CHAPTER XXXI
THE LOVERS AND SOLOMON'S LAST FIGHT
Meanwhile, Margaret and her mother had come up the river in a barge with General and Mrs. Arnold to the house of the latter. Jack had gone out on a tour of inspection. He had left headquarters after the noon meal with a curious message in his pocket and a feeling of great relief. The message had been delivered to him by the mother of a captain in one of the regiments. She said that it had been given to her by a man whom she did not know. Jack had been busy when it came and did not open it until she had gone away. It was an astonishing and most welcome message in the flowing script of a rapid penman, but clearly legible. It was without date and very brief. These were the cheering words in it:
"MY DEAR FRIEND: I have good news from down the river. The danger is passed.
"HENRY THORNHILL."
"Well, Henry Thornhill is a man who knows whereof he speaks," the young officer said to himself, as he rode away. "I should like to meet him again."
That day the phrase "Good news from down the river" came repeatedly back to him. He wondered what it meant.
Jack being out of camp, Margaret had found Solomon. Toward the day's end he had gone out on the south road with the young lady and her mother and Mrs. Arnold.
Jack was riding into camp from an outpost of the army. The day was in its twilight. He had been riding fast. He pulled up his horse as he approached a sentry post. Three figures were standing in the dusky road.
"Halt! Who comes there?" one of them sang out.
It was the voice of Margaret. Its challenge was more like a phrase of music than a demand. He dismounted.
"I am one of the great army of lovers," said he.
"Advance and give the countersign," she commanded.
A moment he held her in his embrace and then he whispered: "I love you."
"The countersign is correct, but before I let you pass, give me one more look into your heart."
"As many as you like--but--why?"
"So I may be sure that you do not blame England for the folly of her King."
"I swear it."
"Then I shall enlist with you against the tyrant. He has never been my King."
Lady Hare stood with Mrs. Arnold near the lovers.
"I too demand the countersign," said the latter.
"And much goes with it," said the young man as he kissed her, and then he embraced the mother of his sweetheart and added:
"I hope that you are also to enlist with us."
"No, I am to leave my little rebel with you and return to New York."
Solomon, who had stood back in the edge of the bush, approached them and said to Lady Hare:
"I guess if the truth was known, they's more rebels in England than thar be in Ameriky."
He turned to Jack and added:
"My son, you're a reg'lar Tory privateer--grabbin' for gold. Give 'em one a piece fer me."
Margaret ran upon the old scout and kissed his bearded cheek.
"Reg'lar lightnin' hurler!" said he. "Soon as this 'ere war is over I'll take a bee line fer hum--you hear to me. This makes me sick o' fightin'."
"Will you give me a ride?" Margaret asked her lover. "I'll get on behind you."
Solomon took off the saddle and tightened the blanket girth.
"Thar, 'tain't over clean, but now ye kin both ride," said he.
Soon the two were riding, she in front, as they had ridden long before through the shady, mallowed bush in Tryon County.
"Oh, that we could hear the thrush's song again!"
"I can hear it sounding through the years," he answered. "As life goes on with me I hear many an echo from the days of my youth."
They rode a while in silence as the night fell.
"Again the night is beautiful!" she exclaimed.
"But now it is the beauty of the night and the stars," he answered.
"How they glow!"
"I think it is because the light of the future is shining on them."
"It is the light of peace and happiness. I am glad to be free."
"Soon your people shall be free," he answered her.
"My people?"
"Yes."
"Is the American army strong enough to do it?"
"No."
"The French?"
"No."
"Who then is to free us?"
"God and His ocean and His hills and forests and rivers and these children of His in America, who have been schooled to know their rights. After this King is broken there will be no other like him in England."
They dismounted at Arnold's door.
"For a time I shall have much to do, but soon I hope for great promotion and more leisure," he said.
"Tell me the good news," she urged.
"I expect to be the happiest man in the army, and the master of this house and your husband."
"And you and I shall be as one," she answered. "God speed the day when that may be true also of your people and my people."
2
He kissed her and bade her good night and returned to his many tasks. He had visited the forts and batteries. He had communicated with every outpost. His plan was complete. About midnight, when he and Solomon were lying down to rest, two horsemen came up the road at a gallop and stopped at his door. They were aides of Washington. They reported that the General was spending the night at the house of Henry Jasper, near the ferry, and would reach camp about noon next day.
"Thank God for that news," said the young man. "Solomon, I think that we can sleep better to-night."
"If you're awake two minutes from now you'll hear some snorin'," Solomon answered as he drew his boots. "I ain't had a good bar'foot sleep in a week. I don't like to have socks er luther on when I wade out into that pond. To-night, I guess, we'll smell the water lilies."
