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diff --git a/old/51914-8.txt b/old/51914-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6f6484c..0000000 --- a/old/51914-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6081 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Men Grew Tall, or The Story Of Andrew -Jackson, 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: When Men Grew Tall, or The Story Of Andrew Jackson - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51914] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN MEN GREW TALL *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -WHEN MEN GREW TALL OR THE STORY OF ANDREW JACKSON - -By Alfred Henry Lewis - -Illustrated - -D. Appleton And Company New York - -1907 - -[Illustration: 0001] - -[Illustration: 0008] - -[Illustration: 0009] - -TO - -THEODORE ROOSEVELT THAT MAN OF THE PUBLIC FOR WHOM I HAVE MOST REGARD -AND FROM WHOSE FUTURE I AS AN AMERICAN MOST HOPE THIS VOLUME IS -DEDICATED - -A. H. L. - - - - -CHAPTER I--SALISBURY AND THE LAW - -IN this year of our Lord's grace, 1787, the ancient town of Salisbury, -seat of justice for Rowan County, and the buzzing metropolis of its -region, numbers by word of a partisan citizenry eight hundred souls. -Its streets are unpaved, and present an unbroken expanse of red North -Carolina clay from one narrow plank sidewalk to another. In the summer, -if the weather be dry, the red clay resolves itself into blinding -brick-red dust. In the spring, when the rains fall, it lapses into -brick-red mud, and the Salisbury streets become bottomless morasses, the -despair of travelers. Just now, it being a bright October afternoon and -a shower having paid the town a visit but an hour before, the streets -offer no suggestion of either mud or dust, but are as clean and straight -and beautiful as a good man's morals. Trees rank either side, and their -branches interlock overhead. These make every street a cathedral aisle, -groined and arched in leafy green. - -In one of the suburbs, that is to say about pistol shot from the town's -commercial center, stands a two-story mansion. It is painted white, and -thereby distinguished above its neighbors, and has a heavily columned -veranda all across its wide face. This edifice is the residence of -Spruce McCay, a foremost member of the Rowan County bar. - -In a corner of the lawn, which unfolds verdantly in front of the house, -is a one-story one-room structure, the law office of Spruce McCay. -Inside are two or three pine desks, much visited of knives in the past, -and a half-dozen ramshackle chairs, which have seen stronger if not -better days. Also there is a collection of shelves; and these latter -hold scores of law books, among which "Blackstone's Commentaries," "Coke -on Littleton," and "Hales's Pleas of the Crown" are given prominent -place. The books show musty and dog-eared, and it is many years since -the youngest among them came from the printing press. - -On this October afternoon, the office has but one occupant. He is tall, -being six feet and an inch, and so slim and meager that he seems six -inches taller. Besides, he stands as straight as a lance, with nothing -of stoop to his narrow shoulders, and this has the effect of augmenting -his height. - -The face is a boy's face. It is likewise of the sort called "horse"; -with hollow cheeks and lantern jaws. The forehead is high and narrow. -The yellow hair is long, and tied in a cue with an eelskin--for eelskins -are according to the latest fashionable command sent up from Charleston. -The redeeming feature to the horse face is the eyes. These are big and -blue and deep, and tell of a mighty power for either love or hate. -They are Scotch-Irish eyes, loyal eyes, steadfast eyes, and of that -inveterate breed which if aroused can outstare, outdomineer Satan. - -As adding to the horse face a look of command, which sets well with -those blue eyes--so capable of tenderness and ferocity--is a high -predatory nose. The mouth, thin-lipped and wide, is replete of what folk -call character, but does nothing to soften a general expression which is -nothing if not iron. And yet the last word is applicable only at times. -The horse face never turns iron-hard unless danger presses, or perilous -deeds are to be done. In easier, relaxed hours one finds no sternness -there, but gayety and lightness and a love of pleasure. - -In dress the horse-faced boy is rather the fop, with a bottle-green -surtout of latest cut, high-collared, long-tailed, open to display a -flowered waistcoat of as many hues as May, from which struggles a ruffle -stiff with starch. The horsefaced boy has his predatory nose buried in -a law book. This is as it should be, for he is a student of the learned -Spruce McCay. - -There comes a step at the door; the horsefaced boy takes his nose -from between the covers of the book. Spruce McCay walks in, and throws -himself carelessly into a seat. He is a square, hearty man, with nose -up-tilted and eager, as though somewhere in the distance it sniffed an -orchard. He is of middle years, and well arrived at that highest ground, -just where the pathway of life begins to slope downward toward the final -yet still distant grave. - -Spruce McCay glances at a paper or two on his desk. Then, shoving all -aside, he fills and lights a corn-cob pipe. Through the smoke rings he -surveys the horse-faced boy; plainly he meditates a communication. - -"Andy, I've been thinking you over." - -Andy says "Yes?" expectantly. - -"You should cross the mountains." - -The blue eyes take on a bluer glint, and light up the horse face like -azure lamps. - -"Yes, a new country is the place for you. You are now about to be -admitted to practice law; not because you know law, but for the reason -that I have recommended it. As I say, you have little law knowledge; but -you possess courage, brains, perseverance, honesty, prudence and divers -other traits, which you take from your Carrickfergus ancestors. These -should carry you farther in the wilderness than any knowledge of the -books." - -The predatory nose snorts, and the horse face begins to glow -resentfully. - -"You think I know no law?" - -"No more than does Necessity! Not enough to keep you from being laughed -at in Rowan County! How should you? Your attention and your interest -have both run away to other things. I've watched you for two years -past. You are deep in the lore of cockfighting, but guiltless of the -Commentaries of our worthy Master Blackstone. If I were to ask you for -the Rule in Shelly's Case, you would be posed. At the same time you -could expound every rule that governs a horse race. In brief you are -accomplished in many gentlemanly things, while as barren of law learning -as a Hottentot. Now if you were a lad of fortune, instead of being as -poor as the crows, you might easily cut a figure of elegant idleness on -the North Carolina circuits. But you lack utterly of that money required -to gild and make tolerable your ignorance here at home. In the woods -along the Cumberland, that is to say in the Nashville and Jonesboro -courts, where ignorance and poverty are the rule, your deficiencies -will count for trifles. Also you will be surrounded by conditions that -promote courage, honesty and quickness to a first importance. On the -Cumberland the fact that you are a dead shot with rifle or pistol, and -can back the most unmanageable horse that ever looked through a bridle, -will place you higher in the confidence of men than would all the law -that Hobart, Hales and Hawkins ever knew. Now don't get angry. Think -over what I've said; the longer you look at it, the more you'll feel -that I am right. I'll see that you are given your sheepskin as a lawyer; -and, when you decide to migrate, I'll have you commissioned in that new -country as attorney for the state. This last will send you headlong into -the midst of a backwoods practice, where those native virtues you -own should find a field for their exercise, and your talents for -cockfighting and horse racing, added to your absolute genius for -firearms, be sure to advance you far." - -Spruce McCay raps the ashes from his corncob pipe. Just then one of the -house negroes taps at the door, as preliminary to intruding a respectful -head. The respectful head announces that visitors have arrived at -the big white mansion. Spruce McCay at this quits the office, and the -horse-faced Andy finds himself alone. - -For one hour he ponders the unpalatable words of his worthy master. His -vanity has been hurt; his self-love ruffled. None the less he feels that -a deal of truth lies tucked away in what Spruce McCay has said. Besides -a plunge into the untried wilderness rather matches his taste, and a -promised state's attorneyship is not to be despised. - -As the horse-faced Andy ruminates these things, laughter and much joyous -clatter is heard at the door. This time it is his two fellow students, -Crawford and McNairy. These young gentlemen have been out with their -guns, and now present themselves with a double backload of quails as the -fruits of it. The pair begin vociferously to inform the horse-faced Andy -concerning their day's adventures. He halts the conversational flow with -a repressive lift of the hand. - -"Gentlemen," says he, with a vast affectation of dignity, and as though -sixty were the years of each instead of twenty, "I desire your company -at supper in my rooms. Come at 7 o'clock. I shall have news for -you--news, and a proposition." - - - - -CHAPTER II--THE ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER - - -THE horse-faced Andy precedes the coming of his two friends to that -supper by two hours. As he moves up the street toward the Rowan House, -fair faces beam on him and fair hands wave him a salutation from certain -Salisbury verandas. In return he doffs his hat with an exaggerated -politeness, which becomes him as the acknowledged beau of the town. One -cannot blame those beaming fair faces and those saluting hands. Slim, -elegant, confident with a kind of polished cockyness that does not ill -become his years, our horse-faced one possesses what the world calls -"presence." No one will look on him without being impressed; he is -congenitally remarkable, and to see him once is to ever afterward expect -to hear him. Besides, for all his foppishness, there is a scar on his -sandy head, and a second on his hand, which were made by an English -saber when he had no more than entered upon his teens. Also he has shed -English blood to pay for those scars; and in a day which still heaves -and tosses with the ground swells of the Revolution, such stark matters -brevet one to the respect of men and the love of women. - -The foppish, horse-faced Andy strides into the Rowan House. In the -long-room he meets mine host Brown, who has fame as a publican, and none -as a sinner, throughout North Carolina. - -"Supper in my rooms, Mr. Brown," commands our hero; "supper for three. -Have it hot and ready at sharp seven. Also let us have plenty of whisky -and tobacco." - -Mine host Brown says that all shall be as ordered. - -The foppish Andy, with that grave manner of dignity which laughs at his -boyish twenty years, explains to his landlord that he will call for his -bill in the morning. - -"Have my horse, Cherokee," he says, "well groomed and saddled. To-morrow -I leave Salisbury." - -"Going West?" - -"West," returns Andy. - -"As to the bill," ventures mine host Brown, "would you like to play a -game of all-fours, and make it double or nothing?" - -Andy the horse-faced hesitates. - -"You have such vile luck," he says, as though remonstrating with mine -host Brown for a fault. "It seems shameful to play with you, since you -never win." - -Mine host Brown looks sheepishly apologetic. - -"For one as eager to play as I am," he responds, "it does look as though -I ought to know more about the game. However, since it's your last -night, we might as well preserve a record." - -Andy the horse-faced yields to the rabid anxiety of mine host Brown -to gamble. The game shall be played presently; meanwhile, there is an -errand which takes him to his rooms. - -Andy goes to his rooms; mine host Brown, after preparing a table in -the long-room for the promised game, saunters fatly--being rotund as -a publican should be--into the kitchen, to leave directions concerning -that triangular supper. There he encounters his wife, as rotund as -himself, supervising the energies of a phalanx of black Amazons, who -form the culinary forces of the Rowan House. - -"Young Jackson leaves in the morning, mother," observes mine host Brown -to Mrs. Brown, whom he always addresses as "mother." - -"For good?" asks Mrs. Brown, who is singeing the pin feathers from a -chicken of much fatness, and exceeding yellow as to leg. - -"Oh, I knew he was going," returns mine host Brown, rather irrelevantly. -"Spruce Mc-Cay told me that he was about to advise him to emigrate to -the western counties. Spruce says the Cumberland country is just the -place for him." - -"And now I suppose," remarks Mrs. Brown, "you'll let him win a good-by -game of cards, to square his bill." - -"Why not?" returns mine host Brown. "He's got no money; never had any -money. You yourself said, when he came here, to give him his board free, -because you knew and loved his dead mother. Now the Christian thing is -to let him win it. In that way his pride is saved; at the same time it -gives me amusement." - -"Well, Marmaduke," says Mrs. Brown, moving off with the yellow-legged -fowl, "I'm sure I don't care how you manage, only so you don't take his -money." - -"There never was a chance, mother. He never has any money, after his -clothes are bought." - -The game of all-fours is played; and is won by Andy of the horse face, -who thereby rounds off a run of card-luck that has continued unbroken -for two years. - -"It looks as though I'd never beat you!" exclaims mine host Brown, -pretending sadness and imitating a sigh. - -"You ought never to gamble," advises the horse-faced Andy solemnly. - -Mine host Brown produces his bill, wherein the charges for board, -lodging, laundry, tobacco, and whisky in pints, quarts and gallons are -set down on one side, to be balanced and acquitted by divers sums lost -at all-fours, the same being noted opposite. - -"There you are! All square!" says mine host Brown. - -"But the charges for to-night's supper?" - -"Mother"--meaning Mrs. Brown--"says the supper is to be with her -compliments." - -Steaming hot, the supper comes promptly at seven. It is followed, -steaming hot, by unlimited whisky punch. Pipes are lighted, and, with -glasses at easy hand, the three boys draw about the fire. The punch, the -pipes, and the crackling log fire are very comfortable adjuncts on an -October night. - -"And now," cries Crawford, who is full of life and interest, "now for -the news and the proposition!" - -McNairy nods owlish assent to the words of his volatile friend. He -intends one day to be a judge, and, while quite as lively as Crawford, -seizes on occasions such as this to practice his features in a -formidable woolsack gravity. - -"First," observes Andy, soberly sipping his punch, "let me put a -question: What is my standing in Rowan County?" - -"You are the recognized authority," cries Crawford, "on dog fighting, -cockfighting, and horse racing." - -McNairy nods. - -"Humph!" says Andy. Then, on the heels of a pause: "And what should you -say were my chief accomplishments?" - -Again Crawford takes it upon himself to reply. - -"You ride, shoot, run, jump, wrestle, dance and make love beyond -expression." - -McNairy the judicial nods. - -"Humph!" says Andy. - -The trio puff and sip in silence. - -"You say nothing for my knowledge of law?" This from the disgruntled -Andy, with a rising inflection that is like finding fault. - -"No!" cry the others in hearty concert. - -"You wouldn't believe us if we did," adds McNairy of the future -woolsack. - -"Neither would the Judge," returns Andy cynically. "The Judge" is the -title by which the three designate their master, Spruce Mc-Cay. Andy -goes on: "The news I promised is this. To-morrow I leave Salisbury. The -Judge has recommended my admission to the bar, and I shall take the oath -and get my license before I start. I shall transfer myself to the region -along the Cumberland, where I am told a barrister of my singular lack of -ability should find plenty of practice." - -"Why do you leave old Rowan?" asks woolsack McNairy, beginning to take -an interest. - -"Because I have no education, less law, and still less money. It seems -that these are conditions precedent to staying in Rowan with credit." - -"Well," cries McNairy the judicial, grasping Andy's long bony hand, "you -have as much education, as much law, and as much money as I. Under the -circumstances I shall go with you." - -"And I," breaks in the lively Crawford, "since I have none of those -ignorant and poverty-eaten qualifications you name, but on the contrary -am rich, wise and learned--I shall remain here. When the wilderness -casts you fellows out, come back and I shall welcome you. Pending -which--as Parson Hicks would say--receive my blessing." - -The evening wears on amid clouds of tobacco smoke and rivers of punch. -At the close the three take hold of hands, and sing a farewell song very -badly. Then, since they look on the evening as a sacred one, they wind -up by breaking the pipes they have smoked and the glasses they have -drunk from, to save them in the hereafter from profane and vulgar uses. -At last, rather deviously, they make their various ways to bed. - -The next day, young Andrew Jackson, barrister and counselor at law, with -all his belongings--save the rifle he carries, and the pistols in -his saddle holsters--crowded into a pair of saddlebags, rides out of -Salisbury on his bay horse Cherokee. He will stop at Martinsville for a -space, awaiting the judicial McNairy. - -Then the pair are to set their willing, hopeful faces for the -Cumberland. - -As Andy the horse-faced rides away that October afternoon, Henry Clay -is a fatherless boy of nine, living with his mother at the Virginia -Slashes; Daniel Webster, a sickly child of six, is toddling about his -father's New Hampshire farm; John C. Calhoun is a baby four years old -in a South Carolina farmhouse; John Quincy Adams, nineteen and just home -from a polishing trip to France, is a Harvard student; Martin Van Buren, -aged four, is playing about the tap room of his Dutch father's tavern at -Kinder-hook; while Aaron Burr, fortunate, foremost and full of promise, -has already won high station at the New York bar. None of these has ever -heard of Andy the horse-faced, nor he of them; yet one and all they are -fated to grow well acquainted with one another in the years to come, -and before the curtain is rung finally down on that tragedy-comedy-farce -which, played to benches ever full and ever empty, men call Existence. - - - - -CHAPTER III--THE BLOOMING RACHEL - - -NASHVILLE is the merest scrambling huddle of log houses. The most -imposing edifice is a blockhouse, built of logs squared by the broadaxe. -It is the home of the widow Donelson; and, since it is all her husband -left her when the Indians shot him down at the plow-stilts, and because -she must live, the widow Donelson has turned the blockhouse into a -boarding house. - -With the widow Donelson dwells her daughter Rachel, a beautiful brunette -of twenty, and the belle of the Cumberland. Rachel is vivacious and -bright; and, while there is much confusion among her nouns, pronouns, -verbs and adverbs in the matters of case, number, and tense, she shines -forth an indomitable conversationist. With frontier freedom she -laughs with everybody, jests with everybody, delights in everybody's -admiration; and this does not please her husband, Lewis Robards, who is -ignorant, suspicious, narrow, lazy, shiftless, jealous, and generally -drunk. One time and another he has accused Rachel of a tenderness for -every man in the settlement, and their quarrels have been frequent and -fierce. - -It is evening; the widow Donelson is preparing supper for the half -dozen boarders, assisted by the blooming Rachel. The moody Robards, half -soaked in corn whisky, sits by the open door, ear on the conversation, -eye on the not-over-distant woods. If the worthless Robards will not -work, at least he may maintain a halfbright lookout for murderous -Indians; and he does. - -The widow Donelson glances across from the corn bread she is mixing. - -"The runner who came on ahead," she says, addressing the blooming -Rachel, "reports the party as being due to-morrow. Mr. Jackson, the new -State's Attorney, who will come with it, is to board and lodge with us." - -The blooming Rachel looks brightly up. The drunken Robards likewise -looks up; but his face is gloomy with incipient jealousy. - -"A Mr. Jackson, eh?" he sneers. Then, to the blooming Rachel: "It's -mighty likely you'll find in him a new lover to try your wiles on." - -The blooming Rachel colors and her black eyes snap, but she holds her -tongue. The widow Donelson is also silent. The mother and daughter have -found wordlessness the best return to those insults, which it is the -habit of the jealous drunkard to hurl at his pretty wife. - -The runner made true report, and the party in which travels the -horse-faced Andy makes its appearance next day. Tall, slender, elegant, -self-possessed, and with a manner which marks him above the common, he -is disliked by the drunken Robards on sight. When he declines to drink -with that sot, the dislike crystallizes into hatred. The outrageous -jealousy of Robards has found a new reason for its green-eyed existence, -and he already goes drunkenly pondering the slaughter of the horse-faced -Andy. Since he will never advance beyond the pondering stage, for -certain reasons called "craven" among men of clean courage, his -homicidal lucubrations are the less important. - -Andy the horse-faced does not notice Robards. He does, however, notice -with a thrill of pleasure the beautiful Rachel, and is glad to find his -lines are down in such pleasant places. - -He is vastly taken with the boarding house of the widow Donelson, and -incautiously says as much. He praises her corn pone and fried squirrel, -and vehemently avers that her hog and hominy are the best he ever ate. - -Rachel the blooming does not allow her husband's jealousy to interrupt -hospitality, and piles high the young State's Attorney's plate with -these delicacies. She even brings out a store of wild honey and -cream--dainties sparse and few and far between in these rude regions. -She calls this "hospitality"; her jealous drunkard of a husband calls -it "making advances." He says that in the course of a long, and he might -have added misspent, life, he has observed that a coquette, with designs -on a man's heart, never fails to begin by making an ally of his stomach. - -"Hence," says the drunken deductionist, "that honey and cream." - -That night, after Rachel the blooming and her drunken husband retire, a -bitter quarrel breaks out between them. It rages with such fury that -the bicker arouses one Overton, who occupies the adjoining chamber. -Mr. Overton is a severe character, firm and clear as to his rights. He -objects to having his rest disturbed, alleging that he has troubles -of his own. Taking final offense at the language of the brute Robards, -which is more emphatic than nice, he gets his pistols. Rapping on the -intervening wall to invoke attention, he informs that vituperative -drunkard of his intention to instantly put him (Robards) to death, -should he so much as raise his voice above a whisper for the balance of -the night. - -Rachel seeks her mother, and the jealous drunkard quiets down. He is not -unacquainted with Mr. Overton, who is reputed to possess as restless -a brace of hair triggers as ever owned flint and pan. Altogether he is -precisely the one whose word would carry weight with such as Robards, -and, on the back of his interference in the domestic affairs of that -inebriate, a great peace settles upon the blockhouse of the widow -Donelson which abides throughout the night. - -As for the horse-faced State's Attorney, he knows nothing of the -differences between Rachel and the jealous Robards. He does not sleep -in the blockhouse, having been appointed to a blanket couch in the -"Bunk House," a separate dormitory structure which stands at a little -distance. - -During breakfast, the blooming Rachel again freights daintily deep the -plate of the young State's Attorney. Thereupon the favored one beams his -thanks, while behind his back as though to soothe his hate, the -malevolent Rob-ards sits cleaning a rifle, casting upon him the while an -occasional midnight look. Just across is the taciturn Overton, -proprietor of those restless hair triggers, wondering over his bacon and -eggs where this drama of love and threatened murder is to end. - - - - -CHAPTER IV--COLONEL WAIGHTSTILL AVERY OFFENDS - - -NOW, when the horse-faced Andy finds himself in the Cumberland country, -he begins to look about him. Being a lawyer, his instinct leads him -to consider those opposing ranks of commerce, the debtor and creditor -classes. He finds the former composed of persons of the highest honor. -Also, their honor is sensitive and easily touched, being sensitive and -touchy in proportion as the bulk of their debts is increased. The debtor -class, as the same finds representation about those two Cumberland -forums, Nashville and Jonesboro, holds it to be the privilege of -every gentleman, when dunned, to challenge and if practicable kill his -creditor honorably at ten paces. - -So firm indeed is the debtor class in this belief, that the creditor -class, less warlike and with more to lose, seldom presents a bill. -Neither does it refuse the opposition credit; for the debtor class also -clings to the no less formidable theory, that to refuse credit is an -insult quite as stinging as a dun direct. - -In short, the horse-faced Andy discovers the region to be a very Arcadia -for debtors. Their credit is without a limit and their debts are never -due. He resolves to disturb these commercial Arcadians; he will break -upon them as a Satan of solvency come to trouble their debt paradise. - -The horse-faced Andy, as has been noted, is Scotch-Irish. Being Irish, -his honor is as sensitive and his soul as warlike as are those of -the most debt-eaten individual along the Cumberland. Being Scotch, he -believes debts should be paid, and holds that a creditor may ask for -his money without forfeiting life. He urges these views in tavern and -street; and thereupon the creditors, taking heart, come to him with -their claims. He accepts the trusts thus proffered; as a corollary, -having now flown in the face of the militant debtor class, he is soon to -prove his manhood. - -The horse-faced Andy files a declaration for a client, on a mixed claim -based upon bacon, molasses and rum. The defendant, a personage yclept -Irad Miller, genus debtor, species keel boatman, is a very patrician -among bankrupts, boasting that he owes more and pays less than any -man south of the Ohio river. Also, having been already offended by the -foppish frivolity of that ruffled shirt and grass-green surtout, he is -outraged now, when the ruffled grass-green one brings suit against him. - -Breathing fire and smoke, the insulted Irad lowers his horns, and starts -for the horse-faced Andy. His methods at this crisis are characteristic -of the Cumberland; he merely grinds the horse-faced Andy's polished boot -beneath his heel, mentioning casually the while that he himself is "half -hoss, half alligator," and can drink the Cumberland dry at a draught. - -This is fighting talk, and the horse-faced Andy so accepts it. He -surveys the truculent Irad with the cautious tail of his eye, and finds -him discouragingly tall and broad and thick. The survey takes time, but -the injured Irad prevents it being wasted by again grinding the polished -toes. - -Andy the strategic suddenly seizes a rail from the nearby fence, and -charges the indebted one. The end of the rail strikes that insolvent -in what is vulgarly known as the pit of the stomach, and doubles him up -like a two-foot rule. At that, he who is "half hoss, half alligator," -gives forth a screech of which an injured wild cat might be proud, and -perceiving the rail poised for a second charge makes off. This small -adventure gives the horse-faced Andy station, and an avalanche of claims -pours in upon him. - -Having established himself in the confidence of common men, it still -remains with our horsefaced hero to conquer the esteem of the bar. The -opportunity is not a day behind his collision with that violent one of -equine-alligator genesis. In good sooth, it is an offshoot thereof. - -The bruised Irad's case is up for trial. His counsel, Colonel -Waightstill Avery, hails from a hamlet, called Morganton, on the thither -side of the Blue Ridge. Colonel Waightstill is of middle age, pompous -and high, and the youth of Andy--slim, lean, eager, horse face as -hairless as an egg--offends him. - -"Your honor," cries Colonel Waightstill, addressing the bench, "who, -pray, is the opposing counsel?" The boyish Andy stands up. "Must I, -your honor," continues the outraged Colonel Waightstill, "must I cross -forensic blades with a child? Have I journeyed all the long mountain -miles from Morganton to try cases with babes and sucklings? Or perhaps, -your honor"--here Colonel Waightstill waxes sarcastic--"I have mistaken -the place. Possibly this is not a court, but a nursery." - -Colonel Waightstill sits down, and the horsefaced Andy, on the leaf of a -law book, indites the following: - -_August 12, 1788._ - -_Sir: When a man's feelings and charector are injured he ought to seek -speedy redress. My charector you have injured; and further you have -Insulted me in the presunce of a court and a large aujence. I therefore -call upon you as a gentleman to give me satisfaction for the same; -I further call upon you to give me an answer immediately without -Equivocation and I hope you can do without dinner until the business -is done; for it is consistent with the character of a gentleman when he -injures a man to make speedy reparation; therefore I hope you will not -fail in meeting me this day._ - -_From yr Hbl st.,_ - -_Andw Jackson._ - -The horse-faced one spells badly; but Marlborough did, Washington does -and Napoleon will spell worse. It is a notable fact that conquering -militant souls have ever been better with the sword than with the -spelling book. - -The judge is a gentleman of quick and apprehensive eye, as frontier -jurists must be. - -Also, he is of finest sensibilities, and can appreciate the feelings of -a man of honor. He sees the note shoved across to Colonel Waightstill -by the horse-faced Andy, and at once orders a recess. The judge, with -delicate tact, says the Cumberland bottoms are heavy with the seeds of -fever, and that it is his practice to consume prudent rum and quinine at -this hour. - -While the judge goes for his rum and quinine, Colonel Waightstill and -the horse-faced Andy repair to a convenient ravine at the rear of the -log courthouse. A brother practitioner attends upon Colonel Waightstill, -while the interests of the horse-faced Andy are conserved by Mr. -Overton, who espouses his cause as a fellow boarder at the widow -Donelson's. Mr. Overton has with him his invaluable hair triggers; and, -since he wins the choice, presents them politely, butt first, to the -second of Colonel Waightstill, who selects one for his principal. The -ground is measured and pegged; the fight will be at ten paces. - -As Mr. Overton gives the horse-faced Andy his weapon, he asks: - -"What can you do at this distance?" - -"Snuff a candle." - -"Good! Let me offer a word of advice: Don't kill; don't even wound. The -_casus belli_ does not justify it, and you can establish your credit -without. Should your adversary require a second shot, it will then be -the other way. His failure to apologize, coupled with a demand for -another shot, should mean his death warrant." - -The horse-faced Andy approves this counsel. And yet, if he must not -wound he may warn, and to that admonitory end sends his ounce of lead -so as to all but brush the ear of Colonel Waightstill. That gentleman's -bullet flies safely wild. After the exchange of shots, the seconds hold -a consultation. Mr. Overton says that his principal must receive an -apology, or the duel shall proceed. - -Colonel Waightstill's second talks with that gentleman, and finds him -much softened as to mood. The flying lead, brushing his ear like the -wing of a death angel, has set him thinking. He now distrusts that -simile of "babes and sucklings," and is even ready to concede the -intimation that the horse-faced Andy is a child to be far-fetched. -Indeed, he has conceived a vast respect, almost an affection, for his -youthful adversary, and will not only apologize, but declares that, for -purposes of litigation, he shall hereafter regard the horse-faced Andy -as a being of mature years. All this says Colonel Waight-still, under -the respectful spell of that flying lead; and if not in these phrases, -then in words to the same effect. - -The horse-faced Andy shakes hands with Colonel Waightstill, and they -return to the log courthouse, where the rum-and-quinine jurist is -pleasantly awaiting them. The trial is again called, and the horse-faced -Andy secures a verdict. What is of more consequence, he secures the -respect of bench and bar; hereafter no one will so much as dream of -disputing his word, should he lay claim to the years of Methuselah. That -careful grazing shot at Colonel Waightstill, ages the horse-faced Andy -wondrously in Cumberland estimation. - -Good fortune is not yet done with Andy of the horse face. Within hours -after the meeting in that convenient ravine, he is given new opportunity -to fix himself in the good regard of folk. - -It is on the verge of midnight. A gentleman, unsteady with his cups, -seeks temporary repose on the grassy litter which surrounds the tavern -haystack. Being comfortable, and safe against a fall, he of the too many -cups refreshes himself with his pipe. Pipe going, he falls into thought; -and next, in the midst of his preoccupation, he sets the hay afire. It -burns like tinder, and the flames, wind-flaunted, catch the thatched -roof of the stable. - -The settlement is threatened; the wild cry of "Fire!" is raised; from -tavern and dwelling, men, women and children come trooping forth, clad -in little besides looks of terror. The scene is one of confusion and -misdirection; no one knows what to do. Meanwhile, the flames leap from -the stable to the tavern itself. - -It is Andy the horse-faced who brings order out of chaos. Born for -leadership, command comes easy to him. He calls for buckets, and with -military quickness forms a double line of men between the river and -the flames. The full buckets chase each other along one line, while the -empties are returned by the second to be refilled. When the lines are -working in watery concord, he organizes the balance of the community -into a wet-blanket force. By his orders, coverlets, tablecloths, -blankets, anything, everything that will serve, are dipped in the river -and spread on exposed roofs. In an encouragingly short space, the fire -is checked and the settlement saved. - -While the excitement is at its height, that pipe incendiary, who started -the conflagration, breaks through the double line of water passers, and -begins to give orders. He is as wild as was Nero at the burning of -Rome. Finding this person disturbing the effective march of events, the -horse-faced Andy--who is nothing if not executive--knocks him down with -a bucket. The Cumberland Nero falls into the river, and the ducking, -acting in happy conjunction with the stunning thump, brings him to the -shore a changed and sobered man. That bucket promptitude, wherewith he -deposed Nero, becomes one of those several immediate arguments which -make mightily for the communal advancement of Andy the horse-faced. - - - - -CHAPTER V--THE WINNING OF A WIFE - - -ALL these energetic matters happen at aforesaid, is dancing attendance -upon the court. The fame of them travels to Nashville in advance of his -return, and works a respectful change toward him in the attitude of the -public. Hereafter he is to be called "Andrew" by ones who know him well; -while others, less acquainted, will on military occasions hail him as -"Cap'n" and on civil ones as "Square." On every hand, reference to him -as "horse-faced" is to be dropped; wherefore this history, the effort of -which is to follow close in the wake of the actual, will from this point -profit by that polite example. - -The household at the widow Donelson's learns of the Jonesboro valor and -executive promptitude of the young State's Attorney. The blooming Rachel -rejoices, while her Jonesboro, where the horse-faced one, in the -interests of the creditor class drunken spouse turns sullen. His -jealousy of Andrew is multiplied, as that young gentleman's fame -increases. The fame, however, is of a sort that seriously mislikes the -drunken Robards, who is at heart a hare. Wherefore, while his jealousy -grows, he no longer makes it the tavern talk, as was his sottish wont. - -Affairs run briskly prosperous with Andrew, and he finds himself engaged -in half the litigation of the Cumberland. There is little money, but -the region owns a currency of its own. Some wise man has said that the -circulating medium of Europe is gold, of Africa men, of Asia women, of -America land. The client's of Andrew reward his labors with land, and -many a "six-forty," by which the slang of the Cumberland identifies -a section of land, becomes his. Finally he owns such an array of -wilderness square miles, polka-dotted about between the Cumberland and -the Mississippi, that the aggregate acreage swells into the thousands. -Those acres, however, are hardly more valuable than are the brown leaves -wherewith each autumn carpets them. - -While the ardent Andrew is pushing his way at the bar, and accumulating -"six-forties," he continues to board at the widow Donelson's. - -The blooming Rachel delights in his society--so polished, so splendidly -different from that of the drunkard Robards! Once or twice, too, -when Andrew, in his saddlebag excursions from court to court, has -a powder-burning brush with Indians and saves his sandy scalp by a -narrowish margin, the red cheek of Rachel is seen to whiten. That is to -say, the drunkard Robards sees it whiten; the purblind Andrew never once -observes that mark of tender concern. The pistol repute of the decisive -Andrew serves when he is by to stifle remark on the lip of the recreant -Robards. But there come hours when the latter has the blooming Rachel to -himself, at which time he raves like one demon-possessed. He avers that -the unconscious Andrew is the lover of the blooming Rachel, and in so -doing lies like an Ananias. However, the drunken one has the excuse of -jealousy; which emotion is not only green-eyed but cross-eyed, and of -all things--as history shows--most apt to mislead the accurate vision of -folk. - -[Illustration: 0063] - -Andrew overflows of sentiment, and often in moments of loneliness turns -homesick. This is the more marvelous, since never from his very cradle -days has he had a home. Being homesick--one may as well call it that, -for want of a better word--he goes out to the orchard fence, a lonely -spot, cut off from view by intercepting bushes, and devotes himself -to melancholy. This melancholy, as often happens with high-strung, -vanity-bitten young gentlemen, is for the greater part nothing more than -the fomentations of his egotism and conceit. But Andrew does not know -this truth, and wears a fine tragic air as one beset of what poets term -"a nameless grief." - -One day the blooming Rachel discovers the melancholy Andrew, dreamily -mournful by the orchard fence. She watches him unperceived, and her -gentle bosom yearns over him. The blooming Rachel is not wanting in that -taint of romanticism to which all border folk are born; and now, to -see this Hector!