Their little cavalcade, growing larger now, passed on across Kentucky, over the gap in the Cumberlands, down into the country of the Virginia gentry. Here again they were fêted and dined and wined so long as they would tarry. It was specially difficult for them to leave Colonel Hancock, at Fincastle. Here they must pause and tell how they had named certain rivers in the West—the one for Maria Woods; another for Judith Hancock—the Maria’s and Judith Rivers of our maps today.
Here William Clark delayed yet a time. He found in the charms of the fair Judith herself somewhat to give him pause. Soon he was to take her as his bride down the Ohio to yonder town of St. Louis, for whose fame he had done so much, and was to do so much more.
Toward none of the fair maids who now flocked about them could Meriwether Lewis be more than smiling gallant, though rumors ran that either he or William Clark might well-nigh take his pick. He was alike to all of them in his courtesy.
One thought of eager and unalloyed joy rested with him. He was soon to see his mother. In time he rode down from the hilltops of old Albemarle to the point beyond the Ivy Depot where rose the gentle eminence of Locust Hill, the plantation of the Lewis family.
Always in the afternoon, in all weathers, his mother sat looking down the long lane to the gate, as if she expected that one day a certain figure would appear. Sometimes, old as she was, she dozed and dreamed—just now she had done so. She awoke, and saw standing before her, as if pictured in her dream, the form of her son, in bodily presence, although at first she did not accept him as such.
“My son!” said she at length, half as much in terror as in joy. “Merne!”
He stooped down and took her grayed head in his hands as she looked up at him. She recalled other times when he had come from the forest, from the wilderness, bearing trophies in his hands. He bore now trophies greater, perhaps, than any man of his age ever had brought home with him. What Washington had defended was not so great as that which Lewis won. It required them both to make an America for us haggling and unworthy followers.
“My son!” was all she could say. “They told me that you never would come back, that you were dead. I thought the wilderness had claimed you at last, Merne!”
“I told you I should come back to you safe, mother. There was no danger at any time. From St. Louis I have come as fast as any messenger could have come. Next I must go to see Mr. Jefferson at Washington—then, back home again to talk with you, for long, long hours.”
“And what have you found?”