoes with the pilot and the <i>Auroras</i> - captain, in the harbor of Boston. He goes ashore without a shilling, and - sells his “Bayle” and “Moreri” to President Kirtland of Harvard for forty - dollars. This makes up his passage money for New York. He negotiates with - the skipper of a coasting sloop, and nine days later, in the evening’s - dusk, he lands at the Battery. - </p> - <p> - It is the next day. The sun is shining into narrow Stone Street. It lights - up the Swartwout parlor where Aaron, home at last, is hearing the news - from the stubborn, changeless one—Swartwout of the true, unflagging - breed! - </p> - <p> - “It is precisely four years,” says Aaron, following a conversational lull, - “since I left this very room to go aboard the <i>Clarissa</i> for - England.” - </p> - <p> - “Aye! Four years!” repeats the stubborn one, meditatively. “Much water - runs under the bridges in four years! It has carried away some of your - friends, colonel; but also it has carried away as many of your enemies.” - </p> - <p> - For one day and night, Aaron and the stubborn, loyal Swartwout smoke and - exchange news. On the second day, Aaron opens offices in Nassau Street. - Three lines appear in the <i>Evening Post</i>. The notice reads: - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr has returned to the city, and will resume his practice of - the law. He has opened offices in Nassau Street.” - </p> - <p> - The town sits up and rubs its eyes. Aaron’s enemies—the old - fashionable Hamilton-Schuyler coterie—are scandalized; his friends - are exalted. What is most important, a cataract of clients swamps his - offices, and when the sun goes down, he has received over two thousand - dollars in retainers. Instantly, he is overwhelmed with business; never - again will he cumber his journals with ha’penny registrations of groat and - farthing economies. As redoubts are carried by storm, so, with a rush, to - the astonishment of friend and foe alike, Aaron retakes his old place as - foremost among the foremost at the New York bar. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXIII—GRIEF COMES KNOCKING - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>USINESS rushes in - upon Aaron; its volume overwhelms him. - </p> - <p> - “This is too much,” says he, “for a gentleman whose years have reached the - middle fifties,” and he takes unto himself a partner. - </p> - <p> - Later he takes another partner; the work of the firm overflows into a - quartette of rooms and keeps busy a dozen clerks. - </p> - <p> - “Why labor so hard?” asks the stubborn Swartwout. “Your income is the - largest at the bar. You have no such need of money.” - </p> - <p> - “Ay! but my creditors have!” - </p> - <p> - “Your creditors? Who are they?” - </p> - <p> - “Every soul who lost a dollar by my Southwestern ambitions—you, with - others. Man, I owe millions!” - </p> - <p> - Aaron works like a horse and lives like a Spartan. He rises with the blue - of dawn. His servant appears with his breakfast—an egg, a plate of - toast, a pot of coffee. He is at his desk in the midst of his papers when - the clerks begin to arrive. All day he is insatiable to work. He sends - messages, receives them, examines authorities, confers with fellow - lawyers, counsels clients, dictates letters. Business incarnate—he - pushes every affair with incredible dispatch. And the last thing he will - agree to is defeat. - </p> - <p> - “Accept only the inevitable!” is his war-word, in law as in life. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s day ends with seven o’clock. He shoves everything of litigation - sort aside, helps himself to a glass of wine, and refuses further thought - or hint of business. It is then he calls about him his friends. The - evening is merry with laughter, jest and reminiscence. At midnight he - retires, and sleeps like a tree. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0357.jpg" alt="0357 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0357.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” observes Dr. Hosack—he who attended Hamilton at - Weehawken—“you do not sleep enough; six hours is not enough. Also, - you eat too little.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron gazes, with comic eye at the rotund, well-fed doctor, the purple of - good burgundy in his full cheeks. - </p> - <p> - “If I were a doctor, now,” he retorts, “I should grant your word to be - true. But I am a lawyer, and must keep myself on edge.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s earliest care is to write his arrival to the lustrous Theo. The - reply he receives makes the world black. - </p> - <p> - “Less than a fortnight ago,” she says, “your letters would have gladdened - my soul. Now there is no more joy, and life a blank. My boy is gone—forever - dead and gone.” - </p> - <p> - While Aaron sits with the fatal letter in his fingers, his friend Van Ness - comes in. He turns his black eyes on the visitor—eyes misty, dim, - the brightness lost from them. - </p> - <p> - “What dreams were mine,” he sighs—“what dreams for my brave little - boy! He is dead, and half my world has died.” - </p> - <p> - Toward the end of summer, Alston sends word that the lustrous Theo is in - danger. The loss of her boy has struck at the roots of her life. Aaron, in - new alarm, writes urging that she come North. He sends a physician from - New York to bring her to him. Alston consents; he himself cannot come. His - duties as governor tie him. The lustrous Theo, eager to meet her father - with whom she parted on that tearful evening in Stone Street so many years - ago, will start at once. He, Alston, shall later follow her. - </p> - <p> - Alston sees the lustrous Theo aboard the schooner <i>Patriot</i>, then - lying in Charleston harbor. It is rough December weather when the <i>Patriot</i> - clears for New York. The message of her sailing reaches Aaron overland, - and he is on strain for the schooner’s arrival. Days come, days go; the - schooner is due—overdue. Still no sign of those watched-for topsails - down <i>the</i> lower bay! And so time passes. The days become weeks, the - weeks months. Hope sickens, then dies. Aaron, face white and drawn, a - ghost’s face, reads the awful truth in that long waiting. The lustrous - Theo is dead—like the baby! It is then the iron of a measureless - adversity enters his soul! - </p> - <p> - Aaron goes about the daily concerns of life, making no moan. He does not - speak of his loss, but saves his grief for solitude. One day a friend - relates a rumor that the schooner was captured by buccaneers, and the - lustrous Theo lives. The broken Aaron shakes his head. - </p> - <p> - “She is dead!” says he. “Thus is severed the last tie that binds me to my - kind.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron hides his heart from friend and foe alike. As though flying from his - own thoughts, he plunges more furiously than ever into the law. - </p> - <p> - While Aaron’s first concern is work, and to earn money for those whom he - calls his creditors, he finds time for politics. - </p> - <p> - “Not that I want office,” he observes; “for he who was Vice-President and - tied Jefferson for a presidency, cannot think on place. But I owe debts—debts - of gratitude, debts of vengeance. These must be paid.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s foes are in the ascendant. De Witt Clinton is mayor—the - aristocrats with the Livingstons, the Schuylers and the Clintons, are - everywhere dominant. They control the town; they control the State. At - Washington, Madison a marionette President, is in apparent command, while - Jefferson pulls the White House wires from Monticello. All these Aaron - sees at a glance; he can, however, take up but one at a time. - </p> - <p> - “We will begin with the town,” says he, to the stubborn, loyal Swartwout. - “We must go at the town like a good wife at her house-cleaning. Once that - is politically spick and span, we shall clean up the State and the - nation.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron calls about him his old circle of indomitables. - </p> - <p> - They have been overrun in his absence by the aristocrats—by the - Clintons, the Schuylers and the Livingstons. They gather at his rooms in - the Jay House—a noble mansion, once the home of Governor Jay. - </p> - <p> - “I shall make no appearance in your politics,” says he. “It would not fit - my years and my past. None the less, I’ll show you the road to victory.” - Then, with a smile: “You must do the work; I’ll be the Old Man of the - Mountain. From behind a screen I’ll give directions.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0363.jpg" alt="0363 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0363.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Aaron’s lieutenants include the Swartwouts, Buckmaster, Strong, Prince, - Radcliff, Rutgers, Ogden, Davis, Noah, and Van Buren, the last a rising - young lawyer from Kinderhook. - </p> - <p> - “Become a member of Tammany,” is Aaron’s word to young Van Buren. “Our - work must be done by Tammany Hall. You must enroll yourself beneath its - banner. We must bring about a revival of the old Bucktail spirit.” - </p> - <p> - Van Buren enters Tammany; the others are already members. - </p> - <p> - Aaron, through his lieutenants, brings his old Tammany Bucktails together - within eight weeks after his return. The Clintons, and their fellow - aristocrats are horrified at what they call “his effrontery.” Also, they - are somewhat panic-smitten. They fall to vilification. Aaron is “traitor!” - “murderer!” “demon!” “fiend!” They pay a phalanx of scribblers to assail - him in the press. His band of Bucktail lieutenants are dubbed “Burrites,” - “Burr’s Mob,” and “the Tenth Legion.” The epithets go by Aaron like the - mindless wind. - </p> - <p> - The Bucktail spirit revived, the stubborn Swartwout and the others ask: - </p> - <p> - “What shall we do?” - </p> - <p> - The popular cry is for war with England. At Washington—Jefferson at - Monticello pulling on the peace string—Madison is against war. Mayor - De Witt Clinton stands with Jefferson and Marionette Madison. He is for - peace, as are his caste of aristocrats—the Schuylers and those other - left-over fragments of Federalism, all lovers of England from their - cradles. - </p> - <p> - “What shall we do?” cry the Bucktails. - </p> - <p> - “Demand war!” says Aaron. Then, calling attention to Clinton and his - purple tribe, he adds: “They could not occupy a better position for our - purposes. They invite destruction.” Tammany demands war vociferously. It - is, indeed, the cry all over the land. The administration is carried off - its feet. Jefferson at last orders war; for he sees that otherwise - Marionette Madison will be defeated of a second term. - </p> - <p> - Mayor Clinton and his aristocrats are frantic. - </p> - <p> - The more frantic, since with “War!” for their watchword, Aaron’s Bucktails - conquer the city, and two years later the State. As though by a tidal - wave, every Clinton is swept out of official Albany. - </p> - <p> - Aaron sends for Van Ness, the stubborn Swartwout, and their fellow - Bucktails. - </p> - <p> - “Go to Albany,” says he. “Demand of Governor Tompkins the removal of Mayor - Clinton. Say that he is inefficient and was the friend of England.” - </p> - <p> - Governor Tompkins—being a politician—hesitates at the bold - step. The Bucktails, Aaron-guided, grow menacing. Seeing himself in - danger, Governor Tompkins hesitates no longer. Mayor Clinton is - ignominiously thrust from office into private life. With him go those - hopes of a presidency which for half a decade he has been sedulously - cultivating. Under the blight of that removal, those hopes of a future - White House wither like uprooted flowers. - </p> - <p> - Broken of purse and prospects, Clinton is in despair. - </p> - <p> - “He will never rise again!” exclaims Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “My friend,” says Aaron, “he will be your governor. He will never be - president, but the governorship is yet to be his; and all by your - negligence—yours and your brother Buck-tails.” - </p> - <p> - “As how?” demands Van Ness. - </p> - <p> - “You let him declare for the Erie Canal,” returns Aaron. “You were so - purblind as to oppose the project. You should have taken the business out - of his hands. If I had been here it would have been done. Mark my words! - The canal will be dug, and it will make Clinton governor. However, we - shall hold the town against him; and, since we have been given a candidate - for the presidency, we shall later have Washington also.” - </p> - <p> - “Who is that presidential candidate to whom you refer?” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, he is your friend and my friend. Who, but Andrew Jackson? Since New - Orleans, it is bound to be he.” - </p> - <p> - “Andrew Jackson!” exclaims Van Ness. “But, sir, the Congressional caucus - at Washington will never consider him. You know the power of Jefferson—he - will hold that caucus in the hollow of his hand. It is he who will name - Madison’s successor; and, after those street-corner speeches and his - friendship for you in Richmond, it can never be Andrew Jackson.” - </p> - <p> - “I know the Jefferson power,” returns Aaron; “none knows it better. At the - head of his Virginia junta he has controlled the country for years. He - will control it four years more, perchance eight. Our war upon him and his - caucus methods must begin at once. And our candidate should be, and shall - be, Andrew Jackson.” - </p> - <p> - “Whom will Jefferson select to follow Madison?” - </p> - <p> - “Monroe, sir; he will put forward Monroe.” - </p> - <p> - “Monroe!” repeats Van Ness. “Has he force?—brains? Some one spoke of - him as a soldier.” - </p> - <p> - “Soldier!” observes Aaron, his lip curling. “Sir, Monroe never commanded - so much as a platoon—never was fit to command one. He acted as aide - to Lord Stirling, who was a sot, not a soldier. Monroe’s whole duty was to - fill his lordship’s tankard, and hear with admiration his drunken - lordship’s long tales about himself. As a lawyer, Monroe is below - mediocrity. He never rose to the honor of trying a cause wherein so much - as one hundred pounds was at stake. He is dull, stupid, illiterate, - pusillanimous, hypocritical, and therefore a character suited to the wants - of Jefferson and his Virginia coterie. As a man, he is everything that - Jackson isn’t and nothing that he is.” - </p> - <p> - Van Ness and his brother Bucktails do the bidding of Aaron blindly. On - every chance they shout for Jackson. Aaron writes “Jackson” letters to all - whom, far or near, he calls his friends. Also the better to have New York - in political hand, he demands—through Tammany—of Governor - Tompkins and Mayor Rad-cliff that every Clinton, every Schuyler, every - Livingston, as well as any who has the taint of Federalism about him be - relegated to private life. In town as well as country, he sweeps the New - York official situation free of opposition. - </p> - <p> - The Bucktails are in full sway. Aaron privily coaches young Van Buren, who - is suave and dexterous, and for politeness almost the urbane peer of Aaron - himself, in what local party diplomacies are required, and sends him - forward as the apparent controlling spirit of Tammany Hall. What Jefferson - is doing with Monroe in Virginia, Aaron duplicates with the compliant Van - Buren in New York. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXIV—THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>arionette madison - is withdrawn from the White House boards at the close of his second term. - Jefferson, working the machinery from Monticello, replaces him with - Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins his war on the system of - Congressional nomination—a system which has obtained since the days - of Washington. He writes to Alston: - </p> - <p> - “<i>Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and - controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for - twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling, - ‘Support the administration!’ have so far succeeded in duping the public. - The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must break down - this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country are - impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. Its - administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely to - preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, there - be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it is your - duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man—Andrew - Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of a - boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a respectable - convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth of the caucus - system—so beloved of scheming Virginians—his final victory is - assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; for ‘caucus,’ - which is wrong, must go down; and ‘convention,’ which is right, must - prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning the caucus - system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South Carolina, and - the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of the convention, - and Jackson’s open nomination.</i>” - </p> - <p> - Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson’s neighbor and man - of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this: - </p> - <p> - “<i>Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is - announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta with - menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and favors.</i>” - </p> - <p> - On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that his - candidate Jackson may have a proper début, Aaron pulls a Swartwout string, - pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer a dinner - in Jackson’s honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The town is rent - with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and nights of - Martling, never mounted more wildly high. - </p> - <p> - Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the excitement. - It is there Jackson finds him. - </p> - <p> - “I shall not be at the dinner, general,” says Aaron; “but with Van Buren - and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the rest, - you will find friends and good company about you.” - </p> - <p> - “But you?” - </p> - <p> - “There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors - and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and - slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and - bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well—better! After a man sees - sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live to - see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief it - will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must save - myself from wine and late hours—I must keep myself with care.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron and the general talk for an hour. - </p> - <p> - “And if I should become President some day,” says Jackson, as they - separate, “you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived.” - </p> - <p> - “It will be too late for me,” responds Aaron. “I am old, and shall be - older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead—are in the - grave. Still”—and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way—“I - shall be glad to have younger men take up the work. It should serve - somewhat to wipe ‘treason’ from my fame.” - </p> - <p> - “Treason!” snorts the fiery Jackson. “Sir, no one, not fool or liar, ever - spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!” - </p> - <p> - There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson—the - “hero,” the “conqueror,” the “nation’s hope and pride,” according to - orators then and there present and eloquent—is toasted to the skies. - At the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the - Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron’s arch enemy. - </p> - <p> - The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly - gives: - </p> - <p> - “De Witt Clinton!” - </p> - <p> - The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren, - Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it. - Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude of - offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in words, - but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word - “Clinton” were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. The - thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its - friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since - that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also, - it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron’s place in - event of Jackson’s occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden, - intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes - stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, and - shouts of “Burr! Burr!” with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the galling - background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, Aaron - urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King Caucus. - His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for convention - nominations; his candidate is Jackson. - </p> - <p> - In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his voice - and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate their control of - the town. He tells them to break down a property qualification, and extend - the voting franchise to every man, whether he be landholder or no. - </p> - <p> - “Let’s make Jack as good as his master,” says Aaron. “It will please Jack, - and hurt his master’s pride—both good things in their way.” - </p> - <p> - It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, but - drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the - Livingstons and the Schuylers. - </p> - <p> - “Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a - man!” cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout. - </p> - <p> - The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron destroys - caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and town, bound - hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful Bucktails. - </p> - <p> - Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down; - Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a - convention. - </p> - <p> - In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other three, - but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral college. In the - House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, and Adams goes to - the White House. - </p> - <p> - Aaron is unmoved. - </p> - <p> - “I am threescore years and ten,” says he—“the allotted space of man. - Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see - Jackson President.” - </p> - <p> - Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win - his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments. - </p> - <p> - “Take them,” says Aaron to his Bucktails. “They are yours, not his—those - offices. He but gives you your own.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires like - a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm. - </p> - <p> - “I should think you’d rest,” says he. - </p> - <p> - “Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now.” - </p> - <p> - “But I don’t understand! You get nothing.” - </p> - <p> - The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. “Sir, I get vengeance—and - forget feelings!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0377.jpg" alt="0377 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0377.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his place. - Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter’s rooms—pleasant - rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their long pipes, and sit - opposite one another, smoking like dragons. - </p> - <p> - Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says: - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory.” - </p> - <p> - “General,” returns Aaron, “the best favor you can show me is show favor to - my friends.” - </p> - <p> - “That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout - collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State. - Also I shall say to your enemies—the Clintons and those other proud - ones—that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson’s appointment, - must come with the approval of Colonel Burr.” - </p> - <p> - Jackson is inaugurated. - </p> - <p> - “I am through,” says Aaron—“through at four and seventy. Now I shall - work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics—no - more politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to - Providence and Andrew Jackson.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XXV—THE SERENE LAST DAYS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON goes forward - with his business—his cases in court, his conferences with clients. - Accurate as an Alvan-ley in dress, slim, light, with the quick step of a - boy, no one might guess his years. The bar respects him; his friends crowd - about him; his enemies shrink away from the black, unblinking stare of - those changeless ophidian eyes. And so with his books and his wine and his - pipe he sits through the serene evenings in his rooms by the Bowling - Green. He is a lion, and strangers from England and Germany and France ask - to be presented. They talk—not always wisely or with taste. - </p> - <p> - “Was Hamilton a gentleman?” asks a popinjay Frenchman. - </p> - <p> - Aaron’s black eyes blaze: “Sir,” says he, “I met him!” - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” observes a dull, thick Englishman, who imagines himself a - student of governments—“Colonel Burr, I have read your Constitution. - I find it not always clear. Who is to expound it?” - </p> - <p> - Aaron leads our student of governments to the window, and points, with a - whimsical smile, at the Broadway throngs that march below. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” he remarks, “they are the expounders of our Constitution.” - </p> - <p> - Aaron, at seventy-eight, does a foolish thing; he marries—marries - the wealthy Madam Jumel. - </p> - <p> - They live in the madam’s great mansion on the heights overlooking the - Harlem. Three months later they part, and Aaron goes back to his books and - his pipe and his wine, in his rooms by the Bowling Green. - </p> - <p> - It is a bright morning; Aaron and his friend Van Ness are walking in - Broadway. Suddenly Aaron halts and leans against the wall of a house—the - City Hotel. - </p> - <p> - “It is a numbness,” says he. “I cannot walk!” - </p> - <p> - The good, purple, puffy Dr. Hosack comes panting to the rescue. He finds - the stricken one in his rooms where Van Ness has brought him. - </p> - <p> - “Paralysis!” says the good anxious Hosack. - </p> - <p> - Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later - comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed. - </p> - <p> - There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and - then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and - reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of - company. - </p> - <p> - The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper. - </p> - <p> - “See!” he cries. “Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That marks - the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White House! Sir, - thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, Houston and San - Jacinto, it is patriotism.” - </p> - <p> - Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron’s strength is going. The hubbub, - the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town’s life wearies. He - takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives - him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His - visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who one - day brings up the name of Hamilton. - </p> - <p> - “Colonel, it was an error—a fearful error!” says the doctor. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, “it - was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? He heaped - obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his prospects; I - mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was malevolent—cowardly! - You have seen what he wrote the night before he fought me. It sounds like - the confession of a sick monk. When he stood before me at Weehawken, his - eye caught mine and he quailed like a convicted felon. They say he did not - fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard the bullet whistle over my head and saw - the severed twigs. I have lived more than eighty years; I dwell now in the - shadow of death. I shall soon go; and I shall go saying that the - destruction of Hamilton was an act of justice.” - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Burr,” observes the kindly doctor, “I am made sorry by your words—sorry - by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of enmity?” - </p> - <p> - The black eyes do not soften. - </p> - <p> - “I shall die as I have lived—hating where I’m hated, loving where - I’m loved.” - </p> - <p> - The last day breaks, and Aaron dies—dies - </p> - <p> - “What lies beyond?” asks one shortly before he goes. - </p> - <p> - “Who knows?” he returns. - </p> - <p> - “But do you never ask?” - </p> - <p> - “Why ask? Who should reply to such a question?—the old, old question - ever offered, never answered.” - </p> - <p> - “But you have hopes?” - </p> - <p> - “None,” says Aaron steadily. “And I want none. I am resolved to die - without fear; and he who would have no fear must have no hope.” So he - departs; he, of whom the good Dr. Bellamy said: “He will soar as high to - fall as low as any soul alive.” - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - -***** This file should be named 51911-h.htm or 51911-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51911/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr - Illustrated - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51911] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN OR THE STORY OF AARON BURR - -By Alfred Henry Lewis - -Author of "When Men Grew Tall or The Story of Andrew Jackson" - -Illustrated - -D. Appleton And Company New York - -1908 - -[Illustration: 0010] - -[Illustration: 0011] - - -TO - -ELBERT HUBBARD - -FOR THE PLEASURE HIS WRITINGS HAVE GIVEN ME, AND AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION -FOR THE GLOSS AND PURITY OF HIS ENGLISH, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED A. H. -L. - - - - - -AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN - - - - -CHAPTER I--FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW - - -THE Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy is a personage of churchly -consequence in Bethlehem. Indeed, the doctor is a personage of churchly -consequence throughout all Connecticut. For he took his theology from -that well-head of divinity and metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards himself, -and possesses an immense library of five hundred volumes, mostly on -religion. Also, he is the author of "True Religion Delineated"; -which work shines out across the tumbling seas of New England -Congregationalism like a lighthouse on a difficult coast. Peculiarly is -it of guiding moment to storm-vexed student ones, who, wanting it, -might go crashing on controversial reefs, and so miss those pulpit -snug-harbors toward which the pious prows of their hopes are pointed. - -The doctor has a round, florid face, which, with his well-fed stomach, -gives no hint of thin living. From the suave propriety of his cue to -the silver buckles on his shoes, his atmosphere is wholly clerical. Just -now, however, he wears a disturbed, fussy air, as though something has -rubbed wrong-wise the fur of his feelings. He shows this by the way in -which he trots up and down his study floor. Doubtless, some portion of -that fussiness is derived from the doctor's short fat legs; for none -save your long-legged folk may walk to and fro with dignity. Still, it -is clear there be reasons of disturbance which go deeper than mere short -fat legs, and set his spirits in a tumult. - -The good doctor, as he trots up and down, is not alone. Madam Bellamy is -with him, chair drawn just out of reach of the June sunshine as it comes -streaming through the open lattice. In her plump hands she holds her -sewing; for she is strong in the New England virtue of industry, and -regards hand-idleness as a species of viciousness. While she stitches, -she bends appreciative ear to the whistle of a robin in an apple tree -outside. - -"No, mother," observes the doctor, breaking in on the robin, "the lad -does himself no credit. He is careless, callous, rebellious, foppish, -and altogether of the flesh. I warrant you I shall take him in hand; it -is my duty.". "But no harshness, Joseph!" - -"No, mother; as you say, I must not be harsh. None the less I shall be -firm. He must study; he is not to become a preacher by mere wishing." - -Shod hoofs are heard on the graveled driveway; a voice is lifted: - -"Walk Warlock up and down until he is cooled out. Then give him a rub, -and a mouthful of water." - -Madam Bellamy steps to the window. The master of the voice is swinging -from the saddle, while the doctor's groom takes his horse--sweating from -a brisk gallop--by the bridle. - -"Here he comes now," says Madam Bellamy, at the sound of a springy step -in the hall. - -The youth, who so confidently enters the doctor's study, is in his -nineteenth year. His face is sensitive and fine, and its somewhat -overbred look is strengthened and restored by a high hawkish nose. The -dark hair is clubbed in an elegant cue. The skin, fair as a girl's, -gives to the black eyes a glitter beyond their due. These eyes are the -striking feature; for, while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their -inky depths a hard, ophidian sparkle both dangerous and fascinating--the -sort of eyes that warn a man and blind a woman. - -The youth is but five feet six inches tall, with little hands and -feet, and ears ridiculously small. And yet, his light, slim form is so -accurately proportioned that, besides grace and a catlike quickness, it -hides in its molded muscles the strength of steel. Also, any impression -of insignificance is defeated by the wide brow and well-shaped head, -which, coupled with a steady self-confidence that envelops him like an -atmosphere, give the effect of power. - -As he lounges languidly and pantherwise into the study, he bows to Madam -Bellamy and the good doctor. - -"You had quite a canter, Aaron," remarks Madam Bellamy. - -"I went half way to Litchfield," returns the youth, smiting his glossy -riding boot with the whip he carries. "For a moment I thought of seeing -my sister Sally; but it would have been too long a run for so warm a -day. As it is, poor Warlock looks as though he'd forded a river." - -The youth throws himself carelessly into the doctor's easy-chair. That -divine clears his throat professionally. Foreseeing earnestness if not -severity in the discourse which is to follow, Madam Bellamy picks up her -needlework and retires. - -When she is gone, the doctor establishes himself opposite the youth. His -manner is admonitory; which is not out of place, when one remembers that -the doctor is fifty-five and the youth but nineteen. - -"You've been with me, Aaron, something like eight months." - -The black eyes are fastened upon the doctor, and their ophidian glitter -makes the latter uneasy. For relief he rebegins his short-paced trot up -and down. - -Renewed by action, and his confidence returning, the doctor commences -with vast gravity a kind of speech. His manner is unconsciously pompous; -for, as the village preacher, he is wont to have his wisdom accepted -without discount or dispute. - -"You will believe me, Aaron," says the doctor, spacing off his words and -calling up his best pulpit voice--"you will believe me, when I tell -you that I am more than commonly concerned for your welfare. I was the -friend of your father, both when he held the pulpit in Newark, and later -when he was President of Princeton University. I studied my divinity -at the knee of your mother's father, the pious Jonathan Edwards. Need -I say, then, that when you came to me fresh from your own Princeton -graduation my heart was open to you? It seemed as though I were about to -pay an old debt. I would regive you those lessons which your grandfather -Edwards gave me. In addition, I would--so far as I might--take the place -of that father whom you lost so many years ago. That was my feeling. -Now, when you've been with me eight months, I tell you plainly that I'm -far from satisfied." - -"In what, sir, have I disappointed?" - -The voice is confidently careless, while the ophidian eyes keep up their -black glitter unabashed. - -"Sir, you are passively rebellious, and refuse direction. I place -in your hands those best works of your mighty grandsire, namely, his -'Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church' and 'The -Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,' and you cast them aside for the -'Letters of Lord Chesterfield' and the 'Comedies of Terence.' Bah! the -'Letters of Lord Chesterfield'! of which Dr. Johnson says, 'They teach -the morals of a harlot and the manners of a dancing master.'" - -"And if so," drawls the youth, with icy impenitence, "is not that a -pretty good equipment for such a world as this?" - -At the gross outrage of such a question, the doctor pauses in that -to-and-fro trot as though planet-struck. - -"What!" he gasps. - -"Doctor, I meant to tell you a month later what--since the ice is so -happily broken--I may as well say now. My dip into the teachings of my -reverend grandsire has taught me that I have no genius for divinity. To -be frank, I lack the pulpit heart. Every day augments my contempt for -that ministry to which you design me. The thought of drawing a salary -for being good, and agreeing to be moral for so much a year, disgusts -me." - -"And this from you--the son of a minister of the Gospel!" The doctor -holds up his hands in pudgy horror. - -"Precisely so! In which connection it is well to recall that German -proverb: 'The preacher's son is ever the devil's grandson.'" The doctor -sits down and mops his fretted brow; the manner in which he waves his -lace handkerchief is like a publication of despair. He fixes his gaze on -the youth resignedly, as who should say, "Strike home, and spare not!" - -This last tacit invitation the youth seems disposed to accept. It is -now his turn to walk the study floor. But he does it better than did the -fussy doctor, his every motion the climax of composed grace. - -"Listen, my friend," says the youth. - -For all the confident egotism of his manner, there is in it no smell of -conceit. He speaks of himself; but he does so as though discussing some -object outside of himself to which he is indifferent. - -"Those eight months of which you complain have not been wasted. If I -have drawn no other lesson from my excellent grandsire's 'Doctrine of -Original Sin Defended,' it has taught me to exhaustively examine my -own breast. I discover that I have strong points as well as points of -weakness. I read Latin and Greek; and I talk French and German, besides -English, indifferently well. Also, I fence, shoot, box, ride, row, sail, -walk, run, wrestle and jump superbly. Beyond the merits chronicled I -have tried my courage, and find that I may trust it like Gibraltar. -These, you will note, are not the virtues of a clergyman, but of a -soldier. My weaknesses likewise turn me away from the pulpit. - -"I have no hot sympathies; and, while not mean in the money sense, -holding such to be beneath a gentleman, I may say that my first concern -is not for others but for myself." - -"It is as though I listened to Satan!" exclaims the dismayed doctor, -fidgeting with his ruffles. - -"And if it were indeed Satan!" goes on the youth, with a gleam of -sarcasm, "I have heard you characterize that arch demon from your -pulpit, and even you, while making him malicious, never made him -mean. But to get on with this picture of myself, which I show you -as preliminary to laying bare a resolution. As I say, I have no -sympathies, no hopes which go beyond myself. I think on this world, -not the next; I believe only in the gospel according to Philip Dormer -Stanhope--that Lord Chesterfield, whom, with the help of Dr. Johnson, -you so much succeed in despising." - -"To talk thus at nineteen!" whispers the doctor, his face ghastly. - -"Nineteen, truly! But you must reflect that I have not had, since I may -remember, the care of either father or mother, which is an upbringing to -rapidly age one." - -"Were you not carefully reared by your kind Uncle Timothy?" This -indignantly. - -"Indeed, sir, I was, as you say, well reared in that dull town of -Elizabeth, which for goodness and dullness may compare with your -Bethlehem here. It was a rearing, too, from which--as I think my kind -Uncle Timothy has informed you--I fled." - -"He did! He said you played truant twice, once running away to sea." - -"It was no great voyage, then!" The imperturbable youth, hard of eye, -soft of voice, smiles cynically. "No, I was cabin boy two days, during -all of which the ship lay tied bow and stern to her New York wharf. -However, that is of no consequence as part of what we now consider." - -"No!" interrupts the doctor miserably, "only so far as it displays the -young workings of your sinfully rebellious nature. As a child, too, you -mocked your elders, as you do now. Later, as a student, you were the -horror of Princeton." - -"All that, sir, I confess; and yet I say that it is of the past. I hold -it time lost to think on aught save the present or the future." - -"Think, then, on your soul's future!--your soul's eternal future!" - -"I shall think on what lies this side of the grave. I shall devote my -faculties to this world; which, from what I have seen, is more than -likely to keep me handsomely engaged. The next world is a bridge, the -crossing of which I reserve until I come to it." - -"Have you then no religious convictions? no fears?" - -"I have said that I fear nothing, apprehend nothing. Timidity, of either -soul or body, was pleasantly absent at my birth. As for convictions, -I'd no more have one than I'd have the plague. What is a conviction -but something wherewith a man vexes himself and worries his neighbor. -Conclusions, yes, as many as you like; but, thank my native star! I am -incapable of a conviction." - -The doctor's earlier horror is fast giving way to anger. He almost -sneers as he asks: - -"But you pretend to honesty, I trust?" - -"Why, sir," returns the youth, with an air which narrowly misses the -patronizing, and reminds one of nothing so much as polished brass--"why, -sir, honesty, like generosity or gratitude, is a gentlemanly trait, the -absence of which would be inexpressibly vulgar. Naturally, I'm honest; -but with the understanding that I have my honesty under control. It -shall never injure me, I tell you! When its plain effect will be to -strengthen an enemy or weaken myself, I shall prove no such fool as to -give way to it." - -"While you talk, I think," breaks in the doctor; "and now I begin to see -the source of your pride and your satanism. It is your own riches that -tempt you! Your soul is to be undone because your body has four hundred -pounds a year." - -"Not so fast, sir! I am glad I have four hundred pounds a year. It -relieves me of much that is gross. I turn my back on the Church, -however, only because I am unfitted for it, and accept the world simply -for that it fits me. I have given you the truth. As a minister of the -Gospel I should fail; as a man of the world I shall succeed. The pulpit -is beyond me as religion is beyond me; for I am not one who could allay -present pain by some imagined bliss to follow after death, or find joy -in stripping himself of a benefit to promote another." - -"Now this is the very theology of Beelzebub for sure!" cries the -incensed doctor. - -"It is anything you like, sir, so it be understood as a description of -myself." - -"Marriage might save him!" muses the desperate doctor. "To love and be -loved by a beautiful woman might yet lead his heart to grace!" - -The pale flicker of a smile comes about the lips of the black-eyed one. - -"Love! beauty!" he begins. "Sir, while I might strive to possess myself -of both, I should no more love beauty in a woman than riches in a man. I -could love a woman only for her fineness of mind; wed no one who did not -meet me mentally and sentimentally half way. And since your Hypatia is -quite as rare as your Phoenix, I cannot think my nuptials near at hand." - -"Well," observes the doctor, assuming politeness sudden and vast, "since -I understand you throw overboard the Church, may I know what other -avenue you will render honorable by walking therein?" - -"You did not give me your attention, if you failed to note that what -elements of strength I've ascribed to myself all point to the camp. -So soon as there is a war, I shall turn soldier with my whole heart." - -"You will wait some time, I fear!" - -"Not so long as I could wish. There will be war between these colonies -and England before I reach my majority. It would be better were it -put off ten years; for now my youth will get between the heels of my -prospects to trip them up." - -"Then, if there be war with England, you will go? I do not think such -bloody trouble will soon dawn; still--for a first time to-day--I -am pleased to hear you thus speak. It shows that at least you are a -patriot." - -"I lay no claim to the title. England oppresses us; and, since one only -oppresses what one hates, she hates us. And hate for hate I give her. I -shall go to war, because I am fitted to shine in war, and as a shortest, -surest step to fame and power--those solitary targets worthy the aim of -man!" - -"Dross! dross!" retorts the scandalized doctor. "Fame! power! Dead sea -apples, which will turn to ashes on your lips! And yet, since that war -which is to be the ladder whereon you will go climbing into fame and -power is not here, what, pending its appearance, will you do?" - -"Now there is a query which brings us to the close. Here is my answer -ready. I shall just ride over to Sally, and her husband, Tappan -Reeve, and take up Blackstone. If I may not serve the spirit and study -theology, I'll even serve the flesh and study law." - -And so the hero of these memoirs rides over to Litchfield, to study -the law and wait for a war. The doctor and he separate in friendly -son-and-father fashion, while Madam Bellamy urges him to always call -her house his home. He is not so hard as he thinks, not so cynical as -he feels; still, his self-etched portrait possesses the broader lines -of truth. He is one whom men will follow, but not trust; admire, but -not love. There is enough of the unconscious serpent in him to rouse one -man's hate, while putting an edge on another's fear. Also, because--from -the fig-leaf day of Eve--the serpent attracts and fascinates a woman, -many tender ones will lose their hearts for him. They will dash -themselves and break themselves against him, like wild fowl against a -lighthouse in the night. Even as he rides out of Bethlehem that June -morning, bright young eyes peer at him from behind safe lattices, until -their brightness dies away in tears. As for him thus sighed over, his -lashes are dry enough. Bethlehem, and all who home therein, from the -doctor with Madam Bellamy, to her whose rose-red lips he kissed the -latest, are already of the unregarded past. He wears nothing but the -future on his agate slope of fancy; he is thinking only on himself and -his hunger to become a god of the popular--clothed with power, wreathed -of fame! - -"Mother," exclaims the doctor, "the boy is lost! Ambitious as Lucifer, -he will fall like Lucifer!" - -"Joseph!" - -"I cannot harbor hope! As lucidly clear as glass, he was yet as hard as -glass. If I were to read his fortune, I should say that Aaron Burr will -soar as high to fall as low as any soul alive." - - - - -CHAPTER II--THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER - - -YOUNG Aaron establishes himself in Litchfield with his pretty sister -Sally, who, because he is brilliant and handsome, is proud of him. Also, -Tappan Reeve, her husband, takes to him in a slow, bookish way, and is -much held by his trenchant powers of mind. - -Young Aaron assumes the law, and makes little flights into Bracton's -"Fleeta," and reads Hawkins and Hobart, delighting in them for their -limpid English. More seriously, yet more privately, he buries himself in -every volume of military lore upon which he may lay hands; for already -he feels that Bunker Hill is on its way, without knowing the name of it, -and would have himself prepared for its advent. - -In leisure hours, young Aaron gives Litchfield society the glory of his -countenance. He flourishes as a village Roquelaure, with plumcolored -coats, embroidered waistcoats, silken hose, and satin smalls, sent up -from New York. Likewise, his ruffles are miracles, his neckcloths works -of starched and spotless art, while at his hip he wears a sword--hilt of -gilt, and sharkskin scabbard white as snow. - -Now, because he is splendid, with a fortune of four hundred annual -pounds, and since no girl's heart may resist the mystery of those eyes, -the village belles come sighing against him in a melting phalanx -of loveliness. This is flattering; but young Aaron declines to be -impressed. Polished, courteous, in amiable possession of himself, he -furnishes the thought of a bright coldness, like sunshine on a field -of ice. Not that anyone is to blame. The difference between him and the -sighing ones, is a difference of shrines and altars. They sacrifice to -Venus; he worships Mars. While he has visions of battle, they dream of -wedding bells. - -For one moment only arises some tender confusion. There is an Uncle -Thaddeus--a dotard ass far gone in years! Uncle Thaddeus undertakes, -behind young Aaron's back, to make him happy. The liberal Uncle Thaddeus -goes so blindly far as to explore the heart of a particular fair one, -who mayhap sighs more deeply than do the others. It grows embarrassing; -for, while the sighing one thus softly met accepts, when Uncle Thaddeus -flies to young Aaron with the dulcet news, that favored personage -transfixes him with so black a stare, wherefrom such baleful serpent -rage glares forth, that our dotard meddler is fear-frozen in the very -midst of his ingenuous assiduities. And thereupon the sighing one is -left to sigh uncomforted, while Uncle Thaddeus finds himself the scorn -of all good village opinion. - -While young Aaron goes stepping up and down the Litchfield causeways, -as though strutting in Jermyn Street or Leicester Square; while thus he -plays the fine gentleman with ruffles and silks and shark-skin sword, -skimming now the law, now flattering the sighing belles, now devouring -the literature of war, he has ever his finger on the pulse, and his ear -to the heart of his throbbing times. It is he of Litchfield who hears -earliest of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In a moment he is all action. Off -come the fine feathers, and that shark-skin, gilt-hilt sword. Warlock is -saddled; pistols thrust into holsters. In roughest of costumes the -fop surrenders to the soldier. It takes but a day, and he is ready for -Cambridge and the American camp. - -As he goes upon these doughty preparations, young Aaron finds himself -abetted by the pretty Sally, who proves as martial as himself. Her -husband, Tappan Reeve, easy, quiet, loving his unvexed life, from the -law book on his table to the pillow whereon he nightly sleeps, cannot -understand this headlong war hurry. - -"You may lose your life!" cries Tappan Reeve. - -"What then?" rejoins young Aaron. "Whether the day be far or near, that -life you speak of is already lost. I shall play this game. My life is my -stake; and I shall freely hazard it upon the chance of winning glory." - -"And have you no fear?" - -The timid Tappan's thoughts of death are ashen; he likes to live. - -Young Aaron bends upon him his black gaze. "What I fear more than any -death," says he, "is stagnation--the currentless village life!" - -Young Aaron, arriving at Cambridge, attaches himself to General Putnam. -The grizzled old wolf killer likes him, being of broadest tolerations, -and no analyst of the psychic. - -There are seventeen thousand Americans scattered in a ragged fringe -about Boston, in which town the English, taught by Lexington and Bunker -Hill, are cautiously prone to lie close. Young Aaron makes the round of -the camps. He is amazed by the unrule and want of discipline. Besides, -he cannot understand the inaction, feeling that each new day should have -its Bunker Hill. That there is not enough powder among the Americans -to load and fire those seventeen thousand rifles twice, is a piece of -military information of which he lives ignorant, for the grave Virginian -in command confides it only to a merest few. Had young Aaron been aware -of this paucity of powder, those long days, idle, vacant of event, might -not have troubled him. The wearisome wonder of them at least would have -been made plain. - -Young Aaron learns of an expedition against Quebec, to be led by Colonel -Benedict Arnold, and resolves to join it. That all may be by military -rule, he seeks General Washington to ask permission. He finds that -commander in talk with General Putnam; the old wolf killer does him the -favor of a presentation. - -"From where do you come?" asks Washington, closely scanning young Aaron -whom he instantly dislikes. - -"From Connecticut. I am a gentleman volunteer, attached to General -Putnam with the rank of captain." - -Something of repulsion shows cloudily on the brow of Washington. -Obviously he is offended by this cool stripling, who clothes his -hairless boy's face with a confident maturity that has the effect of -impertinence. Also the phrase "gentleman volunteer," sticks in his -throat like a fish bone. - -"Ah, a 'gentleman volunteer!'" he repeats in a tone of sarcasm scarcely -veiled. "I have now and then heard of such a trinket of war, albeit, -never to the trinket's advantage. Doubtless, sir, you have made the -rounds of our array!" - -Young Aaron, from his beardless five feet six inches, looks up at the -tall Virginian, and cannot avoid envying him his door-wide shoulders -and that extra half foot of height. He perceives, too, with a resentful -glow, that he is being mocked. However, he controls himself to answer -coldly: - -"As you surmise, sir, I have made the rounds of your forces." - -"And having made them"--this ironically--"I trust you found all to your -satisfaction." - -"As to that," remarks young Aaron, "while I did not look to find trained -soldiers, I think that a better discipline might be maintained." - -"Indeed! I shall make a note of it. And yet I must express the hope -that, while you occupy a subordinate place, you will give way as little -as may be to your perilous trick of thinking, leaving it rather to our -experienced friend Putnam, here, he being trained in these matters." - -The old wolf killer takes advantage of this reference to himself, to -help the interview into less trying channels. - -"You were seeking me?" he says to the youthful critic of camps and -discipline. - -"I was seeking the commander in chief," returns young Aaron, again -facing Washington. "I came to ask permission to go with Colonel Arnold -against Quebec." - -"Against Quebec?" repeats Washington. "Go, with all my heart!" - -There is a cut concealed in that consent, to the biting smart of which -young Aaron is not insensible. However, he finds in the towering -manner of its delivery something which checks even his audacity. After -saluting, he withdraws without added word. - -"General," observes Washington, when young Aaron has gone, "I fear I -cannot congratulate you on your new captain." - -"If you knew him better, general," protests the good-hearted old wolf -killer, "you would like him better. He is a boy; but he has an old head -on his young shoulders." - -[Illustration: 0043] - -"The very thing I most fear," rejoins Washington. "A boy has no more -business with an old head than with old lungs or old legs. It is -unnatural, sir; and the unnatural is the wrong. I want only heads and -shoulders about me that were born the same day. For that reason, I am -glad your 'gentleman volunteer'"--this with a shade of irony--"goes to -Quebec with that turbulent Norwich apothecary, Arnold. The army will be -bettered just now by the absence of these lofty spirits. They disturb -more than they help. Besides, a tramp of sixty days through the Maine -woods will improve such Hotspurs vastly. There is nothing like a -six-hundred mile march through an unbroken wilderness, with a fight in -the snow at the far end of it, to take the edge off beardless arrogance -and young conceit." - -What young Aaron carries away from that interview, as an impression -of the big commander in chief, crops out in converse with his former -college chum, young Ogden. The latter, like himself, is attached to the -military family of General Putnam. - -"Ogden, we have begun wrong as soldiers--you and I!" says young Aaron. -"By flint and steel, man, we should have commenced like Washington, by -hoeing tobacco!" - -"Now this is not right!" cries young Ogden, in reproof. "General -Washington is a soldier who has seen service." - -"Why," retorts young Aaron, "I believe he was trounced with Braddock." -Then, warmly: "Ogden, the man is Failure walking about in blue and -buff and high boots! I read him like a page of print! He is slow, dull, -bovine, proud, and of no decision. He lacks initiative; and, while he -might defend, he is incapable of attacking. Worst of all he has the soul -of a planter--a plantation soul! A big movement like this, which brings -the thirteen colonies to the field, is beyond his grasp." - -"Your great defect, Aaron," cries young Ogden, not without indignation, -"is that you regard your most careless judgment as final. Half the time, -too, your decision is the product of prejudice, not reason. General -Washington offends you--as, to be frank, he did me--by putting a lower -estimate on your powers than that at which you yourself are pleased -to hold them. I warrant now had he flattered you a bit, you would have -found in him a very Alexander." - -"I should have found him what I tell you," retorts young Aaron stoutly, -"a glaring instance of misplaced mediocrity. He is even wanting in -dignity!" - -"For my side, then, I found him dignified enough." - -"Friend Ogden, you took dullness for dignity. Or I will change it; I'll -even consent that he is dignified. But only in the torpid, cud-chewing -fashion in which a bullock is dignified. Still, he does very well by me; -for he says I may go with Colonel Arnold. And so, Ogden, I've but -time for 'good-by!' and then off to make myself ready to accompany our -swashbuckler druggist against Quebec." - - - - -CHAPTER III--COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD EXPLAINS - - -IT is September, brilliant and golden. Newburyport is brave with -warlike excitement. Drums roll, fifes shriek, armed men fill the single -village street. These latter are not seasoned troops, as one may see -by their careless array and the want of uniformity in their homespun, -homemade garbs. No two are armed alike, for each has brought his own -weapon. These are rifles--long, eight-square flintlocks. Also every -rifleman wears a powderhorn and bullet pouch of buckskin, while most of -them carry knives and hatchets in their rawhide belts. - -As our rude soldiery stand at ease in the village street, cheering -crowds line the sidewalk. The shouts rise above the screaming fifes and -rumbling drums. The soldiers are the force which Colonel Arnold will -lead against Quebec. Young, athletic--to the last man they have been -drawn from the farms. Resenting discipline, untaught of drill, their -disorder has in it more of the mob than the military. However, their -eyes like their hopes are bright, and one may read in the healthy, -cheerful faces that each holds himself privily to be of the raw -materials from which generals are made. - -Down in the harbor eleven smallish vessels ride at anchor. They are of -brigantine rig, each equal to transporting one hundred men. These will -carry Colonel Arnold and his eleven hundred militant young rustics to -the mouth of the Kennebec. In the waist of every vessel, packed one -inside the other as a housewife arranges teacups on her shelves, are -twenty bateaux. They are wide, shallow craft, blunt at bow and stern, -and will be used to convey the expedition up the Kennebec. Each is large -enough to hold five men, and so light that the five, at portages or -rapids, can shoulder it with the dunnage which belongs to them and carry -it across to the better water beyond. - -The word of command runs along the unpolished ranks; the column begins -to move toward the water front, taking its step from the incessant drums -and fifes. Once at the water, the embarkation goes briskly forward. As -the troops march away, the crowds follow; for the day in Newburyport is -a gala occasion and partakes of the character of a celebration. No one -considers the possibility of defeat. Everywhere one finds optimism, as -though Quebec is already a captured city. - -Now when the throngs have departed with the soldiery, the street shows -comparatively deserted. This brings to view the Eagle Inn, a hostelry of -the village. In the doorway of the Eagle a man and woman are standing. -The woman is dashingly handsome, with cheek full of color and a bold -eye. The man is about thirty-five in years. He swaggers with a forward, -bragging, gamecock air, which--the basis being a coarse, berserk -courage--is not altogether affectation. His features are vain, sensual, -turbulent; his expression shows him to be proud in a crude way, and is -noticeable because of an absence of any slightest glint of principle. -There is, too, an extravagance of gold braid on his coat, which goes -well with the superfluous feather in the three-cornered hat, and those -russet boots of stamped Spanish leather. These swashbuckley excesses -of costume bear out the vulgar promise of his face, and guarantee that -intimated lack of fineness. - -The pair are Colonel Arnold and Madam - -Arnold. She has come to see the last of her husband as he sails away. -While they stand in the door, the coach in which she will make the -homeward journey to Norwich pulls up in front of the Eagle. - -As Colonel Arnold leads his wife to the coach, he is saying: "No; I -shall be aboard within the hour. After that we start at once. I want a -word with a certain Captain Burr before I embark. I've offended him, it -seems; for he is of your proud, high-stomached full-pursed aristocrats -who look for softer treatment than does a commoner clay. I've ordered -a bottle of wine. As we drink, I shall make shift to smooth down his -ruffled plumage." - -"Captain Burr," repeats Madam Arnold, not without a sniff of scorn. "And -you are a colonel! How long is it since colonels have found it necessary -to truckle to captains, and, when they pout, placate them into good -humor?" - -"My dear madam," returns Colonel Arnold as he helps her into the clumsy -vehicle, "permit me to know my own affairs. I tell you this thin-skinned -boy is rich, and what is better was born with his hands open. He parts -with money like a royal prince. One has but to drop a hint, and presto! -his hand is in his purse. The gold I gave you I had from him." - -As the coach with Madam Arnold drives away, young Aaron is observed -coming up from the water front. His costume, while as rough as that of -the soldiers, has a fit and a finish to it which accents the graceful -gentility of his manner beyond what satins and silks might do. Madam -Arnold's bold eyes cover him. He takes off his hat with a gravely -accurate flourish, whereat the bold eyes glance their pleasure at the -polite attention. - -Coach gone, Colonel Arnold seizes young Aaron's arm, with a familiarity -which fails of its purpose by being overdone, and draws him into -the inn. He carries him to a room where a table is spread. The stout -landlady by way of topping out the feast is adding thereunto an apple -pie, moonlike as her face and its sister for size and roundness. This, -and the roast fowl which adorns the center, together with a bottle -of burgundy to keep all in countenance, invest the situation with an -atmosphere of hope. - -"Be seated, Captain Burr," exclaims the hearty Colonel Arnold, as -the two draw up to the table. "A roast pullet, a pie, and a bottle of -burgundy, let me tell you, should make no mean beginning to what is like -to prove a hard campaign. I warrant you, sir, we see worse fare in -the pine wilderness of upper Maine. Let me help you to wine, sir," he -continues, after carving for himself and young Aaron. The latter, as -cold and imperturbable as when, in Dr. Bellamy's study, he shattered the -designs of that excellent preacher by preferring law to theology and war -to either, responds to this hospitable politeness with a bow. "Take your -glass, Captain Burr. I desire to drink down all irritations. Yes, sir," -replacing the drained glass, "I may say, without lowering myself as -a gentleman in your esteem, that, in giving you the order to see the -troops aboard, I had no thought of affronting you." - -"It was not your orders to which I objected; it was to your manner. If -I may say so, sir, it was a manner of intolerable arrogance, one which I -shall brook from no man." - -"Tush, sir, tush! In war we must thicken our hides. We are not to be -sensitive. We should not look in the camps for the manners of a king's -court. What you mistook for arrogance was no more than just a tone of -command." - -Colonel Arnold's delivery of this is meant to be conciliating. Through -it, however, runs an exasperating vein of patronage, due, doubtless, to -his superior rank, and those extra fifteen years wherein he overlooks -young Aaron. - -"Let us be plain, colonel," observes young Aaron, studying his wine -between eye and windowpane. "I hope for nothing better than concord -between us. Also, every order you give me I shall obey. None the less I -ask you to observe that I have no purpose of lowering my self-respect in -coming to this war. As your subordinate I shall take your commands; as a -gentleman, the equal of any, I must be treated as such." - -Colonel Arnold's brow is red; but he fills his mouth with chicken which -he drenches down with wine, and so restrains every fretful expression. -After a moment filled of wine and chicken, he observes carelessly: - -"Say no more! Say no more, Captain Burr! We understand one another!" - -"There is no more to say," returns young Aaron steadily. "And I beg you -to remember that the subject is one which you, yourself, proposed. I am -through when I state that, while I object to no man's vanity, no man's -arrogance, I shall never permit him to transact them at the expense of -my self-respect." - -Colonel Arnold turns the talk to what, in a wilderness as well as a -fighting way, lies ahead. They linger over pullet and burgundy for the -better part of an hour, and get on as well as should gentlemen who -have no mighty mutual liking. As they prepare to go aboard, the stout -landlady meets them in the hall. Her modest' charges are to be met with -a handful of shillings. Colonel Arnold rummages his pockets, wearing the -while a baffled angry air; then he falls to cursing in a spirit truly -military. - -"May the black fiend seize me!" says he, "if my purse has not gone -aboard with my baggage!" - -Young Aaron pays the score with an indifference which does not betray -a conviction that the pocket-rummaging is a pretence, and the native -money-meanness of his coarse-faced colonel designed such finale from the -first. Score settled, they repair to the water front. As the two depart, -the stout landlady of the Eagle follows the retreating Colonel Arnold -with shocked, insulted glance. She is a religious woman, and those -curses have moved her soul. - -"Blaspheming upstart!" she mutters. "And the airs he takes on! As though -folk have forgotten that within the year he stood behind his Norwich -counter selling pills and plasters!" - -The eleven little ships voyage to the mouth of the Kennebec without -event. The bateaux are launched, and the eleven hundred highhearted -youngsters proceed to pole and paddle their way up the river. Where the -currents are overswift they tow with lines from the banks. Finally they -abandon the Kennebec, and shoulder the bateaux for a scrambling tramp -across the pine-sown watershed. It takes days, but in the end they find -themselves again afloat on the Dead River. This stream leads them to -the St. Lawrence. It is the march of the century! These buoyant young -rustics through the untraced wilderness have come six hundred miles in -fifty days. - -Woodmen born and bred, this long push through the forests is no -surprising feat to these who perform it. They scarcely discuss the -matter as they crouch about their camp fires. The big topic among -them is their hatred of Colonel Arnold. From that September day in -Newbury-port his tyranny has been in hourly expression. Also, it seems -to grow with time. He hectors, raves, vituperates, until there isn't -a trigger finger in the command which does not itch to shoot him down. -Disdaining to aid the march by carrying so much as a pound's weight--as -being work beneath his exalted rank--this Caesar of the apothecaries -must needs have his special cooking kit along. Also his tent must be -pitched with the coming down of every night. Men hungry and unsheltered -all around him, he sees no reason why he should not sleep warmly soft, -and breakfast and dine and sup like a wilderness Lucullus. Thereat the -farmer youth grumble, and console themselves with slighting remarks and -looks of contumely. - -To these remarks and looks, Colonel Arnold is driven to deafen his -ears and offer his back. It would be inconvenient to hear and see these -things; since, for all his bullying attitude, he dare not crowd his -followers too far. Their unbroken mouths are but new to the military -bit; a too cruel pressure on the bridle reins might mean the unhorsing -of our vanity-eaten apothecary. As it is, by twos and tens and twenties, -the command dwindles away. Every roll call discloses fresh desertions. -Wroth with their commander, resolved against the mean tyranny of his -rule, when the party reaches the St. Lawrence, half have gone to a -right-about and are on their way home. The feather-headed Colonel Arnold -finds himself with a muster of five hundred and fifty where he should -have had eleven hundred. And the five hundred and fifty with him are on -the darkling edge of revolt. - -"Think on such cur hearts!" cries Colonel Arnold, as he speaks with -young Aaron of those desertions which have cut his force in two. "Half -have already turned tail, and the other half are of a coward mind to -follow their mongrel example. I would sooner command a brigade of dogs!" - -"Believe me," observes young Aaron, icily acquiescent, "I shall not -contradict your peculiar fitness for the command you describe." - -Being thus happily delivered, young Aaron goes round on his -imperturbable heel and strolls away, leaving the angry Colonel Arnold -glaring with rage-congested eye. - -"Insolent puppy!" the latter grits between his teeth. - -He is heedful, however, to avoid the epithet in the presence of young -Aaron; for, in spite of that rude courage which, when all is said, -lies at the root of his nature, the ex-apothecary dreads the "gentleman -volunteer," with his black ophidian glance--so balanced, so hard, so -vacant of fear! - -It is toward the last of November; the valley of the St. Lawrence seems -the home of snow. Colonel Arnold grows afraid of the temper of his -people. As they push slowly through the drifts, their angry wrath -against the Caligula who leads them is only too thinly veiled. At -this, the insolent oppressions of our ex-apothecary cease; he seeks to -conciliate, but the time is overlate. - -Colonel Arnold goes into camp, and considers the situation. Even if his -followers do not wheel suddenly southward for home, he fears that on -some final battle day they will refuse to fight at his command. -With despair gnawing at his heart, he decides to get word to General -Montgomery, who has conquered and is holding Montreal. The giant -Irishman is the idol of the army. Once he appears, the grumblings and -mutinous murmurings will abate. The rebellious ones will go wherever he -points, fight like lions at his merest word. - -True, the coming of Montgomery will mean his own loss of command, and -that is a bitter pill. Still, since he may do no better, he resolves -to gulp it. Thus resolving, he calls young Aaron into conference. The -uneasy tyrant hates young Aaron--hates him for the gold he has borrowed -from him, hates him for his scarcely concealed contempt of himself. None -the less he calls him into council. It is wisdom not friendship his case -requires, and he early learned to value the long head of our "gentleman -volunteer." - -"It is this," explains Colonel Arnold, desperately. "We have not -the force demanded for the capture of Quebec. We must get word to -Montgomery. He is one hundred and twenty miles away in Montreal. -The puzzle is to find some one, whom we can trust among these -French-speaking native Canadians, who will carry my message." - -Young Aaron knots his brows. Colonel Arnold watches him anxiously, for -he is at the end of his resources. Finally young Aaron consults his -watch. - -"It is now ten o'clock," he says. "Nothing can be done to-night. And -yet I think I know the man for your occasion. By daybreak I'll have him -before you." - - - - -CHAPTER IV--THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST - - -THERE are many deserted log huts along the St. Lawrence. Colonel Arnold -has taken up his quarters in one of these. It is eight o'clock of the -morning following the talk with young Aaron when the sentinel at the -door reports that a priest is asking admission. - -"What have I to do with priests!" demands Colonel Arnold. "However, -bring him in! He must give good reasons for disturbing me, or his black -coat will do him little good." - -The priest is clothed from head to heel in the black frock of his order. -The frock is caught in about the waist with a heavy cord. Down the front -depend a crucifix and beads. The frock is thickly lined with fur; the -peaked hood, also fur-lined, is drawn forward over the priest's face. In -figure he is short and slight. As he peers out from his hood at Colonel -Arnold, his black eyes give that commander a start of uncertainty. - -"I suppose you speak no French?" says the priest. - -His accent is wretched. Colonel Arnold might be justified in retorting -that his visitor speaks no English. He restricts himself, however, to an -admission that, as the priest surmises, he has no French, and follows it -with a bluff demand that the latter make plain his errand. - -"Why, sir," returns the priest, glancing about as though in quest of -some one, "I expected to find Captain Burr here. He tells me you wish to -send a message to Montreal." - -Colonel Arnold is alert in a moment; his manner undergoes a change from -harsh to suave. - -"Ah!" he cries amiably; "you are the man." Then, to the sentinel at the -door: "Send word, sir, to Captain Burr, and ask him to come at once to -my quarters." - -While waiting the coming of young Aaron, Colonel Arnold enters into -conversation with his clerkly visitor. The priest explains that he hates -the English, as do all Canadians of French stock. He is only too willing -to do Colonel Arnold any service that shall tell against them. Also, he -adds, in response to a query, that he can make his way to Montreal in -ten days. - -"There are farmer and fisher people all along the St. Lawrence," says -he. "They are French, and good sons of mother church. I am sure they -will give me food and shelter." - -The sentinel comes lumbering in, and reports that young Aaron is not to -be found. - -"That is sheer nonsense, sir!" fumes Colonel Arnold. "Why should he not -be found? He is somewhere about camp. Fetch him instantly!" - -When the sentinel again departs, the priest frees his face of the -obscuring hood. - -"Your sentinel is right," he says. "Captain Burr is not at his -quarters." - -Colonel Arnold stares in amazement; the priest is none other than our -"gentleman volunteer." Perceiving Colonel Arnold gazing in curious -wonder at his clerkly frock, young Aaron explains. - -"I got it five days back, at that monastery we passed. You recall how I -dined there with the Brothers. I thought then that just such a peaceful -coat as this might find a use." - -"Marvelous!" exclaims Colonel Arnold. "And you speak French, too?" - -"French and Latin. I have, you see, the verbal as well as outward -furnishings of a priest of these parts." - -"And you think you can reach Montgomery? I have to warn you, sir, that -the work will be extremely delicate and the danger great." - -"I shall be equal to the work. As for the peril, if I feared it I should -not be here." - -It is arranged; and young Aaron explains that he is prepared, indeed, -prefers, to start at once. Moreover, he counsels secrecy. - -"You have an Indian guide or two, about you," says he, "whom I do not -trust. If my errand were known, one of them might cut me off and sell my -scalp to the English." - -When Colonel Arnold is left alone, he gives himself up to a -consideration of the chances of his message going safely to Montreal. He -sits long, with puckered lips and brooding eye. - -"In any event," he murmurs, "I cannot fail to be the better off. If he -reach Montgomery, that is what I want. On the other hand, should he fall -a prey to the English I shall think it a settlement of what debts I owe -him. Yes; the latter event would mean three hundred pounds to me. Either -way I am rid of one whose cool superiorities begin to smart. Himself a -gentleman, he seems never to forget that I am an apothecary." - -Young Aaron is twenty miles nearer Montreal when the early winter sun -goes down. For ten days he plods onward, now and again lying by to avoid -a roving party of English. As he foretold, every cabin is open to the -"young priest." He but explains that he has cause to fear the redcoats, -and with that those French Canadians, whom he meets with, keep nightly -watch, while couching him warmest and softest, and feeding him on the -best. At last he reaches General Montgomery, and tells of Colonel Arnold -below Quebec. - -General Montgomery, a giant in stature, has none of that sluggishness -so common with folk of size. In twenty-four hours after receiving young -Aaron's word, he is off to make a junction with Colonel Arnold. He takes -with him three hundred followers, all that may be spared from Montreal, -and asks young Aaron to serve on his personal staff. - -[Illustration: 0067] - -They find Colonel Arnold, with his five hundred and fifty, camped under -the very heights of Quebec. The garrison, while quite as strong as is -his force, have not once molested him. They leave his undoing to the -cold and snow, and that starvation which is making gaunt the faces and -shortening the belts of his men. - -General Montgomery upon his arrival takes command. Colonel Arnold, -while foreseeing this--since even his vanity does not conceive of a -war condition so upside down that a colonel gives orders to a -general--cannot avoid a fit of the sulks. He is the more inclined to be -moody, because the coming of the big Irishman has visibly brightened his -people, who for months have been scowls and clouds to him. Now the face -of affairs is changed; the mutinous ones have nothing save cheers for -the big general whenever he appears. - -General Montgomery calls a conference, and Colonel Arnold comes with all -his officers. At the request of young Aaron, the big general retains -him by his side. This does not please the ex-apothecary, it hurts his -self-love that the "gentleman volunteer" is so obviously pleased to be -free of his company. At the conference, General Montgomery advises all -to hold themselves in readiness for an assault upon the English walls. - -"I cannot tell the night," he observes; "I only say that we shall -attack during the first snowstorm that occurs. It may come in an hour, -wherefore be ready!" - -The storm which is to mask the movements of General Montgomery does not -keep folk waiting. There soon falls a midnight which is nothing save -a blinding whirling sheet of snow. Thereupon the word goes through the -camp. - -The assault is to be made in two columns, General Montgomery leading -one, Colonel Arnold the other. Young Aaron will be by the elbow of the -big Irishman. By way of aiding, a feigned attack is ordered for a far -corner of the English works. - -As the soldiers fall into their ranks, the storm fairly swallows them -up. It would seem as though none might live in such a tempest--white, -ferociously cold, Arctic in its fury! It is desperate weather! the -more desperate when faced by ones whose courage has been diminished -by privation. But the strong heart of General Montgomery listens to no -doubts. He will lead out his eight hundred and fifty against an equal -force that have been sleeping warm and eating full, while his own were -freezing and starving. Also, those warm, full-fed ones are behind stone -walls, which the lean, frozen ones must scale and capture. - -"I shall give you ten minutes' start," observes General Montgomery to -Colonel Arnold. "You have farther to go than we to gain your position. I -shall wait ten minutes; then I shall press forward." - -Colonel Arnold moves off with his column through the driving storm. When -those ten minutes of grace have elapsed, General Montgomery gives his -men the word to advance. - -They urge their difficult way up a ravine, snow belt-deep. There is an -outer work of blockhouse sort at the head of the defile. It is of solid -mason work, two stories, crenelled above for muskets, pierced below for -two twelve-pounders. This must be reduced before the main assault can -begin. - -As General Montgomery, with young Aaron on the right, the column in -broken disorder at his heels, nears the blockhouse, a dog, more wakeful -than the English, is heard to bark. That bark turns out the redcoat -garrison as though a trumpet called. - -"Forward!" cries General Montgomery. - -The men respond; they rush bravely on. The blockhouse, dully looming -through the storm, is no more than forty yards away. - -Suddenly a red tongue of flame licks out into the snow swirl, to be -followed by the roar of one of the twelve-pounders. In quick response -comes the roar of its sister gun, while, from the loopholes above, the -muskets crackle and splutter. - -It is blind cannonading; but it does its work as though the best -artillerist is training the guns at brightest noonday. The head of the -assaulting column is met flush in the face with a sleet of grapeshot. - -General Montgomery staggers; and then, without a word, falls forward on -his face in the snow. Young Aaron stoops to raise him to his feet. It is -of no avail; the big Irishman is dead. - -The bursting roar of the twelve-pounders is heard again. As if to keep -their general company, a dozen more give up their lives. - -"Montgomery is slain!" - -The word zigzags along the ragged column. - -It is a daunting word! The men begin to give way. - -Young Aaron rushes into their midst, and seeks to rally them. He might -as well attempt to stay the whirling snow in its dance! The men will -follow none save General Montgomery; and he is dead. - -Slowly they fall backward along the ravine up which they climbed. Again -the two twelve-pounders roar, and a raking hail of grape sings through -the shaking ranks. More men are struck down! That backward movement -becomes a rout. - -Young Aaron loses the icy self-control which is his distinguishing -trait. He buries the retreating ones beneath an avalanche of curses, -drowns them with a cataract of scorn. - -"What!" he cries. "Will you leave your general's body in their hands?" - -He might have spared himself the shouting effort. Already he is alone -with the dead. - -"It is better company than that of cowards!" is his bitter cry, as he -bends above the stark form of his chief. - -The English are pouring from the blockhouse. Still young Aaron will not -leave the dead Montgomery behind. Now are the steel-like powers of his -slight frame manifest. With one effort, he swings the giant body to -his shoulder, and plunges off down the defile, the eager blood-hungry -redcoats not a dozen rods behind. - - - - -CHAPTER V--THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON - - -THE gray morning finds the routed ones in their old camp by the St. -Lawrence. Colonel Arnold's assault has also failed. The ex-apothecary -received a slight wound, and is vastly proud. It is his left arm that -was hurt, and of it he makes a mighty parade, slinging it in a rich -crimson sash. - -Colonel Arnold, now in command, does not attempt another assault, but -contents himself with maneuvering his slender forces on the plain in -tantalizing view of the redcoat foe. He sends a flag of truce to the -foot of the walls, with a sprightly challenge to their defenders, -inviting them to come out and fight. The Quebec commander, being a -soldier and no mad knight errant, refuses to be thus romantic. The -winter is deepening; he will leave the vaporing Colonel Arnold to fight -a battle with the thermometer. Also, General Burgoyne, at the head of an -army, is pointed that way. - -His maneuverings ignored, his challenge declined, Colonel Arnold puts -in an entire night framing a demand for the instant surrender of Quebec. -This he is at pains to couch in terms of insult, peppering it from top -to bottom with biting taunts. He closes with a threat that, should the -English commander fail to lower his flag, he will conquer the city at -the point of the sword, and put the garrison to disgraceful death by -gibbet and halter. When he has completed this precious manifesto, he -seeks out young Aaron, and commands him to carry it in person to the -city's gates. As Colonel Arnold tenders the letter, young Aaron puts his -hands behind him. - -"Before I take it, sir," says he, "I should like to hear it read." - -Young Aaron's contempt for the ex-apothecary has found increase with -every day since the death of Montgomery. Those braggadocio maneuverings, -the foolish challenge to come out and fight, have filled him with -disgust. They shock by stress of their innate cheap vulgarity. He is of -no mind to lend himself to any kindred buffoonery. - -"Do you refuse my orders, sirrah?" cries Colonel Arnold, falling into a -dramatic fume. - -"I refuse nothing! I say that I shall carry no letter until I know its -contents. I warn you, sir, I am not to be 'ordered,' as you call it, -into a false position by any man alive." - -Young Aaron's face is getting white; there is a dangerous sparkle in -the black ophidian eyes. Colonel Arnold reads these symptoms, and draws -back. Still, he maintains a ruffling front. - -"Sir!" says he haughtily; "you should think on your subordinate rank, -and on your youth, before you pretend to overlook my conduct." - -"My subordinate rank shall not detract from my quality as a gentleman. -As for my youth, I shall prove old enough, I trust, to make safe my -honor. I say again, I'll not touch your letter till I hear it read." - -"Remember, sir, to whom you speak!" - -"I shall remember what I mentioned at the Eagle Inn; I shall remember my -self-respect." - -Colonel Arnold fixes young Aaron with a superior stare. If it be meant -for his confusion, it meets failure beyond hope. The black eyes stare -back with so much of iron menace in them, as to disconcert the personage -of former drugs. - -He feels them play upon him like two black rapier points. His assurance -breaks down; his lofty determination oozes away. With gaze seeking the -floor, his ruddy, wine-marked countenance flushes doubly red. - -"Since you make such a swelter of the business," he grumbles, "I, for my -own sake, shall now ask you to read it. I would have you know, sir, -that I understand the requirements as well as the proprieties of my -position." - -Colonel Arnold tears open the letter with a flourish, and gives it to -young Aaron. The latter reads it; and then, with no attempt to palliate -the insult, throws it on the floor. - -"Sir," cries Colonel Arnold, exploding into a sudden blaze of wrath, "I -was told in Cambridge, what my officers have often told me since, that -you are a bumptious young fool! Many times have I been told it, sir; -and, until now, I did you the honor to disbelieve it." Young Aaron is -cold and sneering. "Sir," he retorts, "see how much more credulous I -am than are you. I was told but once that you are a bragging, empty -vulgarian, and I instantly believed it." - -The pair stand opposite one another, glances crossing like sword blades, -the insulted letter on the floor between. It is Colonel Arnold who again -gives ground. Snapping his fingers, as though breaking off an incident -beneath his exalted notice, he goes about on his heel. - -"Ah!" says young Aaron; "now that I see your back, sir, I shall take my -leave." - -The winter days, heavy and leaden and chill, go by. Colonel Arnold -continues those maneuverings and challengings, those struttings and -vaporings. At last even his coxcomb vanity grows weary, and he thinks -on Montreal. One morning, with all his followers, he marches off to -that city, still held by the garrison that Montgomery left behind. -Established in Montreal he comports himself as becomes a conqueror, -expanding into pomp and license, living on the fat, drinking of the -strong. And day by day Burgoyne is drawing nearer. - -Broad spring descends; a green mist is visible in the winter-stripped -trees. The rumors of Burgoyne's approach increase and prove disquieting. -Colonel Arnold leads his people out of Montreal, and plunges southward -into the wilderness. He pitches camp on the river Sorel. - -Since the incident of the letter, young Aaron has held no traffic, -polite or otherwise, with Colonel Arnold. The "gentleman volunteer" sees -lonesome days; for he has made no friends about the camp. The men admire -him, but offer him no place in their hearts. A boy in years, with a -beardless girl's face, he gives himself the airs of gravest manhood. His -atmosphere, while it does not repel, is not inviting. Men hold aloof, -as though separated from him by a gulf. He tells no stories, cracks no -jests. His manner is one of careless nonchalance. In truth, he is so -much engaged in upholding his young dignity as to leave him no time -to be popular. His bringing off the dead Montgomery, under fire of the -English, has been told and retold in every corner of the camp. This -gains him credit for a heart of fire, and a fortitude without a flaw. On -the march, too, he faces every hardship, shirks no work, but meets and -does his duty equal with the best. And yet there is that cool reserve, -which denies the thought of comradeship and holds friendly folk at bay. -With them, yet not of them, the men about him cannot solve the conundrum -of his nature; and so they leave him to himself. They value him, they -respect him, they hold his courage above proof; there it ends. - -Young Aaron, aware of his lonely position, does nothing to change it. -He is conceitedly pleased with things as they are. It is the old head on -the young shoulders that thus gets in his way; Washington was right in -his philosophy. Young Aaron, however, is as content with that head, -as in those old Bethlehem days, when he patronized Dr. Bellamy, and -declared for the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield. - -None the less young Aaron is not wholly satisfied. As he idles about the -camp by the Sorel, he feels that any present chance of conquering the -fame and power he came seeking in this war is closed against him. - -"Plainly," counsels the old head on the young shoulders, "it is time to -bring about a change." - -Colonel Arnold is smitten of surprise one afternoon, when young Aaron -walks into his tent. He does his best to hide that surprise, as an -emotion at war with his high military station. Young Aaron, ever equal -to a rigid etiquette, salutes profoundly. - -"Colonel Arnold," says he, "I am here to return into your hands that -rank of captain, which I hold only by courtesy. Also, I desire to tell -you that I leave for Albany at once." - -"Albany!" - -"My canoe is waiting, sir. I start immediately." - -"I forbid your going, sir!" - -Colonel Arnold has recovered his breath, and makes this proclamation -grandly. Privately, he is a-quake; for he does not know what stories -young Aaron might tell in the south. - -"Sir," he repeats, "I forbid your departure! You must not go!" - -"Must not?" - -As though answering his own query, young Aaron leaves Colonel Arnold -without further remark, and walks down to the river, where a canoe -is waiting. The latter cranky contrivance is manned by a quartette of -Canadians, who sit, paddle in fist, ready for the word to start. - -[Illustration: 0081] - -At this decisive action, Colonel Arnold is roused. He springs to his -feet and follows to the waiting canoe. Young Aaron has just taken his -place. - -"Captain Burr," cries Colonel Arnold, "what does this mean? You heard my -orders, sir! You must not go!" - -Young Aaron is ashore like a flash. "Colonel Arnold," says he, "it -is quite possible that you have force enough at hand to detain me. Be -warned, however, that the exercise of such force will have a sequel -serious to yourself." - -"Oh, as to that," responds Colonel Arnold sullenly, "I shall not attempt -to detain you. I simply leave you to the responsibility of departing in -the teeth of my orders, sir." - -In a moment young Aaron is back in the canoe; the four paddles churn -the water into baby whirlpools, and the slight craft glides out upon the -bosom of the Sorel. - -Young Aaron encounters a party of Indians, and conquers their friendship -with diplomatic rum. He reaches Albany, and tastes the delights of fame; -for the story of Quebec has preceded him, and he finds himself a hero. -Thereupon, while outwardly unmoved, he swells in the proud but secret -recesses of his heart. - -In New York he meets his college friend Ogden, who tells him that he has -sold Warlock and spent the proceeds. Likewise, Colonel Troup explains -how he received a thousand pounds for him from his estate, but was moved -to borrow the half of it, having a call for such sum. Colonel Troup -gives five hundred pounds to young Aaron, who receives it carelessly, -the while assuring his debtor, as well as young Ogden, who spent the -price of Warlock, that they are cheerfully welcome to his gold. At -that, both young Ogden and Colonel Troup pluck up a generous spirit, and -borrow each another fifty pounds; which sums our "gentleman volunteer" -puts into their impoverished fingers, as readily as though pounds -mean groats and farthings. For he holds that to be niggard of money is -impossible to a soldier and a gentleman. Did not the knight-errant of -old romaunts go chucking gold-lined purses right and left, into every -empty outstretched hand? And shall not young Aaron be the modern -knight-errant if he chooses? These are the questions which he puts to -himself, as he ministers to the famished finances of his friends. - -General Washington learns of the incident of the dead Montgomery. Having -a conscience, he is distressed by the thought that he may have been -harshly unjust, one Cambridge day, to our "gentleman volunteer." The -conscience-smitten general has headquarters in New York, and now, when -young Aaron arrives, strives to make amends. He invites that youthful -campaigner to a place upon his personal staff, with the rank of major. -Young Aaron accepts, and becomes part of Washington's military family. -The general is living at Richmond Hill, a mansion which in after years -young Aaron will buy and make his residence. - -For six weeks young Aaron is with Washington. Sometimes he rides out -with him; sometimes he writes reports and orders at his dictation; -always he dislikes him. He finds nothing in the Virginian to invoke his -confidence or compel his esteem. In the finale he detests him. - -This latter mind condition is vastly built up by the lack of notice -he receives from the ever-taciturn, often-abstracted, overworried -Washington. The big general will sit for hours, with brows of thought -and pondering eye, as heedless of young Aaron--albeit in the same room -with him--as though our sucking Marlborough owns no existence. This -irritates the latter's pride; for he has military views which he longs -to unfold, but cannot because of the grim wordlessness of his chief. He -resolves to break the ice. - -Washington is sitting lost in thought. "Sir," exclaims young Aaron, -boldly rushing in upon the general's meditations, "the English grow -stronger. Every day their fleet is augmented by new ships, bringing -fresh troops. Eventually they will land and drive us from the city. When -that time comes, it will be my advice to burn New York to the ground, -and leave them naught save the charred ruins." - -Washington pays no attention; it is as though a starling spoke. -Presently he mounts his horse, and soberly rides off to an inspection of -troops. Young Aaron is mightily mortified, and, by way of reestablishing -his dignity on the pedestal from which it has been thrust, neglects a -line of clerical work that should claim his attention. Washington upon -his return discovers this, and having a temper like gunpowder flashes -into a rage. - -"What does this mean, sir?" he demands, angry to the eyes. - -"Why, sir," responds young Aaron coolly, "I should think it might mean -that I brought a sword not a pen to this war." - -"You are insolent, sir!" - -"As you please, sir. But since you say it, I must ask to be relieved -from further duty on your staff." - -The big general stalks from the room. The next day he transfers young -Aaron to the staff of Putnam. - -"I'm sorry he offended you, general," says the old wolf killer. "For -myself, I'm bound to say that I think well of the boy." - -"There is a word," returns Washington, "as to the meaning of which, -until I met him, I was ignorant; that is the word 'prig.' It is strange, -too; for he is as brave as Caesar. I have it on the words of twenty. Yes, -general, your 'gentleman-volunteer' is altogether a strangeling; for he -is one of those anomalies, a courageous prig." - - - - -CHAPTER VI--POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE - - -ON that day when the farmers of Concord turn their rifles upon King -George, there dwells in Elizabeth a certain English Major Moncrieffe. -With him is his daughter, just ceasing to be a girl and beginning to -be a woman. Peggy Moncrieffe is a beauty, and, to tell a whole truth, -confident thereof to the verge of brazen. When her father is ordered -to his regiment he leaves her behind. The war to him is no more than a -riot; he looks to be back in Elizabeth before the month expires. - -The optimistic Major Moncrieffe is wrong. That riot, which is not a riot -but a revolution, spreads and spreads like fire among dry grass. At last -a hostile line divides him from his daughter Peggy. This is serious; -for, aside from forbidding any word between them, it prevents him -sending what money she requires for her care. In her distress she writes -General Putnam, her father's comrade in the last war with the French. -The old wolf killer invites the desolate Peggy to make one of his -own household. When young Aaron leaves the staff of Washington, Peggy -Moncrieffe is with the Putnams, whose house stands at the corner of -Broadway and the Battery. - -The family of the old wolf killer is made up of Madam Putnam and two -daughters. Peggy Moncrieffe is received as a third daughter by the -kindly Madam Putnam. Also, like a third daughter, she is set to the -spinning wheel; for, while the old wolf killer fights the English, Madam -Putnam and her daughters work early and late, with spinning wheel and -loom, clothmaking for the continental troops. Peggy Moncrieffe offers -no demur; but goes at the spinning and weaving as though she is as much -puritan and patriot as are those about her. She is busy at the spinning -when young Aaron is presented. And in that presentation lurks a peril; -for she is eighteen and he is twenty. - -Young Aaron, selfish, gallant, pleased with a pretty face as with a -poem, becomes flatteringly attentive to pretty Peggy Moncrieffe. She, -for her side, turns restless when he leaves her, to glow like the sun -when he returns. She forgets the spinning wheel for his conversation. -The two walk under the trees in the Battery, or, from the quiet steps of -St. Paul's, watch the evening sun go down beyond the Jersey hills. - -Madam Putnam is prudent, and does not like these symptoms. She issues -a whispered mandate to