The General said “foe” and meant it; for he was one whose eyes were in his heart and saw ever his enemy in the enemy of his friend.
It was then I took occasion to lay out to the General in particular, not alone the plan of Calhoun to seize a presidency; not alone his leadership in that war of politics then mustering forces over Nullification and a state's right to secede, and which in the next Congress gave birth to the debates between Webster and Hayne; but I went a step beyond, and exhibited the hidden enmity of Calhoun which was leveled at himself, and had hunted his destruction as far away as the Seminole campaign, when Calhoun was in Monroe's cabinet as Secretary of War.
“It is true,” I declared; “at that time your only friend was Monroe. Calhoun in the secret councils of the cabinet was warm to break your sword.”
“How do you know that?” demanded the General, his eye making for heat.
“I read it in a letter from Governor Forsythe to Colonel Hamilton. If that be not enough, I heard it from ex-President Monroe himself, when last evening he was with us here to dinner. Moreover, I was made aware of it two years ago on my trip to the Mississippi.”
“And why did I not hear of it before?”
“You have learned it in ample time for every interest you carry, whether of your own or Peg's.”
“That is true,” said the General, “that is quite true.” Then he mused with bended brow. At last he burst forth: “I begin to see into the Calhoun thoughts. He knows my rule, which we agreed on before we left Nashville, that no member of my cabinet shall succeed me. That leaves him but two rivals, Clay and Adams, for Crawford can never run again. He has three adherents in my cabinet through whose aid he hopes to feather the nest of his ambitions with patronage. He would destroy Eaton with the thought of gaining a fourth. Meanwhile he will preside over the Senate, and control legislation in favor of low tariff, if not a flat level of free trade. Thus he trusts to break down Clay and Adams, who are wedded to protection. Verily, a most noble, a most delicate bit of chicane!” Here the General brooded for a long space. “I might admire it,” he went on, “nay, I might even aid it on its high-stepping way, were it not that he includes in his intrigue the destruction of a girl. It is like a play, Major, and we must foil the villain and save our beautiful Peg. Her name shall not be blown upon, though all the presidencies for ten centuries to come depend upon it! Peg came spotless among us; and from among us, spotless she shall depart; and that in the teeth of all the Calhouns that ever came out of Carolina.”
The General smashed his clay pipe at this crisis, and by that token I knew the thing to be already done. It was a way he had, this pipe-breaking, of signing his bonds.
Peg lived catty-cornered across the President's Square, and ran in and out of the White House like one of the inmates. She liked the flowers, and she liked the pictures, and was never tired of gazing at the latter and smelling to the former. She was so much sunshine about the mansion, not the lightest nor yet the least gloomy house in nature, but quite the contrary.