--this lion among men!--so bent in sadness, moves her -tenderly. At that it is only a kind of maternal tenderness; for the -blooming Rachel has a wealth of mother love, and no children upon whom -to lavish it. She stands looking at the melancholy one, and would give -worlds if she might only take his head to her sympathetic bosom and -cherish it. - -The blooming Rachel approaches, and cheerily greets the gloomy one. She -seeks to uplift his spirits. Under the sweet spell of her, he tells how -wholly alone he is. He speaks of his mother and how her very grave is -lost. He relates how the Revolution swallowed up the lives of his two -brothers. - -"And your father?" - -"He was buried the week before I was born." - -The two stay by the orchard fence a long while, and talk on many things; -but never once on love. - -The drunken Robards, fiend-guided, gets a green-eyed glimpse of them. -With that his jealousy receives added edge, and--the better to decide -upon a course--he hurries to a grog-gery to pour down rum by the cup. -Either he drinks beyond his wont, or that rum is of sterner impulse than -common; for he becomes pot-valorous, and with curses vows the death of -Andrew. - -The drunken Robards, filled with rum to the brim, issues forth to -execute his threats. He finds his victim still sadly by the orchard -fence; but alone, since the blooming Rachel has been called to aid -in supper-getting. The pot-valorous Robards bursts into a torrent of -jealous recrimination. - -The melancholy Andrew cannot believe his ears! His melancholy takes -flight when he does understand, and in its stead comes white-hot anger. - -"What! you scoundrel!" he roars. The blue eyes blaze with such ferocity -that Robards the craven starts back. In a moment the other has control -of himself. "Sir!" he grits, "you shall give me satisfaction!" - -Robards the drunken says nothing, being frozen of fear. The enraged -Andrew stalks away in quest of the taciturn Overton who owns those hair -triggers. - -"Let us take a walk," says hair-trigger Overton, running his arm inside -the lean elbow of Andrew. Once in the woods, he goes on: "What do you -want to do?" - -"Kill him! I would put him in hell in a second!" - -"Doubtless! Having killed him, what then will you do?" - -"I don't understand." - -"Let me explain: You kill Robards. His wife is a widow. Also, because -you have killed Robards in a quarrel over her, she is the talk of -the settlement. Therefore, I put the question: Having made Rachel the -scandal of the Cumberland, what will you do?" - -There is a long, embarrassed pause. Presently Andrew lifts his gaze to -the cool eyes of his friend. - -"I shall offer her marriage. She shall, if she accept it, have the -protection of my name." - -"And then," goes on the ice-and-iron Overton, "the scandal will be -redoubled. They will say that you and Rachel, plotting together, have -murdered Robards to open a wider way for your guilty loves." - -Andrew takes a deep breath. "What would you counsel?" he asks. - -"One thing,"--laying his hand on Andrew's shoulder--"under no -circumstances, not even to save your own life, must you slay Robards. -You might better slay Rachel; since his death by your hand spells her -destruction. Good people would avoid her as though she were the plague. -Never more, on the Cumberland, should she hold up her head." - -That night the fear-eaten Robards solves the situation which his crazy -jealousy has created. He starts secretly for the North. He tells two or -three that he will never more call the blooming Rachel wife. - -For a month there is much silence, and some restraint, at the widow -Donelson's. This condition wears away; and, while no one says so, -everybody feels relaxed and relieved by the absence of the drunken -Robards. No one names him, and there is tacit agreement to forget -the creature. The drunken Robards, however, has no notion of being -forgotten. Word comes down from above that he will return and reclaim -his wife. At this the black eyes of Rachel sparkle dangerously. - -"That monster," she cries, "shall never kiss my lips, nor so much as -touch my hand again!" - -By advice of her mother, and to avoid the drunken Robards--who promises -his hateful appearance with each new day--the blooming Rachel resolves -to take passage on a keel boat for Natchez. Andrew, in deep concern, -declares that he shall accompany her. He says that he goes to protect -her from those Indians who make a double fringe of savage peril along -the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi. Overton, the taciturn, -shrugs his shoulders; the keel-boat captain is glad to have with him -the steadiest rifle along the Cumberland, and says as much; the blooming -Rachel is glad, but says so only with her eyes; the Nashville good -people say nothing, winking in silence sophisticated eyes. - -Robards the drunken, now when they are gone, plays the ill-used husband -to the hilts. He seems to revel in the rōle, and, to keep it from -cooling in interest, petitions the Virginia Legislature for a divorce. -In course of time the news climbs the mountains, and descends into the -Cumberland, that the divorce is granted; while similar word floats down -to Natchez with the keel boats. - -The slow story of the blooming Rachel's release reaches our two in -Natchez. Thereupon Andrew leads Rachel the blooming before a priest; and -the priest blesses them, and names them man and wife. That autumn they -are again at the widow Donelson's; but the blooming Rachel, once Mrs. -Robards, is now Mrs. Jackson. - -Slander is never the vice of a region that goes armed to the teeth. -Thus it befalls that now, when the two are back on the Cumberland, -those sophisticated ones forget to wink. There comes not so much as the -arching of a brow; for no one is so careless of life as all that. The -whole settlement can see that the dangerous Andrew is watching with -those steel-blue eyes. - -At the first suggestion that his Rachel has been guilty of wrong, he -will be at the throat of her maligner like a panther. - -Time flows on, and a horrible thing occurs. There comes a new word -that no divorce was granted by that Legislature; and this new word is -indisputable. There _is_ a divorce, one granted by a court; but, as an -act of separation between Rachel the blooming and the drunken Robards, -that decree of divorce is long months younger than the empowering act of -the Richmond Legislature, which mistaken folk regarded as a divorce. -The good priest's words, when he named our troubled two as man and wife, -were ignorantly spoken. During months upon months thereafter, through -all of which she was hailed as "Mrs. Jackson," the blooming Rachel was -still the wife of the drunken Robards. - -The blow strikes Andrew gray; but he says never a word. He blames -himself for this shipwreck; where his Rachel was involved, he should -have made all sure and invited no chances. - -The injury is done, however; he must now go about its repair. There is a -second marriage, at which the silent Overton and the widow Donelson are -the only witnesses, and for the second time a priest congratulates our -storm-tossed ones as man and wife. This time there is no mistake. - -The young husband sends to Charleston; and presently there come to -him over the Blue Ridge, the finest pair of dueling pistols which the -Cumberland has ever beheld. They are Galway saw-handles, rifle-barreled; -a breath discharges them, and they are sighted to the splitting of a -hair. - -"What are they for?" asks Overton the taciturn, balancing one in each -experienced hand. - -In the eyes of Andrew gathers that steel-blue look of doom. "They are to -kill the first villain who speaks ill of my wife," says he. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON - - -THE sandy-haired Andrew now devotes himself to the practice of law and -the domestic virtues. In exercising the latter, he has the aid of the -blooming Rachel, toward whom he carries himself with a tender chivalry -that would have graced a Bayard. Having little of books, he is earnest -for the education of others, and becomes a trustee of the Nashville -Academy. - -About this time the good people of the Cumberland, and of the regions -round about, believing they number more than seventy thousand souls, are -seized of a hunger for statehood. They call a constitutional convention -at Knoxville, and Andrew attends as a delegate from his county of -Davidson. Woolsack McNairy, his fellow student in the office of Spruce -Mc-Cay, is also a delegate. The woolsack one has-realized that dream of -old Salisbury, and is now a judge. - -Andrew and woolsack McNairy are members of the committee which draws -a constitution for the would-be commonwealth. The constitution, when -framed, is brought by its authors into open convention, and wranglingly -adopted. Also, "Tennessee" is settled upon for a name, albeit the ardent -Andrew, who is nothing if not tribal, urges that of "Cumberland." - -The constitution goes, with the proposition of statehood, before -Congress in Philadelphia; and, following a sharp fight, in which such -fossilized ones as Rufus King oppose and such quick spirits as Aaron -Burr sustain, the admission of "Tennessee," the new State is created. - -Its hunting-shirt citizenry, well pleased with their successful step in -nation building, elect Andrew to the House of Representatives. A little -later, he is taken from the House and sent to the Senate. There he -meets with Mr. Jefferson, who is the Senate's presiding officer, being -vice-president of the nation, and that accurate parliamentarian and -polished fine gentleman writes of him: - -"He never speaks on account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen -him attempt it repeatedly, but as often choke with rage." There also he -encounters Aaron Burr; and is so far socially sagacious as to model -his deportment upon that of the American Chesterfield, ironing out -its backwoods wrinkles and savage creases, until it fits a _salon_ as -smoothly well as does the deportment of Burr himself. Our hero finds but -one other man about Congress for whom he conceives a friendship equal to -that which he feels for Aaron Burr, and he is Edward Livingston. - -Andrew the energetic discovers the life of a senator to be one of -dawdling uselessness, overlong drawn out; and says so. He anticipates -the acrid Randolph of Roanoke, and declares that he never winds his -watch while in Congress, holding all time spent there as wasted and -thrown away. - -Idleness rusts him; and, being of a temper even with that of best -Toledo steel, he refuses to rust patiently. Preyed upon and carked of -an exasperating leisure, which misfits both his years and his -fierce temperament, he seeks refuge in what amusements are rife in -Philadelphia. He goes to Mr. McElwee's Looking-glass Store, 70 South -Fourth Street, and pays four bits for a ticket to the readings of Mr. -Fennell, who gives him Goldsmith, Thompson and Young. The readings -pall upon him, and athirst for something more violent, he clinks down -a Mexican dollar, witnesses the horsemanship at Mr. Rickett's -amphitheater, and finds it more to his horse-loving taste. When all else -fails, he buys a seat in a box at the Old Theater in Cedar Street, and -is entertained by the sleight of hand of wizard Signor Falconi. On -the back of it all he grows heartily sick of the Senate, and of -civilization, as the latter finds exposition in Philadelphia, and -resigns his place and goes home. - -When he arrives in Nashville, the Legislature--which still holds that -he should be engaged upon some public work--elects him to the supreme -bench.... - -_{There are missing paragraphs which are not found in any online edition -of this ebook}_ - -....objectionable Mr. Bean with those Galway saw-handles; and that -violent person surrenders unconditionally. In elucidating his sudden -tameness and its causes, Mr. Bean subsequently explains to a disgusted -admirer: - -"I looks at the Jedge, an' I sees shoot in his eye; an' thar warn't -shoot in nary 'nother eye in the crowd. So I says to myse'f, says I, 'Old -Hoss, it's about time to sing small!' An' I does." - -Notwithstanding those leaden exchanges with the Governor, and -the conquest of the discreet Mr. Bean, our jurist finds the bench -inexpressibly tedious. At last he resigns from it, as he did from the -Senate, and again retreats to private life. - -Here his forethoughtful Scotch blood begins to assert itself, and he -goes seriously to the making of money. With his one hundred and fifty -slaves, he tills his plantation as no plantation on the Cumberland was -ever tilled before; and the cotton crops he "makes" are at once the -local boast and wonder. He starts an inland shipyard, and builds keel -and flat boats for the river commerce with New Orleans. He opens a -store, sells everything from gunpowder to quinine, broadcloth by the -bolt to salt by the barrel, and takes his pay in the heterogeneous -currency of the region, whereof 'coon skins are a smallest subsidiary -coin. Also, it is now that he is made Major General of Militia, an honor -for which he has privily panted, even as the worn hart panteth for the -water brook. - -When he is a general, the blooming Rachel cuts and bastes and stitches a -gorgeous uniform for her Bayard, in which labor of love she exhausts the -Nashville supply of gold braid. Once the new General dons that effulgent -uniform, which he does upon the instant it is completed, he offers a -spectacle of such brilliancy that the bedazzled public talks facetiously -of smoked glass. The new General in no wise resents this jest, being -blandly tolerant of a backwoods sense of humor which suggests it. -Besides, while the public has its joke, he has the uniform and his -commission; and these, he opines, give him vastly the better of the -situation. - -Many friends, many foes, says the Arab, and now the popular young -General finds his path grown up of enemies. There be reasons for the -sprouting of these malevolent gentry. The General is the idol of the -people. He can call them about him as the huntsman calls his hounds. -At word or sign from him, they follow and pull down whatsoever man or -measure he points to as his quarry of politics. This does not match with -the ambitions of many a pushing gentleman, who is quite as eager for -popular preference, and--he thinks--quite as much entitled to it, as is -the General. - -These disgruntled ones, baffled in their political advancement by the -General, take darkling counsel among themselves. The decision they -arrive at is one gloomy enough. They cannot shake the General's hold -upon the people. Nothing short of his death promises a least ray of -relief. He is the sun; while he lives he alone will occupy the popular -heavens. His destruction would mean the going down of that sun. In the -night which followed, those lesser plotting luminaries might win for -themselves some twinkling visibility. - -It is the springtime of the malevolent ones' conspiracy, and the plot -they make begins to blossom for the bearing of its lethal fruit. There -is in Nashville one Charles Dickinson. By profession he is a lawyer, -albeit of practice intermittent and scant. In figure he is tall, -handsome, graceful with a feline grace. If there be aught in the old -Greek's theory touching the transmigration of souls, then this Dickinson -was aforetime and in another life a tiger. He is sinuous, powerful, -vain, narrowly cruel, with a sleek purring gloss of manner over all. -Also, he is of "good family"--that defense and final refuge of folk -who would else sink from respectable sight in the mire of their own -well-earned disrepute. - -Mr. Dickinson has one accomplishment, a physical one. So nicely does his -eye match his hand, that he may boast himself the quickest, surest shot -in all the world. Knowing his vanity, and the deadly certainty of his -pistols, the conspirators work upon him. They point out that to kill the -General under circumstances which men approve, will be an easy instant -step to greatness. Urged by his vanity, permitted by his cruelty, -dead-shot Dickinson rises to the glittering lure. - -Give a man station and fortune, and while his courage is not sapped -his prudence is promoted. The poor, obscure man will risk himself more -readily than will the eminent rich one, not that he is braver, but he -has less to lose. The General--who has been in both Houses of Congress, -and was a judge on the bench besides--will not be hurried to the field, -as readily as when he was merely Andrew the horse-faced. However, those -malignant secret ones are ingenious. They know a name that cannot -fail to set him ablaze for blood. They whisper that name to dead-shot -Dickinson. - -It is a banner day at the Clover Bottom track. The General's Truxton is -to run--that meteor among race horses, the mighty Truxton! The blooming -Rachel, seated in her carriage, is where she can view the finish. The -General--one of the Clover Bottom stewards--is in the judge's stand. -Dead-shot Dickinson, as the bell rings on the race, takes his stand at -the blooming Rachel's carriage wheel. He is not there to see a race, but -to plant an insult. - -"Go!" cries the starter. - -Away rushes the field, the flying Truxton in the lead! Around they -whirl, the little jockeys plying hand and heel! They sweep by the -three-quarters post! The great Truxton, eye afire, nostrils wide, comes -down the stretch with the swiftness of the thrown lance! Behind, ten -generous lengths, trail the beaten ruck! The red mounts to the cheek of -the blooming Rachel; her black eyes shine with excitement! She applauds -the invincible Truxton with her little hands. - -"He is running away with them!" she cries. - -Dead-shot Dickinson turns to the friend who is conveniently by his side. -The chance he waited for has come. - -"Running away with them!" he sneers, repeating the phrase of the -blooming Rachel. "To be sure! He takes after his master, who ran away -with another man's wife." - - - - -CHAPTER VII--HOW THE GENERAL FOUGHT - - -THE General seeks the taciturn Over-ton--that wordless one of the -uneasy hair triggers. - -"It is a plot," says the General. "And yet this man shall die." - -Hair-trigger Overton bears a challenge to dead-shot Dickinson, and is -referred to that marksman's second, Hanson Catlet. Hair-trigger Overton -and Mr. Catlet agree on Harrison's Mills, a long Day's ride away in -Kentucky. There are laws against dueling in Tennessee; wherefore her -citizens, when bent on blood, repair to Kentucky. To make all equal, -and owning similar laws, the Kentuckians, when blood hungry, take one -another to Tennessee. The arrangement is both perfect and polite, not -to say urbane, and does much to induce friendly relations between these -sister commonwealths. - -Place selected, Mr. Catlet insists upon putting off the fight for a -week. His principal is nothing if not artistic. He must send across the -Blue Ridge Mountains for a famous brace of pistols. His duel with the -General will have its page in history. He insists, therefore, upon -making every nice arrangement to attract the admiration of posterity. -He will kill the General, of course; and, by way of emphasizing his -gallantry, offers wagers to that effect. He bets three thousand dollars -that he will kill the General the first fire. - -The General makes no wagers, but holds long pow-wows with hair-trigger -Overton over their glasses and pipes. The fight is to be at -twelve paces, each man toeing a peg. The word agreed on is: -"Fire--one--two--three--stop!" Both are free to kill after the word -"Fire," and before the word "Stop." - -Hair-trigger Overton and the General give themselves up to a heartfelt -study of what advantages and disadvantages are presented by the -situation. They decide to let the gifted Dickinson shoot first. He is -so quick that the General cannot hope to forestall his fire. Also, any -undue haste on the General's part might spoil his aim. By the pros and -cons of it, as weighed between them, it is plain that the General must -receive the fire of dead-shot Dickinson. He will be hit; doubtless the -wound will bring death. He must, however, bend every iron energy to the -task of standing on his feet long enough to kill his adversary. - -"Fear not! I'll last the time!" says the General. "He shall go with me; -for I've set my heart on his blood." - -Those wonderful pistols come over the Blue Ridge, and dead-shot -Dickinson with his friends set out for that far-away Kentucky fighting -ground. They make gala of the business, and laugh and joke as they ride -along. By way of keeping his hand in, and to give the confidence of -his admirers a wire edge, dead-shot Dickinson unbends in sinister -exhibitions of his pistol skill. At a farmer's house a gourd is hanging -by a string from the bough of a tree. Deadrshot Dickinson, at twenty -paces, cuts the string; the gourd falls to the ground. - -"Some gentlemen will be along presently," he says. "Show them that -string, and tell them how it was cut." - -At a wayside inn he puts four bullets into a mark the size of a silver -dollar. - -"When General Jackson arrives," he observes, tossing a gold piece to the -innkeeper, "say that those shots were fired at twenty-four paces." - -And so with song and shout and jest and pistol firing, the Dickinson -party troop forward. They arrive in the early evening and put up at -Harrison's tavern. The fight is for seven o'clock in the morning. - -Behind this gay cavalcade are journeying the General and hair-trigger -Overton. The farmer repeats the story of the gourd and its bullet-broken -string. A bit farther, and the innkeeper calls attention to that -quartette of shots, which took effect within the little circumference -of a dollar piece. The stern pair behold these marvels unmoved; -hair-trigger Overton merely shrugs his shoulders, while the General's -lip curls contemptuously. Dead-shot Dickinson has thrown away his lead -and powder if he hoped to shake these men of granite. Upon coming to the -battle ground, the General and hair-trigger Overton avoid the Harrison -tavern, which shelters the jovial Dickinson _coterie_, and put up at the -inn of David Miller. That evening, they hold their final conference in -a cloud of tobacco smoke, like a couple of Indians. Finally, the General -goes to bed, and sleeps like a tree. - -With the first blue streaks of morning our two war parties are up -and moving. They meet in a convenient grove of poplars. The ground is -stepped off and pegged; after which hair-trigger Overton and Mr. Catlet -pitch a coin. The impartial coin awards the choice of positions to Mr. -Catlet, and gives the word to hair-trigger Overton. There is a third -toss which settles that the weapons are to be those Galway saw-handles. -At this good fortune a steel-blue point of fire shows in the satisfied -eye of the General. He recalls how he procured those weapons to kill the -first man who spoke evil of the blooming Rachel, and is pleased to think -a benignant destiny will not permit them to be robbed of that original -right. - -The men are led to their respective pegs by Mr. Catlet and hair-trigger -Overton. The General, through the experienced strategy of hair-trigger -Overton, wears a black coat--high of collar, long of skirt. It buttons -close to the chin; not a least glimpse of bullet-guiding white, whether -of shirt collar or cravat, is allowed to show. The black coat is -purposely voluminous; and the whereabouts of the General's lean frame, -tucked away in its folds, is a question not readily replied to. The only -mark on the whole sable expanse of that coat is a row of steel-bright -buttons. These are not in the middle, but peculiarly to one side. Those -steel-bright buttons will draw the fire of dead-shot Dickinson like a -magnet. Which is precisely what hair-trigger Overton had in mind. - -As the two stand at the pegs, dead-shot Dickinson calls loudly to a -friend: - -"Watch that third button! It's over the heart! I shall hit him there!" - -The grim General says nothing; but the look on his gaunt face reads like -a page torn from some book of doom. As he stands waiting the word, he is -observed by the watchful Overton to slip something into his mouth. Then -his jaws set themselves like flint. - -"Gentlemen, are you ready?" - -They are ready, dead-shot Dickinson cruelly eager, the somber General -adamant. There is a soundless moment, still as death: - -"Fire!" - -Instantly, like a flash of lightning, the pistol of dead-shot Dickinson -explodes. That objective third button disappears, driven in by the -vengeful lead! The General rocks a little on his feet with the awful -shock of it; then he plants himself as moveless as an oak. Through the -curling smoke dead-shot Dickinson makes out the stark, upstanding -form. For a moment it is as though he were planet-struck. He shrinks -shudderingly from his peg. - -"God!" he whispers; "have I missed him?" - -Hair-trigger Overton cocks the pistol he holds in his hand and covers -the horror-smitten Dickinson. - -"Back to your mark, sir!" he roars. - -Dead-shot Dickinson steps up to his peg, his cheek the hue of ashes. He -reads his sentence in those implacable steel-blue eyes, and the death -nearness touches his heart like ice. - -"One!" says hair-trigger Overton. - -At the word, there is a sharp "klick!" The General has pulled the -trigger, but the hammer catches at half cock. The General's inveterate -steel-blue glance never for one moment leaves his man. He recocks the -weapon with a resounding "kluck!" - -"Two!" says hair-trigger Overton. - -"Bang!" - -There comes the flash and roar, and dead-shot Dickinson is seen to -stagger. He totters, stumbles slowly forward, and falls all along on his -face. The bullet has bored through his body. - -The General stays by his peg--cold and hard and stern. Hair-trigger -Overton approaches the wounded Dickinson. One glance is enough. He -crosses to the General and takes his arm. - -"Come!" he says. "There is nothing more to do!" - -Hair-trigger Overton leads the General back to their inn. As the pair -journey through the poplar wood, he asks: - -"What was that you put in your mouth?" - -"It was a bullet," returns the General; "I placed it between my teeth. -By setting my jaws firmly upon it I make my hand as steady as a church." - -As the General says this, he gives that steadying pellet of lead to -hair-trigger Overton, who looks it over curiously. It has been crushed -between the clenched teeth of the General until now it is as flat and -thin as a two-bit piece. As the two approach the tavern they come upon -a negress churning butter, and the General pauses to drink a quart of -milk. - -Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls off the General's boot, -which is full of blood. - -"Not there!" says the General. "His bullet found me here"; and he throws -open the black coat. - -Dead-shot Dickinson's aim was better than his surmise. He struck that -indicated third button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair-trigger -Overton which prompted the voluminous coat, the button did not cover the -General's heart. The deceived bullet has only broken two ribs and grazed -the breastbone. - -The surgeon is called; the wound is dressed and bandaged. He describes -it as serious, and shakes his head. - -"Still," he observes, "you are more fortunate than Mr. Dickinson. He -cannot live an hour." As the man of probe and forceps is about to retire -the General detains him. - -"You are not to speak of my wound until we are back in Nashville." - -He of the probe and forceps bows assent. When he has left the room -hair-trigger Overton asks: - -"What was that for?" - -The brow of the General grows cloudy with a reminiscent war frown. - -"Have you forgotten those four shots inside the circle of a dollar, and -that bullet-severed string? I want the braggart to die thinking he has -missed a man at twelve paces." - -The two light pipes and hair-trigger Overton sends for his whisky. Once -it has come he gives the General a stiff four fingers, and under the -fiery spell of the liquor the color struggles into the pale hollow of -his cheek. - -He of the probe and forceps comes to the door. - -"Gentlemen," he says, palms outward with a sort of deprecatory -gesture--"gentlemen, Mr. Dickinson is dead." - -The General knocks the ashes from his pipe. Then he crosses to the open -window and looks out into the May sunshine. From over near the poplar -wood drifts up the liquid whistle of a quail. Presently he returns to -his seat and begins refilling his pipe. - -"It speaks worlds for your will power, that you should have kept your -feet after being hit so hard. Not one in ten thousand could have held -himself together while he made that shot!" This is a marvelous burst of -loquacity for hair-trigger Overton, who deals out words as some men deal -out ducats. - -"I was thinking on _her_, whom his slanderous tongue had hurt. I should -have stood there till I killed him, though he had shot me through the -heart!" - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED WAR - - -THE saw-handles are cleaned and oiled and laid away to that repose -which they have won. No more will they be summoned to defend the -blooming Rachel. No one now speaks evil of her; for that tragedy which -reddened a May Kentucky morning has sealed the lips of slander. The -General does not speak of that battle at twelve paces in the poplar -wood; and yet the blooming Rachel knows. She, like her lover-husband, -never refers to it; but her worship of him finds multiplication, while -he, towards her, grows more and more the Bayard. Much are they revered -and looked up to along the Cumberland, he for his gentle loyalty, she -for her love; and the common tongue is tireless in reciting the story of -their perfect happiness. - -The currents of time roll on and the General is busy with his planting, -his storekeeping, and his boat building. He is fortunate; and the -three-sided profits pile themselves into moderate riches. In the midst -of his prosperity he is visited by Aaron Burr. The late vice-president -has killed Alexander Hamilton--a name despised along the Cumberland. -Also he was aforetime the champion of Tennessee, when she asked the boon -of statehood. - -For these sundry matters, as well as for what good unconscious lessons -in deportment were taught him by the courtly Colonel Burr, the General -fails not to take that polished exile to his heart and to his hearth. -Colonel Burr is in and out of Nashville many times. He comes and goes -and comes and goes and comes again; and writes his daughter Theodosia: - -"I am housed with General Jackson, who is one of those prompt, frank, -loyal souls whom I like." - -Colonel Burr has been in France, and tells the General of Napoleon. He -draws a battle map of Quebec, shows where Montgomery fell, and relates -how he, Colonel Burr, bore that dead chieftain from the field. In the -end, he gives a dim outline of his dreams for the conquest of that -Spanish America, lying on the thither side of the Mississippi; and to -these latter tales of empire the General lends eager ear. - -By the General's suggestion a dinner is given at the Nashville Inn in -honor of Colonel Burr. The General presides, and, with a heart full of -anger against Barbary pirates, offers among others the toast: - -"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" - -Colonel Burr, being dined, confides to the General how he is not without -an ally in the Southwest, and says that Commander Wilkinson, in -control for the Government at New Orleans, stands ready to advance his -anti-Spanish projects. At the name of "Wilkinson" the General shakes -his prudent head. He declares that Commander Wilkinson is a faithless, -caitiff creature, with a brandified nose, a coward heart, and a weakness -for breaking his word. The crafty Burr, confident to vanity of his own -genius for intrigue, insists that he can trust Commander Wilkinson. -Then he arranges with the General for the building of a flotilla of -flat-boats at the latter's yards, and goes his scheming way. Later, when -Colonel Burr is on trial for treason in Richmond, the General will ride -over the Blue Ridge to give him aid and comfort, and make street-corner -speeches defending him, wherein he will say things more explicit than -flattering concerning President Jefferson, who is urging the prosecution -of Colonel Burr. - -The hours, never resting, never sleeping, march onward with our -planter-General, until the procession in its passing is remembered and -spoken of as years. Then comes the war with England. That saber scar on -the General's head begins to throb, and he sends word to Washington that -he is ready, with twenty-five hundred of his hunting-shirt militia, to -kill British wherever they shall be found. - -The Government thanks him, and orders him with his hunting-shirt -followers to report to General Wilkinson at New Orleans. The General -does not like this, the Wilkinson in question being that red-nosed -renegade one, against whom long ago he warned the ambitious Colonel -Burr. For all that, orders are orders; and besides a fight under any -commander is not to be despised. The General presently hurries his -hunting-shirt forces aboard flatboats, and floats away on the convenient -bosom of the Cumberland. He will go down that stream to the Ohio, and so -to the Mississippi and to New Orleans. As they float downward with the -stream, the General recalls a former voyage when love and the blooming -Rachel were his companions, and is heard to sigh. - -At Natchez, word from Commander Wilkinson meets the General. He is told -to land, and wait for further orders. The General takes his boys of the -hunting shirts ashore, and pitches camp. Privily he unbends in oaths and -maledictions, all addressed to the ex-grocer Wilkinson; for he thinks -the order, preventing his entrance into New Orleans, born of the mean -rivalry of that red-nosed ignobility. - -The General waits, and curses Commander Wilkinson, for divers weeks. -Then occurs one of those imbecilities, of which only the witlessness of -Government is capable, and whereof the archives at Washington carry -so many examples. The General receives a curt dispatch from the war -secretary, "dismissing" him and his hunting-shirt soldiers from the -service of the United States. Not a