the old wolf killer, with whom her word is law. -Thereupon he sends the pretty Peggy to safer quarters near Kingsbridge. - -That is to say, the Kingsbridge refuge, to which pretty Peggy -reluctantly retires, is safe until she arrives. It presently becomes -a theater of danger, since young Aaron is not a day in discovering a -complete military reason for visiting it. The old wolf killer is not -like Washington; there are no foolish orders or tedious dispatches for -his aide to write. This gives leisure to young Aaron, which he improves -in daily gallops to Kingsbridge. It is to be feared that he and pretty -Peggy Moncrieffe find walks as shady, and prospects as pleasant, and -moments as sweet, as when they had the Battery for a promenade and took -in the Jersey hills from the twilight steps of St. Paul's. Also, the -pretty Peggy no longer pleads to join her father; albeit that parent has -just been sent with his regiment to Staten Island, not an hour's sail -away. - -This contentment of the pretty Peggy with things as they are, re-alarms -the prudence of Madam Putnam, who regards it as a sign most sinister. -Having a genius to be military, quite equal to that of her old -wolf-killing husband, she attacks this dangerously tender situation in -flank. She gives her commands to the old wolf killer, and at once he -blindly obeys. He dispatches young Aaron on a mission to Long Island. -The latter is to look up positions of defense, so as to be prepared for -the English, should they carry their arms in that direction. - -In two days young Aaron returns, and makes an exhaustive report; whereat -the old wolf killer breaks into words of praise. This duty discharged, -young Aaron is into the saddle and off, clatteringly, for Kingsbridge. -The old wolf killer sees him depart and says nothing, while a cunning -twinkle dances in the old gray eye. Then the twinkle subsides, and is -succeeded by a self-reproachful doubt. - -"He might have married her," he observes tentatively to Madam Putnam. - -"Never!" returns that clear matron. "Your young Major Burr is too coolly -the selfish calculating egotist. He would win her and wear her as he -might some bauble ornament, and cast her aside when the glitter was -gone. As for marrying her, he'd as soon think of marrying the rings on -his fingers, or the buckles on his shoes." - -Young Aaron comes clattering back from Kingsbridge. His black eyes -sparkle wickedly; his face, usually so imperturbable, is the seat of an -obvious anger. Moreover, he seems chokingly full of a question, which -even his ingenious self-confidence is at a loss how to ask. He gets the -old wolf killer alone. - -"Miss Moncrieffe!" he breaks forth. Then he proceeds blunderingly: "I -had occasion to go to Kingsbridge, and was surprised to find her gone." -The last concludes with a rising inflection. - -"Why, yes!" retorts the old wolf killer, summoning the innocence of a -sheep. "I forgot to tell you that, seeing an opportunity, I yesterday -sent little Peg to Staten Island under a flag of truce. She is with her -father. Between us"--here he sinks his voice mysteriously--"I was afraid -the enemy might find some way to use little Peg as a spy." Young Aaron -clicks his teeth savagely, but says nothing; the old wolf killer watches -him with the tail of his eye. - -The "gentleman volunteer" strides down to the sea wall, and takes a long -and mayhap loving look at Staten Island, with the wind-ruffled expanse -of bay between. - -And there the romance ends. - -Two days later young Aaron is sipping his wine in black Sam Fraunces' -long room, the picture of that elegant indifference which he cultivates -as a virtue. Already the fancy for poor Peggy Moncrieffe has faded -from the agate surface of his nature, as the breath mists fade from the -mirror's face, and he thinks only on how and when he shall lay down his -title of major for that of lieutenant colonel. - -The woman's heart is the heart loyal. While he sips wine at Fraunces', -and weighs the chances of promotion, Peggy the forgotten finds in Staten -Island another Naxos, and like another Ariadne goes weeping for that -Theseus who has already lost her from out his thoughts. - -It is unfortunate that, as aide to the old wolf killer, young Aaron is -not provided with more work for hand and head. As it is, his unfilled -hours afford him opportunity to think and talk unprofitably. He falls to -criticising Washington to the old wolf killer; which is about as sapient -as though he fell to criticising Madam Putnam to the old wolf killer. - -"Of what avail," cries young Aaron one afternoon, as he and his grizzled -chief stroll in the Bowling Green--"of what avail for General Washington -to hold the city, when he must give it up at last? New English ships -show in the bay with the coming up of every sun. He would be wiser if -he withdrew into the interior, and so forced the foe to follow him. This -would lose them the backing of their fleet, from which they gain not -only supplies, but what is of more consequence a kind of moral support." - -The old wolf killer looks at his opinionated aide for a moment. Then -without replying directly, he observes: - -"Just as the Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity, so the -military virtues are courage, endurance, and silence. And the greatest -of these is silence. You ought always to remember that a soldier's sword -should be immeasurably longer than his tongue." - -Young Aaron reddens at what he feels is a rebuke. The following day, -when he is directed to join General McDougal on Long Island, he is glad -to go. - -"He has had too little to do," explains the old wolf killer to Madam -Putnam. "Like all workless folk he is beginning to talk; and his is the -sort of conversation that breeds enemies and brews trouble." - -Young Aaron is in the fight on Long Island. Upon the retreating back of -that lost battle, he supervises the crossing of the troops to Manhattan. -All night, cool and quick and vigilant, he labors on the Brooklyn side -to put the men aboard the transports. When the last is across the East -River, he himself embarks, bringing with him his horse, hog-tied, in the -bottom of the barge. It is early dawn when he leads the released animal -ashore on the Manhattan side. Mounting it, with two fellow officers, -he rides northward at a leisurely gait, a half mile to the rear of the -retreating army. - -As young Aaron and his companions push north toward Kingsbridge, they -come across the baggage and stores of a battery of artillery. The -baggage and stores have been but the moment before abandoned. - -"It looks," observes young Aaron, who is as unruffled as upon the day -when he laid down theology for law, to the horrified distress of Dr. -Bellamy--"it looks as though the captain of that battery, whoever he is, -has permitted these English in our rear to get unnecessarily upon his -nerves. There is no such close occasion as to justify the abandonment of -these stores. At least he should have destroyed them." - -Twenty rods beyond, he finds one of the battery's guns. He points to the -lost piece scornfully. - -"There," says he, "is the pure proof of some one's cowardice!" - -Spurring on, and led by the rumbling sounds of field guns in full -retreat, he overtakes the timid ones who have thrown away baggage and -gun. The captain who commands is a youth no older than young Aaron. As -the latter comes up, the boy captain is urging his cannoneers to double -speed. - -"Let me congratulate you, captain," observes young Aaron, extravagantly -polite the better to set off the sneer that marks his manner, "on not -having thrown away your colors. May I ask your name?" - -"I, sir," returns the artillery youth, as much moved of resentment at -young Aaron's sneer, as is possible for one in his perturbed frame, "I, -sir, am Captain Alexander Hamilton." - -"And I, sir, am Major Burr. Let me compliment you, Captain Hamilton, -for the ardor you display in carrying your battery forward. One might -suppose from your headlong zeal that the English forces lie in that -direction. I must needs say, however, that the zeal which casts away its -stores and baggage, and leaves a gun behind, is ill considered." - -Captain Hamilton's face clouds angrily; but, since he is thinking more -on the English than on insults that perilous morning, he does not reply -to the taunt. Young Aaron, feeling the better for his expressions of -contempt, wheels off to the left toward the Hudson, leaving the other to -bring on his battery with what breathless speed he may. - -"Now, had that Captain Hamilton been in the light on Long Island," -remarks young Aaron to his companions, "the hurry he shows might have -found partial excuse. As it is, I hold his flight too feverish, when -one remembers that it is from an enemy which as yet he has personally -neither faced nor seen." - -Young Aaron puts in divers idle months at Kingsbridge. His conduct on -Long Island, and during the retreat of the army toward the north, has -multiplied his fame for an indomitable hardihood. Indeed he is inclined -to compliment himself; though he hides the fact defensively in his own -breast. - -This good opinion of his services teaches him to entertain ambitions of -the vaulting, not to say o'er-leaping sort. As he now, by the light of -recent achievement, measures his merits nothing short of a colonelcy -and the leadership of a regiment will do him justice. Conceive then, how -deeply he feels slighted when Washington fails to share these liberal -views, and promotes him to nothing higher than that lieutenant colonelcy -which his hopes have so much outgrown. He accepts; but he feels the -title fit him with an awkward nearness, as might a coat that some -blundering tailor has cut too small. The letter of acceptance which he -indites to Washington includes such paragraphs as this: - -_I am constrained to observe that the late date of my appointment as -lieutenant colonel, subjects me to the command of officers who, in the -late campaign, were my juniors. With due submission, sir, I should like -to know whether it was misconduct on my part or extraordinary merit on -theirs, which has thus given them the preference. I desire, on my part, -to avoid equally the character of turbulent or passive, but as a decent -regard to rank is proper and necessary I hope the concern I feel in this -matter will be found excusable in one who regards his honor next to the -welfare of his country._ - -The old wolf killer is with Washington when that harassed commander -reads young Aaron's effusion. With an exclamation of wrath the big -general tosses it across. - -"By all that is ineffable!" he cries, "read that. Now here is a boy gone -stark staring mad for vanity! A stripling of twenty-one, with face as -hairless as an egg, and yet the second rank in a regiment is no match -for his majestic deserts! Putnam," he continues, as the old wolf killer -runs his eye over the letter, "that young friend of yours will be the -death of me yet! As I told you, sir, he is a courageous prig--yes, sir, -a mere courageous prig!" - -"What reply will you make? It should be a sharp one." - -"It shall be none at all. I'll make no reply to such bombastic -fault-finding. One might as well pelt a pig with pearls, as waste common -sense on such self-conceit as we have here. Do me the honor, Putnam, to -write this boy-conqueror a note, saying it is my orders that he join his -regiment at once." - -Young Aaron finds the regiment to which he has been assigned on the -Ramapo, a day's ride back from the Hudson. His superior in command, -Colonel Malcolm, is a shop-keeping, amiable gentleman, as short of -breath as of courage, who would as soon think of thrusting his hand -into the embers as his fat body into battle. Preeminently is he of that -peculiar war-feather that, for every reason in favor of going forward, -can give a dozen for falling back. Perceiving with delight young -Aaron to be possessed of a taste for carnage as well as command, the -peace-loving Colonel Malcolm promptly surrenders the regiment into his -hands. - -"You shall drill it and fight it," says he, "while I will be its -father." - -With this, the fat Colonel Malcolm retires twenty miles farther into the -interior; where he joins Madam Malcolm, as fat as himself, who unites -with five fat children, their offspring, to fatly welcome him. - -Young Aaron, now when he finds himself in sole control, parades the -regiment, and does not like its appearance. He makes it a speech, and -is exceeding frank. He explains that it is more fitted to shine at -barbecues and barn-raisings than in war. Then he grasps it with a daily -hand of steel, and begins to crush it into disciplined shape. From break -of morning until the sun goes down, he puts it through its paces. As one -of the onlookers remarks: - -"He drills 'em till their tongues hang out." - -The fruits of this iron rule, so much a change from that picnic -character of control but lately exercised by the amiable Colonel -Malcolm, are twofold. Young Aaron is hated and respected by every soul -on the rolls. Caring nothing for the one and everything for the other, -he continues to drill the boots off their feet. Finally, the regiment -ceases to look like a mob, and dons a military expression. At which -young Aaron is privily exalted. - -There still remain, however, a round score of thorns in his militant -flesh, being as many captains and lieutenants, who are better qualified -for the drawing-room than the field. He must rid himself of this element -of popinjay. - -Since young Aaron is clothed of no power of dismissal over the offensive -popinjays, the situation bristles with difficulties. For all that they -must go. After one night's thought, he gets up from his cogitations -inclined to exclaim, like another Archimedes: "I have found it!" - -Young Aaron's device is simplicity itself. Having no power of dismissal, -he will usurp it. Also, he will assert it in such fashion that not a -popinjay of them all will be able to make his dismissal the basis of -military inquiry, and keep his credit clean. - -Young Aaron writes, word for word, the same letter to each of the -undesirable popinjay ones. He words it, skillfully, in this wise: - -_Sir: You are unfitted for the duties you have assumed. For the good -of the service therefore, I demand the immediate resignation or your -commission. To be frank, sir, I think you lack the courage to lead your -men in the presence of a foe. Should I be wrong in this assumption, you -of course will demonstrate that fact by methods which readily suggest -themselves to every gentleman of spirit. Let me therefore urge that you -either forward your resignation as herein demanded by me, or dispatch -in its stead a request for that satisfaction which I, as a man of honor, -shall not for one moment deny. I beg leave to remain, sir,_ - -_Your very humble servant,_ - -_Aaron Burr, Acting Colonel._ - -"There!" thinks he, when the last letter is signed, sealed, and sent -upon its way to the popinjay hand for which it is designed, "that -should do nicely. I've ever held that the way to successfully deal with -humanity is to take humanity by the horns. That I've done. Likewise, -I flatter myself I've constructed my net so fine that none of them can -wriggle through. And as for breaking through by the dueling method I -hint at, I shall have guessed vastly to one side, if the best among them -own either the force or courage to so much as make the attempt." - -Young Aaron is justified of his perspicacity. The resignations of the -popinjays come pouring in, each seeming to take the initiative, and -basing his "voluntary" abandonment of a military career on grounds -wholly invented and highly honorable to himself. No reference, even of -the blindest, is made to that brilliant usurpation of authority. Neither -is young Aaron's letter alluded to in any conversation. - -There is one exception; a popinjay personage named Rawls, retorts in -a hectic epistle which, while conveying his resignation, avows a -determination to welter in young Aaron's blood as a slight solace for -the outrage done his feelings. To this, young Aaron replies that he -shall, on the very next day, do himself the honor of a call upon the -ill-used and flaming Rawls, whose paternal roof is not an hour's gallop -from the Ramapo. Accordingly, young Aaron repairs to the Rawls's mansion -at eleven of next day's clock. He has with him two officers, who are -dark as to the true purpose of the excursion. - -Young Aaron and the accompanying duo are asked to dinner by the Rawls's -household. The popinjay fiery Rawls is present, but embarrassed. After -dinner, when young Aaron asks popinjay Rawls to ride with his party a -mile or two on the return journey, the fiery, ill-used one grows more -embarrassed. - -He does not, however, ride forth on that suggested mission of honor; his -alarmed sisters, of whom there are an angelic three, rush to his rescue -in a flood of terrified exclamation. - -"O Colonel Burr!" they chorus, "what are you about to do with Neddy?" - -"My dear young ladies," protests young Aaron suavely, "believe me, I'm -about to do nothing with Neddy. I intend only to ask him what he desires -or designs to do with me. I am here to place myself at Neddy's disposal, -in a matter which he well understands." - -The interfering angelic sisterly ones declare that popinjay Neddy meant -nothing by his letter, and will never write another. Whereupon young -Aaron observes he will be content with the understanding that popinjay -Neddy send him no more letters, unless they have been first submitted to -the sisterly censorship of the angelic three. To this everyone concerned -most rapturously consents; following which young Aaron goes back to his -camp by the Ramapo, while the sisterly angelic ones festoon themselves -about the neck of popinjay Neddy, over whom they weepingly rejoice as -over one returned from out the blackness of the shadow of death. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA - - -WHILE young Aaron, in his camp by the Ramapo, is wringing the withers -of his men with merciless drills, sixteen miles away, in the outskirts -of the village of Paranius dwells Madam Theodosia Prevost. Madam Prevost -is the widow of an English Colonel Prevost, who was swept up by yellow -fever in Jamaica. With her are her mother, her sister, her two little -boys. The family name is De Visme, which is a Swiss name from the French -cantons. - -The hungry English in New York are running short of food. Two thousand -of them cross the Hudson, and commence combing the country for beef. -Word of that cow-driving reaches young Aaron by the Ramapo. Hackensack -is given as the theater of those beef triumphs of the hungry English. - -From rustical ones bewailing vanished kine, young Aaron receives the -tale first hand. Instantly he springs to the defense of the continental -cow. He orders out his regiment, and marches away for that stricken -Hackensack region of ravished flocks and herds. - -At Paramus, excited by stories of a cow-conquering English, the militia -of the neighborhood are fallen to a frenzied building of breastworks. -Certain of these home guards look up from their breastwork building long -enough to decide that Madam Prevost, as the widow of a former English -colonel, is a Tory. - -Arriving at this conclusion, the home guards make the next natural step, -and argue--because of their nearness to Madam Prevost--that the mother -and sister and little boys are Tories. The quietly elegant home of Madam -Prevost is declared a nest of Tories, against which judgment a belief -that the mansion is worth looting is not allowed to militate. - -As young Aaron, on his rescuing way to Hackensack, marches into Paramus, -the judgmatical home guards, in the name of a patriotism which believes -in spoiling the Egyptian, are about to begin their work of sack and -pillage. Young Aaron, who does not think that robbery assists the cause -of freedom, calls a halt. He drives off the home guards at the point of -his sword, and places sentinels upon the premises. Also he promises to -hang the first home guard who, in the name of liberty, or for any more -private reason, touches a shilling's worth of Madam Prevost's chattels. - -Having established his protectorate in favor of the threatened Prevost -household, young Aaron enters, hat in hand, with the pardonable purpose -of discovering what manner of folk he has pledged himself to keep -safe. It may be that he is beset by visions of distressed fair -ones--disheveled, tearful, beautiful! If so, his dreams receive a shock. -'Instead of that flushed, frightened, clinging, tear-stained loveliness, -so common of romance, he is met by a severely angular lady who, plain of -face, with high, harsh cheek bones, and a scar on her forehead, is two -inches taller and twelve years older than himself. - -Madam Prevost owns all these; and yet, beyond and above them, she -also possesses an ineffable, impalpable something, which is like -an atmosphere, a perfume, a melody of manner, and marks her as that -greatest of graceful rarities, a well-bred, cultured woman of the -world. Polished, fine, Madam Prevost is familiar with the society of -two continents. She knows literature, music, art; she is wise, erudite, -nobly high. These attributes invest her with a soft brilliancy, into -which those uglinesses and bony angularities retreat as into a kind of -moonlight, to recur in gentle reassertion as the poetic sublimation of -all that charms. - -Thus does she break upon young Aaron--young Aaron, who has said that he -would no more love a woman for her beauty than a man for his money, and -is to be won only by her who, mentally and sentimentally, meets him half -way. This last Madam Prevost does; and, from the moment he meets her -to the hour of her death, she draws him and holds him like a magnet. It -illustrates the inexplicable in love, that this cool, cynical one, whose -very youth is an iron element of hardest strength, should be fascinated -and fettered by a worn, middle-aged woman with eyes of faded gray. - -Young Aaron, on this first encounter with his goddess, remains no longer -than is required to receive the arrow in his heart. He presses on with -his followers for the Hackensack. A mile from Paramus he halts his -soldiery, and, leaving the great body of them, goes forward in person -with a scouting party of seventeen. In the middle watches of the night, -he discovers a picket post of the cow-collecting English. Only one -is awake; he is shot dead by young Aaron. The others, twenty-eight in -number, are seized in their sleep. - -In the wake of this exploit, young Aaron brings up his whole command. -The cow-hunting redcoats, from the confidence of his advance, infer in -his favor an overwhelming strength. Panic claims them; they make for the -Hudson, leaving those collected cows behind. There is rejoicing among -the Hackensack folk at this happy return of their property, and young -Aaron goes back to the Ramapo rich in encomium and praise. - -The camp by the Ramapo is given up, and young Aaron, love-drawn, brings -his force within a mile of Paramus. Daily he seeks the society of Madam -Prevost, as sick folk seek the sun. She speaks French, Spanish, German; -she reads Voltaire, and is capable of admiring without approving -the cynic of Fernay. More; she is familiar with Petrarch, Le Sage, -Corneille, Rousseau, Chesterfield, Cervantes. Madam Prevost and young -Aaron find much to talk of and agree about, in the way of romance and -poetry and philosophy, and are never dull for lack of topics. And, as -they converse, he worships her with his eyes, from which every least -black trace of that ophidian sparkle has been extinguished. - -The first snowflakes are falling when young Aaron receives orders to -join Washington's army at Valley Forge. Arriving, his hatred of the big -general is rearoused. He suggests an expedition against the English -on Staten Island, and offers to undertake it with three hundred men. -Washington thinks well of the suggestion, but dispatches Lord Stirling -to carry it out. Young Aaron, hot with disappointment, adds this to the -list of injuries which he believes he has received from the Virginian. - -Food is stinted, fire scarce at Valley Forge; there is a deal of cold -and starving. Folk hungry and frozen are in no humor for work, and look -on labor as an evil. Young Aaron takes no account of this, but has out -his tattered, chilled, thin-flanked followers to those daily drills. - -In the end a spirit of mutiny creeps in among the men. It finds concrete -shape one frosty morning when private John Cook levels his musket at -young Aaron's heart. Private Cook means murder, and is only kept from it -by the promptitude of young Aaron. With that very motion of the mutineer -which aims the gun, young Aaron's sword comes rasping from its scabbard, -and a backhanded stroke all but severs the would-be homicide's right -arm. The wounded man falls bleeding to the ground. With that, young -Aaron details a pale-faced, silent quartette to carry the wounded one to -the hospital, and, drawing his blade through a handkerchief to wipe away -the blood, proceeds with the hated drill. - -[Illustration: 0111] - -While young Aaron serves at Valley Forge, a conspiracy, whereof General -Conway is the animating heart and General Gates the figurehead, is -hatched. The purpose is to remove Washington, and set the conqueror of -Burgoyne in his place. Young Aaron joins the conspiracy, and is looked -upon by his fellow plotters as ardent, but unimportant because of his -youth. - -The design falls to the ground; Washington retains his command, while -Gates goes south to lose his Burgoyne laurels and get drubbed by -Cornwallis. As for young Aaron, he swallows as best he may his -disappointment over the poor upcome of that plot, and takes part in the -battle of Monmouth. Here he has his horse shot under him, and lays -up fresh hatreds against Washington for refusing to let him charge an -English battery. - -Sore, heart-cankered of chagrin, young Aaron asks for leave of absence. -He declares that he is ill, and his hollow cheek and bilious eye sustain -him. He says that, until his health mends, he will take no pay. - -"You shall have leave of absence," says Washington, to whom young Aaron -prefers his request in person, "but you must draw pay." - -"And why draw pay, sir!" demands young Aaron warmly, for he somehow -smells an insult. "I shall render no service. I think the proprieties -much preserved by a stoppage of my pay." - -"If you were the only, one, sir," returns Washington, "I might say as -you do. But there be others on sick leave, who are not men of fortune -like yourself. Those gentlemen must draw their pay, or see their -people suffer. Should you be granted leave without pay, they might feel -criticised. You note the point, sir." - -"Why," replies young Aaron, with a tinge of sarcasm, "the point, I take -it, is that you would not have me shine at the expense of folk of lesser -fortune or more avarice than myself. Because others are not generous to -their country, I must be refused the poor privilege of contributing even -my absence to her cause." - -At young Aaron's palpable sneer, the big general's face darkens with -anger. "You exhibit an insolence, sir," he says at last, "which I -succeed in overlooking only by remembering that I am twice your age. -I understand, of course, that you intend a covert thrust at myself, -because I draw my three guineas per day as commander in chief. Rather -to enlighten you than defend my own conduct, I may tell you, sir, that I -draw those three guineas upon the precise grounds I state as reasons -why you, during your leave, must accept pay. There are men as brave, -as true, as patriotic as either of us, who cannot--as we might--fight -months on end, without some provision for their families. What, -sir"--here the big general begins to kindle--"is it not enough that men -risk their blood for these colonies? Must wives and children starve? The -cause is not so poor, I tell you, but what it can pay its own cost. You -and I, sir, will draw our pay, to keep in self-respecting countenance -folk as good as ourselves in everything save fortune." - -Young Aaron shrugs his shoulders. "If it were not, sir," he begins, -"for that difference in our ages which you so opportunely quote, to say -nothing of my inferior military rank, I might ask if your determination -to make me accept pay, whether I earn it or no, be not due to a latent -dislike for myself personally. I can think of much that justifies the -question." - -"Colonel Burr," observes the big general, with a dignity which is not -without rebuking effect upon young Aaron, "because you are young and -will one day be older, I am inclined to justify myself in your eyes. I -make it a rule to seldom take advice and never give it. And yet there -is room for a partial exception in your instance. There is a word, two, -perhaps, which I think you need." - -"Believe me, sir, I am honored!" - -"My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a -better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more -fame hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, -and give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance -yourself." - -The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra -six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is -nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with -some self-willed pupil. - -Of all the big general's irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this -pose of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself -in hand, however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the -bottom of his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which -can come only through the other's word. - -"Sir," observes young Aaron, "will you be so good as to make yourself -clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest -meaning." - -"It should be confessed," returns the big general, somewhat to one side, -"that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is -that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were -not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for -whom you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall." - -Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news -that Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools -his features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement -nor dismay. The big general goes on: - -"No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with -your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons, -but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, -sir, to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control -my attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity -in what I say." - -"Why, sir," interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness -and self-possession equal with the big general's; "you give yourself -unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I -shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract -from your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I -shall accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected -by its honorable source." - -The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron's manner would have got him -drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites -his lip. - -"What I would tell you," he resumes, "is this. You possess the raw -material of greatness--but with one element lacking. You may rise to -what heights you choose, if you will but cure yourself of one defect. -Observe, sir! Men are judged, not for deeds but motives. A man injures -you; you excuse him because no injury was meant. A man seeks to injure -you, but fails; and yet you resent it, in spite of that defensive -failure, because of the intent. So it is with humanity at large. It -looks at the motive rather than the act. Sir, I have watched you. You -have no motive but yourself. Patriotism plays no part when you come -to this war; it is not the country, but Aaron Burr, you carry on your -thoughts. Whatever you may believe, you cannot win fame or good repute -on terms, so narrow. A man is so much like a gun that, to carry far, he -must have some elevation of aim. You were born fortunate in your parts, -save for that defective element of aim. There, sir, you fail, and will -continue to fail, unless you work your own redemption. It is as though -you had been born on a dead level--aimed point-blank at birth. You -should have been born at an angle of forty-five degrees. With half the -powder, sir, you would carry twice as far. Wherefore, elevate yourself; -give your life a noble purpose! Make yourself the incident, mankind -the object. Merge egotism in patriotism; forget self in favor of your -country and its flag." - -The gray eyes of the big general rest upon young Aaron with concern. -Then he abruptly retreats into the soldier, as though ashamed of his own -earnestness. Without giving time for reply to that dissertation on the -proper aim of man, he again takes up the original business of the leave. - -[Illustration: 0119] - -"Colonel Burr," says he, "you shall have leave of absence. But your -waiver of pay is declined." - -"Then, sir," retorts young Aaron, "you must permit me to withdraw my -application. I shall not take the country's money, without rendering -service for it." - -"That is as you please, sir." - -"One thing stands plain," mutters young Aaron, as he walks away; "the -sooner I quit the army the better. For me it is 'no thoroughfare,' and -I may as well save my time. He knows of my part in that Conway-Gates -movement, too; and, for all his platitudes about justice and high aims, -he's no one to forget it." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--MARRIAGE AND THE LAW - - -YOUNG Aaron, with his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is -dispatched to hold the Westchester lines, being that debatable -ground lying between the Americans at White Plains and the English at -Kingsbridge. It is still his half-formed purpose to resign his sword, -and turn the back of his ambition on every hope of military glory. He -says as much to General Putnam, whose real liking for him he feels and -trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues in favor of patience. - -"Washington is but trying you," he declares. "It will all come right, -if you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing, -let me tell you! Suck comfort from that!" - -Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go -as far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own -military prospects. - -"General," he says, "believe me when I tell you that I accept what you -say as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel -to his general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning -Washington; they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as -either a soldier or a man." - -"And there you are wrong!" breaks in the old wolf killer; "twice wrong." - -"Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I -have." - -"You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that -you yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such -conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French -War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to -base opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier -anywhere than Washington." - -"But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing." - -"Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling -back and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final -success. Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?" - -"Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?" - -The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly, -he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does -Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not -fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the -ghost of a smile. - -"Where, then, should this war be won?" asks young Aaron. - -"Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I'm not wearing -a sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all -that, I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will -be won in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and -Burke and Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them -the occasion and the argument, and that can be accomplished only by -retreating." - -Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. "Now I -should call," says he, "these retreats, by which you and Washington seem -to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to -our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by -retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English -Whigs an argument which shall induce King George to recognize our -independence?" - -"If you were ten years older," remarks the old wolf killer, "you would -not put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you, -and shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You -think a war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and -guns. It isn't; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English -are shedding their guineas much faster than they shed their blood. -Presently the taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel -it now. Let the drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will -break down; they will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our -independence." - -"Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of -it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the -English taxpayer breaks down." - -"You've nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor -the powder, nor--and this last in particular--the bayonets to wage -aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They -would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force -of numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would -win. Our plan--the Washington plan--is, with as little loss as possible -in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe. There is -but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back, to the -close of the chapter." - -"At least," says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, "you will admit -that the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of -attractive gallantry." - -"Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that -Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither -from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered -strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat -than to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he -talks not of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or -nothing of that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws -away practical advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem -slightly of Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The -most I may say to comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows -himself. And"--here the old wolf killer's voice begins to tremble a -little--"I'll go further: I've seen many men; but none of a courage, a -patriotism, a fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his -exalted ideals or noble genius for justice." - -Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and -would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause -he observes: - -"Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and -Washington shall be all you say. None the less--and here I believe you -will bear me out--he has of me no good opinion. He will not advance me; -he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all, the question -I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought, and now tell -you I still think, that I might better take off my sword, forget war, -and see what is to be won in the law." - -"And you ask my advice?" - -"Your honest advice." - -"Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his -opinion of you is unjust, and he'll be soonest to admit it. To convince -him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty." - -"Very good," observes Aaron, resignedly, "I shall, for the present -at least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice, -general, you have given me something else in this conversation which I -value more; that is, your expressed and friendly confidence." - -Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws -himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his role as warden of the -Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under -Tryon move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town -in hot and fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are -themselves surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten -Duyvel; young Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives. -Likewise, under cloud of night--night, ever the ally of lovers--he -oft plays Leander to Madam Prevost's Hero; only the Hudson is his -Hellespont, and he does not swim but crosses in a barge. These -love pilgrimages mean forty miles and as many perils. However, the -heart-blinded young Aaron is not counting miles or perils, as he -pictures his gray goddess of Paramus sighing for his coming. - -One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies. -The good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of -paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more -since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He -consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his -resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with -him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as -years wear on. - -Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes; -so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With -war and battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them, -scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion -of the faded Madam Prevost and her boy lover. The discussion, however, -is carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the -shoulder or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prevost and young Aaron -neither hear nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer, -dearer things. - -It is deep evening at the Prevost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate; -the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse -through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron's memory is for a -moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other -than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he -was dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows -Madam Prevost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands. - -"Oh, I've lied and played the hypocrite all day!" - -Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her -husband, and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one -abandoned, to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which -she was privy, and the commission whereof she urged. - -"This gentleman!" cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story--she -has become aware of young Aaron--"this gentleman! May I trust him?" - -[Illustration: 0133] - -"As you would myself," returns Madam Prevost. - -And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does -not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her -uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the -subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prevost. - -Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam -Prevost is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is -about to return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with -Tappan Reeve. She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity, -were he able to write himself "lawyer" before he became a married man. - -Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to -wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years -and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of -New Jersey--not too far from Paramus--and enters himself as a student -under that philosopher of jurisprudence. - -Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and -looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that -one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste -at any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and -sharply come to a profound knowledge of the law. - -Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young -Aaron remonstrates with his preceptor. - -"This will never do," he cries. "Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the -bar!" He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of -the law within a year. "Twelve months as a student should be enough," he -says. - -"Sir," observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, "to talk of -taking charge of a client's interests after studying but a year is to -talk of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance, -sir. It would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind." - -"Possibly now," urges young Aaron the cynical, "the opposing counsel -might be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either." - -"Such talk is profanation!" exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult -of the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron's ribaldry. "Let me -be plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice, -unless I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem -you many months' journey from it." - -Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron -bids that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There -he makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English -have driven from New York. While he waits for the day when--English -vanished--he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round sum -in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself -wholly to that impatient gentleman's education. - -Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold. -Morning, noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron -go hammering at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student -makes astonishing advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks -when Jack proves as good as his master. Still, the sentiment which -animates young Aaron's efforts is never high. He studies law as some -folk study fencing, his one absorbing thought being to learn how to -defeat an adversary and save himself. His great concern is to make -himself past master of every thrust, parry, and sleighty trick of fence, -whether in attack or guard, with the one object of victory for himself -and the enemy's destruction. Justice, and to assist thereat, is the -thing distant from his thoughts. - -At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold -his own with any adversary. - -"Mark my words, sir," he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a -fellow gray member of the guild--"mark my words, sir, he will prove one -of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There is, -of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck -which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be -retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong, -should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed -of this sinister peculiarity. If he's right, you won't defeat him; if -he's wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he'll defeat you." - -Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff, -after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a -smartish quip. - -Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits -Albany and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three -years; but the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and -more, basing his generosity on the applicant's services as a soldier. - -"And so," says young Aaron, "I at least get something from my soldier -life. It wasn't all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of -grinding study at the books." - -Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York -City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat -exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam -Prevost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife, -after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed. - -The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany. -There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia, -and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her -father. Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers, -and walks the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is -well-nigh dead in his heart. - -About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron -gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating -metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to -where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall. - -He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two -little Prevost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of -fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the -Bowling Green, to a gathering cloud of clients. - -The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit. - -"With your few months of study," observes the reverend doctor dryly, -"I wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going -about its practice." - -"Law is not so difficult," responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the -good doctor. "Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology. -That is to say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly -maintained." - -The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron's boldness of -assertion. - -"And yet," continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm, -"the last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and -declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the -midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for -law?" - -"Washington drove me from the army," responds young Aaron, with -convincing gravity. "As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and -turned lawyer only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity." - - - - -CHAPTER IX--SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON - - -NOW when young Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds -himself a lawyer and a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green -and a house in fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool -survey of his surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set -forth by the good Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem -and Madam Bellamy. The latter, like all true women, is curious, and -gives the doctor no peace until he relates his experiences. - -"The city," observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and -muffins, "is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I -walked to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much -opulence there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town -houses, but cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a -fine, noble street!--very wide!--fairer than any in Boston!" - -"Doctor!" expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts. - -"Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty -thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight -hundred tons--an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the -better part painted--even the brick houses." - -"What! Paint a brick house!" - -"It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One -sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler's; it -was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present; -Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A -more elegant repast I never ate--all set as it was with a profusion of -massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot-----" - -"Solid silver?" - -"Ay! The king's hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen, -too--white as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of -peaches and a musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast." - -"Why, it is a tale of profligacy!" - -"Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and -furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no -modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater -of din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can -answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but -one real gentleman------" - -"Aaron!" - -"Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since, -for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no -better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished -contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background -he shines out like the sun at noon!" - -Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to -the descriptive "young." He has ever scorned it, as though it were some -epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it. - -"I am not so young," says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning -of his years--"I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade, -sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You -will oblige me by remembering the title." - -In view of the gentleman's tartness, it will be as well perhaps to -hereafter drop the "young"; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, -our tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, "colonel" is but a -word of pewter when no war is on. "Aaron" should do better; and escape -challenge, too, that irritating "young" being dropped. - -As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town's affairs, he notes -that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion, -the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the -Livingstons--numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor -Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that -ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which -tribe towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. -Aaron, in the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General -Schuyler. He hears more of that austere person's son-in-law, the -brilliant Alexander Hamilton. - -"I shall be glad to make his acquaintance," thinks Aaron, when he is -told of the latter. "I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in -his pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns -behind. Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come -to eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side." - -There is a sneer on Aaron's face as these thoughts run in his mind; -those praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove. - -Aaron's opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman's -acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped -of their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference -of the town's notables has been called; the local great ones are to come -together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, -they will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory -relief. - -Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge. -The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy -Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten -Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his -wine unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when -son-in-law Hamilton arrives. - -"That is he," says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the -gentleman. - -Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black -narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is -a short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron -himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely -powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, -a forest of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and -conventional buckled shoes. - -It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses -his most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of -suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to -look one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face -generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer -and a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest -methods, and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is -lurking and secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and -backbiter, who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in -the dark. - -Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes -straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he -at once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking -in a loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own -position as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is -discussed. The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses -the dander of Aaron. Nor is the latter's wrath the less, when he -discovers that General Schuyler's self-satisfied young relative thinks -the suppliant Tories should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt -with. - -As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably -concerning that young gentleman's bumptiousness and pert forwardness, -the company is rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, -arrogant, supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked -to preside. Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, -dictatorial voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits -that the Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural -they should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George -beaten, he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or -a patriot to hold hatred against them. These same Tories are still -Americans. Their names are among the highest in the city. Before the -Revolution they were one and all of a first respectability, many with -pews in Trinity. Now when freedom has won its battle, he feels that -the victors should let bygones be bygones, and restore the Tories, -in property and station, to a place which they occupied before that -pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776. - -All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps -forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one -who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word -of the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes -of every soul in the room. - -The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks -are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general -has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse -than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to -torch and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, -most mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. -As for restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil -share in a government which they did their best to strangle in its -cradle, the thought is preposterous. They may have been "respectable," -as General Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious--a -mere hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had -pews in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope -to make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last. - -As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement -runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration -cast in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir. - -Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his -chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those -approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones -are high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron -direct, and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be -tolerant, for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, -he must ask that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He -himself, he says, cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better -than a stranger, an interloper, might with a nice propriety remain -silent on occasions such as this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring -that the position taken by Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what -shall be their rights, is un-American. He, himself, has fought for the -Revolution; but, now it is ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and -liberality will not be guided by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would -make the unending punishment of Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. -He fears that Aaron misunderstands the sentiment of those among whom he -has pitched his tent, congratulates him on a youth that offers an excuse -for the rashness of his expressions, and hopes that he may live to gain -a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton does himself proud, and the rusty -old general erects his pleased crest, to find himself so handsomely -defended. - -The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked -Aaron again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following -that orator's example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton -himself. - -"Our friend," says Aaron, "reminds me that I am young in years; and I -think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as -many years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered -share he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while -I hold him better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as -a soldier, I concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a -soldier, and while serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our -friend. He does not remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was -upon a day when he had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his -guns, forgotten everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and -I should be much too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful -circumstances, he would remember me. As to my newness in the town, and -that crippled Americanism wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. -I got no one's consent to come here; I shall ask no one's permission to -stay. Doubtless I would have been more within a fashion had I gone with -both questions to the gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who -presides here today. These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I -shall content myself with an Americanism which, though it possess none -of those sunburned, West Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in -the gentleman, may at least congratulate itself upon being two hundred -years old." - -Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton -those courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to -voice again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments -he has earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, -nothing save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud -has been born--a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined -to await its development before pronouncing for either side. The -feeling, however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the -resolution smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table. - - - - -CHAPTER X--THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE - - -WHILE Aaron, frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as -his ruffles, is saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, -that latter young gentleman's face is a study in black and red. His -expression is a composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron -is so full, so frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not -sure of its purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as -to his own importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron's attack -is parcel of some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or -envy him, or both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of -the way. He draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life -is good and death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but -stomachs in silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. -What is strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them -some chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim -fineness of Aaron's manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is -ready to carry discussion to the cold verge of the grave. - -Son-in-law Hamilton's nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in -Aaron's, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his -heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown -perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who -look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says -he will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall -pursue. Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat -abruptly, feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after -son-in-law Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way. - -The incident is a nine-days' food for gossip; wagers are made of a -coming bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those -lose who accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting -is politely peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider -separation is the upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law -Hamilton, who is presented by Colonel Troup. - -"We should know each other better, Colonel Burr," he observes. - -Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that -of itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays -glance from his chill exterior as from an iceberg. - -"Doubtless we shall," says he. - -Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his -coming. "General Schuyler," he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his -father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god--"General Schuyler -would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him." - -Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one -of Aaron's youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see -the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler--that Jove who -not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is -shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve. - -"Pardon me, sir!" says Aaron. "Say to General Schuyler that his request -is impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on -their affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I -shall go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come -to me." - -"You forget General Schuyler's age!" returns son-in-law Hamilton. There -is a ring of threat in the tones. - -"Sir," responds Aaron stiffly, "I forget nothing. There is an age cant -which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you -may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall -not in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest -folk, because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize -or, if they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are -fewer than thirty." - -"I am sorry you take this view," returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying -Aaron's stiffness. "You will not, I fear, find many to support you in -it." - -"I am not looking for support, sir," observes Aaron, pointing the remark -with one of those black ophidian stares. "I do you also the courtesy to -assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark." - -There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton -so far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to -say that General Schuyler's place in the community is of such high and -honorable sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. -As to criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman. - -There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a -trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes. - -"There could be no agreement with that young man," mutters Aaron, -looking after the retreating Hamilton, "save on a basis of submission to -his leadership. I'll be chief or nothing." - -Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the -courts, as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, -convincing, he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; -clients crowd about him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold. - -Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton--himself actively in the -law--before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the -other's match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy, -however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever -litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law -Hamilton are an added reason for the latter's jealous hatred. He and -his rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron's foes, and grasp at every -chance to do him harm. - -And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into -favor with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. -The latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks -them, but declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no -profit, but only loss in politics. - -In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he -rolls up riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of -Richmond Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson--Richmond Hill, -where he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his -vanity from the big general's loftily abstracted pose. - -Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his -cellars with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the -one and sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; -and, because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him -trenches upon the maternal. - -The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue -instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the -small Prevost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and -reading Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for -baby Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is -to her credit not theirs that she isn't hopelessly spoiled. - -In his wine and his reading, Aaron's tastes take opposite directions. -The books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He -reads Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary -Wollstonecraft. - -He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in -decoration furnishes the prudish a pang. - -These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, -social and political, do not help Aaron's standing with respectable -hypocrites, of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion -and commerce and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers -of society purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron's name is -mentioned, and speak of him as favoring "Benthamism" and "Godwinism." -Our dullard pharisee folk know no more of "Benthamism" and "Godwinism" -in their definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their -manner is the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than -murder. Aaron pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes -of these hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men's -opinions, and has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. -Occupied with the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of -blind and deaf of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up -gold. And never once does his glance rove officeward. - -This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron's side. He does not pursue -office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the -legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. -As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton -at its head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State's -public land for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three -shillings an acre; the purchasers number six. The big sale is to -Alexander McComb, who is given a deed for three million six hundred -thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. The public howls over these -surprising transactions in real estate. The popular anger, however, is -leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of Caesar. Aaron, who dwells -more in the background, escapes unscathed. - -While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a -constitution. Then it elects Washington President, and sets up -government shop in New York. Aaron's part in these mighty doings is the -quiet part. He does not think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; -he thinks less of Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the -rim of the possible that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington's -Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, helps the administration to a -lowest place in Aaron's esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that -feud is in no degree relaxed. - -When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and -Rufus King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in -the two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no -wise weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of -that short term, he will be reelected for a full term of six years. To -assume otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no -such short-term uneasiness. - -Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge -of men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest -in the Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian's -administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General -Schuyler, of that latter personage's reelection. Indeed, if he could be -prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of -all sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is -surest. Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies. - -And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is -watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet -none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his -pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is -to wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator -means a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he -is. More; it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be -even for what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights -which he neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped -smile as he pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look -which will spread across the face of Washington, when he hears of the -rusty Schuyler's overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. -The smile is quick to die, however, since he who would strip his toga -from the rusty Schuyler must not sit down to dreams and castle building. - -Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution -he foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook -does not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. - -In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two -things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital -importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. -He looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental -catalogue of his approachable points. - -The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were -not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly -loves a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron -shows the old governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton -interest was slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought -home victory for the latter. - -"You owe General Schuyler," he says, "no help at this pinch. Still less -are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the -field." - -"And yet," protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite -convinced--"and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his son-in-law -in the business." - -"Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last -to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; -in doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water -he could find." - -What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old -governor. At this the latter's Irish blood begins to gather heat. - -"It is as you tell me!" he cries at last; "I can see it now! That West -Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!" - -"And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics -'Schuyler' and 'Hamilton' are interchangeable." - -"You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, -and I shall not be less than theirs." - -The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the -rusty Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga -connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six -years as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes -discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed -upon to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. -Such approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched -upon at this time. - -"From your place, sir, as governor," observes the skillful Aaron, "you -could not of course condescend to go in person to the Livingstons. My -position, however, is not so high nor my years so many as are yours; I -need not scruple to take up the matter with them. As to a candidate, I -can go to them more easily if we leave the question open. I could tell -the Livingstons that you would like a suggestion from them on that -point. It would flatter their pride." - -The old governor is pleased to regard with favor the reasoning of Aaron. -He remarks, too, that with him the candidate is not important. The main -thought is to defeat the rusty Schuyler, who, with son-in-law Hamilton, -so aforetime played the hypocrite, and pulled treacherous wires against -him, in the hope of compassing his defeat. He declares himself quite -satisfied to let the Livingstons select what fortunate one is to be the -senate successor of the rusty Schuyler. He urges Aaron to wait on the -Livingstons without delay, and discover their feeling. - -Aaron confers with the Livingstons, and shows them many things. Mostly -he shows them that, should he himself be chosen senator, it will -necessitate his resignation as attorney general. Also, he makes it -appear that, if the old governor be properly approached, he will name -Morgan Lewis to fill the vacancy. The Livingston eye glistens; the -mother of Morgan Lewis is a Livingston, and the office of attorney -general should match the gentleman's fortunes nicely. Besides, there -are several ways wherein an attorney general might be of much Livingston -use. No, the Livingstons do not say these things. They say instead that -none is more nobly equipped for the role of senator than Aaron. Finally, -it is the Livingstons who go back to the old governor. Nor do they find -it difficult to convince him that Aaron is the one surest of defeating -the rusty Schuyler. - -"Colonel Burr," say the Livingstons, "has no record, which is another -way of saying that he has no enemies. We deem this most important; it -will lessen the effort required to bring about him a majority of the -legislature." - -The old governor, as Aaron feared, is inclined to shy at the not too -many years of our ambitious one; but after a bit Aaron, as a notion, -begins to grow upon him. - -"He has brains, sir," observes the old governor thoughtfully--"he has -brains; and that is of more consequence than mere years. He has double -the intelligence of Schuyler, although he may not count half his age. I -call that to his credit, sir." The chief of the clan-Livingston shares -the Clinton view. - -And now takes place a competition in encomium. Between the chief of the -clan-Livingston, and the old governor, so many excellences are ascribed -to Aaron that, did he own but the half, he might call himself a model -for mankind. As for Morgan Lewis, who is a Livingston, the old governor -sees in him almost as many virtues as he perceives in Aaron. He gives -the chief of the clan-Livingston hand and word that, when Aaron steps -out of the attorney generalship, Morgan Lewis shall step in. - -Having drawn to his support the two most powerful influences of the -State, Aaron makes search for an issue. He looks into the mouth of the -public, and there it is. Politicians do not make issues, albeit -poets have sung otherwise. Indeed, issues are so much like the poets -themselves that they are born, not made. Every age has its issue; from -it, as from clay, the politicians mold the bricks wherewith they build -themselves into office. The issue is the question which the people ask; -it is to be found only in the popular mouth. That is where Aaron looks -for it, and his quest is rewarded. - -The issue, so much demanded of Aaron's destinies, is one of those -big-little questions which now and then arise to agitate the souls of -folk, and demonstrate the greatness of the small. There are twenty-eight -members in the National Senate; and, since it is the first Senate and -has had no predecessor, there exist no precedents for it to guide by. -Also those twenty-eight senators are puffballs of vanity. - -On the first day of their first coming together they prove the purblind -sort of their conceit, by shutting their doors in the public's face. -They say they will hold their sessions in secret. The public takes this -action in dudgeon, and begins filing its teeth. - -Puffiest among those senate puffballs is the rusty Schuyler. As narrow -as he is arrogant, as dull as vain, his contempt for the herd was -never a secret. As a senator, he declares himself the guardian, not -the servant, of a people too weakly foolish for the safe transaction of -their own affairs. - -It is against this self-sufficient attitude of the rusty Schuyler -touching locked senate doors that Aaron wages war. He urges that, in a -republic, but two keys go with government; one is to the treasury, the -other to the jail. He argues that not even a senate will lock a door -unless it be either ashamed or afraid of what it is about. - -"Of what is our Senate afraid?" he asks. - -"Of what is it ashamed? I cannot answer these questions; the people -cannot answer them. I recommend that those who are interested ask -General Schuyler." - -The public puts the questions to the rusty Schuyler. Not receiving an -answer, the public carries the questions to the legislature, where the -Clinton and Livingston influences come sharply to the popular support. - -"Shall the Senate lock its door?" - -The Clintons say No; the Livingstons say No; the people say No. Under -such overbearing circumstances, the legislature feels driven to say No; -and, as a best method of saying it, elects to the Senate Aaron, who is -a "door-opener," over the rusty Schuyler, who is a "door-closer," by a -majority of thirteen. It is no longer "Aaron Burr," no longer "Colonel -Burr," it is "Senator Burr." The news heaps the full weight of ten years -on the rusty Schuyler. As for son-in-law Hamilton, the blasting word of -it withers and makes sick his heart. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK - - -THE shop of government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief -space between the overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and -the latter taking his seat, the great ones talk of nothing but that -overthrow. Washington vaguely and Jefferson clearly read in the victory -of Aaron the beginning of a new order. It is extravagantly an hour of -classes and masses; and the most dull does not fail to make out in the -Senate unseating of the rusty but aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant -clutch at power by the masses. - -Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President's -dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams, -those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the -subject. - -"It is the strangest news!" says he--"this word of the Senate success of -Colonel Burr." - -Then, appealing to Hamilton: "Of what could your folk of New York have -been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of -one of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small -fortune, and no family at all." - -"Sir," breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, "you go wide. Colonel -Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan -Edwards; on his father's side the strain is as high. You would look -long, sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree." - -"Whatever may be the gentleman's pedigree," retorts Hamilton -splenetically, "you will at least confess it to be only a New England -pedigree." - -"Only a New England pedigree!" exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. -"Why, sir, when you say 'The best pedigree in New England,' you have -spoken of the best pedigree in the world!" - -"Waiving that," returns Hamilton, "I may at least assure you, sir, that -in New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence -which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the -result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson -of Jonathan Edwards or Tom o' Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and -trickery; by the same methods through which a thief might win possession -of your horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase, -the fellow stole his victory." At this harshness Adams looks horrified, -while Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide -shoulders. - -Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is -in no wise keen at reading men. Hamilton--quick, supple, subservient, -a brilliant flatterer--has complete possession of him. He admires -Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage. - -[Illustration: 0173] - -The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and -some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself -the mastiff's satellite. Terrier Hamilton--brisk, busy, overbearing, not -always honest--rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing on -another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue, at -once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington. -And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening -partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love -of flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have -been his evil deeds. - -Washington constitutes Hamilton's stock in national trade. In New -York, Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler's son-in-law--heir to his riches, -lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton -traffics on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability -to pull or haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have -a full-blown President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment, -and Hamilton, be sure, makes the fullest, if not the most honest or -honorable, use of it. - -"Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel -Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler." - -The voice--while not without a note of jeering--is bell-like and deep, -the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances at -his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State. - -"What was it, then," he asks. - -"I will tell you my thought," replies Jefferson. "General Schuyler was -beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost -family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election. -The people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their -right, and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I, -what followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy, -but aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient -wing of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold -themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are -becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of -General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse -than a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice -in its own government." - -"You appear pleased, sir," observes Hamilton bitterly. - -"Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the -satisfaction I feel." - -"You amaze me!" interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either -Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. "Do I understand, sir, -that you will welcome the rule of the mob?" - -"The 'mob,'" retorts Jefferson, "can be trusted to guard its own -liberty.. The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better -prepared to stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely, -who, in the arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste -and call themselves an American peerage." - -"Government by the mob!" gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his -New England vanity--honest man!--has passed his life on a self-erected -pedestal. "Government by the mob!" - -"And why not, sir?" demands Jefferson sharply. "It is the mob's -government. Who shall contradict the mob's right to control its own? -Have we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?" - -Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the -quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid -Jefferson, and, following that democrat's declarations anent mob right -and mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though -imploring him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins -to unlimber complacently. - -"Government, my dear Jefferson," he says, wheeling himself like -some great gun into argumentative position, "may be discussed in the -abstract, but must be administered in the concrete. I think a best -picture of government is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He -finds them a safety and a better pasturage than they could find for -themselves. He is necessary to the sheep, as the sheep are necessary -to him. He can be trusted; since his interest is the interest of the -flock." - -Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom, -patience, courage, but not one gleam of humor. "I cannot," says he, -"accept your simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people -of this country are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find -our self-selected shepherds"--here he lets his glance rove cynically -to Adams and Hamilton--"such profound scientists of civil rule. Your -shepherd is a dictator. This republic--if it is a republic--might more -justly be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who -appoint agents, but retain among themselves the control." - -"And yet," observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his -own hatred for that new senator, "the present question is one, not of -republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him -well. You will find him a crooked gun." - -"It is ten years since I saw him," observes Washington. "I did not like -him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became -his years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims. -That, as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the -better." - -"There has been no bettering change, sir," returns Hamilton. His manner -is purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression -of one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own -goodness of heart. "Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when -you parted from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have -his place in government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be -a veriest firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril -of this man. Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his -ambition to fly at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He -is both Jack Cade and Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister -attraction for the vulgar herd; like the other, he would not hesitate -to lead the herd against government itself, in furtherance of his vile -projects." - -Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these -malignancies; while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when -Hamilton speaks, drinks them in like spring water. - -"Well," observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, "the -gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence, -suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a -basis for it." - -"You will find," says Hamilton, "that he is, as I tell you, but a -crooked gun." - -Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his -reverend fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about -him--cynical, since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the -opening day of the session. Washington as President, severe, of an -implacable dignity, appears and reads a solemn address. Later, -according to custom, both Senate and House send delegations to wait upon -Washington, and read solemn addresses to him. - -His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate, -since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious -document in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the -Senate delegation to the President's house. They find the big Virginian -awaiting them in the long dining room, which apartment has been -transformed into an audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying -out the table and shoving back the chairs. - -Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to -the rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming, -blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the -politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils -of flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber -and blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The -big Virginian--and that is the worst of it--is as much led by him as any -blind man by his dog. - -Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off -day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty -blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of -superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His -hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In -one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked -hat--brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with -polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in -this notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation, -Aaron and Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal -half-circle about him. - -Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads -Aaron's address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of -purpose as was Washington's. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy, -since the mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms -make up the etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience -chamber is less sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George -receiving his ministers, instead of President George receiving a -delegation from the Senate. - -No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty -than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for -Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive -to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out. - -"Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!" he exclaims, when Adams has -finished. "This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt -not you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive." - -Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at -divers decisions which will have effect in the country's story, before -the curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out. -His first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself. -He liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president. - -"I shall be no friend to this man," thinks he, "nor he to me." - -Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington's all -but royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is -personal. He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling -upon more probable grounds. - -"I distaste him," he decides, "because he meets no man on level terms. -He places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody; -everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will -either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain, -conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will -be no man's friend--this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire -friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none -about him save knee-crooking sycophants--like this smirking parasitish -Hamilton." - -Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address, -resolves to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him -round. Being in this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which -Hamilton's remark affords him, to publicly notify those present of his -position. - -"It will be as well," he ruminates, "to post, not alone these good -people of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall -let them, and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this -republican king of ours." - -"Yes," repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the -moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, "yes; you doubtless -find the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do. -However, it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!" Hamilton -throws off this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation. - -"Sir," returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, "sir, -by these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your -gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed. -There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all--as -though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why -then, the President 'addresses> the Senate, the Senate 'addresses' the -President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole -exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English." -This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of -the address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He -goes on: "I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined -as it has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer -opinion of my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies -themselves, I should call them now about as edifying as the banging and -the booming of a brace of Chinese gongs." - -Washington's brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to -Aaron when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young -successor to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have -not been lost upon him. - -"I think," mutters Aaron, icily complacent--"I think I pricked him." - - - - -CHAPTER XII--IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES - - -AARON finds a Senate existence inexpressibly dull. He writes his -Theodosia: "There is nothing to do here. Everybody is idle; and, so far -as I see, the one occupation of a senator is to lie sunning himself in -his own effulgence. My colleague, Rufus King, and others I might name, -succeed in that way in passing their days very pleasantly. For -myself, not having their sublime imagination, and being perhaps better -acquainted with my own measure, I find this sitting in the sunshine of -self a failure." - -Mindful of his issue, Aaron offers a resolution throwing open the Senate -doors. The Senate, whose notion of greatness is a notion of exclusion, -votes it down. Aaron warns his puffball brothers of the toga: - -"Be assured," says he, "you fool no one by such trumpery tricks as this -key-turning. You succeed only in bringing republican institutions -into contempt, and getting yourselves laughed at where you are not -condemned." - -Aaron reintroduces his open-door resolution; in the end he passes it. -Galleries are thrown up in the chamber, and all who will may watch the -Senate as it proceeds upon the transaction of its dignified destinies. -At this but few come; whereupon the Senate feels abashed. It is not, it -discovers, the thrilling spectacle its puffball fancy painted. - -Carked of the weariness of doing nothing, Aaron bursts forth with an -idea. He will write a history of the War of the Revolution. He begins -digging among the papers of the State department, tossing the archives -of his country hither and yon, on the tireless horns of his industry. - -Hamilton creeps with the alarming tale to Washington. "He speaks -of writing a history, sir," says sycophant Hamilton. "That is mere -subterfuge; he intends a libel against yourself." - -Washington brings his thin lips together in a tight, straight line, -while his heavy forehead gathers to a half frown. - -"How, sir," he asks, after a pause, "could he libel me? I am conscious -of nothing in my past which would warrant such a thought." - -"There is not, sir, a fact of your career that would not, if mentioned, -make for your glory." Hamilton deprecates with delicately outspread -hands as he says this. "That, however, would not deter this Burr, who is -Satanic in his mendacities. Believe me, sir, he has the power of making -fiction look more like truth than truth itself. And there is another -thought: Suppose he were to assail you with some trumped-up story. You -could not come down from your high place to contradict him; it would -detract from you, stain your dignity. That is the penalty, sir"--this -with a sigh of unspeakable adulation--"which men of your utter eminence -have to pay. Such as you are at the mercy of every gutter-bred vilifier; -whatever his charges, you cannot open your mouth." - -Aaron hears nothing of this. His first guess of it comes when he is told -by a State department underling that he will no longer be allowed to -inspect and make copies of the papers. - -Without wasting words on the underling, Aaron walks in upon Jefferson. -That secretary receives him courteously, but not warmly. - -"How, sir," begins Aaron, a wicked light in his eye--"how, sir, am I to -understand this? Is it by your order that the files of the department -are withheld from me?" - -"It is not, sir," returns Jefferson, coldly frank. "My own theories of -a citizen and his rights would open every public paper to the inspection -of the meanest. I do not understand government by secrecy." - -"By whose order then am I refused?" - -"By order of the President." - -Aaron ruminates the situation. At last he speaks out: "I must yield," -he says, "while realizing the injustice done me. Still I shall not soon -forget the incident. You say it is the order of Washington; you are -mistaken, sir. It is not the lion but his jackal that has put this -affront upon me." - -Idle in the Senate, precluded from collecting the materials for that -projected history, Aaron discovers little to employ himself about in -Philadelphia. Not that he falls into stagnation; for his business of -the law, and his speculations in land take him often to New York. His -trusted Theodosia is his manager of business, and when he cannot go to -New York she meets him half way in Trenton. - -Aside from his concerns of law and land, Aaron devotes a deal of thought -to little Theodosia--child of his soul's heart! In his pride, he hurries -her into Horace and Terence at the age of ten; and later sends her -voyaging to Troy with Homer, and all over the world with Herodotus. Nor -is this the whole tale of baby Theodosia's evil fortunes. She is taught -French, music, drawing, dancing, and whatever else may convey a glory -and a gloss. Love-led, pride-blinded, Aaron takes up the role of father -in its most awful form. - -"Believe me, my dear," he says to Theodosia mere, who pleads for an -educational leniency--"believe me, I shall prove in our darling that -women have souls, a psychic fact which high ones have been heard to -dispute." - -At the age of twelve, the book-burdened little Theodosia translates -the Constitution into French at Aaron's request; at sixteen, she finds -celebration as the most learned of her sex since Voltaire's Emilie. -Theodosia mere, however, is spared the spectacle of her baby's harrowing -erudition, for in the middle of Aaron's term as senator death carries -her away. - -With that loss, Aaron is more and more drawn to baby Theodosia; she -becomes his earth, his heaven, and stands for all his tenderest hopes. -While she is yet a child, he makes her the head of Richmond Hill, -and gives a dinner of state, over which she presides, to the limping -Talleyrand, and Volney with his "Ruins of Empire." For all her -precocities, and that hothouse bookishness which should have spoiled -her, baby Theodosia blossoms roundly into womanhood--beautiful as -brilliant. - -While Aaron finds little or nothing of public sort to engage him, he -does not permit this idleness to shake his hold of politics. Angry -with the royalties of Washington, he drifts into near if not intimate -relations with the arch-democrat Jefferson. Aaron and the loose-framed -secretary are often together; and yet never on terms of confidence -or even liking. They are in each other's society because they -go politically the same road. Fellow wayfarers of politics, with -"Democracy" their common destination, they are fairly compelled into -one another's company. But there grows up no spirit of comradeship, no -mutual sentiment of admiration and trust. - -Aaron's feelings toward Jefferson, and the sources of them, find setting -forth in a conversation which he holds with his new disciple, Senator -Andrew Jackson, who has come on from his wilderness home by the -Cumberland. - -"It is not that I like Jefferson," he explains, "but that I dislike -Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson will make a splendid tool to destroy -the others with; I mean to use him as the instrument of my vengeance." - -Jefferson, when speaking of Aaron to the wooden Adams, is neither so -full nor so frank. The Bay State publicist has again made mention of -that impressive ancestry which he thinks is Aaron's best claim to public -as well as private consideration. - -"You may see evidence of his pure blood," concludes the wooden one, "in -his perfect, nay, matchless politeness." - - "He is matchlessly polite, as you say," assents Jefferson; "and yet I -cannot fight down the fear that his politeness has lies in it." - -The days drift by, and Minister Gouverneur Morris is recalled from -Paris. Washington makes it known to the Senate that he will adopt any -name it suggests for the vacancy. The Senate decides upon Aaron; a -committee goes with that honorable suggestion to the President. - -Washington hears the committee with cloudy surprise. He is silent for a -moment; then he says: - -"Gentlemen, your proposal of Senator Burr has taken me unawares. I must -crave space for consideration; oblige me by returning in an hour." - -The senators who constitute the committee retire, and Washington seeks -his jackal Hamilton. - -"Appoint Colonel Burr to France!" exclaims Hamilton. "Sir, it would -shock the best sentiment of the country! The man is an atheist, as -immoral as irreligious. If you will permit me to say so, sir, I should -give the Senate a point-blank refusal." - -"But my promise!" says Washington. - -"Sir, I should break a dozen such promises, before I consented to -sacrifice the public name, by sending Colonel Burr to France. However, -that is not required. You told the Senate that you would adopt its -suggestion; you have now only to ask it to make a second suggestion." - -"The thought is of value," responds Washington, clearing. "I am free to -say, I should not relish turning my back on my word." - -The committee returns, and is requested to give the Senate the -"President's compliments," and say that he will be pleased should that -honorable body submit another name. Washington is studious to avoid any -least of comment on the nomination of Aaron. - -The committee is presently in Washington's presence for the third time, -with the news that the Senate has no name other than Aaron's for the -French mission. - -"Then, gentlemen," exclaims Washington, his hot temper getting the -reins, "please report to the Senate that I refuse. I shall send no one -to France in whom I have not confidence; and I do not trust Senator -Burr." - -"What blockheads!" comments Aaron, when he hears. "They will one day -wish they had gotten rid of me, though at the price of forty missions." - -[Illustration: 0197] - -The wooden Adams is elected President to succeed Washington. Aaron's -colleague, Rufus King, offers a resolution of compliment and thanks -to the retiring one, extolling his presidential honesty and patriotic -breadth. A cold hush falls upon the Senate, when Aaron takes the floor -on the resolution. - -Aaron's remarks are curt, and to the barbed point. He cannot, he says, -bring himself to regard Washington's rule as either patriotic or broad. -That President throughout has been subservient to England, who was our -tyrant, is our foe. Equally he has been inimical to France, who was our -ally, is our friend. More; he has subverted the republic and made of -it a monarchy with himself as king, wanting only in those unimportant -embellishments of scepter, throne, and crown. He, Aaron, seeking -to protest against these almost treasons, shall vote against the -resolution. - -The Senate sits aghast. Aaron's respectable colleague, Rufus King, -cannot believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet. - -"I am amazed at the action of my colleague!" he exclaims. "I----" - -Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. "It is my -duty," says Aaron, "to warn the senior senator from New York that he -must not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I -do not like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement -become a tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede -the impropriety, to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any -manifestation personally offensive to myself." - -As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws -off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of -colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a -moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a -gulp whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is -called; Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, -carrying a baker's dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, -horse-faced Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland. - -Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon. -Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields -the Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than -ever; for Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in -government, and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in -nothing save name; Hamilton--fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and -playing upon that wooden one's fear of not succeeding himself--is the -actual chief magistrate. - -As Aaron's term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept -reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved -for that scheming one's destruction. His plans are fashioned; their -execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will -quit the Senate, quit the capital. - -"My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton," -he says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his -purposes. "I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on -that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of -Jefferson." - -"And Hamilton?" asks the Cumberland one. - -"Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of -retirement. Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies -may be trusted to sting him to death." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE GRINDING OF AARON'S MILL - - -AARON tells his friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts -this resolution to retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia's -loneliness and a consequent paternal necessity of his presence at -Richmond Hill, and the tangled condition of his business; which last -after the death of Theodosia mere falls into a snarl. Never, by the -lifting of an eyelash or the twitching of a lip, does he betray any -corner of his political designs, or of his determination to destroy -Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of white-hot throbbing hate against -that gentleman of diagonal morals and biased veracities; but no sign of -the fires within is visible on the arctic exterior. - -Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton -is mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate -concern in connection with the political destinies of the rusty -Schuyler, now exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler -down from his shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his -cloak, and declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young -community toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought -to send the rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving -up. To such a degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities -of mankind, that the rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to -reassume those honors which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years -before. - -Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality. -Aaron's astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate, -smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however, -Hamilton's enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that -Aaron--courage broken--is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship. - -"That is it," he explains to President Adams. "The fellow has lost -heart. This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace." - -There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron's -benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron's closest friend Van Ness. - -"Schuyler for the Senate!" he exclaims. "What does that mean?" - -"It means," whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, "that I want to -get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!" - -"And for what?" - -"The destruction of Hamilton." - -As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door. -One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes; -all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable. - -Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton -forces are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten -North-of-Ireland Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell -more than three millions of the public's acres to McComb for eightpence. - -And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence--working -out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington--Aaron's practiced -vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton is as -angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which he -lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills because -its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President's -cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton--whose policies are ever jealous -and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him the -raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to -the Party-of-things-as-they-are--which is the party of Hamilton. - -One thing irks the pride of Aaron--a pride ever impatient and ready -for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these -gentry--readily eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of -Aaron--never omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They -make a merit of accepting Aaron's aid, and proceed on the assumption -that he gains honor by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy -this. - -"I must have a following," says he. "I will call about me every free -lance in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which -I must be the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall -take up position between the Campbell and the Montrose--the Clintons and -the Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control -both. Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the -obstinate Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall -back, march and countermarch by my word." - -When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to -endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies -ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling's tavern, at Spruce -and Nassau, meets the "Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order." The name -is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the "Sons of -Tammany or the Columbian Order," as they sit swigging Brom Martling's -cider, call themselves the "Bucktails." - -The aristocracy of the Revolution--being the officers--created -unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the -Revolution--being the privates--as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not -to say gilded Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian -Order, otherwise the Bucktails, into being. - -The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social -organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of -them--quaffing and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into -the mountaintop of the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the -political world and the glories thereof. Also, he points out that -Hamilton, the head of the hated Cincinnati, is turning that organization -of perfume and purple into a power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe, -and resolve under the chiefship of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals, -the Cincinnati, in every ensuing battle of the ballots to the end of -time. - -The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not -long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the -Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this -formidable body of cider drinkers--with Aaron at its head--they conduct -themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect. They -eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they -would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they -declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as -Aaron forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is -sought for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons--the -Campbell and the Montrose. - -Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful -war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one -might have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany -Bucktails--who obey him with shut eyes--and has brought the perverse -Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb, Aaron -considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science, -has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to -insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must -pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all -quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic -enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches -are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling's cider flow -without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees -that his plans as well as his party require a bank. - -There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow -of the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act -coercively. They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is -not amenable to the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to -security even somewhat mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion -against Hamilton, plus the best security beneath the commercial sun, -cannot coax a dollar from their strong boxes. - -Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions. -The best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton. -Aaron must free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow -him. How is this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank? -It presents as many difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton -watches the bank situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort -to obtain a charter is knocked on the head. - -Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to -Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full -of war knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank -movement, night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To -capture a bank charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and, -while all but impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if -accomplished. Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way. - -Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin's bottle, a scheme -begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been -reaping a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres--as -usual--lay it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while -everybody knows full well that science is nothing better than just the -accepted ignorance of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his -knees to it, and to the wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and -the wiseacres lay yellow fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking -the word from them, does the same. The local water is found guilty; the -popular cry goes up for a purer element. The town demands water that is -innocent of homicidal qualities. - -It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of -Yellow Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it -shall be called "The Manhattan Company." - -With "No more yellow fever!" for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany. -What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With -the fear of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the -Albany authorities--being the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton -Legislature--comply with his demands. The Manhattan Company is -incorporated, capital two millions. - -Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter--which -authorizes a water company--he originates a modest well near the City -Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more -than serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block. - -Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a -bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in -this; it is anti-Hamilton. - -Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton -takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a -matter of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and -the extent of its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton -flag. And Aaron, the indefatigable, is in control. At the new -Manhattan Bank, he turns on or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom -Mart-ling--spigot-busy in the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails--turns -on or shuts off the flow of his own cider. - -After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his -attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority -his Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised -world, in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the -world with water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill -its empty water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its -incorporated back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest -is dead. - -The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with -the charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney -general--first polishing his amazed spectacles--reads the following -clause: - -"The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with -the laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New -York." - -The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam's apple goes -up and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental -stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but -lucidly sufficient. - -"The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the -authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus -capital the Manhattan Bank." - -The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon. - -"And you had the bank in mind from the first!" he cries. - -"Possibly," says Aaron. - -"Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr," and the Jay attorney general -cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; "if the authorities -at Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received -your charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been -refused." - -"Possibly!" says Aaron. - -All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the -Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails -swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan -Bank to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their -accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the -Federal capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as -President, with all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington, -and Jefferson is abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing -shoelaces, cutting off his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President -at the other end of government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these -opposite ones. Jefferson must be his candidate; Adams will be the -candidate of the foe. He himself is to manage for the one, while -Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the situation, he holds it the -part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at these worthies, pulling -against one another, and discover to what extent and in what manner -their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar the nation's -future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a battle must be -fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to discover aught -in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or Jefferson which -can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy. - -Aaron's friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach. -Some worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as -talk proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected -bitterness of his feeling--a feeling which goes beyond politics, as the -acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized. - -Van Ness is wonder-smitten. - -"Your enmity to Hamilton," he says tentatively, "strikes deeper then -than mere politics." - -"Sir," returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle -flashing up in his eyes, "the deepest sentiment of my nature is my -hatred for that man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who -furnishes the seed and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I -hear it east, north, west, south. I am his mania--his 'phobia'. In his -slanderous mouth I am 'liar,' 'thief,' and 'scoundrel rogue.' In such -connection I would have you to remember that I, on my side, give him, -and have given him, the description of a gentleman." - -"To be frank, sir," returns Van Ness thoughtfully, "I know every word -you speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade -our epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with -convincing lead." - -Aaron's look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. "Kill -him!" he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion; -"kill him! Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for -my perfect vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope -he has shall die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he -lies prone, broken, powerless!--when he is spat upon by those in whose -one-time downcast, servile presence he strutted lord paramount!--when -his past is scoffed at, his future swallowed up!--when his word is -laughed at and his fame become a farce!--then, when every fang of -defeat pierces and poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of -killing! That hour is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness--I am an -artist of revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath, -all goes!--that for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no -past!--I must garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take -pains with my vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my -vengeful pains shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton, -for whom my whole heart flows away in hate!--I shall build for him a -pyramid of misery while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his -death--his grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies -before. I shall take from him every scrap of that power which is his -soul's food--strip him of each least fragment of position! When he has -nothing left but life, I'll wrest that from him. Long years after he is -gone I'll walk this earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and -the thought that by my hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what -the friendship of man or the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him! -There is a grist in the hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill -stones of my plans are grinding!" - -Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his -soul to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in -the spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow -words follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps -over him, as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental, -abnormal, fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor -his tongue can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron -seems not to notice, but falls into a black muse. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE TRIUMPH OF AARON - - -IT is the era of bad feeling, and the breasts of men are reservoirs of -poison. Jefferson and Adams, while known admitted rivals, deplore these -wormwood conditions and strive against them. It is as though they strove -against the tides; party lines were never more fiercely drawn. Some -portrait of the hour may be found in the following: - -Adams gives a dinner; and, because he cannot get over the Jonathan -Edwards emanation of Aaron, he invites him. Also, Van Ness being with -Aaron, the invitation includes Van Ness. Hamilton and Jefferson will be -there; since it is one of the hypocritical affectations of these good -people to keep up a polite appearance of friendship, by way of example, -if not rebuke, to warring followers, who are hopefully fighting duels -and shedding blood and taking life in their interests. On the way to the -President's house Van Ness, to whom Adams is new, queries Aaron: - -"What sort of a man is Adams?" - -"He is an honest, pragmatic, hot-tempered thick-skull," says Aaron--"a -New England John Bull!--a masculine Mrs. Malaprop whom Sheridan would -love. You can have no better description of him than was given me but -yesterday by a member of his Cabinet. 'Adams,' says the cabineteer, -'is a man who whether sportful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, -easy, stiff, jealous, careless, cautious, confident, close or open, is -so always in the wrong place and with the wrong man!'" - -"Is he a good executive?" - -"Bad! By nature he is no more in touch with the spirit of a democracy -than with the maritime policies of the Ptolemies. His pet picture of -government is England, with the one amendment that he would call the -king a president. As to his executive labors: why, then, he touches only -to disarrange, talks only to disturb. And all without meaning to do so." - -The dinner is neither large nor formal. Aaron sits on the right hand of -Adams, while Jefferson has Van Ness and Hamilton at either elbow. In the -cross fire of conversation comes the following: The topic is government. - -"Speaking of the British constitution," says Adams, "purge that -constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality -of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever -devised by the wit of man." - -Hamilton cocks his ear. "Sir," says he, "purge the British constitution -of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of -representation, and it would become an impracticable government. As -it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most -powerful government that ever existed." - -Presently, the currents of converse shift, and the torrid heats of party -are considered. It is now that Jefferson is heard from. - -"The situation is deplorable!" he exclaims. "You and I, sir"--looking -across at Adams--"have seen warm debates and high political passions. -But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and -separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not -so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to -avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they be obliged -to touch their hats. Men's passions are boiling over; and one who keeps -himself cool, and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of -ordinary conversation that he finds himself socially cast away. More; -there is a moral breaking down. The interruption of letters is becoming -so notorious"--here he looks hard at Hamilton, whose followers are -supposed to peep into letters not addressed to them--"that I am forming -a resolution of declining correspondence with my friends through the -channels of the post office altogether." - -Even during Aaron's short stay at the Capitol, fresh fuel is heaped upon -the fires of his Hamilton hates. A cloud blows up in the sky; war -with France is threatened. Washington at Mount Vernon is commissioned -commander in chief; Hamilton--the active--is placed next to him. Aaron's -name, sent in for a general's commission, is secretly vetoed by Hamilton -whispering in the Adams ear. - -Adams does not like the veto; he thinks he should name Aaron, and says -so. - -"If you do," declares Hamilton warningly, "it will defeat your -reelection." - -Adams groans and gives way. It is the argument wherewith Hamilton never -fails to drive him or curb him as he will. Aaron hears of this new -offense; he says nothing, but lays it away with the others. - -Candidate Jefferson and Manager Aaron are far apart in their hopes -and fears, the former taking the gloomy view. They come together -confidentially. - -"I have looked over the field," says Jefferson, "and we are already -beaten." - -"Sir," returns Aaron with grim point, "you should look again. I think -you see things wrong end up." - -"My hatred of Hamilton," observes Aaron to Van Ness, as their coach -rolls north for home, "is the good fortune of Jefferson. I shall be -fighting my own fight, and so I shall win. If I were fighting only for -Jefferson, I can well see how the strife might have another upcome." - -[Illustration: 0223] - -The campaign draws down; it is Adams against Jefferson, Federal against -Republican. Hamilton leaves the seat of government, and comes to New -York to take personal charge. At that his designs are Janus-faced. He -says "Adams," but he means "Pinckney." He foresees that, if Adams be -given another term, he will defy control. Wherefore he is publicly for -Adams, and privately for Pinckney--he looks at Massachusetts but -sees only South Carolina. This collision of pretense and purpose, on -Hamilton's false part, gets vastly in the Federal way. That it should -do so will instantly occur to curious ones, if they will but seek to go -south by heading north. - -As Hamilton sets out to take presidential possession of New York, he -has no misgivings. He knows little or nothing of Aaron's designs or what -that ingenious gentleman has been about. - -"There is the Manhattan Bank of course; but what can it do? There are -the Bucktails--who are vulgar clods! There are the Livingstons and the -Clintons--he has beaten them before!" - -Thus run the reflections of the confident Hamilton. No; he sees only -triumph ahead. He gives Aaron and his candidate Jefferson--with their -borrel issue of Alien and Sedition--not half the thought that he devotes -to ways and means by which he hopes finally to steal the electors from -Adams, and produce Pinckney in the White House. That is Hamilton's dream -of power--Pinckney! - -Everything pivots on the legislature; since it is the legislature which -will select the electors. - -Hamilton, bearing in mind his intended steal of the State, prepares his -list of candidates for Albany. He does not pick them for either wisdom -or moral worth; what he is after are legislators whom he can certainly -manhandle to match his designs, and who will give him electors--he -himself will furnish the names--of a Pinckney not an Adams complexion. -He makes up his slate to that treasonable end; and the swift Aaron gets -a copy before the ink is dry. - -Aaron smiles when he runs down the ignoble muster of Hamilton's boneless -nonentities. - -"They are the least in the town!" he mutters. "I shall pit against them -the town's greatest." - -Aaron with his Bucktails, now makes ready his own legislative ticket. -At the head he places old North-of-Ireland Clinton--a local Whittington, -ten times governor of the State. General Gates--for whom Aaron, when -time was, plotted the downfall of Washington, and who received the sword -of the vanquished Burgoyne and sent that popinjay back to England to -fail at play-writing--comes next. After General Gates the wily Aaron -writes "Samuel Osgood"--who was Washington's postmaster general--"Henry -Rutgers, Elias Neusen, Thomas Storms, George Warner, Philip Arcularius, -James Hunt, Ezekiel Robbins, Brockholst Livingston, and John -Swartwout"--every name a tower of strength. - -Hamilton cannot repress a flutter of fear as he reads the noble roster; -but his unflagging vanity, which serves him instead of a more reasonable -optimism, rushes to his rescue. None the less it jars on him a bit -strangely, albeit, he laughs at it for a jest, that the best regarded -of the town should make up the ticket of the yeomanry and the -crude Bucktails, while the aristocratical Federals and the -equally aristocratical Cincinnati--that coterie of perfume and -patricianism!--search the gutters for theirs. - -Seeing himself on the Jefferson ticket, old North-of-Ireland Clinton -makes trouble. He sends for Aaron and his committee, and notifies them -that he cannot consent to run. - -"If you, Colonel Burr, were the candidate," he says, "I should run -gladly; but Jefferson I hate." - -In his hope's heart, old North-of-Ireland Clinton---who, for all his -North-of-Ireland blood, was born in America--thinks he himself may be -struck by the presidential lightning, and does not intend to place any -deflecting obstruction in the path of such descending bolt. - -Aaron has forestalled the Clinton refusal in his thoughts, and is not -surprised by the high Clintonian attitude. He tries persuasion; the -old ex-governor and would-be president only plants himself more firmly. -Under no circumstances shall he agree to run; his honored name must not -be used. - -It is now that Aaron shows his teeth: "Governor Clinton," says he, "when -it comes to that, our committee's appearance before you, preferring the -request that you run, is a ceremony rather of courtesy than need. With -the last word, regardless of either your plans or your preferences, the -public we represent is perfect in its right to name you, and compel you -to run. And, sir, making short what might become long, and so saving -time for us all, I must now notify you that, should you continue to -withhold your consent, we stand already determined to retain and use -your name despite refusal, as a course entirely within the lines of -popular right." - -In the looks and tones of Aaron, the old North-of-Ireland governor -reads decision not to be revoked, and for once in his obstinate life -surrenders gracefully. - -"Gentlemen," says he, with a bland wave of the hand to Aaron and his -Bucktail committee, "since you put it in that way, refusal is out of -my power. Also let me add, that no man could take a nomination from a -higher, a more honorable, a more patriotic source." - -The campaign, on in earnest, goes forward with a roar. Not a screaming -item is omitted. Guns boom; flags flaunt; bands of music bray; gay -processions go marching; crackers splutter and snap; orators with iron -throats sweep down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence; -flaming rockets, when the sun goes down, streak the night with fire; the -bold Buck-tails, cidered to the brim, cause Brom Martling's long-room -to ring again, and make the intersection of Spruce and Nassau a Bedlam -crossroads. - -This is well; yet Aaron desires more. The issue is Alien and Sedition; -he yearns for an overt expression of what villain work may be done by -that black statute. - -Aaron's strength, as a captain of politics, lies in his intuitive -knowledge of men. He is never popular--never loved while ever admired. -Men may no more love him than they may love a diamond, or a Damascus -sword blade, or a tallest, sun-kissed, snow-capped mountain peak. Still -that innate grasp of men, and what motives will move them, is as an -edged tool in his hands wherewith to carve out triumph. This gift of -man-reading comes in play when now he would exhibit Alien and Sedition -in its baleful workings. - -There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded -him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your -natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman's block, there he lays his -neck; given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he -thrusts his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake -he takes his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a -despot than a friend. And yet--to defend Yates--that bent for martyrdom -is nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero -reversed. The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a -martyr only a hero who fails. - -Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. "Here is a pamphlet -flaying Adams," says he. "It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and -circulate it." - -"Why?" asks Yates. - -"Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do -it." - -"Doubtless!"--this dryly. "But what advantage do you discover in having -me locked up?" - -"Man! can't you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure -will be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you -from Otsego to New York. Think what a triumph that should be--you, the -paraded victim of the monarchical Adams!" - -Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron's -blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has -foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive's line of march. Yates -is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for -himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is -worth a thousand votes. - -"It is the difference between the eye and the ear," says Aaron to -his aide, Swartwout. "You might explain the iniquities of Alien and -Sedition, and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and -they take fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed -by a falling tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. -Should you some day _see_ a man crushed by a falling tree, you will -start in your sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. -Wherefore, never address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The -gateway to the imagination is the eye." - -The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To -the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him -at the polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he -is beaten, Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson's. The blow shakes -Hamilton to the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. -In the face of such disaster, he sits stricken. - -Presently, as though the bad in him is more vivid than the good and -quicker at recovery, that old instinct of larceny struggles to its -feet. He will steal the State; not from Adams as he planned, but from -Jefferson. He scribbles a note to Jay, who is in town at his home, -urging him as governor to call a special session of the legislature, a -Federal Legislature, and go about the crime. He feels the necessity -of justification; for Jay is of a skittish honor. This on his mind, he -closes with: "It is the only way by which we can prevent an atheist in -religion and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm -of government." - -Jay reads, and draws down his brows in a frown. Hamilton's messenger is -waiting. - -"Governor," says the messenger, "General Hamilton bid me get an answer." - -"Tell General Hamilton there is no answer." Jay rereads the note. Then -he takes quill, writes a sentence on the back, and files it away in a -pigeonhole. Years later, when Jay and Hamilton and Adams and Jefferson -and Aaron are dead and under the grass roots, hands yet unformed will -draw the letter forth and unborn eyes will read: "Proposing a measure -for party purposes which I do not think it would become me to adopt. J. -J." - - - - -CHAPTER XV--THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE - - -HAMILTON writhes and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first -effort before the adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his -courage returns, he bends himself to consider, whether by other means, -fair or foul, the election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends -out a flock of letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily -as their commander in chief of party. - -It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the -cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his -bare word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that -potential name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing -of Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave -his voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. -He finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of -New York and Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney -intrigue as worse than hopeless. They propose instead--and therein lurks -horror--that the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. -They can take the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may -be coaxed from the Jefferson strength, make Aaron President--their -President--the President of the Federalists. - -The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his -discovered loss of power--which latter, of itself, is as a blade of ice -through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to -learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of -Aaron as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken -of heart and hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the -Grange, and sits in mourning with his soul. - -Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses -but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, -who is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South -Carolina. - -Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal -chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great -purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate. -They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as -is the Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of -terror in a democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at -the thought of Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him -less of a leveler. Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him -with promises; for they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a -pig in a poke. They seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange -wreaths and is up to the ears in baby Theo's wedding. As a preliminary -they send his lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings. - -"If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?" asks Swartwout. - -"Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline--a lady -and a presidency." - -Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that, -should he be chosen, he will serve. - -"There can be no refusal," he says. "The electors are free to make their -choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however," he -goes on, warningly; "I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; -the thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, -yourself, are of those who will select the electors for our own State, -I tell you, as you value my friendship, that New York must go to -Jefferson. We carried the State for him, and he shall have it." - -Following Swartwout's visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon -Aaron. They point out that he can be President; but they seek to -condition it upon certain promises. - -"Gentlemen," returns Aaron, "I know not what in my past has led you to -this journey. I've no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I -shall be no man's president but my own." - -"Think of the honor, sir!" says Federalist Bayard. - -"Honor?" repeats Aaron. "Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went -into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way -to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet." - -Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs--all save the broken -Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange--none the less go -forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors will -follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The law-demanded -vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson seventy-three, Aaron -seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one. - -No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the -House. The sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House -delegations and owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a -president. At this the campaign is all to fight over again. But in a -different way, on different ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and -Aaron. - -In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, -in the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second -pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely -married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk. - -Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, "As affairs are," he -explains--he has made a count of noses--"Jefferson, when the House -convenes, will have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, -Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, -for your side, will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, -Connecticut, South Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The -delegations of Maryland and Vermont, being evenly divided between -yourself and Jefferson, will have no voice. The tally will show eight -for Jefferson, six for you, two not voting. None the less, in the face -of these figures the means of electing you exist. By deceiving one -man--a great blockhead--and tempting two--not incorruptible--you can -still secure a majority of the States. I----" - -"You have said enough, sir," breaks in Aaron. "I shall deceive no one, -tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of -Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally -fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have -construction as an insult." - -Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear. -Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron -will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself. - -Jefferson does not share Aaron's chill indifference. While the latter -comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of -every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels -all the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He -calls on the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his -influence with his party in favor of Aaron's defeat. - -"It is I, sir," says Jefferson, "whom the people elected; and you should -see their will respected." - -Adams grows warm. "Sir," he retorts, "the event is in your power. Say -that you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will -instantly be put into your hands." - -"If such be your answer, sir," returns Jefferson, equaling, if not -surpassing the Adams heat, "I have to tell you that I do not intend to -come into the presidency by capitulation." - -Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams--who is practical, even if -high-tempered--begins his preparations to create and fill twenty-three -life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession. - -As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at -the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the -war between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. -The action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As -unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot -grasp the reason of his overthrow. - -Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations -tongue. "What is this mighty difference," he cries, "which the public -discovers between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, -I am for speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I -am for a big dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is -for a daily levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think -a man may curl or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson -preference, sir, convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are -not reasonable creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and -myself is this: I appeal to men's reason, he flatters their vanity. -The result--a mob result--is that he stands victorious, while I -lie prostrate." Saying which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his -arrangements for creating and filling those twenty-three life -judgeships--being resolved, in his narrow breast, to make the most of -his dying moments as a president. - -The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are -placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there -are members too ill to occupy their regular seats--one is even attended -by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order which -forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White -House tie determined. - -The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as -foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for -Aaron, with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly -divided delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count -half votes for any name. There being no choice--since no name possesses -a majority of all the States--another vote is called. The upcome is the -same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine -hours of ceaseless balloting. - -Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of -the seventh day, Federalist Bayard--who is the entire delegation from -his little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote -for Aaron--beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. -It is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; -for the Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so -much as the ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, -Federalist Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with -Aaron Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end. - -The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy -indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of -Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next, -feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames -for what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not -fade, until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron's plans to -send them sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; -for Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against -the curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go -about their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with -little friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between -President and Vice-President have never been the habit. - -In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. -He refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a -half. He knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to -the Jefferson hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, -against the repeal of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which -the practical Adams created and filled in his industrious last days. - -Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but -his home rivals the White House--which leans toward the simple-severe -under Jefferson--as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes -up from South Carolina to preside over it--Theo, loving and lustrous! -Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way -to a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into -gossip with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson -has no bargain in the Franco-Corsican. - -[Illustration: 0245] - -On the lustrous Theo's second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she -brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it -proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston. -Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than -it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark -one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus -and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he -will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte -and swoop at empire. - -During these days of Aaron's eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten -Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has -turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on -politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and -pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance. - -He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres. -"And when you return home," he says, imitating the lightsome and doing -it poorly, "send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of -Carolina melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear -Pinckney"--this, with a sickly smile--"is, as you know, a very usual -refuge for your disappointed politician." It is now, his acute -bitterness coming uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly -complaint--the complaint of selflove wounded to the heart. "What an odd -destiny is mine! No man has done more for the country, sacrificed more -for it, than have I. No man than myself has stood more loyally by the -Constitution--that frail, worthless fabric which I am still striving to -prop up! And yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the -curses of its foes to pay for it. What can I do better than withdraw -from the arena? Each day proves more and more that America, with its -republics, was never meant for me." - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE - - -WHILE Aaron flourishes with Senate gavel, and Hamilton mourns his -downfall at the Grange, new men are springing up and new lines forming. -The Federalists disappear in the presidential going down of the wooden -Adams; Aaron, by that one crushing victory, annihilated them. The new -alignment in New York is personal rather than political, and becomes the -merest separation of Aaron's friends from Aaron's enemies. - -At the head of the latter, De Witt Clinton, nephew to old -North-of-Ireland Clinton, takes his stand. Being modern, Clinton starts -a newspaper, the _American Citizen_, and places a scurrilous dog named -Cheetham in charge. As a counterweight, Aaron launches the _Morning -Chronicle_, with Peter Irving editor, and his brother, young Washington -Irving, as its leading writer. Now descends a war of ink, that is -recklessly acrimonious and not at all merry. - -Under that spur of feverish ink, the two sides fall to dueling with -the utmost assiduity. Hamilton's son Philip insults Mr. Eaker, a lawyer -friend of Aaron; and the insulted Mr. Eaker gives up the law for one day -to parade young Hamilton at the conventional ten paces. It is all highly -honorable, all highly orthodox; and young Hamilton is killed in a way -which reflects credit on those concerned. - -Aaron's lieutenant, John Swartwout, fastens a quarrel upon De Witt -Clinton, for sundry ink utterances of the latter's dog-of-types, -Cheetham. The two cross the river to a spot of convenient seclusion. - -"I wish it were your chief instead of you!" cries Clinton, who is not -fine in his politenesses. - -"So do I," responds Swartwout, being of a rudeness to match Clinton's. -"For he is a dead shot, and would infallibly kill you; while I am the -poorest hand with a pistol among the Buck-tails." - -The bickering pair are placed. They fire and miss. A second, and yet a -third time their lead flies shamefully wide. At the fourth shot -Clinton saves his credit by wounding Swartwout in the leg. The stubborn -Swartwout demands a fifth fire, and Clinton plants a second bullet -within two inches of the first. - -"Are you satisfied?" asks Mr. Riker, who acts for Clinton. - -"I am not," returns Swartwout the stubborn. "Your man must retract, or -continue the fight. Kill or be killed, I am prepared to shoot out the -afternoon with him." - -At this, both Clinton's fortitude and manners break down together, and, -refusing to either fight on or apologize, he walks off the field. -This nervous extravagance creates a scandal among our folk of hectic -sensibilities, and shakes the Clinton standing sorely. He is promptly -challenged by Senator Dayton--an adherent of Aaron's--but evades that -statesman at further loss to his reputation. - -Meanwhile Robert Swartwout, brother to the wounded Swartwout, calls out -Mr. Riker, who acted for Clinton against the stubborn one, and has the -pleasure of dangerously wounding that personage. Also, Editor Coleman -of the Evening Post, weary with that felon scribe, goes after type-dog -Cheetham of Clinton's American Citizen; whereat dog Cheetham flies -yelping. - -This last so disturbs Harbor Master Thompson of the Clinton forces, -that he offers to take type-dog Cheetham's place. Editor Coleman -being agreeable, they fight in a snowstorm in (inappropriately) Love's -Lane--it will be University Place later--and the port loses a harbor -master at the first fire. - -Aaron, gaveling the Senate in the way it should legislatively go, pays -no apparent heed to the smoky doings of his warlike subordinates. -He never takes his eyes from Hamilton, however; and, if that retired -publicist, complaining in his garden, would but cast his glance that -way, he might read in their black ophidian depths a saving warning. But -Hamilton is blind or mad, and thinks only on what he may do to injure -Aaron, and never once on what that perilous Vice-President might be -carrying on the shoulder of his purposes. - -Hamilton devotes his garden leisure to vilifying Aaron. He goes stark -staring raving Aaron-mad; at the mention of the name he pours out a -muddy stream of slander. In talk, in print, in what letters he indites, -Aaron is accused of every infamy. There is nothing so preposterously -vile that he does not charge him with it. Aaron looks on and listens -with a grim, evil smile, saying nothing. It is as though he but waits -for Hamilton's offenses to ripen in their accumulation, as one waits for -apples to ripen on a tree. - -At last the hour of harvest comes; Aaron leaves Washington for Richmond -Hill, and sends for his friend Van Ness. - -"You once marveled at my Hamilton moderation--wondered that I did not -stop his slanders with convincing lead?" - -"Yes," says Van Ness. - -"You shall wonder no longer, my friend. The hour of his death is about -to strike." - -Van Ness breaks into a gale of protest. Hamilton, beaten, disgraced, -deposed, is in political exile! Aaron, powerful, victorious, is on the -crest of fortune! There is no fairness, no equality in an exchange of -shots under such circumstances! Thus runs the opposition of Van Ness. - -"In short," he concludes, "it would be a fight downhill--a fight that -you, in justice to yourself, have no right to make. Who is Alexander -Hamilton? Nobody--a beaten nobody! Who is Aaron Burr? The second officer -of the nation, on his sure way to a White House! Let me say, sir, that -you must not risk so much against so little." - -"There is no risk; for I shall kill the man. I shall live and he shall -die." - -"Cannot you see? There is the White House! Adams went from -the Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; Jefferson went from the -Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; you will do the same. It's as though -the White House were already yours. And you would throw it away for a -shot at this broken, beaten, disregarded man! For let me tell you, sir; -kill Hamilton and you kill your chance of being President. No one may -hope to go into the White House on the back of a duel." - -About Aaron's mouth twinkles a pale smile. It lights up his face with a -cold dimness, as a will-o'-the-wisp lights up the midnight blackness of -a wood. - -"You have a memory only for what I lose. You forget what I gain." - -"What you gain?" - -"Ay, friend, what I gain. I shall gain vengeance; and I would sooner be -revenged than be President." - -"Now this is midsummer madness!" wails Van Ness. "To throw away a career -such as yours is simple frenzy!" - -"I do not throw away a career; I begin one." - -Van Ness stares; Aaron goes slowly on, as though he desires every word -to make an impression. - -"Listen, my friend; I've been preparing. Last week I closed out all my -houses and lands! to John Jacob Astor for one hundred and forty thousand -dollars. The one lone thing I own is Richmond Hill--the roof we sit -beneath. I'd have sold this, but I did not care to attract attention. -There would have come questions which I'm not ready to answer." - -Van Ness fills a glass of Cape, and settles himself to hear; he sees -that this is but the beginning. - -Aaron proceeds: "As we sit here to-night, Napoleon has been declared -hereditary Emperor of the French. It has been on its way for months, and -the next packet will bring us the news." - -"And what have the Corsican and his empire to do with us?" - -"A President," continues Aaron, ignoring the question, "is not -comparable to an emperor. The Presidential term is but a stunted -thing--in four years, eight at the most, your President comes to -his end. And what is an ex-President? Look at Adams, peevish, -disgruntled--unhappy in what he is, because he remembers what he was. -To be a President is well enough. To be an ex-President is to seek to -satisfy present hunger with the memories of banquets eaten years ago. -For myself, I would sooner be an emperor; his throne is his for life, -and becomes his son's or his grandson's after him." - -"What does this lead to?" asks Van Ness, vastly puzzled. "Admitting your -imperial preferences, how are they applicable here and now?" - -"Let me show you," responds Aaron, still slow and measured and -impressive. "What is possible in the East is possible in the West; -what has been done in Europe may be done in America. Napoleon comes to -Paris--lean, epileptic, poor, unknown, not even French. To-day he is -emperor. Also"--this with a laugh which, however, does not prevent Van -Ness from seeing that Aaron is deeply serious--"also, he is two inches -shorter than myself." - -Van Ness leans back and makes a little gesture with his hand, as who -should say: "Continue!" - -"Very well! Would it be a stranger story if I, Aaron Burr, were to found -an empire in the West--if I became Aaron I, as the Corsican has become -Napoleon I?" - -"You do not talk of overturning our government?" This in tones of -wonder, and not without some flash of angry horror. - -"Don't hold me so dull. The people of this country are unfitted for king -or emperor. They would throw down a thousand thrones while you set up -one. I've studied races and peoples. Let me give you a word; it will -serve should you go to nation building. Never talk of crowns or thrones -to blue-eyed or gray-eyed men. They are inimical, in the very seeds of -their natures, to thrones and crowns." - -"England?" - -"England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland are monarchies only in name. -In fact and spirit they are republics. If you would have king or emperor -in very truth, you must go to your black-eyed folk. Setting this country -aside, if you cast a glance toward the southwest, you will behold a -people who should be the very raw materials of an empire." - -"Mexico!" exclaims the astonished Van Ness. - -"Ay, Mexico! There is nothing which Napoleon Bonaparte has done in -France, which Aaron Burr may not do in Mexico. I would have the flower -of this country at my back. Indeed, it should be easier to ascend the -throne of the Montezumas than of the Bourbons. I believe, too--for I -think he would feel safer with a brother emperor in the West--I might -count on Napoleon's help for that climbing. However, we overrun the -hunt"--Aaron seems to recall himself like one who comes out of a -dream--"I am thinking not on empire, but vengeance. I have thrown out a -rude picture of my plans, however, because I hope to have your company -in them. Also, I wanted to show how utterly in my heart I have given -up America and an American career. It is Mexico and the throne of an -emperor, not Washington and the chair of a President, at which I aim. I -am laying my foundations, not for four years, not for eight years, but -for life. I shall be Aaron I, Emperor of Mexico; with my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, to follow me as Aaron II. There; that should do for 'Aaron -and empire.'" This, with a return to the cynical: "Now let us get to -Hamilton and vengeance. The scoundrel has spat his toad-venom on my name -and fame for twenty years; the turn shall now be mine." - -Van Ness is silent; the glimpses he has been given of Aaron's high -designs have tied his tongue. - -Aaron gets out a letter. "Here," he says; "you will please carry that -to Hamilton. It marks the beginning of my revenge. I base it on excerpts -taken from a printed letter written by Dr. Cooper, who says: 'General -Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they look upon -Colonel Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted -with the reins of government. I could detail a still more despicable -opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Colonel Burr.' I -demand," concludes Aaron, "that he explain or account to me for having -furnished such an 'opinion' to Dr. Cooper." - -Van Ness purses up his lips, and knots his forehead cogitatively. - -"Why pitch upon this letter of Cooper's as a _casus belli?_" he asks at -last. "It is ambiguous, and involves a question of Cooper's construction -of English. If we had nothing better it might do; but there is no such -pressure. Hamilton, on many recent occasions, in speeches and in print, -has applied to you the lowest epithets." - -"You may recall, sir, that I once told you I was an artist of revenge. -It is this very ambiguity I'm after. I would hook the fellow--hook him -and play him as I would a fish! The man's a coward. I saw it written on -his face that day when, following 'Long Island,' he threw away his gun -and stores. By coming at him with this ambiguity, he will hope in the -beginning to secure himself by evasions. He will write; I shall respond; -there will be quite a correspondence. Days will drag along in agony and -torment to him. And all the time he cannot escape. From the moment I -send him that letter he is mine. It is as if I had him in a narrow -lane; he cannot get by me. On the other hand, if I come upon him, as you -suggest, with some undeniable charge, it will all be over in a moment. -He will be obliged at once to toe the peg. You now understand that I -design only in this letter to hook him hard and fast. When I have so -played him as to satisfy even my hatred, rest secure I'll reel him in. -He can no more avoid meeting me than he can avoid trembling when he -contemplates the dark promise of that meeting. His wife would despise -him, his very children cut him dead were he to creep aside." - -Van Ness goes with Aaron's letter to Hamilton. The latter, as he reads -it, cannot repress a start. The blood rushes from his face to his heart -and back again; for, as though the blind were made to see, he realizes -the snare into which he has walked--a snare that he himself has spread -to his own undoing. - -With an effort he commands his agitation. "You shall have my answer by -the hand of Mr. Pendleton," he says. - -Hamilton's reply, long and wordy, is two days on its way. As Aaron -foretold, it is wholly evasive, and comes in its analysis to be nothing -better than a desperate peering about for a hole through which its -author may crawl, and drag with him what he calls his honor. - -Aaron's reply closes each last loophole of escape. "Your letter," he -says, "has furnished me new reasons for requiring a definite reply." - -Hamilton reads his doom in this; and yet he cannot consent to the -sacrifice, but struggles on. He makes a second response, this time at -greater length than before. - -Aaron, implacable as Death, reads what Hamilton has written. - -"I think we should close the business," he says to Van Ness, as he gives -him Hamilton's letter. "It has been ten days since I sent my initial -note, and I have had enough of vengeance in anticipation. And so for the -last act." Aaron dispatches Van Ness with a peremptory challenge. There -being no gateway of relief, Hamilton is driven to accept. Even then -comes a cry for time; Hamilton asks that the hour of final meeting be -fixed ten further days away. Aaron smiles that pale smile of hatred made -content, and grants the prayed-for delay. - -The morning following the challenge and its acceptance, Pendleton -appears with another note from Hamilton--who obviously prefers pens to -pistols for the differences in hand. Aaron, smiling his pale smile of -contented hate, refuses to receive it. - -"There is," he observes, "no more to be said on either side, a challenge -having been given and accepted. The one thing now is to load the pistols -and step off the ground." - -It is four days later, and the fight six days away. Aaron and Hamilton -meet at a dinner given on Independence Day. Hamilton is hysterically -gay, and sings his famous song, "The Drum." Also, he never once looks at -Aaron, who, dark and lowering and silent, the black serpent sparkle -in his eye, seldom shifts his gaze from Hamilton. Aaron's stare, -remorseless, hungrily steadfast, is the stare of the tiger as it sights -its prey. - -Dr. Hosack calls on Aaron, where the latter sits alone at Richmond Hill. -Wine is brought; the good doctor takes a nervous glass. He has a rosy, -social face, has the good doctor, a face that tells of friendships and -the genial board. Just now, however, he is out of spirits. Desperately -setting down his wineglass, he flounders into the business that has -brought him. - -"I can hardly excuse my coming," he says, "and I apologize before I -state my errand. I would have you believe, too, that my presence here is -entirely by my own suggestion." - -Aaron bows. - -The good doctor explains that he has been called upon to go, -professionally, to the fighting ground with Hamilton. - -"That is how I became aware," he concludes, "of what you have in train. -I resolved to see you, and make one last effort at a peaceful solution." - -Aaron coldly shakes his head: "There can be no adjustment." - -"Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!" - -"Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to -him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered -me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!" The good -doctor looks guiltily uneasy. "And now I am asked to sit down with the -scorn he has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur -to you, sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: -Should he fall, there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I -fall, the blow descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those -the slender shoulders of a girl." - -There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way. - -The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights -of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over -the bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes -his barge at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his -friend Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy -shelf, under the somber Weehawken heights. - -The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend -Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place -of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches -his hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word -and choice of position. - -Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the -up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is -given the other end. The word is to be: - -"Present!--one--two--three--stop!" As the two stand in position, Aaron -is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man already lost. - -Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range. - -"Gentlemen, are you ready?". - -"Ready!" says Aaron. - -"Ready!" says Hamilton. - -There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes: - -"Present!-------" - -There is a flash and a roar!--a double flash, a double roar! The smoke -curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels, clutches at -nothing, and pitches forward on his face--shot through and through. The -Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron's head. - -Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like -a man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk -toss aside a tool when the work is done--well done. Then he walks down -to his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful -cedars are smiling just across the river. - -"It was worth the price, Van Ness," says Aaron. "The taste of that -immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die -out in my heart." - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO - - -AARON sits placidly serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his -cigar, he reduces those dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out -his design as architects draw plans and specifications for a house. His -friends call--Van Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and -Washington. - -Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a -prodigious hubbub of mourning--demonstrative if not deeply sincere. -Hamilton, broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. -Was he not a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? -Therefore, come folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it -an opportunity to prove themselves of the town's Vere de Veres. There -dwells fashionable advantage in tear-shedding at the going out of an -illustrious name. Such tear-shedding provides the noble inference -that the illustrious one was "of us." Alive to this, those of would-be -fashion lapse into sackcloth and profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and -the ashes ashes of roses. Also they arrange a public funeral at Trinity, -and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local Mark Antony, to deliver an oration. - -To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended -grief of Aaron's Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of -Hamilton for Aaron's political destruction. - -At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his -empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or -spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on -the ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn's shaven -borders in front of Richmond Hill. - -The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, -stubborn Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful -one says "Good-by!" and returns; Aaron is received by his friend -Commodore Truxton. With Truxton he talks "empire" all night. He counts -on English ships, he says; being promised in secret by British Minister -Merry in Washington. Truxton shall command that fleet. - -Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for -Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls "Celeste," and to -whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in -Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton's scandalized _American Citizen_: -"He walks openly about the streets!" - -Then to St. Simon's off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite -Southern circles; and, from St. Simon's across to South Carolina and -the noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the -summer wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love. - -With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the -grave togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going -out of Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During -those three Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, -goes among friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or -glance averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete -to do him honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of -farewell, and men pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. -So he steps down from American official life; but not from American -interest. - -Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of -empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers--the -Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du -Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their -words are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary -of civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for -conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West -beyond the Mississippi. - -It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside -the rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave -Peter intrudes his black face to announce: - -"Gen'man comin'-up, sah!" - -Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun -Cow, with as little ceremony. - -As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway. - -"Come in, General," says Aaron. - -General Wilkinson is among Aaron's older acquaintances. They were -together at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in -an hour of Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that -throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson -is in present command of the military forces of the United States in the -Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of -that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron's plans. - -The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron's genial "Come in." Its owner -takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, -which the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a -glass of whisky. - -Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain, -bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that -tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat -exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid -that speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining -with bear's grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes -a composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger -liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg. - -The stubborn Swartwout doesn't like him. On a late occasion he expresses -that dislike. - -"To be frank, Chief," observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of -Aaron's headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as -"Chief"--"to be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked -as a dog's hind leg." - -"You are right, sir," says Aaron; "he is both dishonest and treacherous. -It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by 'blabbing' -them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and -treacherous is Wilkinson." - -[Illustration: 0273] - -"Why, then, do you trust him?" - -"Why do I trust him?" repeats Aaron. "For several sufficient reasons. He -has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as -I am with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New -Orleans; and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, -he commands the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count -his dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should -become of importance in my enterprise. - -"As how?" demands the mystified Buck-tail. - -"As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice -will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His -treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies -that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor -me. Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war -department here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual -roles of filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this -government, he is certain to be often in collision with himself." - -The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference -to Aaron's will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the -whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep. - -Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron's fire, sits in happy -ignorance of the distrustful Bucktail's views. Confident as to his own -high importance, he plunges freely into Aaron's plans. - -"Five hundred," says Aaron, "full five hundred are agreed to go; and -I have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should -crowd round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is -to purchase eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from -which to operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My -excuse for recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to -settle on those eight hundred thousand Washita acres." - -"Eight hundred thousand acres!" This, between sips of whisky: "That -should take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?" - -"It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from -everywhere--but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to -mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million." - -"How do you succeed with the English?" asks Wilkinson, taking a new -direction. - -"It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me -yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, -to return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans. -Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz, -where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera -Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico." - -Wilkinson helps himself to another glass. - -Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger. - -"Well," he observes, "it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I'll -make you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches -and almost the wisdom of Solomon. He'll embrace the enterprise; once he -does he'll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; -with his merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in -provisions in Vera Cruz." - -"That is well bethought," cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle. - -"Clark's relations with the bishop are likewise close," adds Wilkinson. - -Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction. - -"Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time -with a claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a -republic?" - -"The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the 'Empire of -Mexico.' I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made -hereditary in the male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron -Burr Alston, heir presumptive." - -"And I?" interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol -and interest. "What are to be my rank and powers?" - -"You will be generalissimo of the army." - -"Second only to you?" - -"Second only to me. Here; I've drawn an outline of the civil fabric -we're to set up. The government, as I've said, is to be imperial, myself -emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who -will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor; -Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees -and secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess -mother of the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; -Truxton, lord high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, -ministers, consuls, and the usual furniture of government. The grandees -should be limited to one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring -with us. There may be minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and -friendly among the natives." - -Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of -the night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his -leave, he says: - -"We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to -follow in two weeks, you say?" - -"Yes," responds Aaron. "There should be months of travel ahead, before -my arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith -in Ohio, Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New -Orleans, and arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. -In my running about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as -questions come up." - -"I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don't forget two several -matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the -civil as well as the military control of the empire, I'm to be second to -no one save yourself." - -"I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill -to-morrow for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and -signed." - -"Oh, we shall find money enough," returns Wilkinson contentedly. "Only -it's well never to lose sight of the fact that we're going to need it. -Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome--something -that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank -of generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could -ask. Popularly," concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his -leave--"popularly, I shall be known as 'Wilkinson the Deliverer.' -Coming, as I shall, at the head of those gallant conquering armies which -are to relieve the groaning Mexicans from the yoke of Spain, I think it -a natural and an appropriate title--'Wilkinson the Deliverer!'" - -"Not only an appropriate title," observes the courtly Aaron, who -remembers his generalissimo's recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, "but -admirably adapted to fill the trump of fame." - -The door closes on the broad back of the coming "Deliverer." As Aaron -again bends over his "Empire," he hears that personage's footsteps, -uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious -prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen. - -"Bah!" mutters Aaron; "Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous -and disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation -of this conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my -situation, I am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, -if Jefferson were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of -abstractions, bookshelves and alcoves!--a closet philosopher in whose -veins runs no drop of red aggressive fighting blood!--he would as soon -think of treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into -the error of imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me -for that presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of -his own unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the -natural child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust -him. His judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most -innocent act a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making -Aaron Burr an outlaw." - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--THE TREASON OF WILKINSON - - -NOW begin days crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends -the Potomac, and crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined -flatboat and floats down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, -romantic, eccentric, living on an island below. He visits the island; -the lord of the isle is absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, -not beautiful, welcomes him and bids him come again. - -Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville, -where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find -General Jackson--his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served -colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King. - -Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. -Processions march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of -oxen, drinking of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; -and all after the hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero -in its clutches. - -To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of -Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul. -Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon's hate; each is a Francis Drake at -bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal -pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make -clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them -less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals -with folk who are congenital republicans. - -The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into -Aaron's plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow -him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in -Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious -culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson -himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson. - -Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does -not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam -Houston--the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in his -ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with -his sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the -bedplates of an empire truly; but not _his_ empire--not the empire -of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on the -grave's edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart will -warm at the news of it, and know it for his work. - -Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets -Wilkinson, who--nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul--is as much in -ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The only -change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to whether, -instead of "Wilkinson the Deliverer," he might not better fill the -wondering measure of futurity as "Washington of the West." Both titles -are full of majesty--a thing important to a taste streaked of rum--but -the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson -says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance, -committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both. - -Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight -hundred miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The -latter city is a bubbling community of nine thousand souls--American, -Spanish, French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder, -up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a -more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a -whole roast ox. - -The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It -is agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston's, Clark shall be -of the grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New -Orleans, and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy -out the land. For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not -fostered the Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not -only be protected, but become the national Church. - -Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville, -keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill -along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom -he sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the -coming work. - -[Illustration: 0287] - -Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron -heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight -he spends with that muddled exile, he wins him--life and fortune. -Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell -of the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, -feels with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will -be a grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire -of Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing -himself at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of -anticipation the exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends. - -"Ay! they'll change their tune!" cries Blennerhassett, as he considers -his greatness to come. "It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when -they meet me as 'Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, -Ambassador to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.' -It'll cause my surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their -mouths; for I cannot remember that they've been over-respectful to me in -the past." - -Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. -He dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his -plans. No whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat's table! -Aaron is not so horn-mad as all that. - -While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the -fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one -returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to -Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston -join Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as -the sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads -for the West. There will be no return--the lustrous Theo and the heir -presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law -Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, -promises to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan -on his plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson's -interference with the exportation of rice. - -Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and -kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present -headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to -Madam Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and -north and south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one -hundred men, at Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, -and note the progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland -flotilla. What he sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand -dollars--a royal sum!--with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in -outfitting the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise. - -Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, -he drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he -forms the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who -is eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and -decides that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley -in a blaze. He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson--as suspicious as -any Morgan! - -Having aroused Morgan the wrong way, - -Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight -hundred thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate -transaction, he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a -suggestion. As commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into -the Spanish country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians -into a clash. Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the -Spaniards and the United States, a war fury will seize the country, and -furnish an admirable background of sentiment for his own descent upon -Mexico. Wilkinson, full of bottle valor, receives Aaron's suggestion -with rapture, and starts for the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the -Sabine, to bring down the desired trouble, Aaron again pushes up for -Blennerhassett and that exile's island. - -While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the -soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the -papers, descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with -milk and honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming -ambassador buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on -the island. They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon -the broad Ohio in those fifteen Marietta bateaux. - -Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and -Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that -Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has -moved the court at Frankfort for an order "commanding the appearance -of Aaron Burr." The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious -Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground. - -Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs -to Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into -court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but -does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give -their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a -ball in his honor. - -Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach -completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with -letters to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards -on the Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When -Swartwout and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta -preparations, urging speed with those bateaux. - -Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron's letters. -These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice -and native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built -up doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the -conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. -Why should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for -betraying Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the -Credulous Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico -but the United States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose -as the saviour of his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his -country, what might not he demand?