Jack was awake for an hour thinking of the great happiness which had fallen in the midst of his troubles and of Thornhill and his message. He heard the two aides going to their quarters. Then a deep silence fell upon the camp, broken only by the rumble of distant thunder in the mountains and the feet of some one pacing up and down between his hut and the house of the General. He put on his long coat and slippers and went out-of-doors.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"Arnold," was the answer. "Taking a little walk before I turn in."
There was a weary, pathetic note of trouble in that voice, long remembered by the young man, who immediately returned to his bed. He knew not that those restless feet of Arnold were walking in the flames of hell. Had some premonition of what had been going on down the river come up to him? Could he hear the feet of that horse, now galloping northward through the valleys and over the hills toward him with evil tidings? No more for this man was the comfort of restful sleep or the joys of home and friendship and affection. Now the touch of his wife's hand, the sympathetic look in her eyes and all her babble about the coming marriage were torture to him. He could not endure it. Worst of all, he was in a way where there is no turning. He must go on. He had begun to know that he was suspected. The conduct of the scout, Solomon Binkus, had suggested that he knew what was passing. Arnold had seen the aides of Washington as they came in. The chief could not be far behind them. He dreaded to stand before him. Compared to the torture now beginning for this man, the fate of Bill Scott on Rock Creek in the wilderness, had been a mercy.
Soon after sunrise came a solitary horseman, wearied by long travel, with a message from Colonel Jameson to Arnold. A man had been captured near Tarrytown with important documents on his person. He had confessed that he was Adjutant-General André of Sir Henry Clinton's army. The worst had come to pass. Now treason! disgrace! the gibbet!
Arnold was sitting at breakfast. He arose, put the message in his pocket and went out of the room. The Vulture lay down the river awaiting orders. The traitor walked hurriedly to the boat-landing. Solomon was there. It had been his custom when in camp to go down to the landing every morning with his spy-glass and survey the river. Only one boatman was at the dock.
"Colonel Binkus, will you help this man to take me down to the British ship?" Arnold asked. "I have an engagement with its commander and am half an hour late."
Solomon had had much curiosity about that ship. He wished to see the man who had gone into the bush and then to Smith's with Arnold.
"Sart'n," Solomon answered.
They got into a small barge with the General in the cushioned rear seat, his flag in hand.
"Make what speed you can," said the General.
The oarsmen bent to their task and the barge swept on by the forts. A Yankee sloop overhauled and surveyed them. If its skipper had entertained suspicions they were dissipated by the presence of Solomon Binkus in the barge.
They came up to The Vulture and made fast at its landing stage where an officer waited to receive the General. The latter ascended to the deck. In a moment a voice called from above:
"General Arnold's boatmen may come aboard."
A British war-ship was a thing of great interest to Solomon. Once aboard he began to look about him at the shining guns and their gear and the tackle and the men. He looked for Arnold, but he was not in sight.
Among the crew then busy on the deck, Solomon saw the Tory desperado "Slops," one time of the Ohio River country, with his black pipe in his mouth. Slops paused in his hauling and reeving to shake a fist at Solomon. They were heaving the anchor. The sails were running up. The ship had begun to move. What was the meaning of this? Solomon stepped to the ship's side. The stair had been hove up and made fast. The barge was not to be seen.
"They will put you all ashore below," an officer said to him.
Solomon knew too much about Arnold to like the look of this. The officer went forward. Solomon stepped to the opening in the deck rail, not yet closed, through which he had come aboard. While he was looking down at the water, some ten feet below, a group of sailors came to fill in. His arm was roughly seized. Solomon stepped back. Before him stood the man Slops. An insulting word from the latter, a quick blow from Solomon, and Slops went through the gate out into the air and downward. The scout knew it was no time to tarry.
"A night hawk couldn't dive no quicker ner what I done," were his words to the men who picked him up. He was speaking of that half second of the twenty-fourth of September, 1780. His brief account of it was carefully put down by an officer: "I struck not twenty feet from Slops, which I seen him jes' comin' up when I took water. This 'ere ol' sloop that had overhauled us goin' down were nigh. Hadn't no more'n come up than I felt Slops' knife rip into my leg. I never had no practise in that 'ere knife work. 'Tain't fer decent folks, but my ol' Dan Skinner is allus on my belt. He'd chose the weapons an' so I fetched 'er out. Had to er die. We fit a minnit thar in the water. All the while he had that damn black pipe in his mouth. I were hacked up a leetle, but he got a big leak in him an' all of a sudden he wasn't thar. He'd gone. I struck out with ol' Dan Skinner 'twixt my teeth. Then I see your line and grabbed it. Whar's the British ship now?"
"'Way below Stony P'int an' a fair wind in her sails,' the skipper answered.
"Bound fer New York," said Solomon sorrowfully. "They'd 'a' took me with 'em if I hadn't 'a' jumped. Put me over to Jasper's dock. I got to see Washington quick."