word is said as to pay, or provision -for returning to the Cumberland. Having gotten the General and his -little army several hundred wilderness miles from home, the thick-head -Government, with no intelligence and as little heart, coolly reduces him -and them to the practical status of vagrants; which feat accomplished, -it walks away, as it were, hands in pockets, whistling "Yankee Doodle." -Possibly, the Government thinks that the General and his hunting-shirt -friends can float upstream as they floated down. The angry General, -however, makes no such marine mistake, and the intricate oaths which he -now evolves and fulminates, as expressive of his feelings, would have -won the admiration of any army that ever fought in Flanders. - -The General's credit is golden, since he has ever been a fanatic about -paying debts. Invoking that credit, he cashes a handful of drafts, and -marches home with his hunting-shirt contingent at his own expense. Also -he indites a letter to that war secretary which reddens the latter's -departmental ears, and causes his departmental head to buzz like a nest -of hornets. Later, the Government pays the General the amount of those -drafts; not because it is right--since the argument of right has little -Washington weight--but for the far more moving reason that Tennessee, -in a rage, is preparing to desert the boneless President Madison for the -Federalists. It is the latter thought which brings a ray of common sense -to the besotted Government, and his money to our General, now back in -Tennessee. - -The bellicose General is vastly disappointed at missing a brush with -invading British; for, aside from a saber-engrafted hatred of all -English things and men, he is one to dote on fighting for fighting's -crimson sake, and is almost as well pleased with mere battle as with -victory. However, he is given scanty room for sorrowful reflections, -since fate is hurrying to his relief with a private war of his own. - -The General, ever an expositor of the duello, and the peaceful hours -resting heavy on his hands, goes out as second for a Captain Carroll -against Mr. Jesse Benton. Captain Carroll is shot in the toe, and Mr. -Benton in the leg; whereat the General and the Cumberland public groan -over results so inadequate. - -Being thus shot in the leg, Mr. Benton displays his bad taste by -falling into a fury with the General. He recounts what he regards as his -"wrongs" to his brother Thomas, and that intemperate individual loses -no time in taking up his brother's quarrel. The pair say things of the -General which would arouse the wrath of an image; with that, the General -calls for his saw-handles, and begins to plan trouble for those verbally -reckless Bentons. - -The General takes with him as guide, philosopher and friend, his -faithful subaltern, Colonel Coffee. The two establish themselves, -strategically, at the Nashville Inn. - -Across the corner of the public square upon which the Nashville Inn -finds hospitable frontage, stands the City Hotel. Sunning themselves in -the veranda of the latter caravansary, but with war written upon their -angry visages, the General and the faithful Coffee perceive the brothers -Benton. The enemies glare at one another, and the General says to -Colonel Coffee that they will now go to the post office. Since a trip to -the post office is calculated to bring them within touching distance of -the brothers Benton, Colonel Coffee at once discerns the propriety of -such a journey. - -The pair go to the post office, staring haughtily at the brothers Benton -as they pass. The brothers Benton, for their side, being apoplectic of -habit, grow black in the face with rage. - -Having visited the post office, and being now upon their return, the -General and Colonel Coffee again draw near the apoplectic Bentons, -glowering from their veranda. When within three feet of them, the -General abruptly whips out one of those celebrated saw-handles, and jams -its muzzle against the horrified stomach of brother Thomas Benton. That -imperiled personage thereupon backs rapidly away from the saw-handle, -which as rapidly follows; while the public, assembling on the run, -confidently expects the General to shoot brother Thomas Benton in two. - -The General might have done so, and thus gratified the public, but -the unexpected occurs. As brother Thomas Benton backs briskly from the -muzzle of the saw-handle, brother Jesse, who is not wanting in a genius -for decision, whirls, and from a huge horse pistol plants two balls in -the General's left shoulder. As the warrior goes down, Colonel Coffee -empties his pistol at brother Thomas, who avoids having his head blown -off only by the fortunate fact of a cellar, into whose receptive depths -he tumbles, just in what novelists call "the nick of time." As brother -Thomas lapses into the cellar, young Hays, a nephew of the blooming -Rachel, hurls brother Jesse to the floor, to which he makes heartfelt -attempts to pin him with a dirk, but is baffled by the activity of the -restless brother Jesse, who will not lie still to be pinned. - -The whole riot has not covered the space of sixty seconds, when the -public, suddenly conceiving its duty to lie in that direction, seizes -young Hays, releases the recumbent brother Jesse, disarms Colonel -Coffee, fishes brother Thomas out of that receptive cellar, and carries -the badly wounded General to a bed in the Nashville Inn. The City Hotel -mentions its own beds, and lays claim to the injured General, on the -argument that the battle has been fought in its bar. The claim is -disallowed and the General conveyed to the rival hostelry aforesaid, -as being peculiarly his own proper inn, since it is there he has ever -repaired for billiards, mint juleps, and to hold conferences over pipe -and glass with his friends. - -Once in bed, the local surgeons burst in and offer to cut off the -General's arm. The offer is declined fiercely and a poultice of -slippery-elm bark is substituted for that proposed surgery. This -latter medicament works wonders; under its soothing influences, and the -revivifying effects of whisky--both being remedies much in vogue along -the Cumberland--the General begins to mend. - -The General, the patient object of a deal of slippery-elm bark and -whisky--the one applied externally and the other internally--lies in bed -a month. Then the awful word arrives of the massacre at Fort Mims. -Five hundred and fifty-three souls have been slaughtered, and Chief -Weathersford with all his Creeks, valor sharpened by English gold and -English firewater, is reported on the warpath. The news brings the -General out of bed in a moment. His friends remonstrate, the doctors -command, the blooming Rachel pleads; but he puts them aside. Gaunt of -cheek, face paper-white with weakness, left arm in a sling, he climbs -painfully into the saddle and takes command. - -The General sends Colonel Coffee and his mounted riflemen to the fore, -with orders to wait for him at Fayettesville. Meanwhile, he himself -lingers briefly to enroll and organize his little army. A few weeks -later he follows the doughty Coffee, and the entire command--horns full -of powder, pouches heavy with bullets, hunting knives whetted to a razor -edge--moves southward after hostile Creeks. - - - - -CHAPTER IX--THE GENERAL AT THE HORSESHOE - - -THE General goes to Fayettesville, and orders Colonel Coffee with his -eager five hundred to Huntsville, as a point nearer the heart of savage -war. Volunteers, each bringing his own rifle and riding his own horse, -join Colonel Coffee, who sends back inspiring word that his five -hundred have grown to thirteen hundred, all thirsting for Creek blood. -Meanwhile, the General, weak and worn to a shadow, can hardly keep -the saddle, and must be bathed hourly in whisky to hold soul and body -together. Unable to eat, he lives by his will alone. The shot-shattered -left arm, lest he faint with the awful agony which attends its least -disturbance, is bound tightly to his side. - -The General takes the field, and presently comes up with the Creeks. He -smites them hip and thigh at Tallushatches, Talladega, and divers other -places of equally complicated names, slaying hundreds while losing few -himself. The Creeks give way before the invincible General. Wherever he -goes they scatter like an affrighted flock of blackbirds. - -The Indian is terrible only when he is winning. He is not upholstered, -whether mentally or morally, for an uphill, losing war. The General -would like it better if this were otherwise. Could he but coax his -evanescent enemy into a pitched battle, he would break both his heart -and his power with one and the same blow. - -Chief Weathersford is as well aware of this defect in the Indian make-up -as is the General. He himself is half white, and knows what points of -strength and weakness belong with either race. Wherefore, when now his -Creeks have been beaten, and their hearts are low in defeat, he makes -no effort to lead them against the General's front; but breaks them into -squads and little bands, with directions to harass the hunting-shirt -men and hang about their flanks in the name of flea-bite annoyance and -isolated scalps. Thus is the General plagued and fatigued nigh unto -death, without once being able to lay hand upon those skulking, hiding, -flying foot-Parthians against whom he has come forth. - -Also, he and his hunting-shirt men are getting farther and farther -from anything that might be termed a base of supplies. At last, many a -pathless mile through wood and swamp, and many an unbridged river, lie -between the nearest barrel of flour and their stomachs clamorous for -food. - -The military stomach is the first great base of every military -operation. The war-wise Frederick had it for his aphorism, that an -army is so much like a snake it can move forward only on its belly. -The General is made painfully aware of this truism when he and his -hunting-shirt men find themselves penned up with starvation at Fort -Strother. In the teeth of his troubles, however, he makes shift to send -home an orphaned papoose for the blooming Rachel to raise. - -Famine takes command at Fort Strother, and the General writes: "He is -an enemy I dread more than hostile Creeks--I mean the meager monster, -Famine!" There is murmuring among the hunting-shirt men, who have, with -the appetite common to bordermen, that contempt of discipline which -belongs to their rude caste. They are reduced to roots and berries, with -an occasional pigeon or squirrel, which latter diminutive deer no one -waits to cook, but devours raw. One day a backwoods boy, whose appetite -is even with his effrontery, waylays the General on his rounds and -demands food. - -"Here is what I was saving for supper," says the General; "you may have -that." And he tosses the hungry one a double handful of acorns. - -The starving hunting-shirt men mutiny; they draw themselves up -preparatory to marching north, to find that home-fatness which waits -for them on the Cumberland. At this the General changes his manner. -Heretofore he has been the symbol of fatherly sympathy and toleration. -He can make excuses for the grumbling of hungry men, and makes them. But -this goes beyond grumbling, which, when all is in, comes to be no -more than a healthful blowing off of angry steam; this is desertion by -wholesale. - -As the lean-flanked, rancorous ones line up to begin their homeward -march, the General, haggard and emaciated by those Benton wounds and a -want of food, rides out in front. Halting forty yards from the foremost -mutineers, he swings from the saddle. In his right hand he carries a -long eight-square rifle. This, since he has no left hand to support -his aim, he runs across the empty saddle. Being ready, he calls on the -hunting-shirt men to give the order to march, if they dare. - -"For by the Eternal," says he, "I'll shoot down the first of you who -takes a forward step!" - -The sulky, hungry hunting-shirt men scowl at the General. He scowls back -at them, with the wicked ferocity of a tiger and an iron determination -not to be revoked. And thus they stand glaring--one against hundreds! -Then the courage of the hungry hundreds oozes away, and they fall back -before that menacing apparition which glowers at them along the rifle -barrel. They melt away by the rear, those hunting-shirt men, and lurk -off to their quarters--ashamed of their weakness, yet afraid to go on. - -At last, a herd of beef, quite as gaunt as the starved hunting-shirt men -themselves, arrives. Fires are set going and knives drawn. There is a -measureless eating. Belts are let out to the full-fed holes of other -days; mutiny, like an evil spirit, takes its flight. The gorged -hunting-shirt men, as though in amends for their scowl-ings and mutinous -grumblings, beg to be led instantly against the Creeks. This the General -is very willing to do, since he suspects the Creeks of possessing corn. - -The General's scouts tell him that the scattered Creeks are collecting -in force at the Horseshoe. Upon this news, one bright morning the -General rides out of Fort Strother, and his recuperated hunting-shirt -men, two thousand strong, are at his back. - -The Horseshoe is a loop-like bend in the Tallapoosa, which incloses a -round one hundred heavily-timbered acres. Across the open end, three -hundred and fifty yards wide, the British engineers have taught the -Creeks to throw up a fortification of logs. Behind this bulwark is -gathered the fighting flower of the Creeks, more than one thousand -warriors in all. - -Arriving in front of the log bulwark, the General, with the experienced -Coffee, pushes forward to reconnoiter. - -"We can thank the British for that," says the General, tossing his -indignant right hand toward the Creek defenses. "Billy Weathers-ford, -even with the half-white blood that's in him, would never have designed -it." - -The astute Coffee makes a suggestion and, acting on it, the General -dispatches him by a roundabout march to take the Creeks from behind. The -fatuous savages flatter themselves that the wide-flowing Tallapoosa will -defend their rear. All they need do, they think, is lie behind those -English-log breastworks and knock over whatever obnoxious paleface shows -his head. This is an admirable programme, and comforting to the cockles -of the aboriginal heart. There is but one trouble; it won't work. - -As the circuitous Coffee begins to swing wide for his stealthy creep -to the rear, the General covers the strategy with a brace of brawling -nine-pounders. Inside the log breastworks, he hears the "tunk! tunk!" -of the "medicine" drum, and the measured chant of the prophets promising -victory. In the midst of the prophetic chantings and the dull thumping -of the tomtoms, the nine-pounders roar and bury their shot in the log -breastworks. The shot do no harm, and serve but to excite the ribald -mirth of the Creeks. The latter can speak enough English for the -purposes of insult, and scoff and jeer at the General, whom they -describe--having in mind his lean form--as a lance shaft, harmless, -because wanting a keen head. They storm at him with opprobrious epithet, -and invite him, unless he be a coward, to come to them over their -breastworks. The General pays no heed to the contumely of the Creeks; -he is bending his ear to catch, above the din of his nine-pounders, the -earliest signal of the redoubtable Coffee's attack. - -Colonel Coffee and his riflemen, horses at a walk, pick their difficult -way through the woods. It is a matter of no little time before they find -themselves at the toe of the Horseshoe, and in the ignorant rear of the -Creeks. Between them and those one hundred tree-grown acres held by the -enemy flows the Tallapoosa--turbid, wide and deep. Across, they see the -canoes, which the stupidity of the Creeks has left without so much as a -squaw or a papoose to guard them. In a moment, a score have thrown -off their hunting shirts, and are in the river. They swim like so many -Newfoundlands, and come out dripping, but happy, on the farther side. -Presently each of the swimming score is upon his return trip, towing a -dozen of the largest canoes. - -Leaving a horse guard to look after the mounts, Colonel Coffee embarks -his command in the canoes; ten minutes later, the last fighting man jack -of them is on the other side. They hear the boom of the nine-pounders, -and the yells and war shouts of the Creeks. Also they discover the -wickiups of the Creeks, hidden away, with their squaws and papooses, in -a thickety corner of the wood. - -Colonel Coffee, who, for all he is a backwoodsman, is not without -certain sparks and spunks of military skill, sets fire to the wickiups, -as an excellent sure method of wringing the withers and distracting the -attention of the fighting Creeks at the front. The flames go crackling -skyward; the squaws and papooses rush yelling from the slight houses -of wattled willow twigs and bark, and scuttle into the underbrush like -rabbits. Unlike rabbits, being in the underbrush, they set up such a -dismal tempest of howls, that those rearmost Creeks who hear it come -running to learn what disaster has seized upon their households. - -Before they can make extensive inquiry, Colonel Coffee and his riflemen -open on them with a storm of bullets; and next, each man takes a tree. -The war now proceeds Creek fashion, every man--white and red--fighting -for himself. There is a difference, however; for while the hunting-shirt -men are dead shots, the Creeks prove themselves such wretchedly bad -marksmen--not understanding a rear sight, which article of gun furniture -is a mystery to the Indian mind even unto this day--as to provoke a deal -of hunting-shirt laughter. - -Slowly but surely the Creeks give way before that low-flying sleet -of lead. As they give way, running from one tree to another, their -hunting-shirt foe presses forward--as deadly a skirmish line as ever -commander threw out! - -The quick ear of the General catches the firing down at the toe of the -Horseshoe. It tells him that Colonel Coffee is busy with the Creek rear. -Also, he gets a far-off glimpse, through the trees, of the smoke and -flames from those burning wickiups, and understands the message of them. - -Drawing off the futile nine-pounders, the General orders a charge, the -amateur artillerists taking up their rifles with the others. At -the word, the hunting-shirt men rush forward, and go over the log -breastworks like cats. - -The one earliest to scale the breastworks--quick as a panther, strong -as a bear--is Ensign Sam Houston. The Southwest will hear more of him -before all is done. That lively youth, however, is not thinking of the -future; for an arrow, excessively of the present, has just pierced his -thigh, and is demanding his whole attention. Shutting his teeth like a -trap to control the pain, he snaps the shaft and draws the arrow from -the wound. A moment later, the surgeon bandages it. - -The General is standing near, and waxes conservative touching Ensign Sam -Houston. - -"Don't go back!" commands the General shortly. "That arrow through your -leg should be enough." - -Ensign Sam Houston says nothing, but the moment his commander's back -is turned rushes headlong over those log breastworks again. Later he -is picked up with two bullets in him, which serve to keep him quiet for -nigh a fortnight. - -Once the hunting-shirt men are across the log breastworks, a slow -and painstaking killing ensues. Not a Creek asks quarter; not a Creek -accepts it when tendered. It is to be a fight to the death--a fight -unsparing, relentless, grim! - -"Remember Fort Mims!" shout the hunting-shirt men, working away with, -rifle and axe and knife. - -The Creeks, caught between the General and Colonel Coffee, hide -in clumps of bushes or behind logs. From these slight coverts, the -hunting-shirt men flush them, as setters flush birds, and shoot them as -they fly. Once a Creek is down, out flashes the ready hunting knife and -a Creek scalp is torn off; for the hunting-shirt men, on a principle -that fights Satan with fire, have adopted the war habits of their red -enemy. - -The hunting-shirt men range up and down, quartering those one hundred -acres of Horseshoe wood like hounds, killing out in all directions. -Now and then a warrior, sorely crowded, leaps into the Tallapoosa, and -strikes forth for the opposite shore. His feather-tufted head is seen -bobbing on the muddy surface of the river. To gentlemen who, offhand, -make nothing of a turkey's head at one hundred yards, those brown -bobbing feather-tufted Creek heads are child's play. A rifle cracks; -the shot-pierced Creek springs clear of the water with a death yell, and -then goes bubbling to the bottom. Sometimes two rifles crack; in which -double event the Creek takes with him to the bottom two bullets instead -of one. - -The slaughter moves forward slowly, but satisfactorily, for hours. It -is ten o'clock in the night when the last Creek is killed, and the -hunting-shirt men, hungry with a hard day's work, may think on supper. -Of the red one thousand and more who manned those British-built -fortifications in the morning, not two-score get away. It is the Creek -Thermopylae. - -The General's triumph at the Horseshoe puts the last paragraph to the -last chapter of the Creek wars. Also, it disappoints certain English -prospects, and defeats for all time those savage hopes of a general race -battle against the paleface, the fires of which the dead Tecumseh so -long supported by his eloquence and fed with deeds of valor. By way of -a finishing touch, from which the hue of romance is not wanting, the -terrible Weathersford rides in, on his famous gray war horse, and gives -himself up to the General. - -"You may kill me," says Weathersford. "I am ready to die, for I have -beheld the destruction of my people. No one will hereafter fear the -Creeks, who are broken and gone. I come now to save the women and little -children starving in the forest." - -[Illustration: 0127] - -The hunting-shirt men, not at all sentimental, lift up their voices in -favor of slaying the chief. At that the General steps in between. - -"The man who would kill a prisoner," he cries, "is a dog and the son of -a dog. To him who touches Weathersford I promise a noose and the nearest -tree." - -The General leads his hunting-shirt men by easy marches back to that -impatient plenty which awaits their coming on the Cumberland. The public -welcomes him with shout and toss of hat, while the blooming Rachel gives -her hero measureless love and tenderness. The General's one hundred and -fifty slaves, agog with joy and fire water, make merry for two round -days. They would have enlarged that festival to three days, but the -stern overseer intervenes to recall them to the laborious realities of -life. - -As the General begins to have the better of his fatigue and -sickness--albeit that Benton-wounded left arm is still in a sling--a -note is put in his hands. The note is from the War Department in -Washington, and reads: "Andrew Jackson of Tennessee is appointed Major -General in the Army of the United States, vice William Henry Harrison, -resigned." - - - - -CHAPTER X--FLORIDA DELENDA EST - - -THE General, at the behest of the blooming Rachel, rests for three -round weeks, which seem to his fight-loving soul like three round years. -Then the Government sends him to Fort Jackson to dictate terms of peace -to the broken Creeks. - -The latter assemble, war paints washed off, in a deeply thoughtful, if -not a peaceful, mood. - -The General proposes terms which well nigh amount to a wiping out of the -Creek landed possessions. The Creeks go into secret council, as it -were executive session, and bemoan their desperate lot. They curse the -English who urged them to that butchery of Fort Mims and then deserted -them. Beyond relieving their minds, however, the curses accomplish no -Creek good. They must still face the inveterate General, whose word is, -"Your lives or your lands!" - -The mournful, beaten Creeks come forth from executive session, and -the great formal conference begins. The council is called on the flat -field-like expanse in front of the General's imposing marquee--for he -has come to this mission with no little of pompous style, to the end -that the Creek mind be impressed. - -The Creek chiefs, blanketed to the ears, feathered to the eyes, sit -about, crosslegged like tailors, in a half circle, their only weapon a -sacred red-stone pipe. The General, blazing in a new uniform, comes -out of his marquee. With him are Colonel Coffee, Colonel Hawkins, and -lastly, Colonel Hayne, the brother of him who will one day cross blades -in Senate debate with the lion-faced Webster, and have the worst of it. - -As the General steps forward an orderly leads up his great war horse, as -though the conference might lapse into battle, and he must be ready -to mount and fight. To the rear, his hunting-shirt men, one thousand -strong, are drawn out, as following forth those precautions which -produce the General's war horse. The Creeks, at these evidences of -suspicious alertness, never move a bronze muscle; they pass the sacred -redstone pipe with gravity unmoved, and puff away as though the last -thing they suspect is suspicion. - -Big Warrior makes a speech, and is followed by She-lok-tah, the tribal -Demosthenes. The General shakes his grim head at their protests; there -is no help for it, they must give him his way or fight. The Creeks bow -to the inevitable, and give the General his way; which bowing submission -is the less disgraceful, since both the Spanish at Pensacola and the -English at New Orleans, in a brief handful of months, under pressures -less stringent than are those which now and here in front of the -Generali great marquee bear down the broken hopeless Creeks, will follow -their abject example. - -Having made peace with the Creeks on the Tallapoosa, the General lets -his angry, warseeking eye rove in the direction of Florida. Many of the -hostile Creek Red Sticks have fled to cover there, where they are made -welcome by the Spanish Governor Maurequez, and petted and pampered -by Colonel Nichols and Captain Woodbine of the English. The besotted -Governor Maurequez has permitted these latter to land an English force, -and, inspired by his native hatred of Americans and the sight of British -ships of war in Pensacola harbor, has surrendered to them the last -stitch of Florida control. - -The General guesses these things and sends out scouts to make -discoveries. Meanwhile, he marches his hunting-shirt men to Mobile, -which his instincts--never at fault in war--warn him will be the -next English point of attack. Word has reached him of the downfall of -Napoleon, and he foresees that this will release against America the -utmost energies of England, who in thirty odd years has not forgotten -Yorktown nor despaired of its repair. - -The General's scouts are a sleepless, observant, close-going set of -gentlemen, and fairly enter Pensacola. Presently, they are back with the -news that two flags float in friendly partnership on the battlements of -Fort St. Michael, one English and one Spanish. Also, seven English war -ships ride in the harbor. - -They likewise say that the popinjay Colonel Nichols is issuing -proclamations to "The People of Louisiana," demanding that, as -"Frenchmen, Spaniards, and English," they arise and "throw off the -American yoke"; that Captain Woodbine is assembling the fugitive Red -Sticks by scores, and reviving their drooping spirits with English gold, -English guns, English gin, and English red coats. - -Captain Woodbine, it appears, is so dull as to think he may make regular -soldiers of the untamed Red Sticks, and drills them in the Pensacola -plaza, where they handle their new muskets much as a cow might a cant -hook, and look like copper-colored apes in those gorgeous red coats. The -tactical, yet tactless, Captain Woodbine even makes his red command a -speech, and is so unguarded as to refer to "General Jackson." This is -a blunder, since instantly half the assembled Red Sticks desert, taking -with them the guns, gin, and jackets which have been conferred upon -them. The oratorical Captain Woodbine is deeply impressed by the awful -effect of the General's name upon his red recruits, and their terror -communicates itself to him. He has difficulty in restraining himself -from deserting with them, but takes final courage and remains. Only he -is at pains to delete "General Jackson" from subsequent eloquence, -and never again mentions that paladin of the Cumberland in the quaking -presence of a Red Stick Creek. - -By way of adding to these hardy doings, the wordy popinjay, Colonel -Nichols, fulminates new proclamations, comic in their ignorance and -bombast. He believes that the formidable General can be whipped by -manifestoes. As against this belief, however, most careful preparations -move forward aboard the English ships, looking to the destruction -of Fort Bowyer and the capture of Mobile; for Captain Percy of the -_Hermes_, who has command of the fleet, is altogether a practical -person, and pins no faith to proclamations and Indians in red coats when -it comes to bringing a foe to his knees. - -All these interesting items are laid before the General by his -painstaking scouts, and he is peculiarly struck with the word about -Captain Percy and Mobile. He sends back his scouts for another bagful -of news, and begins to strengthen and stiffen Fort Bowyer, thirty miles -below the town. - -Having patched up this redoubt to his taste, the General puts Major -Lawrence in command, and tells him to fight his batteries while a man -remains alive. Major Lawrence says he will; and, not having a ship, -but a fort, to defend, he follows as nearly as he may the motto of his -heroic relative, and issues the watchword, "Don't give up the Fort!" -Leaving Major Lawrence in this high vein, the General goes back to -Mobile to concert plans for its protection. - -Captain Percy of the _Hermes_ is a gallant man, but a bad judge of -Americans. He tells the proclaiming Colonel Nichols that he will take -four ships and capture Fort Bowyer in twenty minutes. Colonel Nichols -has so little trouble in believing this that he conceives the deed of -conquest already done. Full of hope and strong waters--for the English -have not given the thirsty Red Sticks all their gin--he is so far -worked upon by Captain Percy's turgid prophecies as to issue a new -proclamation, declaring Fort Bowyer taken, and showing how, presently, -the English intend doing likewise at New Orleans. Having taken time so -conspicuously by the forelock, the anticipatory Colonel Nichols--who -has never been in the chicken trade, and therefore knows nothing of -what perils attend a count of poultry noses before the poultry are -hatched--goes aboard the _Hermes_, with Captain Woodbine and others of -his staff; for he would be on the ground, when Fort Bowyer and Mobile -succumb, ready to assume control of those strongholds. - -It is no mighty voyage from Pensacola to Mobile, and a half day's sail -will bring Colonel Nichols and Captain Percy within point-blank range -of Fort Bowyer. Taking a bright, cool morning for it, Captain Percy lets -fall his topsails, and forges seaward, followed by the cordial wishes -of Governor Maurequez who, glass in hand, drinks "Good voyage!" from the -ramparts of St. Michael. - -"All I regret is," cries the valorous Governor Maurequez, in the -politest phrases of Castile, "that you brave English will destroy these -vagabonds, and thus deprive me and my heroic soldiery of the pleasure of -their obliteration, when they shall have invaded our beloved Florida." - -Away go the English war ships in line, like a quartette of geese -crossing a mill pond, the _Hermes_, Captain Percy, in the van. The -fleet rounds the lower extremity of Mobile Point, out of range from Fort -Bowyer, and lands Colonel Nichols with a force of foot soldiers and a -howitzer. This military feat accomplished, the fleet, still like geese -in line, bear up until abreast of the Fort, which is a musket shot away. - -There is no time wasted. The _Hermes_ lets go her anchors and swings -broadside-on to the Fort. The others follow suit. Then, with a crashing -discharge of big guns by way of overture, the fight is on. - -Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go by; shots fly and shells -burst, and Major Lawrence still holds the fort. Evidently Captain Percy -cut his time too fine! Then, one hour, two hours follow, and Major -Lawrence's twenty-four pounders are making matches of the _Hermes_. - -As the merry war progresses, Colonel Nichols, with much ardor and no -discernment, drags his howitzer to a strategic sand hill, and fires -one shot at Fort Bowyer. It is a badly considered movement, the instant -effect being to draw the Fort's horns his way. The southern battery -of the Fort opens upon him like a tornado, and he and his fellow -artillerists retire--without their howitzer. The most discouraging -feature is that a stone, sent flying from the strategic sand hill by -a cannon ball, knocks out one of Colonel Nichols's eyes. After this -exploit, the one-eyed proclamationist, much saddened, but with wisdom -increased, is content to stand afar off, and leave the down-battering of -Fort Bowyer to the fleet. - -This down-battering Captain Percy and his sailormen do their tarry best -to bring about. But, as hour after hour drifts to leeward in the smoke -of their broadsides, and the stubborn Lawrence continues to send his -hail of twenty-four-pound shot aboard, it begins to creep upon Captain -Percy, like mosses upon stone, that Fort Bowyer is a nut beyond the -power of even his iron teeth to crack. As a red-hot shot sets fire -to the _Hermes_ and explodes her magazine, the impression deepens to -apprehension, which, when the _Sophia_ is reported sinking, ripens -rapidly into conviction. Major Lawrence, with his "Don't give up the -Fort!" all but blots Captain Percy--who has tenfold his force--off the -face of the Gulf, and he does it with a loss of eight men killed and -wounded to an English loss of over three hundred. - -Captain Percy, whipped and broken-hearted, shifts his flag and what -is left of his _Hermes'_ crew to the _Sophia_, and, pumps clanking -hysterically to keep-himself afloat, goes limping back to Pensacola, -lighted on his defeated way by the flare and glare from the blazing -_Hermes_. As the English pass the extreme southern tip of Mobile Point, -as far from the unmannerly batteries of Fort Bowyer as the lay of -the land permits, they pick up the one-eyed proclamationist, Colonel -Nichols, and his howitzerless men. - -The fleet, battered, torn, sails adroop, with the _Sophia_ three feet -below her trim from shot-admitted water in her hold, reaches Pensacola. -Governor Maurequez looks scornfully dark, but, Spaniard-like, shrugs his -vainglorious shoulders and says to an aide: - -"It is nothing! They are but English pigs! When this General Jackson -reaches Pensacola--if he should be so great a fool as to come--we -cavaliers of old Spain will tear him to pieces, as tigers rend their -prey. Yes, _amigo_, we will show these beaten pigs of English how the -proud blood of the Cid can fight." - -The Red Stick Creeks, furnished of a better intelligence, in no wise -adopt the high-flying sentiments of Governor Maurequez. The moment -the English come halting into the harbor, the awful name of "General -Jackson!" leaps from aboriginal lip to lip. Hastily tearing off Captain -Woodbine's red coats as garments full of probable trouble, but taking -with them his new guns, the frightened Red Sticks head south for the -Everglades, first drinking up what remains of their gin. Not a hostile -Creek will thereafter be found within a day's ride of the General; all -of those English plans, which seek the aid of savage axe and knife and -torch, are to fall to pieces. - -Captain Percy, made ten years older by that fight and failure at Fort -Bowyer, goes about the repair of his ships; Colonel Nichols, omitting -for the nonce all further proclamations, nurses his wounds; Captain -Woodbine, having now no Indians, abandons his daily drills on the plaza; -Governor Maurequez, whispering with his aide, brags in chosen Spanish -of what he will do to thick-skull vagabond Americans should they put -themselves in his devouring path; while over at Mobile the General -hugs Major Lawrence to his bosom in a storm of approval, and gives that -sterling soldier a sword of honor. - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE TWO FLAGS AT PENSACOLA - - -THOSE two flags, one the red flag of England, flying at Pensacola, -haunt the General night and day. His hunting-shirt men, twenty-eight -hundred from his beloved Tennessee and twelve hundred from the -territories of Mississippi and Alabama, are lusting for battle. He -resolves to lead them into Florida, across the Spanish line. - -"We must rout the English out of Pensacola!" he explains to Colonel -Coffee. - -"Pensacola!" repeats Colonel Coffee, looking thoughtful. "It is Spanish -territory, General! There is the boundary; and diplomacy, I believe, -although it is an art whereof I know little, lays stress on the word -boundary." - -"Boundary!" snorts