--what might not he receive? Surely, a -saved country, even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful! - -The red-nosed one's genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends -posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to -break up the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the -revolt. Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the -shorter cut to that coveted title, "Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington -of the West." Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! -Wilkinson the red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging -Aaron and his scheme of empire into ruin. - -While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance -concerning them, is driving matters with a master's hand at Marietta and -the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves, -with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which -call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand -acres. Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson. - -At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a -Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of -frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States -west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on -peril of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, -treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, -Samuel Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to -Baltimore, to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all -his fortitude to command himself. - -The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of -doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; -after which he calls into counsel his attorney general. - -The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He -believes that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country's -integrity threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his -own sublime powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk -the treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor--nobly -willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on -the altars of a common good--bids him try what he can eloquently do. - -The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be -conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake -it would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant -territory of Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron -surrender without a struggle, and come into court and be tried. - -Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, -and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically -hailed by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand -dollars. - -The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue -grass, find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his -honorable release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, -to indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. -Cool counsel intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without -difficulty, are convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon -they content themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter -let "honest settlers" coming into the country alone. Having discharged -their duty in the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and -the governor draws a long breath of relief. - -Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson's anti-treason proclamation. The West -will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure -to be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his -enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, -it makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not -name him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will -supply the omission. - -There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and -yet Aaron's dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront -him. - -As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which -the perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go -to Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose, -mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out. - -It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of -Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets -Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes' study, Perkins is flooded of a -great light. - -"Aaron Burr!" he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart. - -Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours -later, as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines -and a sober file of soldiers. - -The captain salutes: - -"You are Colonel Burr," he says. "I arrest you by order of President -Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be -treated with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second -highest post of Government." - -"Sir," responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, "I am Colonel Burr. I -yield myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it -is not possible to do otherwise." Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the -fort. As the two dismount at the captain's quarters, a beautiful woman -greets them. - -"This is my wife, Colonel Burr," says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam -Gaines: "Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner." - -Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two -sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. -Aaron beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which -has cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is -forever thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant--the -beautiful Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! -Aaron is never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than -now when power and empire vanish for all time. - -"You appreciate my position, sir," says Captain Gaines, as they rise -from the table. "I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty." - -"Sir," returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, "I blame only the -hateful, thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in -trusting a scoundrel." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--HOW AARON IS INDICTED - - -IT is evening at the White House. The few dinner guests have departed, -and Jefferson is alone in his study. As he stands at the open window, -and gazes out across the sweep of lawn to the Potomac, shining like -silver in the rays of the full May moon, his face is cloudy and angry. -The face of the sage of Monticello has put aside its usual expression of -philosophy. In place of the calm that should reign there, the look which -prevails is one of narrowness, prejudice and wrathful passion. - -Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without -surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant. - -"Ah, Wirt!" he cries; "be seated, please. You got my note?" - -William Wirt is thirty-five--a clean, well-bred example of the -conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but -with the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the -reason of his White House presence. - -"Your note, Mr. President?" he repeats. "Oh, yes; I received it. What -you propose is highly flattering. And yet--and yet----" - -"And yet what, sir?" breaks in Jefferson impatiently. "Surely, I propose -nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to -conduct the case against Colonel Burr." - -"Nothing unusual, of course," returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen -political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what -he is about. "And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which -should be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the -Government's attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as -well as duty to prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled -upon him. Have you thought of Mr. Hay?" - -"Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity! -no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have -about him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, -sir; he seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, -he has done quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; -there is much depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr -must be convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and -set a monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single -item, must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to -be on trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be -'The People against Aaron Burr.' but 'The Federalists against Thomas -Jefferson.' Do you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as -much as is the Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, -will be on the bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their -instrument, Colonel Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a -support as George Hay. It is you who must conduct this cause." - -Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless -dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much -the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his -speech. - -"You surely do not mean to say," he begins, "that the chief justice----" - -"I mean to say," interrupts Jefferson, "that you must be ready to meet -every trick that Marshall can play against the Government. For all his -black robe, is he of different clay than any other? Believe me, he's -a Federalist long before he's a judge! Let me ask a question: Why did -Marshall, the chief justice, mind you, hold the preliminary examination -of Burr? Why, having held it, did he not commit him for treason? Why did -he hold him only for a misdemeanor, and admit him to bail? Does not -that look as though Marshall had taken possession of the case in Burr's -interest? You spoke a moment ago of the propriety of Hay prosecuting the -charge against Burr, being, as he is, the Government's attorney for that -district. Does not it occur to you that his honor, Judge Griffin, is the -judge for that district? And yet Marshall shoves him aside to make room -on the bench for himself. Sir, there is chicanery in this. We must watch -Marshall. A chief justice, indeed! A chief Federalist, rather! Why, he -even so much lacked selfrespect as to become a guest at a dinner given -in Colonel Burr's honor, after he had committed that traitor in ten -thousand dollars bail! An excellent, a dignified chief justice, -truly!--doing dinner table honor to one whom he must presently try for a -capital offense!" - -"Justice Marshall's appearance at the Burr dinner"--Wirt makes the -admission doubtfully--"was not, I admit, in the very flower of good -taste. None the less, I should infer honesty rather than baseness from -such appearance. If he contemplated any wrong in Colonel Burr's favor, -he would have remained away. Coming to the case itself," says Wirt, -anxious to avoid further discussion of Judge Marshall, as a topic -whereon he and Jefferson are not likely to agree, "what is the specific -act of treason with which the Government charges Colonel Burr?" - -"The conspiracy, wherein he was prime mover, aimed first to take Mexico -from, the Spanish. Having taken Mexico, the plotters--Colonel Burr at -the head--purposed seizing New Orleans. That would give them a hold -in the vast region drained by the Mississippi. Everything west of the -Alleghenies was expected to flock round their standards. With an -empire reaching from Darien to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific to the -Alleghenies, their final move was to be made upon Washington itself. -Sir, the Federalists hate this republic--have always hated it! What they -desire is a monarchy. They want a king, not a president, in the White -House." - -"I learn," observes Wirt--"I learn, since my arrival, that Colonel Burr -has been in Washington." - -"That was three days ago. He demanded copies of my orders to General -Wilkinson. When I prevented his obtaining them, he said he would move -for a _subpoena duces tecum_, addressed to me personally. Think of that, -sir! Can you conceive of greater impudence? He will sue out a subpoena -against the President of this country, and compel him to come into court -bringing the archives of Government!" - -Wirt shrugs his shoulders. "And why not, sir?" he asks at last. "In the -eye of the law a president is no more sacred than a pathmaster. A murder -might be committed in the White House grounds. You, looking from that -window, might chance to witness it--might, indeed, be the only witness. -You yourself are a lawyer, Mr. President. You will not tell me that an -innocent man, accused of murder, is to be denied your testimony?--that -he is to hang rather than ruffle a presidential dignity? What is the -difference between the case I've supposed and that against Colonel -Burr? He is to be charged with treason, you say! Very well; treason is a -hanging matter as much as murder." - -Jefferson and Wirt, step by step, go over the arrest of Aaron, and what -led to it. It is settled that Wirt shall control for the prosecution. -Also, when the Grand Jury is struck, he must see to it that Aaron is -indicted for treason. - -"Marshall has confined the inquiry," says Jefferson, "to what Burr -contemplated against Mexico--a mere misdemeanor! You, Wirt, must have -the Grand Jury take up that part of the conspiracy which was leveled -against this country. There is abundant testimony. Burr talked it to -Eaton in Washington, to Morgan in Ohio, to Wilkinson at Fort Massac." - -"You speak of his _talking_ treason," returns Wirt with a thoughtful, -non-committal air. "Did he anywhere or on any occasion _act_ it? Was -there any overt act of war?" - -"What should you call the doings at Blennerhassett Island?--the -gathering of men and stores?--the boat-building at Marietta and -Nashville? Are not those, taken with the intention, hostile acts?--overt -acts of war?" - -Wirt falls into deep study. "We must," he says after a moment's silence, -"leave those questions, I fear, for Justice Marshall to decide." - -Jefferson relates how he has written Governor Pinckney of South -Carolina, advising the arrest of Alston. - -"To be sure, Alston is not so bad as Colonel Burr," he observes, "for -the reason that he is not so big as Colonel Burr; just as a young -rattlesnake is not so venomous as an old one." Then, impressively: -"Wirt, Colonel Burr is a dangerous man! He will find his place in -history as the Catiline of America." - -Wirt cannot hide a smile. "It is but fair you should say so, Mr. -President, since at the Richmond hearing he spoke of you as a -presidential Jack Straw." Seeing that Jefferson does not enjoy the -reference, Wirt hastens to another subject. "Colonel Burr will have -formidable counsel. Aside from Wickham, and Botts, and Edmund Randolph, -across from Maryland will come Luther Martin." - -"Luther Martin!" cries Jefferson. "So they are to unloose that Federal -bulldog against me! But then the whisky-swilling beast is never sober." - -"No more safe as an adversary for that," retorts Wirt. "If I am ever -called upon to write Luther Martin's epitaph, I shall make it 'Ever -drunk and ever dangerous!'" - -On the bench sits Chief Justice Marshall--tall, slender--eyes as black -as Aaron's own--face high, dignified--brow noble, full--the whole -man breathing distinction. By his side, like some small thing lost in -shadow, no one noticing him, no one addressing him, a picture of silent -humility, sits District Judge Griffin. - -For the Government comes Wirt, sneering, harsh--as cold and hard and -fine and keen as thrice-tempered steel. With him is Hay--slow, pompous, -of much respectability and dull weakness. Assisting Wirt and Hay and -filling a minor place, is one McRae. - -Leading for the defense, is Aaron himself--confident, unshaken. -Already he has begun to relay his plans of Mexican conquest. He assures -Blennerhassett, who is with him, that the present interruption should -mean no more than a time-waste of six months. With Aaron sit Edmund -Randolph, the local Nestor; Wickham, clear, sure of law and fact; and -Botts, the Bayard of the Richmond bar. Most formidable is Aaron's rear -guard, the thunderous Luther Martin--coarse, furious, fearless--gay -clothes stained and soiled--ruffles foul and grimy--eye fierce, -bleary, bloodshot--nose bulbous, red as a carbuncle--a hoarse, roaring, -threatening voice--the Thersites of the hour. Never sober, he rolls into -court as drunk as a Plantagenet. Ever dangerous, he reads, hears, -sees everything, and forgets nothing. Quick, rancorous, headlong as a -fighting bull, he lowers his horns against Wirt, whenever that polished -one puts himself within forensic reach. Also, for all his cool, sneering -skill, Toreador Wirt never meets the charge squarely, but steps aside -from it. - -Apropos of nothing, as Martin takes his place by the trial table, he -roars out: - -"Why is this trial ordered for Richmond? Why is it not heard in -Washington? It is by command of Jefferson, sir. He thinks that in -his own State of Virginia, where he is invincible and Colonel Burr a -stranger, the name of 'Jefferson' will compel a verdict of guilt. There -is fairness for you!" - -Wirt glances across, but makes no response to the tirade; for Martin, -purple of face, snorting ferociously, seems only waiting a word from him -to utter worse things. - -The Grand Jury is chosen: foreman, John Randolph of Roanoke--sour, -inimical, hateful, voice high and spiteful like the voice of a -scolding woman! The Grand Jury is sent to its room to deliberate as to -indictments, while the court adjourns for the day. - -It is well into the evening when the parties in interest leave the -courtroom. As Wirt and Hay, arm in arm, are crossing the courthouse -green, they become aware of an orator who, loud of tone and careless of -his English, is addressing a crowd from the steps of a corner grocery. -Just as the two arrive within earshot, the orator, lean, hawklike of -face, tosses aloft a rake-handle arm, and shouts: - -"When Jefferson says that Colonel Burr is a traitor, Jefferson lies in -his throat!" The crowd applaud enthusiastically. - -Hay looks at Wirt. "Who is the fellow?" he asks. - -"Oh! he's a swashbuckler militia general," returns Wirt, carelessly. -"He's a low fellow, I'm told; his name is Andrew Jackson. He was one of -Colonel Burr's confederates. They say he's the greatest blackguard in -Tennessee." - -Just now, did some Elijah touch the Wirtian elbow and tell of a day -to come when he, Wirt, will be driven to resign that coveted attorney -generalship into the presidential hands of the "blackguard," who will -receive it promptly, and dismiss him into private life no more than half -thanked for what public service he has rendered, the ambitious Virginian -would hold the soothsayer to be a madman, not a prophet. - -Scores upon scores of witnesses are sent one by one to the Grand Jury. -The days run into weeks. Every hour the question is asked: "Where is -Wilkinson?" The red-nosed one is strangely, exasperatingly absent. - -Wirt seeks to explain that absence. The journey is long, he says. He -will pledge his honor for the red-nosed one's appearance. - -Meanwhile the friends of Aaron pour in from North and West and South. -The stubborn, faithful Swartwout is there, with his brother Samuel; -for, Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden and Adair and Bollman, shipped -aforetime per schooner to Baltimore by the red-nosed one as traitors, -have been declared innocent, and are all in Richmond attending upon -their chief. - -One morning the whisper goes about that "Wilkinson is here." The -whisper is confirmed by the red-nosed one's appearance in court. Young -Washington Irving, who has come down from New York in the interest of -Aaron, writes concerning that red-nosed advent: - -_Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line -with Colonel Burr. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey -cock, and bracing himself to meet Colonel Burr's eye. The latter took no -notice of him, until Judge Marshall directed the clerk to "swear General -Wilkinson." At the mention of the name, Colonel Burr turned and looked -him full in the face, with one of his piercing regards, swept him from -head to foot, and then went on conversing with his counsel as before. -The whole look was over in a moment; and yet it was admirable. There -was no appearance of study or constraint, no affectation of disdain -or defiance; only a slight expression of contempt played across -the countenance, such as one might show on seeing a person whom one -considers mean and vile._ - -That evening Samuel Swartwout meets the red-nosed one, as the latter -warrior is strutting on the walk for the admiration of men, and -thrusts him into a mud hole. The lean Jackson is so delighted at this -disposition of the rednosed one, that he clasps the warlike Swartwout -in his rake-handle arms. Later, by twenty-two years, he will make him -collector of the port of New York for it. Just now, however, he advises -a duel, holding that the mudhole episode will be otherwise incomplete. - -Since Swartwout has had the duel in his mind from the beginning, he and -the lean Jackson combine in the production of a challenge, which is duly -sent to the red-nosed one in the name of Swartwout. The red-nosed one -has no heart for duels, and crawls from under the challenge by saying, -"I refuse to hold communication with a traitor." Thereupon Swartwout, -with the lean Jackson to aid him, again lapses into the clerical, and -prints the following gorgeous outburst in the _Richmond Gazette:_ - -_Brigadier General Wilkinson: Sir: When once the chain of infamy -grapples to a knave, every new link creates a fresh sensation of -detestation and horror. As it gradually or precipitately unfolds itself, -we behold in each succeeding connection, and arising from the same -corrupt and contaminated source, the same base and degenerated -conduct. I could not have supposed that you would have completed the -catalogue of your crimes by adding to the guilt of treachery forgery and -perjury the accomplishment of cowardice. Having failed in two different -attempts to procure an interview with you, such as no gentleman of honor -could refuse, I have only to pronounce and publish you to the world as a -coward._ - -_Samuel Swartwout._ - -The Grand Jury comes into court, and by the shrill mouth of Foreman -Randolph reports two indictments against Aaron: one for treason, "as -having levied war against the United States," and one for "having levied -war upon a country, to wit, Mexico, with which the United States are at -peace"--the latter a misdemeanor. - - - - -CHAPTER XX--HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT - - -THE indictments are read, and Aaron pleads "Not guilty!" Thereupon -Luther Martin moves for a _subpoena duces tecum_ against Jefferson, -commanding him to bring into court those written orders from the files -of the War Department, which he, as President and _ex officio_ commander -in chief of the army, issued to the red-nosed Wilkinson. Arguing the -motion, the violent Martin proceeds in these words: - -"We intend to show that these orders were contrary to the Constitution -and the laws. We intend to show that by these orders Colonel Burr's -property and person were to be destroyed; yes, by these tyrannical -orders the life and property of an innocent man were to be exposed to -destruction. This is a peculiar case, sirs. President Jefferson has -undertaken to prejudge my client by declaring that 'of his guilt there -can be no doubt!' He has assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme -Being, and pretended to search the heart of my client. He has proclaimed -him a traitor in the face of the country. He has let slip the dogs of -war, the hell-hounds of persecution, to hunt down my client. And now, -would the President of the United States, who has himself raised all -this clamor, pretend to keep back the papers wanted for a trial where -life itself is at stake? It is a sacred principle that the accused has a -right to the evidence needed for his defense, and whosoever--whether -he be a president or some lesser man--withholds such evidence is -substantially a murderer, and will, be so recorded in the register of -heaven." - -Argument ended, Marshall, chief justice, sustains the motion. He holds -that the _subpoena duces tecum_ may issue, and goes so far as to say -that, if it be necessary to the ends of justice, the personal attendance -of Jefferson himself shall be compelled. - -The charge is treason, and no bail can be taken; Aaron must be locked -up. The Governor of Virginia offers as a place of detention a superb -suite of rooms, meant for official occupation, on the third floor of the -penitentiary building. Marshall, chief justice, accepting such proffer, -orders Aaron's confinement in the superb official suite. Aaron takes -possession, stocks the larder, loads the sideboards, and, with a cloud -of servitors, gives a dinner party to twenty friends. - -The lustrous Theo arrives, and makes her residence with Aaron in -the official suite, as lady of the establishment. Each day a hundred -visitors call, among them the aristocracy of the town. Also dinner -follows dinner; the official suite assumes a gala, not to say a gallant -look, and no one would think it a prison, or dream for one urbane -moment that Aaron--that follower of the gospel according to Lord -Chesterfield--is fighting for his life. - -Following the order for the _subpoena duces tecum_, and Aaron's -dinner-giving incarceration in the official suite, Marshall, chief -justice, directs that court be adjourned until August--a month away. - -Wirt, during the vacation, goes over to Washington. He finds Jefferson -in a mood of double anger. - -"What did I tell you," cries Jefferson--"what did I tell you of -Marshall?" Then he rushes on to the utterances of the violent Luther -Martin. "Shall you not move," he demands, "to commit Martin as -_particeps criminis_ with Colonel Burr? There should be evidence to fix -upon him misprision of treason, at least. At any rate, such a step would -put down our impudent Federal bulldog, and show that the most clamorous -defenders of Colonel Burr are one and all his accomplices." - -Meanwhile, the "impudent Federal bulldog" attends a Fourth-of-July -dinner in Baltimore. Every man at table, save himself, is an adherent of -Jefferson. Eager to demonstrate that loyal fact to the administration, -sundry of the guests make speeches full of uncompliment for Martin, and -propose a toast: - -"Aaron Burr! May his treachery to his country exalt him to the -scaffold!" - -More speeches, replete of venom, are aimed at Martin; whereupon that -undaunted drunkard gets upon his feet. - -"Who is this Aaron Burr," he roars, "whose guilt you have pronounced, -and for whose blood your parched throats so thirst? Was not he, a -few years back, adored by you next to your God? Were not you then his -warmest admirers? Did not he then possess every virtue? He was then in -power. He had influence. You were proud of his notice. His merest smile -brightened all your faces. His merest frown lengthened all your visages. -Go, ye holiday, ye sunshine friends!--ye time-servers, ye criers of -hosannah to-day and crucifiers to-morrow!--go; hide your heads from the -contempt and detestation of every honorable, every right-minded man!" - -August: The day of trial arrives. Wirt, with the dull, deferent Hay, has -gone over the testimony against Aaron, and arranged the procession -of its introduction. Wirt will begin far back. By the mouth of the -red-nosed Wilkinson--somewhat in hiding from Swartwout--and by others, -he will relate from the beginning Aaron's dream of Mexican conquest. -He will show how the vision grew and expanded until it reacted upon the -United States, and the downfall of Washington became as much parcel of -Aaron's design as was the capture of Mexico. He will trace Aaron through -his many conferences in Washington, in Marietta, in Nashville, in -Cincinnati; and then on to New Orleans, where he is closeted with -Merchant Clark and the Bishop of Louisiana. - -And so the parties go into court. - -The jury being sworn, Marshall, chief justice, at once overthrows those -well-laid plans of Wirt. - -"You must go to the act, sir," says Marshall. - -"Treason, like murder, is an act. You can't think treason, you can't -plot treason, you can't talk treason; you can only act it. In murder you -must first prove the killing--the murderous act, before you may offer -evidence of an intent. And so in treason. You must begin by proving the -overt act of war against the country, before I can permit evidence of an -intent which led up to it." - -This ruling throws Wirt abroad in his calculations. The "Federal -bulldog" Martin grows vulgarly gleeful, Wirt correspondingly glum. - -Being prodded by Marshall, chief justice, Wirt declares that the "act -of war" was the assembling of forty armed men, under one Taylor, at -Blennerhassett Island. They stopped at the island but a moment, and -Aaron himself was in Lexington. None the less there were forty of them; -they were armed; they were there by design and plan of Aaron, with an -ultimate purpose of levying war against this Government. Wirt urges that -constructive war was at that very island moment being waged, with Aaron -personally absent but constructively present, and constructively waging -such war. - -At this setting forth, Marshall, chief justice, puckers his lips, as -might one who thinks the argument far-fetched and overfinely spun. -Martin, the "Federal bulldog," does not scruple to laugh outright. - -"Was ever heard such hash!" cries Martin. "Men may bear arms without -waging war! Forty men no more mean war than four! Men may float down -the Ohio, and still no war be waged. Because the hypochondriac Jefferson -imagined war, we are to receive the thing as _res adjudicata_, and -now give way while a pleasantly concocted tale, of that carnage of a -presidential nightmare, is recited from the witness box. Sirs, you are -not to fiddle folk onto a scaffold to any such tune as that, though a -president furnish the music." - -Marshall, chief justice, still with pursed lips and knotted forehead, -directs Wirt to proceed with his evidence of what, at Blennerhassett -Island, he relies upon to constitute, constructively or otherwise, a -state of war. Having heard the evidence, he will pass upon the points of -law presented. - -Wirt, desperate because he may do no better, puts forward one Eaton as -a witness. The latter tells a long, involved story, which sounds vastly -like fiction and not at all like fact, of conversations with Aaron. -Aaron brings out in cross examination, that within ten days after -he, Eaton, went with this tale to Jefferson, a claim for ten thousand -dollars, which he had been pressing without success against the -Government, was paid. Aaron suggests that Eaton, to induce payment -of such claim, invented his narrative; and the suggestion is plainly -acceptable to the jury. - -Following Eaton, Wirt calls Truxton; and next the suspicious Morgan, -who first wrote to Jefferson touching Aaron and his plans. Then -follow Blennerhassett's gardener and groom, and one Woodbridge, -Blennerhassett's man of business. Wirt, by these, proves Aaron's -frequent presence on the island; the boats building at Marietta; the -advent of Taylor with his forty armed men, and there the relation ends. -In all--the testimony, not a knife is ground, not a flint is picked, not -a rifle fired; the forty armed men do not so much as indulge in drill. -For all they said or did or acted, the forty might have been explorers, -or sightseers, or settlers, or any other form of peaceful whatnot. - -"I suppose," observes Marshall, chief justice, bending his black eyes -warningly upon Wirt--"I suppose it unnecessary to instruct counsel that -guilt will not be presumed?" - -Wirt replies stiffly that counsel for the Government, at least, require -no instructions; whereat Martin the "Federal bulldog" barks hoarsely -up, that what counsel for the Government most require, and are most -deficient in, is a case and the evidence of it. Wirt pays no heed to -the jeer, but announces that under the ruling of the court, made before -evidence was introduced, he has nothing more to offer touching acts of -overt war. He rests his case, he says, on that point; and thereupon, the -defense take issue with him. The Government, Aaron declares, has failed -to make out even the shadow of a treason. There is nothing which demands -reply; he will call no witnesses. - -Marshall, chief justice, directs that the arguments to the jury be -proceeded with. Wirt is heard. Being imaginative, and having no facts, -he unchains his fancy and paints a paradise, whereof Aaron is the -serpent and Blennerhassett and his moon-visaged spouse are Adam and Eve. -It is a beautiful picture, and might be effective did it carry any grain -of truth. However, it is well received by the jury as a romance full -of entertaining glow and glitter; and then it is put aside from serious -consideration. - -While Wirt the fanciful is thus coloring his invented paradise, with -Aaron as the serpent and the Blennerhassetts the betrayed Adam and Eve, -the "betrayed" Blennerhassett, sitting by Aaron's side, is reading the -"serpent" a letter, that day received from Madam Blennerhassett. The -missive closes: - -"Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and -Theo's kind remembrances. Tell him to assure her that she has inspired -me with a warmth of attachment that never can diminish." - -On the oratorical back of Wirt come Wickham, Hay, Randolph, Botts, -and McRae. Lastly Martin is heard, the "Federal bulldog" seizing the -occasion to bay Jefferson even more violently than before. When they -are done, Marshall, chief justice, lays down the law as to what should -constitute an "overt act of war"; and, since it is plain, even to the -court crier, that no such act has been proven, the jury hurry forward a -finding: - -"Not guilty!" - -Jefferson, full of prejudice, hears the news. He writes wrathfully to -Wirt: - -"Let no witness depart without taking a copy of his evidence, which is -now more important than ever. The criminal Burr is preserved, it seems, -to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worthless of -the United States, and to be the pivot on which all the conspiracies and -intrigues, that foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to -turn. There is still, however, the misdemeanor; and, if he be convicted -of that, Judge Marshall must, for very decency, give us some respite by -a confinement of him; but we must expect it to be very short." There -is a day's recess; then the charge of "levying war against Mexico" is -called. The red-nosed Wilkinson now tells his story; and is made -to admit--the painful sweat standing in great drops upon his purple -visage--that he has altered in important respects several of Aaron's -letters. Being, by his own mouth, a forger, the jury marks its estimate -of the red-nosed one by again acquitting Aaron, and pronouncing a second -finding: "Not guilty!" - -Thus ends the great trial which has rocked a continent. Aaron is free; -his friends crowd about him jubilantly, while the loving, lustrous Theo -weeps upon his shoulder. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI--THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. - - -SIX months creep by; May is painting Manhattan with its flowers. The -house of the stubborn, loyal Swartwout is in Stone Street. Long ago, -in the old Dutch beaver-peltry days, the home of the poet Steen-dam was -there. Now it is the dwelling place of John Swartwout, and Aaron is his -guest. - -The lustrous Theo is with Aaron this sunny afternoon, luster something -dimmed; for the hour is one sad and tearful with parting. It is a last -parting; though the pair--the loving father! the adoring, clinging -daughter!--hopefully, happily blind, believe otherwise. - -"Yes," Aaron is saying, "I must sail tonight. The ship is at anchor in -the lower bay." Theo, the lustrous, is too bravely the child of Aaron -to break into lamentation, though the wrung heart fills her eyes with -tears. "And should your plans fail," she says, "you will come to us at -the 'Oaks.' Joseph, you know, is no longer 'Mr. Alston,' but 'Governor -Alston.' As father to the Governor of the State, and with your own high -name, you may take what place you will in South Carolina. You promise, -do you not? If by any trip of fortune your prospects are overthrown, you -will come to us in the South?" - -"But, dearling, my plans will not fail. I have had letters from Lords -Mulgrave and Castlereagh, I bear with me the indorsement of the British -Minister in Washington. Openly or secretly, England will support my -project with men and money and ships. If, in some caprice of politics or -a changing cabinet, she should refuse, I shall seek Napoleon. Mexico and -an empire!--that should match finely the native color of his Corsican -feeling." - -Night draws on; Aaron and the lustrous Theo say the sorrowful words of -separation, and within the hour he is aboard the _Clarissa_, outward -bound for England. - -In London, full of new fire, Aaron throws away no time. Each day he -is closeted with Mulgrave, Castlereagh and Canning. He goes to Holland -House, and its noble master is seized with the fever for Montezuman -conquest. The inventive Earl of Bridgewater--who is radical and goes -readily to novel enterprises--catches the Mexican fury. The spirit of -Cortez is abroad; the nobility of England fall quickly in with Aaron's -Western design. It will mean an augmentation of the world's peerage. -Also, Mexico should furnish an admirable grazing ground for second sons. -Aaron's affairs go swimmingly; he is full of hopeful anticipation. He -writes the lustrous Theo at the "Oaks" that, "save for the unforeseen," -little Aaron Burr Alston shall yet wear an imperial crown as Aaron II. - -Save for the unforeseen! The reservation is well put in. As Aaron sits -in conference, one foggy London evening, with Mulgrave and Castlereagh, -who have become principal figures in those Mexican designs, Canning -comes hurriedly in. - -"I am from the Foreign Office," says he, "and I come with bad news. -There is a lion in our path--two lions. Secret news was just received -that Napoleon has driven the king and queen from Madrid, and established -his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Mexico by that: stroke belongs -to the Bonapartes; they will hardly consent to its loss." - -"That is one lion," observes Mulgrave; "now for the other." - -"The other is England," proceeds Canning. "Already we are mustering our -forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are -to become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish -power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain's ally, fighting her -battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit -the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon." - -Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. -He understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is -through talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No -chance now of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so -bright but the moment before, are on the instant darkened. - -"Delay! always delay!" he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the -chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and -quickly pulls himself together. "Yes," says he, "the word you bring -shuts double doors against us. The best we may do is wait--wait for -Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across -the Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again." - -"Indubitably," returns Canning. "Should England save Spain from the -Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico -as a recompense for her exertions." - -Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron -compelled to fold away his ambitions. - -While waiting the turn of fortune's wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his -leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. "The celebrated Colonel -Burr!" is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as -instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It -shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks. - -Jeremy Bentham--honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for bettering -governments--finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham loves admiration -and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from letter-writing friends -in America that "the celebrated Colonel Burr" reads his works with -satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy, praise-loving Bentham, -and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow Green. - -"You," cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the "celebrated Colonel -Burr" as a member of his family--"you and Albert Gallatin are the -only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common -mind--which is as dull and crawling as a tortoise--my theories travel -too fast." - -Aaron lives with Bentham--fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham--now at -Barrow Green, now at the philosopher's London house in Queen Square -Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William -Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with -Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal: - -"Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb's. He is a writer, and lives with a -maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs." - -At the Lambs he encounters Faseli the painter; and thereupon Aaron, -the Godwins, Faseli, and the Lambs brew a bowl of punch, and thresh out -questions social, artistic, literary, and political until the hours grow -small. - -Cobbett talks with Aaron; and straight off runs to Bentham with the -suggestion that they send him to Parliament. Aaron laughs. - -"I'm afraid," says he, "that whatever may be my genius for law-giving, -it would fit but badly with English prejudice and English inclination. -You would find me in the British Commons but a sorry case of a square -peg in a round hole." - -That Aaron is the fashion at Holland House, which is the gathering point -of opposition to Government, does not help him at the Home Office. Also, -the Spanish allies of England, through their minister, complain. - -"He is fomenting his Mexican design," cries the Spaniard. "It shows but -poorly for England's friendship that she harbors him, and that he is -feted and feasted by her nobility." - -Lord Hawkesbury leans to the Spanish view. He will assert his powers -under the "Alien Act." It will please the Spaniards. Likewise, it will -offend Holland House. Two birds; one stone. Hawkesbury sends a request -that Aaron call upon him at his office; and Aaron calls. - -"This, you will understand," observes Hawkesbury, "is not a personal -but an official interview, Colonel Burr. I might hope to make it more -pleasant were it personal. Speaking as one of the crown's secretaries, I -must notify you to quit England." - -"What is your authority for this?" asks Aaron. - -"You will find it in the 'Alien Act.' Under that statute, Government -is invested with power to order the departure of any alien without -assigning cause." - -"Precisely! Your Government is now engaged in searching American ships -for English sailors. It was, I recall, the basis of bitter complaint in -America when I left. In seizing those whom you call English sailors and -subjects, you refuse to recognize their naturalization as citizens of -America. Do I state the fact?" - -"Assuredly! No Englishman has a right to shift his allegiance from his -king. That is British doctrine. Once a subject, always a subject." - -"The very point!" returns Aaron. "Once a subject, always a subject. I -suppose you will not deny that I was in 1756 born in New Jersey, then a -province of England. I was born a British subject, was I not?" - -"There is no doubt of that." - -"Then, sir, being born a British subject, under your doctrine of 'Once a -subject, always a subject,' I am still a British subject. Therefore, -I am no alien. Therefore, I do not fall within the description of your -'Alien Act.' You can hardly order me to quit England as an alien at the -very moment when you say I am a British subject. My lord"--this with a -smile like a warning--"the story, if told in the papers, would get your -lordship laughed at." - -Hawkesbury falls back baffled. He keeps his face, however, and tells -Aaron the matter may rest until he further considers it. - -Aaron visits Oxford, and is wined and dined by the grave college heads. -He talks Bentham and religion to his hosts, and they fall to amiable -disagreement with him. - -"We then," he writes in his journal, "got upon American politics and -geography, upon which subjects a most profound and learned ignorance was -displayed." - -Birmingham entertains Aaron; Stratford makes him welcome. He travels -to Edinburgh, and is the victim of parties, dinners, balls, sermons, -assemblies, plays, lectures, and other Scottish dissipations. The bench -and bar cannot get too much of him. Mackenzie, who wrote the "Man -of Feeling," and Walter Scott, who is in the "Marmion" stage of his -development, seek his acquaintance. Aaron sees a deal of these lettered -ones, and sets down in his diary that: - -"Mackenzie has twelve children; six of them daughters, all interesting, -and two handsome. He is sprightly, amiable, witty. Scott, with less -softness, has more animation--talks much and is very agreeable." - -Aaron stays a month with his Scotch friends, and returns to London. He -resumes the old round of club and drawing-room, with Holland, Melville, -Mulgrave, Castlereagh, Canning, Bentham, Cobbett, Godwin, Lamb, Faseli, -and others political, philosophical, social, literary, and artistic. - -One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note -on his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland, -insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that "The presence -of Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty's -Government, and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he -remove." - -The note continues to the courteous effect that "passports will be -furnished Colonel Burr," and a free passage in an English ship to any -port--not English. - -Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool's note, and says that having become, as -his Lordship declares, "embarrassing to His Majesty's Government," he -must, of course, as a gentleman "gratify the wishes of Government by -withdrawing." He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England, -is his preference. - -Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with -the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he -is called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and -does it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and -two in traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the -lack of toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish -honesty. He makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads -on his journal: - -"There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none -in which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and -promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch -and so little expense." - -Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the -Swedish appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the -Norsemen. Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes: - -"What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon -degree of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was -affected by those emotions which the music expressed. In England you -see no expression painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All -is somber and grim. They cry 'Bravo! bravissimo!' with the same -countenance wherewith they curse." - -From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in -Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends -the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that -amiable feature called the "Committees on Conciliation," and resolves to -recommend its adoption in America. - -Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not -immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more -easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron -is visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the -king. - -Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany. - -He sees Hanover, Brunswick, Gottingen, Gotha, Weimar. At Weimar, Goethe -brings him to his house, where he meets "the amiable, good Wieland," -and is dragged off by Goethe to the theater, and sits through a "serious -comedy" with the Baroness de Stein. He is presented at court, and is -welcomed by the grand duke--Goethe's duke--and the grand duchess. Here, -too, he falls temporarily in love with the noble d'Or, a beautiful lady -of the ducal court. His love begins to alarm him; he fears he may wed -the d'Or, remain in Weimar, and "lapse into a Dutchman." To avoid this -fate, he beats a hasty retreat to Erfurth. Being safe, he cheers his -spirits by writing: - -"Another interview, and I would have been lost! The danger was so -imminent, and the d'Or so beautiful, that I ordered post horses, gave a -crown extra to the postilions to whip like the devil, and lo! here I am -in a warm room, with a neat, good bed, safe locked within four Erfurth -walls, rejoicing and repining." - -As Aaron writes this, he lays aside his "repining" for the lovely -d'Or, and so far emerges from his gloom as to "draw a dirk," and put to -thick-soled clattering flight one of the local police, who invades -his room with the purpose of putting out the candle. Erfurth being a -garrison town, lights are ordered "out" at nine o'clock. As a mark of -respect to his dirk, however, Aaron's candles are permitted to gutter -and sputter unrebuked until long after midnight. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII--HOW AARON RETURNS HOME - - -THE belated passports arrive, and Aaron journeys to Paris. It is -now with him as it was with the unfortunate gentleman, celebrated in -Scripture, who went down into a certain city only to fall among -thieves. Fouche orders his police to dog him. The post office is given -instructions; his letters are stolen--those he writes as well as those -he should receive. - -What is at the bottom of all this French scoundrelism? Madison the weak -is president in Washington. That is to say, he is called "president," -the actual power abiding in Mon-ticello with Jefferson, at whose -political knee he was reared. Armstrong is Madison's minister to France. -Armstrong is a New York politician married to a Livingston, and, per -incident, a promoted puppet of Jefferson's. McRae is American consul at -Paris--McRae, who sat at the back of Wirt and Hay during the Richmond -trial. It is these influences, directed from Mon-ticello, which, in each -of its bureaus, oppose the government of Napoleon to Aaron. By orders -from Monticello, "every captain, French or American, is instructed -to convey no letter or message or parcel for Colonel Burr. Also such -captain is required to make anyone handing him a letter or parcel for -delivery in the United States, to pledge his honor that it contains -nothing from Colonel Burr." In this way is Aaron shut off from his -friends and his supplies. He writes in his diary: - -"These vexations arise from the machinations of Minister Armstrong, who -is indefatigable in his exertions to my prejudice, being goaded on by -personal hatred, political rancor, and the native malevolence of his -temper." - -Aaron waits on Savary, and finds that minister polite but helpless. He -sees Fouche; the policeman is as polite and as helpless as Savary. - -He calls upon Talleyrand. That ingrate and congenital traitor skulks out -of an interview. Aaron smiles as he recalls the skulking, limping one -fawning upon him aforetime at Richmond Hill. - -Talleyrand puts Aaron in mind of Jerome Bonaparte, now King of -Westphalia, made so by that kingmonger, his brother. His Royal Highness -of Westphalia was, like Talleyrand, a guest at Richmond Hill. He, too, -has nibbled American crusts, and was thankful for American crumbs in -an hour when his official rating, had he been given one, could not have -soared above that of a vagrant out of Corsica by way of France. Aaron -applies for an interview. - -"His Royal Highness is engaged; he cannot see Colonel Burr," is the -response. - -"I am not surprised," says Aaron. "He who will desert a wife will desert -a friend, and I am not to suppose that one can remember friendship who -forgets love." - -Official France shuts and bolts its doors in the face of Aaron to please -the Man of Monticello. Thereupon Aaron demands his passports of the -American minister. - -Armstrong, minister, is out of Paris for the moment, and Aaron goes -to Consul McRae. That official, feeling the pressure of the Monticello -thumb, replies: - -"My knowledge of the circumstances under which Colonel Burr left the -United States, render it my duty to decline giving him a passport." - -Five weeks eaten up in disappointment! - -Aaron, who intended remaining but a month in Paris, finds his money -running out. He confides to his diary: - -"Behold me, a prisoner of state, and almost without a sou." - -Aaron resolves to economize. He removes from his hotel, dismisses his -servants, and takes up garret lodgings in a back street. He jokes with -his poverty: - -"How sedate and sage one is," he writes, "on only three sous. Eating my -bread and cheese, and seeing half a bottle of the twenty-five sous wine -left, I thought it too extravagant to open a bottle of the good. I tried -to get down the bad, constantly thinking on the other, which was in -sight. I stuck to the bad and got it all down. Then to pay myself -for this heroism, I treated myself to a large tumbler of the true -Roussillon. I am of Santara's opinion that though a man may be a little -the poorer for drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much -more able to bear poverty." Farther on he sets down: "It is now so -cold that I should be glad of a fire, but to that there are financial -objections. I was near going to bed without writing, for it is very -cold, and I have but two stumps of wood left. By the way, I wear no -surtout these days, for a great many philosophic reasons, the principal -being that I have not got one. The old greatcoat, which I brought from -America, will serve for traveling if I ever travel again." - -Although official France shuts its doors on Aaron, unofficial France -does not. The excellent Volney, of a better memory than the King of -Westphalia or the slily skulking Talleyrand, remembers Richmond Hill. -Volney hunts out Aaron in his poor lodgings, laughs at his penury, and -offers gold. Aaron also laughs, and puts back the kindly gold-filled -hand. - -"Very well," says Volney. "Some other day, when you are a little more -starved. Meanwhile, come with me; there are beautiful women and brave -men who are dying to meet the renowned Colonel Burr." - -Again in salon and drawing-room is Aaron the lion--leaving the most -splendid scenes to return to his poor, barren den in the back street. -And yet he likes the contrast. He goes home from the Duchess d'Alberg's -and writes this: - -"The night bad, and the wind blowing down my chimney into the room. -After several experiments as to how to weather the gale, I discovered -that I could exist by lying flat on the floor. Here, on the floor, -reposing on my elbows, a candle by my side, I have been reading -'L'Espion Anglos,' and writing this. When I got up just now for pen and -ink, I found myself buried in ashes and cinders. One might have thought -I had lain a month at the foot of Vesuvius." - -Aaron, having leisure and a Yankee fancy for invention, decides to -remedy the chimney. He calls in a chimney doctor, of whom there are many -in chimney-smoking Paris, and assumes to direct the bricklaying energies -of that scientist. The _fumiste_ rebels; he objects that to follow -Aaron's directions will spoil the chimney. - -"Monsieur," returns Aaron grandly, "that is my affair." - -The rebellious _fumiste_ is quelled, and lays bricks according to -directions. The work is completed; the inmates of the house gather -about, as a fire is lighted, to enjoy the discomfiture of the "insane -American"; for the _fumiste_ has told. The fire is lighted; the chimney -draws to perfection; the convinced _fumiste_ sheds tears, and tries to -kiss Aaron, but is repelled. - -"Monsieur," cries the repentant _fumiste_, "if you will but announce -yourself as a chimney doctor, your fortune is made." - -Aaron's friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway -begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys--a forest of them, -all sick! Aaron writes: - -"Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was -assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the -bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my -breakfast--coffee, blanc and honey--in the adjoining room, and laughing -at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much wit -and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large fire. -The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a -hero, especially to the professional _fumiste_, who bent to the floor -before me, such was the burden of his respect." - -Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two -take a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made -richer by several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for -the evening before he entered in his journal: - -"Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my -present amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. -Have been ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou -piece might not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am -out of cigars. However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve -as a substitute." - -With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know "the -celebrated Colonel Burr." Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is -a privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will -do but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon -and Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him. - -"Get me my passports," says Aaron. - -Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae, -consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor's -post office is tired of stealing Aaron's letters, Fouche's police weary -of dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor's wish that Aaron depart. -Maret and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting -as one man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing -passports to Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is -quite willing, and makes his way to Amsterdam. - -Lowering in the world's sky is the cloud of possible war between England -and America. "Once a subject, always a subject," does not match the -wants of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war -fever. The feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and -hangs back. In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war -cloud grows large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they -avoid the ports of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the -perilous shadow of England. - -This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in -Aaron's way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship -for New York can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland -Company's shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the -swamps and canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with -their long pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, -and, best of good fortunes! discovers the American ship _Vigilant_, -Captain Combes. - -"Can he arrange passage for America?" - -Captain Combes replies that he can. There is a difficulty, however. -Captain Combes and his good ship _Vigilant_ are in debt to the Dutch -in the sum of five hundred guilders. If Aaron will advance the sum, it -shall be repaid the moment the _Vigilant's_ anchors are down in New York -mud. Aaron advances the five hundred guilders. The _Vigilant_ sails out -of the Helder with Aaron a passenger. Once in blue water, the _Vigilant_ -is swooped upon by an English frigate, which carries her gayly into -Yarmouth, a prize. - -Aaron writes to the English Alien Office, relates how his homeward -voyage has been brought to an end, and asks permission to go ashore. -Since England has somewhat lost interest in Spain, and is on the -threshold of war with the United States, her objections to Aaron -expressed aforetime by Lord Liverpool have cooled. Aaron will not now -"embarrass his Majesty's Government." He is granted permission to -land; indeed, as though to make amends for a past rudeness, the English -Government offers Aaron every courtesy. Thus he goes to London, and is -instantly in the midst of Bentham, Godwin, Mulgrave, Canning, Cobbett, -and the rest of his old friends. - -Aaron's funds are at their old Parisian ebb; that loan to Captain -Combes, which ransomed the _Vigilant_ from the Dutch, well-nigh -bankrupted him. He got to like poverty in France, however, and does not -repine. He refuses to go home with Bentham, and takes to cheap London -lodgings instead. He explains to the fussy, kindly philosopher that his -sole purpose now is to watch for a home-bound ship, and he can keep no -sharp lookout from Barrow Green. - -Once in his poor lodgings, Aaron resumes that iron economy he learned to -practice in Paris. He sets down this in his diary: - -"On my way home discovered that I must dine. I find my appetite in the -inverse ratio to my purse, and I can now conceive why the poor eat -so much when they can get it. Considering the state of my finances, I -bought half a pound of boiled beef, eightpence; a quarter of a pound -of ham, sixpence; one pound of brown sugar, eightpence; two pounds -of bread, eight-pence; ten pounds of potatoes, fivepence; and then, -treating myself to a pot of ale, eightpence, proceeded to read the -second volume of 'Ida.' As I read, I boiled my potatoes, and made a -great dinner, eating half my beef. Of the two necessaries, coffee and -tobacco, I have at least a week's allowance, so that without spending -another penny, I can keep the machinery going for eight days." - -At last Aaron's money is nearly gone. He makes a memorandum of the -stringency in this wise: - -"Dined at the Hole in the Wall off a chop. Had two halfpence left, which -are better than a penny would be, because they jingle, and thus one may -refresh one's self with the music." - -Aaron, at this pinch in his fortunes, seeks out a friendly bibliophile, -and sells him an armful of rare books. In this manner he lifts himself -to affluence, since he receives sixty pounds. - -Practicing his economies, and filling his treasury by the sale of -his books, Aaron is still the center of a brilliant circle. He goes -everywhere, is received everywhere; for in England poverty comes not -amiss with the honor of an exile, and is held to be no drawing-room bar. -Exiled opulence, on the other hand, is at once the subject of gravest -British suspicions. - -That Aaron's experiences have not warmed him toward France, finds -exhibition one evening at Holland House. He is in talk with the -inquisitive Lord Balgray, who asks about Napoleon and France. - -"Sir," says Aaron, "France, under Napoleon, is fast -rebarberizing--retrograding to the darkest ages of intellectual and -moral degradation. All that has been seen or heard or felt or read of -despotism is freedom and ease compared with that which now dissolves -France. The science of tyranny was in its infancy; Napoleon has matured -it. In France all the efforts of genius, all the nobler sentiments and -finer feelings are depressed and paralyzed. Private faith, personal -confidence, the whole train of social virtues are condemned and -eradicated. They are crimes. You, sir, with your generous propensities, -your chivalrous notions of honor, were you condemned to live within the -grasp of that tyrant, would be driven to discard them or be sacrificed -as a dangerous subject." - -"What a contrast to England!" cries Bal-gray--"England, free and great!" - -"England!" retorts Aaron, with a grimace. "There are friends here whom I -love. But for England as mere England, why, then, I hope never to visit -it again, once I am free of it, unless at the head of fifty thousand -fighting men!" - -Balgray sits aghast.--Meanwhile the chance of war between America and -England broadens, the cloud in the sky grows blacker. Aaron is all -impatience to find a ship for home; war might fence him in for years. At -last his hopes are rewarded. The _Aurora_, outward bound for Boston, -is reported lying off Gravesend. The captain says he will land Aaron in -Boston for thirty pounds. - -And now he is really going; the ship will sail on the morrow. At -midnight he takes up his diary: - -"It is twelve o'clock--midnight. Having packed up my residue of duds, -and stowed my papers in the writing desk, I sit smoking my pipe and -contemplating the certainty of escaping from this country. As to my -reception in my own country, so far as depends on J. Madison & Co., I -expect all the efforts of their implacable malice. This, however, does -not give me uneasiness. I shall meet those efforts and repel them. My -confidence in my own resources does not permit me to despond or even -doubt. The incapacity of J. Madison & Co. for every purpose of public -administration, their want of energy and firmness, make it impossible -they should stand. They are too feeble and corrupt to hold together -long. Mem.: To write to Alston to hold his influence in his State, and -not again degrade himself by compromising with rascals and cowards." - -It is in this high vein that Aaron sails away for home, and, thirty-five -days later, sits down to beef and potatoes with the pilot and the -_Auroras_ captain, in the harbor of Boston. He goes ashore without a -shilling, and sells his "Bayle" and "Moreri" to President Kirtland of -Harvard for forty dollars. This makes up his passage money for New York. -He negotiates with the skipper of a coasting sloop, and nine days later, -in the evening's dusk, he lands at the Battery. - -It is the next day. The sun is shining into narrow Stone Street. It -lights up the Swartwout parlor where Aaron, home at last, is hearing -the news from the stubborn, changeless one--Swartwout of the true, -unflagging breed! - -"It is precisely four years," says Aaron, following a conversational -lull, "since I left this very room to go aboard the _Clarissa_ for -England." - -"Aye! Four years!" repeats the stubborn one, meditatively. "Much water -runs under the bridges in four years! It has carried away some of your -friends, colonel; but also it has carried away as many of your enemies." - -For one day and night, Aaron and the stubborn, loyal Swartwout smoke and -exchange news. On the second day, Aaron opens offices in Nassau Street. -Three lines appear in the _Evening Post_. The notice reads: - -"Colonel Burr has returned to the city, and will resume his practice of -the law. He has opened offices in Nassau Street." - -The town sits up and rubs its eyes. Aaron's enemies--the old fashionable -Hamilton-Schuyler coterie--are scandalized; his friends are exalted. -What is most important, a cataract of clients swamps his offices, and -when the sun goes down, he has received over two thousand dollars in -retainers. Instantly, he is overwhelmed with business; never again will -he cumber his journals with ha'penny registrations of groat and farthing -economies. As redoubts are carried by storm, so, with a rush, to the -astonishment of friend and foe alike, Aaron retakes his old place as -foremost among the foremost at the New York bar. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII--GRIEF COMES KNOCKING - - -BUSINESS rushes in upon Aaron; its volume overwhelms him. - -"This is too much," says he, "for a gentleman whose years have reached -the middle fifties," and he takes unto himself a partner. - -Later he takes another partner; the work of the firm overflows into a -quartette of rooms and keeps busy a dozen clerks. - -"Why labor so hard?" asks the stubborn Swartwout. "Your income is the -largest at the bar. You have no such need of money." - -"Ay! but my creditors have!" - -"Your creditors? Who are they?" - -"Every soul who lost a dollar by my Southwestern ambitions--you, with -others. Man, I owe millions!" - -Aaron works like a horse and lives like a Spartan. He rises with the -blue of dawn. His servant appears with his breakfast--an egg, a plate -of toast, a pot of coffee. He is at his desk in the midst of his papers -when the clerks begin to arrive. All day he is insatiable to work. He -sends messages, receives them, examines authorities, confers with fellow -lawyers, counsels clients, dictates letters. Business incarnate--he -pushes every affair with incredible dispatch. And the last thing he will -agree to is defeat. - -"Accept only the inevitable!" is his war-word, in law as in life. - -Aaron's day ends with seven o'clock. He shoves everything of litigation -sort aside, helps himself to a glass of wine, and refuses further -thought or hint of business. It is then he calls about him his friends. -The evening is merry with laughter, jest and reminiscence. At midnight -he retires, and sleeps like a tree. - -[Illustration: 0357] - -"Colonel Burr," observes Dr. Hosack--he who attended Hamilton at -Weehawken--"you do not sleep enough; six hours is not enough. Also, you -eat too little." - -Aaron gazes, with comic eye at the rotund, well-fed doctor, the purple -of good burgundy in his full cheeks. - -"If I were a doctor, now," he retorts, "I should grant your word to be -true. But I am a lawyer, and must keep myself on edge." - -Aaron's earliest care is to write his arrival to the lustrous Theo. The -reply he receives makes the world black. - -"Less than a fortnight ago," she says, "your letters would have -gladdened my soul. Now there is no more joy, and life a blank. My boy is -gone--forever dead and gone." - -While Aaron sits with the fatal letter in his fingers, his friend Van -Ness comes in. He turns his black eyes on the visitor--eyes misty, dim, -the brightness lost from them. - -"What dreams were mine," he sighs--"what dreams for my brave little boy! -He is dead, and half my world has died." - -Toward the end of summer, Alston sends word that the lustrous Theo is in -danger. The loss of her boy has struck at the roots of her life. Aaron, -in new alarm, writes urging that she come North. He sends a physician -from New York to bring her to him. Alston consents; he himself cannot -come. His duties as governor tie him. The lustrous Theo, eager to meet -her father with whom she parted on that tearful evening in Stone Street -so many years ago, will start at once. He, Alston, shall later follow -her. - -Alston sees the lustrous Theo aboard the schooner _Patriot_, then lying -in Charleston harbor. It is rough December weather when the _Patriot_ -clears for New York. The message of her sailing reaches Aaron overland, -and he is on strain for the schooner's arrival. Days come, days go; the -schooner is due--overdue. Still no sign of those watched-for topsails -down _the_ lower bay! And so time passes. The days become weeks, the -weeks months. Hope sickens, then dies. Aaron, face white and drawn, a -ghost's face, reads the awful truth in that long waiting. The lustrous -Theo is dead--like the baby! It is then the iron of a measureless -adversity enters his soul! - -Aaron goes about the daily concerns of life, making no moan. He does not -speak of his loss, but saves his grief for solitude. One day a friend -relates a rumor that the schooner was captured by buccaneers, and the -lustrous Theo lives. The broken Aaron shakes his head. - -"She is dead!" says he. "Thus is severed the last tie that binds me to -my kind." - -Aaron hides his heart from friend and foe alike. As though flying from -his own thoughts, he plunges more furiously than ever into the law. - -While Aaron's first concern is work, and to earn money for those whom he -calls his creditors, he finds time for politics. - -"Not that I want office," he observes; "for he who was Vice-President -and tied Jefferson for a presidency, cannot think on place. But I owe -debts--debts of gratitude, debts of vengeance. These must be paid." - -Aaron's foes are in the ascendant. De Witt Clinton is mayor--the -aristocrats with the Livingstons, the Schuylers and the Clintons, are -everywhere dominant. They control the town; they control the State. -At Washington, Madison a marionette President, is in apparent command, -while Jefferson pulls the White House wires from Monticello. All these -Aaron sees at a glance; he can, however, take up but one at a time. - -"We will begin with the town," says he, to the stubborn, loyal -Swartwout. "We must go at the town like a good wife at her -house-cleaning. Once that is politically spick and span, we shall clean -up the State and the nation." - -Aaron calls about him his old circle of indomitables. - -They have been overrun in his absence by the aristocrats--by the -Clintons, the Schuylers and the Livingstons. They gather at his rooms in -the Jay House--a noble mansion, once the home of Governor Jay. - -"I shall make no appearance in your politics," says he. "It would not -fit my years and my past. None the less, I'll show you the road to -victory." Then, with a smile: "You must do the work; I'll be the Old Man -of the Mountain. From behind a screen I'll give directions." - -[Illustration: 0363] - -Aaron's lieutenants include the Swartwouts, Buckmaster, Strong, Prince, -Radcliff, Rutgers, Ogden, Davis, Noah, and Van Buren, the last a rising -young lawyer from Kinderhook. - -"Become a member of Tammany," is Aaron's word to young Van Buren. "Our -work must be done by Tammany Hall. You must enroll yourself beneath its -banner. We must bring about a revival of the old Bucktail spirit." - -Van Buren enters Tammany; the others are already members. - -Aaron, through his lieutenants, brings his old Tammany Bucktails -together within eight weeks after his return. The Clintons, and their -fellow aristocrats are horrified at what they call "his effrontery." -Also, they are somewhat panic-smitten. They fall to vilification. -Aaron is "traitor!" "murderer!" "demon!" "fiend!" They pay a phalanx of -scribblers to assail him in the press. His band of Bucktail lieutenants -are dubbed "Burrites," "Burr's Mob," and "the Tenth Legion." The -epithets go by Aaron like the mindless wind. - -The Bucktail spirit revived, the stubborn Swartwout and the others ask: - -"What shall we do?" - -The popular cry is for war with England. At Washington--Jefferson at -Monticello pulling on the peace string--Madison is against war. Mayor -De Witt Clinton stands with Jefferson and Marionette Madison. He is for -peace, as are his caste of aristocrats--the Schuylers and those other -left-over fragments of Federalism, all lovers of England from their -cradles. - -"What shall we do?" cry the Bucktails. - -"Demand war!" says Aaron. Then, calling attention to Clinton and his -purple tribe, he adds: "They could not occupy a better position for our -purposes. They invite destruction." Tammany demands war vociferously. It -is, indeed, the cry all over the land. The administration is carried -off its feet. Jefferson at last orders war; for he sees that otherwise -Marionette Madison will be defeated of a second term. - -Mayor Clinton and his aristocrats are frantic. - -The more frantic, since with "War!" for their watchword, Aaron's -Bucktails conquer the city, and two years later the State. As though by -a tidal wave, every Clinton is swept out of official Albany. - -Aaron sends for Van Ness, the stubborn Swartwout, and their fellow -Bucktails. - -"Go to Albany," says he. "Demand of Governor Tompkins the removal -of Mayor Clinton. Say that he is inefficient and was the friend of -England." - -Governor Tompkins--being a politician--hesitates at the bold step. -The Bucktails, Aaron-guided, grow menacing. Seeing himself in danger, -Governor Tompkins hesitates no longer. Mayor Clinton is ignominiously -thrust from office into private life. With him go those hopes of a -presidency which for half a decade he has been sedulously cultivating. -Under the blight of that removal, those hopes of a future White House -wither like uprooted flowers. - -Broken of purse and prospects, Clinton is in despair. - -"He will never rise again!" exclaims Van Ness. - -"My friend," says Aaron, "he will be your governor. He will never -be president, but the governorship is yet to be his; and all by your -negligence--yours and your brother Buck-tails." - -"As how?" demands Van Ness. - -"You let him declare for the Erie Canal," returns Aaron. "You were so -purblind as to oppose the project. You should have taken the business -out of his hands. If I had been here it would have been done. Mark -my words! The canal will be dug, and it will make Clinton governor. -However, we shall hold the town against him; and, since we have been -given a candidate for the presidency, we shall later have Washington -also." - -"Who is that presidential candidate to whom you refer?" - -"Sir, he is your friend and my friend. Who, but Andrew Jackson? Since -New Orleans, it is bound to be he." - -"Andrew Jackson!" exclaims Van Ness. "But, sir, the Congressional -caucus at Washington will never consider him. You know the power of -Jefferson--he will hold that caucus in the hollow of his hand. It is -he who will name Madison's successor; and, after those street-corner -speeches and his friendship for you in Richmond, it can never be Andrew -Jackson." - -"I know the Jefferson power," returns Aaron; "none knows it better. At -the head of his Virginia junta he has controlled the country for years. -He will control it four years more, perchance eight. Our war upon him -and his caucus methods must begin at once. And our candidate should be, -and shall be, Andrew Jackson." - -"Whom will Jefferson select to follow Madison?" - -"Monroe, sir; he will put forward Monroe." - -"Monroe!" repeats Van Ness. "Has he force?--brains? Some one spoke of -him as a soldier." - -"Soldier!" observes Aaron, his lip curling. "Sir, Monroe never commanded -so much as a platoon--never was fit to command one. He acted as aide to -Lord Stirling, who was a sot, not a soldier. Monroe's whole duty was -to fill his lordship's tankard, and hear with admiration his drunken -lordship's long tales about himself. As a lawyer, Monroe is below -mediocrity. He never rose to the honor of trying a cause wherein so -much as one hundred pounds was at stake. He is dull, stupid, illiterate, -pusillanimous, hypocritical, and therefore a character suited to the -wants of Jefferson and his Virginia coterie. As a man, he is everything -that Jackson isn't and nothing that he is." - -Van Ness and his brother Bucktails do the bidding of Aaron blindly. On -every chance they shout for Jackson. Aaron writes "Jackson" letters to -all whom, far or near, he calls his friends. Also the better to have -New York in political hand, he demands--through Tammany--of Governor -Tompkins and Mayor Rad-cliff that every Clinton, every Schuyler, every -Livingston, as well as any who has the taint of Federalism about him be -relegated to private life. In town as well as country, he sweeps the New -York official situation free of opposition. - -The Bucktails are in full sway. Aaron privily coaches young Van Buren, -who is suave and dexterous, and for politeness almost the urbane peer of -Aaron himself, in what local party diplomacies are required, and sends -him forward as the apparent controlling spirit of Tammany Hall. What -Jefferson is doing with Monroe in Virginia, Aaron duplicates with the -compliant Van Buren in New York. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV--THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS - - -Marionette madison is withdrawn from the White House boards at -the close of his second term. Jefferson, working the machinery from -Monticello, replaces him with Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins -his war on the system of Congressional nomination--a system which has -obtained since the days of Washington. He writes to Alston: - -"_Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and -controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for -twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling, -'Support the administration!' have so far succeeded in duping the -public. The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must -break down this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country -are impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. -Its administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely -to preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, -there be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it -is your duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man--Andrew -Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of -a boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a -respectable convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth -of the caucus system--so beloved of scheming Virginians--his final -victory is assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; -for 'caucus,' which is wrong, must go down; and 'convention,' which is -right, must prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning -the caucus system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South -Carolina, and the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of -the convention, and Jackson's open nomination._" - -Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson's neighbor and -man of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this: - -"_Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is -announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta -with menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and -favors._" - -On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that -his candidate Jackson may have a proper debut, Aaron pulls a Swartwout -string, pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer -a dinner in Jackson's honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The -town is rent with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and -nights of Martling, never mounted more wildly high. - -Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the -excitement. It is there Jackson finds him. - -"I shall not be at the dinner, general," says Aaron; "but with Van Buren -and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the -rest, you will find friends and good company about you." - -"But you?" - -"There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors -and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and -slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and -bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well--better! After a man sees -sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live -to see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief -it will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must -save myself from wine and late hours--I must keep myself with care." - -Aaron and the general talk for an hour. - -"And if I should become President some day," says Jackson, as they -separate, "you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived." - -"It will be too late for me," responds Aaron. "I am old, and shall be -older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead--are in the grave. -Still"--and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way--"I shall be glad -to have younger men take up the work. It should serve somewhat to wipe -'treason' from my fame." - -"Treason!" snorts the fiery Jackson. "Sir, no one, not fool or liar, -ever spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!" - -There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson--the -"hero," the "conqueror," the "nation's hope and pride," according to -orators then and there present and eloquent--is toasted to the skies. At -the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the -Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron's arch enemy. - -The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly -gives: - -"De Witt Clinton!" - -The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren, -Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it. -Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude -of offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in -words, but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word -"Clinton" were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. -The thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its -friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since -that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also, -it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron's place in -event of Jackson's occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden, -intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes -stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, -and shouts of "Burr! Burr!" with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the -galling background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, -Aaron urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King -Caucus. His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for -convention nominations; his candidate is Jackson. - -In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his -voice and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate -their control of the town. He tells them to break down a property -qualification, and extend the voting franchise to every man, whether he -be landholder or no. - -"Let's make Jack as good as his master," says Aaron. "It will please -Jack, and hurt his master's pride--both good things in their way." - -It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, -but drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the -Livingstons and the Schuylers. - -"Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a -man!" cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout. - -The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron -destroys caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and -town, bound hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful -Bucktails. - -Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down; -Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a -convention. - -In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other -three, but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral -college. In the House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, -and Adams goes to the White House. - -Aaron is unmoved. - -"I am threescore years and ten," says he--"the allotted space of man. -Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see -Jackson President." - -Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win -his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments. - -"Take them," says Aaron to his Bucktails. "They are yours, not -his--those offices. He but gives you your own." - -Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires -like a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm. - -"I should think you'd rest," says he. - -"Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now." - -"But I don't understand! You get nothing." - -The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. "Sir, I get -vengeance--and forget feelings!" - -[Illustration: 0377] - -Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his -place. Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter's -rooms--pleasant rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their -long pipes, and sit opposite one another, smoking like dragons. - -Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says: - -"Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory." - -"General," returns Aaron, "the best favor you can show me is show favor -to my friends." - -"That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout -collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State. -Also I shall say to your enemies--the Clintons and those other proud -ones--that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson's appointment, must -come with the approval of Colonel Burr." - -Jackson is inaugurated. - -"I am through," says Aaron--"through at four and seventy. Now I shall -work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics--no more -politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to -Providence and Andrew Jackson." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV--THE SERENE LAST DAYS - - -AARON goes forward with his business--his cases in court, his -conferences with clients. Accurate as an Alvan-ley in dress, slim, -light, with the quick step of a boy, no one might guess his years. The -bar respects him; his friends crowd about him; his enemies shrink away -from the black, unblinking stare of those changeless ophidian eyes. And -so with his books and his wine and his pipe he sits through the serene -evenings in his rooms by the Bowling Green. He is a lion, and strangers -from England and Germany and France ask to be presented. They talk--not -always wisely or with taste. - -"Was Hamilton a gentleman?" asks a popinjay Frenchman. - -Aaron's black eyes blaze: "Sir," says he, "I met him!" - -"Colonel Burr," observes a dull, thick Englishman, who imagines himself -a student of governments--"Colonel Burr, I have read your Constitution. -I find it not always clear. Who is to expound it?" - -Aaron leads our student of governments to the window, and points, with a -whimsical smile, at the Broadway throngs that march below. - -"Sir," he remarks, "they are the expounders of our Constitution." - -Aaron, at seventy-eight, does a foolish thing; he marries--marries the -wealthy Madam Jumel. - -They live in the madam's great mansion on the heights overlooking the -Harlem. Three months later they part, and Aaron goes back to his books -and his pipe and his wine, in his rooms by the Bowling Green. - -It is a bright morning; Aaron and his friend Van Ness are walking -in Broadway. Suddenly Aaron halts and leans against the wall of a -house--the City Hotel. - -"It is a numbness," says he. "I cannot walk!" - -The good, purple, puffy Dr. Hosack comes panting to the rescue. He finds -the stricken one in his rooms where Van Ness has brought him. - -"Paralysis!" says the good anxious Hosack. - -Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later -comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed. - -There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and -then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and -reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of -company. - -The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper. - -"See!" he cries. "Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That -marks the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White -House! Sir, thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, -Houston and San Jacinto, it is patriotism." - -Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron's strength is going. The hubbub, -the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town's life wearies. He -takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives -him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His -visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who -one day brings up the name of Hamilton. - -"Colonel, it was an error--a fearful error!" says the doctor. - -"Sir," rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, -"it was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? -He heaped obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his -prospects; I mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was -malevolent--cowardly! You have seen what he wrote the night before he -fought me. It sounds like the confession of a sick monk. When he stood -before me at Weehawken, his eye caught mine and he quailed like a -convicted felon. They say he did not fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard -the bullet whistle over my head and saw the severed twigs. I have lived -more than eighty years; I dwell now in the shadow of death. I shall soon -go; and I shall go saying that the destruction of Hamilton was an act of -justice." - -"Colonel Burr," observes the kindly doctor, "I am made sorry by your -words--sorry by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of -enmity?" - -The black eyes do not soften. - -"I shall die as I have lived--hating where I'm hated, loving where I'm -loved." - -The last day breaks, and Aaron dies--dies - -"What lies beyond?" asks one shortly before he goes. - -"Who knows?" he returns. - -"But do you never ask?" - -"Why ask? Who should reply to such a question?--the old, old question -ever offered, never answered." - -"But you have hopes?" - -"None," says Aaron steadily. "And I want none. I am resolved to die -without fear; and he who would have no fear must have no hope." So he -departs; he, of whom the good Dr. Bellamy said: "He will soar as high to -fall as low as any soul alive." - -THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of -Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN *** - -***** This file should be named 51911.txt or 51911.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51911/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- An American Patrician Or the Story of Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis
- </title>
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Patrician, or The Story of
-Aaron Burr, by Alfred Henry Lewis
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-Title: An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr
- Illustrated
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-Author: Alfred Henry Lewis
-
-Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51911]
-Last Updated: November 10, 2016
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN ***
-
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-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
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-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN,<br /> OR THE STORY OF AARON BURR
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Alfred Henry Lewis
- </h2>
- <h5>
- Author of “When Men Grew Tall or The Story of Andrew Jackson”
- </h5>
- <h3>
- Illustrated
- </h3>
- <h4>
- D. Appleton And Company New York
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1908
- </h3>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0010.jpg" alt="0010 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0010.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0011.jpg" alt="0011 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0011.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <h4>
- TO
- </h4>
- <h4>
- ELBERT HUBBARD
- </h4>
- <h4>
- FOR THE PLEASURE HIS WRITINGS HAVE GIVEN ME, AND AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION
- FOR THE GLOSS AND PURITY OF HIS ENGLISH, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED <br /> A.
- H. L.
- </h4>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD
- EXPLAINS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—MARRIAGE AND THE LAW </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—THE GRINDING OF AARON’S MILL
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—THE TRIUMPH OF AARON </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—THE TREASON OF WILKINSON </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—HOW AARON IS INDICTED </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON. </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—HOW AARON RETURNS HOME </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—GRIEF COMES KNOCKING </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—THE SERENE LAST DAYS </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- AN AMERICAN PATRICIAN
- </h1>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER I—FROM THEOLOGY TO LAW
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE Right Reverend
- Doctor Bellamy is a personage of churchly consequence in Bethlehem.
- Indeed, the doctor is a personage of churchly consequence throughout all
- Connecticut. For he took his theology from that well-head of divinity and
- metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards himself, and possesses an immense library of
- five hundred volumes, mostly on religion. Also, he is the author of “True
- Religion Delineated”; which work shines out across the tumbling seas of
- New England Congregationalism like a lighthouse on a difficult coast.
- Peculiarly is it of guiding moment to storm-vexed student ones, who,
- wanting it, might go crashing on controversial reefs, and so miss those
- pulpit snug-harbors toward which the pious prows of their hopes are
- pointed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The doctor has a round, florid face, which, with his well-fed stomach,
- gives no hint of thin living. From the suave propriety of his cue to the
- silver buckles on his shoes, his atmosphere is wholly clerical. Just now,
- however, he wears a disturbed, fussy air, as though something has rubbed
- wrong-wise the fur of his feelings. He shows this by the way in which he
- trots up and down his study floor. Doubtless, some portion of that
- fussiness is derived from the doctor’s short fat legs; for none save your
- long-legged folk may walk to and fro with dignity. Still, it is clear
- there be reasons of disturbance which go deeper than mere short fat legs,
- and set his spirits in a tumult.
- </p>
- <p>
- The good doctor, as he trots up and down, is not alone. Madam Bellamy is
- with him, chair drawn just out of reach of the June sunshine as it comes
- streaming through the open lattice. In her plump hands she holds her
- sewing; for she is strong in the New England virtue of industry, and
- regards hand-idleness as a species of viciousness. While she stitches, she
- bends appreciative ear to the whistle of a robin in an apple tree outside.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, mother,” observes the doctor, breaking in on the robin, “the lad does
- himself no credit. He is careless, callous, rebellious, foppish, and
- altogether of the flesh. I warrant you I shall take him in hand; it is my
- duty.”. “But no harshness, Joseph!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, mother; as you say, I must not be harsh. None the less I shall be
- firm. He must study; he is not to become a preacher by mere wishing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Shod hoofs are heard on the graveled driveway; a voice is lifted:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Walk Warlock up and down until he is cooled out. Then give him a rub, and
- a mouthful of water.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Madam Bellamy steps to the window. The master of the voice is swinging
- from the saddle, while the doctor’s groom takes his horse—sweating
- from a brisk gallop—by the bridle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here he comes now,” says Madam Bellamy, at the sound of a springy step in
- the hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth, who so confidently enters the doctor’s study, is in his
- nineteenth year. His face is sensitive and fine, and its somewhat overbred
- look is strengthened and restored by a high hawkish nose. The dark hair is
- clubbed in an elegant cue. The skin, fair as a girl’s, gives to the black
- eyes a glitter beyond their due. These eyes are the striking feature; for,
- while the eyes of a poet, they carry in their inky depths a hard, ophidian
- sparkle both dangerous and fascinating—the sort of eyes that warn a
- man and blind a woman.
