“Paralysis!” says the good anxious Hosack.
Aaron is out in a fortnight; numbness gone, he says. Six months later comes another stroke; both legs are paralyzed.
There are to be no more strolls in the Battery Park for Aaron. Now and then he rides out. For the most part he sits by his Broadway window and reads or watches the world hurry by. His friends call; he has no lack of company.
The stubborn Swartwout looks in one afternoon; Aaron waves the paper.
“See!” he cries. “Houston has whipped Santa Ana at San Jacinto! That marks the difference between a Jefferson and a Jackson in the White House! Sir, thirty years ago it was treason; to-day, with Jackson, Houston and San Jacinto, it is patriotism.”
Winter disappears in spring, and Aaron’s strength is going. The hubbub, the bustle, the driving, striving warfare of the town’s life wearies. He takes up new quarters on Staten Island, and the salt, fresh air revives him. All day he gazes out upon the gray restless waters of the bay. His visitors are many. Nor do they always cheer him. It is Dr. Hosack who one day brings up the name of Hamilton.
“Colonel, it was an error—a fearful error!” says the doctor.
“Sir,” rejoins Aaron, the old hard uncompromising ring in his tones, “it was not an error, it was justice. When had his slanders rested? He heaped obloquy upon me for years. I stood in his way; I marred his prospects; I mortified his vanity; and so he vilified me. The man was malevolent—cowardly! You have seen what he wrote the night before he fought me. It sounds like the confession of a sick monk. When he stood before me at Weehawken, his eye caught mine and he quailed like a convicted felon. They say he did not fire! Sir, he fired first. I heard the bullet whistle over my head and saw the severed twigs. I have lived more than eighty years; I dwell now in the shadow of death. I shall soon go; and I shall go saying that the destruction of Hamilton was an act of justice.”
“Colonel Burr,” observes the kindly doctor, “I am made sorry by your words—sorry by your manner! Are you to leave us with a heart full of enmity?”
The black eyes do not soften.