YOUNG Aaron, with his regiment, is ordered to West Point. Next he is
dispatched to hold the Westchester lines, being that debatable
ground lying between the Americans at White Plains and the English at
Kingsbridge. It is still his half-formed purpose to resign his sword,
and turn the back of his ambition on every hope of military glory. He
says as much to General Putnam, whose real liking for him he feels and
trusts. The wise old wolf killer argues in favor of patience.
“Washington is but trying you,” he declares. “It will all come right,
if you but hold on. And to be a colonel at twenty-two is no small thing,
let me tell you! Suck comfort from that!”
Young Aaron knows the old wolf killer so well that he feels he may go
as far as he chooses into those twin subjects of Washington and his own
military prospects.
“General,” he says, “believe me when I tell you that I accept what you
say as though from a father. Let me talk to you, then, not as a colonel
to his general, but as son to sire. I have my own views concerning
Washington; they are not of the highest. I do not greatly esteem him as
either a soldier or a man.”
“And there you are wrong!” breaks in the old wolf killer; “twice wrong.”
“Give me your own views, then; I shall be glad to change the ones I
have.”
“You speak of Washington as no soldier. Without reminding you that
you yourself own but little experience to guide by in coming to such
conclusion, I may say perhaps that I, who have fought in both the French
War and the war with Pontiac, possess some groundwork upon which to
base opinion. Take my word for it, then, that there is no better soldier
anywhere than Washington.”
“But he is all for retreating, and never for advancing.”
“Precisely! And, whether you know it or no, those tactics of falling
back and falling back are the ones, the only ones, which promise final
success. Where, let me ask, do you think this war is to be won?”
“Where should any war be won but on the battlefield?”
The old wolf killer smiles a wide smile of grizzled toleration. Plainly,
he regards young Aaron as lacking in years quite as much as does
Washington himself; and yet, somehow, this manner on his part does not
fret the boy colonel. In truth, he meets the fatherly grin with the
ghost of a smile.
“Where, then, should this war be won?” asks young Aaron.
“Not on the battlefield. I am but a plain farmer when I’m not wearing
a sword, and no statesman like Adams or Franklin or Jefferson. For all
that, I am wise enough to know that the war must, and, in the end, will
be won in the Parliament of England. It must be won for us by Fox and
Burke and Pitt and the other Whigs. All we can do is furnish them
the occasion and the argument, and that can be accomplished only by
retreating.”
Young Aaron sniffs his polite distrust of such topsy-turvy logic. “Now I
should call,” says he, “these retreats, by which you and Washington seem
to set so much store, a worst possible method of giving encouragement to
our friends. I fear you jest with me, general. How can you say that by
retreating, itself a confession of weakness, we give the English
Whigs an argument which shall induce King George to recognize our
independence?”
“If you were ten years older,” remarks the old wolf killer, “you would
not put the question. Which proves some of us in error concerning you,
and shows you as young as your age should warrant. Let me explain: You
think a war, sir, this war, for instance, is a matter of soldiers and
guns. It isn’t; it is a matter of gold. As affairs stand, the English
are shedding their guineas much faster than they shed their blood.
Presently the taxpayers of England will begin to feel it; they feel
it now. Let the drain go on. Before all is done, their resolution will
break down; they will elect a Parliament instructed to concede our
independence.”
“Your idea, then, is to prolong the war, and per incident the expense of
it to the English, until, under a weight of taxation, the courage of the
English taxpayer breaks down.”
“You’ve nicked it. We own neither the force, nor the guns, nor
the powder, nor--and this last in particular--the bayonets to wage
aggressive warfare. To do so would be to play the English game. They
would, breast to breast and hand to hand, wipe us out by sheerest force
of numbers. That would mean the finish; we should lose and they would
win. Our plan--the Washington plan--is, with as little loss as possible
in men and dollars to ourselves, to pile up cost for the foe. There is
but one way to do that; we must fall back, and keep falling back, to the
close of the chapter.”
“At least,” says young Aaron, with a sour grimace, “you will admit
that the plan of campaign you offer presents no peculiar features of
attractive gallantry.”
“Gallantry is not the point. I am but trying to convince you that
Washington, in this backwardness of which you complain, proceeds neither
from ignorance nor cowardice; but rather from a set and well-considered
strategy. I might add, too, that it takes a better soldier to retreat
than to advance. As for your true soldier, after he passes forty, he
talks not of winning battles but wars. After forty he thinks little or
nothing of that engaging gallantry of which you talk, and never throws
away practical advantage in favor of some gilded sentiment. You deem
slightly of Washington, because you know slightly of Washington. The
most I may say to comfort you is that Washington most thoroughly knows
himself. And”--here the old wolf killer’s voice begins to tremble a
little--“I’ll go further: I’ve seen many men; but none of a courage, a
patriotism, a fortitude, a sense of honor to match with his; none of his
exalted ideals or noble genius for justice.”