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth is but five feet six inches tall, with little hands and feet,
- and ears ridiculously small. And yet, his light, slim form is so
- accurately proportioned that, besides grace and a catlike quickness, it
- hides in its molded muscles the strength of steel. Also, any impression of
- insignificance is defeated by the wide brow and well-shaped head, which,
- coupled with a steady self-confidence that envelops him like an
- atmosphere, give the effect of power.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he lounges languidly and pantherwise into the study, he bows to Madam
- Bellamy and the good doctor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had quite a canter, Aaron,” remarks Madam Bellamy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I went half way to Litchfield,” returns the youth, smiting his glossy
- riding boot with the whip he carries. “For a moment I thought of seeing my
- sister Sally; but it would have been too long a run for so warm a day. As
- it is, poor Warlock looks as though he’d forded a river.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth throws himself carelessly into the doctor’s easy-chair. That
- divine clears his throat professionally. Foreseeing earnestness if not
- severity in the discourse which is to follow, Madam Bellamy picks up her
- needlework and retires.
- </p>
- <p>
- When she is gone, the doctor establishes himself opposite the youth. His
- manner is admonitory; which is not out of place, when one remembers that
- the doctor is fifty-five and the youth but nineteen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’ve been with me, Aaron, something like eight months.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The black eyes are fastened upon the doctor, and their ophidian glitter
- makes the latter uneasy. For relief he rebegins his short-paced trot up
- and down.
- </p>
- <p>
- Renewed by action, and his confidence returning, the doctor commences with
- vast gravity a kind of speech. His manner is unconsciously pompous; for,
- as the village preacher, he is wont to have his wisdom accepted without
- discount or dispute.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will believe me, Aaron,” says the doctor, spacing off his words and
- calling up his best pulpit voice—“you will believe me, when I tell
- you that I am more than commonly concerned for your welfare. I was the
- friend of your father, both when he held the pulpit in Newark, and later
- when he was President of Princeton University. I studied my divinity at
- the knee of your mother’s father, the pious Jonathan Edwards. Need I say,
- then, that when you came to me fresh from your own Princeton graduation my
- heart was open to you? It seemed as though I were about to pay an old
- debt. I would regive you those lessons which your grandfather Edwards gave
- me. In addition, I would—so far as I might—take the place of
- that father whom you lost so many years ago. That was my feeling. Now,
- when you’ve been with me eight months, I tell you plainly that I’m far
- from satisfied.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In what, sir, have I disappointed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The voice is confidently careless, while the ophidian eyes keep up their
- black glitter unabashed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, you are passively rebellious, and refuse direction. I place in your
- hands those best works of your mighty grandsire, namely, his
- ‘Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church’ and ‘The
- Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,’ and you cast them aside for the
- ‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’ and the ‘Comedies of Terence.’ Bah! the
- ‘Letters of Lord Chesterfield’! of which Dr. Johnson says, ‘They teach the
- morals of a harlot and the manners of a dancing master.’”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if so,” drawls the youth, with icy impenitence, “is not that a pretty
- good equipment for such a world as this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- At the gross outrage of such a question, the doctor pauses in that
- to-and-fro trot as though planet-struck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” he gasps.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doctor, I meant to tell you a month later what—since the ice is so
- happily broken—I may as well say now. My dip into the teachings of
- my reverend grandsire has taught me that I have no genius for divinity. To
- be frank, I lack the pulpit heart. Every day augments my contempt for that
- ministry to which you design me. The thought of drawing a salary for being
- good, and agreeing to be moral for so much a year, disgusts me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And this from you—the son of a minister of the Gospel!” The doctor
- holds up his hands in pudgy horror.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely so! In which connection it is well to recall that German
- proverb: ‘The preacher’s son is ever the devil’s grandson.’” The doctor
- sits down and mops his fretted brow; the manner in which he waves his lace
- handkerchief is like a publication of despair. He fixes his gaze on the
- youth resignedly, as who should say, “Strike home, and spare not!”
- </p>
- <p>
- This last tacit invitation the youth seems disposed to accept. It is now
- his turn to walk the study floor. But he does it better than did the fussy
- doctor, his every motion the climax of composed grace.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, my friend,” says the youth.
- </p>
- <p>
- For all the confident egotism of his manner, there is in it no smell of
- conceit. He speaks of himself; but he does so as though discussing some
- object outside of himself to which he is indifferent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Those eight months of which you complain have not been wasted. If I have
- drawn no other lesson from my excellent grandsire’s ‘Doctrine of Original
- Sin Defended,’ it has taught me to exhaustively examine my own breast. I
- discover that I have strong points as well as points of weakness. I read
- Latin and Greek; and I talk French and German, besides English,
- indifferently well. Also, I fence, shoot, box, ride, row, sail, walk, run,
- wrestle and jump superbly. Beyond the merits chronicled I have tried my
- courage, and find that I may trust it like Gibraltar. These, you will
- note, are not the virtues of a clergyman, but of a soldier. My weaknesses
- likewise turn me away from the pulpit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have no hot sympathies; and, while not mean in the money sense, holding
- such to be beneath a gentleman, I may say that my first concern is not for
- others but for myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is as though I listened to Satan!” exclaims the dismayed doctor,
- fidgeting with his ruffles.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if it were indeed Satan!” goes on the youth, with a gleam of sarcasm,
- “I have heard you characterize that arch demon from your pulpit, and even
- you, while making him malicious, never made him mean. But to get on with
- this picture of myself, which I show you as preliminary to laying bare a
- resolution. As I say, I have no sympathies, no hopes which go beyond
- myself. I think on this world, not the next; I believe only in the gospel
- according to Philip Dormer Stanhope—that Lord Chesterfield, whom,
- with the help of Dr. Johnson, you so much succeed in despising.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To talk thus at nineteen!” whispers the doctor, his face ghastly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nineteen, truly! But you must reflect that I have not had, since I may
- remember, the care of either father or mother, which is an upbringing to
- rapidly age one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Were you not carefully reared by your kind Uncle Timothy?” This
- indignantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, sir, I was, as you say, well reared in that dull town of
- Elizabeth, which for goodness and dullness may compare with your Bethlehem
- here. It was a rearing, too, from which—as I think my kind Uncle
- Timothy has informed you—I fled.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He did! He said you played truant twice, once running away to sea.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was no great voyage, then!” The imperturbable youth, hard of eye, soft
- of voice, smiles cynically. “No, I was cabin boy two days, during all of
- which the ship lay tied bow and stern to her New York wharf. However, that
- is of no consequence as part of what we now consider.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” interrupts the doctor miserably, “only so far as it displays the
- young workings of your sinfully rebellious nature. As a child, too, you
- mocked your elders, as you do now. Later, as a student, you were the
- horror of Princeton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All that, sir, I confess; and yet I say that it is of the past. I hold it
- time lost to think on aught save the present or the future.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think, then, on your soul’s future!—your soul’s eternal future!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall think on what lies this side of the grave. I shall devote my
- faculties to this world; which, from what I have seen, is more than likely
- to keep me handsomely engaged. The next world is a bridge, the crossing of
- which I reserve until I come to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you then no religious convictions? no fears?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have said that I fear nothing, apprehend nothing. Timidity, of either
- soul or body, was pleasantly absent at my birth. As for convictions, I’d
- no more have one than I’d have the plague. What is a conviction but
- something wherewith a man vexes himself and worries his neighbor.
- Conclusions, yes, as many as you like; but, thank my native star! I am
- incapable of a conviction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The doctor’s earlier horror is fast giving way to anger. He almost sneers
- as he asks:
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you pretend to honesty, I trust?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, sir,” returns the youth, with an air which narrowly misses the
- patronizing, and reminds one of nothing so much as polished brass—“why,
- sir, honesty, like generosity or gratitude, is a gentlemanly trait, the
- absence of which would be inexpressibly vulgar. Naturally, I’m honest; but
- with the understanding that I have my honesty under control. It shall
- never injure me, I tell you! When its plain effect will be to strengthen
- an enemy or weaken myself, I shall prove no such fool as to give way to
- it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “While you talk, I think,” breaks in the doctor; “and now I begin to see
- the source of your pride and your satanism. It is your own riches that
- tempt you! Your soul is to be undone because your body has four hundred
- pounds a year.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not so fast, sir! I am glad I have four hundred pounds a year. It
- relieves me of much that is gross. I turn my back on the Church, however,
- only because I am unfitted for it, and accept the world simply for that it
- fits me. I have given you the truth. As a minister of the Gospel I should
- fail; as a man of the world I shall succeed. The pulpit is beyond me as
- religion is beyond me; for I am not one who could allay present pain by
- some imagined bliss to follow after death, or find joy in stripping
- himself of a benefit to promote another.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now this is the very theology of Beelzebub for sure!” cries the incensed
- doctor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is anything you like, sir, so it be understood as a description of
- myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marriage might save him!” muses the desperate doctor. “To love and be
- loved by a beautiful woman might yet lead his heart to grace!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The pale flicker of a smile comes about the lips of the black-eyed one.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Love! beauty!” he begins. “Sir, while I might strive to possess myself of
- both, I should no more love beauty in a woman than riches in a man. I
- could love a woman only for her fineness of mind; wed no one who did not
- meet me mentally and sentimentally half way. And since your Hypatia is
- quite as rare as your Phoenix, I cannot think my nuptials near at hand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” observes the doctor, assuming politeness sudden and vast, “since I
- understand you throw overboard the Church, may I know what other avenue
- you will render honorable by walking therein?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You did not give me your attention, if you failed to note that what
- elements of strength I’ve ascribed to myself all point to the camp. So
- soon as there is a war, I shall turn soldier with my whole heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will wait some time, I fear!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not so long as I could wish. There will be war between these colonies and
- England before I reach my majority. It would be better were it put off ten
- years; for now my youth will get between the heels of my prospects to trip
- them up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, if there be war with England, you will go? I do not think such
- bloody trouble will soon dawn; still—for a first time to-day—I
- am pleased to hear you thus speak. It shows that at least you are a
- patriot.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I lay no claim to the title. England oppresses us; and, since one only
- oppresses what one hates, she hates us. And hate for hate I give her. I
- shall go to war, because I am fitted to shine in war, and as a shortest,
- surest step to fame and power—those solitary targets worthy the aim
- of man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dross! dross!” retorts the scandalized doctor. “Fame! power! Dead sea
- apples, which will turn to ashes on your lips! And yet, since that war
- which is to be the ladder whereon you will go climbing into fame and power
- is not here, what, pending its appearance, will you do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now there is a query which brings us to the close. Here is my answer
- ready. I shall just ride over to Sally, and her husband, Tappan Reeve, and
- take up Blackstone. If I may not serve the spirit and study theology, I’ll
- even serve the flesh and study law.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And so the hero of these memoirs rides over to Litchfield, to study the
- law and wait for a war. The doctor and he separate in friendly
- son-and-father fashion, while Madam Bellamy urges him to always call her
- house his home. He is not so hard as he thinks, not so cynical as he
- feels; still, his self-etched portrait possesses the broader lines of
- truth. He is one whom men will follow, but not trust; admire, but not
- love. There is enough of the unconscious serpent in him to rouse one man’s
- hate, while putting an edge on another’s fear. Also, because—from
- the fig-leaf day of Eve—the serpent attracts and fascinates a woman,
- many tender ones will lose their hearts for him. They will dash themselves
- and break themselves against him, like wild fowl against a lighthouse in
- the night. Even as he rides out of Bethlehem that June morning, bright
- young eyes peer at him from behind safe lattices, until their brightness
- dies away in tears. As for him thus sighed over, his lashes are dry
- enough. Bethlehem, and all who home therein, from the doctor with Madam
- Bellamy, to her whose rose-red lips he kissed the latest, are already of
- the unregarded past. He wears nothing but the future on his agate slope of
- fancy; he is thinking only on himself and his hunger to become a god of
- the popular—clothed with power, wreathed of fame!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mother,” exclaims the doctor, “the boy is lost! Ambitious as Lucifer, he
- will fall like Lucifer!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Joseph!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot harbor hope! As lucidly clear as glass, he was yet as hard as
- glass. If I were to read his fortune, I should say that Aaron Burr will
- soar as high to fall as low as any soul alive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER II—THE GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG Aaron
- establishes himself in Litchfield with his pretty sister Sally, who,
- because he is brilliant and handsome, is proud of him. Also, Tappan Reeve,
- her husband, takes to him in a slow, bookish way, and is much held by his
- trenchant powers of mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron assumes the law, and makes little flights into Bracton’s
- “Fleeta,” and reads Hawkins and Hobart, delighting in them for their
- limpid English. More seriously, yet more privately, he buries himself in
- every volume of military lore upon which he may lay hands; for already he
- feels that Bunker Hill is on its way, without knowing the name of it, and
- would have himself prepared for its advent.
- </p>
- <p>
- In leisure hours, young Aaron gives Litchfield society the glory of his
- countenance. He flourishes as a village Roquelaure, with plumcolored
- coats, embroidered waistcoats, silken hose, and satin smalls, sent up from
- New York. Likewise, his ruffles are miracles, his neckcloths works of
- starched and spotless art, while at his hip he wears a sword—hilt of
- gilt, and sharkskin scabbard white as snow.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, because he is splendid, with a fortune of four hundred annual pounds,
- and since no girl’s heart may resist the mystery of those eyes, the
- village belles come sighing against him in a melting phalanx of
- loveliness. This is flattering; but young Aaron declines to be impressed.
- Polished, courteous, in amiable possession of himself, he furnishes the
- thought of a bright coldness, like sunshine on a field of ice. Not that
- anyone is to blame. The difference between him and the sighing ones, is a
- difference of shrines and altars. They sacrifice to Venus; he worships
- Mars. While he has visions of battle, they dream of wedding bells.
- </p>
- <p>
- For one moment only arises some tender confusion. There is an Uncle
- Thaddeus—a dotard ass far gone in years! Uncle Thaddeus undertakes,
- behind young Aaron’s back, to make him happy. The liberal Uncle Thaddeus
- goes so blindly far as to explore the heart of a particular fair one, who
- mayhap sighs more deeply than do the others. It grows embarrassing; for,
- while the sighing one thus softly met accepts, when Uncle Thaddeus flies
- to young Aaron with the dulcet news, that favored personage transfixes him
- with so black a stare, wherefrom such baleful serpent rage glares forth,
- that our dotard meddler is fear-frozen in the very midst of his ingenuous
- assiduities. And thereupon the sighing one is left to sigh uncomforted,
- while Uncle Thaddeus finds himself the scorn of all good village opinion.
- </p>
- <p>
- While young Aaron goes stepping up and down the Litchfield causeways, as
- though strutting in Jermyn Street or Leicester Square; while thus he plays
- the fine gentleman with ruffles and silks and shark-skin sword, skimming
- now the law, now flattering the sighing belles, now devouring the
- literature of war, he has ever his finger on the pulse, and his ear to the
- heart of his throbbing times. It is he of Litchfield who hears earliest of
- Lexington and Bunker Hill. In a moment he is all action. Off come the fine
- feathers, and that shark-skin, gilt-hilt sword. Warlock is saddled;
- pistols thrust into holsters. In roughest of costumes the fop surrenders
- to the soldier. It takes but a day, and he is ready for Cambridge and the
- American camp.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he goes upon these doughty preparations, young Aaron finds himself
- abetted by the pretty Sally, who proves as martial as himself. Her
- husband, Tappan Reeve, easy, quiet, loving his unvexed life, from the law
- book on his table to the pillow whereon he nightly sleeps, cannot
- understand this headlong war hurry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You may lose your life!” cries Tappan Reeve.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What then?” rejoins young Aaron. “Whether the day be far or near, that
- life you speak of is already lost. I shall play this game. My life is my
- stake; and I shall freely hazard it upon the chance of winning glory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And have you no fear?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The timid Tappan’s thoughts of death are ashen; he likes to live.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron bends upon him his black gaze. “What I fear more than any
- death,” says he, “is stagnation—the currentless village life!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, arriving at Cambridge, attaches himself to General Putnam.
- The grizzled old wolf killer likes him, being of broadest tolerations, and
- no analyst of the psychic.
- </p>
- <p>
- There are seventeen thousand Americans scattered in a ragged fringe about
- Boston, in which town the English, taught by Lexington and Bunker Hill,
- are cautiously prone to lie close. Young Aaron makes the round of the
- camps. He is amazed by the unrule and want of discipline. Besides, he
- cannot understand the inaction, feeling that each new day should have its
- Bunker Hill. That there is not enough powder among the Americans to load
- and fire those seventeen thousand rifles twice, is a piece of military
- information of which he lives ignorant, for the grave Virginian in command
- confides it only to a merest few. Had young Aaron been aware of this
- paucity of powder, those long days, idle, vacant of event, might not have
- troubled him. The wearisome wonder of them at least would have been made
- plain.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron learns of an expedition against Quebec, to be led by Colonel
- Benedict Arnold, and resolves to join it. That all may be by military
- rule, he seeks General Washington to ask permission. He finds that
- commander in talk with General Putnam; the old wolf killer does him the
- favor of a presentation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From where do you come?” asks Washington, closely scanning young Aaron
- whom he instantly dislikes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From Connecticut. I am a gentleman volunteer, attached to General Putnam
- with the rank of captain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Something of repulsion shows cloudily on the brow of Washington. Obviously
- he is offended by this cool stripling, who clothes his hairless boy’s face
- with a confident maturity that has the effect of impertinence. Also the
- phrase “gentleman volunteer,” sticks in his throat like a fish bone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, a ‘gentleman volunteer!’” he repeats in a tone of sarcasm scarcely
- veiled. “I have now and then heard of such a trinket of war, albeit, never
- to the trinket’s advantage. Doubtless, sir, you have made the rounds of
- our array!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, from his beardless five feet six inches, looks up at the tall
- Virginian, and cannot avoid envying him his door-wide shoulders and that
- extra half foot of height. He perceives, too, with a resentful glow, that
- he is being mocked. However, he controls himself to answer coldly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “As you surmise, sir, I have made the rounds of your forces.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And having made them”—this ironically—“I trust you found all
- to your satisfaction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As to that,” remarks young Aaron, “while I did not look to find trained
- soldiers, I think that a better discipline might be maintained.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed! I shall make a note of it. And yet I must express the hope that,
- while you occupy a subordinate place, you will give way as little as may
- be to your perilous trick of thinking, leaving it rather to our
- experienced friend Putnam, here, he being trained in these matters.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old wolf killer takes advantage of this reference to himself, to help
- the interview into less trying channels.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You were seeking me?” he says to the youthful critic of camps and
- discipline.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was seeking the commander in chief,” returns young Aaron, again facing
- Washington. “I came to ask permission to go with Colonel Arnold against
- Quebec.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Against Quebec?” repeats Washington. “Go, with all my heart!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a cut concealed in that consent, to the biting smart of which
- young Aaron is not insensible. However, he finds in the towering manner of
- its delivery something which checks even his audacity. After saluting, he
- withdraws without added word.
- </p>
- <p>
- “General,” observes Washington, when young Aaron has gone, “I fear I
- cannot congratulate you on your new captain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you knew him better, general,” protests the good-hearted old wolf
- killer, “you would like him better. He is a boy; but he has an old head on
- his young shoulders.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0043.jpg" alt="0043 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0043.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- “The very thing I most fear,” rejoins Washington. “A boy has no more
- business with an old head than with old lungs or old legs. It is
- unnatural, sir; and the unnatural is the wrong. I want only heads and
- shoulders about me that were born the same day. For that reason, I am glad
- your ‘gentleman volunteer’”—this with a shade of irony—“goes
- to Quebec with that turbulent Norwich apothecary, Arnold. The army will be
- bettered just now by the absence of these lofty spirits. They disturb more
- than they help. Besides, a tramp of sixty days through the Maine woods
- will improve such Hotspurs vastly. There is nothing like a six-hundred
- mile march through an unbroken wilderness, with a fight in the snow at the
- far end of it, to take the edge off beardless arrogance and young
- conceit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- What young Aaron carries away from that interview, as an impression of the
- big commander in chief, crops out in converse with his former college
- chum, young Ogden. The latter, like himself, is attached to the military
- family of General Putnam.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ogden, we have begun wrong as soldiers—you and I!” says young
- Aaron. “By flint and steel, man, we should have commenced like Washington,
- by hoeing tobacco!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now this is not right!” cries young Ogden, in reproof. “General
- Washington is a soldier who has seen service.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why,” retorts young Aaron, “I believe he was trounced with Braddock.”
- Then, warmly: “Ogden, the man is Failure walking about in blue and buff
- and high boots! I read him like a page of print! He is slow, dull, bovine,
- proud, and of no decision. He lacks initiative; and, while he might
- defend, he is incapable of attacking. Worst of all he has the soul of a
- planter—a plantation soul! A big movement like this, which brings
- the thirteen colonies to the field, is beyond his grasp.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your great defect, Aaron,” cries young Ogden, not without indignation,
- “is that you regard your most careless judgment as final. Half the time,
- too, your decision is the product of prejudice, not reason. General
- Washington offends you—as, to be frank, he did me—by putting a
- lower estimate on your powers than that at which you yourself are pleased
- to hold them. I warrant now had he flattered you a bit, you would have
- found in him a very Alexander.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should have found him what I tell you,” retorts young Aaron stoutly, “a
- glaring instance of misplaced mediocrity. He is even wanting in dignity!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For my side, then, I found him dignified enough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Friend Ogden, you took dullness for dignity. Or I will change it; I’ll
- even consent that he is dignified. But only in the torpid, cud-chewing
- fashion in which a bullock is dignified. Still, he does very well by me;
- for he says I may go with Colonel Arnold. And so, Ogden, I’ve but time for
- ‘good-by!’ and then off to make myself ready to accompany our swashbuckler
- druggist against Quebec.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER III—COLONEL BENEDICT ARNOLD EXPLAINS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is September,
- brilliant and golden. Newburyport is brave with warlike excitement. Drums
- roll, fifes shriek, armed men fill the single village street. These latter
- are not seasoned troops, as one may see by their careless array and the
- want of uniformity in their homespun, homemade garbs. No two are armed
- alike, for each has brought his own weapon. These are rifles—long,
- eight-square flintlocks. Also every rifleman wears a powderhorn and bullet
- pouch of buckskin, while most of them carry knives and hatchets in their
- rawhide belts.
- </p>
- <p>
- As our rude soldiery stand at ease in the village street, cheering crowds
- line the sidewalk. The shouts rise above the screaming fifes and rumbling
- drums. The soldiers are the force which Colonel Arnold will lead against
- Quebec. Young, athletic—to the last man they have been drawn from
- the farms. Resenting discipline, untaught of drill, their disorder has in
- it more of the mob than the military. However, their eyes like their hopes
- are bright, and one may read in the healthy, cheerful faces that each
- holds himself privily to be of the raw materials from which generals are
- made.
- </p>
- <p>
- Down in the harbor eleven smallish vessels ride at anchor. They are of
- brigantine rig, each equal to transporting one hundred men. These will
- carry Colonel Arnold and his eleven hundred militant young rustics to the
- mouth of the Kennebec. In the waist of every vessel, packed one inside the
- other as a housewife arranges teacups on her shelves, are twenty bateaux.
- They are wide, shallow craft, blunt at bow and stern, and will be used to
- convey the expedition up the Kennebec. Each is large enough to hold five
- men, and so light that the five, at portages or rapids, can shoulder it
- with the dunnage which belongs to them and carry it across to the better
- water beyond.
- </p>
- <p>
- The word of command runs along the unpolished ranks; the column begins to
- move toward the water front, taking its step from the incessant drums and
- fifes. Once at the water, the embarkation goes briskly forward. As the
- troops march away, the crowds follow; for the day in Newburyport is a gala
- occasion and partakes of the character of a celebration. No one considers
- the possibility of defeat. Everywhere one finds optimism, as though Quebec
- is already a captured city.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now when the throngs have departed with the soldiery, the street shows
- comparatively deserted. This brings to view the Eagle Inn, a hostelry of
- the village. In the doorway of the Eagle a man and woman are standing. The
- woman is dashingly handsome, with cheek full of color and a bold eye. The
- man is about thirty-five in years. He swaggers with a forward, bragging,
- gamecock air, which—the basis being a coarse, berserk courage—is
- not altogether affectation. His features are vain, sensual, turbulent; his
- expression shows him to be proud in a crude way, and is noticeable because
- of an absence of any slightest glint of principle. There is, too, an
- extravagance of gold braid on his coat, which goes well with the
- superfluous feather in the three-cornered hat, and those russet boots of
- stamped Spanish leather. These swashbuckley excesses of costume bear out
- the vulgar promise of his face, and guarantee that intimated lack of
- fineness.
- </p>
- <p>
- The pair are Colonel Arnold and Madam
- </p>
- <p>
- Arnold. She has come to see the last of her husband as he sails away.
- While they stand in the door, the coach in which she will make the
- homeward journey to Norwich pulls up in front of the Eagle.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Colonel Arnold leads his wife to the coach, he is saying: “No; I shall
- be aboard within the hour. After that we start at once. I want a word with
- a certain Captain Burr before I embark. I’ve offended him, it seems; for
- he is of your proud, high-stomached full-pursed aristocrats who look for
- softer treatment than does a commoner clay. I’ve ordered a bottle of wine.
- As we drink, I shall make shift to smooth down his ruffled plumage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Captain Burr,” repeats Madam Arnold, not without a sniff of scorn. “And
- you are a colonel! How long is it since colonels have found it necessary
- to truckle to captains, and, when they pout, placate them into good
- humor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear madam,” returns Colonel Arnold as he helps her into the clumsy
- vehicle, “permit me to know my own affairs. I tell you this thin-skinned
- boy is rich, and what is better was born with his hands open. He parts
- with money like a royal prince. One has but to drop a hint, and presto!
- his hand is in his purse. The gold I gave you I had from him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As the coach with Madam Arnold drives away, young Aaron is observed coming
- up from the water front. His costume, while as rough as that of the
- soldiers, has a fit and a finish to it which accents the graceful
- gentility of his manner beyond what satins and silks might do. Madam
- Arnold’s bold eyes cover him. He takes off his hat with a gravely accurate
- flourish, whereat the bold eyes glance their pleasure at the polite
- attention.
- </p>
- <p>
- Coach gone, Colonel Arnold seizes young Aaron’s arm, with a familiarity
- which fails of its purpose by being overdone, and draws him into the inn.
- He carries him to a room where a table is spread. The stout landlady by
- way of topping out the feast is adding thereunto an apple pie, moonlike as
- her face and its sister for size and roundness. This, and the roast fowl
- which adorns the center, together with a bottle of burgundy to keep all in
- countenance, invest the situation with an atmosphere of hope.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be seated, Captain Burr,” exclaims the hearty Colonel Arnold, as the two
- draw up to the table. “A roast pullet, a pie, and a bottle of burgundy,
- let me tell you, should make no mean beginning to what is like to prove a
- hard campaign. I warrant you, sir, we see worse fare in the pine
- wilderness of upper Maine. Let me help you to wine, sir,” he continues,
- after carving for himself and young Aaron. The latter, as cold and
- imperturbable as when, in Dr. Bellamy’s study, he shattered the designs of
- that excellent preacher by preferring law to theology and war to either,
- responds to this hospitable politeness with a bow. “Take your glass,
- Captain Burr. I desire to drink down all irritations. Yes, sir,” replacing
- the drained glass, “I may say, without lowering myself as a gentleman in
- your esteem, that, in giving you the order to see the troops aboard, I had
- no thought of affronting you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was not your orders to which I objected; it was to your manner. If I
- may say so, sir, it was a manner of intolerable arrogance, one which I
- shall brook from no man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tush, sir, tush! In war we must thicken our hides. We are not to be
- sensitive. We should not look in the camps for the manners of a king’s
- court. What you mistook for arrogance was no more than just a tone of
- command.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold’s delivery of this is meant to be conciliating. Through it,
- however, runs an exasperating vein of patronage, due, doubtless, to his
- superior rank, and those extra fifteen years wherein he overlooks young
- Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us be plain, colonel,” observes young Aaron, studying his wine
- between eye and windowpane. “I hope for nothing better than concord
- between us. Also, every order you give me I shall obey. None the less I
- ask you to observe that I have no purpose of lowering my self-respect in
- coming to this war. As your subordinate I shall take your commands; as a
- gentleman, the equal of any, I must be treated as such.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold’s brow is red; but he fills his mouth with chicken which he
- drenches down with wine, and so restrains every fretful expression. After
- a moment filled of wine and chicken, he observes carelessly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say no more! Say no more, Captain Burr! We understand one another!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no more to say,” returns young Aaron steadily. “And I beg you to
- remember that the subject is one which you, yourself, proposed. I am
- through when I state that, while I object to no man’s vanity, no man’s
- arrogance, I shall never permit him to transact them at the expense of my
- self-respect.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold turns the talk to what, in a wilderness as well as a
- fighting way, lies ahead. They linger over pullet and burgundy for the
- better part of an hour, and get on as well as should gentlemen who have no
- mighty mutual liking. As they prepare to go aboard, the stout landlady
- meets them in the hall. Her modest’ charges are to be met with a handful
- of shillings. Colonel Arnold rummages his pockets, wearing the while a
- baffled angry air; then he falls to cursing in a spirit truly military.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May the black fiend seize me!” says he, “if my purse has not gone aboard
- with my baggage!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron pays the score with an indifference which does not betray a
- conviction that the pocket-rummaging is a pretence, and the native
- money-meanness of his coarse-faced colonel designed such finale from the
- first. Score settled, they repair to the water front. As the two depart,
- the stout landlady of the Eagle follows the retreating Colonel Arnold with
- shocked, insulted glance. She is a religious woman, and those curses have
- moved her soul.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Blaspheming upstart!” she mutters. “And the airs he takes on! As though
- folk have forgotten that within the year he stood behind his Norwich
- counter selling pills and plasters!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The eleven little ships voyage to the mouth of the Kennebec without event.
- The bateaux are launched, and the eleven hundred highhearted youngsters
- proceed to pole and paddle their way up the river. Where the currents are
- overswift they tow with lines from the banks. Finally they abandon the
- Kennebec, and shoulder the bateaux for a scrambling tramp across the
- pine-sown watershed. It takes days, but in the end they find themselves
- again afloat on the Dead River. This stream leads them to the St.
- Lawrence. It is the march of the century! These buoyant young rustics
- through the untraced wilderness have come six hundred miles in fifty days.
- </p>
- <p>
- Woodmen born and bred, this long push through the forests is no surprising
- feat to these who perform it. They scarcely discuss the matter as they
- crouch about their camp fires. The big topic among them is their hatred of
- Colonel Arnold. From that September day in Newbury-port his tyranny has
- been in hourly expression. Also, it seems to grow with time. He hectors,
- raves, vituperates, until there isn’t a trigger finger in the command
- which does not itch to shoot him down. Disdaining to aid the march by
- carrying so much as a pound’s weight—as being work beneath his
- exalted rank—this Caesar of the apothecaries must needs have his
- special cooking kit along. Also his tent must be pitched with the coming
- down of every night. Men hungry and unsheltered all around him, he sees no
- reason why he should not sleep warmly soft, and breakfast and dine and sup
- like a wilderness Lucullus. Thereat the farmer youth grumble, and console
- themselves with slighting remarks and looks of contumely.
- </p>
- <p>
- To these remarks and looks, Colonel Arnold is driven to deafen his ears
- and offer his back. It would be inconvenient to hear and see these things;
- since, for all his bullying attitude, he dare not crowd his followers too
- far. Their unbroken mouths are but new to the military bit; a too cruel
- pressure on the bridle reins might mean the unhorsing of our vanity-eaten
- apothecary. As it is, by twos and tens and twenties, the command dwindles
- away. Every roll call discloses fresh desertions. Wroth with their
- commander, resolved against the mean tyranny of his rule, when the party
- reaches the St. Lawrence, half have gone to a right-about and are on their
- way home. The feather-headed Colonel Arnold finds himself with a muster of
- five hundred and fifty where he should have had eleven hundred. And the
- five hundred and fifty with him are on the darkling edge of revolt.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think on such cur hearts!” cries Colonel Arnold, as he speaks with young
- Aaron of those desertions which have cut his force in two. “Half have
- already turned tail, and the other half are of a coward mind to follow
- their mongrel example. I would sooner command a brigade of dogs!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Believe me,” observes young Aaron, icily acquiescent, “I shall not
- contradict your peculiar fitness for the command you describe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Being thus happily delivered, young Aaron goes round on his imperturbable
- heel and strolls away, leaving the angry Colonel Arnold glaring with
- rage-congested eye.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Insolent puppy!” the latter grits between his teeth.
- </p>
- <p>
- He is heedful, however, to avoid the epithet in the presence of young
- Aaron; for, in spite of that rude courage which, when all is said, lies at
- the root of his nature, the ex-apothecary dreads the “gentleman
- volunteer,” with his black ophidian glance—so balanced, so hard, so
- vacant of fear!
- </p>
- <p>
- It is toward the last of November; the valley of the St. Lawrence seems
- the home of snow. Colonel Arnold grows afraid of the temper of his people.
- As they push slowly through the drifts, their angry wrath against the
- Caligula who leads them is only too thinly veiled. At this, the insolent
- oppressions of our ex-apothecary cease; he seeks to conciliate, but the
- time is overlate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold goes into camp, and considers the situation. Even if his
- followers do not wheel suddenly southward for home, he fears that on some
- final battle day they will refuse to fight at his command. With despair
- gnawing at his heart, he decides to get word to General Montgomery, who
- has conquered and is holding Montreal. The giant Irishman is the idol of
- the army. Once he appears, the grumblings and mutinous murmurings will
- abate. The rebellious ones will go wherever he points, fight like lions at
- his merest word.
- </p>
- <p>
- True, the coming of Montgomery will mean his own loss of command, and that
- is a bitter pill. Still, since he may do no better, he resolves to gulp
- it. Thus resolving, he calls young Aaron into conference. The uneasy
- tyrant hates young Aaron—hates him for the gold he has borrowed from
- him, hates him for his scarcely concealed contempt of himself. None the
- less he calls him into council. It is wisdom not friendship his case
- requires, and he early learned to value the long head of our “gentleman
- volunteer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is this,” explains Colonel Arnold, desperately. “We have not the force
- demanded for the capture of Quebec. We must get word to Montgomery. He is
- one hundred and twenty miles away in Montreal. The puzzle is to find some
- one, whom we can trust among these French-speaking native Canadians, who
- will carry my message.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron knots his brows. Colonel Arnold watches him anxiously, for he
- is at the end of his resources. Finally young Aaron consults his watch.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is now ten o’clock,” he says. “Nothing can be done to-night. And yet I
- think I know the man for your occasion. By daybreak I’ll have him before
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IV—THE YOUNG FRENCH PRIEST
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HERE are many
- deserted log huts along the St. Lawrence. Colonel Arnold has taken up his
- quarters in one of these. It is eight o’clock of the morning following the
- talk with young Aaron when the sentinel at the door reports that a priest
- is asking admission.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What have I to do with priests!” demands Colonel Arnold. “However, bring
- him in! He must give good reasons for disturbing me, or his black coat
- will do him little good.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The priest is clothed from head to heel in the black frock of his order.
- The frock is caught in about the waist with a heavy cord. Down the front
- depend a crucifix and beads. The frock is thickly lined with fur; the
- peaked hood, also fur-lined, is drawn forward over the priest’s face. In
- figure he is short and slight. As he peers out from his hood at Colonel
- Arnold, his black eyes give that commander a start of uncertainty.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose you speak no French?” says the priest.
- </p>
- <p>
- His accent is wretched. Colonel Arnold might be justified in retorting
- that his visitor speaks no English. He restricts himself, however, to an
- admission that, as the priest surmises, he has no French, and follows it
- with a bluff demand that the latter make plain his errand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, sir,” returns the priest, glancing about as though in quest of some
- one, “I expected to find Captain Burr here. He tells me you wish to send a
- message to Montreal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold is alert in a moment; his manner undergoes a change from
- harsh to suave.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” he cries amiably; “you are the man.” Then, to the sentinel at the
- door: “Send word, sir, to Captain Burr, and ask him to come at once to my
- quarters.”
- </p>
- <p>
- While waiting the coming of young Aaron, Colonel Arnold enters into
- conversation with his clerkly visitor. The priest explains that he hates
- the English, as do all Canadians of French stock. He is only too willing
- to do Colonel Arnold any service that shall tell against them. Also, he
- adds, in response to a query, that he can make his way to Montreal in ten
- days.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are farmer and fisher people all along the St. Lawrence,” says he.
- “They are French, and good sons of mother church. I am sure they will give
- me food and shelter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sentinel comes lumbering in, and reports that young Aaron is not to be
- found.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is sheer nonsense, sir!” fumes Colonel Arnold. “Why should he not be
- found? He is somewhere about camp. Fetch him instantly!”
- </p>
- <p>
- When the sentinel again departs, the priest frees his face of the
- obscuring hood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your sentinel is right,” he says. “Captain Burr is not at his quarters.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold stares in amazement; the priest is none other than our
- “gentleman volunteer.” Perceiving Colonel Arnold gazing in curious wonder
- at his clerkly frock, young Aaron explains.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I got it five days back, at that monastery we passed. You recall how I
- dined there with the Brothers. I thought then that just such a peaceful
- coat as this might find a use.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marvelous!” exclaims Colonel Arnold. “And you speak French, too?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “French and Latin. I have, you see, the verbal as well as outward
- furnishings of a priest of these parts.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you think you can reach Montgomery? I have to warn you, sir, that the
- work will be extremely delicate and the danger great.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall be equal to the work. As for the peril, if I feared it I should
- not be here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is arranged; and young Aaron explains that he is prepared, indeed,
- prefers, to start at once. Moreover, he counsels secrecy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have an Indian guide or two, about you,” says he, “whom I do not
- trust. If my errand were known, one of them might cut me off and sell my
- scalp to the English.”
- </p>
- <p>
- When Colonel Arnold is left alone, he gives himself up to a consideration
- of the chances of his message going safely to Montreal. He sits long, with
- puckered lips and brooding eye.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In any event,” he murmurs, “I cannot fail to be the better off. If he
- reach Montgomery, that is what I want. On the other hand, should he fall a
- prey to the English I shall think it a settlement of what debts I owe him.
- Yes; the latter event would mean three hundred pounds to me. Either way I
- am rid of one whose cool superiorities begin to smart. Himself a
- gentleman, he seems never to forget that I am an apothecary.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is twenty miles nearer Montreal when the early winter sun goes
- down. For ten days he plods onward, now and again lying by to avoid a
- roving party of English. As he foretold, every cabin is open to the “young
- priest.” He but explains that he has cause to fear the redcoats, and with
- that those French Canadians, whom he meets with, keep nightly watch, while
- couching him warmest and softest, and feeding him on the best. At last he
- reaches General Montgomery, and tells of Colonel Arnold below Quebec.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Montgomery, a giant in stature, has none of that sluggishness so
- common with folk of size. In twenty-four hours after receiving young
- Aaron’s word, he is off to make a junction with Colonel Arnold. He takes
- with him three hundred followers, all that may be spared from Montreal,
- and asks young Aaron to serve on his personal staff.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0067.jpg" alt="0067 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0067.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- They find Colonel Arnold, with his five hundred and fifty, camped under
- the very heights of Quebec. The garrison, while quite as strong as is his
- force, have not once molested him. They leave his undoing to the cold and
- snow, and that starvation which is making gaunt the faces and shortening
- the belts of his men.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Montgomery upon his arrival takes command. Colonel Arnold, while
- foreseeing this—since even his vanity does not conceive of a war
- condition so upside down that a colonel gives orders to a general—cannot
- avoid a fit of the sulks. He is the more inclined to be moody, because the
- coming of the big Irishman has visibly brightened his people, who for
- months have been scowls and clouds to him. Now the face of affairs is
- changed; the mutinous ones have nothing save cheers for the big general
- whenever he appears.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Montgomery calls a conference, and Colonel Arnold comes with all
- his officers. At the request of young Aaron, the big general retains him
- by his side. This does not please the ex-apothecary, it hurts his
- self-love that the “gentleman volunteer” is so obviously pleased to be
- free of his company. At the conference, General Montgomery advises all to
- hold themselves in readiness for an assault upon the English walls.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot tell the night,” he observes; “I only say that we shall attack
- during the first snowstorm that occurs. It may come in an hour, wherefore
- be ready!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The storm which is to mask the movements of General Montgomery does not
- keep folk waiting. There soon falls a midnight which is nothing save a
- blinding whirling sheet of snow. Thereupon the word goes through the camp.
- </p>
- <p>
- The assault is to be made in two columns, General Montgomery leading one,
- Colonel Arnold the other. Young Aaron will be by the elbow of the big
- Irishman. By way of aiding, a feigned attack is ordered for a far corner
- of the English works.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the soldiers fall into their ranks, the storm fairly swallows them up.
- It would seem as though none might live in such a tempest—white,
- ferociously cold, Arctic in its fury! It is desperate weather! the more
- desperate when faced by ones whose courage has been diminished by
- privation. But the strong heart of General Montgomery listens to no
- doubts. He will lead out his eight hundred and fifty against an equal
- force that have been sleeping warm and eating full, while his own were
- freezing and starving. Also, those warm, full-fed ones are behind stone
- walls, which the lean, frozen ones must scale and capture.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall give you ten minutes’ start,” observes General Montgomery to
- Colonel Arnold. “You have farther to go than we to gain your position. I
- shall wait ten minutes; then I shall press forward.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold moves off with his column through the driving storm. When
- those ten minutes of grace have elapsed, General Montgomery gives his men
- the word to advance.
- </p>
- <p>
- They urge their difficult way up a ravine, snow belt-deep. There is an
- outer work of blockhouse sort at the head of the defile. It is of solid
- mason work, two stories, crenelled above for muskets, pierced below for
- two twelve-pounders. This must be reduced before the main assault can
- begin.
- </p>
- <p>
- As General Montgomery, with young Aaron on the right, the column in broken
- disorder at his heels, nears the blockhouse, a dog, more wakeful than the
- English, is heard to bark. That bark turns out the redcoat garrison as
- though a trumpet called.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Forward!” cries General Montgomery.
- </p>
- <p>
- The men respond; they rush bravely on. The blockhouse, dully looming
- through the storm, is no more than forty yards away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly a red tongue of flame licks out into the snow swirl, to be
- followed by the roar of one of the twelve-pounders. In quick response
- comes the roar of its sister gun, while, from the loopholes above, the
- muskets crackle and splutter.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is blind cannonading; but it does its work as though the best
- artillerist is training the guns at brightest noonday. The head of the
- assaulting column is met flush in the face with a sleet of grapeshot.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Montgomery staggers; and then, without a word, falls forward on
- his face in the snow. Young Aaron stoops to raise him to his feet. It is
- of no avail; the big Irishman is dead.
- </p>
- <p>
- The bursting roar of the twelve-pounders is heard again. As if to keep
- their general company, a dozen more give up their lives.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Montgomery is slain!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The word zigzags along the ragged column.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is a daunting word! The men begin to give way.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron rushes into their midst, and seeks to rally them. He might as
- well attempt to stay the whirling snow in its dance! The men will follow
- none save General Montgomery; and he is dead.
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly they fall backward along the ravine up which they climbed. Again
- the two twelve-pounders roar, and a raking hail of grape sings through the
- shaking ranks. More men are struck down! That backward movement becomes a
- rout.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron loses the icy self-control which is his distinguishing trait.
- He buries the retreating ones beneath an avalanche of curses, drowns them
- with a cataract of scorn.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” he cries. “Will you leave your general’s body in their hands?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He might have spared himself the shouting effort. Already he is alone with
- the dead.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is better company than that of cowards!” is his bitter cry, as he
- bends above the stark form of his chief.
- </p>
- <p>
- The English are pouring from the blockhouse. Still young Aaron will not
- leave the dead Montgomery behind. Now are the steel-like powers of his
- slight frame manifest. With one effort, he swings the giant body to his
- shoulder, and plunges off down the defile, the eager blood-hungry redcoats
- not a dozen rods behind.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER V—THE WRATH OF WASHINGTON
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE gray morning
- finds the routed ones in their old camp by the St. Lawrence. Colonel
- Arnold’s assault has also failed. The ex-apothecary received a slight
- wound, and is vastly proud. It is his left arm that was hurt, and of it he
- makes a mighty parade, slinging it in a rich crimson sash.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold, now in command, does not attempt another assault, but
- contents himself with maneuvering his slender forces on the plain in
- tantalizing view of the redcoat foe. He sends a flag of truce to the foot
- of the walls, with a sprightly challenge to their defenders, inviting them
- to come out and fight. The Quebec commander, being a soldier and no mad
- knight errant, refuses to be thus romantic. The winter is deepening; he
- will leave the vaporing Colonel Arnold to fight a battle with the
- thermometer. Also, General Burgoyne, at the head of an army, is pointed
- that way.
- </p>
- <p>
- His maneuverings ignored, his challenge declined, Colonel Arnold puts in
- an entire night framing a demand for the instant surrender of Quebec. This
- he is at pains to couch in terms of insult, peppering it from top to
- bottom with biting taunts. He closes with a threat that, should the
- English commander fail to lower his flag, he will conquer the city at the
- point of the sword, and put the garrison to disgraceful death by gibbet
- and halter. When he has completed this precious manifesto, he seeks out
- young Aaron, and commands him to carry it in person to the city’s gates.
- As Colonel Arnold tenders the letter, young Aaron puts his hands behind
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Before I take it, sir,” says he, “I should like to hear it read.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron’s contempt for the ex-apothecary has found increase with every
- day since the death of Montgomery. Those braggadocio maneuverings, the
- foolish challenge to come out and fight, have filled him with disgust.
- They shock by stress of their innate cheap vulgarity. He is of no mind to
- lend himself to any kindred buffoonery.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you refuse my orders, sirrah?” cries Colonel Arnold, falling into a
- dramatic fume.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I refuse nothing! I say that I shall carry no letter until I know its
- contents. I warn you, sir, I am not to be ‘ordered,’ as you call it, into
- a false position by any man alive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron’s face is getting white; there is a dangerous sparkle in the
- black ophidian eyes. Colonel Arnold reads these symptoms, and draws back.
- Still, he maintains a ruffling front.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir!” says he haughtily; “you should think on your subordinate rank, and
- on your youth, before you pretend to overlook my conduct.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My subordinate rank shall not detract from my quality as a gentleman. As
- for my youth, I shall prove old enough, I trust, to make safe my honor. I
- say again, I’ll not touch your letter till I hear it read.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Remember, sir, to whom you speak!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall remember what I mentioned at the Eagle Inn; I shall remember my
- self-respect.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold fixes young Aaron with a superior stare. If it be meant for
- his confusion, it meets failure beyond hope. The black eyes stare back
- with so much of iron menace in them, as to disconcert the personage of
- former drugs.
- </p>
- <p>
- He feels them play upon him like two black rapier points. His assurance
- breaks down; his lofty determination oozes away. With gaze seeking the
- floor, his ruddy, wine-marked countenance flushes doubly red.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Since you make such a swelter of the business,” he grumbles, “I, for my
- own sake, shall now ask you to read it. I would have you know, sir, that I
- understand the requirements as well as the proprieties of my position.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold tears open the letter with a flourish, and gives it to
- young Aaron. The latter reads it; and then, with no attempt to palliate
- the insult, throws it on the floor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” cries Colonel Arnold, exploding into a sudden blaze of wrath, “I
- was told in Cambridge, what my officers have often told me since, that you
- are a bumptious young fool! Many times have I been told it, sir; and,
- until now, I did you the honor to disbelieve it.” Young Aaron is cold and
- sneering. “Sir,” he retorts, “see how much more credulous I am than are
- you. I was told but once that you are a bragging, empty vulgarian, and I
- instantly believed it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The pair stand opposite one another, glances crossing like sword blades,
- the insulted letter on the floor between. It is Colonel Arnold who again
- gives ground. Snapping his fingers, as though breaking off an incident
- beneath his exalted notice, he goes about on his heel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” says young Aaron; “now that I see your back, sir, I shall take my
- leave.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The winter days, heavy and leaden and chill, go by. Colonel Arnold
- continues those maneuverings and challengings, those struttings and
- vaporings. At last even his coxcomb vanity grows weary, and he thinks on
- Montreal. One morning, with all his followers, he marches off to that
- city, still held by the garrison that Montgomery left behind. Established
- in Montreal he comports himself as becomes a conqueror, expanding into
- pomp and license, living on the fat, drinking of the strong. And day by
- day Burgoyne is drawing nearer.
- </p>
- <p>
- Broad spring descends; a green mist is visible in the winter-stripped
- trees. The rumors of Burgoyne’s approach increase and prove disquieting.
- Colonel Arnold leads his people out of Montreal, and plunges southward
- into the wilderness. He pitches camp on the river Sorel.
- </p>
- <p>
- Since the incident of the letter, young Aaron has held no traffic, polite
- or otherwise, with Colonel Arnold. The “gentleman volunteer” sees lonesome
- days; for he has made no friends about the camp. The men admire him, but
- offer him no place in their hearts. A boy in years, with a beardless
- girl’s face, he gives himself the airs of gravest manhood. His atmosphere,
- while it does not repel, is not inviting. Men hold aloof, as though
- separated from him by a gulf. He tells no stories, cracks no jests. His
- manner is one of careless nonchalance. In truth, he is so much engaged in
- upholding his young dignity as to leave him no time to be popular. His
- bringing off the dead Montgomery, under fire of the English, has been told
- and retold in every corner of the camp. This gains him credit for a heart
- of fire, and a fortitude without a flaw. On the march, too, he faces every
- hardship, shirks no work, but meets and does his duty equal with the best.
- And yet there is that cool reserve, which denies the thought of
- comradeship and holds friendly folk at bay. With them, yet not of them,
- the men about him cannot solve the conundrum of his nature; and so they
- leave him to himself. They value him, they respect him, they hold his
- courage above proof; there it ends.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, aware of his lonely position, does nothing to change it. He
- is conceitedly pleased with things as they are. It is the old head on the
- young shoulders that thus gets in his way; Washington was right in his
- philosophy. Young Aaron, however, is as content with that head, as in
- those old Bethlehem days, when he patronized Dr. Bellamy, and declared for
- the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield.
- </p>
- <p>
- None the less young Aaron is not wholly satisfied. As he idles about the
- camp by the Sorel, he feels that any present chance of conquering the fame
- and power he came seeking in this war is closed against him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Plainly,” counsels the old head on the young shoulders, “it is time to
- bring about a change.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold is smitten of surprise one afternoon, when young Aaron
- walks into his tent. He does his best to hide that surprise, as an emotion
- at war with his high military station. Young Aaron, ever equal to a rigid
- etiquette, salutes profoundly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Arnold,” says he, “I am here to return into your hands that rank
- of captain, which I hold only by courtesy. Also, I desire to tell you that
- I leave for Albany at once.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Albany!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My canoe is waiting, sir. I start immediately.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I forbid your going, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Arnold has recovered his breath, and makes this proclamation
- grandly. Privately, he is a-quake; for he does not know what stories young
- Aaron might tell in the south.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” he repeats, “I forbid your departure! You must not go!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Must not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- As though answering his own query, young Aaron leaves Colonel Arnold
- without further remark, and walks down to the river, where a canoe is
- waiting. The latter cranky contrivance is manned by a quartette of
- Canadians, who sit, paddle in fist, ready for the word to start.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0081.jpg" alt="0081 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0081.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- At this decisive action, Colonel Arnold is roused. He springs to his feet
- and follows to the waiting canoe. Young Aaron has just taken his place.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Captain Burr,” cries Colonel Arnold, “what does this mean? You heard my
- orders, sir! You must not go!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is ashore like a flash. “Colonel Arnold,” says he, “it is
- quite possible that you have force enough at hand to detain me. Be warned,
- however, that the exercise of such force will have a sequel serious to
- yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, as to that,” responds Colonel Arnold sullenly, “I shall not attempt
- to detain you. I simply leave you to the responsibility of departing in
- the teeth of my orders, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In a moment young Aaron is back in the canoe; the four paddles churn the
- water into baby whirlpools, and the slight craft glides out upon the bosom
- of the Sorel.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron encounters a party of Indians, and conquers their friendship
- with diplomatic rum. He reaches Albany, and tastes the delights of fame;
- for the story of Quebec has preceded him, and he finds himself a hero.
- Thereupon, while outwardly unmoved, he swells in the proud but secret
- recesses of his heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- In New York he meets his college friend Ogden, who tells him that he has
- sold Warlock and spent the proceeds. Likewise, Colonel Troup explains how
- he received a thousand pounds for him from his estate, but was moved to
- borrow the half of it, having a call for such sum. Colonel Troup gives
- five hundred pounds to young Aaron, who receives it carelessly, the while
- assuring his debtor, as well as young Ogden, who spent the price of
- Warlock, that they are cheerfully welcome to his gold. At that, both young
- Ogden and Colonel Troup pluck up a generous spirit, and borrow each
- another fifty pounds; which sums our “gentleman volunteer” puts into their
- impoverished fingers, as readily as though pounds mean groats and
- farthings. For he holds that to be niggard of money is impossible to a
- soldier and a gentleman. Did not the knight-errant of old romaunts go
- chucking gold-lined purses right and left, into every empty outstretched
- hand? And shall not young Aaron be the modern knight-errant if he chooses?
- These are the questions which he puts to himself, as he ministers to the
- famished finances of his friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Washington learns of the incident of the dead Montgomery. Having a
- conscience, he is distressed by the thought that he may have been harshly
- unjust, one Cambridge day, to our “gentleman volunteer.” The
- conscience-smitten general has headquarters in New York, and now, when
- young Aaron arrives, strives to make amends. He invites that youthful
- campaigner to a place upon his personal staff, with the rank of major.
- Young Aaron accepts, and becomes part of Washington’s military family. The
- general is living at Richmond Hill, a mansion which in after years young
- Aaron will buy and make his residence.
- </p>
- <p>
- For six weeks young Aaron is with Washington. Sometimes he rides out with
- him; sometimes he writes reports and orders at his dictation; always he
- dislikes him. He finds nothing in the Virginian to invoke his confidence
- or compel his esteem. In the finale he detests him.
- </p>
- <p>
- This latter mind condition is vastly built up by the lack of notice he
- receives from the ever-taciturn, often-abstracted, overworried Washington.
- The big general will sit for hours, with brows of thought and pondering
- eye, as heedless of young Aaron—albeit in the same room with him—as
- though our sucking Marlborough owns no existence. This irritates the
- latter’s pride; for he has military views which he longs to unfold, but
- cannot because of the grim wordlessness of his chief. He resolves to break
- the ice.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington is sitting lost in thought. “Sir,” exclaims young Aaron, boldly
- rushing in upon the general’s meditations, “the English grow stronger.
- Every day their fleet is augmented by new ships, bringing fresh troops.
- Eventually they will land and drive us from the city. When that time
- comes, it will be my advice to burn New York to the ground, and leave them
- naught save the charred ruins.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington pays no attention; it is as though a starling spoke. Presently
- he mounts his horse, and soberly rides off to an inspection of troops.
- Young Aaron is mightily mortified, and, by way of reestablishing his
- dignity on the pedestal from which it has been thrust, neglects a line of
- clerical work that should claim his attention. Washington upon his return
- discovers this, and having a temper like gunpowder flashes into a rage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does this mean, sir?” he demands, angry to the eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, sir,” responds young Aaron coolly, “I should think it might mean
- that I brought a sword not a pen to this war.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are insolent, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As you please, sir. But since you say it, I must ask to be relieved from
- further duty on your staff.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The big general stalks from the room. The next day he transfers young
- Aaron to the staff of Putnam.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m sorry he offended you, general,” says the old wolf killer. “For
- myself, I’m bound to say that I think well of the boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is a word,” returns Washington, “as to the meaning of which, until
- I met him, I was ignorant; that is the word ‘prig.’ It is strange, too;
- for he is as brave as Cæsar. I have it on the words of twenty. Yes,
- general, your ‘gentleman-volunteer’ is altogether a strangeling; for he is
- one of those anomalies, a courageous prig.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VI—POOR PEGGY MONCRIEFFE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N that day when
- the farmers of Concord turn their rifles upon King George, there dwells in
- Elizabeth a certain English Major Moncrieffe. With him is his daughter,
- just ceasing to be a girl and beginning to be a woman. Peggy Moncrieffe is
- a beauty, and, to tell a whole truth, confident thereof to the verge of
- brazen. When her father is ordered to his regiment he leaves her behind.
- The war to him is no more than a riot; he looks to be back in Elizabeth
- before the month expires.
- </p>
- <p>
- The optimistic Major Moncrieffe is wrong. That riot, which is not a riot
- but a revolution, spreads and spreads like fire among dry grass. At last a
- hostile line divides him from his daughter Peggy. This is serious; for,
- aside from forbidding any word between them, it prevents him sending what
- money she requires for her care. In her distress she writes General
- Putnam, her father’s comrade in the last war with the French. The old wolf
- killer invites the desolate Peggy to make one of his own household. When
- young Aaron leaves the staff of Washington, Peggy Moncrieffe is with the
- Putnams, whose house stands at the corner of Broadway and the Battery.
- </p>
- <p>
- The family of the old wolf killer is made up of Madam Putnam and two
- daughters. Peggy Moncrieffe is received as a third daughter by the kindly
- Madam Putnam. Also, like a third daughter, she is set to the spinning
- wheel; for, while the old wolf killer fights the English, Madam Putnam and
- her daughters work early and late, with spinning wheel and loom,
- clothmaking for the continental troops. Peggy Moncrieffe offers no demur;
- but goes at the spinning and weaving as though she is as much puritan and
- patriot as are those about her. She is busy at the spinning when young
- Aaron is presented. And in that presentation lurks a peril; for she is
- eighteen and he is twenty.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, selfish, gallant, pleased with a pretty face as with a poem,
- becomes flatteringly attentive to pretty Peggy Moncrieffe. She, for her
- side, turns restless when he leaves her, to glow like the sun when he
- returns. She forgets the spinning wheel for his conversation. The two walk
- under the trees in the Battery, or, from the quiet steps of St. Paul’s,
- watch the evening sun go down beyond the Jersey hills.
- </p>
- <p>
- Madam Putnam is prudent, and does not like these symptoms. She issues a
- whispered mandate to the old wolf killer, with whom her word is law.
- Thereupon he sends the pretty Peggy to safer quarters near Kingsbridge.
- </p>
- <p>
- That is to say, the Kingsbridge refuge, to which pretty Peggy reluctantly
- retires, is safe until she arrives. It presently becomes a theater of
- danger, since young Aaron is not a day in discovering a complete military
- reason for visiting it. The old wolf killer is not like Washington; there
- are no foolish orders or tedious dispatches for his aide to write. This
- gives leisure to young Aaron, which he improves in daily gallops to
- Kingsbridge. It is to be feared that he and pretty Peggy Moncrieffe find
- walks as shady, and prospects as pleasant, and moments as sweet, as when
- they had the Battery for a promenade and took in the Jersey hills from the
- twilight steps of St. Paul’s. Also, the pretty Peggy no longer pleads to
- join her father; albeit that parent has just been sent with his regiment
- to Staten Island, not an hour’s sail away.
- </p>
- <p>
- This contentment of the pretty Peggy with things as they are, re-alarms
- the prudence of Madam Putnam, who regards it as a sign most sinister.
- Having a genius to be military, quite equal to that of her old
- wolf-killing husband, she attacks this dangerously tender situation in
- flank. She gives her commands to the old wolf killer, and at once he
- blindly obeys. He dispatches young Aaron on a mission to Long Island. The
- latter is to look up positions of defense, so as to be prepared for the
- English, should they carry their arms in that direction.
- </p>
- <p>
- In two days young Aaron returns, and makes an exhaustive report; whereat
- the old wolf killer breaks into words of praise. This duty discharged,
- young Aaron is into the saddle and off, clatteringly, for Kingsbridge. The
- old wolf killer sees him depart and says nothing, while a cunning twinkle
- dances in the old gray eye. Then the twinkle subsides, and is succeeded by
- a self-reproachful doubt.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He might have married her,” he observes tentatively to Madam Putnam.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never!” returns that clear matron. “Your young Major Burr is too coolly
- the selfish calculating egotist. He would win her and wear her as he might
- some bauble ornament, and cast her aside when the glitter was gone. As for
- marrying her, he’d as soon think of marrying the rings on his fingers, or
- the buckles on his shoes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron comes clattering back from Kingsbridge. His black eyes sparkle
- wickedly; his face, usually so imperturbable, is the seat of an obvious
- anger. Moreover, he seems chokingly full of a question, which even his
- ingenious self-confidence is at a loss how to ask. He gets the old wolf
- killer alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Moncrieffe!” he breaks forth. Then he proceeds blunderingly: “I had
- occasion to go to Kingsbridge, and was surprised to find her gone.” The
- last concludes with a rising inflection.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, yes!” retorts the old wolf killer, summoning the innocence of a
- sheep. “I forgot to tell you that, seeing an opportunity, I yesterday sent
- little Peg to Staten Island under a flag of truce. She is with her father.
- Between us”—here he sinks his voice mysteriously—“I was afraid
- the enemy might find some way to use little Peg as a spy.” Young Aaron
- clicks his teeth savagely, but says nothing; the old wolf killer watches
- him with the tail of his eye.
- </p>
- <p>
- The “gentleman volunteer” strides down to the sea wall, and takes a long
- and mayhap loving look at Staten Island, with the wind-ruffled expanse of
- bay between.
- </p>
- <p>
- And there the romance ends.
- </p>
- <p>
- Two days later young Aaron is sipping his wine in black Sam Fraunces’ long
- room, the picture of that elegant indifference which he cultivates as a
- virtue. Already the fancy for poor Peggy Moncrieffe has faded from the
- agate surface of his nature, as the breath mists fade from the mirror’s
- face, and he thinks only on how and when he shall lay down his title of
- major for that of lieutenant colonel.
- </p>
- <p>
- The woman’s heart is the heart loyal. While he sips wine at Fraunces’, and
- weighs the chances of promotion, Peggy the forgotten finds in Staten
- Island another Naxos, and like another Ariadne goes weeping for that
- Theseus who has already lost her from out his thoughts.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is unfortunate that, as aide to the old wolf killer, young Aaron is not
- provided with more work for hand and head. As it is, his unfilled hours
- afford him opportunity to think and talk unprofitably. He falls to
- criticising Washington to the old wolf killer; which is about as sapient
- as though he fell to criticising Madam Putnam to the old wolf killer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of what avail,” cries young Aaron one afternoon, as he and his grizzled
- chief stroll in the Bowling Green—“of what avail for General
- Washington to hold the city, when he must give it up at last? New English
- ships show in the bay with the coming up of every sun. He would be wiser
- if he withdrew into the interior, and so forced the foe to follow him.
- This would lose them the backing of their fleet, from which they gain not
- only supplies, but what is of more consequence a kind of moral support.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old wolf killer looks at his opinionated aide for a moment. Then
- without replying directly, he observes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Just as the Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity, so the
- military virtues are courage, endurance, and silence. And the greatest of
- these is silence. You ought always to remember that a soldier’s sword
- should be immeasurably longer than his tongue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron reddens at what he feels is a rebuke. The following day, when
- he is directed to join General McDougal on Long Island, he is glad to go.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He has had too little to do,” explains the old wolf killer to Madam
- Putnam. “Like all workless folk he is beginning to talk; and his is the
- sort of conversation that breeds enemies and brews trouble.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is in the fight on Long Island. Upon the retreating back of
- that lost battle, he supervises the crossing of the troops to Manhattan.
- All night, cool and quick and vigilant, he labors on the Brooklyn side to
- put the men aboard the transports. When the last is across the East River,
- he himself embarks, bringing with him his horse, hog-tied, in the bottom
- of the barge. It is early dawn when he leads the released animal ashore on
- the Manhattan side. Mounting it, with two fellow officers, he rides
- northward at a leisurely gait, a half mile to the rear of the retreating
- army.
- </p>
- <p>
- As young Aaron and his companions push north toward Kingsbridge, they come
- across the baggage and stores of a battery of artillery. The baggage and
- stores have been but the moment before abandoned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It looks,” observes young Aaron, who is as unruffled as upon the day when
- he laid down theology for law, to the horrified distress of Dr. Bellamy—“it
- looks as though the captain of that battery, whoever he is, has permitted
- these English in our rear to get unnecessarily upon his nerves. There is
- no such close occasion as to justify the abandonment of these stores. At
- least he should have destroyed them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Twenty rods beyond, he finds one of the battery’s guns. He points to the
- lost piece scornfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There,” says he, “is the pure proof of some one’s cowardice!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Spurring on, and led by the rumbling sounds of field guns in full retreat,
- he overtakes the timid ones who have thrown away baggage and gun. The
- captain who commands is a youth no older than young Aaron. As the latter
- comes up, the boy captain is urging his cannoneers to double speed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me congratulate you, captain,” observes young Aaron, extravagantly
- polite the better to set off the sneer that marks his manner, “on not
- having thrown away your colors. May I ask your name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I, sir,” returns the artillery youth, as much moved of resentment at
- young Aaron’s sneer, as is possible for one in his perturbed frame, “I,
- sir, am Captain Alexander Hamilton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I, sir, am Major Burr. Let me compliment you, Captain Hamilton, for
- the ardor you display in carrying your battery forward. One might suppose
- from your headlong zeal that the English forces lie in that direction. I
- must needs say, however, that the zeal which casts away its stores and
- baggage, and leaves a gun behind, is ill considered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Hamilton’s face clouds angrily; but, since he is thinking more on
- the English than on insults that perilous morning, he does not reply to
- the taunt. Young Aaron, feeling the better for his expressions of
- contempt, wheels off to the left toward the Hudson, leaving the other to
- bring on his battery with what breathless speed he may.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, had that Captain Hamilton been in the light on Long Island,” remarks
- young Aaron to his companions, “the hurry he shows might have found
- partial excuse. As it is, I hold his flight too feverish, when one
- remembers that it is from an enemy which as yet he has personally neither
- faced nor seen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron puts in divers idle months at Kingsbridge. His conduct on Long
- Island, and during the retreat of the army toward the north, has
- multiplied his fame for an indomitable hardihood. Indeed he is inclined to
- compliment himself; though he hides the fact defensively in his own
- breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- This good opinion of his services teaches him to entertain ambitions of
- the vaulting, not to say o’er-leaping sort. As he now, by the light of
- recent achievement, measures his merits nothing short of a colonelcy and
- the leadership of a regiment will do him justice. Conceive then, how
- deeply he feels slighted when Washington fails to share these liberal
- views, and promotes him to nothing higher than that lieutenant colonelcy
- which his hopes have so much outgrown. He accepts; but he feels the title
- fit him with an awkward nearness, as might a coat that some blundering
- tailor has cut too small. The letter of acceptance which he indites to
- Washington includes such paragraphs as this:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>I am constrained to observe that the late date of my appointment as
- lieutenant colonel, subjects me to the command of officers who, in the
- late campaign, were my juniors. With due submission, sir, I should like to
- know whether it was misconduct on my part or extraordinary merit on
- theirs, which has thus given them the preference. I desire, on my part, to
- avoid equally the character of turbulent or passive, but as a decent
- regard to rank is proper and necessary I hope the concern I feel in this
- matter will be found excusable in one who regards his honor next to the
- welfare of his country.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The old wolf killer is with Washington when that harassed commander reads
- young Aaron’s effusion. With an exclamation of wrath the big general
- tosses it across.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By all that is ineffable!” he cries, “read that. Now here is a boy gone
- stark staring mad for vanity! A stripling of twenty-one, with face as
- hairless as an egg, and yet the second rank in a regiment is no match for
- his majestic deserts! Putnam,” he continues, as the old wolf killer runs
- his eye over the letter, “that young friend of yours will be the death of
- me yet! As I told you, sir, he is a courageous prig—yes, sir, a mere
- courageous prig!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What reply will you make? It should be a sharp one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It shall be none at all. I’ll make no reply to such bombastic
- fault-finding. One might as well pelt a pig with pearls, as waste common
- sense on such self-conceit as we have here. Do me the honor, Putnam, to
- write this boy-conqueror a note, saying it is my orders that he join his
- regiment at once.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron finds the regiment to which he has been assigned on the
- Ramapo, a day’s ride back from the Hudson. His superior in command,
- Colonel Malcolm, is a shop-keeping, amiable gentleman, as short of breath
- as of courage, who would as soon think of thrusting his hand into the
- embers as his fat body into battle. Preeminently is he of that peculiar
- war-feather that, for every reason in favor of going forward, can give a
- dozen for falling back. Perceiving with delight young Aaron to be
- possessed of a taste for carnage as well as command, the peace-loving
- Colonel Malcolm promptly surrenders the regiment into his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shall drill it and fight it,” says he, “while I will be its father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With this, the fat Colonel Malcolm retires twenty miles farther into the
- interior; where he joins Madam Malcolm, as fat as himself, who unites with
- five fat children, their offspring, to fatly welcome him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, now when he finds himself in sole control, parades the
- regiment, and does not like its appearance. He makes it a speech, and is
- exceeding frank. He explains that it is more fitted to shine at barbecues
- and barn-raisings than in war. Then he grasps it with a daily hand of
- steel, and begins to crush it into disciplined shape. From break of
- morning until the sun goes down, he puts it through its paces. As one of
- the onlookers remarks:
- </p>
- <p>
- “He drills ‘em till their tongues hang out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The fruits of this iron rule, so much a change from that picnic character
- of control but lately exercised by the amiable Colonel Malcolm, are
- twofold. Young Aaron is hated and respected by every soul on the rolls.