the General in dudgeon. "The English are there! Where -my foe goes, I go; my diplomacy is of the sword." - -The General elaborates; for he is not without liking the sound of his -own voice. Governor Maurequez, he says, has welcomed the English; he -must enlarge that welcome to include Americans. - -"For I tell you," goes on the General, "that I shall expect from him -the same courtesy he extends to Colonel Nichols. Nor do I despair of -receiving it, since I shall take my artillery. With both Americans and -English among his guests, if trouble fall out it will be his own -fault, and should teach him to practice hereafter a less complicated -hospitality." - -The General prepares for the journey to Pensacola. The treasure chest -shows the usual emptiness, and he exerts his own credit, as he did on -a Natchez occasion, to provide for his hunting-shirt men. This time the -Government will honor his drafts promptly, for election day is drawing -near. - -One sun-filled autumn morning, the General and his hunting-shirt men -march away for Pensacola, their hearts full of cheering anticipations of -a fight, and eight days provant in the commissariat. - -"We should be there in eight days," says the General hopefully, "and -Governor Maurequez and the English must provide for us after that." - -The General does not overstate the powers of his hunting-shirt men, and -the eighth morning finds them and him within striking distance of Fort -St. Michael. The General shades his blue eyes with his hand and scans -the walls with vicious lynxlike intentness in search of that hated red -flag. His heart chills when he does not find it. There is the flag of -Arragon and Castile; but the staff which only yesterday supported the -flag of England stands an unfurnished, naked spar of pine. - -The General heaves a sigh. - -"Coffee," he says, pathos in his tones, "they have run away." - -"Possibly," returns the excellent Coffee, who sees that the General's -regrets are leveled at an absence of English, and is anxious to console -him, "possibly they've only retired to Fort Barrancas, six miles below, -and are waiting for us there." - -The disappointed General shakes his head; he does not share the -confidence of the optimistic Coffee. - -"Send Major Piere," he says, "with a flag of truce to announce to the -Spaniard our purpose of lunching with him. We will ask him, now we're -here, by what license he gives shelter to our enemies." - -Major Piere goes forward, white flag fluttering, and is promptly fired -upon by Governor Maurequez at the distance of six hundred yards. The -balls fly wide and high, for the Spaniard shoots like a Creek. Finding -himself a target, the disgusted Major Piere returns and reports his -uncivil reception. The General's eyes blaze with a kind of blue fury. - -"Turn out the troops!" he roars. - -The drums sound the long roll. The hunting-shirt men are about the -cookery--being always hungry--of the last of those eight days' rations. -When they fall into line, the General makes them a speech. It is brief, -but registers the point of better provender in Pensacola than that which -now bubbles in their coffee pots and burns on their spits. Whereat the -hunting-shirt men cheer joyously. - -"The English, too, are there," concludes the General. Then, in a -burst of flattering eloquence: "And I know that you would sooner fight -Englishmen than eat." - -At the name of Englishmen, the hunting-shirt men give such a cheer that -it quite throws that former cheer into the vocal shade. Everyone is in -immediate favor of rushing on Pensacola. - -The General becomes cunning, and sends Colonel Coffee with a detachment -of cavalry to threaten Fort St. Michael from the east. The Spaniards are -singularly guileless in matters military. That feigned attack succeeds -beyond expression, and the befogged Governor Maurequez hurries his -entire garrison to those menaced eastern walls. - -While the excited Spaniards are making a chattering, magpie fringe along -the eastern ramparts, the General moves the bulk of his hunting-shirt -forces, under cover of the woods, to the fort's western face. Once they -are placed, he gives the order: - -"Charge!" - -The word sends the hunting-shirt men at that mud-built citadel with a -whoop. - -The Spaniards are unstrung by surprise, and fall to pattering prayers -and telling beads. In the very midst of their orisons, the hunting-shirt -men, as in the fight at the Horseshoe, pour like a cataract over the -parapet and sweep the praying, helpless Spaniards into a corner. - -The work, however, is not altogether done. When Governor Maurequez gives -the order to man the eastern walls against the deploying Coffee, he does -not remain to see it executed. - -Having sublime faith in the heroism of his followers, for him to -personally remain, he argues, would be superfluous. Nay, it might even -be construed into a criticism of his devoted soldiery, as implying a -fear that they will not fight if relieved of his fiery presence, not to -say the fiery pressure of his commanding eye. Having thus defined his -position, the valorous Governor Maurequez, acting in that spirit of -compliment toward his people which has ever characterized his speech, -gathers up his gubernatorial skirts and scuttles for his palace like a -scared hen pheasant. - -Having swept the walls of St. Michael clean of magpie Spaniards, and run -up the stars and stripes on the vacant English staff, the General and -his hunting-shirt men make ready to follow Governor Maurequez to the -palace. He is to be their host; it is their polite duty to find him with -all dispatch and offer their compliments. - -Full of this urbane purpose, they wheel their bristling ranks on the -town. Approaching double-quick, they casually lick up, as with a tongue -of flame, a brace of abortive blockhouses which obstruct their path. At -this, an interior fort opens fire with grapeshot and shrapnel, and the -hunting-shirt men spring upon it with the ruthless ferocity of panthers. -To quench it is no more than the fighting work of a moment. The General, -with his flag already on the ramparts of Fort St. Michael, now feels his -clutch at the very throat of Pensacola. - -Governor Maurequez, equipped in his turn of a milk-white flag, bursts -from the palace portals. - -"Oh, Senores Americanos," he cries, "spare, for the love of the Virgin, -my beautiful Pensacola! As you hope for heaven's mercy, spare my -beautiful city!" - -The wild hunting-shirt men are in a jocular mood. The terrified rushing -about of Governor Maurequez excites their laughter. - -"Where is your humane General Jackson?" wails Governor Maurequez, in -appeal to the hunting-shirt men. "Where is he--I beseech you? I hear he -is the soul of merciful forbearance!" - -At this the hunting-shirt laughter breaks out with double volume, as -though Governor Maurequez has evolved a jest. - -The alarmed Governor, catching sight of a couple of dead Spaniards, -fresh killed in the struggle with the foolish interior fort, expresses -his grief in staccato shrieks, which serve as weird marks of punctuation -to the laughter of the rude hunting-shirt men. The laughter ceases when -the General himself rides up. - -"Thar's the Gin'ral," says a hunting-shirt man, biting his merriment -short off. "Thar's the man of mercy you're asking for." - -Governor Maurequez starts back at sight of the gaunt face, emaciated by -sickness born of those Benton bullets, and yellowed to primrose hue -with the malaria of the Alabama swamps. The lean figure on the big war -stallion might remind him of Don Quixote--for he has read and remembers -his Cervantes--save for the frown like the look of a fighting falcon, -and the fire-sparkle in the dangerous blue eyes. As it is, he feels that -his visitor is a perilous man, and begins to bow and cringe. - -"I beg the victorious Senor General," says he, pressing meanwhile a -right hand to his heart, and presenting the white square of truce with -the other--"I beg the victorious Senor General to spare my beautiful -Pensacola!" - -"You are Governor Maurequez!" returns the General, hard as flint. - -"Yes, Senor General; I am Governor Maurequez, as you say. Also"--here -his voice begins to shake--"I must remind your excellency that this is a -province of Spain, and ask by what right you invade it." - -"Right!" returns the General, anger rising. "Did you not fire on my -messenger? Sir, if you were Satan and this your kingdom, it would be the -same! I would storm the walls of hell itself to get at an Englishman." - -There comes the whiplike crack of a rifle almost at the General's elbow. -Far up the narrow street, full four hundred yards and more, a flying -Spanish soldier throws up his hands with a death yell, and pitches -forward on his face. At this, the hunting-shirt man who fired tosses his -coonskin cap in the air and shouts: - -"Thar, Bill Potter, the jug of whisky's mine! Thar's your Spaniard too -dead to skin! If the distance ain't four hundred yard, you kin have the -gun!" - -"What's this?" cries the General fiercely. "Nothin', Gin'ral!" replies -the hunting-shirt man, abashed at the forbidding manner of the General, -"nothin', only Bill Potter, from the 'Possum Trot, bets me a jug of -whisky that old Soapstick here"--holding up his rifle as identifying -"old Soapstick"--"won't kill at four hundred yard." - -"Betting, eh!" retorts the General, assuming the coldly implacable. "Now -it's in my mind, Mr. Soapstick, that unless you mend your morals, some -one about your size will pass an hour strung up by the thumbs so high -his moccasins won't touch the grass! How often must I tell you that I'm -bound to break up gambling among my troops?" - -The rebuked soapstick one slinks away, and the General turns to Colonel -Coffee. - -"Give the word, Coffee, to cease firing." - -The General's glance comes around to Governor Maurequez, still bowing -and presenting his white flag. - -"Where are those English?" he demands. - -The frightened Governor Maurequez makes the sign of the cross. He is -sorry, but the pig English withdrew to Fort Barrancas at the first signs -of the coming of the victorious Senor General, taking with them their -hateful red flag. Also, it was they who fired on the messenger. If the -victorious Senor General will but move quickly, he may catch the pig -English before they escape. - -The General, half his hunting-shirt men at his back, starts for Fort -Barrancas. They are two miles on their way when the earth is shaken by a -thunderous explosion. Over the tops of the forest pines a gush of black -smoke shoots upward toward the sky. - -"They have blown up the fort!" says the explanatory Coffee. - -The General says nothing, but urges speed. At last they come in sight of -what has been Fort Barrancas. It is as the astute Coffee surmised. The -one-eyed Colonel Nichols and his English have fled, leaving a slow-match -and the magazine to destroy what they dared not defend. Far away in the -offing Captain Percy's English fleet--upon which the one-eyed Colonel -Nichols and his fugitive followers have taken refuge--wind aft and an -ebb tide to help, is speeding seaward like gulls. - - - - -CHAPTER XII--THE GENERAL GOES TO NEW ORLEANS - - -Governor maurequez evolves into the very climax of the affable, not to -say obsequious. He assures the General that he is relieved by the -flight of the pig English, whom he despises as hare-hearts. Also, he is -breathless to do anything that shall prove his affectionate admiration -for his friend, the valorous Senor General. - -The General accepts the affectionate admiration of Governor Maurequez, -and leaves in his care Major Laval, who has been too severely wounded -to move; and Governor Maurequez subsequently smothers that convalescent -with nursing solicitude and kindness. Those other twenty wounded -hunting-shirt men the General takes back with him to Mobile. - -The General now gives himself up to a profound study of maps. His -invasion of Florida has paled the cheek of the Spanish Minister at -Washington and given European diplomacy a chill; he knows nothing of -that, however, and would care even less if he did. After poring over -his maps for divers days, he comes to sundry sagacious conclusions, and -sends for the indispensable Coffee to confer. That commander makes an -admirable counselor for the General, since he seldom speaks, and then -only to indorse emphatically the General's views. For these splendid -qualities, and because he is as brave as Richard the Lion Heart, the -General makes a point of consulting the excellent Coffee concerning -every move. - -"Coffee," says the General, as that warrior casts himself upon a bench, -which creaks dolorously beneath his giant weight, "Coffee, they'll -attack New Orleans next." - -The listening Coffee grunts, and the General, correctly construing the -Coffee grunt to mean agreement, proceeds: - -"England has now no foe in Europe. That allows her to turn upon us with -her whole power. Even as we talk, I've no doubt but an immense fleet is -making ready to pounce upon our coasts. Now, Coffee, the question is, -Where will it pounce?" - -The General pauses as though for answer. The admirable Coffee emits -another grunt, and the General understands this second grunt to be a -grunt of inquiry. Stabbing the map before him, therefore, with his long, -slim finger, he says: - -"Here, Coffee, here at New Orleans. It's the least defended, and, fairly -speaking, the most important port we have, for it locks or unlocks the -Mississippi. Besides, it's midwinter, and such points as New York and -Philadelphia are seeing rough, cold weather. Yes, I'm right; you may -take it from me, Coffee, the English are aiming a blow at New Orleans." -The convinced Coffee testifies by a third grunt that his own belief is -one and the same with the General's, and the council of war breaks up. -As the big rifleman swings away for his quarters the General observes: - -"Coffee, you will never realize how much I am aided by your opinions. -Two heads are better than one, particularly when one of them is capable -of such a clean, unfaltering grasp of a situation as is yours." - -The General burns to be at New Orleans, and leaving Colonel Coffee to -bring on his three thousand hunting-shirt men as fast as he may, gallops -forward with four of his staff. It is a rough, evil road that threads -those one hundred and seventy-five miles which lie between the General -and the Mississippi, but he puts it behind him with amazing rapidity. At -last the wide, sullen river rolls at his horse's feet. - -As the General traverses the rude forest roads, difficult with -November's mud and slush, a few days' sail away on the Jamaica coast may -be seen proof of the pure truth of his deductions. The English admiral -is reviewing his fleet of fifty ships, preparatory to a descent upon New -Orleans. - -It is a formidable flotilla, with ten thousand sailors and nine thousand -five hundred soldiers and marines, and mounts one thousand cannon. The -flagship is the _Tonnant_, eighty guns, and there sail in her company -such invincibles as the _Royal Oak_, the _Norge_, the _Asia_, the -_Bedford_, and the _Ramillies_, each carrying seventy-four guns. With -these are the _Dictator_, the _Gorgon_, the _Annide_, the _Sea Horse_, -and the _Belle Poule_, and the weakest among them better than a -two-decked forty-four. - -In command of this armada are such doughty spirits as Sir Alexander -Cockrane, admiral of the red, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Rear -Admiral Malcolm, and Captain Sir Thomas Hardy--"Nelson's Hardy," who -commanded the one-armed fighter's flagship _Victory_ at Trafalgar. -These, with their followers, have grown gray and tired in unbroken -triumph. Now, when they are making ready to spring on New Orleans, their -war word is "Beauty and Booty!" - -Review over, Admiral Cockrane in the van with the _Tonnant_, the fleet -sails out of Negril Bay for Louisiana. As the General's horse cools his -weary muzzle in the Mississippi, the English fleet has been two days on -its course. - -It is a dull, lowering December morning when the General, on his great -war stallion, following the Bayou road, rides into New Orleans. He finds -the city in a tumult, and nothing afoot for its defense. He is received -by Governor Claiborne, a stately Virginian, and Mayor Girod, plump and -little and gray and French, with a delegation of citizens. Among the -latter is one whom the General recognizes. He is Edward Livingston, -aforetime of New York, and the General's dearest friend in those old -Philadelphia Congressional days. The General gives the Livingston hand a -squeeze and says: "It's like medicine in wine, Ned, to see you at such a -time as this." - -Governor Claiborne makes a speech in English, Mayor Girod makes a -speech in French-leading citizens make speeches in English, Spanish, -and French. The speeches are fiery, but inconclusive. All are excited, -confused, ani without a plan. The General replies in little more than a -word: - -"I have come to defend your city," says he: "and I shall defend it or -find a grave among you." - -Following this ultimatum, the General goes to dinner with Mr. -Livingston. - -Governor Claiborne, Mayor Girod, and the leading citizens remain -behind to talk the General over in their several tongues. They are -disappointed, it seems. - -There be those who wish he hadn't come. Among them is the Speaker of the -Territorial House of Representatives--A French creole of anti-American -sentiments. - -"His presence will prove a calamity!" cries this legislative person. "He -seems to me to be a desperado, who will make war like a savage and bring -destruction and fire on our city and the neighboring plantations." - -There is no retort to this, for the local spirit of treason is -widespread. - -While the citizens of New Orleans are discussing the General, he with -his friend Livingston is discussing them. - -"What is the state of affairs here, Ned?" asks the General. - -"It could not be worse," is the reply. "All is confusion, contradiction, -and cross-purposes. The whole city seems to be walking in a circle." -"We'll see, Ned," returns the General grimly, "if we can't make it walk -in a straight line." Commodore Patterson comes to call on the General. -He is one who says little and looks a deal--precisely a gentleman after -the General's own heart, for while he himself likes to talk, he prefers -silence in others. - -Commodore Patterson sets forth the naval defenses of the town. An enemy -entering from the sea must come by way of Lake Borgne, and there are six -baby gunboats on Lake Borgne. The flotilla is commanded by Lieutenant -Jones, who is Welsh and therefore obstinate; he will fight to the final -gasp. The General beams approval of Lieutenant Jones, who he thinks has -a right notion of war. - -"But of course," says Commander Patterson, "he will be overcome in the -end." - -The General nods to this. He does not expect Lieutenant Jones to defend -the city alone. Commodore Patterson continues: "There are the schooner -_Carolina_ and the ship _Louisiana_ in the river, but they are out of -commission and have no crews." - -"Enlist crews at once!" urges the General. - -The General appoints Mr. Livingston to his staff, and the pair make -a tour of the suburbs and the flat, marshy regions round about. The -General is alert, inquisitive; he is studying the strategic advantages -and disadvantages of the place. When he returns he orders a muster of -the city's military strength for the next day. The review occurs, and -the General declares himself pleased with the display. - -Commodore Patterson comes to say that, while the streets are full -of sailors, not one will enlist. The General asks the Legislature to -suspend the habeas corpus. That done, he will organize press gangs and -enlist those reluctant "volunteers" by force. The Legislature refuses, -and the General's eyes begin to sparkle. - -"To-morrow, Ned," says he, "I shall clap your city under martial law." - -"But, my dear General," urges Mr. Livingston, who, being a lawyer, -reveres the law, "you haven't the authority." - -"But, my dear Ned," replies the determined General, "I have the power. -Which is more to the point." - -The General declares civil rule suspended, and puts the city under -martial law. It is as though he lays his strong, bony hand on the -shoulder of every man, and, the first shock over, every man feels safer -for it. The press gangs are formed, and scores of seafaring "volunteers" -are carried aboard the _Carolina_ and _Louisiana_ in irons. Once aboard -and irons off, the "volunteers" become miracles of zeal and patriotic -fire, furbishing up the dormant broadside guns, filling the shot racks, -and making ready the magazines, hearts light as larks, as though to -fight invading English is the one pleasant purpose of their lives; for -such is the seafaring nature. - -The General's "press" does not confine itself to sailors. Negroes, -mules, carts, shovels, and picks are brought under his rigid thumb. -Every gun, every sword, every pistol is collected and stored for use -when needed. Meanwhile, the indefatigable Coffee arrives, marching -seventy miles the last day and fifty the day before to join his beloved -chief. Also Captain Hinds of the dragoons is no less headlong, and -brings his command two hundred and thirty miles in four days, such is -his heat to fight beneath the blue, commanding eye of the General. - -Nor is this all. A day goes by, and Colonel Carroll steps ashore from -a fleet of flatboats, at the head of a hunting-shirt force from the -Cumberland country. The backwoods cheer which goes up when the new -hunting-shirt men see the General, brings the water to his eyes with -thoughts of home. Lastly, Colonel Adair appears with his force of -Kentuckians. These latter are a disappointment, being practically -unarmed, owning but one gun among ten. - -"Ain't you got no guns for us, Gin'ral?" asks one of the Kentucky -captains anxiously. - -"I am sorry to say I have not," returns the General. - -"Well," responds the Kentuckian, while a look of satisfaction begins -to struggle into his face, as though he has hit upon a solution of the -tangle, "well, I'll tell you what we'll do, then. Which the boys'll just -nacherally go out on the firin' line with the rest, an' then as fast -as one of them Tennesseans gets knocked over, we'll up an' inherit his -gun." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE WATCH FIRES OF THE ENGLISH - - -THESE are busy times for the General. He lives on rice and coffee, and -goes days and nights without sleep. He sends the tireless Coffee, with -his hunting-shirt men, to take position below the city, between the -morass and the river. Finally he orders all his forces below--Colonel -Carroll with his new hunting-shirt men, Colonel Adair with his unarmed -Kentuckians, the hard-riding Captain Hinds with his dragoons, as well as -the muster of local military companies, among the rest Major Plauche's -battalion of "Fathers of Families." There are a great many filial as -well as paternal tears shed when the "Fathers of Families" march away to -the field of certain honor and possible death; even Papa Plauche himself -does not refrain from a sob or two. The "Fathers of Families" take with -them their band, which musical organization plays the _Chant du -Depart_, whereat, catching the _tempo_, they strut heroically. The rough -hunting-shirt men are much interested in the "Fathers of Families," and -think them as good as a play. - -The General busies himself about his headquarters, and waits for news of -the English, of whose coming he has word. One afternoon appears a lean -little dark man, with black, beady eyes, like a rat. He introduces -himself; he is Jean Lafitte, the "Pirate of Barrataria." Only he -explains that he is really no pirate at all, not even a sailor; at -the worst he is simply the innocent shore agent or business manager of -pirates. Also, he declares that he is very patriotic and very rich, and -might add "very criminal" without startling the truth. - -Why has he come to see Monsieur General? Only to show him a letter from -the English Admiralty, brought by the General's old friend, Captain -Percy, late of H. R. H. Ship _Hermes_, offering him, Jean Lafitte, -a captain's commission in the royal navy, thirty thousand dollars in -English gold, and the privilege of looting. New Orleans, if he will but -aid in the city's capture. Now he, Jean Lafitte, scorning these base -attempts upon his honor, desires to offer his own and the services of -his buccaneers to the General in repulsing those villain English, whom -he looks upon with loathing as Greeks bearing gifts. - -"Only," concludes Jean Lafitte, his black rat eyes taking on a sly -expression, "my two best captains, Dominique and Bluche, together with -most of their crews, are locked up in the New Orleans calaboose." - -The General considers a moment, looking the while deep into the rat eyes -of Jean Lafitte. The scrutiny is satisfactory; there is nothing there -save an anxiety to get his men out of jail. This the General is pleased -to regard as creditable to Jean Lafitte. He comes back to the question -in hand. - -"Dominique and Bluche," he repeats. "Can they fight?" - -"They can do anything with a cannon, Monsieur General, which your -sharpshooters do with their squirrel rifles." - -The General has the caged Dominique and Bluche brought before him. -They are hardy, daring, brown men of the sea, with bushy hair, curling -beards, gold rings in their ears, crimson handkerchiefs about their -heads, gay shirts, sashes of silk, short voluminous trousers, like -Breton fisherman, and loose sea boots--altogether of the brine briny -are Dominique and Bluche. One glance convinces the General. The order -is issued, and the two pirates with their followers take their places as -artillerists where the wary Coffee may keep an eye on them. - -The English fleet arrives and anchors off the Louisiana coast. Loaded -scuppers-deep with soldiers and sailors and marines, the lighter craft -enter Lake Borgne. They sight the six cockleshells of Lieutenant Jones, -and make for them. - -Lieutenant Jones, with his cockleshells, slowly and carefully retreats. -He retreats so carefully that one after another the English boats, to -the round number of a score, run aground on divers mud banks, where they -stick, looking exceeding foolish. When the last pursuing boat is fast on -the mud banks, Lieutenant Jones anchors his six cockleshells where the -English may only get at him in small boats, and awaits results. - -The English are in no wise backward. Down splash the small boats, in -tumble the men, and presently they are pulling down upon the waiting -Lieutenant Jones--twelve men for every one of his. The small boats have -swivels mounted in their bows, and by way of preliminary, stand off from -the six cockleshells, waging battle with their little bow guns. This -is a mistake. Lieutenant Jones returns the fire from his cockleshells, -sinks four of the small boats, and spills out the crews among the -alligators. Unhappily, it is winter, and the alligators are sound asleep -in the mud below, by which effect of the season the spilled ones are -pulled aboard their sister boats with legs and arms intact. - -Being reorganized, and having enough of swivel war, the English fleet of -small boats rush the six cockleshells, and after a fierce struggle, take -them by weight of numbers. The English Captain Lockyer, following the -fight, wipes the blood from his face, which has been scratched by a -cutlass, and reports to Admiral Cockrane his success, and adds: - -"The American loss is, killed and wounded, sixty; English, ninety-four." - -Being masters of Lake Borgne, the English go about the landing of troops -on Pine Island. The sixteen hundred first ashore are formed into an -advance battalion and ordered forward. They go splashing through the -swamps toward the river like so many muskrats, and in the wet, cold, -dripping end crawl out on a narrow belt of sugar-cane stubble which -bristles between the levee and the swamp from which they have emerged. -Finding dry land under their feet, they cheer up a bit, and build fires -to make comfortable their bivouac while waiting the coming of their -comrades, still wallowing in the swamp. - -Night descends, but finds those sixteen hundred of the English advance -reasonably gay; for, while the present is distressing, their fellows by -brigades will be with them in the morning, and they may then march on -to sumptuous New Orleans, where--as goes their war word--theirs shall -be the "Beauty and Booty" for which they have come so far. And so the -chilled, starved sixteen hundred of that English advance hold out their -benumbed hands to the fires, and console themselves with what the poet -describes as "The Pleasures of Anticipation." And in this instance, -of course, the anticipations are sure of fulfillment, for what shall -withstand them? The raw, cowardly militia of the country? Absurd! - -As confirmatory of this, a subaltern hands about a copy of the _London -Sun_ which has a description of Americans. The others peruse it by the -light of their camp fires. It makes timely reading, since it is ever -worth while to gather--so that they be reliable--what scraps one may -descriptive of an enemy. The English, crouched about their fires, are -much benefited by the following: - -"_The American armies of Copper Captains and Falstaff recruits defy -the pen of satire to paint them worse than they are--worthless, lying, -treacherous, false, slanderous, cowardly, and vaporing heroes, with -boasting on their loud tongues and terror in their quaking hearts. Were -it not that the course of punishment they are to receive is necessary to -the ends of moral and political justice, we declare before our country -that we should feel ashamed of victory over such ignoble foes. The -quarrel resembles one between a gentleman and a sweep--the former may -beat the low scoundrel to his heart's content, but there is no honor in -the exploit, and he is sure to be covered with the soil and dirt of -his ignominious antagonist. But necessity will sometimes compel us -to descend from our station to chastise a vagabond, and endure the -degradation of such a contest in order to repress, by wholesome -correction, the presumptuous insolence and mischievous designs of the -basest assailant."_ - -The young English officers find this refreshing as literature. It might -have been less uplifting could they have foreseen how ninety years later -England will fawn upon and flatter and wheedle America to the point -which sickens, while her bankrupt nobility make that despised region a -hunting ground where, equipped of a title and a coat of arms, they track -heiresses to lairs of gold and marry them. - -Now that the satisfied English are asleep about their fires, it behooves -one to hear how the General is faring. The day with him is one fraught -with work. Word reaches him of the captured cockleshells on Lake Borgne. -Also it reaches that valuable Legislature--honeycombed of treason. - -The Legislature sends a committee to ask the General what will be his -course if he's beaten back. The General is hardly courteous: - -"Tell your honorable body," says he, "that if disaster overtake me and -the fate of war drives me from my lines to the city, they may expect to -have a very warm session." - -Mr. Livingston catches the adjective. The committee having departed, he -propounds a query. - -"A warm session, General!" says he. "What do you mean by that?" - -"Ned," replies the General, "if I am beaten here, I shall fall back -on the city, fire it, and fight it out in the flames! Nothing for the -maintenance of the enemy shall be left. New Orleans destroyed, I shall -occupy a position on the river above, cut off supplies, and, since I -can't drive, I shall starve the English out of the country. There is -this difference, Ned, between me and those fellows from the Legislature. -They think only of the city and its safety. For my side, I'm not here to -defend the city, but the nation at large." - -On the heels of this, the Legislature whispers of surrendering Louisiana -to the English by resolution. It is scarcely feasible as a plan, but it -angers the General. He stations a guard at the door of the chamber and -turns the members away. - -"We can dispense with your sessions," says he. "We have laws enough; our -great need now is men and muskets at the front." - -The patricians of the Legislature are scandalized as being shut out of -their chamber. - -"Did I not tell you," cries the prophetic House Speaker, "did I not tell -you this fellow was a desperado, and would wage war like a savage?" - -The members retire from the guarded doors, cursing the General under -their breath. Their doorkeeper, a low, common person, is so struck by -what the General has said anent men and muskets, that he gets a gun and -joins that "desperado." And wherefore no? Patriotism has been the mark -of vulgar souls in every age. - -Colonel Coffee's hunting-shirt scouts come in and report the watch fires -of those sixteen hundred of the English advance winking and blinking -among the sugar stubble. - -"Ah!" says the General, "I've a mind to disturb their dreams." - -The General dispatches word to Commodore Patterson to have the -_Carolina_ in readiness to act with his forces. Then he sends for the -indispensable Coffee. - -"Coffee, we shall attack them to-night." - -The wise Coffee gives the grunt acquiescent. - -"Thank you, Coffee!" says the General. - -The council over, Colonel Coffee goes to turn out the troops. This is to -be done softly, as a surprise is aimed at. - -Now on the dread threshold of battle, Papa Plauche of the "Fathers of -Families" is overcome. As the intrepid "Fathers" fall into line, tears -fill Papa Plauche's eyes, and he appeals to neighbor St. Geme. - -"I am a Frenchman!" cries Papa Plauche, tossing his arms; "I am a -Frenchman, and do not fear to die! But, alas! mon St. Geme, I fear I -have not the courage to lead the 'Fathers of Families' to slaughter." - -"Hush, Papa Plauche!" returns the good St. Geme, made wretched by -the grief of his friend. "Hush! Command yourself! Do not let the wild -General hear you; he will not, with his coarse nature, understand such -sentiments." - -Captain Roche, of the "Fathers of Families," steps in front of his -company. Striking his breast melodramatically, he sings out: - -"Sergeant Roche, advance!" - -Sergeant Roche advances. - -"Embrace me, brother!" cries Captain Roche in broken utterances, -"embrace me! It is perhaps for the last time." - -The brothers Roche embrace, and the "Fathers of Families" are melted by -the tableau. - -"Sergeant Roche, return to your place!" commands the devoted Captain -Roche, and the sergeant, weeping, lapses into the ranks. - -The hunting-shirt men, witnesses of these touching scenes, are rude -enough to laugh, and by way of parody embrace one another effusively. -As they depart through the dark for their station, they break into -whispered debate as to whether the theatrical grief of Papa Plauche, -the brothers Roche, and the "Fathers of Families" is due to their creole -blood, or their city breeding, either, according to the theories of the -hunting-shirt men, being calculated to promote the effeminate in a -man. While they thus wrangle, there comes an angry hissing whisper from -Colonel Coffee, like the hiss of a serpent: - -"Silence!" - -Every hunting-shirt man is stricken dumb. They move forward like -shadows, right flank skirting the cypress swamp. To the far left they -hear the moccasined, half-muffled tramp of Colonel Carroll's men--their -hunting-shirt brothers from the Cumberland. As they turn a bend in the -swamp, they see not a furlong away the flickering and shadow dancing of -the watch fires of the tired English. At this every hunting-shirt -man makes certain the flint is secure in the hammer of his rifle, and -loosens the knife and tomahawk in his rawhide belt. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE BATTLE IN THE DARK - - -AS the hunting-shirt men come within sight of the blinking lights, -which polka-dot the sugar stubble in front and mark the bivouac of the -English, Colonel Coffee sends the whispered word along the line to halt. -At this, the hunting-shirt men crouch in the lee of the cypress swamp, -and wait. Colonel Coffee is lying by for the signal which shall tell him -to begin. - -Before the movement commences, the General calls Colonel Coffee to one -of their celebrated conferences. - -"It is my purpose, Coffee," explains the General, "merely to shake them -up a bit. An attack will cure them of overconfidence, and break the -teeth of their conceit. This should hold them in check, and give us time -for certain earthworks I meditate. The signal will be a gun from the -_Carolina_. When you hear the gun, Coffee, attack everything wearing -a red coat. But be careful!" Here the General lifts a long, admonitory -finger. "Do not follow too far! Reinforcements are crawling out of the -swamp to the rear of the English every hour, and the only certainty is -that, even as we talk, they outnumber us two for one." - -The faithful Coffee departs. As he reaches the door, the General calls -after him: - -"Don't forget, Coffee! The gun from the _Carolina!