Young Aaron is silent; for he sees how moved is the old wolf killer, and
would not for the ransom of a world say aught to pain him. After a pause
he observes:
“Assuredly, I could not think of going behind your opinions, and
Washington shall be all you say. None the less--and here I believe you
will bear me out--he has of me no good opinion. He will not advance me;
he will not give me opportunity to advance. And, after all, the question
I originally put only touched myself. I told you I thought, and now tell
you I still think, that I might better take off my sword, forget war,
and see what is to be won in the law.”
“And you ask my advice?”
“Your honest advice.”
“Then stick to the head of your regiment. Convince Washington that his
opinion of you is unjust, and he’ll be soonest to admit it. To convince
him should not be difficult, since you have but to do your duty.”
“Very good,” observes Aaron, resignedly, “I shall, for the present
at least, act upon your counsel. Also, much as I value your advice,
general, you have given me something else in this conversation which I
value more; that is, your expressed and friendly confidence.”
Following his long talk with the old wolf killer, young Aaron throws
himself upon his duty, heart and hand. In his rôle as warden of the
Westchester marches, he is as vigilant as a lynx. The English under
Tryon move north from New York; he sends them scurrying back to town
in hot and fear-spurred haste. They attempt to surprise him, and are
themselves surprised. They build a doughty blockhouse near Spuyten
Duyvel; young Aaron burns it, and brings in its defenders as captives.
Likewise, under cloud of night--night, ever the ally of lovers--he
oft plays Leander to Madam Prevost’s Hero; only the Hudson is his
Hellespont, and he does not swim but crosses in a barge. These
love pilgrimages mean forty miles and as many perils. However, the
heart-blinded young Aaron is not counting miles or perils, as he
pictures his gray goddess of Paramus sighing for his coming.
One day young Aaron hears tidings that mean much in his destinies.
The good old wolf killer, his sole friend in the army, is stricken of
paralysis, and goes home to die. The news is a shock to him; the more
since it offers the final argument for ending with the military. He
consults no one. Basing his action on a want of health, he forwards his
resignation to Washington, who accepts. He leaves the army, taking with
him an unfaltering dislike of the big general which will wax not wane as
years wear on.
Young Aaron is much and lovingly about his goddess of the wan gray eyes;
so much and so lovingly, indeed, that it excites the gossips. With
war and battle and sudden death on every hand and all about them,
scandal-mongering ones may still find time and taste for the discussion
of the faded Madam Prévost and her boy lover. The discussion, however,
is carried on in whispers, and made to depend on a movement of the
shoulder or an eyebrow knowingly lifted. Madam Prévost and young Aaron
neither hear nor see; their eyes and ears are sweetly busy over nearer,
dearer things.
It is deep evening at the Prévost mansion. A carriage stops at the gate;
the next moment a bold-eyed woman, the boldness somewhat in eclipse
through weariness and fear, bursts in. Young Aaron’s memory is for a
moment held at bay; then he recalls her. The bold-eyed one is none other
than that Madam Arnold whom he saw on a Newburyport occasion, when he
was dreaming of conquest and Quebec. Plainly, the bold-eyed one knows
Madam Prévost; for she runs to her with outstretched hands.
“Oh, I’ve lied and played the hypocrite all day!”
Then the bold-eyed one relates the just discovered treason of her
husband, and how she imitated tears and hysteria and the ravings of one
abandoned, to cover herself from the consequences of a crime to which
she was privy, and the commission whereof she urged.
“This gentleman!” cries the bold-eyed one, as she closes her story--she
has become aware of young Aaron--“this gentleman! May I trust him?”
[Illustration: 0133]
“As you would myself,” returns Madam Prévost.
And so, by the lips he loves, young Aaron is bound to permit, if he does
not aid, the escape of the bold-eyed traitress. Wherefore, she goes her
uninterrupted way; after which he forgets her, and again takes up the
subject nearest his heart, his love for Madam Prévost.
Eighteen months slip by; young Aaron is eager for marriage. Madam
Prévost is not so hurried, but urges a prudent procrastination. He is
about to return to those law studies, which he took up aforetime with
Tappan Reeve. She shows him that it would more consist with his dignity,
were he able to write himself “lawyer” before he became a married man.
Lovers will listen to sweethearts when husbands turn blandly deaf to
wives, and young Aaron accepts the advice of his goddess of faded years
and experiences. He hunts up a certain Judge Patterson, a law-light of
New Jersey--not too far from Paramus--and enters himself as a student
under that philosopher of jurisprudence.
Judge Patterson and young Aaron do not agree. The one is methodical, and
looks slowly out upon the world; he holds by the respectable theory that
one should know the law before he practices it. The other favors haste
at any cost, and argues that by practice one will most surely and
sharply come to a profound knowledge of the law.
Perceiving his studies to go forward as though shod with lead, young
Aaron remonstrates with his preceptor.
“This will never do,” he cries. “Sir, I shall be gray before I go to the
bar!” He explains that it is his purpose to enter upon the practice of
the law within a year. “Twelve months as a student should be enough,” he
says.