- Caring nothing for the one and everything for the other, he continues to
- drill the boots off their feet. Finally, the regiment ceases to look like
- a mob, and dons a military expression. At which young Aaron is privily
- exalted.
- </p>
- <p>
- There still remain, however, a round score of thorns in his militant
- flesh, being as many captains and lieutenants, who are better qualified
- for the drawing-room than the field. He must rid himself of this element
- of popinjay.
- </p>
- <p>
- Since young Aaron is clothed of no power of dismissal over the offensive
- popinjays, the situation bristles with difficulties. For all that they
- must go. After one night’s thought, he gets up from his cogitations
- inclined to exclaim, like another Archimedes: “I have found it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron’s device is simplicity itself. Having no power of dismissal,
- he will usurp it. Also, he will assert it in such fashion that not a
- popinjay of them all will be able to make his dismissal the basis of
- military inquiry, and keep his credit clean.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron writes, word for word, the same letter to each of the
- undesirable popinjay ones. He words it, skillfully, in this wise:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Sir: You are unfitted for the duties you have assumed. For the good of
- the service therefore, I demand the immediate resignation or your
- commission. To be frank, sir, I think you lack the courage to lead your
- men in the presence of a foe. Should I be wrong in this assumption, you of
- course will demonstrate that fact by methods which readily suggest
- themselves to every gentleman of spirit. Let me therefore urge that you
- either forward your resignation as herein demanded by me, or dispatch in
- its stead a request for that satisfaction which I, as a man of honor,
- shall not for one moment deny. I beg leave to remain, sir,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Your very humble servant,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Aaron Burr, Acting Colonel.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “There!” thinks he, when the last letter is signed, sealed, and sent upon
- its way to the popinjay hand for which it is designed, “that should do
- nicely. I’ve ever held that the way to successfully deal with humanity is
- to take humanity by the horns. That I’ve done. Likewise, I flatter myself
- I’ve constructed my net so fine that none of them can wriggle through. And
- as for breaking through by the dueling method I hint at, I shall have
- guessed vastly to one side, if the best among them own either the force or
- courage to so much as make the attempt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is justified of his perspicacity. The resignations of the
- popinjays come pouring in, each seeming to take the initiative, and basing
- his “voluntary” abandonment of a military career on grounds wholly
- invented and highly honorable to himself. No reference, even of the
- blindest, is made to that brilliant usurpation of authority. Neither is
- young Aaron’s letter alluded to in any conversation.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is one exception; a popinjay personage named Rawls, retorts in a
- hectic epistle which, while conveying his resignation, avows a
- determination to welter in young Aaron’s blood as a slight solace for the
- outrage done his feelings. To this, young Aaron replies that he shall, on
- the very next day, do himself the honor of a call upon the ill-used and
- flaming Rawls, whose paternal roof is not an hour’s gallop from the
- Ramapo. Accordingly, young Aaron repairs to the Rawls’s mansion at eleven
- of next day’s clock. He has with him two officers, who are dark as to the
- true purpose of the excursion.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron and the accompanying duo are asked to dinner by the Rawls’s
- household. The popinjay fiery Rawls is present, but embarrassed. After
- dinner, when young Aaron asks popinjay Rawls to ride with his party a mile
- or two on the return journey, the fiery, ill-used one grows more
- embarrassed.
- </p>
- <p>
- He does not, however, ride forth on that suggested mission of honor; his
- alarmed sisters, of whom there are an angelic three, rush to his rescue in
- a flood of terrified exclamation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “O Colonel Burr!” they chorus, “what are you about to do with Neddy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear young ladies,” protests young Aaron suavely, “believe me, I’m
- about to do nothing with Neddy. I intend only to ask him what he desires
- or designs to do with me. I am here to place myself at Neddy’s disposal,
- in a matter which he well understands.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The interfering angelic sisterly ones declare that popinjay Neddy meant
- nothing by his letter, and will never write another. Whereupon young Aaron
- observes he will be content with the understanding that popinjay Neddy
- send him no more letters, unless they have been first submitted to the
- sisterly censorship of the angelic three. To this everyone concerned most
- rapturously consents; following which young Aaron goes back to his camp by
- the Ramapo, while the sisterly angelic ones festoon themselves about the
- neck of popinjay Neddy, over whom they weepingly rejoice as over one
- returned from out the blackness of the shadow of death.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VII—THE CONQUERING THEODOSIA
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE young Aaron,
- in his camp by the Ramapo, is wringing the withers of his men with
- merciless drills, sixteen miles away, in the outskirts of the village of
- Paranius dwells Madam Theodosia Prévost. Madam Prévost is the widow of an
- English Colonel Prévost, who was swept up by yellow fever in Jamaica. With
- her are her mother, her sister, her two little boys. The family name is De
- Visme, which is a Swiss name from the French cantons.
- </p>
- <p>
- The hungry English in New York are running short of food. Two thousand of
- them cross the Hudson, and commence combing the country for beef. Word of
- that cow-driving reaches young Aaron by the Ramapo. Hackensack is given as
- the theater of those beef triumphs of the hungry English.
- </p>
- <p>
- From rustical ones bewailing vanished kine, young Aaron receives the tale
- first hand. Instantly he springs to the defense of the continental cow. He
- orders out his regiment, and marches away for that stricken Hackensack
- region of ravished flocks and herds.
- </p>
- <p>
- At Paramus, excited by stories of a cow-conquering English, the militia of
- the neighborhood are fallen to a frenzied building of breastworks. Certain
- of these home guards look up from their breastwork building long enough to
- decide that Madam Prévost, as the widow of a former English colonel, is a
- Tory.
- </p>
- <p>
- Arriving at this conclusion, the home guards make the next natural step,
- and argue—because of their nearness to Madam Prévost—that the
- mother and sister and little boys are Tories. The quietly elegant home of
- Madam Prévost is declared a nest of Tories, against which judgment a
- belief that the mansion is worth looting is not allowed to militate.
- </p>
- <p>
- As young Aaron, on his rescuing way to Hackensack, marches into Paramus,
- the judgmatical home guards, in the name of a patriotism which believes in
- spoiling the Egyptian, are about to begin their work of sack and pillage.
- Young Aaron, who does not think that robbery assists the cause of freedom,
- calls a halt. He drives off the home guards at the point of his sword, and
- places sentinels upon the premises. Also he promises to hang the first
- home guard who, in the name of liberty, or for any more private reason,
- touches a shilling’s worth of Madam Prevost’s chattels.
- </p>
- <p>
- Having established his protectorate in favor of the threatened Prévost
- household, young Aaron enters, hat in hand, with the pardonable purpose of
- discovering what manner of folk he has pledged himself to keep safe. It
- may be that he is beset by visions of distressed fair ones—disheveled,
- tearful, beautiful! If so, his dreams receive a shock. ‘Instead of that
- flushed, frightened, clinging, tear-stained loveliness, so common of
- romance, he is met by a severely angular lady who, plain of face, with
- high, harsh cheek bones, and a scar on her forehead, is two inches taller
- and twelve years older than himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Madam Prévost owns all these; and yet, beyond and above them, she also
- possesses an ineffable, impalpable something, which is like an atmosphere,
- a perfume, a melody of manner, and marks her as that greatest of graceful
- rarities, a well-bred, cultured woman of the world. Polished, fine, Madam
- Prévost is familiar with the society of two continents. She knows
- literature, music, art; she is wise, erudite, nobly high. These attributes
- invest her with a soft brilliancy, into which those uglinesses and bony
- angularities retreat as into a kind of moonlight, to recur in gentle
- reassertion as the poetic sublimation of all that charms.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus does she break upon young Aaron—young Aaron, who has said that
- he would no more love a woman for her beauty than a man for his money, and
- is to be won only by her who, mentally and sentimentally, meets him half
- way. This last Madam Prévost does; and, from the moment he meets her to
- the hour of her death, she draws him and holds him like a magnet. It
- illustrates the inexplicable in love, that this cool, cynical one, whose
- very youth is an iron element of hardest strength, should be fascinated
- and fettered by a worn, middle-aged woman with eyes of faded gray.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, on this first encounter with his goddess, remains no longer
- than is required to receive the arrow in his heart. He presses on with his
- followers for the Hackensack. A mile from Paramus he halts his soldiery,
- and, leaving the great body of them, goes forward in person with a
- scouting party of seventeen. In the middle watches of the night, he
- discovers a picket post of the cow-collecting English. Only one is awake;
- he is shot dead by young Aaron. The others, twenty-eight in number, are
- seized in their sleep.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the wake of this exploit, young Aaron brings up his whole command. The
- cow-hunting redcoats, from the confidence of his advance, infer in his
- favor an overwhelming strength. Panic claims them; they make for the
- Hudson, leaving those collected cows behind. There is rejoicing among the
- Hackensack folk at this happy return of their property, and young Aaron
- goes back to the Ramapo rich in encomium and praise.
- </p>
- <p>
- The camp by the Ramapo is given up, and young Aaron, love-drawn, brings
- his force within a mile of Paramus. Daily he seeks the society of Madam
- Prévost, as sick folk seek the sun. She speaks French, Spanish, German;
- she reads Voltaire, and is capable of admiring without approving the cynic
- of Fernay. More; she is familiar with Petrarch, Le Sage, Corneille,
- Rousseau, Chesterfield, Cervantes. Madam Prévost and young Aaron find much
- to talk of and agree about, in the way of romance and poetry and
- philosophy, and are never dull for lack of topics. And, as they converse,
- he worships her with his eyes, from which every least black trace of that
- ophidian sparkle has been extinguished.
- </p>
- <p>
- The first snowflakes are falling when young Aaron receives orders to join
- Washington’s army at Valley Forge. Arriving, his hatred of the big general
- is rearoused. He suggests an expedition against the English on Staten
- Island, and offers to undertake it with three hundred men. Washington
- thinks well of the suggestion, but dispatches Lord Stirling to carry it
- out. Young Aaron, hot with disappointment, adds this to the list of
- injuries which he believes he has received from the Virginian.
- </p>
- <p>
- Food is stinted, fire scarce at Valley Forge; there is a deal of cold and
- starving. Folk hungry and frozen are in no humor for work, and look on
- labor as an evil. Young Aaron takes no account of this, but has out his
- tattered, chilled, thin-flanked followers to those daily drills.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the end a spirit of mutiny creeps in among the men. It finds concrete
- shape one frosty morning when private John Cook levels his musket at young
- Aaron’s heart. Private Cook means murder, and is only kept from it by the
- promptitude of young Aaron. With that very motion of the mutineer which
- aims the gun, young Aaron’s sword comes rasping from its scabbard, and a
- backhanded stroke all but severs the would-be homicide’s right arm. The
- wounded man falls bleeding to the ground. With that, young Aaron details a
- pale-faced, silent quartette to carry the wounded one to the hospital,
- and, drawing his blade through a handkerchief to wipe away the blood,
- proceeds with the hated drill.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0111.jpg" alt="0111 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0111.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- While young Aaron serves at Valley Forge, a conspiracy, whereof General
- Conway is the animating heart and General Gates the figurehead, is
- hatched. The purpose is to remove Washington, and set the conqueror of
- Burgoyne in his place. Young Aaron joins the conspiracy, and is looked
- upon by his fellow plotters as ardent, but unimportant because of his
- youth.
- </p>
- <p>
- The design falls to the ground; Washington retains his command, while
- Gates goes south to lose his Burgoyne laurels and get drubbed by
- Cornwallis. As for young Aaron, he swallows as best he may his
- disappointment over the poor upcome of that plot, and takes part in the
- battle of Monmouth. Here he has his horse shot under him, and lays up
- fresh hatreds against Washington for refusing to let him charge an English
- battery.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sore, heart-cankered of chagrin, young Aaron asks for leave of absence. He
- declares that he is ill, and his hollow cheek and bilious eye sustain him.
- He says that, until his health mends, he will take no pay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shall have leave of absence,” says Washington, to whom young Aaron
- prefers his request in person, “but you must draw pay.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And why draw pay, sir!” demands young Aaron warmly, for he somehow smells
- an insult. “I shall render no service. I think the proprieties much
- preserved by a stoppage of my pay.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you were the only, one, sir,” returns Washington, “I might say as you
- do. But there be others on sick leave, who are not men of fortune like
- yourself. Those gentlemen must draw their pay, or see their people suffer.
- Should you be granted leave without pay, they might feel criticised. You
- note the point, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why,” replies young Aaron, with a tinge of sarcasm, “the point, I take
- it, is that you would not have me shine at the expense of folk of lesser
- fortune or more avarice than myself. Because others are not generous to
- their country, I must be refused the poor privilege of contributing even
- my absence to her cause.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At young Aaron’s palpable sneer, the big general’s face darkens with
- anger. “You exhibit an insolence, sir,” he says at last, “which I succeed
- in overlooking only by remembering that I am twice your age. I understand,
- of course, that you intend a covert thrust at myself, because I draw my
- three guineas per day as commander in chief. Rather to enlighten you than
- defend my own conduct, I may tell you, sir, that I draw those three
- guineas upon the precise grounds I state as reasons why you, during your
- leave, must accept pay. There are men as brave, as true, as patriotic as
- either of us, who cannot—as we might—fight months on end,
- without some provision for their families. What, sir”—here the big
- general begins to kindle—“is it not enough that men risk their blood
- for these colonies? Must wives and children starve? The cause is not so
- poor, I tell you, but what it can pay its own cost. You and I, sir, will
- draw our pay, to keep in self-respecting countenance folk as good as
- ourselves in everything save fortune.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron shrugs his shoulders. “If it were not, sir,” he begins, “for
- that difference in our ages which you so opportunely quote, to say nothing
- of my inferior military rank, I might ask if your determination to make me
- accept pay, whether I earn it or no, be not due to a latent dislike for
- myself personally. I can think of much that justifies the question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” observes the big general, with a dignity which is not
- without rebuking effect upon young Aaron, “because you are young and will
- one day be older, I am inclined to justify myself in your eyes. I make it
- a rule to seldom take advice and never give it. And yet there is room for
- a partial exception in your instance. There is a word, two, perhaps, which
- I think you need.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Believe me, sir, I am honored!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a
- better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more fame
- hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, and
- give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance
- yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra
- six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is
- nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with
- some self-willed pupil.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of all the big general’s irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this pose
- of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself in hand,
- however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the bottom of
- his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which can come only
- through the other’s word.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” observes young Aaron, “will you be so good as to make yourself
- clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest
- meaning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It should be confessed,” returns the big general, somewhat to one side,
- “that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is
- that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were
- not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for whom
- you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news that
- Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools his
- features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement nor
- dismay. The big general goes on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with
- your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons,
- but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, sir,
- to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control my
- attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity in
- what I say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, sir,” interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness and
- self-possession equal with the big general’s; “you give yourself
- unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I
- shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract from
- your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I shall
- accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected by its
- honorable source.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron’s manner would have got him
- drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites
- his lip.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What I would tell you,” he resumes, “is this. You possess the raw
- material of greatness—but with one element lacking. You may rise to
- what heights you choose, if you will but cure yourself of one defect.
- Observe, sir! Men are judged, not for deeds but motives. A man injures
- you; you excuse him because no injury was meant. A man seeks to injure
- you, but fails; and yet you resent it, in spite of that defensive failure,
- because of the intent. So it is with humanity at large. It looks at the
- motive rather than the act. Sir, I have watched you. You have no motive
- but yourself. Patriotism plays no part when you come to this war; it is
- not the country, but Aaron Burr, you carry on your thoughts. Whatever you
- may believe, you cannot win fame or good repute on terms, so narrow. A man
- is so much like a gun that, to carry far, he must have some elevation of
- aim. You were born fortunate in your parts, save for that defective
- element of aim. There, sir, you fail, and will continue to fail, unless
- you work your own redemption. It is as though you had been born on a dead
- level—aimed point-blank at birth. You should have been born at an
- angle of forty-five degrees. With half the powder, sir, you would carry
- twice as far. Wherefore, elevate yourself; give your life a noble purpose!
- Make yourself the incident, mankind the object. Merge egotism in
- patriotism; forget self in favor of your country and its flag.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The gray eyes of the big general rest upon young Aaron with concern. Then
- he abruptly retreats into the soldier, as though ashamed of his own
- earnestness. Without giving time for reply to that dissertation on the
- proper aim of man, he again takes up the original business of the leave.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0119.jpg" alt="0119 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0119.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” says he, “you shall have leave of absence. But your waiver
- of pay is declined.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, sir,” retorts young Aaron, “you must permit me to withdraw my
- application. I shall not take the country’s money, without rendering
- service for it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is as you please, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One thing stands plain,” mutters young Aaron, as he walks away; “the
- sooner I quit the army the better. For me it is ‘no thoroughfare,’ and I
- may as well save my time. He knows of my part in that Conway-Gates
- movement, too; and, for all his platitudes about justice and high aims,
- he’s no one to forget it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VIII—MARRIAGE AND THE LAW
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OUNG Aaron, with
- his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is dispatched to hold the
- Westchester lines, being that debatable ground lying between the Americans
- at White Plains and the English at Kingsbridge. It is still his
- half-formed purpose to resign his sword, and turn the back of his ambition
- on every hope of military glory. He says as much to General Putnam, whose
- real liking for him he feels and trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues
- in favor of patience.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Washington is but trying you,” he declares. “It will all come right, if
- you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing, let
- me tell you! Suck comfort from that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go as
- far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own
- military prospects.
- </p>
- <p>
- “General,” he says, “believe me when I tell you that I accept what you say
- as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel to his
- general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning Washington;
- they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as either a
- soldier or a man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And there you are wrong!” breaks in the old wolf killer; “twice wrong.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I have.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that you
- yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such
- conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French
- War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to base
- opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier
- anywhere than Washington.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling back
- and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final success.
- Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly,
- he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does
- Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not
- fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the ghost
- of a smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where, then, should this war be won?” asks young Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I’m not wearing a
- sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all that,
- I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will be won
- in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and Burke and
- Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them the occasion and
- the argument, and that can be accomplished only by retreating.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. “Now I
- should call,” says he, “these retreats, by which you and Washington seem
- to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to
- our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by
- retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English Whigs an
- argument which shall induce King George to recognize our independence?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you were ten years older,” remarks the old wolf killer, “you would not
- put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you, and
- shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You think a
- war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and guns. It
- isn’t; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English are shedding
- their guineas much faster than they shed their blood. Presently the
- taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel it now. Let the
- drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will break down; they
- will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our independence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of
- it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the
- English taxpayer breaks down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’ve nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor the powder,
- nor—and this last in particular—the bayonets to wage
- aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They
- would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force of
- numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would win.
- Our plan—the Washington plan—is, with as little loss as
- possible in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe.
- There is but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back,
- to the close of the chapter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At least,” says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, “you will admit that
- the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of attractive
- gallantry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that
- Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither
- from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered
- strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat than
- to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he talks not
- of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or nothing of
- that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws away practical
- advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem slightly of
- Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The most I may say to
- comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows himself. And”—here
- the old wolf killer’s voice begins to tremble a little—“I’ll go
- further: I’ve seen many men; but none of a courage, a patriotism, a
- fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his exalted ideals
- or noble genius for justice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and
- would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause
- he observes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and
- Washington shall be all you say. None the less—and here I believe
- you will bear me out—he has of me no good opinion. He will not
- advance me; he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all,
- the question I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought,
- and now tell you I still think, that I might better take off my sword,
- forget war, and see what is to be won in the law.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you ask my advice?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your honest advice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his
- opinion of you is unjust, and he’ll be soonest to admit it. To convince
- him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good,” observes Aaron, resignedly, “I shall, for the present at
- least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice, general,
- you have given me something else in this conversation which I value more;
- that is, your expressed and friendly confidence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws
- himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his rôle as warden of the
- Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under Tryon
- move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town in hot and
- fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are themselves
- surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten Duyvel; young
- Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives. Likewise, under
- cloud of night—night, ever the ally of lovers—he oft plays
- Leander to Madam Prevost’s Hero; only the Hudson is his Hellespont, and he
- does not swim but crosses in a barge. These love pilgrimages mean forty
- miles and as many perils. However, the heart-blinded young Aaron is not
- counting miles or perils, as he pictures his gray goddess of Paramus
- sighing for his coming.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies. The
- good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of
- paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more
- since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He
- consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his
- resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with
- him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as
- years wear on.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes;
- so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With war and
- battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them,
- scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion of
- the faded Madam Prévost and her boy lover. The discussion, however, is
- carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the shoulder
- or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prévost and young Aaron neither hear
- nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer, dearer things.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is deep evening at the Prévost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate;
- the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse
- through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron’s memory is for a
- moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other
- than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he was
- dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows Madam
- Prévost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I’ve lied and played the hypocrite all day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her husband,
- and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one abandoned,
- to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which she was privy,
- and the commission whereof she urged.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This gentleman!” cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story—she
- has become aware of young Aaron—“this gentleman! May I trust him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0133.jpg" alt="0133 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0133.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- “As you would myself,” returns Madam Prévost.
- </p>
- <p>
- And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does
- not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her
- uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the
- subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prévost.
- </p>
- <p>
- Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam Prévost
- is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is about to
- return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with Tappan Reeve.
- She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity, were he able to
- write himself “lawyer” before he became a married man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to
- wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years
- and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of New
- Jersey—not too far from Paramus—and enters himself as a
- student under that philosopher of jurisprudence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and
- looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that
- one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste at
- any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and sharply
- come to a profound knowledge of the law.
- </p>
- <p>
- Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young Aaron
- remonstrates with his preceptor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This will never do,” he cries. “Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the
- bar!” He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of the
- law within a year. “Twelve months as a student should be enough,” he says.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, “to talk of
- taking charge of a client’s interests after studying but a year is to talk
- of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance, sir. It
- would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Possibly now,” urges young Aaron the cynical, “the opposing counsel might
- be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Such talk is profanation!” exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult of
- the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron’s ribaldry. “Let me be
- plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice, unless
- I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem you many
- months’ journey from it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron bids
- that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There he
- makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English have
- driven from New York. While he waits for the day when—English
- vanished—he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round
- sum in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself
- wholly to that impatient gentleman’s education.
- </p>
- <p>
- Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold. Morning,
- noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron go hammering
- at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student makes astonishing
- advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks when Jack proves as
- good as his master. Still, the sentiment which animates young Aaron’s
- efforts is never high. He studies law as some folk study fencing, his one
- absorbing thought being to learn how to defeat an adversary and save
- himself. His great concern is to make himself past master of every thrust,
- parry, and sleighty trick of fence, whether in attack or guard, with the
- one object of victory for himself and the enemy’s destruction. Justice,
- and to assist thereat, is the thing distant from his thoughts.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold
- his own with any adversary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mark my words, sir,” he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a
- fellow gray member of the guild—“mark my words, sir, he will prove
- one of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There
- is, of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck
- which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be
- retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong,
- should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed of
- this sinister peculiarity. If he’s right, you won’t defeat him; if he’s
- wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he’ll defeat you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff,
- after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a
- smartish quip.
- </p>
- <p>
- Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits Albany
- and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three years; but
- the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and more, basing
- his generosity on the applicant’s services as a soldier.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so,” says young Aaron, “I at least get something from my soldier
- life. It wasn’t all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of grinding
- study at the books.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York
- City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat
- exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam
- Prévost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife,
- after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany.
- There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia,
- and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her father.
- Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers, and walks
- the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is well-nigh dead in
- his heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron
- gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating
- metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to
- where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall.
- </p>
- <p>
- He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two
- little Prévost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of
- fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the Bowling
- Green, to a gathering cloud of clients.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “With your few months of study,” observes the reverend doctor dryly, “I
- wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going about
- its practice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Law is not so difficult,” responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the good
- doctor. “Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology. That is to
- say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron’s boldness of
- assertion.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet,” continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm, “the
- last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and
- declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the
- midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for law?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Washington drove me from the army,” responds young Aaron, with convincing
- gravity. “As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and turned lawyer
- only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IX—SON-IN-LAW HAMILTON
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW when young
- Aaron, in the throbbing metropolis of New York, finds himself a lawyer and
- a married man, with an office by the Bowling Green and a house in
- fashionable Maiden Lane, he gives himself up to a cool survey of his
- surroundings. What he sees is fairly and honestly set forth by the good
- Dr. Bellamy, after that dominie returns to Bethlehem and Madam Bellamy.
- The latter, like all true women, is curious, and gives the doctor no peace
- until he relates his experiences.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The city,” observes the veracious doctor, looking up from tea and
- muffins, “is large; some say as large as twenty-seven thousand. I walked
- to every part of it, seeing all a stranger should. There is much opulence
- there. The rich, of whom there are many, have not only town houses, but
- cool country seats north of the town. Their Broad Way is a fine, noble
- street!—very wide!—fairer than any in Boston!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doctor!” expostulates Madam Bellamy, who is from Massachusetts.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mother, it is fact! They have, too, a new church, which cost twenty
- thousand pounds. At their shipyard I saw an East Indiaman of eight hundred
- tons—an immense vessel! The houses are grand, being for the better
- part painted—even the brick houses.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What! Paint a brick house!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is their ostentation, mother; their senseless parade of wealth. One
- sees the latter everywhere. I was to breakfast at General Schuyler’s; it
- was an elaborate affair. They assured me their best people were present;
- Coster, Livingston, Bleecker, Beekman, Jay were some of the names. A more
- elegant repast I never ate—all set as it was with a profusion of
- massive plate. There were a silver teapot and a silver coffeepot——-”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Solid silver?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay! The king’s hall-mark was on them; I looked. And finest linen, too—white
- as snow! Also cups of gilt; and after the toast, plates of peaches and a
- musk melon! It was more a feast than a breakfast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, it is a tale of profligacy!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Their manners, however, do not keep pace with their splendid houses and
- furnishings. There is no good breeding; they have no conversation, no
- modesty. They talk loud, fast, and all together. It is a mere theater of
- din and witless babble. They ask a question; and then, before you can
- answer, break in with a stream of inane chatter. To be short, I met but
- one real gentleman———”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aaron!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay, mother; Aaron. I can say nothing good of his religious side; since,
- for all he is the grandson of the sainted Jonathan Edwards, he is no
- better than the heathen that rageth. But his manners! What a polished
- contrast with the boorishness about him! Against that vulgar background he
- shines out like the sun at noon!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Aaron, beginning to remember his twenty-seven years, objects to the
- descriptive “young.” He has ever scorned it, as though it were some
- epithet of infamy. Now he takes open stand against it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not so young,” says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning of
- his years—“I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade,
- sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You will
- oblige me by remembering the title.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In view of the gentleman’s tartness, it will be as well perhaps to
- hereafter drop the “young”; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, our
- tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, “colonel” is but a word of
- pewter when no war is on. “Aaron” should do better; and escape challenge,
- too, that irritating “young” being dropped.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town’s affairs, he notes
- that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion,
- the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the
- Livingstons—numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor
- Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that
- ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which tribe
- towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. Aaron, in
- the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General Schuyler. He hears
- more of that austere person’s son-in-law, the brilliant Alexander
- Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall be glad to make his acquaintance,” thinks Aaron, when he is told
- of the latter. “I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in his
- pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns behind.
- Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come to
- eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a sneer on Aaron’s face as these thoughts run in his mind; those
- praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman’s
- acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped of
- their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference of
- the town’s notables has been called; the local great ones are to come
- together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, they
- will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory relief.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge.
- The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy
- Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten
- Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his wine
- unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when son-in-law
- Hamilton arrives.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is he,” says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the
- gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black
- narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is a
- short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron
- himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely
- powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, a forest
- of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and conventional
- buckled shoes.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses his
- most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of
- suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to look
- one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face
- generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer and
- a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest methods,
- and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is lurking and
- secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and backbiter,
- who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in the dark.
- </p>
- <p>
- Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes
- straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he at
- once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking in a
- loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own position
- as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is discussed.
- The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses the dander of
- Aaron. Nor is the latter’s wrath the less, when he discovers that General
- Schuyler’s self-satisfied young relative thinks the suppliant Tories
- should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt with.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably concerning
- that young gentleman’s bumptiousness and pert forwardness, the company is
- rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, arrogant,
- supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked to preside.
- Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, dictatorial
- voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits that the
- Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural they
- should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George beaten,
- he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or a patriot to hold
- hatred against them. These same Tories are still Americans. Their names
- are among the highest in the city. Before the Revolution they were one and
- all of a first respectability, many with pews in Trinity. Now when freedom
- has won its battle, he feels that the victors should let bygones be
- bygones, and restore the Tories, in property and station, to a place which
- they occupied before that pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776.
- </p>
- <p>
- All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps
- forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one
- who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word of
- the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes of
- every soul in the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks
- are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general
- has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse
- than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to torch
- and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, most
- mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. As for
- restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil share in a
- government which they did their best to strangle in its cradle, the
- thought is preposterous. They may have been “respectable,” as General
- Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious—a mere
- hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had pews
- in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope to
- make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement
- runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration cast
- in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his
- chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those
- approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones are
- high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron direct,
- and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be tolerant,
- for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, he must ask
- that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He himself, he says,
- cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better than a stranger, an
- interloper, might with a nice propriety remain silent on occasions such as
- this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring that the position taken by
- Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what shall be their rights, is
- un-American. He, himself, has fought for the Revolution; but, now it is
- ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and liberality will not be guided
- by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would make the unending punishment of
- Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. He fears that Aaron misunderstands
- the sentiment of those among whom he has pitched his tent, congratulates
- him on a youth that offers an excuse for the rashness of his expressions,
- and hopes that he may live to gain a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton
- does himself proud, and the rusty old general erects his pleased crest, to
- find himself so handsomely defended.
- </p>
- <p>
- The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked Aaron
- again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following that
- orator’s example,-talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton
- himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Our friend,” says Aaron, “reminds me that I am young in years; and I
- think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as many
- years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered share
- he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while I hold him
- better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as a soldier, I
- concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a soldier, and while
- serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our friend. He does not
- remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was upon a day when he
- had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his guns, forgotten
- everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and I should be much
- too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful circumstances, he would
- remember me. As to my newness in the town, and that crippled Americanism
- wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. I got no one’s consent to
- come here; I shall ask no one’s permission to stay. Doubtless I would have
- been more within a fashion had I gone with both questions to the
- gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who presides here today.
- These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I shall content myself with
- an Americanism which, though it possess none of those sunburned, West
- Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in the gentleman, may at least
- congratulate itself upon being two hundred years old.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton those
- courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to voice
- again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments he has
- earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, nothing
- save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud has been
- born—a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined to
- await its development before pronouncing for either side. The feeling,
- however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the resolution
- smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER X—THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE Aaron,
- frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as his ruffles, is
- saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, that latter young
- gentleman’s face is a study in black and red. His expression is a
- composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron is so full, so
- frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not sure of its
- purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as to his own
- importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron’s attack is parcel of
- some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or envy him, or
- both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of the way. He
- draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life is good and
- death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but stomachs in
- silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. What is
- strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them some
- chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim fineness of
- Aaron’s manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is ready to carry
- discussion to the cold verge of the grave.
- </p>
- <p>
- Son-in-law Hamilton’s nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in
- Aaron’s, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his
- heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown
- perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who
- look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says he
- will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall pursue.
- Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat abruptly,
- feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after son-in-law
- Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way.
- </p>
- <p>
- The incident is a nine-days’ food for gossip; wagers are made of a coming
- bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those lose who
- accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting is politely
- peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider separation is the
- upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law Hamilton, who is presented
- by Colonel Troup.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We should know each other better, Colonel Burr,” he observes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that of
- itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays glance
- from his chill exterior as from an iceberg.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doubtless we shall,” says he.
- </p>
- <p>
- Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his
- coming. “General Schuyler,” he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his
- father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god—“General Schuyler
- would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one
- of Aaron’s youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see
- the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler—that Jove
- who not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is
- shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pardon me, sir!” says Aaron. “Say to General Schuyler that his request is
- impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on their
- affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I shall
- go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You forget General Schuyler’s age!” returns son-in-law Hamilton. There is
- a ring of threat in the tones.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” responds Aaron stiffly, “I forget nothing. There is an age cant
- which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you
- may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall not
- in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest folk,
- because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize or, if
- they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are fewer than
- thirty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sorry you take this view,” returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying
- Aaron’s stiffness. “You will not, I fear, find many to support you in it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not looking for support, sir,” observes Aaron, pointing the remark
- with one of those black ophidian stares. “I do you also the courtesy to
- assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton so
- far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to say that
- General Schuyler’s place in the community is of such high and honorable
- sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. As to
- criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a
- trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There could be no agreement with that young man,” mutters Aaron, looking
- after the retreating Hamilton, “save on a basis of submission to his
- leadership. I’ll be chief or nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the courts,
- as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, convincing,
- he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; clients crowd about
- him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton—himself actively in the
- law—before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the
- other’s match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy,
- however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever
- litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law
- Hamilton are an added reason for the latter’s jealous hatred. He and his
- rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron’s foes, and grasp at every chance
- to do him harm.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into favor
- with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. The
- latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks them, but
- declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no profit, but
- only loss in politics.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he rolls up
- riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of Richmond
- Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson—Richmond Hill, where
- he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his vanity
- from the big general’s loftily abstracted pose.
- </p>
- <p>
- Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his cellars
- with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the one and
- sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; and,
- because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him trenches
- upon the maternal.
- </p>
- <p>
- The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue
- instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the small
- Prévost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and reading
- Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for baby
- Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is to her
- credit not theirs that she isn’t hopelessly spoiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his wine and his reading, Aaron’s tastes take opposite directions. The
- books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He reads
- Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary
- Wollstonecraft.
- </p>
- <p>
- He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in decoration
- furnishes the prudish a pang.
- </p>
- <p>
- These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, social
- and political, do not help Aaron’s standing with respectable hypocrites,
- of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion and commerce
- and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers of society
- purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron’s name is mentioned, and
- speak of him as favoring “Benthamism” and “Godwinism.” Our dullard
- pharisee folk know no more of “Benthamism” and “Godwinism” in their
- definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their manner is
- the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than murder. Aaron
- pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes of these
- hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men’s opinions, and
- has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. Occupied with
- the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of blind and deaf
- of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up gold. And never
- once does his glance rove officeward.
- </p>
- <p>
- This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron’s side. He does not pursue
- office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the
- legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general.
- As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton at its
- head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State’s public land
- for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three shillings an acre; the
- purchasers number six. The big sale is to Alexander McComb, who is given a
- deed for three million six hundred thousand acres at eight-pence an acre.
- The public howls over these surprising transactions in real estate. The
- popular anger, however, is leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of
- Cæsar. Aaron, who dwells more in the background, escapes unscathed.
- </p>
- <p>
- While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a constitution.
- Then it elects Washington President, and sets up government shop in New
- York. Aaron’s part in these mighty doings is the quiet part. He does not
- think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; he thinks less of
- Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the rim of the possible
- that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary
- of the Treasury, helps the administration to a lowest place in Aaron’s
- esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that feud is in no degree
- relaxed.
- </p>
- <p>
- When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and Rufus
- King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in the
- two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no wise
- weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of that
- short term, he will be reëlected for a full term of six years. To assume
- otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no such
- short-term uneasiness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge of
- men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest in the
- Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian’s
- administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General
- Schuyler, of that latter personage’s reelection. Indeed, if he could be
- prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of all
- sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is surest.
- Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is
- watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet
- none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his
- pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is to
- wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator means
- a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he is. More;
- it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be even for
- what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights which he
- neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped smile as he
- pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look which will spread
- across the face of Washington, when he hears of the rusty Schuyler’s
- overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. The smile is quick to
- die, however, since he who would strip his toga from the rusty Schuyler
- must not sit down to dreams and castle building.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution he
- foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook does
- not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two
- things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital
- importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. He
- looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental
- catalogue of his approachable points.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were
- not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly loves
- a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron shows the old
- governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton interest was
- slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought home victory for
- the latter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You owe General Schuyler,” he says, “no help at this pinch. Still less
- are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the
- field.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet,” protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite
- convinced—“and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his
- son-in-law in the business.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last
- to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; in
- doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water he
- could find.”
- </p>
- <p>
- What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old
- governor. At this the latter’s Irish blood begins to gather heat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is as you tell me!” he cries at last; “I can see it now! That West
- Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics
- ‘Schuyler’ and ‘Hamilton’ are interchangeable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, and
- I shall not be less than theirs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the rusty
- Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga
- connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six years
- as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes
- discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed upon
- to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. Such
- approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched upon at
- this time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From your place, sir, as governor,” observes the skillful Aaron, “you
- could not of course condescend to go in person to the Livingstons. My
- position, however, is not so high nor my years so many as are yours; I
- need not scruple to take up the matter with them. As to a candidate, I can
- go to them more easily if we leave the question open. I could tell the
- Livingstons that you would like a suggestion from them on that point. It
- would flatter their pride.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old governor is pleased to regard with favor the reasoning of Aaron.
- He remarks, too, that with him the candidate is not important. The main
- thought is to defeat the rusty Schuyler, who, with son-in-law Hamilton, so
- aforetime played the hypocrite, and pulled treacherous wires against him,
- in the hope of compassing his defeat. He declares himself quite satisfied
- to let the Livingstons select what fortunate one is to be the senate
- successor of the rusty Schuyler. He urges Aaron to wait on the Livingstons
- without delay, and discover their feeling.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron confers with the Livingstons, and shows them many things. Mostly he
- shows them that, should he himself be chosen senator, it will necessitate
- his resignation as attorney general. Also, he makes it appear that, if the
- old governor be properly approached, he will name Morgan Lewis to fill the
- vacancy. The Livingston eye glistens; the mother of Morgan Lewis is a
- Livingston, and the office of attorney general should match the
- gentleman’s fortunes nicely. Besides, there are several ways wherein an
- attorney general might be of much Livingston use. No, the Livingstons do
- not say these things. They say instead that none is more nobly equipped
- for the rôle of senator than Aaron. Finally, it is the Livingstons who go
- back to the old governor. Nor do they find it difficult to convince him
- that Aaron is the one surest of defeating the rusty Schuyler.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” say the Livingstons, “has no record, which is another way
- of saying that he has no enemies. We deem this most important; it will
- lessen the effort required to bring about him a majority of the
- legislature.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old governor, as Aaron feared, is inclined to shy at the not too many
- years of our ambitious one; but after a bit Aaron, as a notion, begins to
- grow upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He has brains, sir,” observes the old governor thoughtfully—“he has
- brains; and that is of more consequence than mere years. He has double the
- intelligence of Schuyler, although he may not count half his age. I call
- that to his credit, sir.” The chief of the clan-Livingston shares the
- Clinton view.
- </p>
- <p>
- And now takes place a competition in encomium. Between the chief of the
- clan-Livingston, and the old governor, so many excellences are ascribed to
- Aaron that, did he own but the half, he might call himself a model for
- mankind. As for Morgan Lewis, who is a Livingston, the old governor sees
- in him almost as many virtues as he perceives in Aaron. He gives the chief
- of the clan-Livingston hand and word that, when Aaron steps out of the
- attorney generalship, Morgan Lewis shall step in.
- </p>
- <p>
- Having drawn to his support the two most powerful influences of the State,
- Aaron makes search for an issue. He looks into the mouth of the public,
- and there it is. Politicians do not make issues, albeit poets have sung
- otherwise. Indeed, issues are so much like the poets themselves that they
- are born, not made. Every age has its issue; from it, as from clay, the
- politicians mold the bricks wherewith they build themselves into office.
- The issue is the question which the people ask; it is to be found only in
- the popular mouth. That is where Aaron looks for it, and his quest is
- rewarded.
- </p>
- <p>
- The issue, so much demanded of Aaron’s destinies, is one of those
- big-little questions which now and then arise to agitate the souls of
- folk, and demonstrate the greatness of the small. There are twenty-eight
- members in the National Senate; and, since it is the first Senate and has
- had no predecessor, there exist no precedents for it to guide by. Also
- those twenty-eight senators are puffballs of vanity.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the first day of their first coming together they prove the purblind
- sort of their conceit, by shutting their doors in the public’s face. They
- say they will hold their sessions in secret. The public takes this action
- in dudgeon, and begins filing its teeth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Puffiest among those senate puffballs is the rusty Schuyler. As narrow as
- he is arrogant, as dull as vain, his contempt for the herd was never a
- secret. As a senator, he declares himself the guardian, not the servant,
- of a people too weakly foolish for the safe transaction of their own
- affairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is against this self-sufficient attitude of the rusty Schuyler touching
- locked senate doors that Aaron wages war. He urges that, in a republic,
- but two keys go with government; one is to the treasury, the other to the
- jail. He argues that not even a senate will lock a door unless it be
- either ashamed or afraid of what it is about.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of what is our Senate afraid?” he asks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of what is it ashamed? I cannot answer these questions; the people cannot
- answer them. I recommend that those who are interested ask General
- Schuyler.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The public puts the questions to the rusty Schuyler. Not receiving an
- answer, the public carries the questions to the legislature, where the
- Clinton and Livingston influences come sharply to the popular support.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall the Senate lock its door?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Clintons say No; the Livingstons say No; the people say No. Under such
- overbearing circumstances, the legislature feels driven to say No; and, as
- a best method of saying it, elects to the Senate Aaron, who is a
- “door-opener,” over the rusty Schuyler, who is a “door-closer,” by a
- majority of thirteen. It is no longer “Aaron Burr,” no longer “Colonel
- Burr,” it is “Senator Burr.” The news heaps the full weight of ten years
- on the rusty Schuyler. As for son-in-law Hamilton, the blasting word of it
- withers and makes sick his heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XI—THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE shop of
- government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief space between the
- overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and the latter taking his seat,
- the great ones talk of nothing but that overthrow. Washington vaguely and
- Jefferson clearly read in the victory of Aaron the beginning of a new
- order. It is extravagantly an hour of classes and masses; and the most
- dull does not fail to make out in the Senate unseating of the rusty but
- aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant clutch at power by the masses.
- </p>
- <p>
- Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President’s
- dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams,
- those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the
- subject.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is the strangest news!” says he—“this word of the Senate success
- of Colonel Burr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, appealing to Hamilton: “Of what could your folk of New York have
- been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of one
- of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small fortune,
- and no family at all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, “you go wide. Colonel
- Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan
- Edwards; on his father’s side the strain is as high. You would look long,
- sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whatever may be the gentleman’s pedigree,” retorts Hamilton
- splenetically, “you will at least confess it to be only a New England
- pedigree.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only a New England pedigree!” exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. “Why,
- sir, when you say ‘The best pedigree in New England,’ you have spoken of
- the best pedigree in the world!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Waiving that,” returns Hamilton, “I may at least assure you, sir, that in
- New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence
- which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the
- result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson of
- Jonathan Edwards or Tom o’ Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and trickery;
- by the same methods through which a thief might win possession of your
- horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase, the fellow
- stole his victory.” At this harshness Adams looks horrified, while
- Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide shoulders.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is in no
- wise keen at reading men. Hamilton—quick, supple, subservient, a
- brilliant flatterer—has complete possession of him. He admires
- Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0173.jpg" alt="0173 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0173.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and
- some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself the
- mastiff’s satellite. Terrier Hamilton—brisk, busy, overbearing, not
- always honest—rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing
- on another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue,
- at once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington.
- And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening
- partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love of
- flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have been
- his evil deeds.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington constitutes Hamilton’s stock in national trade. In New York,
- Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler’s son-in-law—heir to his riches,
- lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton traffics
- on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability to pull or
- haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have a full-blown
- President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment, and Hamilton, be sure,
- makes the fullest, if not the most honest or honorable, use of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel
- Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The voice—while not without a note of jeering—is bell-like and
- deep, the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances
- at his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What was it, then,” he asks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will tell you my thought,” replies Jefferson. “General Schuyler was
- beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost
- family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election. The
- people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their right,
- and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I, what
- followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy, but
- aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient wing
- of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold
- themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are
- becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of
- General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse than
- a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice in its
- own government.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You appear pleased, sir,” observes Hamilton bitterly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the
- satisfaction I feel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You amaze me!” interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either
- Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. “Do I understand, sir,
- that you will welcome the rule of the mob?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The ‘mob,’” retorts Jefferson, “can be trusted to guard its own liberty..
- The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better prepared to
- stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely, who, in the
- arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste and call
- themselves an American peerage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Government by the mob!” gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his New
- England vanity—honest man!—has passed his life on a
- self-erected pedestal. “Government by the mob!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And why not, sir?” demands Jefferson sharply. “It is the mob’s
- government. Who shall contradict the mob’s right to control its own? Have
- we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the
- quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid
- Jefferson, and, following that democrat’s declarations anent mob right and
- mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though imploring
- him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins to unlimber
- complacently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Government, my dear Jefferson,” he says, wheeling himself like some great
- gun into argumentative position, “may be discussed in the abstract, but
- must be administered in the concrete. I think a best picture of government
- is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He finds them a safety and a better
- pasturage than they could find for themselves. He is necessary to the
- sheep, as the sheep are necessary to him. He can be trusted; since his
- interest is the interest of the flock.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom, patience,
- courage, but not one gleam of humor. “I cannot,” says he, “accept your
- simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people of this country
- are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find our self-selected
- shepherds”—here he lets his glance rove cynically to Adams and
- Hamilton—“such profound scientists of civil rule. Your shepherd is a
- dictator. This republic—if it is a republic—might more justly
- be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who appoint
- agents, but retain among themselves the control.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet,” observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his
- own hatred for that new senator, “the present question is one, not of
- republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him
- well. You will find him a crooked gun.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is ten years since I saw him,” observes Washington. “I did not like
- him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became his
- years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims. That,
- as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the better.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There has been no bettering change, sir,” returns Hamilton. His manner is
- purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression of
- one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own goodness
- of heart. “Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when you parted
- from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have his place in
- government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be a veriest
- firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril of this man.
- Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his ambition to fly
- at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He is both Jack Cade and
- Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister attraction for the vulgar
- herd; like the other, he would not hesitate to lead the herd against
- government itself, in furtherance of his vile projects.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these malignancies;
- while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when Hamilton speaks,
- drinks them in like spring water.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, “the
- gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence,
- suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a
- basis for it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find,” says Hamilton, “that he is, as I tell you, but a crooked
- gun.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his reverend
- fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about him—cynical,
- since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the opening day of the
- session. Washington as President, severe, of an implacable dignity,
- appears and reads a solemn address. Later, according to custom, both
- Senate and House send delegations to wait upon Washington, and read solemn
- addresses to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate,
- since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious document
- in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the Senate
- delegation to the President’s house. They find the big Virginian awaiting
- them in the long dining room, which apartment has been transformed into an
- audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying out the table and
- shoving back the chairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to the
- rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming,
- blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the
- politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils of
- flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber and
- blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The big
- Virginian—and that is the worst of it—is as much led by him as
- any blind man by his dog.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off
- day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty
- blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of
- superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His
- hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In
- one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked
- hat—brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with
- polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in this
- notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation, Aaron and
- Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal half-circle
- about him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads
- Aaron’s address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of purpose
- as was Washington’s. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy, since the
- mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms make up the
- etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience chamber is less
- sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George receiving his
- ministers, instead of President George receiving a delegation from the
- Senate.
- </p>
- <p>
- No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty
- than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for
- Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive
- to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!” he exclaims, when Adams has
- finished. “This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt not
- you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at divers
- decisions which will have effect in the country’s story, before the
- curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out. His
- first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself. He
- liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall be no friend to this man,” thinks he, “nor he to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington’s all but
- royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is personal.
- He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling upon more
- probable grounds.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I distaste him,” he decides, “because he meets no man on level terms. He
- places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody;
- everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will
- either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain,
- conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will be no
- man’s friend—this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire
- friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none about
- him save knee-crooking sycophants—like this smirking parasitish
- Hamilton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address, resolves
- to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him round. Being in
- this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which Hamilton’s remark
- affords him, to publicly notify those present of his position.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be as well,” he ruminates, “to post, not alone these good people
- of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall let them,
- and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this republican king
- of ours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the
- moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, “yes; you doubtless find
- the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do. However,
- it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!” Hamilton throws off
- this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, “sir, by
- these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your
- gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed.
- There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all—as
- though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why then,
- the President ‘addresses> the Senate, the Senate ‘addresses’ the
- President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole
- exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English.”
- This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of the
- address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He goes
- on: “I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined as it
- has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer opinion of
- my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies themselves, I should
- call them now about as edifying as the banging and the booming of a brace
- of Chinese gongs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington’s brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to Aaron
- when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young successor
- to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have not been
- lost upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think,” mutters Aaron, icily complacent—“I think I pricked him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XII—IDLENESS AND BLACK RESOLVES
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON finds a
- Senate existence inexpressibly dull. He writes his Theodosia: “There is
- nothing to do here. Everybody is idle; and, so far as I see, the one
- occupation of a senator is to lie sunning himself in his own effulgence.
- My colleague, Rufus King, and others I might name, succeed in that way in
- passing their days very pleasantly. For myself, not having their sublime
- imagination, and being perhaps better acquainted with my own measure, I
- find this sitting in the sunshine of self a failure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mindful of his issue, Aaron offers a resolution throwing open the Senate
- doors. The Senate, whose notion of greatness is a notion of exclusion,
- votes it down. Aaron warns his puffball brothers of the toga:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be assured,” says he, “you fool no one by such trumpery tricks as this
- key-turning. You succeed only in bringing republican institutions into
- contempt, and getting yourselves laughed at where you are not condemned.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron reintroduces his open-door resolution; in the end he passes it.
- Galleries are thrown up in the chamber, and all who will may watch the
- Senate as it proceeds upon the transaction of its dignified destinies. At
- this but few come; whereupon the Senate feels abashed. It is not, it
- discovers, the thrilling spectacle its puffball fancy painted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Carked of the weariness of doing nothing, Aaron bursts forth with an idea.
- He will write a history of the War of the Revolution. He begins digging
- among the papers of the State department, tossing the archives of his
- country hither and yon, on the tireless horns of his industry.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton creeps with the alarming tale to Washington. “He speaks of
- writing a history, sir,” says sycophant Hamilton. “That is mere
- subterfuge; he intends a libel against yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington brings his thin lips together in a tight, straight line, while
- his heavy forehead gathers to a half frown.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How, sir,” he asks, after a pause, “could he libel me? I am conscious of
- nothing in my past which would warrant such a thought.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is not, sir, a fact of your career that would not, if mentioned,
- make for your glory.” Hamilton deprecates with delicately outspread hands
- as he says this. “That, however, would not deter this Burr, who is Satanic
- in his mendacities. Believe me, sir, he has the power of making fiction
- look more like truth than truth itself. And there is another thought:
- Suppose he were to assail you with some trumped-up story. You could not
- come down from your high place to contradict him; it would detract from
- you, stain your dignity. That is the penalty, sir”—this with a sigh
- of unspeakable adulation—“which men of your utter eminence have to
- pay. Such as you are at the mercy of every gutter-bred vilifier; whatever
- his charges, you cannot open your mouth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron hears nothing of this. His first guess of it comes when he is told
- by a State department underling that he will no longer be allowed to
- inspect and make copies of the papers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Without wasting words on the underling, Aaron walks in upon Jefferson.
- That secretary receives him courteously, but not warmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How, sir,” begins Aaron, a wicked light in his eye—“how, sir, am I
- to understand this? Is it by your order that the files of the department
- are withheld from me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not, sir,” returns Jefferson, coldly frank. “My own theories of a
- citizen and his rights would open every public paper to the inspection of
- the meanest. I do not understand government by secrecy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By whose order then am I refused?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By order of the President.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron ruminates the situation. At last he speaks out: “I must yield,” he
- says, “while realizing the injustice done me. Still I shall not soon
- forget the incident. You say it is the order of Washington; you are
- mistaken, sir. It is not the lion but his jackal that has put this affront
- upon me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Idle in the Senate, precluded from collecting the materials for that
- projected history, Aaron discovers little to employ himself about in
- Philadelphia. Not that he falls into stagnation; for his business of the
- law, and his speculations in land take him often to New York. His trusted
- Theodosia is his manager of business, and when he cannot go to New York
- she meets him half way in Trenton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aside from his concerns of law and land, Aaron devotes a deal of thought
- to little Theodosia—child of his soul’s heart! In his pride, he
- hurries her into Horace and Terence at the age of ten; and later sends her
- voyaging to Troy with Homer, and all over the world with Herodotus. Nor is
- this the whole tale of baby Theodosia’s evil fortunes. She is taught
- French, music, drawing, dancing, and whatever else may convey a glory and
- a gloss. Love-led, pride-blinded, Aaron takes up the rôle of father in its
- most awful form.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Believe me, my dear,” he says to Theodosia mere, who pleads for an
- educational leniency—“believe me, I shall prove in our darling that
- women have souls, a psychic fact which high ones have been heard to
- dispute.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At the age of twelve, the book-burdened little Theodosia translates the
- Constitution into French at Aaron’s request; at sixteen, she finds
- celebration as the most learned of her sex since Voltaire’s Emilie.
- Theodosia mere, however, is spared the spectacle of her baby’s harrowing
- erudition, for in the middle of Aaron’s term as senator death carries her
- away.
- </p>
- <p>
- With that loss, Aaron is more and more drawn to baby Theodosia; she
- becomes his earth, his heaven, and stands for all his tenderest hopes.
- While she is yet a child, he makes her the head of Richmond Hill, and
- gives a dinner of state, over which she presides, to the limping
- Talleyrand, and Volney with his “Ruins of Empire.” For all her
- precocities, and that hothouse bookishness which should have spoiled her,
- baby Theodosia blossoms roundly into womanhood—beautiful as
- brilliant.
- </p>
- <p>
- While Aaron finds little or nothing of public sort to engage him, he does
- not permit this idleness to shake his hold of politics. Angry with the
- royalties of Washington, he drifts into near if not intimate relations
- with the arch-democrat Jefferson. Aaron and the loose-framed secretary are
- often together; and yet never on terms of confidence or even liking. They
- are in each other’s society because they go politically the same road.
- Fellow wayfarers of politics, with “Democracy” their common destination,
- they are fairly compelled into one another’s company. But there grows up
- no spirit of comradeship, no mutual sentiment of admiration and trust.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s feelings toward Jefferson, and the sources of them, find setting
- forth in a conversation which he holds with his new disciple, Senator
- Andrew Jackson, who has come on from his wilderness home by the
- Cumberland.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not that I like Jefferson,” he explains, “but that I dislike
- Washington and Hamilton. Jefferson will make a splendid tool to destroy
- the others with; I mean to use him as the instrument of my vengeance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson, when speaking of Aaron to the wooden Adams, is neither so full
- nor so frank. The Bay State publicist has again made mention of that
- impressive ancestry which he thinks is Aaron’s best claim to public as
- well as private consideration.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You may see evidence of his pure blood,” concludes the wooden one, “in
- his perfect, nay, matchless politeness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- | “He is matchlessly polite, as you say,” assents Jefferson; “and yet I
- cannot fight down the fear that his politeness has lies in it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The days drift by, and Minister Gouverneur Morris is recalled from Paris.
- Washington makes it known to the Senate that he will adopt any name it
- suggests for the vacancy. The Senate decides upon Aaron; a committee goes
- with that honorable suggestion to the President.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington hears the committee with cloudy surprise. He is silent for a
- moment; then he says:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gentlemen, your proposal of Senator Burr has taken me unawares. I must
- crave space for consideration; oblige me by returning in an hour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The senators who constitute the committee retire, and Washington seeks his
- jackal Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Appoint Colonel Burr to France!” exclaims Hamilton. “Sir, it would shock
- the best sentiment of the country! The man is an atheist, as immoral as
- irreligious. If you will permit me to say so, sir, I should give the
- Senate a point-blank refusal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But my promise!” says Washington.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, I should break a dozen such promises, before I consented to
- sacrifice the public name, by sending Colonel Burr to France. However,
- that is not required. You told the Senate that you would adopt its
- suggestion; you have now only to ask it to make a second suggestion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The thought is of value,” responds Washington, clearing. “I am free to
- say, I should not relish turning my back on my word.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The committee returns, and is requested to give the Senate the
- “President’s compliments,” and say that he will be pleased should that
- honorable body submit another name. Washington is studious to avoid any
- least of comment on the nomination of Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- The committee is presently in Washington’s presence for the third time,
- with the news that the Senate has no name other than Aaron’s for the
- French mission.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, gentlemen,” exclaims Washington, his hot temper getting the reins,
- “please report to the Senate that I refuse. I shall send no one to France
- in whom I have not confidence; and I do not trust Senator Burr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What blockheads!” comments Aaron, when he hears. “They will one day wish
- they had gotten rid of me, though at the price of forty missions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0197.jpg" alt="0197 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0197.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The wooden Adams is elected President to succeed Washington. Aaron’s
- colleague, Rufus King, offers a resolution of compliment and thanks to the
- retiring one, extolling his presidential honesty and patriotic breadth. A
- cold hush falls upon the Senate, when Aaron takes the floor on the
- resolution.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s remarks are curt, and to the barbed point. He cannot, he says,
- bring himself to regard Washington’s rule as either patriotic or broad.
- That President throughout has been subservient to England, who was our
- tyrant, is our foe. Equally he has been inimical to France, who was our
- ally, is our friend. More; he has subverted the republic and made of it a
- monarchy with himself as king, wanting only in those unimportant
- embellishments of scepter, throne, and crown. He, Aaron, seeking to
- protest against these almost treasons, shall vote against the resolution.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Senate sits aghast. Aaron’s respectable colleague, Rufus King, cannot
- believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am amazed at the action of my colleague!” he exclaims. “I——”
- </p>
- <p>
- Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. “It is my
- duty,” says Aaron, “to warn the senior senator from New York that he must
- not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I do not
- like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement become a
- tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede the impropriety,
- to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any manifestation personally
- offensive to myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws
- off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of
- colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a
- moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a gulp
- whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is called;
- Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, carrying a
- baker’s dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, horse-faced
- Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland.
- </p>
- <p>
- Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon.
- Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields the
- Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than ever; for
- Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in government,
- and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in nothing save name;
- Hamilton—fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and playing upon
- that wooden one’s fear of not succeeding himself—is the actual chief
- magistrate.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron’s term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept
- reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved
- for that scheming one’s destruction. His plans are fashioned; their
- execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will quit
- the Senate, quit the capital.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton,” he
- says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his
- purposes. “I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on
- that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of
- Jefferson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And Hamilton?” asks the Cumberland one.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of retirement.
- Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies may be trusted
- to sting him to death.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIII—THE GRINDING OF AARON’S MILL
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON tells his
- friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts this resolution to
- retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia’s loneliness and a
- consequent paternal necessity of his presence at Richmond Hill, and the
- tangled condition of his business; which last after the death of Theodosia
- mère falls into a snarl. Never, by the lifting of an eyelash or the
- twitching of a lip, does he betray any corner of his political designs, or
- of his determination to destroy Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of
- white-hot throbbing hate against that gentleman of diagonal morals and
- biased veracities; but no sign of the fires within is visible on the
- arctic exterior.
- </p>
- <p>
- Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton is
- mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate concern
- in connection with the political destinies of the rusty Schuyler, now
- exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler down from his
- shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his cloak, and
- declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young community
- toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought to send the
- rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving up. To such a
- degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities of mankind, that the
- rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to reassume those honors
- which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality.
- Aaron’s astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate,
- smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however,
- Hamilton’s enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that Aaron—courage
- broken—is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is it,” he explains to President Adams. “The fellow has lost heart.
- This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron’s
- benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron’s closest friend Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Schuyler for the Senate!” he exclaims. “What does that mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It means,” whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, “that I want to
- get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And for what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The destruction of Hamilton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door.
- One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes;
- all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton forces
- are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten North-of-Ireland
- Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell more than three
- millions of the public’s acres to McComb for eightpence.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence—working
- out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington—Aaron’s
- practiced vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton
- is as angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which
- he lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills
- because its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President’s
- cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton—whose policies are ever
- jealous and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him
- the raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to
- the Party-of-things-as-they-are—which is the party of Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- One thing irks the pride of Aaron—a pride ever impatient and ready
- for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these gentry—readily
- eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of Aaron—never
- omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They make a merit of
- accepting Aaron’s aid, and proceed on the assumption that he gains honor
- by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy this.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must have a following,” says he. “I will call about me every free lance
- in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which I must be
- the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall take up
- position between the Campbell and the Montrose—the Clintons and the
- Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control both.
- Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the obstinate
- Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall back, march and
- countermarch by my word.”
- </p>
- <p>
- When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to
- endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies
- ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling’s tavern, at Spruce
- and Nassau, meets the “Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order.” The name
- is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the “Sons of
- Tammany or the Columbian Order,” as they sit swigging Brom Martling’s
- cider, call themselves the “Bucktails.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The aristocracy of the Revolution—being the officers—created
- unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the Revolution—being
- the privates—as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not to say gilded
- Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order, otherwise
- the Bucktails, into being.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social
- organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of them—quaffing
- and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into the mountaintop of
- the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the political world and the
- glories thereof. Also, he points out that Hamilton, the head of the hated
- Cincinnati, is turning that organization of perfume and purple into a
- power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe, and resolve under the chiefship
- of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals, the Cincinnati, in every ensuing
- battle of the ballots to the end of time.
- </p>
- <p>
- The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not
- long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the
- Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this
- formidable body of cider drinkers—with Aaron at its head—they
- conduct themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect.
- They eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they
- would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they
- declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as Aaron
- forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is sought
- for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons—the
- Campbell and the Montrose.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful
- war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one might
- have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany
- Bucktails—who obey him with shut eyes—and has brought the
- perverse Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb,
- Aaron considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science,
- has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to
- insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must
- pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all
- quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic
- enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches
- are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling’s cider flow
- without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees
- that his plans as well as his party require a bank.
- </p>
- <p>
- There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow of
- the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act coercively.
- They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is not amenable to
- the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to security even somewhat
- mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion against Hamilton, plus the
- best security beneath the commercial sun, cannot coax a dollar from their
- strong boxes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions. The
- best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton. Aaron must
- free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow him. How is
- this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank? It presents as many
- difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton watches the bank
- situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort to obtain a charter
- is knocked on the head.
- </p>
- <p>
- Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to
- Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full of war
- knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank movement,
- night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To capture a bank
- charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and, while all but
- impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if accomplished.
- Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way.
- </p>
- <p>
- Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin’s bottle, a scheme
- begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been reaping
- a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres—as usual—lay
- it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while everybody knows
- full well that science is nothing better than just the accepted ignorance
- of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his knees to it, and to the
- wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and the wiseacres lay yellow
- fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking the word from them, does the
- same. The local water is found guilty; the popular cry goes up for a purer
- element. The town demands water that is innocent of homicidal qualities.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of Yellow
- Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it shall be
- called “The Manhattan Company.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With “No more yellow fever!” for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany.
- What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With the fear
- of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the Albany authorities—being
- the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton Legislature—comply with his
- demands. The Manhattan Company is incorporated, capital two millions.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter—which
- authorizes a water company—he originates a modest well near the City
- Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more than
- serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block.
- </p>
- <p>
- Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a
- bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in
- this; it is anti-Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton
- takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a matter
- of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and the extent of
- its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton flag. And Aaron,
- the indefatigable, is in control. At the new Manhattan Bank, he turns on
- or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom Mart-ling—spigot-busy in
- the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails—turns on or shuts off the
- flow of his own cider.
- </p>
- <p>
- After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his
- attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority his
- Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised world,
- in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the world with
- water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill its empty
- water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its incorporated
- back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest is dead.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with the
- charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney general—first
- polishing his amazed spectacles—reads the following clause:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with the
- laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New York.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam’s apple goes up
- and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental
- stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but
- lucidly sufficient.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the
- authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus
- capital the Manhattan Bank.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you had the bank in mind from the first!” he cries.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Possibly,” says Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr,” and the Jay attorney general
- cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; “if the authorities at
- Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received your
- charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been refused.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Possibly!” says Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the
- Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails
- swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan Bank
- to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their
- accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the Federal
- capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as President, with
- all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington, and Jefferson is
- abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing shoelaces, cutting off
- his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President at the other end of
- government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these opposite ones. Jefferson
- must be his candidate; Adams will be the candidate of the foe. He himself
- is to manage for the one, while Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the
- situation, he holds it the part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at
- these worthies, pulling against one another, and discover to what extent
- and in what manner their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar
- the nation’s future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a
- battle must be fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to
- discover aught in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or
- Jefferson which can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach. Some
- worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as talk
- proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected
- bitterness of his feeling—a feeling which goes beyond politics, as
- the acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized.
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness is wonder-smitten.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your enmity to Hamilton,” he says tentatively, “strikes deeper then than
- mere politics.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle flashing
- up in his eyes, “the deepest sentiment of my nature is my hatred for that
- man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who furnishes the seed
- and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I hear it east, north,
- west, south. I am his mania—his ‘phobia’. In his slanderous mouth I
- am ‘liar,’ ‘thief,’ and ‘scoundrel rogue.’ In such connection I would have
- you to remember that I, on my side, give him, and have given him, the
- description of a gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be frank, sir,” returns Van Ness thoughtfully, “I know every word you
- speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade our
- epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with
- convincing lead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. “Kill him!”
