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.
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.