Almost eight years had elapsed since the date of Burr's arrest and
imprisonment, when on the first day of May, 1815, two young families
loitered away an afternoon in picnic outing on Blennerhassett Island.
The party consisted of eight persons--Colonel Warren Danvers, his
wife and a small daughter; and Mr. and Mrs. Arlington, their two
pretty little girls and a boy-baby. The children, excepting the
infant, were old enough to enjoy gathering wild-flowers. They kept
within call of the parents, who, conversing on events familiar to them
all, strolled over the deserted grounds of an estate rendered sadly
famous by the misfortunes of its former possessors. Amid scenes
associated with the disastrous failure of a treasonable conspiracy, it
was natural to speak of Burr.
"He is paying a bitter penalty for his crime," Danvers commented.
"Though acquitted by the Federal Court at Richmond, in spite of Wirt's
arraignment, the traitor will not recover the people's good-will. He
lives in New York City, a man forbid. His four years' self-exile in
Europe, I am told, was a humiliating banishment from the loyal and
patriotic. No country can be a "Sweet Home" to the man who repudiates
his own nation's flag. Burr declares himself severed from the human
race, and so he is."
"You are relentless, Warren," said his sister. "I feel much pity for
the man, since his heart-breaking experience of two or three years
ago."
"Ah, yes; yes," Lucrèce impulsively said; "Theodosia was her father's
incentive and his happiness. It was bad enough to lose the little
grandson. Think how you would grieve if your dear little boy should
die."
"We don't ever think of dying, do we, Dicky?" Evaleen cooed, making
mother eyes at her baby. "The world must have seemed a blank to Burr
after Theodosia was drowned."
"_Was_ she drowned?" questioned Arlington. "That was a mysterious
affair--the disappearance of the schooner--what was the vessel's
name, Danvers?"
"The Patriot. She sailed from Charleston for New York in the winter of
1812. I remember reading of the disaster just before marching with
General Harrison to Fort Meigs."
"The boat may have foundered or wrecked," said Arlington. "Some
believe it was captured by pirates, who carried Theodosia away to a
foreign port."
"That's an absurd theory!" declared Danvers.
"But not impossible, my dear," put in Lucrèce. "I hope the poor lady
was not carried away; drowning is preferable," said Evaleen.
"You two wouldn't drown when you had a chance at Cypress Bayou,"
laughed the husband. "You chose to be carried away by one robber and
brought back by another."
Lucrèce snugged close to her soldier, and he gave her a playful kiss.
"Spoony," sang Evaleen, whereupon her prim younger daughter, whose
plump fist tightly held a bunch of spring-beauties, looked up in
wonder and lisped:
"Mamma, what is spoony?"
The elder sister, some seven years old, came running to her mother's
side.
"There's a man by the well!"
"I saw him first," chimed in the smaller child. "Didn't I see him
first, Eva?"
The rambling party had returned from the woodland to the cleared
tract, in the midst of which the White House of Blennerhassett
formerly stood. The mansion, never occupied after the ill-starred
family left it, was destroyed by fire a few years before the time of
the picnic excursion. Near the low foundation walls of blackened stone
stood the wooden curb surrounding the mouth of a deep well. The old
windlass, below which a leaky bucket still swung, was kept in repair
by unknown hands. Upon looking for the man whom Eva had discovered,
Mrs. Arlington saw leaning upon the curb, in a posture of meditation,
a figure which both she and her husband recognized. There was no
possibility of avoiding or of evading a meeting with the meddlesome
babbler who had volunteered to prescribe "cowcumber bitters" as a sure
cure for Chester's love. Within the ten years since the revelation on
the summit of the mound, and the piroque tour to the island, Arlington
had seen and heard a good deal of Plutarch Byle. Though it was always
more or less of a social annoyance, and at times an intolerable bore,
to encounter the gossipy humorist, his numberless acquaintances, far
from wishing him ill, admired his honesty and lauded his goodness of
heart.
Byle heard the children's voices, and straightening up his awkward
form, turned to observe the advancing group. His wide mouth opened
with a grin of pleasure; he came forward with gangling strides.
"By crackey, if it isn't the Arlingtons! Home from Virginia, Evaleen,
to old Marietta, on a visit to the folks? You're looking peart. How do
you all do?"
Arlington, out of regard for his wife and kinsfolk, made some
dignified efforts to stem the tide of Byle's familiarity, but his
polite formality was not noticed by the associable democrat, who shook
hands with every one, beginning with the baby.
"So these is your offspring, as the preacher says, are they, Chester?
I knowed you'd have a lot of 'em when I recommended the match. Here's
the suckin' kid; let Uncle Byle heft him once. Gosh, baby, you want to
grab uncle's nose, do you? Well, then, pull away till the cows come
home. What's 'is name?"
"Richard," answered the mother.