_" - -The hunting-shirt men lie waiting by the cypress swamp. On their near -left is Papa Plauche and his "Fathers of Families." Beyond these is -a half company of regulars, which the General has brought up from the -near-by post. On the Bayou Road, between the regulars and the river, is -the General himself, with a brace of small field pieces. - -It is a moonless night, and what light the stars might furnish is -withheld by a blanket-screen of thick clouds. No night could be darker; -for, lest an occasional star find a cloud-rift and peer through, a fog -drifts up from the river. This is good for the English, since it hides -their watch fires, which one by one are lost in the mists. The darkness -deepens until even the hawk-eyed hunting-shirt men, trained by much -night fighting to a nocturnal keenness of vision, are unable to make out -their nearest comrades. - -The pitch blackness, and the fog chill creeping over him, tell on Papa -Plauche. He whispers sorrowfully to his friend St. Geme. - -"Neighbor St. Geme," he says, "these differences should be adjusted by -argument, and not by deadly guns. I see that he who would either shoot -or be shot by his fellow-man; is in an erroneous position." - -Before the kindly St. Geme may frame response, a liquid tongue of flame -illuminates the broad dark bosom of the river. It is followed sharply by -a crashing "Boom!" This is the word from the _Carolina._ - -The signal carries dismay into the hearts of the English, since -Commodore Patterson, whose genius is thoroughgoing, is at pains to load -the gun with two pecks of slugs, and eighty-four killed and wounded are -the red English harvest of that one discharge. The frightened drums beat -the alarm, and the ranks of English form. As they grasp their arms the -nine broadside guns of the Carolina begin to rake them. With this the -English fall slowly back from the river. - -The rearward movement, while managed slowly because of the darkness, -brings discouraging results. The English retreat into the hunting-shirt -men, who are skirmishing up from the cypress swamp. The English are -first told of this new danger by the spitting flashes which remind them -of needles of fire, and the crack of the long squirrel rifles like -the snapping of a whip. Here and there, too, a groan is heard, as the -sightless lead finds some English breast. This augments the blind horror -of the hour. - -The trapped English reply in a desultory fashion, and make a bad matter -worse. The hunting-shirt men locate them by the flash of their guns, -at which they shoot with incredible quickness and accuracy. With men -falling like November's leaves, the English give ground to the south, -which saves them somewhat from both the _Carolina_ and the hunting-shirt -men. - -Guessing the English direction, the hunting-shirt men follow, loading -and firing as they advance. Now and then a hunting-shirt man overtakes -an individual foe, and settles the national differences which divide -them with tomahawk and knife. It is cruel work--this unseeing bloodshed -in the dark, and disturbingly new to the English, who express their -dislike for it. - -[Illustration: 0193] - -While the hunting-shirt men drive the English along the fringe of the -cypress swamp, the General, a half mile nearer the river, is working his -two field pieces. Affairs proceed to his warlike satisfaction--and -this is saying a deal for one so insatiate in matters of blood--until a -flying ounce of lucky English lead wounds a horse on the number two gun. -This brings present relief to those English in the General's front; for -the hurt animal upsets the gun into the ditch. It takes fifteen minutes -to put it on its proper wheels again. The accident disgruntles the -General; but he bears it with what philosophy he may, and in good truth -is pleased to find that the gun carriage has not been smashed in the -upset. - -"Save the gun!" is his word to the artillery men; and when it is saved -he praises them. - -At the booming signal from the _Carolina_, the intrepid Papa Plauche -cries out: - -"Forwards, brave Fathers of Families! Forwards, heroes!" - -The "Fathers" respond, and go on with the hunting-shirt men. But their -pace is sedate; and this last results in an impoliteness which disturbs -the excellent Papa Plauche to the core. - -The hunting-shirt men are, for the major portion, riotous young blades -from the backwoods. Moreover, they are used to this prowling warfare of -the night. Is it wonder then that they advance more rapidly than does -Papa Plauche with his "Fathers," whose step is measured and dignified as -becomes the heads of households? - -Thus it befalls that, do their dignified best, Papa Plauche and his -"Fathers" are left behind by the hunting-shirt men, who, deploying more -and still more to the left, extend themselves in front of Papa Plauche. -This does not suit the latter's hardy tastes, and he frets ferociously. -He grows condemnatory, as the spitting rifle flashes show him that the -vainglorious hunting-shirt men are between him and those English whom he -hungers to destroy. Indeed, he fumes like tiger cheated of its prey. - -"But we shall extricate ourselves, neighbor St. Geme!" cries Papa -Plauche. "We shall yet extricate ourselves! Behold!" - -The "Behold!" is the foreword of certain masterly maneuvers by Papa -Plauche among the sugar stubble. The maneuvers free the farseeing -Papa Plauche and his "Fathers" from those obstructive, unmannerly -hunting-shirt men, who have cut off their advance even in its -indomitable bud. The "Fathers" being better used to shop floors than -plowed fields, however, make difficult work of it. At last courage has -its reward, and the "Fathers" uncover their dauntless front. - -"Oh, my brave St. Geme!" cries Papa Plauche, when his strategy has put -the hunting-shirt men on his right, where they belong, "nothing can save -the caitiff English now! Those ruffians in hunting tunics who protected -them no longer impede our front. Forwards!" - -The final word has hardly issued from between the clenched teeth of Papa -Plauche when a rustling in the stubble apprises him of the foe. - -"Fire, Fathers of Families, fire!" shouts Papa Plauche, and such is the -fury which consumes him that the shout is no shout, but a screech. - -It is enough! One by one each "Father" discharges his flintlock. The -procession of reports is rather ragged, and now and again a considerable -wait occurs between shots, like a great gap in a picket fence. Still, -the last "Father" finally finds the trigger, and the command of Papa -Plauche is obeyed. - -The "Fathers" hurt no one by this savage volley, for their aim -like their hearts is high. It is quite as well they do not. The -stubble-disturbing force in front chances to be none other than that -half company of regulars, to whose rear it seems the inadvertent -Papa Plauche, in freeing them from the hunting-shirt men, has led his -"Fathers." The regulars are in a towering rage with Papa Plauche; -but since no one has been injured, and Papa Plauche is profuse in his -apologies, their anger presently subsides. The regulars again take up -their bloody work upon the retreating English, while the discouraged -Papa Plauche and the "Fathers," full of confusion and chagrin at twice -being balked, remain where they are. - -"After all, neighbor St. Geme," observes Papa Plauche, "the mistake was -theirs. Did they not usurp the place which belonged to the English, in -thus getting in front of us? It should teach them to beware how they put -themselves in the path of my 'Fathers,' whose wrath is terrible." - -For two black, sightless hours the huntingshirt men crowd the English -to the south. Then the General draws them off. They come, bringing -as captives one colonel, two majors, three captains, and sixty-four -privates. Also they have killed and wounded two hundred and thirteen -of the English, which comforts them marvelously. They themselves have -suffered but slightly, and the backloads of English guns they carry will -gladden many an unarmed Kentucky heart. - -Now when he has them together, the beloved Coffee at their head, the -General leads the way to the thither side of the Roderiquez Canal, where -he plans a line of breastworks. Arriving, the weary hunting-shirt men -build fires, and make themselves easy for the balance of the night. - -After a brief rest, the thoughtful General detaches a party with one of -the field guns, to interest the English until daylight. - -"For I think, Coffee," says he, "that if we keep them awake, they will -be apt to sleep tomorrow; and so leave us free to work on our defenses." - - - - -CHAPTER XV--COTTON BALES AND SUGAR CASKS - - -IT is the day before Christmas when the General lays out his line for -fortifications. The Roderiquez Canal is no canal at all, but a disused -mill race, which an active man can leap and any one may wade. The -General will make a moat of it, and raise his breastworks along its -mile-length muddy course, between the river and the cypress swamp. He -keeps an army of mules and negroes, with scrapers and carts, hard at -work, heaping up the earth. A boat load of cotton is lying at the levee. -The cotton bales are rolled ashore, and added to the heaped-up earth. -This pleases Papa Plauche. - -"It is singular," he remarks to neighbor St. Geme, "that cotton, which -has been my business support for years, should now defend my life." - -There is a low place to the General's front. He cuts the levee; and -soon the Mississippi furnishes three feet of water, to serve as a wet -drawback to any English advance. The latter, however, are not thinking -on an advance. Supports have come dripping from the swamp, and swollen -their numbers to threefold the General's force; but none the less their -hearts are weak. That horrifying night attack, when their blood was shed -in the dark, has broken the heart of their vanity, and a paralyzing fear -of those dangerous hunting-shirt men lies all across the English like -a cloud. More and worse, the _Carolina_ swings downstream, abreast of -their position, and her broadsides drive them to hide in ditches and the -cypress borders of the swamp. There is no peace, no safety, on the flat, -stubble ground, while light remains by which to point the _Carolina's_ -guns. - -Nor does nightfall bring relief. Those empty-handed Kentuckians must -be provided for; and, no sooner does the sun go down, than the -hunting-shirt men by two and three go forth in search of English -muskets. They shoot down sentries, and carry away their dead belongings. -Does an English group assemble round a camp fire, it becomes an -invitation seldom neglected. A party of hunting-shirt men creep within -range and begin the butchery. There is never the moment, daylight and -dark, when the unhappy English are not within the icy reach of death. -There is no repose, no safety! A chill dread claims them like a palsy! - -The English complain bitterly at this bushwhacking; which, to the -hunting-shirt men, reared in schools of Indian war, is the merest A B C -of battle. The harassed English denounce the General as a barbarian, in -whose savage bosom burns no spark of chivalry. They recall how in their -late campaigns in Spain, English and French pickets spent peace-filled -weeks within fifty yards of one another, exchanging nothing more deadly -than coffee and compliments. - -The grim General refuses to be affected by the French-English example. -He continues to pile up his earthworks, while the hunting-shirt men -go forth to pot nightly English as usual. The situation wears away the -courage of the English to a white and paper thinness. - -While the General is fortifying his lines, and the hunting-shirt men are -stalking English sentinels, peace is signed in Europe between America -and England. But Europe is far away; and there is no Atlantic cable. And -so the General continues at his congenial labors undisturbed. - -Christmas does not go unrecognized in the General's camp. He himself -attempts nothing of festival sort, and only drives his fortifying mules -and negroes the harder. But the hunting-shirt men celebrate by cleaning -their rifles, molding bullets, refilling powder horns, and whetting -knives and tomahawks to a more lethal edge. - -As for Papa Plauche and the "Fathers of Families," they become jocund. -Their wives and daughters purvey them roast fowls in little wicker -baskets, and the warmest wines of Burgundy in bottles. Whereupon Papa -Plauche and his "Fathers" wax blithe and merry, singing the songs of -France and talking of old loves. - -And now Sir Edward Pakenham arrives, and relieves General Keane in -command of the English. With him comes General Gibbs. The two listen to -the reports of General Keane, and shrug polite shoulders as he speaks of -the savage valor of the Americans. It is preposterous that peasants -clad in skins, and not a bayonet among them, should check the flower of -England. General Keane does not reply to the polite shrug. He reflects -that the General, with his hunting-shirt men, can be relied upon to -later make convincing answer. - -Upon the morning which follows the advent of General Pakenham, the -English see a moment of good fortune. A red-hot shot sets fire to -the _Carolina_, as she swings downstream on her cable for that daily -bombardment, and burns her to the water line. This cheers the English -mightily; and does not discourage Commodore Patterson, who transfers his -activities to the decks of the _Louisiana._ - -Sir Edward gives the General three uninterrupted days. This the latter -warrior improves so far as to rear his earthworks to a height of four -feet, and mount five guns. On the fourth day the English are led out to -the assault. Sir Edward does not say so, but he expects to march over -those four-foot walls of mud and cotton bales as he might over any other -casual four-foot obstruction, and go up to the city beyond. - -The sequel does not justify Sir Edward's optimism. The moment the -English approach within two hundred yards of the General's line, a sheet -of fire hisses all along. The English melt away like smoke. They break -and run, seeking refuge in the cross ditches which drain the stubble -lands. Once in the ditches, they are made to sit fast by the watchful -hunting-shirt men, whose aim is death and who shoot at every exposed two -square inches of English flesh and blood. - -All day the English must crouch in the saving mud and water of those -ditches, and it ruffles their self-regard. With darkness for a shield, -Sir Edward brings them off. He explains the disaster to his staff -by calling it a "reconnoissance." General Keane also calls it a -"reconnoissance"; but there is a satisfied grin on his war-worn face. -Sir Edward has received a taste of the mettle of those "peasants," and -may now take a more tolerant, and less politely cynical, view of what -earlier setbacks were experienced by General Keane. As for the seventy -dead who lie, faces to the quiet stars, among the sugar stubble, they -say nothing. And whether it be called a "reconnoissance" or a defeat -matters little to them. - -"What do you think of it?" asks Sir Edward of his friend, General Gibbs, -as the two confer over a bottle of port. - -"Sir Edward," returns the General, "I should call a council of war." - -Sir Edward winces. It is too great an honor for the brother-in-law of -Lord Wellington to pay a "Copper Captain" like the General. For all that -he calls it; and the call assembles, besides Generals Gibbs and Keane, -those saltwater soldiers, Admirals Cochrane, Codrington and Malcolm, -and Captain Hardy whom Nelson loved. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of -the English engineers, is also there. The solemn debate lasts hours. The -decision is to regard the General's position as "A walled and fortified -place, to be reduced by regular and formal approaches." Which is -flattering to the General's engineering skill. - -The council breaks up. The next morning Sir John Burgoyne commits a -stroke of genius. He rolls out of the storehouses to the English rear -countless hogsheads of sugar. Night sets in, foggy and black. Under its -protecting cover, Sir John trundles his hundreds of hogsheads to a point -not six hundred yards from the General's mud walls. Till daybreak -the English work. They set the hogsheads on end--four close-packed -thicknesses of them, two tier high. Ingenious portholes are left to -receive the muzzles of the guns, and thirty cannon, which have been -dragged through the cypress swamp from the fleet, are placed in -position. - -Those hogsheads of sugar, with the thirty black muzzles frowning forth, -impress folk as a most formidable fortalice, when the upshooting sun -rolls back the fog and offers a view of them. The General, however, does -not hesitate; he instantly opens with his five, and the thirty guns -of the English bellow their iron response. Hardly a whit behind the -General, the active Commodore Patterson drops downstream with the -_Louisiana_, and throws the weight of her broadsides against the -English. - -The big-gun duel is hot and furious, and the rolling clouds of powder -smoke shut out the fighters from one another. They do not pause for -that, but fire blindly through the smoke, sighting their guns by guess. -When the smoke has cloaked the scene, Sir Edward orders two columns of -the English foot to storm the General's mud walls. - -The columns advance, and run headforemost into the hunting-shirt men. -The sleety rain of lead which greets them rolls the columns up like two -red carpets. The recoiling columns break, and the English take cover -for a second time in those saving ditches. They declare among themselves -that mortal man might more easily face the fires of hell itself, than -the flame-filled muzzles of the hunting-shirt men, who seem to be -Death's very agents upon earth. - -As the broken English crouch in those ditches the fire of Sir John -Burgoyne's big guns begins to falter. The smoke is so thick that no one -may tell the cause. At last the English volleys altogether end, and the -General orders Dominique and Bluche, with their swarthy pirate crews -from Barrataria, and what other artillerists are serving his quintette -of guns, to cease their stormy work. With that a silence falls on both -sides. - -The breeze from the river tears the smoky veil aside; and lo! that -noble fortification of sugar hogsheads is heaped and piled in ruins. The -General's solid shot go through and through those hogsheads of sugar, as -though they are hogsheads of snow. Five of the thirty English guns are -smashed. The proud work of Sir John Burgoyne presents a spectacle of -desolation, while the English who serve the batteries go flying for -their lives. Not all! The three-score dead remain--the only English -whose honor is saved that day! - -Sir Edward's cheek is white as death. He blames Sir John Burgoyne, who -has erred, he says, in constructing the works. Sir John did err, and Sir -Edward is right. Forty years later, the same Sir John will repeat the -same mistake at Sebastapol; which shows how there be Bourbons among the -English, learning nothing, forgetting nothing. - -As the English skulk in clusters, and ragged, beaten groups for their -old position beyond the General's long reach, the fear of death is -written on their faces. It will take a long rest, and much must be -forgotten, e'er they may be brought front to front with the General -again. - -Among the hunting-shirt men are exultation and crowing triumph. Only -Papa Plauche is sad. During the fight, the cotton bales in front of Papa -Plauche and the "Fathers" are sorely knocked about. As though this be -not enough, what must a felon hot shot do but set one of them ablaze! -The smoke fills the noses of Papa Plauche and his "Fathers," and makes -them sneeze. It burns their eyes until the tears the "Fathers" shed -might make one think them engaged upon the very funeral of Papa Plauche -himself. - -In the tearful sneezing midst of this anguish, a vagrant flying flake -of cotton, all afire, explodes an ammunition wagon to the heroic rear of -Papa Plauche and the "Fathers," and the shock is as the awful shock of -doom. - -The fortitude of Hercules would fail at such a pinch! Papa Plauche and -the "Fathers" actually and for the moment think on flight! But whither -shall they fly? They are caught between Satan and a deepest sea--the -ammunition wagon and the English! Also to the right, plying sponge and -rammer, are the pirate Barratarians who are as bad as the English! -While to the left is the General, who is worse than the ammunition -wagon. - -"It is written!" murmurs Papa Plauche; "our fate is sure! We must perish -where we stand!" Papa Plauche extends his hands, and cries: "Courage, -my heroes! Give your hearts to heaven, your fame to posterity, and show -history how 'Fathers of Families' can die!" From the cypress swamp a -last detachment of reėnforcements emerges, and meets the beaten English -coming back. General Lambert, with the reėnforcements, is shocked as he -reads their broken-hearted story in their eyes. "What is it, Colonel?" -he whispers to Colonel Dale of the Highlanders. "In heaven's name, what -stopped you?" - -"Bullets, mon!" returns the Scotchman. "Naught but bullets! The fire of -those de'ils in lang shirts wud 'a' stopped Caesar himsel'!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY - - -BACK to his negroes and mules and carts and scrapers goes the General, -and sets them to renewed hard labor on those immortal mud walls which -he will never get too high. Those cotton bales, so distressing to -Papa Plauche and the "Fathers," are eliminated, at which that paternal -commander breathes freer. The hunting-shirt men, with each going down -of the sun, resume their nighthawk parties, which swoop upon English -sentinels, taking lives and guns. - -The English themselves are a prey to dejection. The foe against whom -they war is so strange, so savage, so sleepless, so coldly inveterate! -Also those incessant night attacks sap their manhood. They build no -fires now, but sit in darkness through the nights. A fire is but the -attractive prelude to a shower of nocturnal lead, and the woefully -lengthening list of dead and wounded tells strongly against it. To even -light a cigar after dark is an approach to suicide; and so the English -wrap themselves in blackness--very miserable! Their earlier horror of -the hunting-shirt men is increased; for they have three times studied -backwoods marksmanship from the standpoint of targets, and the dumb -chill about their heart-roots is a testimony to its awful accuracy. - -The General, who reads humanity as astronomers read the heavens, is -not wanting in notions of the gloom which envelops the English like a -funeral pall. - -"Coffee," says he, at one of those famous war councils of two, "in their -souls we have them beaten. They will fight again; but only from pride. -Their hope is gone, Coffee; we have broken their hearts." - -The reports of the General's scouts teach him that the English will -put a force across the river. In anticipation, he dispatches Commodore -Patterson, with a mixed command of soldiers and sailors, to fortify -the west bank. Commodore Patterson emulates the General's four-foot -mud walls and throws up a redoubt of his own, mounting thereon twelve -eighteen-pounders taken from the Louisiana. - -He tries one on the English opposite. The result is gratifying; the gum -pitches a solid shot all across the Mississippi and into the English -lines. - -Eight days pass by in Indian file, and Sir Edward Pakenham with his -English feels that, for his safety as much as his honor, he must attack -the General, whose mud walls increase with each new sunset. The General -foresees this, and has reports of Sir Edward's movements brought him -every hour. - -On the morning of the eighth the General's scouts wake him at two -o'clock and say that the English are astir. He is instantly abroad; -the word goes down the line; by four o'clock every rifle is ready, each -hunting-shirt man at his post. - -The weak spot, the one at which Sir Edward will level his utmost force, -is where the General's line finds an end in the moss-hung cypress swamp. -It is there he stations the reliable Coffee with his hunting-shirt men. -To the rear, as a reserve, is General Adair with what Kentuckians the -good, unerring offices of those night-prowling hunting-shirt men have -armed at the red expense of the English. - -In the center is the redoubtable Papa Plauche and his "Fathers." The -"Fathers" are between the pirates Dominique and Bluche and Captain -Humphries of the regular artillery. - -Papa Plauche is rejoiced at being thus thrust into the center. - -"For my heroes!" cries Papa Plauche, in a speech which he makes the -"Fathers," the center is the heart--the home of honor! "On us, my -Fathers, devolves the main defense of our beloved city, where sleep our -wives and children. Wherefore, be brave as vigilant--vigilant as brave!" - -Papa Plauche's voice is husky, but not from fear. No, it is husky by -reason of a cold which, despite certain woolen nightcaps wherewith the -excellent Madam Plauche equipped him for the field, he has contracted in -sleeping damply among the stubble and the river fogs. - -Six hundred yards in front of the General's mud walls, and near the -river, are a huddle of plantation buildings. The English, he -argues, will mask a part of their advance with these structures. The -forethoughtful General prepares for this, and has furnaces heating shot, -to set those buildings blazing at the psychological moment. - -Also, in response to a comic cynicism not usual with him, he has out -the brass band of Papa Plauche, with instructions to strike up "Yankee -Doodle" as the first gun is fired. The band, in compliment to the -General, has been privily rehearsing "'Possum up a Gum Tree," which -it understands is the national anthem of Tennessee, and offers to play -that. - -The General thanks the band, but declines "'Possum up a Gum Tree." It -will not be understood by the English; whereas "Yankee Doodle" they have -known and loathed for forty years. - -"Give 'em 'Yankee Doodle,'" says the General. "Since they are so eager to -dance, we'll furnish the proper music." - -Sir Edward is as soon afoot as is the General. He finds his English -steady yet dull; they will fight, but not with spirit. As the General -assured the conferring Coffee, the hunting-shirt men, with their long -rifles like wands of death, have broken the English heart. - -The English are to advance in three columns; General Keane on the right -with Rennie's Rifles, in the center Dale's Highlanders, on the left, -where the main attack is to be launched, General Gibbs, with three -thousand of the pride of England at his back. General Lambert is to hold -himself in the rear of General Gibbs, with two regiments as a reserve. -As the columns form, there are eighty-five hundred of the English; -against which the-General opposes a scanty thirty-two hundred. And -yet, upon those overpowering eighty-five hundred hangs a silence like a -sadness, as though they are about to go marching to their graves. - -The solemn fear in which the English hold the hunting-shirt men finds -pathetic evidence. As the columns wheel into position, Colonel Dale of -the Highlanders gives a letter and his watch to the surgeon. - -"Carry them to my wife," says he. - -"I'll peel for no American!" and twenty-four hours later he is buried in -that cloak. - -The English stand to their arms, and wait the breaking of day. Slowly -the minutes drag their leaden length along; morning comes at last. - -With the first streaks of livid dawn, a Congreve rocket flashes skyward -from Sir Edward's headquarters. The rocket is the English signal to -advance. In a moment, General Gibbs, General Keane, and Colonel Dale -with his "praying" Highlanders are in motion. - -The signal rocket uncouples thousands upon thousands of fellow rockets; -the air is on fire with them as they blaze aloft in mighty arcs, to fall -and explode among the hunting-shirt men. - -"Toys for children, boys," cries the General, as he observes -the hunting-shirt men watching the flaming shower with curious, -non-understanding eyes; "toys for children! They'll hurt no one!" - -The General is right. Those congreve rockets are supposed to be as -deadly as artillery. Like many another commodity of war, however, meant -primarily to fatten contractors, they prove as innocuous as so many -huge fireflies. The hunting-shirt men laugh at them. The battery of -eighteen-pounders, wherewith the English second that flight of rockets, -is a more serious affair. - -As the sun shoots up above the cypress swamp and rolls back the mists -of morning, the English make a gallant picture. The dull yellow of the -stubble in front of the General's line is gay with splotches of red and -gray and green and tartan, the colors of the various English corps. - -The hunting-shirt men, however, are not given much space for admiration; -for, with one grand crash, the big guns go into action and the -red-green-gray-tartan picture is swallowed up in powder smoke. Also, -it is now that Papa Plauche's band blares forth "Yankee Doodle," while -those anticipatory hot shot set fire to the plantation buildings. As the -latter burst out at door and window in smoke and flames, Colonel Rennie -and his riflemen are driven into the open. The conflagration gets much -in the English way, and spoils the drill-room nicety of Sir Edward's -onset as he has it planned. - -Colonel Rennie, being capable of brisk decision, makes the best of a -disconcerting situation. When the flames and smoke from those fired -plantation buildings drive him into the open before he is ready, he -promptly orders a charge. This his riflemen obey; for the inexorable -Patterson, across the river, is already upon them with those -eighteen-pounders, and his solid shot are mowing ghastly swaths through -the rifle-green ranks, tossing dead men in the air like old bags. With -so little inducement to stand still, the riflemen hail that word to -charge as a relief, and head for the General's mud walls at double -quick. - -The oncoming Colonel Rennie and his English are met full in the face by -a tempest of grape, from Major Humphrey and the pirates Dominique and -Bluche, which throws them backward upon themselves. They bunch up -and clot into lumps of disorder, like clumps of demoralized sheep in -rifle-green. At that, Commodore Patterson serves his eighteen-pounders -with multiplied speed, and the great balls tear those sheep-clumps to -pieces, staining with crimson the rifle-green. The English marvel at -the artillery work of the General's men, whose every shot comes on, well -aimed and low, bringing death in its whistling wake. - -They should reflect: The theory, not to say the eye, which aims a -squirrel rifle will point a cannon. - -Colonel Rennie, when his English recoil, keeps on--face red with grief -and rage. - -"It's my time to die!" says he to Captain Henry. "But before I die, I -shall at least see the inside of those mud walls." - -Colonel Rennie is wrong. A bullet finds his brain as he lifts his head -above the breastworks, and he slips back dead in the ditch outside. -Major King and Captain Henry die with him, pierced each by a handful of -bullets. - -When the English flinch and Colonel Rennie falls, the bugler--a boy of -fourteen--climbs a tree, not one hundred yards from the General's line. -Perched among the branches, he sounds his dauntless charges. The General -gives orders to let the boy alone. And so the little bugler, protected -by the word of the General, sings his shrill onsets to the last. - -Finally an artillery-man goes out to him. - -"Come down, my son!" says the cannoneer. "The war's about over!" - -The little bugler comes down, and is at once taken to the fatherly heart -of Papa Plauche, who declares him to be a sucking Hector, and is for -adopting him as his son on the spot, but is restrained by thoughts of -Madam Plauche. - -Sir Edward's main assault, with General Gibbs, meets no fairer fortune -than falls to Colonel Rennie by the river. Confusion prevails on the -threshold of the movement; for Colonel Mullins with his Forty-fourth -refuses to go forward. Later he will be courtmartialed, and dismissed in -disgrace. Just now, however, the recreant makes a shameful tangle of -the English van. As a quickest method of setting the tangle straight, -General Gibbs, as did Colonel Rennie, orders a charge. The column moves -forward, the mutinous Forty-fourth on the right flank, led by its major. - -General Gibbs advances, brushing with the shoulder of his corps, -the cypress swamp. Behind the mud walls in his front, the steady -hunting-shirt men are waiting. The General is there, to give the latter -patience and hold them in even check. - -"Easy, boys!" he cries. "Remember your ranges! Don't fire until they are -within two hundred yards!" - -On rush the English. At six hundred yards they are met by the fire of -the artillery. They heed it not, but press sullenly forward, closing up -the gaps in their ranks, where the solid shot go crashing through, as -fast as made. Five hundred yards, four hundred, three hundred! Still -they come! Two hundred yards! - -And now the hunting-shirt men! A line of fire unending glances from -right to left and left to right, along the crest of those mud walls, and -Death begins his reaping. The head of the English column burns away, as -though thrust into a furnace! The column wavers and welters like a red -ship in a murky sea of smoke! It pauses, falteringly--disdaining to fly, -yet unable to advance! - -"Forward, men!" shouts General Gibbs. "This is the way you should go!" - -As he points with his sword to those terrible mud walls, he falls -riddled by the hunting-shirt men. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--THE SLAUGHTER AMONG THE STUBBLE - - -WHEN the main advance begins, Sir Edward is in the center with the -Highlanders. The latter are not to move until he has word of their -success from General Keane with Rennie's rifle corps, and General Gibbs -with the main column--the one by the river and the other by the cypress -swamp. He has not long to wait; a courier dashes up from the river--eye -haggard, disorder in his look! - -"General Keane?" cries Sir Edward, his apprehension on edge. - -"Fallen!" returns the courier hoarsely. - -"And Rennie?" - -"Dead. The Rifles are in full retreat!" Sir Edward stands like one -stricken. Then he pulls himself together. - -"Bring on your Highlanders!" he cries to Colonel Dale. "We must force -their lines in front of General Gibbs. It is our only chance!" - -Sir Edward dashes across to General Gibbs, in the shadow of that -significant cypress swamp. He sees General Gibbs go down! He sees -the red column torn and twisted by that storm of lead which the -hunting-shirt men unloose. - -As the English reel away from those low-flying messengers of death, Sir -Edward seeks to rally them. - -"Are you Englishmen?" he cries. "Have you but marched upon a battlefield -to stain the glory of your flag?" - -Sir Edward's gesticulating arm falls, smashed by a bullet from some -sharp-shooting hunting-shirt man. He seems not to know his hurt! He is -on fire with the thought that those honors, won upon forty fields, -are to be wrested from him by a "Copper Captain," backed by a mob of -peasants in buckskin! He rushes among the shaken English to check the -panic which is seizing them! - -The Highlanders come up! - -"Hurrah! brave Highlanders!" he shouts. - -At Sir Edward's welcoming shout, Colonel Dale waves a salute! It is his -last; the huntingshirt men are upon him with those unerring rifles, and -he falls dead before his General's eyes. Coincident with the fall of his -beloved Dale, Sir Edward is struck by a second bullet. It enters near -the heart. As his aide catches him in his arms, he beckons feebly to Sir -John Tylden. - -"Call up Lambert with the reserves!" he whispers. - -As he lies supported in the arms of his aide, a third bullet puffs out -his lamp of life, and England loses a second Sir Philip Sidney. - -The main column falls into renewed disorder! It begins to retreat; -the retreat becomes a rout! Only the Highlanders stay! They cannot go -forward; they will not go back! There they stand rooted, until five -hundred and forty of their nine hundred and fifty are shot down. - -As the main column breaks, Major Wilkinson turns to Lieutenant Lavack. - -"This is too much disgrace to take home!" says he. - -Like Colonel Rennie, a mile away by the river, Major Wilkinson charges -the mud walls. Lieutenant Lavack, sharing his feelings, shares with him -that desperate, disgrace-defying charge. Through the singing, droning -"zip! zip!" of the bullets, they press on! They reach the ditch, and -splash through! Up the mud walls they swarm! Major Wilkinson falls -inside, dead, three times shot through and through! Lieutenant -Lavack, with a luck that is like a charm, lands in the midst of the -hunting-shirt men without a scratch! They receive him hilariously, -offer whisky and compliments, and assure him that they like his style. -Lieutenant Lavack accepts the whisky and the compliments, and gains -distinction as the one live Englishman over the General's mud walls this -January day. - -The field is swept of hostile English; all is silent in front, and not -a shot is heard. Now when the firing is wholly on one side, the General -passes the word for the hunting-shirt men to cease. - -The hard-working Coffee comes up, face a-smudge of powder stains; for he -has been taking his turn with a rifle, like any other hunting-shirt man. -He finds the General as drunk on battle as some folk are on brandy. - -"They can't beat us, Coffee!" cries the General, wringing his friend's -big hand. "By the living Eternal they can't beat us!" - -The General unslings his ramshackle telescope, and leaps upon the mud -walls for a survey of the field. The less curious Coffee devotes himself -to wiping the sweat and powder smudges from his face. His impromptu -toilet results only in unhappy smears, which make him resemble an -overgrown sweep. He looks at his watch. - -"Sharp, short work!" he mutters, as he notes that they have been -fighting but twenty-five minutes. - -[Illustration: 0235] - -Those plantation buildings are still blazing, no more than half-burned -down, and the smoke hides the scene toward the river. The General turns -his ramshackle spyglass upon his immediate front. The ground is fairly -carpeted with dead English. As he gazes he calls to Colonel Coffee, who -is now broadening the powder smears ingeniously with the sleeve of his -hunting shirt. - -"Jump up here, Coffee!" cries the General. "It's like resurrection day!" - -Thus urged, Colonel Coffee abandons his attempts to improve his looks, -and joins the General on the mud walls. He is in time to behold four -hundred odd Highlanders scramble to their brogues among those five -hundred and forty who will never march again, and come forward to -surrender. - -It has been a hot and bloody morning. Of those six thousand whom Sir -Edward takes into action--for the reserves with General Lambert are -never within range--over twenty-one hundred are fallen. Seven hundred -and thirty are killed as they stand in their ranks; and of the fourteen -hundred marked "wounded," more than six hundred are to die within the -week. Among the twenty-one hundred killed and wounded, sixteen hundred -go to swell the red record of the dire hunting-shirt men. - -The two attacks, being at the ends of the General's lines, involve no -more than two-thirds of his thirty-two hundred. Papa Plauche's "Fathers" -in the center, as well as General Adair's Kentuckians who act as -reserves, are merest spectators. - -That his "Fathers" are not called upon to fire a shot, in no wise -depresses Papa Plauche. He harangues his brave followers, and eloquently -explains: - -"It is because of your sanguinary fame, my heroes!" vociferates Papa -Plauche. "The English knew your position, and avoided you. They went as -far to the right and to the left as they could, to escape that -destruction you else would have infallibly meted out to them. Ah! my -'Fathers,' see what it is to have a terrible name! You must sit idle in -battle, because no foe dare engage you! Be comforted, my glorious -heroes! Achilles could have done no more!" - -Colonel Coffee, still busy with the powder smears, calls the General's -attention to an English group of three, made up of a colonel, a bugler, -and a soldier bearing a white flag. The trio halt six hundred respectful -yards away. The bugler sounds a fanfare; the soldier waves his white -flag. - -The General dispatches Colonel Butler with two captains to receive -their message. It is a note signed "Lambert," asking an armistice of -twenty-four hours to bury the dead. - -"Who is Lambert?" asks the General, and sends to the English colonel, -with his bugler and white flag, to find out. - -The three presently return; this time the note is signed "John Lambert, -Commander-in-Chief." The alteration proves to the General's liking, and -the armistice is arranged. - -The seven hundred and thirty dead English are buried where they fell. -Thereafter the superstitious blacks will defy lash and torture rather -than plow the land where they lie. It will raise no more sugar cane; but -in time a cypress grove will sorrowfully cover it, as though in mournful -memory of those who sleep beneath. The General carries his own dead to -the city. They are not many, four dead and four wounded being the limit -of his loss. - -General Lambert and the beaten English go wallowing, hip-deep, through -the swamps to their boats. They will not fight again. The booming of -the batteries, or mayhap the unusual warmth of the sun, has roused from -their winter beds a scaly host of alligators. These saurians uplift -their hideous heads and gaze sleepily, yet inquisitively, at the -wallowing retreating English. Now and then one widely yawns, and the -spectacle sends an icy thrill along what English spines bear witness to -it. - -In the end the beaten English are all departed. That tremendous invasion -which, with "Beauty and Booty!" for its cry, sailed out of Negril Bay -six weeks before to the sack of New Orleans, is abandoned, and the -last defeated man jack once more aboard the ships and mighty glad to be -there. The fleet sails south and east; but not until the tallest ship is -hull down in the horizon does the General march into New Orleans. - -The General cannot bring himself to believe that the retreat of the -English is genuine. They have still, as they sail away, full thirteen -thousand fighting men aboard those ships, with a round one thousand -cannon, and munitions and provisions for a year's campaign. He judges -them by himself, and will not be convinced that they have fled. With -this on his mind, he plants his pickets far and wide, and insists on -double vigilance. - -Now when fear of the English is rolled like a stone from their breasts, -the folk of New Orleans fret under the General's iron rule. With that -the prudent General tightens his grip. Even so excellent a soldier -as Papa Plauche complains. He says that the hearts of the "Fathers -of Families" are bursting with victory. His valiant "Fathers" burn to -express their joy. - -The General suggests that the joy-swollen "Fathers" repair to the -Cathedral, and hear the Abbé Duborg conduct a _Te Deum_. - -Papa Plauche points out that, while a _Te Deum_ is all very well in -its way, it is a rite and not a festival. What his "Fathers"--who are -thunderbolts of war!--desire is to give a ball. - -The General says that he has no objections to the ball. - -Papa Plauche explains that a ball is not possible, with the city held -fast in the controlling coils of military law. The rule that all lights -must be out at nine o'clock, of itself forbids a ball. As affairs stand -the "Fathers" are helpless in their happiness. No one may dance by -daylight; that would be too fantastic, too bizarre! And yet who, -pray, can rejoice in the dark? It is against human nature, argues Papa -Plauche. - -The General refuses to be moved; but continues to hold the city in his -unrelenting clutch--maintaining the while a wary eye for sly returning -English, with an occasional glance at the local treason which is -simmering about him. - -The public murmur grows louder and deeper. A rumor of the peace comes -ashore, no one knows how. The General refuses the rumor, fearing an -English ruse to throw him off his guard. At the peace whisper, the -popular discontent increases. The General, in the teeth of it, remains -unchanged. - -Citizen Hollander expresses himself with more heat than prudence. The -General locks up the vituperative Citizen Hollander. M. Toussand, Consul -for France, considers such action high-handed; and says so. The General -marches Consul Toussand out of town, with a brace of bayonets at the -consular back. Legislator Louaillier protests against the casting out -of Consul Toussand. The General consigns the protesting Legislator -Louaillier to a cell in the calaboose. Jurist Hall of the District Court -issues a writ of habeas corpus for the relief and release of the captive -Louaillier. The General responds by arresting Jurist Hall, who is given -a cell between captives Louaillier and Hollander, where by raising his -voice he may condole with them through the intervening stone walls. - -Thus are affairs arranged when official notice of the peace reaches the -General from Washington. Instantly he withdraws his grip from the -city, restores the civil rule, and releases from captivity Jurist Hall, -Citizen Hollander, and Legislator Louaillier. - -Upon the disappearance of martial law, Papa Plauche, with his immortal -"Fathers of Families," gives that ball of victory, the exiled Consul -Toussand creeps back into town, while Jurist Hall signalizes his -restoration to the woolsack by fining the General one thousand dollars -for contempt of court--which he pays. - -The Legislature, guards withdrawn from its treasonable doors, expands -into lawmaking. Its earliest action is a resolution of thanks for their -brave defense of the city to officers Coffee, Carroll, Hinds, Adair, -and Patterson. The Legislature pointedly does not thank the General, who -grins dryly. - -Colonel Coffee, upon receiving the vote of thanks, writes a letter of -acknowledgment, in which he intimates his opinions of the General, the -Legislature, and himself. This missive is a remarkable outburst on the -part of Colonel Coffee, who fights more easily than he writes, and shows -how he is stirred to his hunting-shirt depths. - -Through the clouds of pestiferous jurists and treason-hatching -legislators descends a grand burst of sunshine. The blooming Rachel, as -unlooked for as an angel, joins her gaunt hero in New Orleans, and the -General forgets alike his triumphs and his troubles. - -Papa Plauche--foremost in peace as in war--at once seizes on the advent -of the blooming Rachel to give another ball. The whole city attends the -function; the heroic "Fathers" in full panoply and very splendid. The -band plays "'Possum up a Gum Tree," in the execution whereof it soars to -vainest heights. - -Papa Plauche dances with the blooming Rachel. The General unbuckles in -certain intricate breakdowns, with which he challenged admiration in -those days long ago when he was the beau of old Salisbury and read law -with Spruce McCay. The "Fathers" are not only edified but excited by the -General's dancing; for he dances as he fights, violently. - -Colonel Coffee, not being a dancing man, goes looking about him. He -discovers a flower-piece, prepared by Papa Plauche, that is like unto a -piece of flattery, and spells "Jackson and Victory!" in deepest red and -green. He shows it to the General, who suggests that if Papa Plauche -had made it "Hickory and Victory!" it would mean the same, and save the -euphony. - -While the blooming Rachel, the General, the non-dancing Coffee, and the -ardent Papa Plauche, with the beauty and chivalry of New Orleans about -them, are at the ball, Colonel Burr, gray and bent and cynical, is -talking with his friend Swartwout in far-away New York. - -"It was a glorious, a most convincing victory!" exclaims Mr. Swartwout. -"President Madison cannot do the General too much honor. He has saved -the country!" - -"He has saved," returns the ironical Colonel Burr, "what President -Madison holds in much greater esteem. He has saved the Madison -administration!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME - - -THE General, the blooming Rachel by his side, takes up his homeward -journey. Now when they are on their way and a world has time to observe -them, it is to be noted that changes have befallen with the lengthened -flight of time. The eye of the blooming Rachel is as liquidly black and -deep, her hair as raven-blue, her cheek as round as on a rearward day -when she won the heart of that bottle-green beau from old Salisbury. The -alteration is in her form, which has grown plump and full and stout in -these her matronly middle years. As to the bottle-green beau, his sandy -hair is deeply shot with iron-gray, while his features show haggard, -and seamed of care. To the inquiring eye he looks at once dangerous and -rusty, like an old sword. His form, always spare, is more emaciated than -ever. The last is due in part to those Benton bullets, and the Dickinson -shot fired in that poplar, May-sweet wood on a certain Kentucky morning. -Besides, one is not to forget those southern swamps, which have never -had fame for building a man up. As the General, with his blooming -Rachel, draws near home, the whole Cumberland country rushes forth to -greet him. - -From that earliest day when Time began swinging his scythe in the -meadows of humanity, mankind has owned but two ways of honoring a hero. -One is the "parade," the other is the "dinner." In the one instance, -half the people march in the middle of the street, while the remaining -half line the curbs and look on. In the other, which has the merit of -exclusion, a select great few set a board with meat and drink; and then, -installing the hero where all may see, they bombard him with toasts and -speeches and applause. All attend the "parade" since it is free. Few -avoid the dinner, because, besides the honor and the honoring, it -affords lawful occasion for being drunk--a manifest advantage to many -in a strait-laced community. The General when he arrives in Nashville is -exhaustively "paraded" and deeply "dined." Also he is given a sword. - -Now, having been "paraded" and "dined," and with honors thick upon him, -the General sets about his duties as a major general in days of peace. -General Adair and he have a letter-quarrel concerning the courage of -Kentuckians. General Scott and he have a letter-quarrel on grounds more -personal. As the upshot of the latter correspondence, the General -evinces an eagerness to shoot his over-epauletted opponent at ten paces, -oiling up the saw-handles to that hopeful end, but is balked by the -over-epauletted one, who declines on grounds of piety and patriotism. - -[Illustration: 0251] - -While the General is fuming with ink and paper against those -distinguished warriors, he cools at intervals sufficiently to build -the blooming Rachel a little church. The blooming Rachel is a devout -Presbyterian; and, while the General is far too busy with this world to -think much on the next, she prevails with him--for he never says "No" to -her--to put her up a church. It is not much bigger than a drygoods box; -but there are forty pews, besides a pulpit for Parson Blackburn, and -the blooming Rachel is supremely happy. She owns to some illogical -impression that, should the General build a church, he'll "join." In -this she goes wrong; for the General only builds. - -The General mounts his horse, and rides to Washington. He meets Mr. -Jefferson in Lynchburg, and that aged fine gentleman and maker of -constitutions is struck by the graceful manners of the General, who has -become all ease and polish where once he was as rough as a woods' colt. -In Washington he is much feted and feasted, and the trump of celebration -is tireless to sound his name. He gets back home in time to put a roof -on the blooming Rachel's almost finished church, and listen to Parson -Blackburn's dedicatory sermon. - -The Red Stick Creeks from across the Florida line take to marauding and -murdering in Southern Georgia, and the General decides to see about it. -He sends an officer, with a force of men, to reduce Negro Fort on the -Appalachicola. In giving that officer his instructions, the General -expands touching the military virtues of red-hot shots; and with such -satisfactory results that the first one fired at Negro Fort blows it to -ruins, and with it three hundred and thirty-one of the three hundred and -thirty-four blacks and reds who infest it. Three crawl from the blazing -chaos, to be hilariously knocked on the head by friendly Creeks, who -have attended the expedition with that fond hope and purpose. The world -is much rejoiced at the demolition of Negro Fort; since murder and -pillage have been the one business of its robber garrison, and the -fire-torture of prisoners their one amusement. - -The General presently appears at the head of his hunting-shirt men, and -destroys the village of Chief Billy Bowlegs on the oft-sung Suwannee -River. Then he takes St. Marks from the feeble Spaniards, and arrests a -brace of conspiring English, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. The arrested ones -have come across from the Bahamas, bringing English guns and lead -and powder and promises to the hostile blacks and reds; and all in -accordance with that policy, dear to England, of preferring bloodshed -by proxy to shedding blood herself. The General hangs conspirator -Arbuthnot, and shoots conspirator Ambrister; while England, in -accordance with a second policy as dear as the first, disavows them -both. - -The General goes on to Pensacola. Here he hauls down the flag of Spain, -runs up the stars and stripes, drives out the Spanish Governor, and -installs one of his own with a garrison to back him. Having executed -conspirators Ambrister and Arbuthnot, he now seizes on two -Creek-Seminole chiefs and hangs them, to preserve, so to speak, a racial -equilibrium. Having thus wound up the Spanish, the English, the negroes -and the Indians in Florida, the General returns to his home, serene in -the sense of duty well performed. - -The General's serenity is misplaced; trouble breaks out in Washington. -Mr. Monroe is President, and Statesmen Clay and Crawford and Calhoun -and Adams desire to be. The quartette last named suspect in the -General--about whom a responsive public is running mad--a growing -rival. They decide to cripple him in the very cradle of his White House -prospects. If they do not he may grow up to snatch from them the -crown. Moved of this high thought, they charge the General with waging -unauthorized war; and with invading Spanish territory, we at peace -with Spain. They call him a "murderer" for snuffing out conspirators -Ambrister and Arbuthnot and those superfluous Creek-Seminole chiefs. -Also, giving a moral snuffle, they demand that he be courtmartialed and -cashiered. - -President Monroe shakes his head at the conniving quartette, replying as -on a somewhat similar occasion did the Russian Catherine: - -"We never punish conquerors." - -The General by the Cumberland hears of these weird doings in Washington, -and again rides over the mountains. His object is to discover, by -personal observation, who in his case, are the sheep and who the goats, -and separate in his own mind his friends from his enemies. Upon his -arrival the General finds himself an issue of politics. As such he is -voted upon by Congress, which affirms heavily in his favor. The people -have long ago decided in his favor; and Congress, ever quick to locate -the butter on its bread, sharply follows the popular example. Statesman -Clay and others among the General's foes express themselves freely to -his disadvantage. However, the General expresses himself freely to their -disadvantage, and profound judges of vituperation say that he has the -sulphurous best of the exchange. - -Being upheld by Congress, and having freed his mind touching his foes, -the General goes to Baltimore and Philadelphia, and is extravagantly -wined and dined. Then he proceeds to New York, where Fitz Greene Halleck -and Joseph Rodman Drake write doggerel at him in the _Evening Post_; -and where, also, he is "paraded" and "dinner"-honored to a degree -which lays all former "parading" and "dinner"-honoring, by less fervent -communities, deep within the shade. - -Spain cedes Florida to the United States; just as she would cede a bad -hot penny that, besides being worthless, is burning her fingers. The -President appoints the General governor of the new domain. Whereupon the -new Governor lays down his Major General's commission, bids farewell to -the army, and journeys south. He does not relish being Governor; and, -after locking up his Spanish predecessor for stealing divers papers of -state, and expatriating a scandalous bevy whose talk sounds like treason -to his sensitive ear, he resigns. - -When the General gets back to the Cumberland country, he finds that his -former quartermaster, Major Lewis, has decided to send him to the White -House. The General is mightily taken aback, and declares himself unfit. -Major Lewis retorts that he is far more fit than any of his quartette -of Washington enemies, laying especial emphasis on Statesman Clay. The -accurate force of the retort strikes the General wordless. - -Major Lewis is rich, wise, cunning, cool, college-bred, and eighteen -years younger than the General. He is a born manager, a natural -wire-puller, and can play politics by ear as some folk play the fiddle. -Congenitally a Warwick, he prefers making a President to being one, and -would sooner hold a baby than hold an office. - -Major Lewis seizes on the General as so much raw material wherefrom to -construct a President. As a best method of having his man on the ground, -he gives a hint, and the Tennessee Legislature sends the General to -Washington as Senator. The blooming Rachel accompanies him; they live at -a tavern in Pennsylvania Avenue called the "Indian Queen." - -This caravansary is kept by one O'Neal, who has a pretty daughter -Peg. Later the pretty Peg will dissolve a Cabinet, make Mr. Van Buren -President, and come within an ace of getting Mr. Calhoun hanged. All -this, however, is in the unpierced future. The blooming, childless -Rachel makes a pet of pretty Peg; which rivets the latter forever in the -good regards of the General, who loves what the blooming Rachel loves. - -Major Lewis proves a wizard of politics. Under his quiet legerdemain, -here and there and everywhere political fires break forth in favor of -the General. They break forth in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in New -York; and, so deft and secret is his work, none suspects Wizard Lewis as -the incendiary. Wizard Lewis is counseled by Colonel Burr who, like some -old gray fox, sits in the mouth of his New York law-burrow in Nassau -Street, peering out at events as they pass. - -In these days, the lion-faced Webster writes his brother: - -"His (the General's) manners are more presidential than those of any -of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is for him -decidedly." - -There are four candidates for the White House, _vide, licet_, the -General, and Statesmen Adams and Crawford and Clay. The popular vote -falls in the order given, with the General a long flight shot ahead of -Statesman Adams, who is next on the list. And yet, while far in advance -of the others, the General is without that electoral majority required -by the Constitution, and the choice is thrown into the House of -Representatives. - -Statesman Clay is now out of the running; for the President must be -chosen from among the three candidates having the highest electoral -vote, and he is fourth and lowest. Statesman Crawford, who ranks third, -is also out. He is stricken of paralysis; and, while this wins him -sympathy, it loses him White House strength. The fight is to be between -the General and Statesman Adams. - -While Statesman Clay is out of the coil, so far as any personal chance -of becoming the House selection is concerned, he is in it decisively in -another fashion. As a chief force in the House, he holds that important -body in the hollow of his hand; and, while he cannot be its choice, -he can control its choice. He controls it for Statesman Adams, on -the underground understanding that he, Statesman Clay, shall sit at -Statesman Adams' right hand as Secretary of State. Statesman Clay hopes -to run presidentially another day, and thinks to make his calling and -election sure while head of the Cabinet of Statesman Adams. As events -forge and fuse themselves in the blast furnaces of the future, it will -be discovered that in thus opining Statesman Clay falls into grievous -error. - -It is four o'clock in the afternoon when the Clay-guided House counts -Statesman Adams into a Presidency. Five hours afterward the General -meets Statesman Adams in the East Room, where both are in attendance -upon the last reception of outgoing President Munroe. The contrast -between them tells in the General's favor. There is no gloom of -disappointment on his brow, no cloud of defeat in his hawkish blue eyes. -The General has a lady on his arm. He greets Statesman Adams gracefully -and extends his hand: - -"How is Mr. Adams?" cries he. "I give you my left hand, sir, since my -right is devoted to the fair." - -Statesman Adams is a diplomat, and used to courts and salons. The -General is of the wilderness and its battlefields. And yet the General -shines out the more polished of the two. Statesman Adams takes the -extended hand; but he does it awkwardly, backwardly, and with a wooden -manner, as though his deportment is seized of some sudden, bashful -stiffness of the joints. At last he manages to say: - -"Very well, sir! I hope you are well!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--THE KILLING EDGE OF SLANDER - - -WIZARD LEWIS boldly re-begins his work of White House capturing. He -becomes busy to the elbows in the General's destinies before Statesman -Adams is inaugurated. When the latter names Statesman Clay to be his -Secretary of State, Wizard Lewis lays bare the deal which thus exalts -the Kentuckian. He raises the cry of "Bargain and Corruption!" and the -public takes it up. Statesman Adams and Statesman Clay are pilloried as -conspirators who have wronged the General of a Presidency, and the State -portfolio in the hands of Statesman Clay is pointed to as proof. The -General writes the blooming Rachel, just now at home by the Cumberland: - -"The Judas of the West has closed the contract and received the thirty -pieces of silver." Statesman Clay defends himself badly. He declares -that he objects to the General's White House ambitions only because he -is a "Military Chieftain." He speaks as though the world knows that a -"Military Chieftain" will make a perilous Chief Magistrate. The world -knows nothing of the sort; the cry of "Bargain and Corruption" gains -head. - -In retort to that arraignment of being a "Military Chieftain"--made as -if the phrase be merely another name for "buccaneer"--the General writes -the old friendly fox, Colonel Burr: - -"It is not strange that he (Statesman Clay) should indulge himself in -such reasoning, since it comes somewhat to his own personal defense. Our -blue-grass Secretary has been ever remarkable for his caution, to give -it a no worse name, and has not yet risked himself for his country, or -moved from safe repose to repel an invading foe." - -The General is not the only one who comments upon the astounding -copartnership in politics and policies between Statesman Adams and -Statesman Clay. John Randolph, of Roanoke, remarks concerning it, from -his bitter place in the Senate: - -"Sir, it is a coming together of the puritan and the blackleg--Blifil -and Black George!" - -This view seems hugely to excite Statesman Clay, and he challenges the -picturesque Randolph to a duel by Little Falls. They meet; but, since -both are at pains to miss, no good comes of it. - -[Illustration: 0267] - -Wizard Lewis goes teaching the General's merits in every State of the -Union. In his White House siege, Wizard Lewis receives his best help -from Statesman Adams himself. - -The latter publicist is a personage of ice-cold ideas, and lists -ingratitude at the top of the virtues. There be folk--descended, -doubtless, of ancestors that heated the pincers and turned the -thumbikins, and worked the straining rack for the Inquisitions as mere -day laborers at torture--who delight in doing mean, hateful, punishing -things to their fellow mortals, if they may but call such doing "duty." -They will weep hypocritically while burning a victim, and aver, -between sobs, that they pile the fagots and apply the torch only from -a "sternest conviction of duty." The word "duty," like the venom of -a serpent, is ever in their mouths; by it they break hearts, destroy -hopes, create blackness, blot out light, forbid happiness, foster grief, -and plant pain in breasts innocent of every crime save that of helping -them. Statesman Adams--heart as hollow as a bell and quite as brazen--is -one of these. He demonstrates his purity by refusing his obligations, -and proves himself great by turning his back on his friends. Made up of -a multitude of littlenesses, he offers no trait of breadth or bigness -as an offset. He is not wise; he is not brave; he is not generous; he -is not--even in wrongdoing--original. He will guide by some maxim; or -he will permit himself to be posed by a proverb; and, while ever -breathlessly respectable, he is never once right. As President he -proposes for himself an inhuman goodness, and declares that he will -remove no one from office on "account of politics"--a catch phrase which -has protected incompetency in place in every age. - -Although he is so fond of them, Statesman Adams, in taking the latter -snow-white position, overlooks an aphorism that will be vital while time -lasts. He forgets that "The President who makes no removals will himself -be removed." - -"Strike, lest you be stricken!" murmured Queen Elizabeth, as seizing the -pen she signed the warrant of block and axe for Scottish Mary, and it -might be well and wise for Statesman Adams to wear in constant mind that -illustrious example. - -The thought is vain. Statesman Adams ignores his friends, consults -his foes, and offers a base picture of the ungrateful that draws the -public's honest wrath his way. Wizard Lewis is no one to miss such -opportunities to upbuild the General's fortunes at the expense of the -enemy; and so the General grows each day stronger, while Statesman -Adams--who hopes to succeed himself--owns less and less of strength. - -The currents of time flow swiftly now, and four years go by--four years -wherein the old friendly far-seeing fox, Colonel Burr, in his Nassau -Street burrow, teaches the General's leaders intrigue as a pedagogue -teaches the alphabet to his pupils. And day after day the purblind -Adams, with the purblind Clay at the elbow of his hopes and fears, sets -traps against his own prospects, and does his unwitting best or worst to -destroy himself. Then comes the canvass: the General against Statesman -Adams, who courts a reelection. - -The moment the rival forces march upon the field, the dullest marks -the superiority of the General's. With that, Statesman Clay--in the war -saddle for Statesman Adams, whose battle is his battle and whose defeat -means his downfall--loses his head. He accuses the General of every -offense except that of theft, calls him every name save that of coward. -The accusations fail; the epithets fall harmless to the ground; the -people know, and draw the closer about the General's standards. -The latter's popularity rises as might a hurricane, and sweeps away -opposition like down of thistles! - -Statesman Clay becomes frantic. Possessed as by a demon, he issues -instructions to assail the blooming Rachel. His hound-pack obey the -call. From that moment the General's marriage is the issue. He is -charged with "stealing another's wife," and every shaft of mendacious -villification is shot against the unoffending bosom of the blooming -Rachel. Those are fire-swept moments of anguish for the General, -who feels the pain the more, since his hands are tied against what -saw-handle methods silenced the dead Dickinson one May Kentucky morning -in that poplar wood. - -The blooming Rachel, for her wronged part, says never a word. She goes -the oftener to the little church, but that is all. And yet, while she -seems so resigned and patient beneath the slandrous lash, the thong is -biting always to her soul's source. - -The election takes place, and now the people speak. They set the -grinding heel of their anger upon those slanders; they throw down that -ladder of lies by which Statesman Adams hopes to climb. Wizard Lewis, -Burr-guided, foils Statesman Clay at every point; the General rides down -Statesman Adams like a coach and six. - -New England is tribal and narrow, with the reeking taint of old -Federalism in its veins; it gives itself for Statesman Adams, unredeemed -save by a single district in Maine. There, indeed, rises up one -electoral vote for the General. It shows in the gray waste of Adams -sentiment about it, like a green tree and a fountain against the gray -wastes of Sahara. New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland follow in New England's -dreary wake for Statesman Adams; while New York gives him sixteen -electoral votes out of thirty-six. That offers the round circumference -of his Clay-collected strength--an electoral vote of eighty-three! - -For the General, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, -Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois -go headlong; while New York gives him twenty electoral votes, with -Tennessee his own by a popular count of twenty for one. Statesman Clay, -as a retort to the slanders he fulminated, beholds his own State -of Kentucky reject him, and aid in swelling those one hundred and -seventy-eight electoral votes which declare for the General. The world -at large, seated by its fireside and sagely thumbing those returns -of one hundred and seventy-eight for the General against a meager -eighty-three for Statesman Adams, finds therein a stunning rebuke to -both the ambitions and the methods of Statesman Clay. - -When word of the General's election reaches the blooming Rachel, she -smiles wearily and says: - -"For the General's sake I'm glad! For myself I never wished it." - -Now that the war of the votes is over and the General victor, mankind -relaxes into its customary dinners and parades. The Cumberland good -people resolve to outparade all former parades, outdine all former -dinners. They engage themselves with tremendous gala preparations. It -shall be a time when oxen are eaten whole, and whisky is drunk by the -barrel. - -The day set apart as sacred to the coming parade, and that dinner yet to -be devoured, breaks brightly full of promise. There is never a cloud in -the Cumberland sky, never a care on the Cumberland heart. In a moment -all is reversed!