“Sir,” observes the scandalized Judge Patterson in retort, “to talk of
taking charge of a client’s interests after studying but a year is to
talk of fraud. You would but sacrifice them to your own vain ignorance,
sir. It would be a most flagrant case of the blind leading the blind.”
“Possibly now,” urges young Aaron the cynical, “the opposing counsel
might be as blind as I, and the bench as blind as either.”
“Such talk is profanation!” exclaims Judge Patterson who, making a cult
of the law, feels a priestly horror at young Aaron’s ribaldry. “Let me
be plain, sir! No student shall leave me to engage upon the practice,
unless I think him competent. As to that condition of competency, I deem
you many months’ journey from it.”
Finding himself and Judge Patterson so much at variance, young Aaron
bids that severe jurist adieu, and betakes himself to Haverstraw. There
he makes a more agreeable compact with one Judge Smith, whom the English
have driven from New York. While he waits for the day when--English
vanished--he may return to his practice, Judge Smith accepts a round sum
in gold from young Aaron, on the understanding that he devote himself
wholly to that impatient gentleman’s education.
Judge Smith of Haverstraw does his honest best to earn that gold.
Morning, noon, and night, and late into the latter, he and young Aaron
go hammering at the old musty masters of jurisprudence. The student
makes astonishing advances, and it is no more than a matter of weeks
when Jack proves as good as his master. Still, the sentiment which
animates young Aaron’s efforts is never high. He studies law as some
folk study fencing, his one absorbing thought being to learn how to
defeat an adversary and save himself. His great concern is to make
himself past master of every thrust, parry, and sleighty trick of fence,
whether in attack or guard, with the one object of victory for himself
and the enemy’s destruction. Justice, and to assist thereat, is the
thing distant from his thoughts.
At the end of six months, Judge Smith declares young Aaron able to hold
his own with any adversary.
“Mark my words, sir,” he observes, when speaking of young Aaron to a
fellow gray member of the guild--“mark my words, sir, he will prove one
of the most dangerous men who ever sat down to a trial table. There is,
of course, a right side and a wrong side to every cause. In that luck
which waits upon the practice of the law, he may, as might you or I, be
retained for the wrong side of a litigation. But whether right or wrong,
should you some day be pitted against him, you will find him possessed
of this sinister peculiarity. If he’s right, you won’t defeat him; if
he’s wrong, you must exercise your utmost care or he’ll defeat you.”
Pronouncing which, Judge Smith refreshes himself with sardonic snuff,
after the manner of satirical ones who feel themselves delivered of a
smartish quip.
Following that profound novitiate of six months, young Aaron visits
Albany and seeks admission to the bar. He should have studied three
years; but the benignant judge forgives him those other two years and
more, basing his generosity on the applicant’s services as a soldier.
“And so,” says young Aaron, “I at least get something from my soldier
life. It wasn’t all thrown away, since now it saves me a deal of
grinding study at the books.”
Young Aaron settles down to practice law in Albany. He prefers New York
City, and will go there when the English leave. Pending that redcoat
exodus, he cheers his spirit and improves his time by carrying Madam
Prévost to church, where the Reverend Bogard declares them man and wife,
after the methods and manners of the Dutch Reformed.
The boy husband and the faded middle-aged wife remain a year in Albany.
There a daughter is born. She will grow up as the beautiful Theodosia,
and, when the maternal Theodosia is no more, be all in all to her
father. Young Aaron kisses baby Theodosia, calls the stars his brothers,
and walks the sky. For once, in a way, that old innate egotism is
well-nigh dead in his heart.
About this time the beaten English sail away for home, and young Aaron
gives up Albany. Albany has three thousand; New York-is a pulsating
metropolis of twenty-two thousand souls. There can be no question as to
where the choice of a rising young barrister should fall.
He goes therefore to New York; and, with the two Theodosias and the two
little Prévost boys, takes a stately mansion in that thoroughfare of
fashion and fine society, Maiden Lane. He opens law offices by the
Bowling Green, to a gathering cloud of clients.
The Right Reverend Doctor Bellamy of Bethlehem pays him a visit.
“With your few months of study,” observes the reverend doctor dryly,
“I wonder you know enough of law to so much as keep it, let alone going
about its practice.”
“Law is not so difficult,” responds young Aaron, quite as dry as the
good doctor. “Indeed, in some respects it is vastly like theology.
That is to say, it is anything which is boldly asserted and plausibly
maintained.”
The good doctor says he will answer for young Aaron’s boldness of
assertion.
“And yet,” continues the good doctor, with just a glimmer of sarcasm,
“the last time I saw you, you gave me the catalogue of your virtues, and
declared them the virtues of a soldier. How comes it, then, that in the
midst of battles you laid down steel for parchment, gave up arms for
law?”
“Washington drove me from the army,” responds young Aaron, with
convincing gravity. “As I told you, sir, by nature I am a soldier, and
turned lawyer only through necessity. And Washington was the necessity.”