"Why didn't you name him after me? P. B. Arlington would sound sort of
uppercrusty, eh? 'Richard,' you say? Oh, I see. Named for your daddy's
Orleens brother, the cripple! Yes! yes! Did Richard leave you as big a
pile of money as folks say? It must have been a heavy slam on you,
Evaleen, when he dropped off. Lucky, too, in another pint of view;
he's better off, and so are you--lots better off."
Danvers and Lucrèce, wishing to prevent posthumous comments on Uncle
Richard, came to Evaleen's rescue.
"You are a frequent comer to this island. You know its products and
topography?"
"Topography, yarbography, bugology and the dickens knows wot ology.
The ground is jest kivered, in places with Injun arrers, and pipes and
stone hatchets, and I've dug up some of the durndest queer-shaped
arthen pots you ever sot eyes on. Yes, I reckon I know Bacchus Island,
major."
"Not major," interrupted Arlington. "He was promoted after the battle
of New Orleans. He is now Colonel Danvers."
"Jehoshaphat! Let's shake hands on that, Danvers. No resk this time,
Arlington, _is_ there? You recollect, don't you? the day I first seed
you and Hoopsnake on the roof of his flatboat? I read t'other day in
the noospaper that Harry Clay met the aforesaid in the court-house in
New York. The sarpent put out his hand, but Harry wouldn't tech it. By
gum, Clay was smarter than me."
Danvers and Lucrèce looked mystified. Byle winked at Arlington.
"Don't tell 'em my disgrace. So cap's a colonel? This _is_ a surprise.
I'm just back from a jant to Cinc'natti. Stayed there a coon's age
with brother Virgil, who moved down from the Yok, last fall, and went
into the pork trade. Virgil's married, same as you four, but I'll be
dadbanged if he wasn't fooled in his woman. I tell _you_, Mrs.
Danvers, matrimony ain't always sich honey in the comb as Warren is
swallerin'. Virgil's wife looks nice, but Spanish flies! how he enjoys
her going away from home. Well, that's _that_. I went down on the
Enterprise. You've rid in a steamboat, I dare say, going to see your
pa, in Orleens? How's he? I forgot to ask. They say the old man's got
to be stylisher than ever. Jest run slap bang into rich relations. How
much is the doctor wuth? He never met me, but they say Deville is a
choice mackerel, for a Frenchman. I was about to say, I went down to
Cinc'natti on the Enterprise last December. Best boat on the river,
Captain Shreve says, and the fourth one built. I have saw the Orleens,
the Comet and the Vesuvius, but the Enterprise knocks 'em all.
Keelboats and barges is clean cut out."
To check the deluge of Byle's conversation, the picnickers soon took
occasion to shift their ground from the well to the beautiful green
plot which had been the carefully kept lawn of the Blennerhassett
premises.
Raised flowerbeds, of various forms, circular, crescent, and diamond,
could still be traced, though overgrown with grass and weeds. These
abandoned garden beds furnished convenient seating space for the
excursionists, while they ate lunch and drank water fetched from the
old well by Plutarch. The conversation reverted to Burr and his
alleged associates, involving the name of Wilkinson. Danvers defended
the general from severe animadversions. Arlington had no patience with
his brother-in-law's lenient judgment.
"Why, Warren, you, a colonel in the regulars, must know Wilkinson to
have been a failure every way. Wasn't he court-martialed last spring,
after holding the command of the Northern army less than a year? He
blundered in all he undertook. He was, in effect, discharged for want
of generalship and for excess in wine."
"I admit he lost laurels in the late war. So did many others. Jackson
and Harrison are our heroes now. General Wilkinson was acquitted by
the court-martial, as he was acquitted in 1811 of charges accusing him
of complicity with Burr."
"Acquitted! I know he was acquitted; so was Burr; but public opinion
condemns the decision of the courts. Before the bar of history both
stand accused and sentenced. They are guilty alike. Wilkinson seems to
me no better than Burr. Perhaps he is worse, for he betrayed his
comrade."
"Did he betray Burr, or did he only find him out? I was in Wilkinson's
tent when Burr's cipher letter was exposed. Wilkinson was outspoken in
denouncing Burr."
"Hold yer hosses. Let me put in a word edgeways, Captain
Danvers--'scuse me, I mean colonel. You spoke of Andy Jackson. He's
not my stripe--I'm a Federalist yist'day, to-day and forever--but
Old Hickory is a truth teller. What did Jackson say? I give you his
upside dixit, word for word, _ex litteratum_, as they say. Andrew
Jackson says, says he, 'Whatever may have been the project of Burr,
James Wilkinson has went hand in hand with him.'"
Mrs. Arlington introduced a new topic of conversation by saying, "I'll
not believe that Mr. Blennerhassett was consciously guilty."