- he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion; “kill him!
- Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for my perfect
- vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope he has shall
- die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he lies prone, broken,
- powerless!—when he is spat upon by those in whose one-time downcast,
- servile presence he strutted lord paramount!—when his past is
- scoffed at, his future swallowed up!—when his word is laughed at and
- his fame become a farce!—then, when every fang of defeat pierces and
- poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of killing! That hour
- is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness—I am an artist of
- revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath, all goes!—that
- for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no past!—I must
- garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take pains with my
- vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my vengeful pains
- shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton, for whom my whole
- heart flows away in hate!—I shall build for him a pyramid of misery
- while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his death—his
- grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies before. I shall
- take from him every scrap of that power which is his soul’s food—strip
- him of each least fragment of position! When he has nothing left but life,
- I’ll wrest that from him. Long years after he is gone I’ll walk this
- earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and the thought that by my
- hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what the friendship of man or
- the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him! There is a grist in the
- hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill stones of my plans are
- grinding!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his soul
- to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in the
- spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow words
- follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps over him,
- as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental, abnormal,
- fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor his tongue
- can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron seems not to
- notice, but falls into a black muse.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIV—THE TRIUMPH OF AARON
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is the era of
- bad feeling, and the breasts of men are reservoirs of poison. Jefferson
- and Adams, while known admitted rivals, deplore these wormwood conditions
- and strive against them. It is as though they strove against the tides;
- party lines were never more fiercely drawn. Some portrait of the hour may
- be found in the following:
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams gives a dinner; and, because he cannot get over the Jonathan Edwards
- emanation of Aaron, he invites him. Also, Van Ness being with Aaron, the
- invitation includes Van Ness. Hamilton and Jefferson will be there; since
- it is one of the hypocritical affectations of these good people to keep up
- a polite appearance of friendship, by way of example, if not rebuke, to
- warring followers, who are hopefully fighting duels and shedding blood and
- taking life in their interests. On the way to the President’s house Van
- Ness, to whom Adams is new, queries Aaron:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What sort of a man is Adams?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is an honest, pragmatic, hot-tempered thick-skull,” says Aaron—“a
- New England John Bull!—a masculine Mrs. Malaprop whom Sheridan would
- love. You can have no better description of him than was given me but
- yesterday by a member of his Cabinet. ‘Adams,’ says the cabineteer, ‘is a
- man who whether sportful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, easy,
- stiff, jealous, careless, cautious, confident, close or open, is so always
- in the wrong place and with the wrong man!’”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is he a good executive?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bad! By nature he is no more in touch with the spirit of a democracy than
- with the maritime policies of the Ptolemies. His pet picture of government
- is England, with the one amendment that he would call the king a
- president. As to his executive labors: why, then, he touches only to
- disarrange, talks only to disturb. And all without meaning to do so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The dinner is neither large nor formal. Aaron sits on the right hand of
- Adams, while Jefferson has Van Ness and Hamilton at either elbow. In the
- cross fire of conversation comes the following: The topic is government.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Speaking of the British constitution,” says Adams, “purge that
- constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of
- representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever devised
- by the wit of man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton cocks his ear. “Sir,” says he, “purge the British constitution of
- its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation,
- and it would become an impracticable government. As it stands at present,
- with all its supposed defects, it is the most powerful government that
- ever existed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently, the currents of converse shift, and the torrid heats of party
- are considered. It is now that Jefferson is heard from.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The situation is deplorable!” he exclaims. “You and I, sir”—looking
- across at Adams—“have seen warm debates and high political passions.
- But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and
- separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not so
- now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid
- meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they be obliged to touch
- their hats. Men’s passions are boiling over; and one who keeps himself
- cool, and clear of the contagion, is so far below the point of ordinary
- conversation that he finds himself socially cast away. More; there is a
- moral breaking down. The interruption of letters is becoming so notorious”—here
- he looks hard at Hamilton, whose followers are supposed to peep into
- letters not addressed to them—“that I am forming a resolution of
- declining correspondence with my friends through the channels of the post
- office altogether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Even during Aaron’s short stay at the Capitol, fresh fuel is heaped upon
- the fires of his Hamilton hates. A cloud blows up in the sky; war with
- France is threatened. Washington at Mount Vernon is commissioned commander
- in chief; Hamilton—the active—is placed next to him. Aaron’s
- name, sent in for a general’s commission, is secretly vetoed by Hamilton
- whispering in the Adams ear.
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams does not like the veto; he thinks he should name Aaron, and says so.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you do,” declares Hamilton warningly, “it will defeat your
- reelection.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams groans and gives way. It is the argument wherewith Hamilton never
- fails to drive him or curb him as he will. Aaron hears of this new
- offense; he says nothing, but lays it away with the others.
- </p>
- <p>
- Candidate Jefferson and Manager Aaron are far apart in their hopes and
- fears, the former taking the gloomy view. They come together
- confidentially.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have looked over the field,” says Jefferson, “and we are already
- beaten.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” returns Aaron with grim point, “you should look again. I think you
- see things wrong end up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My hatred of Hamilton,” observes Aaron to Van Ness, as their coach rolls
- north for home, “is the good fortune of Jefferson. I shall be fighting my
- own fight, and so I shall win. If I were fighting only for Jefferson, I
- can well see how the strife might have another upcome.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0223.jpg" alt="0223 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0223.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The campaign draws down; it is Adams against Jefferson, Federal against
- Republican. Hamilton leaves the seat of government, and comes to New York
- to take personal charge. At that his designs are Janus-faced. He says
- “Adams,” but he means “Pinckney.” He foresees that, if Adams be given
- another term, he will defy control. Wherefore he is publicly for Adams,
- and privately for Pinckney—he looks at Massachusetts but sees only
- South Carolina. This collision of pretense and purpose, on Hamilton’s
- false part, gets vastly in the Federal way. That it should do so will
- instantly occur to curious ones, if they will but seek to go south by
- heading north.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Hamilton sets out to take presidential possession of New York, he has
- no misgivings. He knows little or nothing of Aaron’s designs or what that
- ingenious gentleman has been about.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is the Manhattan Bank of course; but what can it do? There are the
- Bucktails—who are vulgar clods! There are the Livingstons and the
- Clintons—he has beaten them before!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus run the reflections of the confident Hamilton. No; he sees only
- triumph ahead. He gives Aaron and his candidate Jefferson—with their
- borrel issue of Alien and Sedition—not half the thought that he
- devotes to ways and means by which he hopes finally to steal the electors
- from Adams, and produce Pinckney in the White House. That is Hamilton’s
- dream of power—Pinckney!
- </p>
- <p>
- Everything pivots on the legislature; since it is the legislature which
- will select the electors.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton, bearing in mind his intended steal of the State, prepares his
- list of candidates for Albany. He does not pick them for either wisdom or
- moral worth; what he is after are legislators whom he can certainly
- manhandle to match his designs, and who will give him electors—he
- himself will furnish the names—of a Pinckney not an Adams
- complexion. He makes up his slate to that treasonable end; and the swift
- Aaron gets a copy before the ink is dry.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron smiles when he runs down the ignoble muster of Hamilton’s boneless
- nonentities.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are the least in the town!” he mutters. “I shall pit against them
- the town’s greatest.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron with his Bucktails, now makes ready his own legislative ticket. At
- the head he places old North-of-Ireland Clinton—a local Whittington,
- ten times governor of the State. General Gates—for whom Aaron, when
- time was, plotted the downfall of Washington, and who received the sword
- of the vanquished Burgoyne and sent that popinjay back to England to fail
- at play-writing—comes next. After General Gates the wily Aaron
- writes “Samuel Osgood”—who was Washington’s postmaster general—“Henry
- Rutgers, Elias Neusen, Thomas Storms, George Warner, Philip Arcularius,
- James Hunt, Ezekiel Robbins, Brockholst Livingston, and John Swartwout”—every
- name a tower of strength.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton cannot repress a flutter of fear as he reads the noble roster;
- but his unflagging vanity, which serves him instead of a more reasonable
- optimism, rushes to his rescue. None the less it jars on him a bit
- strangely, albeit, he laughs at it for a jest, that the best regarded of
- the town should make up the ticket of the yeomanry and the crude
- Bucktails, while the aristocratical Federals and the equally
- aristocratical Cincinnati—that coterie of perfume and patricianism!—search
- the gutters for theirs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Seeing himself on the Jefferson ticket, old North-of-Ireland Clinton makes
- trouble. He sends for Aaron and his committee, and notifies them that he
- cannot consent to run.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you, Colonel Burr, were the candidate,” he says, “I should run gladly;
- but Jefferson I hate.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In his hope’s heart, old North-of-Ireland Clinton—-who, for all his
- North-of-Ireland blood, was born in America—thinks he himself may be
- struck by the presidential lightning, and does not intend to place any
- deflecting obstruction in the path of such descending bolt.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron has forestalled the Clinton refusal in his thoughts, and is not
- surprised by the high Clintonian attitude. He tries persuasion; the old
- ex-governor and would-be president only plants himself more firmly. Under
- no circumstances shall he agree to run; his honored name must not be used.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is now that Aaron shows his teeth: “Governor Clinton,” says he, “when
- it comes to that, our committee’s appearance before you, preferring the
- request that you run, is a ceremony rather of courtesy than need. With the
- last word, regardless of either your plans or your preferences, the public
- we represent is perfect in its right to name you, and compel you to run.
- And, sir, making short what might become long, and so saving time for us
- all, I must now notify you that, should you continue to withhold your
- consent, we stand already determined to retain and use your name despite
- refusal, as a course entirely within the lines of popular right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the looks and tones of Aaron, the old North-of-Ireland governor reads
- decision not to be revoked, and for once in his obstinate life surrenders
- gracefully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gentlemen,” says he, with a bland wave of the hand to Aaron and his
- Bucktail committee, “since you put it in that way, refusal is out of my
- power. Also let me add, that no man could take a nomination from a higher,
- a more honorable, a more patriotic source.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The campaign, on in earnest, goes forward with a roar. Not a screaming
- item is omitted. Guns boom; flags flaunt; bands of music bray; gay
- processions go marching; crackers splutter and snap; orators with iron
- throats sweep down on spellbound crowds in gales of red-faced eloquence;
- flaming rockets, when the sun goes down, streak the night with fire; the
- bold Buck-tails, cidered to the brim, cause Brom Martling’s long-room to
- ring again, and make the intersection of Spruce and Nassau a Bedlam
- crossroads.
- </p>
- <p>
- This is well; yet Aaron desires more. The issue is Alien and Sedition; he
- yearns for an overt expression of what villain work may be done by that
- black statute.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s strength, as a captain of politics, lies in his intuitive
- knowledge of men. He is never popular—never loved while ever
- admired. Men may no more love him than they may love a diamond, or a
- Damascus sword blade, or a tallest, sun-kissed, snow-capped mountain peak.
- Still that innate grasp of men, and what motives will move them, is as an
- edged tool in his hands wherewith to carve out triumph. This gift of
- man-reading comes in play when now he would exhibit Alien and Sedition in
- its baleful workings.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded
- him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your
- natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman’s block, there he lays his neck;
- given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he thrusts
- his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake he takes
- his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a despot than
- a friend. And yet—to defend Yates—that bent for martyrdom is
- nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero reversed.
- The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a martyr only
- a hero who fails.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. “Here is a pamphlet flaying
- Adams,” says he. “It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and circulate it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” asks Yates.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doubtless!”—this dryly. “But what advantage do you discover in
- having me locked up?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Man! can’t you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure will
- be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you from Otsego
- to New York. Think what a triumph that should be—you, the paraded
- victim of the monarchical Adams!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron’s
- blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has
- foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive’s line of march. Yates
- is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for
- himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is worth
- a thousand votes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is the difference between the eye and the ear,” says Aaron to his
- aide, Swartwout. “You might explain the iniquities of Alien and Sedition,
- and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and they take
- fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed by a falling
- tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. Should you some
- day <i>see</i> a man crushed by a falling tree, you will start in your
- sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. Wherefore, never
- address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The gateway to the
- imagination is the eye.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To
- the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him at the
- polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he is beaten,
- Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson’s. The blow shakes Hamilton to
- the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. In the face of
- such disaster, he sits stricken.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently, as though the bad in him is more vivid than the good and
- quicker at recovery, that old instinct of larceny struggles to its feet.
- He will steal the State; not from Adams as he planned, but from Jefferson.
- He scribbles a note to Jay, who is in town at his home, urging him as
- governor to call a special session of the legislature, a Federal
- Legislature, and go about the crime. He feels the necessity of
- justification; for Jay is of a skittish honor. This on his mind, he closes
- with: “It is the only way by which we can prevent an atheist in religion
- and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm of
- government.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jay reads, and draws down his brows in a frown. Hamilton’s messenger is
- waiting.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Governor,” says the messenger, “General Hamilton bid me get an answer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell General Hamilton there is no answer.” Jay rereads the note. Then he
- takes quill, writes a sentence on the back, and files it away in a
- pigeonhole. Years later, when Jay and Hamilton and Adams and Jefferson and
- Aaron are dead and under the grass roots, hands yet unformed will draw the
- letter forth and unborn eyes will read: “Proposing a measure for party
- purposes which I do not think it would become me to adopt. J. J.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XV—THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>AMILTON writhes
- and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first effort before the
- adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his courage returns, he
- bends himself to consider, whether by other means, fair or foul, the
- election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends out a flock of
- letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily as their
- commander in chief of party.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the
- cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his bare
- word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that potential
- name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing of
- Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave his
- voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. He
- finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of New York and
- Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney intrigue as worse
- than hopeless. They propose instead—and therein lurks horror—that
- the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. They can take
- the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may be coaxed from the
- Jefferson strength, make Aaron President—their President—the
- President of the Federalists.
- </p>
- <p>
- The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his
- discovered loss of power—which latter, of itself, is as a blade of
- ice through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to
- learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of Aaron
- as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken of heart and
- hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the Grange, and sits
- in mourning with his soul.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses
- but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, who
- is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South Carolina.
- </p>
- <p>
- Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal
- chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great
- purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate.
- They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as is the
- Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of terror in a
- democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at the thought of
- Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him less of a leveler.
- Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him with promises; for
- they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a pig in a poke. They
- seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange wreaths and is up to
- the ears in baby Theo’s wedding. As a preliminary they send his
- lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?” asks Swartwout.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline—a
- lady and a presidency.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that,
- should he be chosen, he will serve.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There can be no refusal,” he says. “The electors are free to make their
- choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however,” he goes
- on, warningly; “I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; the
- thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, yourself,
- are of those who will select the electors for our own State, I tell you,
- as you value my friendship, that New York must go to Jefferson. We carried
- the State for him, and he shall have it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Following Swartwout’s visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon Aaron.
- They point out that he can be President; but they seek to condition it
- upon certain promises.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gentlemen,” returns Aaron, “I know not what in my past has led you to
- this journey. I’ve no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I
- shall be no man’s president but my own.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think of the honor, sir!” says Federalist Bayard.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honor?” repeats Aaron. “Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went
- into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way
- to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs—all save the broken
- Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange—none the less
- go forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors
- will follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The
- law-demanded vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson
- seventy-three, Aaron seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one.
- </p>
- <p>
- No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the House. The
- sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House delegations and
- owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a president. At this the
- campaign is all to fight over again. But in a different way, on different
- ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, in
- the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second
- pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely
- married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk.
- </p>
- <p>
- Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, “As affairs are,” he explains—he
- has made a count of noses—“Jefferson, when the House convenes, will
- have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia,
- Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, for your side,
- will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, South
- Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The delegations of Maryland and
- Vermont, being evenly divided between yourself and Jefferson, will have no
- voice. The tally will show eight for Jefferson, six for you, two not
- voting. None the less, in the face of these figures the means of electing
- you exist. By deceiving one man—a great blockhead—and tempting
- two—not incorruptible—you can still secure a majority of the
- States. I——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have said enough, sir,” breaks in Aaron. “I shall deceive no one,
- tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of
- Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally
- fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have construction
- as an insult.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear.
- Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron
- will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson does not share Aaron’s chill indifference. While the latter
- comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of
- every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels all
- the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He calls on
- the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his influence with
- his party in favor of Aaron’s defeat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is I, sir,” says Jefferson, “whom the people elected; and you should
- see their will respected.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams grows warm. “Sir,” he retorts, “the event is in your power. Say that
- you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will instantly
- be put into your hands.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If such be your answer, sir,” returns Jefferson, equaling, if not
- surpassing the Adams heat, “I have to tell you that I do not intend to
- come into the presidency by capitulation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams—who is practical, even
- if high-tempered—begins his preparations to create and fill
- twenty-three life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession.
- </p>
- <p>
- As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at
- the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the war
- between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. The
- action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As
- unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot
- grasp the reason of his overthrow.
- </p>
- <p>
- Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations tongue.
- “What is this mighty difference,” he cries, “which the public discovers
- between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, I am for
- speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I am for a big
- dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is for a daily
- levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think a man may curl
- or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson preference, sir,
- convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are not reasonable
- creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and myself is this: I
- appeal to men’s reason, he flatters their vanity. The result—a mob
- result—is that he stands victorious, while I lie prostrate.” Saying
- which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his arrangements for creating and
- filling those twenty-three life judgeships—being resolved, in his
- narrow breast, to make the most of his dying moments as a president.
- </p>
- <p>
- The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are
- placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there
- are members too ill to occupy their regular seats—one is even
- attended by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order
- which forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White
- House tie determined.
- </p>
- <p>
- The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as
- foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for Aaron,
- with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly divided
- delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count half votes
- for any name. There being no choice—since no name possesses a
- majority of all the States—another vote is called. The upcome is the
- same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine
- hours of ceaseless balloting.
- </p>
- <p>
- Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of the
- seventh day, Federalist Bayard—who is the entire delegation from his
- little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote for
- Aaron—beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. It
- is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; for the
- Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so much as the
- ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, Federalist
- Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with Aaron
- Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end.
- </p>
- <p>
- The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy
- indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of
- Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next,
- feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames for
- what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not fade,
- until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron’s plans to send them
- sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; for
- Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against the
- curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go about
- their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with little
- friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between President and
- Vice-President have never been the habit.
- </p>
- <p>
- In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. He
- refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a half. He
- knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to the Jefferson
- hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, against the repeal
- of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which the practical Adams
- created and filled in his industrious last days.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but
- his home rivals the White House—which leans toward the simple-severe
- under Jefferson—as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes
- up from South Carolina to preside over it—Theo, loving and lustrous!
- Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way to
- a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into gossip
- with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson has no
- bargain in the Franco-Corsican.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0245.jpg" alt="0245 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0245.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- On the lustrous Theo’s second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she
- brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it
- proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston.
- Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than
- it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark
- one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus
- and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he
- will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte and
- swoop at empire.
- </p>
- <p>
- During these days of Aaron’s eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten
- Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has
- turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on
- politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and
- pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance.
- </p>
- <p>
- He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres.
- “And when you return home,” he says, imitating the lightsome and doing it
- poorly, “send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of Carolina
- melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear Pinckney”—this, with
- a sickly smile—“is, as you know, a very usual refuge for your
- disappointed politician.” It is now, his acute bitterness coming
- uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly complaint—the complaint of
- selflove wounded to the heart. “What an odd destiny is mine! No man has
- done more for the country, sacrificed more for it, than have I. No man
- than myself has stood more loyally by the Constitution—that frail,
- worthless fabric which I am still striving to prop up! And yet I have the
- murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes to pay for it.
- What can I do better than withdraw from the arena? Each day proves more
- and more that America, with its republics, was never meant for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVI—THE SWEETNESS OF REVENGE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE Aaron
- flourishes with Senate gavel, and Hamilton mourns his downfall at the
- Grange, new men are springing up and new lines forming. The Federalists
- disappear in the presidential going down of the wooden Adams; Aaron, by
- that one crushing victory, annihilated them. The new alignment in New York
- is personal rather than political, and becomes the merest separation of
- Aaron’s friends from Aaron’s enemies.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the head of the latter, De Witt Clinton, nephew to old North-of-Ireland
- Clinton, takes his stand. Being modern, Clinton starts a newspaper, the <i>American
- Citizen</i>, and places a scurrilous dog named Cheetham in charge. As a
- counterweight, Aaron launches the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, with Peter
- Irving editor, and his brother, young Washington Irving, as its leading
- writer. Now descends a war of ink, that is recklessly acrimonious and not
- at all merry.
- </p>
- <p>
- Under that spur of feverish ink, the two sides fall to dueling with the
- utmost assiduity. Hamilton’s son Philip insults Mr. Eaker, a lawyer friend
- of Aaron; and the insulted Mr. Eaker gives up the law for one day to
- parade young Hamilton at the conventional ten paces. It is all highly
- honorable, all highly orthodox; and young Hamilton is killed in a way
- which reflects credit on those concerned.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s lieutenant, John Swartwout, fastens a quarrel upon De Witt
- Clinton, for sundry ink utterances of the latter’s dog-of-types, Cheetham.
- The two cross the river to a spot of convenient seclusion.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish it were your chief instead of you!” cries Clinton, who is not fine
- in his politenesses.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So do I,” responds Swartwout, being of a rudeness to match Clinton’s.
- “For he is a dead shot, and would infallibly kill you; while I am the
- poorest hand with a pistol among the Buck-tails.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The bickering pair are placed. They fire and miss. A second, and yet a
- third time their lead flies shamefully wide. At the fourth shot Clinton
- saves his credit by wounding Swartwout in the leg. The stubborn Swartwout
- demands a fifth fire, and Clinton plants a second bullet within two inches
- of the first.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you satisfied?” asks Mr. Riker, who acts for Clinton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not,” returns Swartwout the stubborn. “Your man must retract, or
- continue the fight. Kill or be killed, I am prepared to shoot out the
- afternoon with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this, both Clinton’s fortitude and manners break down together, and,
- refusing to either fight on or apologize, he walks off the field. This
- nervous extravagance creates a scandal among our folk of hectic
- sensibilities, and shakes the Clinton standing sorely. He is promptly
- challenged by Senator Dayton—an adherent of Aaron’s—but evades
- that statesman at further loss to his reputation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile Robert Swartwout, brother to the wounded Swartwout, calls out
- Mr. Riker, who acted for Clinton against the stubborn one, and has the
- pleasure of dangerously wounding that personage. Also, Editor Coleman of
- the Evening Post, weary with that felon scribe, goes after type-dog
- Cheetham of Clinton’s American Citizen; whereat dog Cheetham flies
- yelping.
- </p>
- <p>
- This last so disturbs Harbor Master Thompson of the Clinton forces, that
- he offers to take type-dog Cheetham’s place. Editor Coleman being
- agreeable, they fight in a snowstorm in (inappropriately) Love’s Lane—it
- will be University Place later—and the port loses a harbor master at
- the first fire.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, gaveling the Senate in the way it should legislatively go, pays no
- apparent heed to the smoky doings of his warlike subordinates. He never
- takes his eyes from Hamilton, however; and, if that retired publicist,
- complaining in his garden, would but cast his glance that way, he might
- read in their black ophidian depths a saving warning. But Hamilton is
- blind or mad, and thinks only on what he may do to injure Aaron, and never
- once on what that perilous Vice-President might be carrying on the
- shoulder of his purposes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton devotes his garden leisure to vilifying Aaron. He goes stark
- staring raving Aaron-mad; at the mention of the name he pours out a muddy
- stream of slander. In talk, in print, in what letters he indites, Aaron is
- accused of every infamy. There is nothing so preposterously vile that he
- does not charge him with it. Aaron looks on and listens with a grim, evil
- smile, saying nothing. It is as though he but waits for Hamilton’s
- offenses to ripen in their accumulation, as one waits for apples to ripen
- on a tree.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last the hour of harvest comes; Aaron leaves Washington for Richmond
- Hill, and sends for his friend Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You once marveled at my Hamilton moderation—wondered that I did not
- stop his slanders with convincing lead?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” says Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shall wonder no longer, my friend. The hour of his death is about to
- strike.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness breaks into a gale of protest. Hamilton, beaten, disgraced,
- deposed, is in political exile! Aaron, powerful, victorious, is on the
- crest of fortune! There is no fairness, no equality in an exchange of
- shots under such circumstances! Thus runs the opposition of Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In short,” he concludes, “it would be a fight downhill—a fight that
- you, in justice to yourself, have no right to make. Who is Alexander
- Hamilton? Nobody—a beaten nobody! Who is Aaron Burr? The second
- officer of the nation, on his sure way to a White House! Let me say, sir,
- that you must not risk so much against so little.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no risk; for I shall kill the man. I shall live and he shall
- die.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cannot you see? There is the White House! Adams went from the
- Vice-Presidency to the Presidency; Jefferson went from the Vice-Presidency
- to the Presidency; you will do the same. It’s as though the White House
- were already yours. And you would throw it away for a shot at this broken,
- beaten, disregarded man! For let me tell you, sir; kill Hamilton and you
- kill your chance of being President. No one may hope to go into the White
- House on the back of a duel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- About Aaron’s mouth twinkles a pale smile. It lights up his face with a
- cold dimness, as a will-o’-the-wisp lights up the midnight blackness of a
- wood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have a memory only for what I lose. You forget what I gain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What you gain?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay, friend, what I gain. I shall gain vengeance; and I would sooner be
- revenged than be President.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now this is midsummer madness!” wails Van Ness. “To throw away a career
- such as yours is simple frenzy!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not throw away a career; I begin one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness stares; Aaron goes slowly on, as though he desires every word to
- make an impression.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, my friend; I’ve been preparing. Last week I closed out all my
- houses and lands! to John Jacob Astor for one hundred and forty thousand
- dollars. The one lone thing I own is Richmond Hill—the roof we sit
- beneath. I’d have sold this, but I did not care to attract attention.
- There would have come questions which I’m not ready to answer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness fills a glass of Cape, and settles himself to hear; he sees that
- this is but the beginning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron proceeds: “As we sit here to-night, Napoleon has been declared
- hereditary Emperor of the French. It has been on its way for months, and
- the next packet will bring us the news.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And what have the Corsican and his empire to do with us?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A President,” continues Aaron, ignoring the question, “is not comparable
- to an emperor. The Presidential term is but a stunted thing—in four
- years, eight at the most, your President comes to his end. And what is an
- ex-President? Look at Adams, peevish, disgruntled—unhappy in what he
- is, because he remembers what he was. To be a President is well enough. To
- be an ex-President is to seek to satisfy present hunger with the memories
- of banquets eaten years ago. For myself, I would sooner be an emperor; his
- throne is his for life, and becomes his son’s or his grandson’s after
- him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does this lead to?” asks Van Ness, vastly puzzled. “Admitting your
- imperial preferences, how are they applicable here and now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me show you,” responds Aaron, still slow and measured and impressive.
- “What is possible in the East is possible in the West; what has been done
- in Europe may be done in America. Napoleon comes to Paris—lean,
- epileptic, poor, unknown, not even French. To-day he is emperor. Also”—this
- with a laugh which, however, does not prevent Van Ness from seeing that
- Aaron is deeply serious—“also, he is two inches shorter than
- myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness leans back and makes a little gesture with his hand, as who
- should say: “Continue!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well! Would it be a stranger story if I, Aaron Burr, were to found
- an empire in the West—if I became Aaron I, as the Corsican has
- become Napoleon I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not talk of overturning our government?” This in tones of wonder,
- and not without some flash of angry horror.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t hold me so dull. The people of this country are unfitted for king
- or emperor. They would throw down a thousand thrones while you set up one.
- I’ve studied races and peoples. Let me give you a word; it will serve
- should you go to nation building. Never talk of crowns or thrones to
- blue-eyed or gray-eyed men. They are inimical, in the very seeds of their
- natures, to thrones and crowns.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “England?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland are monarchies only in name. In
- fact and spirit they are republics. If you would have king or emperor in
- very truth, you must go to your black-eyed folk. Setting this country
- aside, if you cast a glance toward the southwest, you will behold a people
- who should be the very raw materials of an empire.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mexico!” exclaims the astonished Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay, Mexico! There is nothing which Napoleon Bonaparte has done in France,
- which Aaron Burr may not do in Mexico. I would have the flower of this
- country at my back. Indeed, it should be easier to ascend the throne of
- the Montezumas than of the Bourbons. I believe, too—for I think he
- would feel safer with a brother emperor in the West—I might count on
- Napoleon’s help for that climbing. However, we overrun the hunt”—Aaron
- seems to recall himself like one who comes out of a dream—“I am
- thinking not on empire, but vengeance. I have thrown out a rude picture of
- my plans, however, because I hope to have your company in them. Also, I
- wanted to show how utterly in my heart I have given up America and an
- American career. It is Mexico and the throne of an emperor, not Washington
- and the chair of a President, at which I aim. I am laying my foundations,
- not for four years, not for eight years, but for life. I shall be Aaron I,
- Emperor of Mexico; with my grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, to follow me as
- Aaron II. There; that should do for ‘Aaron and empire.’” This, with a
- return to the cynical: “Now let us get to Hamilton and vengeance. The
- scoundrel has spat his toad-venom on my name and fame for twenty years;
- the turn shall now be mine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness is silent; the glimpses he has been given of Aaron’s high designs
- have tied his tongue.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron gets out a letter. “Here,” he says; “you will please carry that to
- Hamilton. It marks the beginning of my revenge. I base it on excerpts
- taken from a printed letter written by Dr. Cooper, who says: ‘General
- Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they look upon
- Colonel Burr as a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with
- the reins of government. I could detail a still more despicable opinion
- which General Hamilton has expressed of Colonel Burr.’ I demand,”
- concludes Aaron, “that he explain or account to me for having furnished
- such an ‘opinion’ to Dr. Cooper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness purses up his lips, and knots his forehead cogitatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why pitch upon this letter of Cooper’s as a <i>casus belli?</i>” he asks
- at last. “It is ambiguous, and involves a question of Cooper’s
- construction of English. If we had nothing better it might do; but there
- is no such pressure. Hamilton, on many recent occasions, in speeches and
- in print, has applied to you the lowest epithets.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You may recall, sir, that I once told you I was an artist of revenge. It
- is this very ambiguity I’m after. I would hook the fellow—hook him
- and play him as I would a fish! The man’s a coward. I saw it written on
- his face that day when, following ‘Long Island,’ he threw away his gun and
- stores. By coming at him with this ambiguity, he will hope in the
- beginning to secure himself by evasions. He will write; I shall respond;
- there will be quite a correspondence. Days will drag along in agony and
- torment to him. And all the time he cannot escape. From the moment I send
- him that letter he is mine. It is as if I had him in a narrow lane; he
- cannot get by me. On the other hand, if I come upon him, as you suggest,
- with some undeniable charge, it will all be over in a moment. He will be
- obliged at once to toe the peg. You now understand that I design only in
- this letter to hook him hard and fast. When I have so played him as to
- satisfy even my hatred, rest secure I’ll reel him in. He can no more avoid
- meeting me than he can avoid trembling when he contemplates the dark
- promise of that meeting. His wife would despise him, his very children cut
- him dead were he to creep aside.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness goes with Aaron’s letter to Hamilton. The latter, as he reads it,
- cannot repress a start. The blood rushes from his face to his heart and
- back again; for, as though the blind were made to see, he realizes the
- snare into which he has walked—a snare that he himself has spread to
- his own undoing.
- </p>
- <p>
- With an effort he commands his agitation. “You shall have my answer by the
- hand of Mr. Pendleton,” he says.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton’s reply, long and wordy, is two days on its way. As Aaron
- foretold, it is wholly evasive, and comes in its analysis to be nothing
- better than a desperate peering about for a hole through which its author
- may crawl, and drag with him what he calls his honor.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s reply closes each last loophole of escape. “Your letter,” he says,
- “has furnished me new reasons for requiring a definite reply.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamilton reads his doom in this; and yet he cannot consent to the
- sacrifice, but struggles on. He makes a second response, this time at
- greater length than before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, implacable as Death, reads what Hamilton has written.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think we should close the business,” he says to Van Ness, as he gives
- him Hamilton’s letter. “It has been ten days since I sent my initial note,
- and I have had enough of vengeance in anticipation. And so for the last
- act.” Aaron dispatches Van Ness with a peremptory challenge. There being
- no gateway of relief, Hamilton is driven to accept. Even then comes a cry
- for time; Hamilton asks that the hour of final meeting be fixed ten
- further days away. Aaron smiles that pale smile of hatred made content,
- and grants the prayed-for delay.
- </p>
- <p>
- The morning following the challenge and its acceptance, Pendleton appears
- with another note from Hamilton—who obviously prefers pens to
- pistols for the differences in hand. Aaron, smiling his pale smile of
- contented hate, refuses to receive it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is,” he observes, “no more to be said on either side, a challenge
- having been given and accepted. The one thing now is to load the pistols
- and step off the ground.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is four days later, and the fight six days away. Aaron and Hamilton
- meet at a dinner given on Independence Day. Hamilton is hysterically gay,
- and sings his famous song, “The Drum.” Also, he never once looks at Aaron,
- who, dark and lowering and silent, the black serpent sparkle in his eye,
- seldom shifts his gaze from Hamilton. Aaron’s stare, remorseless, hungrily
- steadfast, is the stare of the tiger as it sights its prey.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dr. Hosack calls on Aaron, where the latter sits alone at Richmond Hill.
- Wine is brought; the good doctor takes a nervous glass. He has a rosy,
- social face, has the good doctor, a face that tells of friendships and the
- genial board. Just now, however, he is out of spirits. Desperately setting
- down his wineglass, he flounders into the business that has brought him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can hardly excuse my coming,” he says, “and I apologize before I state
- my errand. I would have you believe, too, that my presence here is
- entirely by my own suggestion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron bows.
- </p>
- <p>
- The good doctor explains that he has been called upon to go,
- professionally, to the fighting ground with Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is how I became aware,” he concludes, “of what you have in train. I
- resolved to see you, and make one last effort at a peaceful solution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron coldly shakes his head: “There can be no adjustment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think of his family, sir! Think of his wife and his seven children!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, it is he who should have thought of them. You should have gone to
- him when he was maligning me. What? You know how this man has slandered
- me! He has spoken to you as he has to hundreds of others!” The good doctor
- looks guiltily uneasy. “And now I am asked to sit down with the scorn he
- has heaped upon me, because he has a family! Does it not occur to you,
- sir, that I, too, have a family? But with this difference: Should he fall,
- there will be eight to share the loss among them. If I fall, the blow
- descends on but one pair of loving shoulders, and those the slender
- shoulders of a girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is no hope: The good doctor goes his disappointed way.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fighting grounds are a flat, grassy shelf of rock, under the heights
- of Weehawken. The morning is bright, with the July sun coming up over the
- bay. Hamilton, pale, like a man going open-eyed to death, takes his barge
- at the landing near the Grange. The good Dr. Hosack and his friend
- Pendleton are with him. The barge is pulled across to the grassy shelf,
- under the somber Weehawken heights.
- </p>
- <p>
- The good doctor remains by the barge, while Hamilton, with friend
- Pendleton, ascends the rocky, shelving, shingly twenty feet to the place
- of meeting. They find Aaron and Van Ness awaiting them. Aaron touches his
- hat stiffly, and walks to the far end of the narrow grassy shelf.
- </p>
- <p>
- Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness toss a dollar piece. Pendleton wins word
- and choice of position.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ten paces are stepped off. Second Pendleton places his man at the
- up-the-river end of the six-foot grassy shelf. Aaron, pistol in hand, is
- given the other end. The word is to be:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Present!—one—two—three—stop!” As the two stand in
- position, Aaron is confident, deadly, implacable; Hamilton looks the man
- already lost.
- </p>
- <p>
- Seconds Pendleton and Van Ness retire out of range.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gentlemen, are you ready?”.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ready!” says Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ready!” says Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a pause, heavy with death. Then comes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Present!———-”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a flash and a roar!—a double flash, a double roar! The
- smoke curls, the rocks echo! Hamilton, with a stifled moan, reels,
- clutches at nothing, and pitches forward on his face—shot through
- and through. The Hamilton lead, wild and high, cuts a twig above Aaron’s
- head.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron takes a step toward his slain foe, and looks long and deep, like a
- man drinking. Van Ness comes up; Aaron tosses him the pistol, as folk toss
- aside a tool when the work is done—well done. Then he walks down to
- his barge, and shoves away for Richmond Hill, whose green peaceful cedars
- are smiling just across the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was worth the price, Van Ness,” says Aaron. “The taste of that
- immortal vengeance will never perish on my lips, nor its fragrance die out
- in my heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVII—AARON I, EMPEROR OF MEXICO
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON sits placidly
- serene at Richmond Hill. Over his wine and his cigar, he reduces those
- dreams of empire to ink and paper. He maps out his design as architects
- draw plans and specifications for a house. His friends call—Van
- Ness, the stubborn Swart-wout, the Irvings, Peter and Washington.
- </p>
- <p>
- Outside the serene four walls of Richmond Hill there goes up a prodigious
- hubbub of mourning—demonstrative if not deeply sincere. Hamilton,
- broken as a pillar of politics, was still a pillar of fashion. Was he not
- a Schuyler by adoption? Had he not a holding in Trinity? Therefore, come
- folk of powdered hair and silken hose, who deem it an opportunity to prove
- themselves of the town’s Vere de Veres. There dwells fashionable advantage
- in tear-shedding at the going out of an illustrious name. Such
- tear-shedding provides the noble inference that the illustrious one was
- “of us.” Alive to this, those of would-be fashion lapse into sackcloth and
- profound ashes, the sackcloth silk and the ashes ashes of roses. Also they
- arrange a public funeral at Trinity, and ask Gouverneur Morris, the local
- Mark Antony, to deliver an oration.
- </p>
- <p>
- To the delicate sobbing of super-fashionable ones is added the pretended
- grief of Aaron’s Clintonian foes. They think to use the death of Hamilton
- for Aaron’s political destruction.
- </p>
- <p>
- At no time does Aaron, serene with his wine and his cigar and his
- empire-planning, interpose by word or act to stem the current of real or
- spurious feeling. He heeds it no more, dwells on it no more than on the
- ebbing or flowing of the tides, muttering about the lawn’s shaven borders
- in front of Richmond Hill.
- </p>
- <p>
- The duel is eleven days old. Aaron, accompanied by the faithful, stubborn
- Swartwout, takes barge for Perth Amboy. The stubborn, faithful one says
- “Good-by!” and returns; Aaron is received by his friend Commodore Truxton.
- With Truxton he talks “empire” all night. He counts on English ships, he
- says; being promised in secret by British Minister Merry in Washington.
- Truxton shall command that fleet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Having set the sea-going Truxton to hoping, Aaron pushes on for
- Philadelphia. He meets a beautiful girl whom he calls “Celeste,” and to
- whom he does not speak of conquest or of empire. He remains a week in
- Philadelphia where, by word of Clinton’s scandalized <i>American Citizen</i>:
- “He walks openly about the streets!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then to St. Simon’s off the Georgia coast, guest of honor among polite
- Southern circles; and, from St. Simon’s across to South Carolina and the
- noble Alston mansion, to be welcomed by the lustrous Theo. Thus the summer
- wears into fall, full of honor and ease and love.
- </p>
- <p>
- With the first light flurry of snow, Aaron, gavel in hand, calls the grave
- togaed ones to order. It is to be his last session; with the going out of
- Congress, his Vice-Presidential term will have its end. During those three
- Washington months which ensue, he dines with the President, goes among
- friends and enemies as of yore, and never is brow arched or glance
- averted. Instead, there is marked regard for him; folk compete to do him
- honor. On the last Senate day he delivers his address of farewell, and men
- pronounce it a marvel of dignity, wisdom, and polish. So he steps down
- from American official life; but not from American interest.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, throughout this last Washington winter, presses his plans of
- empire. He attaches to them scores of his Bucktail followers—the
- Swartwouts, Dr. Erick Bollman, the Ogdens, Marinus Willet, General Du
- Puyster. Among those of Congress who lend their ears and give their words
- are Mathew Lyon, and Senators Dayton and Smith.. These are weary of
- civilization and the peace that rusts. Their hearts are eager for
- conquest, and a clash with the rough, wilderness conditions of the West
- beyond the Mississippi.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is evening; Aaron sits in his rooms at the Indian Queen. Outside the
- rain is falling; Pennsylvania Avenue wallows a world of mire. Slave Peter
- intrudes his black face to announce:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gen’man comin’-up, sah!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Peter, the privileged, would introduce Guy of Warwick, or the great Dun
- Cow, with as little ceremony.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Peter withdraws, a burly figure fills the doorway.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come in, General,” says Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- General Wilkinson is among Aaron’s older acquaintances. They were together
- at Quebec. They were fellow cabalists against Washington in an hour of
- Valley Forge. Now they are hand to hilt for Mexico, and that
- throne-building upon which Aaron has fixed his heart. Also, Wilkinson is
- in present command of the military forces of the United States in the
- Southwest, with headquarters at Natchez and New Orleans; and, because of
- that army control, he is the keystone to the arch of Aaron’s plans.
- </p>
- <p>
- The broad Wilkinson face glows at Aaron’s genial “Come in.” Its owner
- takes advantage of the invitation to draw a chair near the log fire, which
- the wet March night makes comfortable. Then he pours himself a glass of
- whisky.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilkinson is worth considering. He is paunchy, gross, noisy, vain,
- bragging, shallow, with a red, sweat-distilling face, and a nose that
- tells of the bottle. He wears to-night the uniform of his rank. His coat
- exhibits an exuberance of epaulette and an extravagance of gold braid that
- speak of tastes for coarse glitter. His iron-gray hair, shining with
- bear’s grease, matches his fifty years. In conversation he becomes a
- composite of Rabelais and Munchausen. As for holding wine or stronger
- liquor, he rivals the Great Tun of Heidelberg.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stubborn Swartwout doesn’t like him. On a late occasion he expresses
- that dislike.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be frank, Chief,” observes the blunt Bucktail, who, because of Aaron’s
- headship of the Tammany organization, always addresses him as “Chief”—“to
- be frank, I believe your friend Wilkinson to be as crooked as a dog’s hind
- leg.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are right, sir,” says Aaron; “he is both dishonest and treacherous.
- It was he who uncovered our plans to unhorse Washington, by ‘blabbing’
- them, as Conway called it, to Lord Stirling. Yes; dishonest and
- treacherous is Wilkinson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0273.jpg" alt="0273 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0273.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- “Why, then, do you trust him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do I trust him?” repeats Aaron. “For several sufficient reasons. He
- has been in and out of Mexico, and is as familiar with the country as I am
- with Richmond Hill. He is cheek and jowl with the Bishop of New Orleans;
- and I hope to attach the church to my enterprise. Most of all, he commands
- the United States forces in the Southwest. Moreover, I count his
- dishonesty and genius for double dealing as virtues. They should become of
- importance in my enterprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As how?” demands the mystified Buck-tail.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As follows: Mexico is rich in gold; I argue that his dishonest avarice
- will take him loyally with me, hand and glove, in the hope of loot. His
- treacherous talents should come finely into play in certain diplomacies
- that must be entered upon with Mexican officials, who will favor me.
- Likewise he should find them exercise in dealings with the war department
- here in Washington; for you can see, sir, that, in his dual rôles of
- filibusterer and military commander of the Southwest for this government,
- he is certain to be often in collision with himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The stubborn Bucktail says no more, being too well drilled in deference to
- Aaron’s will and word. It is clear, however, that his distrust of the
- whisky-faced Wilkinson has not been put to sleep.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilkinson, as he swigs his whisky by Aaron’s fire, sits in happy ignorance
- of the distrustful Bucktail’s views. Confident as to his own high
- importance, he plunges freely into Aaron’s plans.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Five hundred,” says Aaron, “full five hundred are agreed to go; and I
- have lists of five thousand stout young fellows besides, who should crowd
- round our standard at the whistle of the fife. The move now is to purchase
- eight hundred thousand acres on the Washita, as a base from which to
- operate and a pretext for bringing our people together. My excuse for
- recruiting them, you understand, will be that they are to settle on those
- eight hundred thousand Washita acres.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eight hundred thousand acres!” This, between sips of whisky: “That should
- take a fortune! Where do you think to find the money?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will come from New York, from Connecticut, from New Jersey, from
- everywhere—but most of it from my son-in-law, Alston, who is to
- mortgage his plantation and crops. He is worth a round million.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you succeed with the English?” asks Wilkinson, taking a new
- direction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is as good as done. Merry, the British Minister, was with me
- yesterday. He has sent Colonel Williamson of his legation to London, to
- return by way of Jamaica and bring the English fleet to New Orleans.
- Truxton is to be given temporary command, and sail against Vera Cruz,
- where you and I must meet him with an army. When we have reduced Vera
- Cruz, and secured a port, we shall march upon the city of Mexico.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilkinson helps himself to another glass.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he rubs his encarmined nose with a ruminative forefinger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” he observes, “it will be a great venture! In New Orleans I’ll make
- you acquainted with Daniel Clark, an Englishman, who has the riches and
- almost the wisdom of Solomon. He’ll embrace the enterprise; once he does
- he’ll back it with his dollars. Clark himself is strong in ships; with his
- merchant fleet and his warehouses, he should keep us in provisions in Vera
- Cruz.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is well bethought,” cries Aaron, eyes a-sparkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Clark’s relations with the bishop are likewise close,” adds Wilkinson.
- </p>
- <p>
- Taking a pull at the whisky, he runs off in a fresh direction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me your scheme in detail. We are not, I trust, to waste time with a
- claptrap democracy, nor engage in the popular tomfoolery of a republic?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The government, imperial in form, shall be styled the ‘Empire of Mexico.’
- I shall be crowned Emperor Aaron I, and the crown made hereditary in the
- male line; which last will create my grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, heir
- presumptive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I?” interjects Wilkinson, his features doubly aglow with alcohol and
- interest. “What are to be my rank and powers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will be generalissimo of the army.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Second only to you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Second only to me. Here; I’ve drawn an outline of the civil fabric we’re
- to set up. The government, as I’ve said, is to be imperial, myself
- emperor. There is to be a nobility of grandees, titles hereditary, who
- will sit as a parliament. The noble programme is this: Aaron I, emperor;
- Wilkinson, generalissimo of the forces; Alston, chief of the grandees and
- secretary of state; Theo, chief lady of the court and princess mother of
- the heir presumptive; Aaron Burr Alston, heir presumptive; Truxton, lord
- high admiral of the fleet. There will be ambassadors, ministers, consuls,
- and the usual furniture of government. The grandees should be limited to
- one hundred, and chosen from those whom we bring with us. There may be
- minor noble grades, drawn from ones powerful and friendly among the
- natives.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron and Wilkinson of the carnelian nose sit far into the watches of the
- night, discussing the great design. As the carnelianed one takes his
- leave, he says:
- </p>
- <p>
- “We are fully agreed, I find. To-morrow I start for Natchez; you are to
- follow in two weeks, you say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” responds Aaron. “There should be months of travel ahead, before my
- arrangements are perfected. I must meet Adair in Kentucky, Smith in Ohio,
- Harrison in Indiana, Jackson in Tennessee; besides visit New Orleans, and
- arrange about those eight hundred thousand Washita acres. In my running
- about, I shall see you many times, and confer with you as questions come
- up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall meet you at Fort Massac on the Ohio. Don’t forget two several
- matters: The enterprise will lick up gold like fire. Also, that in the
- civil as well as the military control of the empire, I’m to be second to
- no one save yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall forget nothing. Speaking of money, I sell Richmond Hill to-morrow
- for twenty-five thousand dollars. The deeds are drawn and signed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, we shall find money enough,” returns Wilkinson contentedly. “Only
- it’s well never to lose sight of the fact that we’re going to need it.
- Clark, as I say, will plunge in for something handsome—something
- that should call for six figures in its measure. As to my rank of
- generalissimo, second only to yourself, it is all I could ask. Popularly,”
- concludes Wilkinson, preparing to take his leave—“popularly, I shall
- be known as ‘Wilkinson the Deliverer.’ Coming, as I shall, at the head of
- those gallant conquering armies which are to relieve the groaning Mexicans
- from the yoke of Spain, I think it a natural and an appropriate title—‘Wilkinson
- the Deliverer!’”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not only an appropriate title,” observes the courtly Aaron, who remembers
- his generalissimo’s recent loyalty to the whisky bottle, “but admirably
- adapted to fill the trump of fame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The door closes on the broad back of the coming “Deliverer.” As Aaron
- again bends over his “Empire,” he hears that personage’s footsteps,
- uncertain by virtue of much drink, and proudly martial at the glorious
- prospect before him, go shuffling down the corridor of the Indian Queen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bah!” mutters Aaron; “Jack Swartwout was right. It is both dangerous and
- disgusting to build a great design on the trustless foundation of this
- conceited, treacherous sot. And yet, such is the irony of my situation, I
- am unable to do otherwise. At that, I shall manage him. Oh, if Jefferson
- were only of the right viking sort! But, no; a creature of abstractions,
- bookshelves and alcoves!—a closet philosopher in whose veins runs no
- drop of red aggressive fighting blood!—he would as soon think of
- treason as of conquest, and, indeed, might readily fall into the error of
- imagining they spell the same thing. Besides, he hates me for that
- presidential tie of four years ago. The plain offspring of his own
- unpopularity, he none the less leaves it on my doorstep as the natural
- child of my intrigues. No! I must watch Jefferson, not trust him. His
- judgment is ever valet to his hatreds. He would call the most innocent act
- a crime, prove white black, for the privilege of making Aaron Burr an
- outlaw.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVIII—THE TREASON OF WILKINSON
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OW begin days
- crowded on new faces and new scenes. Aaron ascends the Potomac, and
- crosses the mountains to Pittsburg. He buys a cabined flatboat and floats
- down to Marietta. They tell him of Blennerhassett, romantic, eccentric,
- living on an island below. He visits the island; the lord of the isle is
- absent, but his spouse, broad, thick, genial, not beautiful, welcomes him
- and bids him come again.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes to Cincinnati, and confers with Senator Smith; to Louisville,
- where he meets General Adair; then cross country to Nashville to find
- General Jackson—his friend of a Senate day when he, Aaron, served
- colleague to the kiln-dried Rufus King.
- </p>
- <p>
- Everywhere Aaron is the honored guest at barbecue and banquet. Processions
- march; balls are given to his glory. There are roasting of oxen, drinking
- of corn whisky, rosining of bows and scraping of catgut; and all after the
- hearty fashion of the West, when once it gets a hero in its clutches.
- </p>
- <p>
- To Adair and Smith and the lean Jackson, Aaron lays out his purpose of
- Southwestern conquest. These stark worthies go with him heart and soul.
- Each hates the Spaniard with a Saxon’s hate; each is a Francis Drake at
- bottom. Their hot concern in what he is upon, fairly overruns the verbal
- pace of Aaron in its telling. Only, he is half-secret, and does not make
- clear those elements of throne and crown and scepter. It will leave them
- less over which to hesitate, he thinks; for he perceives that he deals
- with folk who are congenital republicans.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lean Jackson, even more heartily than do the others, enters into
- Aaron’s plans. He declares that the best blood of Tennessee shall follow
- him. In the long talks they have at the Hermitage, Aaron implants in
- Jackson a Southwestern impulse which, in its deeds, will find victorious
- culmination thirty years later at San Jacinto. In that day, Jackson
- himself will occupy the chair now held by Jefferson.
- </p>
- <p>
- Being no prophet, but only a restless, strong, ambitious man, Aaron does
- not foresee that day of Jackson in the White House, San Jacinto, and Sam
- Houston—the latter just now a lad of thirteen, and hidden away in
- his ancestral woods. Full of hope, Aaron goes diligently forward with his
- sowing, the harvest whereof those others are to reap. He lays the
- bedplates of an empire truly; but not <i>his</i> empire—not the
- empire of Aaron I, with Aaron II to follow him. He will be tottering on
- the grave’s edge in a day of San Jacinto; and yet his age-chilled heart
- will warm at the news of it, and know it for his work.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron leaves Jackson, drifts down the Cumberland to the Ohio, and meets
- Wilkinson, who—nose as red, with whisky-fuddled soul—is as
- much in ardent arms as ever. Wilkinson cannot greet him too warmly. The
- only change perceivable in our corn-soaked warrior is a doubt as to
- whether, instead of “Wilkinson the Deliverer,” he might not better fill
- the wondering measure of futurity as “Washington of the West.” Both titles
- are full of majesty—a thing important to a taste streaked of rum—but
- the latter possesses the more alliterative roll. The red-nosed Wilkinson
- says finally that he will keep the question of title in abeyance,
- committing himself to neither, with a possibility of adopting both.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron regains his cabined flatboat, and follows the current eight hundred
- miles to Natchez. Later he drifts away to New Orleans. The latter city is
- a bubbling community of nine thousand souls—American, Spanish,
- French. It runs as socially wild over Aaron as did those ruder,
- up-the-river regions; although, proving its civilization, it scrapes a
- more delicate fiddle and declines the greasy barbecue enormities of a
- whole roast ox.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Englishman Clark strikes hands with Aaron for the coming empire. It is
- agreed that, with rank next to son-in-law Alston’s, Clark shall be of the
- grandees. Also, Aaron makes the acquaintance of the Bishop of New Orleans,
- and the pair dispatch three Jesuit brothers to Mexico to spy out the land.
- For the Spanish rule, as rapacious as tyrannous, has not fostered the
- Church, but robbed it. Under Aaron I, the Church shall not only be
- protected, but become the national Church.
- </p>
- <p>
- Leaving New Orleans, Aaron returns by an old Indian trace to Nashville,
- keeping during the journey a sharp lookout for banditti who rob and kill
- along the trail. Coming safe, he is welcomed by the lean Jackson, whom he
- sets building bateaux for conveying the Tennessee contingent to the coming
- work.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0287.jpg" alt="0287 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0287.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Leaving Jackson busy with saw and adz and auger over flatboats, Aaron
- heads north for the island dwelling of Blennerhassett. In the fortnight he
- spends with that muddled exile, he wins him—life and fortune.
- Blennerhassett is weak, forceless, a creature of dreams. Under spell of
- the dominating Aaron, he sees with the eyes, speaks with the mouth, feels
- with the heart of that strong ambitious one. Blennerhassett will be a
- grandee. As such he must go to England, ambassador for the Empire of
- Mexico, bearing the letters of Aaron I. He takes joy in picturing himself
- at the court of St. James, and hears with the ear of anticipation the
- exclamatory admiration of his Irish friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay! they’ll change their tune!” cries Blennerhassett, as he considers his
- greatness to come. “It should open their Irish eyes, for sure, when they
- meet me as ‘Don Blennerhassett, grandee of the Mexican Empire, Ambassador
- to St. James by favor of his Imperial Majesty, Aaron I.’ It’ll cause my
- surly kinfolk to sing out of the other corners of their mouths; for I
- cannot remember that they’ve been over-respectful to me in the past.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron recrosses the mountains, and descends the Potomac to Washington. He
- dines with Jefferson, and relates his adventures, but hides his plans. No
- whisper of empire and emperors at the great democrat’s table! Aaron is not
- so horn-mad as all that.
- </p>
- <p>
- While Aaron is in Washington, the stubborn Swartwout comes over. As the
- fruits of the conference between him and his chief, the stubborn one
- returns, and sends his brother Samuel, young Ogden, and Dr. Bollman to
- Blennerhassett. Also, the lustrous Theo and little Aaron Burr Alston join
- Aaron; for the princess mother of the heir presumptive, as well as the
- sucking emperor himself, is to go with Aaron when he again heads for the
- West. There will be no return—the lustrous Theo and the heir
- presumptive are to accompany the expedition of conquest. Son-in-law
- Alston, who will be chief of the grandees and secretary of state, promises
- to follow later. Just now he is trying to negotiate a loan on his
- plantations; and making slow work of it, because of Jefferson’s
- interference with the exportation of rice.
- </p>
- <p>
- Madam Blennerhassett welcomes the princess mother with wide arms, and
- kisses the heir presumptive. Aaron decides to make the island a present
- headquarters. Leaving the lustrous Theo and the heir presumptive to Madam
- Blennerhassett, he indulges in swift, darting journeys, west and north and
- south. He arranges for fifteen bateaux, each to carry one hundred men, at
- Marietta. He crosses to Nashville to talk with Jackson, and note the
- progress of that lean filibusterer with the Cumberland flotilla. What he
- sees so pleases him that he leaves four thousand dollars—a royal
- sum!—with the lean Jackson, to meet initial charges in outfitting
- the Tennessee wing of the great enterprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes to Chillicothe and talks to the Governor of Ohio. Returning, he
- drops over to the little huddle of huts called Cannonsburg. There he forms
- the acquaintance of an honest, uncouth personage named Morgan, who is
- eaten up of patriotism and suspicion. Morgan listens to Aaron, and decides
- that he is a firebrand of treason about to set the Ohio valley in a blaze.
- He writes these flaming fears to Jefferson—as suspicious as any
- Morgan!
- </p>
- <p>
- Having aroused Morgan the wrong way,
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron descends to New Orleans and makes payment on those eight hundred
- thousand acres along the Washita. Following this real estate transaction,
- he hunts up the whisky-reddened Wilkinson, and offers a suggestion. As
- commander in chief, Wilkinson might march a brigade into the Spanish
- country on the Sabine, and tease and tempt the Castilians into a clash.
- Aaron argues that, once a brush occurs between the Spaniards and the
- United States, a war fury will seize the country, and furnish an admirable
- background of sentiment for his own descent upon Mexico. Wilkinson, full
- of bottle valor, receives Aaron’s suggestion with rapture, and starts for
- the Sabine. Wilkinson safely off for the Sabine, to bring down the desired
- trouble, Aaron again pushes up for Blennerhassett and that exile’s island.
- </p>
- <p>
- While these important matters are being thus set moving war-wise, the
- soft-witted Blennerhassett is not idle. He writes articles for the papers,
- descriptive of Mexico, which he pictures as a land flowing with milk and
- honey. During gaps in his milk-and-honey literature, the coming ambassador
- buys pork and flour and corn and beans, and stores them on the island.
- They are to feed the expedition, when it shoves forth upon the broad Ohio
- in those fifteen Marietta bateaux.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron gets back to the island. Accompanied by the lustrous Theo and
- Blennerhassett, he goes to Lexington. While there, word reaches him that
- Attorney Daviess, acting for the government by request of Jefferson, has
- moved the court at Frankfort for an order “commanding the appearance of
- Aaron Burr.” The letter of the suspicious Morgan to the suspicious
- Jefferson has fallen like seed upon good ground.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron does not wait; taking with him Henry Clay as counsel, he repairs to
- Frankfort as rapidly as blue grass horseflesh can travel. Going into
- court, Aaron, with Henry Clay, routs Attorney Daviess, who intimates but
- does not charge treason. The judge, the grand jury, and the public give
- their sympathies to Aaron; following his exoneration, they promote a ball
- in his honor.
- </p>
- <p>
- Recruits begin to gather; the fifteen Marietta bateaux approach
- completion. Aaron dispatches Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden with letters
- to the red-nosed, necessary Wilkinson, making mad the Spaniards on the
- Sabine. Also Adair and Bollman take boat for New Orleans. When Swartwout
- and young Ogden have departed, Aaron resumes his Marietta preparations,
- urging speed with those bateaux.
- </p>
- <p>
- Swartwout reaches the red-nosed Wilkinson, and delivers Aaron’s letters.
- These missives find the red-nosed one in a mixed mood. His cowardice and
- native genius for treachery, acting lately in concert, have built up
- doubts within him. There are bodily perils, sure to attend upon the
- conquest of Mexico, which the rednosed one now hesitates to face. Why
- should he face them? Would he not get as much from Jefferson for betraying
- Aaron? He might, by a little dexterous mendacity, make the Credulous
- Jefferson believe that Aaron meditates a blow not at Mexico but the United
- States. It would permit him, the red-nosed one, to pose as the saviour of
- his country. And as the acknowledged saviour of his country, what might
- not he demand?—what might not he receive? Surely, a saved country,
- even a saved republic, would not be ungrateful!
- </p>
- <p>
- The red-nosed one’s genius for treachery being thus addressed, he sends
- posthaste to Jefferson. He warns him that a movement is abroad to break up
- the Union. Every State west of the Alleghenies is to be in the revolt.
- Thus declares the treacherous red-nosed one, who thinks it the shorter cut
- to that coveted title, “Wilkinson the Deliverer, Washington of the West.”
- Besides, there will be the glory and sure emolument! Wilkinson the
- red-nosed, thinks on these things as he goes plunging Aaron and his scheme
- of empire into ruin.
- </p>
- <p>
- While these wonders are working in the West, Aaron, wrapped in ignorance
- concerning them, is driving matters with a master’s hand at Marietta and
- the island. The fifteen bateaux are still unfinished, when he resolves,
- with sixty of his people, to go down to Natchez. There are matters which
- call to him in connection with those Washita eight hundred thousand acres.
- Besides, he desires a final word with the red-nosed Wilkinson.
- </p>
- <p>
- At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a
- Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of
- frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States
- west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on peril
- of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed,
- treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, Samuel
- Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to Baltimore,
- to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all his fortitude
- to command himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of
- doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia;
- after which he calls into counsel his attorney general.
- </p>
- <p>
- The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He believes
- that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country’s integrity
- threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his own sublime
- powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk the
- treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor—nobly
- willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on the
- altars of a common good—bids him try what he can eloquently do.
- </p>
- <p>
- The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be
- conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake it
- would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant territory of
- Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron surrender
- without a struggle, and come into court and be tried.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general,
- and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically hailed
- by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue grass,
- find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his honorable
- release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, to
- indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. Cool counsel
- intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without difficulty, are
- convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon they content
- themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter let “honest
- settlers” coming into the country alone. Having discharged their duty in
- the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and the governor
- draws a long breath of relief.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson’s anti-treason proclamation. The West
- will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure to
- be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his
- enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, it
- makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not name
- him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will supply
- the omission.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is nothing else for it. The mere thought is gall and wormwood; and
- yet Aaron’s dream must vanish before what stubborn conditions confront
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- As a best move toward extricating himself from the tangle into which the
- perfidy of the red-nosed one has forced him, Aaron decides to go to
- Washington. He informs the leading spirits about him of his purpose,
- mounts the finest horse to be had for money, and sets out.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is a week later. One Perkins meets Aaron at the Alabama village of
- Wakeman. The thoroughbred air of the man on the thoroughbred horse sets
- Perkins to thinking. After ten minutes’ study, Perkins is flooded of a
- great light.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aaron Burr!” he cries, and rushes off to Fort Stoddart.
- </p>
- <p>
- Perkins, out of breath, tells his news to Captain Gaines. Two hours later,
- as Aaron comes riding down a hill, he is met by Captain Gaines and a sober
- file of soldiers.
- </p>
- <p>
- The captain salutes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are Colonel Burr,” he says. “I arrest you by order of President
- Jefferson. You must go with me to Fort Stoddart, where you will be treated
- with the respect due one who has honorably filled the second highest post
- of Government.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” responds Aaron, unruffled and superior, “I am Colonel Burr. I yield
- myself your prisoner; since, with the force at your command, it is not
- possible to do otherwise.” Aaron rides with Captain Gaines to the fort. As
- the two dismount at the captain’s quarters, a beautiful woman greets them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is my wife, Colonel Burr,” says Captain Gaines. Then, to Madam
- Gaines: “Colonel Burr will be our guest at dinner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, the captain, and the beautiful Madam Gaines go in to dinner. Two
- sentries with fixed bayonets march and countermarch before the door. Aaron
- beholds in them the sign visible that his program of empire, which has
- cost him so much and whereon his hopes were builded so high, is forever
- thrust aside. Smooth, polished, deferential, brilliant—the beautiful
- Madam Gaines says she has yet to meet a more fascinating man! Aaron is
- never more steadily composed, never more at polite ease than now when
- power and empire vanish for all time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You appreciate my position, sir,” says Captain Gaines, as they rise from
- the table. “I trust you do not blame me for performing my duty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” returns Aaron, with an acquiescent bow, “I blame only the hateful,
- thick stupidity of Jefferson, and my own criminal dullness in trusting a
- scoundrel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIX—HOW AARON IS INDICTED
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is evening at
- the White House. The few dinner guests have departed, and Jefferson is
- alone in his study. As he stands at the open window, and gazes out across
- the sweep of lawn to the Potomac, shining like silver in the rays of the
- full May moon, his face is cloudy and angry. The face of the sage of
- Monticello has put aside its usual expression of philosophy. In place of
- the calm that should reign there, the look which prevails is one of
- narrowness, prejudice and wrathful passion.
- </p>
- <p>
- Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without
- surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, Wirt!” he cries; “be seated, please. You got my note?”
- </p>
- <p>
- William Wirt is thirty-five—a clean, well-bred example of the
- conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but with
- the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the reason
- of his White House presence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your note, Mr. President?” he repeats. “Oh, yes; I received it. What you
- propose is highly flattering. And yet—and yet——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet what, sir?” breaks in Jefferson impatiently. “Surely, I propose
- nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to
- conduct the case against Colonel Burr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing unusual, of course,” returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen
- political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what he
- is about. “And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which should
- be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the Government’s
- attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as well as duty to
- prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled upon him. Have
- you thought of Mr. Hay?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity!
- no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have about
- him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, sir; he
- seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, he has done
- quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; there is much
- depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr must be
- convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and set a
- monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single item,
- must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to be on
- trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be ‘The People
- against Aaron Burr.’ but ‘The Federalists against Thomas Jefferson.’ Do
- you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as much as is the
- Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, will be on the
- bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their instrument, Colonel
- Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a support as George Hay.
- It is you who must conduct this cause.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless
- dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much
- the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his
- speech.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You surely do not mean to say,” he begins, “that the chief justice——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean to say,” interrupts Jefferson, “that you must be ready to meet
- every trick that Marshall can play against the Government. For all his
- black robe, is he of different clay than any other? Believe me, he’s a
- Federalist long before he’s a judge! Let me ask a question: Why did
- Marshall, the chief justice, mind you, hold the preliminary examination of
- Burr? Why, having held it, did he not commit him for treason? Why did he
- hold him only for a misdemeanor, and admit him to bail? Does not that look
- as though Marshall had taken possession of the case in Burr’s interest?