--light gives way to blackness, happiness to grief! Like -a bolt from a heaven smiling, the word descends that the blooming Rachel -lies dead. The word is true. The monstrous weight of slander heaped upon -it breaks her gentle heart. - -[Illustration: 0275] - -They bury the blooming Rachel at the foot of the garden where her -best-loved flowers grow. The General is ten years older in a night; the -tall form, yesterday as straight as a lance, is bent and broken. The -blue eyes, once hawklike, are dimmed with tears. Friends come to press -his hand--he chokes and cannot speak! But the awful agony of his soul is -written in the sweat drops on his wrung brow. - -As the General stands by the grave that is smothering for him all the -song and the sweet sunshine of life, the ever-faithful, never-failing -Coffee is by his side. The poor General reaches blindly out and takes -hold of the rough, big, loyal hand for support. His beloved Coffee, who -flanked the Red Stick Creeks for him at the Horseshoe and held his low -mud walls against England's boast and best at New Orleans, will not -fail him now in this his sternest trial by the graveside of the blooming -Rachel. - -The General, doubly quiet, doubly stern, issues forth of that ordeal -another man. He is as one who lives because it is his duty, and not -for love of life. Plainly, his hopes like his heart are buried with the -blooming Rachel. In his soul he lays her death to the doors of Statesman -Adams and Statesman Clay; throughout the years to follow he will never -forget nor forgive. To the end he will cultivate his hatred of them, and -tend it as he might a flower. Time cannot remold him in this belief; and -a decade later he will say to his friend Lewis, while his eye flashes -like some sudden-drawn rapier: - -"Major, she was stung to death by slander! It was such adders as John -Quincy Adams, such pit-vipers as Henry Clay, that killed her!" - - - - -CHAPTER XX--THE GENERAL GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE - - -THIS is of a steamboat day, and keel boats are but a memory. The -General makes his tedious eight-weeks' way to Washington via the -Cumberland, the Ohio, the mountains, and the Potomac valley. It is like -the progress of a conqueror. The people throng about him until Wizard -Lewis, remembering his broken state, fears for his life. The fears are -without grounds to stand on. Applause never kills, and the General finds -in it the milk of lions. He enters Washington renewed, and was never so -fit for hard work. The General is inaugurated. As he is cheered into the -White House by jubilant thousands, Statesman Clay, beaten and bitter, -retires to Kentucky; while Statesman Adams goes back to Massachusetts, -where his ice-waterisms, let us hope, will be appreciated, and from -which frigid region he ought never to have been drawn. - -When the General is declared President, Statesman Calhoun is made -Vice-President. From his high perch in the Senate Statesman Calhoun -begins at once to scan the plain of the possible for ways and means to -name himself the General's successor. He proves dull in the furtherance -of his ambitions, and conceives that the only best path to victory lies -over the General himself. He must break down that demigod in the hearts -of the people, and teach them to hate where now they trust and love. - -The General is not a day in Washington before Statesman Calhoun is -intriguing to cut the ground of popularity from beneath his feet. As -frequently happens with dark-lantern strategists, his plottings in their -very inception go off on the wrong foot. Statesman Calhoun is so foolish -as to commence his campaign against the General with an attack upon a -woman. The woman thus malevolently distinguished is the pretty Peg, once -belle of the Indian Queen. - -Between that time when the General came last to Washington as Senator -and the pretty Peg was petted and loved by the blooming Rachel, and now -when the General occupies the White House as President, destiny has been -moving rapidly and not always gayly with the pretty Peg. In that interim -she becomes the wife of Purser Timberlake of the Navy, who later cuts -his drunken throat and walks overboard to his drunken death in the -Mediterranean. - -In her widow's weeds the pretty Peg looks prettier than before--since -black is ever the best setting for beauty, and shows it off like a -diamond. Major Eaton, Senator from Tennessee and per incident friend of -the General, is smitten of the pretty Peg, and marries her. The wedding -bells are ringing as the General rides into Washington. - -It is an hour wherein Vice-Presidents have more to say than they will -later on. Statesman Calhoun, scheming his own advantage, puts forward -covert efforts to place his friends about the General as cabineteers. -This is not so difficult; since the General is not thinking on Statesman -Calhoun. His eyes, hate-guided, are fastened upon Statesman Adams and -Statesman Clay; his single aim is to advance no follower of theirs. -These are happy conditions for Statesman Calhoun, who comes up unseen on -the General's blind side, and presents him--all unnoticed--with three of -his Cabinet six. - -Statesman Calhoun, who prefers four to three, next tries all he secretly -knows to control the General's choice of a War Secretary. In this he -meets defeat; the General selects Major Eaton, just wedded to the pretty -Peg. His completed Cabinet includes Van Buren, Secretary of State; -Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury; Eaton, Secretary of War; Branch, -Secretary of the Navy; Berrien, Attorney General; and Barry, Postmaster -General. Of these, Statesman Calhoun, craftily reviewing the list from -his perch in the Senate, may call Cabi-neteers Ingham, Branch, and -Berrien his henchmen. - -The General is not aware of this Calhoun color to his Cabinet. The last -man of the six hates Statesman Clay and Statesman Adams; which is the -consideration most upon the General's mind. He does not like Statesman -Calhoun. But he in no sort suspects him; and, at this crisis of Cabinet -making, that plotting Vice-President is not at all upon the General's -slope of thought. - -Not content with half the Cabinet, Statesman Calhoun resents privily his -failure to control the war portfolio. He resolves to attack Major Eaton, -and drive him from the place. As much wanting in chivalry as in a wisdom -of the popular, he decides to assail him through the pretty Peg. It -is the error of Statesman Calhoun's career, which now becomes one -blundering procession of mistakes. - -Statesman Calhoun's attack on the pretty Peg begins with hidden -adroitness. There lives in Philadelphia a smug dominie named Ely. On -the merest Calhoun hint in the dark, Dominie Ely--who has a mustard-seed -soul--writes the General a letter, wherein he charges the pretty Peg -with every immorality. Dominie Ely prayerfully protests against the -husband of a woman so morally ebon making one of the General's official -family. - -The General is in flames in a moment. His loved and blooming Rachel was -stabbed to death by slander! The pretty Peg was the blooming Rachel's -favorite, in that old day at the Indian Queen! The General possesses -every angry reason for being aroused, and he sends fiercely for smug -Dominie Ely. - -The villifying Dominie Ely appears before the General in fear and -trembling--color stricken from his fat cheek. He falteringly confesses -that he has been inspired to his slanders by a Dominie Campbell. The -furious General summons Dominie Campbell, about whom there is a Calhoun -atmosphere of jackal and buzzard in even parts. The General hurls -pointed questions at Dominie Campbell, and catches him in lies. - -While the General is putting to flight the two black-coat buzzards -of slander, the war breaks out in a new quarter. The "Ladies of -Washington," compared to whom the Red Stick Creeks at the Horseshoe and -the redcoat English at New Orleans are as children's toys, fall upon -the General's social flank. They hate the pretty Peg because she is -more beautiful than they. They resent her as the daughter of a tavern -keeper--a common tapster!--who is now being lifted to a social eminence -equal with their own. These reasons bring the "Ladies of Washington" to -the field. But with militant sapiency they conceal them, and adopt as -the pretended cause of their onslaught the slanders of those ophidians, -Dominie Ely and Dominie Campbell. - -Mrs. Calhoun, wife of Statesman Calhoun, at the head of Capital fashion -and social war-chief of the "Ladies of Washington," says she will not -"recognize" the pretty Peg. Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien, -wives of the three Cabineteers who wear in private the colors of -Statesman Calhoun, say they will not "recognize" the pretty Peg. Mrs. -Donelson, wife of the General's private secretary and _ex officio_ -"Lady of the White House," says she will not "recognize" the pretty Peg. -The latter drawing-room Red Stick is the General's niece. Also, she is -in fashionable leading strings to Mrs. Calhoun, who as social war-chief -of the "Ladies of Washington" dazzles and benumbs her. - -Mrs. Donelson approaches the General concerning the pretty Peg. - -"Anything but that, Uncle!" she says. "I am sorry to offend you, but I -cannot 'recognize' Mrs. Eaton." - -"Then you'd better go back to Tennessee, my dear!" returns the General, -between puffs at his clay pipe. - -Mrs. Donelson and her unwilling spouse go back to Tennessee. The war -against the pretty Peg goes on. - -The General's Cabinet is a house divided against itself. Cabineteers -Ingham, Branch, and Berrien align themselves with Statesman Calhoun on -this issue of the pretty Peg. For each has a ring in his nose, a wedding -ring, and his wife leads him about by it socially, hither and yon as -she chooses. Cabineteers Van Buren and Barry range themselves with -Cabineteer Eaton and the pretty Peg. - -Cabineteer Van Buren is short, round, fat, smooth, adroit, ambitious, -and so much the mental tree-toad that, now when he is in contact with -the positive General, his every opinion takes its color from that -warrior. Also Cabineteer Van Buren is a widower, with no wife to lead -him socially by the nose. Hat in hand, he calls upon the pretty Peg--a -politeness which pleases the General tremendously. - -Cabineteer Van Buren gives dinners, and asks the pretty Peg to perform -as hostess. With a wise eye on the General, he incites Cabineteer Barry, -who is a bachelor, to burst into similar dinners, with the pretty Peg in -command. By his suggestion, Minister Vaughn of the English and Minister -Krudener of the Russians, who like Cabineteer Barry are bachelors, -follow amiable suit. They give legation dinners, at which the pretty -Peg presides. The General adopts these brilliant examples with the White -House. The pretty Peg finds herself in control of such society high -ground as the English and Russian legations, two Cabinet houses besides -her own, and last and most important the White House itself. It is a -merry even if a savage war, and the pretty Peg is everywhere victorious. - -Not everywhere! Mrs. Calhoun, as war-chief of the "Ladies of -Washington," with Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien about -her as a staff, refuses to yield. These four indomitables and their -beflounced and be-feathered followers, noses uptilted in scorn of the -pretty Peg, prosecute their battle to the acrid end. - -In the earlier stages, the General, his angry thoughts on Statesman -Clay, inclines to the belief that these attacks on the pretty Peg are of -that defeated personage's connivance, and says so to Wizard Lewis. - -Wizard Lewis, when the General is inaugurated, is for returning to his -Cumberland home, but finds himself restrained by the lonesome General. - -"What!" cries the latter, "would you leave me now, after doing more than -all the rest to land me here?" - -Upon which reproach, Wizard Lewis remains, and lives in the White House -with the General. It befalls that with the earliest slanders of the -ophidians, Dominie Ely and Dominie Campbell, the General goes to Wizard -Lewis with accusations against Statesman Clay. - -"It's that pit-viper, Henry Clay!" cries the General. "Major, the pet -employment of that scoundrel is the vindication of good women!" - -Wizard Lewis holds to a different view. He declares that the secret -impulse of this base war is Statesman Calhoun, and proves it as events -unfold. - -"And yet," asks the General, "why should he assail little Peg? Both he -and Mrs. Calhoun called upon her and Major Eaton, and congratulated them -on their marriage." - -"That was while Major Eaton was a senator," Wizard Lewis responds, "and -before he became War Secretary and got in the way of the Calhoun plans. -Your Vice-President, General, is mad to be President. Also, he is so -blurred in his strategy as to imagine that these attacks on little Peg -will advance his prospects." - -The General snorts suspiciously; a light breaks upon him. - -"Then your theory is," he says, "that Calhoun assails Peg as a step -toward the presidency." - -"Precisely, General! Rightly construed, it is not an attack on Peg, but -you. He is trying to put you before the people in the role of one who -countenances the immoral, and upholds a bad woman. In that he hopes to -array every virtuous fireside against you. He looks for you to ask a -second term; and, by any means in his power, he will strive to destroy -you out of his path." - -"Now, was there ever such infamy!" cries the General. "Here is a man so -vile that he would pave his way to the White House with the slain honor -of a woman!" - -The hate of the General is now focused upon Statesman Calhoun. That -ignoble strategist, he resolves, shall never achieve the presidency. - -As one wherewith to defeat Statesman Calhoun and succeed himself, the -General picks upon Cabineteer Van Buren--that suave one, who is so much -to the urbane fore for the pretty Peg. - -"Yes, sir," says the General to Wizard Lewis; "I'll take a second term! -And then, Major, we will make Matt President after me." - -"We'll do more," returns Wizard Lewis. "When we elect you President the -second time, we'll shove aside the plotting Calhoun, and make Van Buren -Vice-President." - -"Right!" exults the General. "Then, should I die, Matt will at once step -into my shoes." - -Neither the General nor Wizard Lewis is at pains to conceal their -design. The sallow cheek of Statesman Calhoun grows sallower; for the -news is like an icicle through his heart. It in no wise abates his war -upon the pretty Peg, however; which--as Wizard Lewis guesses--is only -meant to break down the General with good people. - -Vindicated; in all quarters she rises in triumph over Mrs. Calhoun, -Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, Mrs. Berrien, and what other "society Red -Sticks"--as he terms them--seek her destruction. The next thing is -to shear away the cabinet strength of Statesman Calhoun. Wizard Lewis -recommends a dissolution of the Cabinet. He lays his thought before the -General, who sits listening in the smoke of his long pipe. Cabineteer -Van Buren will resign. Cabi-neteers Eaton and Barry will emulate his -example and turn over their portfolios. With half his Cabinet gone, -should the Calhoun three prove backward, the General shall demand their -portfolios. - -"And then?" asks the General, his iron-gray head in a cloud of tobacco -smoke. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI--WIZARD LEWIS URGES A CHANGE IN FRONT - - -WIZARD LEWIS, bending his brows to the situation, now counsels an -extreme step. - -"Then you will make Van Buren Minister to England, and give Major Eaton -the governorship of Florida. Little Peg should look well in the palace -at St. Augustine." - -"By the Eternal!" cries the General, as he hurls his clay pipe into -the fireplace where hundreds of its brittle predecessors have gone -crashing--"by the Eternal, we'll do it! The last vestige of a Calhoun -cabinet influence shall be wiped out!" - -It comes to pass as Wizard Lewis programmes. Cabineteer Van Buren -resigns, and Cabineteers Eaton and Barry hasten to follow his lead. The -three other cabineteers sit dazed; the suddenness of the thing takes -away their cabinet breaths. They sit dazed so long that the General -loses patience and asks for their portfolios. One by one they hand them -in, as it were at the White House door--Cabineteer Ingham being last and -most reluctant of all. - -There be tears and mournful wailings now among the society Red Sticks. -Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien are shaken in their social -souls, never for one moment having foreseen this movement in disastrous -flank. However, there is no help for it. The deposed three wash off -their social war paint, and go their divers ways lamenting; while the -General and Wizard Lewis grin sourly over their fireside pipes. As for -Statesman Calhoun, his schemes experience a chill; for in thus sending -Cabineteers Ingham, Branch, and Berrien into political exile, the -General drives a knife to the very heart of his selfish diplomacy. - -Cabinet wiped out, the General constructs another, with his old-time -friend and comrade Livingston as Secretary of State. Also, the agreeable -Van Buren departs for the Court of St. James as the General's envoy to -England, while Major Eaton and the villified yet victorious Peg wend -southward among the flowers to rule over Florida. - -Before he leaves Washington, the ill-used Eaton makes praiseworthy -attempts to fasten a duel upon ex-Cabineteer Ingham, who hires a whole -stage coach and gallops off to Baltimore--the fear of death upon him--to -avoid being sacrificed. The flight of ex-Cabineteer Ingham is a shock to -the General. - -"I knew he was a bad, designing man," says the General with a sigh; -"but, upon my soul, Major, I didn't think him a coward!" - -Statesman Calhoun, weaker by virtue of that Cabinet lopping off, is -still too narrowly set in his White House ambitions to give up the war. -In this he is much sustained by the Senate, which jealous body pretends -to possess its own causes of complaint. Chief among these is the obvious -manner in which the General promotes the importance of that old -fox, Colonel Burr. The General shows that he cares more for the -appointment-indorsement of Colonel Burr than for the recommendations of -half the Senate. This does not set well on the proud senatorial stomachs -of the togaed ones; and, with Statesman Calhoun to lead them, they are -willing to obstruct and baffle the General in his policies. Moved of -this spirit, and at the instigation of Statesman Calhoun, the Senate -refuses to confirm the appointment of Minister Van Buren--a Burrite--who -thereupon makes his farewell unruffled bow to the great ones at St. -James and returns amiably home. - -That Thomas Benton, who was so fortunate as to fall into a receptive -cellar on a certain Nashville occasion when the muzzle of the General's -saw-handle was at his breast, and who is now in the Senate from -Missouri, gives Statesman Calhoun notice of what he may expect: - -"You have broken a minister," observes the farsighted Benton--"you have -broken a Minister to make a Vice-President." - -While the slander battle against the pretty Peg is raging, a storm -cloud of a different character is gathering over the General. Although -Statesman Clay has no part in that war upon the pretty Peg, he by no -means sits with folded hands in idleness. - -[Illustration: 0299] - -There is a certain money-creature called the United States Bank. It is -controlled by one Biddle of Philadelphia. Banker Biddle is a glistening, -serpentine personage, oily and avaricious--a polished composite -of assurance, greed, and lies. He is a proven and unscrupulous -corruptionist, and a majority of both Senate and House wait upon his -money-bidding. Under the Biddle influence, the Bank never fails to -consider the mere "name" of a Congressman as perfect collateral for a -loan. Even so incorrigible a bankrupt as the lion-faced Webster is good -at the Biddle Bank for thousands. - -Secure in its hold on Congress, and insolent--as Money ever is when it -feels secure--the Biddle Bank thinks to crack a political whip. The main -bank is in Philadelphia. There are twenty-five branch banks scattered -here and there throughout the country. In pursuance of its determination -to dominate politics, the Biddle Bank suddenly refuses loans to the -General's friends. Banker Biddle and the Bank are secretly moved to -these doughty attitudes by Statesman Clay, who, with his party of the -Whigs, has for long been their ally. - -Statesman Clay, in possession of the machinery of his party, is resolved -to put his own name forward at the head of the next Whig ticket against -the formidable General. He foresees that Statesman Calhoun--who is of -the General's party of the Democrats--will come to utter grief in his -intrigues to supplant the General and make himself a candidate. And -yet, the blue-grass Machiavelli can use Statesman Calhoun. The latter -is powerful with the Senate. The Senate hates the General as blindly as -does Statesman Calhoun. - -Machiavelli Clay resolves to have advantage of this double condition -of hatred. He will beguile the General to attack the Biddle Bank. The -attack can only be made by message to Congress. That should be the -opportunity of Machiavelli Clay. He will have the Senate for the battle -ground; and it shall go hard if he do not emerge with the General -defeated and the Bank and Banker Biddle at his back. With such friends -in the campaign to come later he should have the General and his party -of democracy at his mercy. Thus dreams Machiavelli Clay. - -It is a beautiful dream--this long-drawn chicane of Machiavelli Clay. As -a move toward its realization he suggests the policy of a loan hostility -toward the General's friends; for the General will fight almost as -quickly for a friend as for a woman. - -Banker Biddle adopts it, and the Bank develops it in Portsmouth. The -paper of one of the General's friends--a Mr. Isaac Hill--is dishonored, -and the General's friendship is understood to be the reason. The thing -is managed like a challenge, and has the instant effect of bringing -the General--ever ready for such a war--to the field. In its invidious -attitude toward his friends, the Bank throws down the glove; and the -General promptly picks it up. In a message to Congress, he assails the -Bank; and the fight is on. - -Money is always a coward, and commonly a fool. Also its instinct is the -weak instinct of corruption. Its attitude toward a public is ever that -of the threatening, bullying, bragging terrorist, who will either rule -or ruin. It works by fear, and resorts to every quack device. It will -gnash its jaws, lash its tail, spout fire and smoke in the face of -a quailing world. And yet all this tail-lashing and jaw-gnashing and -fire-spouting is a sham. Money, for all its appearance of ferocity, -is no more perilous to folk who face it than is the fire-spouting, -jaw-gnashing, tail-lashing papier-maché dragon of grand opera. Attack -it, and what follows? A couple of rueful supernumeraries crawl abjectly, -if grumblingly, from its papier-maché stomach--the complete yet harmless -reason of the jaw-gnashing, fire-spouting, tail-lashing from which a -frightened world shrunk back. - -Besides these furious matters, Money does another lying thing. It seeks -to teach the public to regard it as the palpitant heart of the country -itself. - -"I am the seat of life!" cries Money. "Touch me, and you die!" - -The advantage of this lie is clear; that is, if the lie win credit. -Being the heart, however corrupt, no law surgery may reach it. If Money -were the hand of a people, or the fingers on that hand, then it might be -dealt with. It could be statute-lanced or poulticed or even amputated, -and no threat to life ensue. Money foresees this; and, with that lying -cunning which is ever the scoundrel sword and shield of cowards, it -declares itself to be the heart. Thus is it safeguarded against the -honest least correction of communal saw and knife. Being the heart, its -vileness may be deplored but cannot be mended. For who is the mediciner -that shall handle the heart to any result save death? - -And yet while Money thus proclaims itself the nation's heart it lies. It -is not even so reputable a member as the hand. At the most it comes to -be no more than just a thumb, or a forefinger, and the farthest possible -remove from any source of life. Folk who would aid their money-throttled -hour must remember these things. - -Banker Biddle and the Bank, now when the General advances upon them, -go through that furious charlatanry of jaw-gnashing, tail-lashing, and -fire-spouting. The General is unconvinced, unterrified. His hawk eyes -pierce the miserable masquerade. He knows the Bank for a dragon of paper -and pretense, and does not hesitate. - -Failing to arouse his personal-political fear, Banker Biddle and the -Bank attempt to stay the General by proclaiming a peril to the country -at large. - -"We are the throbbing heart of all prosperity!" they cry. - -The General recognizes the lie. He knows that prosperity comes from the -rain and the sun and the soil, and not from banks or bankers. As well -might the two-bushel sacks declare themselves to be the harvest reason -of a nation's wheat. The General continues his advance. There shall be -no evasion, no hiding, no safety by lies; masks are not to avail nor -pretenses protect. - -The General in his attack on Banker Biddle and the Bank displays a -genius even with that which he employed against the English at New -Orleans. Banker Biddle and the Bank are the petted custodians of all the -millions of Government. The General "removes" those millions--a yellow -mountain of gold! Incidentally, he dismisses a weak-kneed Secretary of -the Treasury as a preliminary. - -"Remove the deposits!" says the General. - -"I dare not!" whines the weak-kneed one. - -"I will take the responsibility!" urges the General. - -Still the weak-kneed one falters. At that the General sets him aside. - -The "removal" of those Government millions, which is as the drawing off -of half their life blood, leaves the Bank and Banker Biddle exceeding -pale in the face. They look appealingly at Statesman Clay, who, the -better to manage his side of the conflict, has taken a Kentucky seat -in the Senate. Statesman Clay encourages the Bank and Banker Biddle. It -will all come right, he says; there is a Senate bomb preparing. - -To bring the General squarely before the public as the Bank's destroyer, -Statesman Clay anticipates the years and offers a measure renewing the -charter of that money temple. Statesman Calhoun, with every Senate foe -of the General, is for it. The measure gallops through both Senate and -House. It is sent whirling to the White House. - -"Will he sign it?" wonders Statesman Clay, in consultation with his own -thoughts. - -For an anxious moment Statesman Clay fears the coming of that signature; -he cannot conceive of courage greater than his own. His anxiety is -misplaced. The General will not sign. When the Clay-constructed measure -renewing the charter of the Bank is laid before him, with about what ado -might attend the killing of a garter snake he breaks its back with his -veto. - -Statesman Clay rubs his satisfied hands. - -"Now," says he to Banker Biddle, who is becoming a bit weak, "we have -him helpless! That veto is his death warrant! The campaign is at hand; -I shall be the candidate of my party, he of his. That veto shall be the -issue! Money, you know, is all powerful. Being so, who shall doubt the -result when now the public is driven to choose between the Bank and the -White House--Prosperity and Andrew Jackson?" - - - - -CHAPTER XII--THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIAVELLI CLAY - - -MACHIAVELLI CLAY is one who looks seldom from the window and often in -the glass. No man carries himself more upon the back of his own regard -than does Machiavelli Clay. He believes in the wisdom of the classes, -the ignorance of the masses, and thinks that government should be of -people, by statesmen, for statesmen. Also he has a profound respect for -Money, and little for perishing flesh and blood. As to each of these -thought-conditions he lives in head-on collision with the General, who -in all things is his precise contradiction. - -As a guide by which the popular view may direct itself, Machiavelli Clay -asks the Senate to pass a vote of censure upon the General. With -the help of Statesman Calhoun, he puts it through. The Clay-invoked -"censure" strikes these sparks from the General: - -"Major," he cries, thinking on his saw-handles as he and Wizard Lewis -sit with their evening pipes, "if I live to get these robes of office -off, I may yet bring that rascal to a dear account." - -Banker Biddle, now when his precious Bank for its life or death will be -made the campaign issue, is not without those pale misgivings which -ever shake the livid heart of Money on the eve of war. Observing -this knee-knocking trepidation, Machiavelli Clay attempts to give him -courage. This is no difficult task for Machiavelli Clay to undertake; -since, in his native ignorance of the popular, he harbors no doubt of -the General's downfall. Also he extends cheering word the more readily -to the quaking Banker Biddle, because the latter and his jeopardized -Bank are to furnish those golden sinews of war, which will be required -for the Whig campaign. - -Machiavelli Clay uplifts the confidence of Banker Biddle to a point -where the latter, from his money lair in Philadelphia, writes him the -following: - -"_He (the General) has all the fury of a chained panther biting the bars -of its cage--a condition which I think should contribute to relieve -the country of the tyranny of this miserable man. You, my dear sir, are -destined to be the instrument of that deliverance, and at no period of -your life has the public had a deeper stake in you._" - -In so writing to Machiavelli Clay, Banker Biddle permits his hopes -to overrun his intelligence. Machiavelli Clay is not to become "the -deliverer" of his hour, nor shall the "chained panther" in the White -House be cast out. Machiavelli Clay, however, is no Elijah gifted of -prophecy; but, on the wooden-witted other hand, proves quite as besotted -touching the future as does Banker Biddle. He replies to that financier -in these words: - -"_Fear not; there shall come a cleansing of the Augean stables! Our -cause cannot fail! That veto of the Bank charter is a broad confession -of the incompetency of the Administration, and shows him (the General) -unfit to carry on the business of government. I think we are authorized -to confidently anticipate his defeat_." - -Now when the candidates of the Democratic party are about to be -named, Statesman Calhoun foresees that he himself will be ignored, and -ex-Cabineteer Van Buren supplant him, nominationally, for the place of -Vice-President. - -To save his chagrin, and on the principle that when one is about to be -thrown out it is wise to go out, he resigns from his vice-presidential -perch, lays down the Senate gavel, and returns to his home-state -of South Carolina. Once there, following the Kentucky example of -Machiavelli Clay, he sees to it that his own Legislature returns him to -Washington as a Senator. - -Statesman Calhoun abandons hope of making his appearance as a White -House candidate in the campaign at hand. What then? He is of middle -years, and can wait. He will lie back and watch the struggle between -the General and Machiavelli Clay. Let victory fall where it may, he, -Statesman Calhoun, will prepare himself for his own sure triumph in the -conflict four years away. Which demonstrates that, while his judgment -is crippled, his ambition stands as tall and as straight as a mountain -pine. - -The tickets are brought to the field--the General against Machiavelli -Clay, with ex-Cabineteer Van Buren, and a Whig obscurity named Sargent -running for second place. The issue presents the alternative--the -General or the Bank, humanity in a death-hug with Money. - -Machiavelli Clay and Banker Biddle have no fears; for they are -gold-blind and can see nothing beyond themselves. They are given a rude -awakening. The people speak; and when the sound of that speaking dies -out, the General has overwhelmed Machiavelli Clay with two hundred and -nineteen electoral votes against the latter's sixty-nine. Machiavelli -Clay and Banker Biddle and the Bank go down, while the General--ever the -conqueror and never once the conquered--sweeps back to the presidency. -Also ex-Cabineteer Van Buren is made Vice-President, as aforetime -resolved upon by the General and Wizard Lewis, and from that Senate -eminence, so lately vacated by Statesman Calhoun, will wield the gavel -over togaed discussion. - -The General, President the second time, picks up the reins, settles -himself upon the box, and proceeds to drive his governmental times after -this wise. He kills out what few sparks of life still animate the Biddle -Bank. He removes the Creeks and Cherokees from Florida and Georgia, and -thereby guarantees the scalp on many an innocent head. He throws open -the public lands for settlement at nominal figures. He fosters a gold -currency and discourages paper. - -He pays off the last splinter of the national debt, and offers to the -wondering eyes of history the spectacle of a country that doesn't owe -a dollar. He makes commercial treaties with every tribe of Europe. -Finally, he compels France to pay five millions in gold for outrages -long ago committed upon the sailors of America. - -The last is not brought about without some show of force. France, at the -General's demand, falls into a white heat of rage and froths for instant -war. The General takes France at her warlike word, notifies Congress, -and orders his fleet into the Mediterranean, the flagship _Constitution_ -in the van. - -The cool vigor of the move sets France gasping. She consults England -across the Channel, and is privily assured that whipping a Yankee -eighty-gun ship is a feat so difficult of marine accomplishment that, -like the blossoming of the century plant, it would be foolish to -look for it oftener than once in one hundred years. It is England's -impression, whispered in the Frankish ear, that it will be cheaper to -pay the five millions. Whereupon, France breaks into diplomatic smiles, -assures the General that her late war-rage was mere humor and her froth -a jest. And pays. - -By way of a little junket, the General visits New England, and at -the genial sight of him that chill region thaws like icicles in July. -Indeed, the New England temperature rises to a height where Harvard -College confers upon the General the degree of Doctor of Laws. At which -Statesman Adams nurses his wrath with this entry in his sour diary: - -"Seminaries of learning have been timeservers and sycophants in every -age." - -The General has done his people many a service. He has defended them -from savage Red Stick Creeks, and savage Red-coat English with their war -cry of "Beauty and Booty!" Now he will do his foremost work of all, and -buckler them against the javelins of treason, save them from between the -jaws of a conspiracy--wolfish and widespread for national destruction. - -The conspiracy has its birth in the ambition-crazed bosom of Statesman -Calhoun; its shiboleth is "Nullification!" - -"I would sooner," said Caesar, when his courtiers were laughing at the -pompous mayor of a little mud town in Spain--"I would sooner be first -here than second in Rome!" And, centuries after, the sentiment wakes a -responsive echo in the jealous breast of Statesman Calhoun. - -Statesman Calhoun aims to follow the General in the headship of American -affairs. Defeated of that, he is resolved to sever those constitutional -links which bind his home-state of South Carolina to her sister States -in Federal Union, and declare her a nation by and of herself. - -In his new rōle of "seceder," Statesman Calhoun makes this impression -on the English Harriet Martineau. After speaking of him as involving -himself tighter and tighter in spinnings of political mysticism and -fantastic speculation, she calls him a "cast-iron man" and says: - -"_He (Calhoun) is eager, absorbed, overspeculative. I know of no one who -lives in such intellectual solitude. He meets men and harangues them by -the fireside as in the Senate. He is wrought like a piece of machinery, -set going vehemently by a weight, and stops while you answer. He either -passes by what you say, or twists it into suitability with what is -in his head, and begins to lecture again. He is full of his -'Nullification,' and those who know the force that is in him and his -utter incapacity for modification by other minds, will no more expect -repose and self-retention from him than from a volcano in full force. -Relaxation is no longer in the power of his will. I never saw anyone who -gave me so completely the idea of 'possession._'" - -By which the English woman would say that she thinks Statesman Calhoun -insane. She overstates, however, his "incapacity for modification" and -"self-retention." There will come a day when he does not pause, nor -close his eyes in sleep, between Washington and his home in South -Carolina, such is his fear-spurred eagerness--with the shadow of the -gibbet all across him!--to stamp out what fires of treason he has been -at pains to kindle, and avoid that halter which the General promises as -their reward. - -It is in Senate debate that Statesman Calhoun removes the mask from his -intended treason, and gives the world a glimpse of its blackness. He -threatens, unless the tariff be changed to match his pleasure, that -South Carolina will prevent its enforcement within her borders. He -declares South Carolina superior to the nation in her powers, and -proclaims for her the right to "nullify" what Federal laws she deems -inimical to her peculiar interest. He shows how South Carolina will, -as against the tariff contemplated, invoke that inherent right to -"nullify," and says, should the Washington government attempt to coerce -her, she will take herself out of the Union. - -To this exposition of States rights, the General in the White House -listens with gathering scorn. He turns to Wizard Lewis: - -"Why, sir," he cries, addressing that Merlin of politics, "if one is to -believe Calhoun, the Union is like a bag of meal open at both ends. No -matter how you pick it up, the meal all runs out. I shall tie the bag -and save the country!" - -Treason, however base, will have its friends, and Statesman Calhoun goes -not without "Nullification" followers. In his own mischievous State -the doctrine is received with open arms. The Governor issues his -proclamation; a convention of the people is authorized by the -Legislature. They are to meet at Columbia and settle the details of -"Nullification" in its practical workings out. They do meet; and adopt -unanimously an "Ordinance of Nullification" which declares the tariff -just made in Washington "Null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this -State, its officers or citizens." They decree that no duties, enjoined -by such tariff, shall be paid or permitted to be paid in any port of -South Carolina. The closing assertion of the "Ordinance" runs that, -should the Government of the United States try by force to collect -the tariff duties, "The people of South Carolina will thenceforth hold -themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve -their political connection with the people of the other States, and will -proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and -things which sovereign and independent States may of right do." - -[Illustration: 0321] - -Following this doughty setting-out of what one might call the -Palmetto-rattlesnake position, the Governor suggests military -associations on the model of the Minute Men of the Revolution, and makes -ready for what blood-letting shall be required to sustain Statesman -Calhoun in his new preachment. Altogether it is a South Carolina day of -bombast and blue cockades, with Statesman Calhoun already chosen as the -president of a coming "Southern Confederacy." While these dour matters -are in process of Palmetto transaction, Statesman Hayne encounters -the lion-faced Webster on the floor of the Senate, and the latter -establishes forever the rightful supremacy of the Federal Union, and -demonstrates that the "Nullification" set up by Statesman Calhoun is but -the chimera of a jaundiced, ambition-bitten mind. Thus canters the hour -in the Senate and in South Carolina; while up in the White House the -General sits reading a book. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII--THE FEDERAL UNION: IT MUST BE PRESERVED - - -THE General is reading his book, when in walks Wizard Lewis. The latter -necromancer casually alludes to Statesman Calhoun, and his pet infamy of -"Nullification." At this the General's honest rage begins to mount. - -"You bear witness, Major," he cries--"you bear witness how Calhoun -is trying me! But by the living heavens, I'll uphold the law!" Then, -shaking the ponderous tome at Wizard Lewis, his finger marking the -place--"Here! I've been reading what old John Marshall said in the -case of Aaron Burr. He makes treason in its definition as plain as a -pikestaff. A man can't _think_ treason; he can't _talk_ treason; he can -only _act_ treason. It requires an act--an overt act! Calhoun is safe -while he only talks or conspires. But let one of his followers perform -one act of opposition to the law, even if it be no more than hand on -sword hilt or just the snapping of a fireless flint against an empty -rifle-pan, and I have him. There would be the overt act demanded by -old Marshall; and he goes on to say that the overt act, once committed, -attaches to all of the conspirators and becomes the act of each. I -shall keep my ear as well as my eye, Major, on Calhoun's State of South -Carolina; and, at the first crackling of a treasonable twig beneath a -traitorous foot, into a felon's cell goes he. Then we shall see what a -hempen noose will do for him and his 'Nullification.'" - -The General, the better to deliver this long oration, gets up and walks -the floor. Having concluded, down he drops into his chair again, and to -grubbing at old John Marshall. - -The General and Wizard Lewis decide that a perfect White House silence -concerning "Nullification" is the proper course. The General will sit -mute, and never by so much as the arching of a bushy brow intimate -what he will do, should Statesman Calhoun push his treason to that -last extreme--that overt act of opposition to the Federal law and its -enforcement, demanded by the great Chief Justice. And so, while arises -all this turmoil of treason in the Senate and South Carolina, the White -House is as voiceless as a tomb. - -While the General is silent, he is in no sort idle. He makes secret -preparations to bruise the head of the serpent of secession with a heel -of steel. He sends General Scott to South Carolina. Into Castle Pinckney -he conveys thousands of rifles. One by one his warships drop into -Charleston harbor, until, with broadsides trained upon the town, scores -of them ride at ominous anchor. - -The General gets word to his ever-reliable Coffee. In those well-nigh -twenty years which have come and gone since the English were swept up in -fire at New Orleans, the hunting-shirt men in the General's country of -Tennessee have increased and multiplied. Their numbers are such that -at the end of twenty days the energetic Coffee stands ready to cataract -twenty-five thousand of them into South Carolina at the lifting of the -General's bony finger, and follow these in forty days with twenty-five -thousand more. Not content with his fifty thousand hunting-shirt men -from Tennessee, the General arranges for an equal force from North -Carolina and Georgia. - -If ever a people stood within the shadow of doom it is our -treason-forging ones of South Carolina in these days of Nullification, -Columbia Conventions, Minute Men, and Blue Cockades. - -Some of them are not so dim of eye but what they perceive as much, and -begin to catch their breath. Still a wrong, once it be set rolling like -a stone down hill, is difficult to overtake and stop. So, while the -heart of would-be Treason beats a little faster, and its cheek turns a -little whiter, as inklings of what the wordless General is doing begin -to creep about among Palmetto-rattlesnake coteries, the work of making -ready for black revolt proceeds. - -In Washington, that grim silence of the White House grows oppressive. -There be prudent ones, among the nullifying adherents of Statesman -Calhoun, who are willing to play the part of traitor if no peril attend -the rōle. They are highly averse to the character if it promise -to thrust their sensitive necks into gallows danger. The questions -everywhere on the whispering lips of these timid treason mongers are: - -"What is the Jackson intention? What will the President do? Will he look -upon Nullification as merely some minor sin of politics? Or, will he -treat it as stark treason, and fall back on courts and hangman's ropes?" - -No one answers, for no one knows. As for the General himself, his lips -are as dumb as a statue's. Traitors may go wrong, or go right; he will -light no lamp for their guidance. The awful suspense is carrying many -of the treason mongers to the brink of hysteria. Even Statesman Calhoun, -morbid and ambition-mad, is made to pause. He himself begins to wonder -if it would not be as well and as wise to measure in advance those -iron-bound anti-treason lengths to which the General stands ready to go. - -To help them in their perplexity, Statesman - -Calhoun and his Nullifying followers evolve a cunning scheme. In its -amiable execution, it should lay bare, they think, the purposes of the -General. Statesman Calhoun and his coconspirators have long ago laid -claim to the dead Jefferson as their patron saint of "Nullification," -asserting that precious tenet to be his invention. They decide to give -a dinner in honor of the departed publicist. The dinner shall take place -on the dead Jefferson's birthday at the Indian Queen. The General shall -come as a guest. Statesman Calhoun and his co-conspirators will be -there. Statesman Calhoun will offer a toast, declaratory of those -superior rights over the Federal government which he asserts in favor of -the separate States. It shall be a Nullification toast, one redolent of -a State's right to secede from the Federal Union. - -Statesman Calhoun having launched his fireship of sentiment, the General -will be requested to give a toast. Should he comply, it is believed -by Statesman Calhoun and his co-conspirators that he will in partial -measure at least unlock his plans. If he refuse--why then, under the -circumstances, his refusal will be pregnant of meaning. In either event, -he will be beneath the batteries of five hundred eyes, and much should -be read in his face. - -That Jefferson dinner is an admirable device, one adapted to draw the -General's fire. Its authors go about felicitating themselves upon their -sagacity in evolving it. - -"What say you, Major?" asks the General, when he receives the invitation -upon which so much of national good or ill may pend; "what say you? -Shall we humor them? You know what these Calhoun traitors are after." - -"True!" responds Wizard Lewis; "they want to count us, and measure us, -in that business of their proposed treason." - -"I'll tell you what I think," says the General, after a pause. "I'll -fail to attend; but you shall go, and be counted in my stead. Also, -since they'll expect a toast from me, I'll send them one in your care. -I hope they may find it to their villain liking--they and their -archtraitor Calhoun!" - -The Indian Queen is a crowded hostelry that Jefferson night. The halls -and waiting rooms are thronged of eminent folk. Some are there to attend -the dinner; others for gossip and to hear the news. As Wizard Lewis -climbs the stairs to the banquet room on the second floor, he encounters -the lion-faced Webster coming down. - -"There's too much secession in the air for me," says the lion-faced one, -shrugging his heavy shoulders. - -"If that be so," returns Wizard Lewis, "it's a reason for remaining." - -Wizard Lewis mingles with the groups in the corridors and parlors, -for the banquet hall is not yet thrown open. Among these, he nods his -recognition of Colonel Johnson, of Kentucky, tall of form, grave of -brow, he who slew Tecumseh; Senator Benton, once of that safe receptive -cellar; the lean Rufus Choate, eaten of Federalism and the worship of -caste; Tom Corwin, round, humorous, with a face of ruddy fun; Isaac -Hill, gray and lame, the General's Senate friend from New Hampshire -whose insulted credit started the war on Banker Biddle's bank; Editor -Noah, of New York, as Hebraic and as red of head as Absalom; the -quick-eyed Amos Kendall; Editor Blair, who conducts the _Globe_, the -General's mouthpiece in Washington; the reckless Marcy, who declares -that he sees "no harm in the aphorism that 'to the victor belong the -spoils of the enemy.'" - -The dinner is spread. The decorations are studied in their democracy. -Hundreds of candles in many-armed iron branches blaze and gutter about -the great room. The high ceilings and the walls are festooned of flags. -The stars and stripes are draped over a portrait of the dead Jefferson. -Here and there are hung the flags of the several States. With peculiar -ostentation, and as though for challenge, next to the national colors -flows the Palmetto-rattlesnake flag of South Carolina--Statesman -Calhoun's emblem. - -The dinner is profuse, and folk of appetite and fineness declare it -elegant. There is none of your long-drawn courses, so dear to Whigs and -Federalists. Black servants come and go, to shift plates and knives, -and carve at the call of a guest. At hopeful intervals along the tables -repose huge sirloins, and steaming rounds of beef. There are quail pies; -chickens fried and turkeys roasted; pies of venison and rabbits, and -pot pies of squirrels; soups and fishes and vegetables; boiled hams, and -giant dishes of earthenware holding baked beans; roast suckling pigs, -each with a crab-apple in his jaws; corn breads and flour breads, and -pancakes rolled with jellies; puddings--Indian, rice, and plum; mammoth -quaking custards. Everywhere bristle ranks and double ranks of bottles -and decanters; a widest range of drinks, from whisky to wine of the -Cape, is at everybody's elbow. Also on side tables stand wooden bowls -of salads, supported by weighty cheeses; and, to close in the flanks, -pies--mince, pumpkin, and apple; with final coffee and slim, long pipes -of clay in which to smoke tobacco of Trinidad. - -As the guests seat themselves, Chairman Lee proposes: - -"The memory of Thomas Jefferson." - -The toast is drunk in silence. Then, with clatter of knife and fork, -clink of glasses, and hum of conversation, the feast begins. - -The General's absence is a daunting surprise to many who do not know -how to construe it. Wizard Lewis, through Chairman Lee, presents -the General's regrets. He expected to be present, but is unavoidably -detained at the White House. The "regrets" are received uneasily; the -General's absence plainly gives concern to more than one. - -As the dinner marches forward, "Nullification" and secession are much -and loudly talked. They become so openly the burden of conversation and -are withal so loosely in the common air, that sundry gentlemen--more -timorous than loyal perhaps--make pointless excuses, and withdraw. - -Statesman Calhoun sits on the right hand of Chairman Lee. The festival -approaches the glass and bottle stage, and toasts are offered. There are -a round score of these; each smells of secession and State's rights. -The speeches which follow are even more malodorous of treason than the -toasts. - -The hour is hurrying toward the late. Statesman Calhoun whispers a word -to Chairman Lee; evidently the urgent moment is at hand. - -Statesman Calhoun hands a slip of paper to Chairman Lee. There falls a -stillness; laughter dies and talk is hushed. - -Chairman Lee rises to his feet. He pays Statesman Calhoun many flowery -compliments. - -"The distinguished statesman from South Carolina," says Chairman Lee in -conclusion, "begs to propose this sentiment." He reads from the slip: -"'The Federal Union! Next to our liberty, the most dear! May we all -remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the -States, and distributing equally the burdens and the benefits of that -Union!'" - -The stillness of death continues--marked and profound; for, as Chairman -Lee resumes his seat, Wizard Lewis rises. All know his relations with -the General; every eye is on him with a look of interrogation. Now when -the Calhoun toast has been read, they scan the face of Wizard Lewis, -representative of the absent General, to note the effect of the shot. -Wizard Lewis is admirable, and notably steady. - -"The President," says Wizard Lewis, "when he sent his regrets, sent also -a sentiment." - -Wizard Lewis passes a folded paper to Chairman Lee, who opens it and -reads: - -"'The Federal Union! It must be preserved!"' - -The words fall clear as a bell--for some, perhaps, a bell of warning. -Statesman Calhoun's face is high and insolent. But only for a moment. -Then his glance falls; his brow becomes pallid, and breaks into a -pin-point sprinkle of sweat. He seems to shrink and sear and wither, -as though given some fleeting picture of the future, and the gallows -prophecy thereof. In the end he sits as though in a kind of blackness -of despair. The General is not there, but his words are there, and -Statesman Calhoun is not wanting of an impression of the terrible -meaning, personal to himself, which underlies them. - -It is a moment ominous and mighty--a moment when a plot to stampede -history is foiled by a sentiment, and Treason's heart and Treason's -hand are palsied by a toast of seven words. And while Statesman Calhoun, -white and frightened and broken, is helpless in the midst of his -followers, the General sits alone and thoughtful with his quiet White -House pipe. - -For all the plain sureness of that toast, the would-be rebellionists now -crave a surer sign. A member of Congress from South Carolina, polite and -insinuating, calls on the General. - -"Mr. President," says the insinuating signseeking one, suavely -deferential, "to-morrow I go back to my home. Have you any message for -the good folk of South Carolina?" - -"Yes," returns the General grimly, his hard blue eyes upon the -insinuating one, while his heavy brows are lowered in that falcon-trick -of menace--"yes; I have a message for the 'good folk of South Carolina.' -You may say to the 'good folk of South Carolina' that if one of them so -much as lift finger in defiance of the laws of this government, I shall -come down there. And I'll hang the first man I lay hands on, to the -first tree I can reach." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV--THE ROUT OF TREASON - - -DEMOCRACY goes not without its defects, and there be times when that -very freedom wherewith it invests the citizen spreads a snare to his -feet. For a chief fault, Democracy is apt to mislead ambitious ones, -dominated of ego and a want of patriotism in even parts. Such are prone -to run liberty into license in following forth the appetites of their -own selfishness, and forget where the frontiers of loyalty leave off and -those of black treason begin. - -In a democracy, for your clambering narrowist to turn traitor is never -a far-fetched task. Being free to speak as he politically will and, per -incident, think as he politically will, he finds it no mighty journey to -the perilous assumption that he may act as he politically will. Knowing -his duty to guard the temple, he argues therefrom his right to deface -it. Treason fades into a mere abstraction--a crime curious in this, that -it is impossible of concrete commission. - -Statesman Calhoun is among these ill-guided ones of topsy-turvy -patriotism. Blurred by ambition, soured of disappointment, license and -liberty have grown with him to be unconscious synonyms. The laws against -treason carry only a remonstrance, never a warning, and--as he reads -them--but deplore that civic villainy, while threatening nothing of -grief for what dark souls shall be guilty of it. In this frame the -General's stark sentiment, "The Federal Union! It must be preserved!" -and that subsequent hanging promise which, by the mouth of the suave -insinuating one, he sends to "the good folk of South Carolina," go -beyond surprise with Statesman Calhoun, and provide a shock. It is as -though, walking in a trance of treason, he knocks his head against the -White House wall; his awakening is rudely, painfully complete. That -dream of a separate nation, with himself at its head, gives way to -hangman visions of rope and gallows tree; and, from bending his energies -to methods by which he may take South Carolina out of the Union, he -gives himself wholly to the more tremulous enterprise of keeping himself -out of jail. - -Some hint of that recent literature, which the General found so -interesting, gets abroad, and many go reading the lucid dictum of -old Marshall. Treason as a crime becomes better understood; and--by -Statesman Calhoun at least--better feared. Moved of these fears, -Statesman Calhoun sends message after message into his restless -Palmetto-rattlesnake State of South Carolina commanding, nay imploring, -a present suspension of "Nullification." His Palmetto-rattlesnake -adherents, while not understanding the danger which fringes them about, -have already found enough that is alarming in the very air; and, for -their own safety as much as his, are heedful to regard that prayer for -a "Nullification" passivity. The South Carolina shouting ceases; the -Minute Men rest on their traitorous arms; the manufacture of blue -cockades is abandoned; while the Columbia convention devotes itself to -innocuous adjournments from innocent day to day. - -While Palmetto-rattlesnake affairs are thus timidly quiescent, the -Senate itself--having read old Marshall, and being, moreover, somewhat -instructed by the watchful attitude of the General, who sits in -the White House a figure of frowning menace, both relentless and -fateful--devotes itself to the scaffold extrication of Statesman -Calhoun. Machiavelli Clay leads the rescue party. His is of an opposite -political church to that of Statesman Calhoun; but the pair meet on -the warm, common ground of a deathless hatred of the General. Under -the mollifying guidance of Machiavelli Clay, Senator after Senator -surrenders those pet schedules of tariff desired of his own people, -and puts the surrender on the expressive basis of "saving the neck of -Calhoun." - -When every possible tariff cut has been arranged, and Congress adjourns, -Statesman Calhoun makes his memorable homeward flight. Horse after horse -he rides down, night becomes as day; for Death crouches on his crupper, -and he must stay the Nullifying hand of South Carolina to save his own -neck. He succeeds beyond his deserts, and comes powdering into Columbia, -worn and wan and anxious, yet none the less ahead of that "overt act" -whereof old Marshall spoke, and for which the somber General waits. - -Once among his own treason-hatching coterie, Statesman Calhoun loses no -moments, but breaks up the "Nullification" nest. Secession dies in -the shell, and the Columbia convention, with more speed even than it -displayed in passing it, repeals that "Ordinance of Nullification." -Thereupon Statesman Calhoun draws his breath more freely, as one who has -been grazed by the sinister fangs of Fate; while the inveterate General -heaves a sigh of regret. - -Wizard Lewis overhears the sigh, and questions it. At this the General -explains his disappointment. - -"It would have been better," says he, "had we shed a little blood. -This is not the end, Major; the serpent of treason is only bruised, -not slain. Had Calhoun run his course, a handful of hundreds might have -died. As affairs stand, however, the country must one day wade knee-deep -in blood to save itself. These men are not honest. Their true purpose is -the downfall of the Union. Their present pretext is tariff; next time it -will be slavery." - -By way of bringing the iniquity of "Nullification" before the people, -together with his views concerning it, the General seizes his big iron -pen, and scratches off a proclamation. - -"I consider," says he, "the power to annul a law of the United States, -assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, -contradicted expressly by the Constitution, unauthorized by either its -letter or its spirit, inconsistent with every principle upon which -it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was -formed." - -The country, reading the General's exposition of the Union and its -Gibraltar-like character, breaks into bonfires, oratory, dinners, -barbecues, parades, and what other schemes of jubilation are practiced -by a free people. That is to say the country breaks into these sundry -jubilant things, if one except the truant State of South Carolina. In -that Palmetto-rattlesnake-ridden commonwealth there prevails a sulky -silence. No bonfires blaze, no barbecues scorch, no dinners smoke, no -parades march. Baffled in its would-be treasons, afraid to stretch forth -its nullifying hand lest the sword of retribution strike it off at the -wrist, it comports itself like a spoiled child thwarted, and upholds -its little dignity with a pout. No one heeds, however; and, beyond an -occasional baleful glance from the General, the rest of the world leaves -it to recover from that pout in its own time and way. - -When Congress reconvenes, Statesman Calhoun creeps back to his Senate -place. But the perils through which he has passed have left their -furrowing traces, and now he offers nothing, says nothing, does nothing. -His heart is water; his evil potentialities have oozed away. Haunted of -that hangman fear which still hag-rides him, he abides mute, motionless, -impotent, like some Satan in chains. - -To further wound Statesman Calhoun, and in the mean, protesting teeth -of Machiavelli Clay, the Senate expunges from its record the vote of -censure it once passed upon the General. The resolution to expunge is -offered by Senator Benton who, as against a far-off Nashville hour -when only a generous cellar saved him from the General's saw-handle, is -to-day the latter's partisan and friend. The General is hugely pleased -by the censure-expunging resolution, and has what Senate ones supported -it--being fairly the whole Senate, when one forgets Machiavelli Clay, -and our chained, embittered Satan, Statesman Calhoun--to a grand dinner -in the East Room. - -And now the official times wag prosperously with the General. His -friends are everywhere dominant, his enemies everywhere in retreat. Also -his hair, from iron gray, fades to milk-white. - -Since nothing peculiar presses upon him in the way of opposition, the -General falls ill. He makes little of this, however; and cures himself -with tobacco, coffee, calomel, and lancets, while outraged doctors -groan. Likewise, he burns midnight oil in planning with Wizard Lewis the -elevation of Vice-President Van Buren, who he is resolved shall have the -presidency after him. - -While thus the General lays his Van Buren plans, misguided admirers -bombard him with such marks of their regard as a phaėton built of -unbarked hickory, and a cheese weighing fourteen hundred pounds. The -latter sturdy confection is trundled into the White House kitchen, from -which coign of vantage it sends on high a perfume so utterly urgent -that none may stay in the White House until it is removed. Following -its going, the executive windows are thrown open throughout a wind-swept -afternoon, to the end that the last suffocating reminder of that cheese -shall be eliminated. - -The General's hours as President are drawing to a close. His hopes -touching a successor carry through triumphantly, and Vice-President Van -Buren is selected to follow him. Neither Machiavelli Clay for the Whigs, -nor Statesman Calhoun among the Democrats, has the courage to offer his -own name to the people. - -[Illustration: 0353] - -Statesman Calhoun, aiming to subtract as much as he may from the -fortunes of nominee Van Buren, produces a bolting ticket, headed by one -Mangum; and, for Mangum, Palmetto-rattlesnake South Carolina--still in -a tearful pout--wastes its lonely arrow in the air. It was, it will be, -ever thus with South Carolina, who might do herself a good, and come to -some true notion of her own peevish inconsequence, if she would but take -a long, hard look in the glass. She is as one who attends the fairs, but -so over-esteems herself as to defeat every bargain she might make. Her -best chances are cast away, a cheap sacrifice to vanity, since no one -will either buy her or sell her at the figure she sets on herself. Thus, -too, will it continue. Her frayed prospects, already behind a fashion, -are to wax more shopworn and more threadbare as the years unfold. - -Nominee Van Buren is elected to succeed the General in the White House, -and every friend of the latter votes for the little polite man of -Kinderhook. The General is delighted, since the elevation of nominee Van -Buren provides for a continuation of his darling policies. - -Wizard Lewis is delighted, because the new situation permits the return -of himself and his beloved General to their homes by the Cumberland. -Nor does it detract from the satisfaction of either that, with the -presidential coming of the Kinderhook one, the final door of political -hope is barred fast in the faces of Machiavelli Clay and Statesman -Calhoun; for both the General and Wizard Lewis hate these two as though -that hatred were a religious rite. - -At last dawns President Van Buren's inauguration morning, and the -General stands for the last time before a people whose good and whose -honor he has so jealously guarded. Of this farewell appearance, poet -Willis writes: - -"_The air was elastic; the day bright and still. More than twenty -thousand people had assembled. The procession, the General and Mr. Van -Buren riding uncovered, arrived a little after noon. Their carriage, -drawn by four grays, paused. Descending from it at the foot of the -steps, a passage was made through the crowd, and the tall white head of -the old chieftain went steadily up. The crowd of diplomats and senators -to the rear gave way. A murmur of feeling rose up from the moving mass -below, as the infirm old General, coming as he had from a sick chamber -which his physicians had thought it impossible he should leave, stood -bowed before the people_." - -In his address the General touches many things. He closes by saying: "My -own race is nearly run. Advanced age and failing health warn me that I -must soon pass beyond the reach of human events. I thank God my life has -been spent in a land of liberty, and that He gave me a heart wherewith -to love my country. Filled with gratitude, I bid you farewell." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV--THE GRAVE AT THE GARDEN'S FOOT - - -THE General wends his slow way homeward, and is two months about the -journey. His progress, broken by many stops, is like both a triumph -and a funeral; for double ranks of worshipers line the route and sob or -cheer as he passes. The harsh horse-face is seamed of care and worn by -sickness; but the slim form is still erect and lance-like, and the blue -eyes gleam as hawkishly dangerous as when, behind his low mud walls with -the faithful Coffee and his hunting-shirt men, he broke down England's -pride at New Orleans. Everywhere the people press about him; for -republics are not ungrateful, and for once in a way of politics it is -the setting, not the rising sun upon which all eyes are centered. In -the end he reaches home, and his country of the Cumberland, as on many a -former day, opens its arms to receive him. - -And now the General, for all his sickness and his well-nigh threescore -years and ten, must bend himself to his labors as a planter; for he has -come back very poor. He has his acres and his slaves; but debts have -piled themselves high, and the tooth of decay can do a devastating deal -in eight years. - -The General goes to work as though life is just begun. The fences are -renewed, the buildings repaired, while the plow breaks fresh furrows in -fields that have lain fallow too long. To finance his plans, he borrows -ten thousand dollars from Editor Blair. Later, by a huddle of months, -Congress repays him that one-thousand-dollar fine, of which a quarter -of a century before he was mulcted in New Orleans. This latter, interest -swollen, is twenty-seven hundred dollars--a sum not treated lightly in -this hour of his narrowed fortunes! - -All goes prosperously. The generous soil, as though for welcome to the -General, grants such crops of cotton that the wondering Cumberland folk, -as once they did aforetime, come miles to view his fields. When not -busy with his planting, the General is immersed in politics. Each day he -rides down to Wizard Lewis four miles below; or Wizard Lewis rides those -four miles up to the Hermitage. Being together, the pair, over pipe and -moderate glass, sagely consider the state of the nation. - -Down by the General's gate is a large-stomached mail box. Each morning -finds it stuffed to suffocation with sheaves of letters and papers -tied in bundles. Also there are shoals and shoals of visitors. For the -General's home is a Mecca of politics, to which pilgrims of party turn -their steps by ones and twos and tens. Some come to do the stark old -General honor; some are one-time comrades, or friends who rose up around -him on fields of party war. For the most, however, and because humanity -is selfish before it is either just or generous, the visitors are -office-seeking folk, who ask the magic of the General's signature to -their appeals. - -These selfish ones become, in their vermin number and persistency, a -very plague. They wring from the suffering General the following: - -"The good book, Major," says he to Wizard Lewis, "tells us that at the -beginning there were in Eden a man, a woman, and an office seeker who -had been kicked out of heaven for preaching 'Nullification' I To judge -of the visiting procession, as it streams in and out of my front gate, -I should say that the latter in his descendants has increased and -multiplied far beyond the other two." - -The French king forgets and forgives those grievous five millions, and -dispatches an artist of celebration to paint the General's portrait. The -artist finds the latter of a mind to humor the French king. The portrait -is painted--a striking likeness!--and the gratified artist carries it -victoriously across seas to his royal master. - -[Illustration: 0365] - -The General becomes concerned in keeping England from stealing Oregon, -and writes letters to the Government at Washington in protest against -it. - -"Oregon or war!" is his counsel. - -Just as deeply does he involve himself for the admission of Texas into -the Union, declaring that of right the nation's boundary should be, and, -save for the criminal carelessness of Statesman Adams on the occasion -of the last treaty with Spain--made in a Monroe hour--would be, the -Rio Grande. Statesman Adams, now in his icy old age, makes a speech in -Boston and denies this; whereat the General retorts in an open letter -that Statesman Adams is "a monarchist in disguise," a "traitor," a -"falsifier," and his "entire address full of statements at war with -truth, and sentiments hostile to every dictate of patriotism." - -Machiavelli Clay foolishly invades the Cumberland country on a broad -mission of personal politics, and he like Statesman Adams makes a -speech. Machiavelli Clay, however, does not talk of Oregon, or Texas, or -what shall be the nation's foreign policy, whether timid or warlike. -His is wholly and solely a party oration, and in it he pays left-handed -tribute to Aaron Burr, dead a decade. Machiavelli Clay escapes no better -with his offensive eloquence than does Statesman Adams. The perilous old -General from his Hermitage is instantly out upon him with another open -letter, of which the closing paragraph says: - -"_How contemptible does this lying demagogue appear, when he descends -from his high place in the Senate, and roams over the country retailing -slanders against the dead_." - -The General is much refreshed by these outbursts, and, in that -contentment of soul which follows, resolves to join the church. Long ago -he promised the blooming Rachel, fast asleep at the foot of the garden, -that once he be free from the muddy yoke of politics he will accept -religion, and now he keeps his word. He unites himself with the -congregation which worships in that little chapel, aforetime built for -the blooming Rachel, and, upon his coming into the fold, there arises -vast rejoicing throughout the ardent length and breadth of Cumberland -Presbyterianism. - -The pastor, Dominie Edgar, calls often at the Hermitage; for he feels -that the General may require some special spiritual grooming. One day he -observes that convert's saw-handles, oiled and neat and ready for blood, -on a mantel, prayerfully crossed beneath a portrait of the blooming -Rachel. The good dominie is shocked, but does not show it. He picks up -one of the saw-handles. - -"This has seen service, doubtless," he remarks tentatively. - -"Ay!" responds the General grimly; "it has seen good service." - -Dominie Edgar puts the saw-handle back in place, and his curiosity -pushes no farther afield. He rightly conjectures it to be the weapon -which cut down the slanderous Dickinson, and mentally holds that it will -more advantage the soul of his convert to touch as scantily as may be -upon topics so ferocious. Shifting his ground, Dominie Edgar asks: - -"General, do you forgive your enemies?" - -"Parson," says the convert, "I forgive _my_ enemies, and welcome. But I -shall never"--here he points up at the portrait of the blooming Rachel, -which seems to lovingly follow his every motion with its painted patient -eyes--"I shall never forgive _her_ enemies. My feud shall follow them, -and the memory of them, to the end of time." - -Dominie Edgar sits down with his convert to show him the error of his -obdurate ways. He lectures cogently. It is to be feared, however, that -his doctrinal seed of forgiveness falls upon hard, intractable ground; -for, while the convert says never a word, the lecture serves but to -light again in those blue eyes what lamps of hateful battle burned there -on a certain fierce May morning in that popular Kentucky wood. - -The long days come and go, and the General lives on in fortune, -peace, and honor. Then the end draws down; for the General has run his -threescore years and ten, and well-nigh ten years more. Wizard Lewis -sits by his bedside, and never leaves him. - -"I want to go, Major," murmurs the General to Wizard Lewis; "for she is -over there." He raises his eyes to the portrait of the blooming Rachel, -and looks upon it long and lovingly. "Major!"--Wizard Lewis presses -the thin hand--"see that they make my grave by her side at the garden's -foot!" - -The General drifts into a stupor, Wizard Lewis holding fast his hand. -The good dominie Edgar is on his knees at prayer. From the porch outside -the sick room are heard the sobs and moans of the mourning blacks. - -Wizard Lewis attempts to recall the dying General. - -"What would you have done with Calhoun," he asks, "had he persisted in -his 'Nullification' designs?" - -The blue eyes rouse, and sparkle and glance with old-time fire. - -"What would I have done with Calhoun?" repeats the General, his voice -renewed and strong; "Hanged him, sir!--hanged him as high as Haman! He -should have been a warning to traitors for all time!" - -The sparkle subsides; the blue eyes close again in the dullness of -coming death. Wizard Lewis holds the poor thin hand, while Dominie Edgar -prays on to the accompaniment of the sobbing and the moaning of the -sorrowing blacks. - -The prayer ends; the good dominie rises to his feet. - -"Do you know me, General?" he whispers. The dim eyes are lifted to those -of Dominie Edgar. The latter goes on: "The love of the Lord is infinite! -In it you shall find heaven!" - -The General turns with looks of love to the portrait of the blooming -Rachel. - -"Parson," says he, "I must meet her there, or it will be no heaven for -me." - -The General's head droops heavily forward. Dominie Edgar falls upon his -knees, and the voice of his praying goes upward with the moaning and -the sobbing of the slaves. Wizard Lewis places his hand on the General's -breast. He sighs, and shakes his head. That mighty heart, all love, all -iron, is still. - - -THE END - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When Men Grew Tall, or The Story Of -Andrew Jackson, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN MEN GREW TALL *** - -***** This file should be named 51914-8.txt or 51914-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/1/51914/ - -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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