"No, my dear, he was deluded. Mr. Wirt is right in contending that
Blennerhassett was comparatively innocent, 'a mere accessory.'"
Here Mr. Byle stood up and began rummaging in his pockets. The mention
of the name of Blennerhassett had altered his mood and changed his
manner. A shade of seriousness bordering on melancholy came over his
features. He slowly drew from the poke of his warmus a white cambric
handkerchief, which he blinked at for a minute, and then replaced,
venting an audible sigh. Long he listened in silence to remarks about
the islanders and their untoward fate. At length he broke in with:
"I told Harman before he sot out for Eternal Smash what he was comin'
to. _He_ wouldn't take my advice. But, gentlemen and ladies, in my
opinion, the near-sighted was about as much to blame for what
happened, as a pewee is for being swallered by a black snake. Harman
lost everything, as I told him he would. Fust in debt heels over
head--then the house burns--then he sells the plantation. Now he's
tryin' to run a cotton-gin down about Natchez. The boys are growin' up
no account. And she--Jerusalem artichokes! What a shame it war for
Margaret to throw herself away!"
The amused expression of Arlington indicated his appreciation of
Byle's sentiments, but Evaleen could not smile when the distress of
her much-beloved friend was the theme of conversation. The rich,
beautiful, commanding lady, who had presided like an Eastern princess,
in her luxurious island palace, was now struggling with adverse fate,
on a cotton plantation, near Port Gibson, Mississippi. Recollecting
the downfall and humiliation of Madam Blennerhassett, Evaleen sighed
and cast her gaze mournfully toward the spot upon which had stood the
stately mansion, which had been to her a second home. But on that May
day in 1815, could she have lifted the veil of the future, events far
more depressing would have been disclosed. She would have beheld the
former lord of the isle, landless, harassed by debts, now in Natchez,
now in New York, and now in Canada, unsuccessfully attempting the
practice of the law. He made a voyage to Ireland, returned to
Montreal, and then again crossed the ocean to reside with his maiden
sister, Avis, on the Isle of Jersey. His wife shared his
disappointments and sorrows, and it was on her faithful bosom that he
breathed his last at Port Prerie, Guernsey, in 1831. Ten years later,
the widow, having returned to the United States destitute, forlorn,
her health gone, her beauty faded, took up lodgings in a poor
tenement-house in the city of New York--and it was here that she
died, forsaken by fortune and by friends. Such were the crown of
thorns and the crucifixion of Margaret Blennerhassett, who aspired to
wear the coronet of a duchess in the court of Aaron the Emperor.
The sons, Dominick and Harman, were reserved to fates not less
abortive and wretched. The first entered the navy as surgeon-mate, but
was discharged for drunkenness. He died in penury, an outcast. Harman
became a portrait painter in New York, but he lost his strength of
body and mind, and finally perished in an almshouse on Blackwell's
Island. His body lies buried beside that of his mother, in the family
vault of Emmet, the Irish patriot, in the "Marble Cemetery," New York.
Well was it that the Book of Fate, in which was written the story of
the House of Blennerhassett, was not opened to Evaleen, for had she
read therein, the revelation would have turned the day's pensive
melancholy into poignant grief.
Moved by a common impulse of commiseration, and by reverential regard
akin to such as one feels when standing beside the tomb of a dear
friend, the married couples and the lank bachelor bent their steps
from the lawn to the rubble-strown site of the burnt mansion-house.
The foundation stones indicated the size and location of the several
rooms formerly occupying the ground floor. Danvers and his wife sat
down upon the sandstone steps leading, in bygone days, to the wide
hall door. The three little girls were at play in the paths of the
ruined shrubbery; Evaleen's baby boy lay asleep on the lap of
Lucrèce.
Arlington and Evaleen stepped across the crumbling foundation wall,
and a few short paces brought them to the middle of the square area
once covered by the floor of the reception room. A bunch of wild
violets, in bloom, grew in the charred leaf mould at their feet. The
wife plucked one of the flowers, and gave it into the hand of her
constant lover.
"Here is just where you stood when we met for the first time, love; do
you remember? And look, Chester," she pointed upward to the empty
space once enclosed in the walls of Lady Blennerhassett's bower,
"right up there is the window through which we watched you go away in
the moonlight."
"Yes, darling; there you stood, caring very little whether or not we
should ever meet again. It is exactly ten years since the day
you--didn't kiss me. Do it now."
"Hold on for about three shakes of a sheep's tail. Then fire away when
I'm gone. I want to tell you, Chester, here is just the spot where I
stood when I fit for her--"
"Fought for my wife?"
"No, for Harman's wife." Byle took out the handkerchief again, and
Evaleen thought he intended to tell its history.
"That is a fine piece of cambric. It looks like a lady's token."
"This hankercher?"
"Yes."
Plutarch gulped down a big emotion.
"It's a thumb-stall."