- You spoke a moment ago of the propriety of Hay prosecuting the charge
- against Burr, being, as he is, the Government’s attorney for that
- district. Does not it occur to you that his honor, Judge Griffin, is the
- judge for that district? And yet Marshall shoves him aside to make room on
- the bench for himself. Sir, there is chicanery in this. We must watch
- Marshall. A chief justice, indeed! A chief Federalist, rather! Why, he
- even so much lacked selfrespect as to become a guest at a dinner given in
- Colonel Burr’s honor, after he had committed that traitor in ten thousand
- dollars bail! An excellent, a dignified chief justice, truly!—doing
- dinner table honor to one whom he must presently try for a capital
- offense!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Justice Marshall’s appearance at the Burr dinner”—Wirt makes the
- admission doubtfully—“was not, I admit, in the very flower of good
- taste. None the less, I should infer honesty rather than baseness from
- such appearance. If he contemplated any wrong in Colonel Burr’s favor, he
- would have remained away. Coming to the case itself,” says Wirt, anxious
- to avoid further discussion of Judge Marshall, as a topic whereon he and
- Jefferson are not likely to agree, “what is the specific act of treason
- with which the Government charges Colonel Burr?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The conspiracy, wherein he was prime mover, aimed first to take Mexico
- from, the Spanish. Having taken Mexico, the plotters—Colonel Burr at
- the head—purposed seizing New Orleans. That would give them a hold
- in the vast region drained by the Mississippi. Everything west of the
- Alleghenies was expected to flock round their standards. With an empire
- reaching from Darien to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific to the
- Alleghenies, their final move was to be made upon Washington itself. Sir,
- the Federalists hate this republic—have always hated it! What they
- desire is a monarchy. They want a king, not a president, in the White
- House.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I learn,” observes Wirt—“I learn, since my arrival, that Colonel
- Burr has been in Washington.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was three days ago. He demanded copies of my orders to General
- Wilkinson. When I prevented his obtaining them, he said he would move for
- a <i>subpoena duces tecum</i>, addressed to me personally. Think of that,
- sir! Can you conceive of greater impudence? He will sue out a subpoena
- against the President of this country, and compel him to come into court
- bringing the archives of Government!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt shrugs his shoulders. “And why not, sir?” he asks at last. “In the
- eye of the law a president is no more sacred than a pathmaster. A murder
- might be committed in the White House grounds. You, looking from that
- window, might chance to witness it—might, indeed, be the only
- witness. You yourself are a lawyer, Mr. President. You will not tell me
- that an innocent man, accused of murder, is to be denied your testimony?—that
- he is to hang rather than ruffle a presidential dignity? What is the
- difference between the case I’ve supposed and that against Colonel Burr?
- He is to be charged with treason, you say! Very well; treason is a hanging
- matter as much as murder.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson and Wirt, step by step, go over the arrest of Aaron, and what
- led to it. It is settled that Wirt shall control for the prosecution.
- Also, when the Grand Jury is struck, he must see to it that Aaron is
- indicted for treason.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marshall has confined the inquiry,” says Jefferson, “to what Burr
- contemplated against Mexico—a mere misdemeanor! You, Wirt, must have
- the Grand Jury take up that part of the conspiracy which was leveled
- against this country. There is abundant testimony. Burr talked it to Eaton
- in Washington, to Morgan in Ohio, to Wilkinson at Fort Massac.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You speak of his <i>talking</i> treason,” returns Wirt with a thoughtful,
- non-committal air. “Did he anywhere or on any occasion <i>act</i> it? Was
- there any overt act of war?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What should you call the doings at Blennerhassett Island?—the
- gathering of men and stores?—the boat-building at Marietta and
- Nashville? Are not those, taken with the intention, hostile acts?—overt
- acts of war?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt falls into deep study. “We must,” he says after a moment’s silence,
- “leave those questions, I fear, for Justice Marshall to decide.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson relates how he has written Governor Pinckney of South Carolina,
- advising the arrest of Alston.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be sure, Alston is not so bad as Colonel Burr,” he observes, “for the
- reason that he is not so big as Colonel Burr; just as a young rattlesnake
- is not so venomous as an old one.” Then, impressively: “Wirt, Colonel Burr
- is a dangerous man! He will find his place in history as the Catiline of
- America.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt cannot hide a smile. “It is but fair you should say so, Mr.
- President, since at the Richmond hearing he spoke of you as a presidential
- Jack Straw.” Seeing that Jefferson does not enjoy the reference, Wirt
- hastens to another subject. “Colonel Burr will have formidable counsel.
- Aside from Wickham, and Botts, and Edmund Randolph, across from Maryland
- will come Luther Martin.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Luther Martin!” cries Jefferson. “So they are to unloose that Federal
- bulldog against me! But then the whisky-swilling beast is never sober.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No more safe as an adversary for that,” retorts Wirt. “If I am ever
- called upon to write Luther Martin’s epitaph, I shall make it ‘Ever drunk
- and ever dangerous!’”
- </p>
- <p>
- On the bench sits Chief Justice Marshall—tall, slender—eyes as
- black as Aaron’s own—face high, dignified—brow noble, full—the
- whole man breathing distinction. By his side, like some small thing lost
- in shadow, no one noticing him, no one addressing him, a picture of silent
- humility, sits District Judge Griffin.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the Government comes Wirt, sneering, harsh—as cold and hard and
- fine and keen as thrice-tempered steel. With him is Hay—slow,
- pompous, of much respectability and dull weakness. Assisting Wirt and Hay
- and filling a minor place, is one McRae.
- </p>
- <p>
- Leading for the defense, is Aaron himself—confident, unshaken.
- Already he has begun to relay his plans of Mexican conquest. He assures
- Blennerhassett, who is with him, that the present interruption should mean
- no more than a time-waste of six months. With Aaron sit Edmund Randolph,
- the local Nestor; Wickham, clear, sure of law and fact; and Botts, the
- Bayard of the Richmond bar. Most formidable is Aaron’s rear guard, the
- thunderous Luther Martin—coarse, furious, fearless—gay clothes
- stained and soiled—ruffles foul and grimy—eye fierce, bleary,
- bloodshot—nose bulbous, red as a carbuncle—a hoarse, roaring,
- threatening voice—the Thersites of the hour. Never sober, he rolls
- into court as drunk as a Plantagenet. Ever dangerous, he reads, hears,
- sees everything, and forgets nothing. Quick, rancorous, headlong as a
- fighting bull, he lowers his horns against Wirt, whenever that polished
- one puts himself within forensic reach. Also, for all his cool, sneering
- skill, Toreador Wirt never meets the charge squarely, but steps aside from
- it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Apropos of nothing, as Martin takes his place by the trial table, he roars
- out:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why is this trial ordered for Richmond? Why is it not heard in
- Washington? It is by command of Jefferson, sir. He thinks that in his own
- State of Virginia, where he is invincible and Colonel Burr a stranger, the
- name of ‘Jefferson’ will compel a verdict of guilt. There is fairness for
- you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt glances across, but makes no response to the tirade; for Martin,
- purple of face, snorting ferociously, seems only waiting a word from him
- to utter worse things.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Grand Jury is chosen: foreman, John Randolph of Roanoke—sour,
- inimical, hateful, voice high and spiteful like the voice of a scolding
- woman! The Grand Jury is sent to its room to deliberate as to indictments,
- while the court adjourns for the day.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is well into the evening when the parties in interest leave the
- courtroom. As Wirt and Hay, arm in arm, are crossing the courthouse green,
- they become aware of an orator who, loud of tone and careless of his
- English, is addressing a crowd from the steps of a corner grocery. Just as
- the two arrive within earshot, the orator, lean, hawklike of face, tosses
- aloft a rake-handle arm, and shouts:
- </p>
- <p>
- “When Jefferson says that Colonel Burr is a traitor, Jefferson lies in his
- throat!” The crowd applaud enthusiastically.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hay looks at Wirt. “Who is the fellow?” he asks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! he’s a swashbuckler militia general,” returns Wirt, carelessly. “He’s
- a low fellow, I’m told; his name is Andrew Jackson. He was one of Colonel
- Burr’s confederates. They say he’s the greatest blackguard in Tennessee.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Just now, did some Elijah touch the Wirtian elbow and tell of a day to
- come when he, Wirt, will be driven to resign that coveted attorney
- generalship into the presidential hands of the “blackguard,” who will
- receive it promptly, and dismiss him into private life no more than half
- thanked for what public service he has rendered, the ambitious Virginian
- would hold the soothsayer to be a madman, not a prophet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Scores upon scores of witnesses are sent one by one to the Grand Jury. The
- days run into weeks. Every hour the question is asked: “Where is
- Wilkinson?” The red-nosed one is strangely, exasperatingly absent.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt seeks to explain that absence. The journey is long, he says. He will
- pledge his honor for the red-nosed one’s appearance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile the friends of Aaron pour in from North and West and South. The
- stubborn, faithful Swartwout is there, with his brother Samuel; for,
- Samuel Swartwout and young Ogden and Adair and Bollman, shipped aforetime
- per schooner to Baltimore by the red-nosed one as traitors, have been
- declared innocent, and are all in Richmond attending upon their chief.
- </p>
- <p>
- One morning the whisper goes about that “Wilkinson is here.” The whisper
- is confirmed by the red-nosed one’s appearance in court. Young Washington
- Irving, who has come down from New York in the interest of Aaron, writes
- concerning that red-nosed advent:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line
- with Colonel Burr. Here he stood for a moment swelling like a turkey cock,
- and bracing himself to meet Colonel Burr’s eye. The latter took no notice
- of him, until Judge Marshall directed the clerk to “swear General
- Wilkinson.” At the mention of the name, Colonel Burr turned and looked him
- full in the face, with one of his piercing regards, swept him from head to
- foot, and then went on conversing with his counsel as before. The whole
- look was over in a moment; and yet it was admirable. There was no
- appearance of study or constraint, no affectation of disdain or defiance;
- only a slight expression of contempt played across the countenance, such
- as one might show on seeing a person whom one considers mean and vile.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- That evening Samuel Swartwout meets the red-nosed one, as the latter
- warrior is strutting on the walk for the admiration of men, and thrusts
- him into a mud hole. The lean Jackson is so delighted at this disposition
- of the rednosed one, that he clasps the warlike Swartwout in his
- rake-handle arms. Later, by twenty-two years, he will make him collector
- of the port of New York for it. Just now, however, he advises a duel,
- holding that the mudhole episode will be otherwise incomplete.
- </p>
- <p>
- Since Swartwout has had the duel in his mind from the beginning, he and
- the lean Jackson combine in the production of a challenge, which is duly
- sent to the red-nosed one in the name of Swartwout. The red-nosed one has
- no heart for duels, and crawls from under the challenge by saying, “I
- refuse to hold communication with a traitor.” Thereupon Swartwout, with
- the lean Jackson to aid him, again lapses into the clerical, and prints
- the following gorgeous outburst in the <i>Richmond Gazette:</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Brigadier General Wilkinson: Sir: When once the chain of infamy
- grapples to a knave, every new link creates a fresh sensation of
- detestation and horror. As it gradually or precipitately unfolds itself,
- we behold in each succeeding connection, and arising from the same corrupt
- and contaminated source, the same base and degenerated conduct. I could
- not have supposed that you would have completed the catalogue of your
- crimes by adding to the guilt of treachery forgery and perjury the
- accomplishment of cowardice. Having failed in two different attempts to
- procure an interview with you, such as no gentleman of honor could refuse,
- I have only to pronounce and publish you to the world as a coward.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Samuel Swartwout.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The Grand Jury comes into court, and by the shrill mouth of Foreman
- Randolph reports two indictments against Aaron: one for treason, “as
- having levied war against the United States,” and one for “having levied
- war upon a country, to wit, Mexico, with which the United States are at
- peace”—the latter a misdemeanor.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XX—HOW AARON IS FOUND INNOCENT
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE indictments are
- read, and Aaron pleads “Not guilty!” Thereupon Luther Martin moves for a
- <i>subpoena duces tecum</i> against Jefferson, commanding him to bring
- into court those written orders from the files of the War Department,
- which he, as President and <i>ex officio</i> commander in chief of the
- army, issued to the red-nosed Wilkinson. Arguing the motion, the violent
- Martin proceeds in these words:
- </p>
- <p>
- “We intend to show that these orders were contrary to the Constitution and
- the laws. We intend to show that by these orders Colonel Burr’s property
- and person were to be destroyed; yes, by these tyrannical orders the life
- and property of an innocent man were to be exposed to destruction. This is
- a peculiar case, sirs. President Jefferson has undertaken to prejudge my
- client by declaring that ‘of his guilt there can be no doubt!’ He has
- assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and pretended to
- search the heart of my client. He has proclaimed him a traitor in the face
- of the country. He has let slip the dogs of war, the hell-hounds of
- persecution, to hunt down my client. And now, would the President of the
- United States, who has himself raised all this clamor, pretend to keep
- back the papers wanted for a trial where life itself is at stake? It is a
- sacred principle that the accused has a right to the evidence needed for
- his defense, and whosoever—whether he be a president or some lesser
- man—withholds such evidence is substantially a murderer, and will,
- be so recorded in the register of heaven.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Argument ended, Marshall, chief justice, sustains the motion. He holds
- that the <i>subpoena duces tecum</i> may issue, and goes so far as to say
- that, if it be necessary to the ends of justice, the personal attendance
- of Jefferson himself shall be compelled.
- </p>
- <p>
- The charge is treason, and no bail can be taken; Aaron must be locked up.
- The Governor of Virginia offers as a place of detention a superb suite of
- rooms, meant for official occupation, on the third floor of the
- penitentiary building. Marshall, chief justice, accepting such proffer,
- orders Aaron’s confinement in the superb official suite. Aaron takes
- possession, stocks the larder, loads the sideboards, and, with a cloud of
- servitors, gives a dinner party to twenty friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lustrous Theo arrives, and makes her residence with Aaron in the
- official suite, as lady of the establishment. Each day a hundred visitors
- call, among them the aristocracy of the town. Also dinner follows dinner;
- the official suite assumes a gala, not to say a gallant look, and no one
- would think it a prison, or dream for one urbane moment that Aaron—that
- follower of the gospel according to Lord Chesterfield—is fighting
- for his life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Following the order for the <i>subpoena duces tecum</i>, and Aaron’s
- dinner-giving incarceration in the official suite, Marshall, chief
- justice, directs that court be adjourned until August—a month away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt, during the vacation, goes over to Washington. He finds Jefferson in
- a mood of double anger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What did I tell you,” cries Jefferson—“what did I tell you of
- Marshall?” Then he rushes on to the utterances of the violent Luther
- Martin. “Shall you not move,” he demands, “to commit Martin as <i>particeps
- criminis</i> with Colonel Burr? There should be evidence to fix upon him
- misprision of treason, at least. At any rate, such a step would put down
- our impudent Federal bulldog, and show that the most clamorous defenders
- of Colonel Burr are one and all his accomplices.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile, the “impudent Federal bulldog” attends a Fourth-of-July dinner
- in Baltimore. Every man at table, save himself, is an adherent of
- Jefferson. Eager to demonstrate that loyal fact to the administration,
- sundry of the guests make speeches full of uncompliment for Martin, and
- propose a toast:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aaron Burr! May his treachery to his country exalt him to the scaffold!”
- </p>
- <p>
- More speeches, replete of venom, are aimed at Martin; whereupon that
- undaunted drunkard gets upon his feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is this Aaron Burr,” he roars, “whose guilt you have pronounced, and
- for whose blood your parched throats so thirst? Was not he, a few years
- back, adored by you next to your God? Were not you then his warmest
- admirers? Did not he then possess every virtue? He was then in power. He
- had influence. You were proud of his notice. His merest smile brightened
- all your faces. His merest frown lengthened all your visages. Go, ye
- holiday, ye sunshine friends!—ye time-servers, ye criers of hosannah
- to-day and crucifiers to-morrow!—go; hide your heads from the
- contempt and detestation of every honorable, every right-minded man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- August: The day of trial arrives. Wirt, with the dull, deferent Hay, has
- gone over the testimony against Aaron, and arranged the procession of its
- introduction. Wirt will begin far back. By the mouth of the red-nosed
- Wilkinson—somewhat in hiding from Swartwout—and by others, he
- will relate from the beginning Aaron’s dream of Mexican conquest. He will
- show how the vision grew and expanded until it reacted upon the United
- States, and the downfall of Washington became as much parcel of Aaron’s
- design as was the capture of Mexico. He will trace Aaron through his many
- conferences in Washington, in Marietta, in Nashville, in Cincinnati; and
- then on to New Orleans, where he is closeted with Merchant Clark and the
- Bishop of Louisiana.
- </p>
- <p>
- And so the parties go into court.
- </p>
- <p>
- The jury being sworn, Marshall, chief justice, at once overthrows those
- well-laid plans of Wirt.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must go to the act, sir,” says Marshall.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Treason, like murder, is an act. You can’t think treason, you can’t plot
- treason, you can’t talk treason; you can only act it. In murder you must
- first prove the killing—the murderous act, before you may offer
- evidence of an intent. And so in treason. You must begin by proving the
- overt act of war against the country, before I can permit evidence of an
- intent which led up to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This ruling throws Wirt abroad in his calculations. The “Federal bulldog”
- Martin grows vulgarly gleeful, Wirt correspondingly glum.
- </p>
- <p>
- Being prodded by Marshall, chief justice, Wirt declares that the “act of
- war” was the assembling of forty armed men, under one Taylor, at
- Blennerhassett Island. They stopped at the island but a moment, and Aaron
- himself was in Lexington. None the less there were forty of them; they
- were armed; they were there by design and plan of Aaron, with an ultimate
- purpose of levying war against this Government. Wirt urges that
- constructive war was at that very island moment being waged, with Aaron
- personally absent but constructively present, and constructively waging
- such war.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this setting forth, Marshall, chief justice, puckers his lips, as might
- one who thinks the argument far-fetched and overfinely spun. Martin, the
- “Federal bulldog,” does not scruple to laugh outright.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was ever heard such hash!” cries Martin. “Men may bear arms without
- waging war! Forty men no more mean war than four! Men may float down the
- Ohio, and still no war be waged. Because the hypochondriac Jefferson
- imagined war, we are to receive the thing as <i>res adjudicata</i>, and
- now give way while a pleasantly concocted tale, of that carnage of a
- presidential nightmare, is recited from the witness box. Sirs, you are not
- to fiddle folk onto a scaffold to any such tune as that, though a
- president furnish the music.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Marshall, chief justice, still with pursed lips and knotted forehead,
- directs Wirt to proceed with his evidence of what, at Blennerhassett
- Island, he relies upon to constitute, constructively or otherwise, a state
- of war. Having heard the evidence, he will pass upon the points of law
- presented.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt, desperate because he may do no better, puts forward one Eaton as a
- witness. The latter tells a long, involved story, which sounds vastly like
- fiction and not at all like fact, of conversations with Aaron. Aaron
- brings out in cross examination, that within ten days after he, Eaton,
- went with this tale to Jefferson, a claim for ten thousand dollars, which
- he had been pressing without success against the Government, was paid.
- Aaron suggests that Eaton, to induce payment of such claim, invented his
- narrative; and the suggestion is plainly acceptable to the jury.
- </p>
- <p>
- Following Eaton, Wirt calls Truxton; and next the suspicious Morgan, who
- first wrote to Jefferson touching Aaron and his plans. Then follow
- Blennerhassett’s gardener and groom, and one Woodbridge, Blennerhassett’s
- man of business. Wirt, by these, proves Aaron’s frequent presence on the
- island; the boats building at Marietta; the advent of Taylor with his
- forty armed men, and there the relation ends. In all—the testimony,
- not a knife is ground, not a flint is picked, not a rifle fired; the forty
- armed men do not so much as indulge in drill. For all they said or did or
- acted, the forty might have been explorers, or sightseers, or settlers, or
- any other form of peaceful whatnot.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose,” observes Marshall, chief justice, bending his black eyes
- warningly upon Wirt—“I suppose it unnecessary to instruct counsel
- that guilt will not be presumed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wirt replies stiffly that counsel for the Government, at least, require no
- instructions; whereat Martin the “Federal bulldog” barks hoarsely up, that
- what counsel for the Government most require, and are most deficient in,
- is a case and the evidence of it. Wirt pays no heed to the jeer, but
- announces that under the ruling of the court, made before evidence was
- introduced, he has nothing more to offer touching acts of overt war. He
- rests his case, he says, on that point; and thereupon, the defense take
- issue with him. The Government, Aaron declares, has failed to make out
- even the shadow of a treason. There is nothing which demands reply; he
- will call no witnesses.
- </p>
- <p>
- Marshall, chief justice, directs that the arguments to the jury be
- proceeded with. Wirt is heard. Being imaginative, and having no facts, he
- unchains his fancy and paints a paradise, whereof Aaron is the serpent and
- Blennerhassett and his moon-visaged spouse are Adam and Eve. It is a
- beautiful picture, and might be effective did it carry any grain of truth.
- However, it is well received by the jury as a romance full of entertaining
- glow and glitter; and then it is put aside from serious consideration.
- </p>
- <p>
- While Wirt the fanciful is thus coloring his invented paradise, with Aaron
- as the serpent and the Blennerhassetts the betrayed Adam and Eve, the
- “betrayed” Blennerhassett, sitting by Aaron’s side, is reading the
- “serpent” a letter, that day received from Madam Blennerhassett. The
- missive closes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and Theo’s
- kind remembrances. Tell him to assure her that she has inspired me with a
- warmth of attachment that never can diminish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- On the oratorical back of Wirt come Wickham, Hay, Randolph, Botts, and
- McRae. Lastly Martin is heard, the “Federal bulldog” seizing the occasion
- to bay Jefferson even more violently than before. When they are done,
- Marshall, chief justice, lays down the law as to what should constitute an
- “overt act of war”; and, since it is plain, even to the court crier, that
- no such act has been proven, the jury hurry forward a finding:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not guilty!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jefferson, full of prejudice, hears the news. He writes wrathfully to
- Wirt:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let no witness depart without taking a copy of his evidence, which is now
- more important than ever. The criminal Burr is preserved, it seems, to
- become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worthless of the
- United States, and to be the pivot on which all the conspiracies and
- intrigues, that foreign governments may wish to disturb us with, are to
- turn. There is still, however, the misdemeanor; and, if he be convicted of
- that, Judge Marshall must, for very decency, give us some respite by a
- confinement of him; but we must expect it to be very short.” There is a
- day’s recess; then the charge of “levying war against Mexico” is called.
- The red-nosed Wilkinson now tells his story; and is made to admit—the
- painful sweat standing in great drops upon his purple visage—that he
- has altered in important respects several of Aaron’s letters. Being, by
- his own mouth, a forger, the jury marks its estimate of the red-nosed one
- by again acquitting Aaron, and pronouncing a second finding: “Not guilty!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus ends the great trial which has rocked a continent. Aaron is free; his
- friends crowd about him jubilantly, while the loving, lustrous Theo weeps
- upon his shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXI—THE SAILING AWAY OF AARON.
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>IX months creep
- by; May is painting Manhattan with its flowers. The house of the stubborn,
- loyal Swartwout is in Stone Street. Long ago, in the old Dutch
- beaver-peltry days, the home of the poet Steen-dam was there. Now it is
- the dwelling place of John Swartwout, and Aaron is his guest.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lustrous Theo is with Aaron this sunny afternoon, luster something
- dimmed; for the hour is one sad and tearful with parting. It is a last
- parting; though the pair—the loving father! the adoring, clinging
- daughter!—hopefully, happily blind, believe otherwise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” Aaron is saying, “I must sail tonight. The ship is at anchor in the
- lower bay.” Theo, the lustrous, is too bravely the child of Aaron to break
- into lamentation, though the wrung heart fills her eyes with tears. “And
- should your plans fail,” she says, “you will come to us at the ‘Oaks.’
- Joseph, you know, is no longer ‘Mr. Alston,’ but ‘Governor Alston.’ As
- father to the Governor of the State, and with your own high name, you may
- take what place you will in South Carolina. You promise, do you not? If by
- any trip of fortune your prospects are overthrown, you will come to us in
- the South?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, dearling, my plans will not fail. I have had letters from Lords
- Mulgrave and Castlereagh, I bear with me the indorsement of the British
- Minister in Washington. Openly or secretly, England will support my
- project with men and money and ships. If, in some caprice of politics or a
- changing cabinet, she should refuse, I shall seek Napoleon. Mexico and an
- empire!—that should match finely the native color of his Corsican
- feeling.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Night draws on; Aaron and the lustrous Theo say the sorrowful words of
- separation, and within the hour he is aboard the <i>Clarissa</i>, outward
- bound for England.
- </p>
- <p>
- In London, full of new fire, Aaron throws away no time. Each day he is
- closeted with Mulgrave, Castlereagh and Canning. He goes to Holland House,
- and its noble master is seized with the fever for Montezuman conquest. The
- inventive Earl of Bridgewater—who is radical and goes readily to
- novel enterprises—catches the Mexican fury. The spirit of Cortez is
- abroad; the nobility of England fall quickly in with Aaron’s Western
- design. It will mean an augmentation of the world’s peerage. Also, Mexico
- should furnish an admirable grazing ground for second sons. Aaron’s
- affairs go swimmingly; he is full of hopeful anticipation. He writes the
- lustrous Theo at the “Oaks” that, “save for the unforeseen,” little Aaron
- Burr Alston shall yet wear an imperial crown as Aaron II.
- </p>
- <p>
- Save for the unforeseen! The reservation is well put in. As Aaron sits in
- conference, one foggy London evening, with Mulgrave and Castlereagh, who
- have become principal figures in those Mexican designs, Canning comes
- hurriedly in.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am from the Foreign Office,” says he, “and I come with bad news. There
- is a lion in our path—two lions. Secret news was just received that
- Napoleon has driven the king and queen from Madrid, and established his
- brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Mexico by that: stroke belongs to
- the Bonapartes; they will hardly consent to its loss.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is one lion,” observes Mulgrave; “now for the other.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The other is England,” proceeds Canning. “Already we are mustering our
- forces, and enlisting ships, to drive the Corsican out of Spain. We are to
- become the allies of the royal outcasts, and restore them to Spanish
- power. I need not draw the inference. As Spain’s ally, fighting her
- battles against the French in the Peninsula, England will no more permit
- the loss of Mexico than will Napoleon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron listens; a chill of disappointment touches his strong heart. He
- understands how wholly lost are his hopes, even before Canning is through
- talking. He had two strings to his bow; both have snapped. No chance now
- of either France or England aiding him. His prospects, so bright but the
- moment before, are on the instant darkened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Delay! always delay!” he murmurs. Then his courage mounts again; the
- chill is driven from his heart. He is too thoroughbred to despond, and
- quickly pulls himself together. “Yes,” says he, “the word you bring shuts
- double doors against us. The best we may do is wait—wait for
- Napoleon to win or lose in Spain. Should England hurl him back across the
- Pyrenees, we may resume our plans again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indubitably,” returns Canning. “Should England save Spain from the
- Corsican, she might well lay claim to the right of disposing of Mexico as
- a recompense for her exertions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus, for the time, by force of events in far-off Spain, is Aaron
- compelled to fold away his ambitions.
- </p>
- <p>
- While waiting the turn of fortune’s wheel in Spain, Aaron fills in his
- leisure with society. Everywhere he is the lion. “The celebrated Colonel
- Burr!” is the phrase by which he is presented. Entertained as well as
- instructed by what he sees and hears, he begins to keep a journal. It
- shall one day be read with interest by the lustrous Theo, he thinks.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jeremy Bentham—honest, fussy, sprightly, full of dreams for
- bettering governments—finds out Aaron. The honest, fussy Bentham
- loves admiration and the folk who furnish it. He has heard from
- letter-writing friends in America that “the celebrated Colonel Burr” reads
- his works with satisfaction. That is enough for honest, fussy,
- praise-loving Bentham, and he drags Aaron off to live with him at Barrow
- Green.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You,” cries the delighted Bentham, when he has the “celebrated Colonel
- Burr” as a member of his family—“you and Albert Gallatin are the
- only two in the United States who appreciate my ideas. For the common mind—which
- is as dull and crawling as a tortoise—my theories travel too fast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron lives with Bentham—fussy, kindly, pragmatical Bentham—now
- at Barrow Green, now at the philosopher’s London house in Queen Square
- Place. From this latter high vantage he sallies forth and meets William
- Godwin; and Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, carry him off to tea with
- Charles and Mary Lamb. He writes in his journal:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go with the Godwins to Mr. Lamb’s. He is a writer, and lives with a
- maiden sister, also literary, up four pairs of stairs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At the Lambs he encounters Faseli the painter; and thereupon Aaron, the
- Godwins, Faseli, and the Lambs brew a bowl of punch, and thresh out
- questions social, artistic, literary, and political until the hours grow
- small.
- </p>
- <p>
- Cobbett talks with Aaron; and straight off runs to Bentham with the
- suggestion that they send him to Parliament. Aaron laughs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m afraid,” says he, “that whatever may be my genius for law-giving, it
- would fit but badly with English prejudice and English inclination. You
- would find me in the British Commons but a sorry case of a square peg in a
- round hole.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That Aaron is the fashion at Holland House, which is the gathering point
- of opposition to Government, does not help him at the Home Office. Also,
- the Spanish allies of England, through their minister, complain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is fomenting his Mexican design,” cries the Spaniard. “It shows but
- poorly for England’s friendship that she harbors him, and that he is feted
- and feasted by her nobility.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lord Hawkesbury leans to the Spanish view. He will assert his powers under
- the “Alien Act.” It will please the Spaniards. Likewise, it will offend
- Holland House. Two birds; one stone. Hawkesbury sends a request that Aaron
- call upon him at his office; and Aaron calls.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This, you will understand,” observes Hawkesbury, “is not a personal but
- an official interview, Colonel Burr. I might hope to make it more pleasant
- were it personal. Speaking as one of the crown’s secretaries, I must
- notify you to quit England.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is your authority for this?” asks Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find it in the ‘Alien Act.’ Under that statute, Government is
- invested with power to order the departure of any alien without assigning
- cause.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely! Your Government is now engaged in searching American ships for
- English sailors. It was, I recall, the basis of bitter complaint in
- America when I left. In seizing those whom you call English sailors and
- subjects, you refuse to recognize their naturalization as citizens of
- America. Do I state the fact?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Assuredly! No Englishman has a right to shift his allegiance from his
- king. That is British doctrine. Once a subject, always a subject.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The very point!” returns Aaron. “Once a subject, always a subject. I
- suppose you will not deny that I was in 1756 born in New Jersey, then a
- province of England. I was born a British subject, was I not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no doubt of that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, sir, being born a British subject, under your doctrine of ‘Once a
- subject, always a subject,’ I am still a British subject. Therefore, I am
- no alien. Therefore, I do not fall within the description of your ‘Alien
- Act.’ You can hardly order me to quit England as an alien at the very
- moment when you say I am a British subject. My lord”—this with a
- smile like a warning—“the story, if told in the papers, would get
- your lordship laughed at.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hawkesbury falls back baffled. He keeps his face, however, and tells Aaron
- the matter may rest until he further considers it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron visits Oxford, and is wined and dined by the grave college heads. He
- talks Bentham and religion to his hosts, and they fall to amiable
- disagreement with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We then,” he writes in his journal, “got upon American politics and
- geography, upon which subjects a most profound and learned ignorance was
- displayed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Birmingham entertains Aaron; Stratford makes him welcome. He travels to
- Edinburgh, and is the victim of parties, dinners, balls, sermons,
- assemblies, plays, lectures, and other Scottish dissipations. The bench
- and bar cannot get too much of him. Mackenzie, who wrote the “Man of
- Feeling,” and Walter Scott, who is in the “Marmion” stage of his
- development, seek his acquaintance. Aaron sees a deal of these lettered
- ones, and sets down in his diary that:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mackenzie has twelve children; six of them daughters, all interesting,
- and two handsome. He is sprightly, amiable, witty. Scott, with less
- softness, has more animation—talks much and is very agreeable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron stays a month with his Scotch friends, and returns to London. He
- resumes the old round of club and drawing-room, with Holland, Melville,
- Mulgrave, Castlereagh, Canning, Bentham, Cobbett, Godwin, Lamb, Faseli,
- and others political, philosophical, social, literary, and artistic.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day as he returns from breakfast at Holland House, he finds a note on
- his table. It is from Lord Liverpool. The note is polite, bland,
- insinuating, flattering. It says, none the less, that “The presence of
- Colonel Burr in Great Britain is embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government,
- and it is the wish and expectation of Government that he remove.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The note continues to the courteous effect that “passports will be
- furnished Colonel Burr,” and a free passage in an English ship to any port—not
- English.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron replies to Lord Liverpool’s note, and says that having become, as
- his Lordship declares, “embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government,” he
- must, of course, as a gentleman “gratify the wishes of Government by
- withdrawing.” He adds that Sweden, now he may no longer stay in England,
- is his preference.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes to Stockholm, and has trouble with the language but none with
- the inhabitants, who receive him with open hearts and arms. At once he is
- called upon to play the distinguished guest in highest circles, and does
- it with usual easy grace. He spends three months in Stockholm, and two in
- traveling about the kingdom. The excellence of the roads and the lack of
- toll-gates amaze him. Likewise, he is in rapture over Swedish honesty. He
- makes an admiring dash at the laws of the realm, and spreads on his
- journal:
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no country in which personal liberty is so well secured; none in
- which the violation of it is punished with so much certainty and
- promptitude; none in which justice is administered with so much dispatch
- and so little expense.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron attends the opera, and cannot say too much in praise of the Swedish
- appreciation of music. He exalts the sensibility of the Norsemen.
- Returning from the opera, he lights his candle and writes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What most interested me was the perfect attention and the uncommon degree
- of feeling exhibited by the audience. Every countenance was affected by
- those emotions which the music expressed. In England you see no expression
- painted on the faces at a concert or an opera. All is somber and grim.
- They cry ‘Bravo! bravissimo!’ with the same countenance wherewith they
- curse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- From Sweden Aaron repairs to Denmark, and takes up pleasant quarters in
- Copenhagen. Here he goes in for science, ransacks libraries, and attends
- the courts. Studying the Danish jurisprudence, he is struck by that
- amiable feature called the “Committees on Conciliation,” and resolves to
- recommend its adoption in America.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hamburg next. Here Aaron asks for passports into France. They are not
- immediately forthcoming, since under the Corsican passports are more
- easily asked for than obtained. While his passports are making, Aaron is
- visited by the learned Ebeling, and Niebuhr, privy counselor to the king.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron takes six weeks and explores Germany.
- </p>
- <p>
- He sees Hanover, Brunswick, Gottingen, Gotha, Weimar. At Weimar, Goethe
- brings him to his house, where he meets “the amiable, good Wieland,” and
- is dragged off by Goethe to the theater, and sits through a “serious
- comedy” with the Baroness de Stein. He is presented at court, and is
- welcomed by the grand duke—Goethe’s duke—and the grand
- duchess. Here, too, he falls temporarily in love with the noble d’Or, a
- beautiful lady of the ducal court. His love begins to alarm him; he fears
- he may wed the d’Or, remain in Weimar, and “lapse into a Dutchman.” To
- avoid this fate, he beats a hasty retreat to Erfurth. Being safe, he
- cheers his spirits by writing:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Another interview, and I would have been lost! The danger was so
- imminent, and the d’Or so beautiful, that I ordered post horses, gave a
- crown extra to the postilions to whip like the devil, and lo! here I am in
- a warm room, with a neat, good bed, safe locked within four Erfurth walls,
- rejoicing and repining.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Aaron writes this, he lays aside his “repining” for the lovely d’Or,
- and so far emerges from his gloom as to “draw a dirk,” and put to
- thick-soled clattering flight one of the local police, who invades his
- room with the purpose of putting out the candle. Erfurth being a garrison
- town, lights are ordered “out” at nine o’clock. As a mark of respect to
- his dirk, however, Aaron’s candles are permitted to gutter and sputter
- unrebuked until long after midnight.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXII—HOW AARON RETURNS HOME
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE belated
- passports arrive, and Aaron journeys to Paris. It is now with him as it
- was with the unfortunate gentleman, celebrated in Scripture, who went down
- into a certain city only to fall among thieves. Fouché orders his police
- to dog him. The post office is given instructions; his letters are stolen—those
- he writes as well as those he should receive.
- </p>
- <p>
- What is at the bottom of all this French scoundrelism? Madison the weak is
- president in Washington. That is to say, he is called “president,” the
- actual power abiding in Mon-ticello with Jefferson, at whose political
- knee he was reared. Armstrong is Madison’s minister to France. Armstrong
- is a New York politician married to a Livingston, and, per incident, a
- promoted puppet of Jefferson’s. McRae is American consul at Paris—McRae,
- who sat at the back of Wirt and Hay during the Richmond trial. It is these
- influences, directed from Mon-ticello, which, in each of its bureaus,
- oppose the government of Napoleon to Aaron. By orders from Monticello,
- “every captain, French or American, is instructed to convey no letter or
- message or parcel for Colonel Burr. Also such captain is required to make
- anyone handing him a letter or parcel for delivery in the United States,
- to pledge his honor that it contains nothing from Colonel Burr.” In this
- way is Aaron shut off from his friends and his supplies. He writes in his
- diary:
- </p>
- <p>
- “These vexations arise from the machinations of Minister Armstrong, who is
- indefatigable in his exertions to my prejudice, being goaded on by
- personal hatred, political rancor, and the native malevolence of his
- temper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron waits on Savary, and finds that minister polite but helpless. He
- sees Fouché; the policeman is as polite and as helpless as Savary.
- </p>
- <p>
- He calls upon Talleyrand. That ingrate and congenital traitor skulks out
- of an interview. Aaron smiles as he recalls the skulking, limping one
- fawning upon him aforetime at Richmond Hill.
- </p>
- <p>
- Talleyrand puts Aaron in mind of Jerome Bonaparte, now King of Westphalia,
- made so by that kingmonger, his brother. His Royal Highness of Westphalia
- was, like Talleyrand, a guest at Richmond Hill. He, too, has nibbled
- American crusts, and was thankful for American crumbs in an hour when his
- official rating, had he been given one, could not have soared above that
- of a vagrant out of Corsica by way of France. Aaron applies for an
- interview.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His Royal Highness is engaged; he cannot see Colonel Burr,” is the
- response.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not surprised,” says Aaron. “He who will desert a wife will desert a
- friend, and I am not to suppose that one can remember friendship who
- forgets love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Official France shuts and bolts its doors in the face of Aaron to please
- the Man of Monticello. Thereupon Aaron demands his passports of the
- American minister.
- </p>
- <p>
- Armstrong, minister, is out of Paris for the moment, and Aaron goes to
- Consul McRae. That official, feeling the pressure of the Monticello thumb,
- replies:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My knowledge of the circumstances under which Colonel Burr left the
- United States, render it my duty to decline giving him a passport.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Five weeks eaten up in disappointment!
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, who intended remaining but a month in Paris, finds his money
- running out. He confides to his diary:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Behold me, a prisoner of state, and almost without a sou.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron resolves to economize. He removes from his hotel, dismisses his
- servants, and takes up garret lodgings in a back street. He jokes with his
- poverty:
- </p>
- <p>
- “How sedate and sage one is,” he writes, “on only three sous. Eating my
- bread and cheese, and seeing half a bottle of the twenty-five sous wine
- left, I thought it too extravagant to open a bottle of the good. I tried
- to get down the bad, constantly thinking on the other, which was in sight.
- I stuck to the bad and got it all down. Then to pay myself for this
- heroism, I treated myself to a large tumbler of the true Roussillon. I am
- of Santara’s opinion that though a man may be a little the poorer for
- drinking good wine, yet he is, under its influence, much more able to bear
- poverty.” Farther on he sets down: “It is now so cold that I should be
- glad of a fire, but to that there are financial objections. I was near
- going to bed without writing, for it is very cold, and I have but two
- stumps of wood left. By the way, I wear no surtout these days, for a great
- many philosophic reasons, the principal being that I have not got one. The
- old greatcoat, which I brought from America, will serve for traveling if I
- ever travel again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Although official France shuts its doors on Aaron, unofficial France does
- not. The excellent Volney, of a better memory than the King of Westphalia
- or the slily skulking Talleyrand, remembers Richmond Hill. Volney hunts
- out Aaron in his poor lodgings, laughs at his penury, and offers gold.
- Aaron also laughs, and puts back the kindly gold-filled hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” says Volney. “Some other day, when you are a little more
- starved. Meanwhile, come with me; there are beautiful women and brave men
- who are dying to meet the renowned Colonel Burr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Again in salon and drawing-room is Aaron the lion—leaving the most
- splendid scenes to return to his poor, barren den in the back street. And
- yet he likes the contrast. He goes home from the Duchess d’Alberg’s and
- writes this:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The night bad, and the wind blowing down my chimney into the room. After
- several experiments as to how to weather the gale, I discovered that I
- could exist by lying flat on the floor. Here, on the floor, reposing on my
- elbows, a candle by my side, I have been reading ‘L’Espion Anglos,’ and
- writing this. When I got up just now for pen and ink, I found myself
- buried in ashes and cinders. One might have thought I had lain a month at
- the foot of Vesuvius.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, having leisure and a Yankee fancy for invention, decides to remedy
- the chimney. He calls in a chimney doctor, of whom there are many in
- chimney-smoking Paris, and assumes to direct the bricklaying energies of
- that scientist. The <i>fumiste</i> rebels; he objects that to follow
- Aaron’s directions will spoil the chimney.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Monsieur,” returns Aaron grandly, “that is my affair.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The rebellious <i>fumiste</i> is quelled, and lays bricks according to
- directions. The work is completed; the inmates of the house gather about,
- as a fire is lighted, to enjoy the discomfiture of the “insane American”;
- for the <i>fumiste</i> has told. The fire is lighted; the chimney draws to
- perfection; the convinced <i>fumiste</i> sheds tears, and tries to kiss
- Aaron, but is repelled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Monsieur,” cries the repentant <i>fumiste</i>, “if you will but announce
- yourself as a chimney doctor, your fortune is made.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway
- begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys—a forest of
- them, all sick! Aaron writes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was
- assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the
- bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my
- breakfast—coffee, blanc and honey—in the adjoining room, and
- laughing at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much
- wit and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large
- fire. The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a
- hero, especially to the professional <i>fumiste</i>, who bent to the floor
- before me, such was the burden of his respect.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two take
- a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made richer by
- several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for the evening
- before he entered in his journal:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my present
- amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. Have been
- ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou piece might
- not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am out of cigars.
- However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve as a substitute.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know “the
- celebrated Colonel Burr.” Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is a
- privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will do
- but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon and
- Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Get me my passports,” says Aaron.
- </p>
- <p>
- Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae,
- consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor’s post
- office is tired of stealing Aaron’s letters, Fouché’s police weary of
- dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor’s wish that Aaron depart. Maret
- and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting as one
- man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing passports to
- Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is quite willing,
- and makes his way to Amsterdam.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lowering in the world’s sky is the cloud of possible war between England
- and America. “Once a subject, always a subject,” does not match the wants
- of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war fever. The
- feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and hangs back.
- In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war cloud grows
- large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they avoid the ports
- of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the perilous shadow of
- England.
- </p>
- <p>
- This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in Aaron’s
- way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship for New York
- can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland Company’s
- shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the swamps and
- canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with their long
- pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, and, best of
- good fortunes! discovers the American ship <i>Vigilant</i>, Captain
- Combes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can he arrange passage for America?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Combes replies that he can. There is a difficulty, however.
- Captain Combes and his good ship <i>Vigilant</i> are in debt to the Dutch
- in the sum of five hundred guilders. If Aaron will advance the sum, it
- shall be repaid the moment the <i>Vigilant’s</i> anchors are down in New
- York mud. Aaron advances the five hundred guilders. The <i>Vigilant</i>
- sails out of the Helder with Aaron a passenger. Once in blue water, the <i>Vigilant</i>
- is swooped upon by an English frigate, which carries her gayly into
- Yarmouth, a prize.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron writes to the English Alien Office, relates how his homeward voyage
- has been brought to an end, and asks permission to go ashore. Since
- England has somewhat lost interest in Spain, and is on the threshold of
- war with the United States, her objections to Aaron expressed aforetime by
- Lord Liverpool have cooled. Aaron will not now “embarrass his Majesty’s
- Government.” He is granted permission to land; indeed, as though to make
- amends for a past rudeness, the English Government offers Aaron every
- courtesy. Thus he goes to London, and is instantly in the midst of
- Bentham, Godwin, Mulgrave, Canning, Cobbett, and the rest of his old
- friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s funds are at their old Parisian ebb; that loan to Captain Combes,
- which ransomed the <i>Vigilant</i> from the Dutch, well-nigh bankrupted
- him. He got to like poverty in France, however, and does not repine. He
- refuses to go home with Bentham, and takes to cheap London lodgings
- instead. He explains to the fussy, kindly philosopher that his sole
- purpose now is to watch for a home-bound ship, and he can keep no sharp
- lookout from Barrow Green.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once in his poor lodgings, Aaron resumes that iron economy he learned to
- practice in Paris. He sets down this in his diary:
- </p>
- <p>
- “On my way home discovered that I must dine. I find my appetite in the
- inverse ratio to my purse, and I can now conceive why the poor eat so much
- when they can get it. Considering the state of my finances, I bought half
- a pound of boiled beef, eightpence; a quarter of a pound of ham, sixpence;
- one pound of brown sugar, eightpence; two pounds of bread, eight-pence;
- ten pounds of potatoes, fivepence; and then, treating myself to a pot of
- ale, eightpence, proceeded to read the second volume of ‘Ida.’ As I read,
- I boiled my potatoes, and made a great dinner, eating half my beef. Of the
- two necessaries, coffee and tobacco, I have at least a week’s allowance,
- so that without spending another penny, I can keep the machinery going for
- eight days.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At last Aaron’s money is nearly gone. He makes a memorandum of the
- stringency in this wise:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dined at the Hole in the Wall off a chop. Had two halfpence left, which
- are better than a penny would be, because they jingle, and thus one may
- refresh one’s self with the music.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, at this pinch in his fortunes, seeks out a friendly bibliophile,
- and sells him an armful of rare books. In this manner he lifts himself to
- affluence, since he receives sixty pounds.
- </p>
- <p>
- Practicing his economies, and filling his treasury by the sale of his
- books, Aaron is still the center of a brilliant circle. He goes
- everywhere, is received everywhere; for in England poverty comes not amiss
- with the honor of an exile, and is held to be no drawing-room bar. Exiled
- opulence, on the other hand, is at once the subject of gravest British
- suspicions.
- </p>
- <p>
- That Aaron’s experiences have not warmed him toward France, finds
- exhibition one evening at Holland House. He is in talk with the
- inquisitive Lord Balgray, who asks about Napoleon and France.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” says Aaron, “France, under Napoleon, is fast rebarberizing—retrograding
- to the darkest ages of intellectual and moral degradation. All that has
- been seen or heard or felt or read of despotism is freedom and ease
- compared with that which now dissolves France. The science of tyranny was
- in its infancy; Napoleon has matured it. In France all the efforts of
- genius, all the nobler sentiments and finer feelings are depressed and
- paralyzed. Private faith, personal confidence, the whole train of social
- virtues are condemned and eradicated. They are crimes. You, sir, with your
- generous propensities, your chivalrous notions of honor, were you
- condemned to live within the grasp of that tyrant, would be driven to
- discard them or be sacrificed as a dangerous subject.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a contrast to England!” cries Bal-gray—“England, free and
- great!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “England!” retorts Aaron, with a grimace. “There are friends here whom I
- love. But for England as mere England, why, then, I hope never to visit it
- again, once I am free of it, unless at the head of fifty thousand fighting
- men!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Balgray sits aghast.—Meanwhile the chance of war between America and
- England broadens, the cloud in the sky grows blacker. Aaron is all
- impatience to find a ship for home; war might fence him in for years. At
- last his hopes are rewarded. The <i>Aurora</i>, outward bound for Boston,
- is reported lying off Gravesend. The captain says he will land Aaron in
- Boston for thirty pounds.
- </p>
- <p>
- And now he is really going; the ship will sail on the morrow. At midnight
- he takes up his diary:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is twelve o’clock—midnight. Having packed up my residue of duds,
- and stowed my papers in the writing desk, I sit smoking my pipe and
- contemplating the certainty of escaping from this country. As to my
- reception in my own country, so far as depends on J. Madison & Co., I
- expect all the efforts of their implacable malice. This, however, does not
- give me uneasiness. I shall meet those efforts and repel them. My
- confidence in my own resources does not permit me to despond or even
- doubt. The incapacity of J. Madison & Co. for every purpose of public
- administration, their want of energy and firmness, make it impossible they
- should stand. They are too feeble and corrupt to hold together long. Mem.:
- To write to Alston to hold his influence in his State, and not again
- degrade himself by compromising with rascals and cowards.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is in this high vein that Aaron sails away for home, and, thirty-five
- days later, sits down to beef and potatoes with the pilot and the <i>Auroras</i>
- captain, in the harbor of Boston. He goes ashore without a shilling, and
- sells his “Bayle” and “Moreri” to President Kirtland of Harvard for forty
- dollars. This makes up his passage money for New York. He negotiates with
- the skipper of a coasting sloop, and nine days later, in the evening’s
- dusk, he lands at the Battery.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is the next day. The sun is shining into narrow Stone Street. It lights
- up the Swartwout parlor where Aaron, home at last, is hearing the news
- from the stubborn, changeless one—Swartwout of the true, unflagging
- breed!
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is precisely four years,” says Aaron, following a conversational lull,
- “since I left this very room to go aboard the <i>Clarissa</i> for
- England.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aye! Four years!” repeats the stubborn one, meditatively. “Much water
- runs under the bridges in four years! It has carried away some of your
- friends, colonel; but also it has carried away as many of your enemies.”
- </p>
- <p>
- For one day and night, Aaron and the stubborn, loyal Swartwout smoke and
- exchange news. On the second day, Aaron opens offices in Nassau Street.
- Three lines appear in the <i>Evening Post</i>. The notice reads:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr has returned to the city, and will resume his practice of
- the law. He has opened offices in Nassau Street.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The town sits up and rubs its eyes. Aaron’s enemies—the old
- fashionable Hamilton-Schuyler coterie—are scandalized; his friends
- are exalted. What is most important, a cataract of clients swamps his
- offices, and when the sun goes down, he has received over two thousand
- dollars in retainers. Instantly, he is overwhelmed with business; never
- again will he cumber his journals with ha’penny registrations of groat and
- farthing economies. As redoubts are carried by storm, so, with a rush, to
- the astonishment of friend and foe alike, Aaron retakes his old place as
- foremost among the foremost at the New York bar.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXIII—GRIEF COMES KNOCKING
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>USINESS rushes in
- upon Aaron; its volume overwhelms him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is too much,” says he, “for a gentleman whose years have reached the
- middle fifties,” and he takes unto himself a partner.
- </p>
- <p>
- Later he takes another partner; the work of the firm overflows into a
- quartette of rooms and keeps busy a dozen clerks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why labor so hard?” asks the stubborn Swartwout. “Your income is the
- largest at the bar. You have no such need of money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay! but my creditors have!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your creditors? Who are they?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every soul who lost a dollar by my Southwestern ambitions—you, with
- others. Man, I owe millions!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron works like a horse and lives like a Spartan. He rises with the blue
- of dawn. His servant appears with his breakfast—an egg, a plate of
- toast, a pot of coffee. He is at his desk in the midst of his papers when
- the clerks begin to arrive. All day he is insatiable to work. He sends
- messages, receives them, examines authorities, confers with fellow
- lawyers, counsels clients, dictates letters. Business incarnate—he
- pushes every affair with incredible dispatch. And the last thing he will
- agree to is defeat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Accept only the inevitable!” is his war-word, in law as in life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s day ends with seven o’clock. He shoves everything of litigation
- sort aside, helps himself to a glass of wine, and refuses further thought
- or hint of business. It is then he calls about him his friends. The
- evening is merry with laughter, jest and reminiscence. At midnight he
- retires, and sleeps like a tree.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0357.jpg" alt="0357 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0357.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” observes Dr. Hosack—he who attended Hamilton at
- Weehawken—“you do not sleep enough; six hours is not enough. Also,
- you eat too little.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron gazes, with comic eye at the rotund, well-fed doctor, the purple of
- good burgundy in his full cheeks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I were a doctor, now,” he retorts, “I should grant your word to be
- true. But I am a lawyer, and must keep myself on edge.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s earliest care is to write his arrival to the lustrous Theo. The
- reply he receives makes the world black.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Less than a fortnight ago,” she says, “your letters would have gladdened
- my soul. Now there is no more joy, and life a blank. My boy is gone—forever
- dead and gone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- While Aaron sits with the fatal letter in his fingers, his friend Van Ness
- comes in. He turns his black eyes on the visitor—eyes misty, dim,
- the brightness lost from them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What dreams were mine,” he sighs—“what dreams for my brave little
- boy! He is dead, and half my world has died.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Toward the end of summer, Alston sends word that the lustrous Theo is in
- danger. The loss of her boy has struck at the roots of her life. Aaron, in
- new alarm, writes urging that she come North. He sends a physician from
- New York to bring her to him. Alston consents; he himself cannot come. His
- duties as governor tie him. The lustrous Theo, eager to meet her father
- with whom she parted on that tearful evening in Stone Street so many years
- ago, will start at once. He, Alston, shall later follow her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Alston sees the lustrous Theo aboard the schooner <i>Patriot</i>, then
- lying in Charleston harbor. It is rough December weather when the <i>Patriot</i>
- clears for New York. The message of her sailing reaches Aaron overland,
- and he is on strain for the schooner’s arrival. Days come, days go; the
- schooner is due—overdue. Still no sign of those watched-for topsails
- down <i>the</i> lower bay! And so time passes. The days become weeks, the
- weeks months. Hope sickens, then dies. Aaron, face white and drawn, a
- ghost’s face, reads the awful truth in that long waiting. The lustrous
- Theo is dead—like the baby! It is then the iron of a measureless
- adversity enters his soul!
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron goes about the daily concerns of life, making no moan. He does not
- speak of his loss, but saves his grief for solitude. One day a friend
- relates a rumor that the schooner was captured by buccaneers, and the
- lustrous Theo lives. The broken Aaron shakes his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is dead!” says he. “Thus is severed the last tie that binds me to my
- kind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron hides his heart from friend and foe alike. As though flying from his
- own thoughts, he plunges more furiously than ever into the law.
- </p>
- <p>
- While Aaron’s first concern is work, and to earn money for those whom he
- calls his creditors, he finds time for politics.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not that I want office,” he observes; “for he who was Vice-President and
- tied Jefferson for a presidency, cannot think on place. But I owe debts—debts
- of gratitude, debts of vengeance. These must be paid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s foes are in the ascendant. De Witt Clinton is mayor—the
- aristocrats with the Livingstons, the Schuylers and the Clintons, are
- everywhere dominant. They control the town; they control the State. At
- Washington, Madison a marionette President, is in apparent command, while
- Jefferson pulls the White House wires from Monticello. All these Aaron
- sees at a glance; he can, however, take up but one at a time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We will begin with the town,” says he, to the stubborn, loyal Swartwout.
- “We must go at the town like a good wife at her house-cleaning. Once that
- is politically spick and span, we shall clean up the State and the
- nation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron calls about him his old circle of indomitables.
- </p>
- <p>
- They have been overrun in his absence by the aristocrats—by the
- Clintons, the Schuylers and the Livingstons. They gather at his rooms in
- the Jay House—a noble mansion, once the home of Governor Jay.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall make no appearance in your politics,” says he. “It would not fit
- my years and my past. None the less, I’ll show you the road to victory.”
- Then, with a smile: “You must do the work; I’ll be the Old Man of the
- Mountain. From behind a screen I’ll give directions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0363.jpg" alt="0363 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0363.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Aaron’s lieutenants include the Swartwouts, Buckmaster, Strong, Prince,
- Radcliff, Rutgers, Ogden, Davis, Noah, and Van Buren, the last a rising
- young lawyer from Kinderhook.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Become a member of Tammany,” is Aaron’s word to young Van Buren. “Our
- work must be done by Tammany Hall. You must enroll yourself beneath its
- banner. We must bring about a revival of the old Bucktail spirit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Buren enters Tammany; the others are already members.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, through his lieutenants, brings his old Tammany Bucktails together
- within eight weeks after his return. The Clintons, and their fellow
- aristocrats are horrified at what they call “his effrontery.” Also, they
- are somewhat panic-smitten. They fall to vilification. Aaron is “traitor!”
- “murderer!” “demon!” “fiend!” They pay a phalanx of scribblers to assail
- him in the press. His band of Bucktail lieutenants are dubbed “Burrites,”
- “Burr’s Mob,” and “the Tenth Legion.” The epithets go by Aaron like the
- mindless wind.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Bucktail spirit revived, the stubborn Swartwout and the others ask:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What shall we do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The popular cry is for war with England. At Washington—Jefferson at
- Monticello pulling on the peace string—Madison is against war. Mayor
- De Witt Clinton stands with Jefferson and Marionette Madison. He is for
- peace, as are his caste of aristocrats—the Schuylers and those other
- left-over fragments of Federalism, all lovers of England from their
- cradles.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What shall we do?” cry the Bucktails.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Demand war!” says Aaron. Then, calling attention to Clinton and his
- purple tribe, he adds: “They could not occupy a better position for our
- purposes. They invite destruction.” Tammany demands war vociferously. It
- is, indeed, the cry all over the land. The administration is carried off
- its feet. Jefferson at last orders war; for he sees that otherwise
- Marionette Madison will be defeated of a second term.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mayor Clinton and his aristocrats are frantic.
- </p>
- <p>
- The more frantic, since with “War!” for their watchword, Aaron’s Bucktails
- conquer the city, and two years later the State. As though by a tidal
- wave, every Clinton is swept out of official Albany.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron sends for Van Ness, the stubborn Swartwout, and their fellow
- Bucktails.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go to Albany,” says he. “Demand of Governor Tompkins the removal of Mayor
- Clinton. Say that he is inefficient and was the friend of England.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Governor Tompkins—being a politician—hesitates at the bold
- step. The Bucktails, Aaron-guided, grow menacing. Seeing himself in
- danger, Governor Tompkins hesitates no longer. Mayor Clinton is
- ignominiously thrust from office into private life. With him go those
- hopes of a presidency which for half a decade he has been sedulously
- cultivating. Under the blight of that removal, those hopes of a future
- White House wither like uprooted flowers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Broken of purse and prospects, Clinton is in despair.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He will never rise again!” exclaims Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My friend,” says Aaron, “he will be your governor. He will never be
- president, but the governorship is yet to be his; and all by your
- negligence—yours and your brother Buck-tails.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As how?” demands Van Ness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You let him declare for the Erie Canal,” returns Aaron. “You were so
- purblind as to oppose the project. You should have taken the business out
- of his hands. If I had been here it would have been done. Mark my words!
- The canal will be dug, and it will make Clinton governor. However, we
- shall hold the town against him; and, since we have been given a candidate
- for the presidency, we shall later have Washington also.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is that presidential candidate to whom you refer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, he is your friend and my friend. Who, but Andrew Jackson? Since New
- Orleans, it is bound to be he.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Andrew Jackson!” exclaims Van Ness. “But, sir, the Congressional caucus
- at Washington will never consider him. You know the power of Jefferson—he
- will hold that caucus in the hollow of his hand. It is he who will name
- Madison’s successor; and, after those street-corner speeches and his
- friendship for you in Richmond, it can never be Andrew Jackson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know the Jefferson power,” returns Aaron; “none knows it better. At the
- head of his Virginia junta he has controlled the country for years. He
- will control it four years more, perchance eight. Our war upon him and his
- caucus methods must begin at once. And our candidate should be, and shall
- be, Andrew Jackson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whom will Jefferson select to follow Madison?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Monroe, sir; he will put forward Monroe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Monroe!” repeats Van Ness. “Has he force?—brains? Some one spoke of
- him as a soldier.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Soldier!” observes Aaron, his lip curling. “Sir, Monroe never commanded
- so much as a platoon—never was fit to command one. He acted as aide
- to Lord Stirling, who was a sot, not a soldier. Monroe’s whole duty was to
- fill his lordship’s tankard, and hear with admiration his drunken
- lordship’s long tales about himself. As a lawyer, Monroe is below
- mediocrity. He never rose to the honor of trying a cause wherein so much
- as one hundred pounds was at stake. He is dull, stupid, illiterate,
- pusillanimous, hypocritical, and therefore a character suited to the wants
- of Jefferson and his Virginia coterie. As a man, he is everything that
- Jackson isn’t and nothing that he is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Van Ness and his brother Bucktails do the bidding of Aaron blindly. On
- every chance they shout for Jackson. Aaron writes “Jackson” letters to all
- whom, far or near, he calls his friends. Also the better to have New York
- in political hand, he demands—through Tammany—of Governor
- Tompkins and Mayor Rad-cliff that every Clinton, every Schuyler, every
- Livingston, as well as any who has the taint of Federalism about him be
- relegated to private life. In town as well as country, he sweeps the New
- York official situation free of opposition.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Bucktails are in full sway. Aaron privily coaches young Van Buren, who
- is suave and dexterous, and for politeness almost the urbane peer of Aaron
- himself, in what local party diplomacies are required, and sends him
- forward as the apparent controlling spirit of Tammany Hall. What Jefferson
- is doing with Monroe in Virginia, Aaron duplicates with the compliant Van
- Buren in New York.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXIV—THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>arionette madison
- is withdrawn from the White House boards at the close of his second term.
- Jefferson, working the machinery from Monticello, replaces him with
- Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins his war on the system of
- Congressional nomination—a system which has obtained since the days
- of Washington. He writes to Alston:
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and
- controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for
- twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling,
- ‘Support the administration!’ have so far succeeded in duping the public.
- The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must break down
- this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country are
- impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. Its
- administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely to
- preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, there
- be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it is your
- duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man—Andrew
- Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of a
- boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a respectable
- convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth of the caucus
- system—so beloved of scheming Virginians—his final victory is
- assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; for ‘caucus,’
- which is wrong, must go down; and ‘convention,’ which is right, must
- prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning the caucus
- system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South Carolina, and
- the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of the convention,
- and Jackson’s open nomination.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson’s neighbor and man
- of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this:
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is
- announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta with
- menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and favors.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that his
- candidate Jackson may have a proper début, Aaron pulls a Swartwout string,
- pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer a dinner
- in Jackson’s honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The town is rent
- with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and nights of
- Martling, never mounted more wildly high.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the excitement.
- It is there Jackson finds him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall not be at the dinner, general,” says Aaron; “but with Van Buren
- and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the rest,
- you will find friends and good company about you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors
- and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and
- slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and
- bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well—better! After a man sees
- sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live to
- see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief it
- will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must save
- myself from wine and late hours—I must keep myself with care.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron and the general talk for an hour.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if I should become President some day,” says Jackson, as they
- separate, “you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be too late for me,” responds Aaron. “I am old, and shall be
- older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead—are in the
- grave. Still”—and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way—“I
- shall be glad to have younger men take up the work. It should serve
- somewhat to wipe ‘treason’ from my fame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Treason!” snorts the fiery Jackson. “Sir, no one, not fool or liar, ever
- spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson—the
- “hero,” the “conqueror,” the “nation’s hope and pride,” according to
- orators then and there present and eloquent—is toasted to the skies.
- At the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the
- Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron’s arch enemy.
- </p>
- <p>
- The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly
- gives:
- </p>
- <p>
- “De Witt Clinton!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren,
- Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it.
- Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude of
- offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in words,
- but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word
- “Clinton” were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. The
- thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its
- friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since
- that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also,
- it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron’s place in
- event of Jackson’s occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden,
- intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes
- stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, and
- shouts of “Burr! Burr!” with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the galling
- background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, Aaron
- urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King Caucus.
- His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for convention
- nominations; his candidate is Jackson.
- </p>
- <p>
- In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his voice
- and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate their control of
- the town. He tells them to break down a property qualification, and extend
- the voting franchise to every man, whether he be landholder or no.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let’s make Jack as good as his master,” says Aaron. “It will please Jack,
- and hurt his master’s pride—both good things in their way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, but
- drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the
- Livingstons and the Schuylers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a
- man!” cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout.
- </p>
- <p>
- The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron destroys
- caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and town, bound
- hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful Bucktails.
- </p>
- <p>
- Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down;
- Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a
- convention.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other three,
- but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral college. In the
- House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, and Adams goes to
- the White House.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron is unmoved.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am threescore years and ten,” says he—“the allotted space of man.
- Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see
- Jackson President.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win
- his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take them,” says Aaron to his Bucktails. “They are yours, not his—those
- offices. He but gives you your own.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires like
- a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should think you’d rest,” says he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I don’t understand! You get nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. “Sir, I get vengeance—and
- forget feelings!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0377.jpg" alt="0377 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0377.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his place.
- Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter’s rooms—pleasant
- rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their long pipes, and sit
- opposite one another, smoking like dragons.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “General,” returns Aaron, “the best favor you can show me is show favor to
- my friends.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout
- collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State.
- Also I shall say to your enemies—the Clintons and those other proud
- ones—that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson’s appointment,
- must come with the approval of Colonel Burr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jackson is inaugurated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am through,” says Aaron—“through at four and seventy. Now I shall
- work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics—no
- more politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to
- Providence and Andrew Jackson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XXV—THE SERENE LAST DAYS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ARON goes forward
- with his business—his cases in court, his conferences with clients.
- Accurate as an Alvan-ley in dress, slim, light, with the quick step of a
- boy, no one might guess his years. The bar respects him; his friends crowd
- about him; his enemies shrink away from the black, unblinking stare of
- those changeless ophidian eyes. And so with his books and his wine and his
- pipe he sits through the serene evenings in his rooms by the Bowling
- Green. He is a lion, and strangers from England and Germany and France ask
- to be presented. They talk—not always wisely or with taste.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was Hamilton a gentleman?” asks a popinjay Frenchman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron’s black eyes blaze: “Sir,” says he, “I met him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” observes a dull, thick Englishman, who imagines himself a
- student of governments—“Colonel Burr, I have read your Constitution.
- I find it not always clear. Who is to expound it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron leads our student of governments to the window, and points, with a
- whimsical smile, at the Broadway throngs that march below.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” he remarks, “they are the expounders of our Constitution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron, at seventy-eight, does a foolish thing; he marries—marries
- the wealthy Madam Jumel.
- </p>
- <p>
- They live in the madam’s great mansion on the heights overlooking the
- Harlem. Three months later they part, and Aaron goes back to his books and
- his pipe and his wine, in his rooms by the Bowling Green.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is a bright morning; Aaron and his friend Van Ness are walking in
- Broadway. Suddenly Aaron halts and leans against the wall of a house—the
- City Hotel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is a numbness,” says he. “I cannot walk!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The good, purple, puffy Dr. Hosack comes panting to the rescue. He finds
- the stricken one in his rooms where Van Ness has brought him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Paralysis!” says the good anxious Hosack.
- </p>
- <p>
- Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later
- comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed.
- </p>
- <p>
- There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and
- then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and
- reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of
- company.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “See!” he cries. “Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That marks
- the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White House! Sir,
- thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, Houston and San
- Jacinto, it is patriotism.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron’s strength is going. The hubbub,
- the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town’s life wearies. He
- takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives
- him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His
- visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who one
- day brings up the name of Hamilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel, it was an error—a fearful error!” says the doctor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, “it
- was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? He heaped
- obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his prospects; I
- mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was malevolent—cowardly!
- You have seen what he wrote the night before he fought me. It sounds like
- the confession of a sick monk. When he stood before me at Weehawken, his
- eye caught mine and he quailed like a convicted felon. They say he did not
- fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard the bullet whistle over my head and saw
- the severed twigs. I have lived more than eighty years; I dwell now in the
- shadow of death. I shall soon go; and I shall go saying that the
- destruction of Hamilton was an act of justice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Burr,” observes the kindly doctor, “I am made sorry by your words—sorry
- by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of enmity?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The black eyes do not soften.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall die as I have lived—hating where I’m hated, loving where
- I’m loved.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The last day breaks, and Aaron dies—dies
- </p>
- <p>
- “What lies beyond?” asks one shortly before he goes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who knows?” he returns.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But do you never ask?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why ask? Who should reply to such a question?—the old, old question
- ever offered, never answered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you have hopes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “None,” says Aaron steadily. “And I want none. I am resolved to die
- without fear; and he who would have no fear must have no hope.” So he
- departs; he, of whom the good Dr. Bellamy said: “He will soar as high to
- fall as low as any soul alive.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- THE END
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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