"Washington has gone up the river."
"Then take me to quarters soon as ye kin. I'll give ye ten pounds, good English gold. My God, boys! My ol' hide is leakin' bad."
He turned to the man who had been washing and binding his wounds.
"Sodder me up best ye kin. I got to last till I see the Father."
Solomon and other men in the old army had often used the word "Father" in speaking of the Commander-in-Chief. It served, as no other could, to express their affection for him.
The wind was unfavorable and the sloop found it difficult to reach the landing near headquarters. After some delay Solomon jumped overboard and swam ashore.
What follows he could not have told. Washington was standing with his orderly in the little dooryard at headquarters as Solomon came staggering up the slope at a run and threw his body, bleeding from a dozen wounds, at the feet of his beloved Chief.
"Oh, my Father!" he cried in a broken voice and with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Arnold has sold Ameriky an' all its folks an' gone down the river."
Washington knelt beside him and felt his bloody garments.
"The Colonel is wounded," he said to his orderly. "Go for help."
The scout, weak from the loss of blood, tried to regain his feet but failed. He lay back and whispered:
"I guess the sap has all oozed out o' me but I had enough."
Washington was one of those who put him on a stretcher and carried him to the hospital.
When he was lying on his bed and his clothes were being removed, the Commander-in-Chief paid him this well deserved compliment as he held his hand:
"Colonel, when the war is won it will be only because I have had men like you to help me."
Soon Jack came to his side and then Margaret. General Washington asked the latter about Mrs. Arnold.
"My mother is doing what she can to comfort her," Margaret answered.
Solomon revived under stimulants and was able to tell them briefly of the dire struggle he had had.
"It were Slops that saved me," he whispered.
He fell into a deep and troubled sleep and when he awoke in the middle of the night he was not strong enough to lift his head. Then these faithful friends of his began to know that this big, brawny, redoubtable soldier was having his last fight. He seemed to be aware of it himself for he whispered to Jack:
"Take keer o' Mirandy an' the Little Cricket."
Late the next day he called for his Great Father. Feebly and brokenly he had managed to say:
"Jes' want--to--feel--his hand."
Margaret had sat beside him all day helping the nurse.
A dozen times Jack had left his work and run over for a look at Solomon. On one of these hurried visits the young man had learned of the wish of his friend. He went immediately to General Washington, who had just returned from a tour of the forts. The latter saw the look of sorrow and anxiety in the face of his officer.
"How is the Colonel?" he asked.
"I think that he is near his end," Jack answered. "He has expressed a wish to feel your hand again."
"Let us go to him at once," said the other. "There has been no greater man in the army."
Together they went to the bedside of the faithful scout. The General took his hand. Margaret put her lips close to Solomon's ear and said:
"General Washington has come to see you."
Solomon opened his eyes and smiled. Then there was a beauty not of this world in his homely face. And that moment, holding the hand he had loved and served and trusted, the heroic soul of Solomon Binkus went out upon "the lonesome trail."
Jack, who had been kneeling at his side, kissed his white cheek.
"Oh, General, I knew and loved this man!" said the young officer as he arose.
"It will be well for our people to know what men like him have endured for them," said Washington.
"I shall have to learn how to live without him," said Jack. "It will be hard."
Margaret took his arm and they went out of the door and stood a moment looking off at the glowing sky above the western hills.
"Now you have me," she whispered.
He bent and kissed her.
"No man could have a better friend and fighting mate than you," he answered.
3
"'We spend our years as a tale that is told,'" Jack wrote from Philadelphia to his wife in Albany on the thirtieth of June, 1787: "Dear Margaret, we thought that the story was ended when Washington won. Five years have passed, as a watch in the night, and the most impressive details are just now falling out. You recall our curiosity about Henry Thornhill? When stopping at Kinderhook I learned that the only man of that name who had lived there had been lying in his grave these twenty years. He was one of the first dreamers about Liberty. What think you of that? I, for one, can not believe that the man I saw was an impostor. Was he an angel like those who visited the prophets? Who shall say? Naturally, I think often of the look of him and of his sudden disappearance in that Highland road. And, looking back at Thornhill, this thought comes to me: Who can tell how many angels he has met in the way of life all unaware of the high commission of his visitor?
"On my westward trip I found that the Indians who once dwelt in The Long House were scattered. Only a tattered remnant remains. Near old Fort Johnson I saw a squaw sitting in her blanket. Her face was wrinkled with age and hardship. Her eyes were nearly blind. She held in her withered hands the ragged, moth eaten tail of a gray wolf. I asked her why she kept the shabby thing.
"'Because of the hand that gave it,' she answered in English. 'I shall take it with me to The Happy Hunting-Grounds. When he sees it he will know me.'
"So quickly the beautiful Little White Birch had faded.
"At Mount Vernon, Washington was as dignified as ever but not so grave. He almost joked when he spoke of the sculptors and portrait painters who have been a great bother to him since the war ended.
"'Now no dray horse moves more readily to the thill than I to the painter's chair," he said.
"When I arrived the family was going in to dinner and they waited until I could make myself ready to join them. The jocular Light Horse Harry Lee was there. His anecdotes delighted the great man. I had never seen G. W. in better humor. A singularly pleasant smile lighted his whole countenance. I can never forget the gentle note in his voice and his dignified bearing. It was the same whether he were addressing his guests or his family. The servants watched him closely. A look seemed to be enough to indicate his wishes. The faithful Billy was always at his side. I have never seen a sweeter atmosphere in any home. We sat an hour at the table after the family had retired from it. In speaking of his daily life he said:
"'I ride around my farms until it is time to dress for dinner, when I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect for me. Perhaps the word curiosity would better describe the cause of it. The usual time of sitting at table brings me to candle-light when I try to answer my letters.'
"He had much to say on his favorite theme, viz.: the settling of the immense interior and bringing its trade to the Atlantic cities.
"I was coughing with a severe cold. He urged me to take some remedies which he had in the house, but I refused them.
"He went to his office while Lee and I sat down together. The latter told me of a movement in the army led by Colonel Nichola to make Washington king of America. He had seen Washington's answer to the letter of the Colonel. It was as follows:
"'Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me sensations more painful than your information of there being such ideas in the army as those you have imparted to me and I must view them with abhorrence and reprehend them with severity. I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs which could befall my country.'
"Is it not a sublime and wonderful thing, dear Margaret, that all our leaders, save one, have been men as incorruptible as Stephen and Peter and Paul?
"When I went to bed my cough became more troublesome. After it had gone on for half an hour or so my door was gently opened and I observed the glow of a candle. On drawing my bed curtains I saw, to my utter astonishment, Washington standing at my side with a bowl of hot tea in his hand. It embarrassed me to be thus waited on by a man of his greatness.
"We set out next morning for Philadelphia to attend the Convention, Washington riding in his coach drawn by six horses, I riding the blaze-faced mare of destiny, still as sweet and strong as ever. A slow journey it was over the old road by Calvert's to Annapolis, Chestertown, and so on to the north.
"I found Franklin sitting under a tree in his dooryard, surrounded by his grandchildren. He looks very white and venerable now. His hair is a crown of glory."
[Illustration: Ben Franklin, surrounded by his grandchildren.]
"'Well, Jack, it has been no small part of my life-work to get you happily married,' he began in his playful way. 'A celibate is like the odd half of a pair of scissors, fit only to scrape a trencher. How many babies have you?'
"'Three,' I answered.
"'It is not half enough,' said he. 'A patriotic American should have at least ten children. I must not forget to say to you what I say to every young man. Always treat your wife with respect. It will procure respect for you not only from her, but from all who observe it. Never use a slighting word.'
"My beloved, how little I need this advice you know, but I think that the old philosopher never made a wiser observation. I am convinced that civilization itself depends largely on the respect that men feel and show for women.
"I asked about his health.
"'I am weary and the night is falling and I shall soon lie down to sleep, but I know that I shall awake refreshed in the morning,' he said.
"He told me how, distressed by his infirmity, he came out of France in the Queen's litter, carried by her magnificent mules. Of England he had only this to say:
"'She is doing wrong in discouraging emigration to America. Emigration multiplies a nation. She should be represented in the growth of the New World by men who have a voice in its government. By this fair means she could repossess it instead of leaving it to foreigners, of all nations, who may drown and stifle sympathy for the mother land. It is now a fact that Irish emigrants and their children are in possession of the government of Pennsylvania.'
"I must not fail to set down here in the hope that my sons may some time read it, what he said to me of the treason of Arnold.
"'Here is the vindication of Poor Richard. Extravagance is not the way to self-satisfaction. The man who does not keep his feet in the old, honest way of thrift will some time sell himself, and then he will be ready to sell his friends or his country. By and by nothing is so dear to him as thirty pieces of silver.'
"I shall conclude my letter with a beautiful confession of faith by this master mind of the century. It was made on the motion for daily prayers in the Convention now drafting a constitution for the States. I shall never forget the look of him as, standing on the lonely summit of his eighty years, he said to us:
"'In the beginning of our contest with Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, sirs, were heard and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a directing Providence in our affairs. And have we forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sirs, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without His notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sirs, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political structure no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided and confounded and we ourselves become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.'
"Dear Margaret, you and I who have been a part of the great story know full well that in these words of our noble friend is the conclusion of the whole matter."
[Transcriber's note: This image shows the exact appearance of the table that appears earlier in this book. Some of the words in it have a slash through them, and are thus not renderable in plain or HTML text.]
