The battle of Green Spring, fought the third day after I had rejoined
General Lafayette--that gallant officer being now in pursuit of
Cornwallis, who was slowly retreating to a less hazardous position, near
the sea coast--was the one engagement Lafayette allowed himself during
the tedious game of march and countermarch at which the opposed armies
had been playing for three months. Fighting was much more to the taste
of the ardent Lafayette, but he had learned the art of war in the school
of Washington, and knew that a timely and skillful retreat is often
worth more than a victory. By such "Fabian policy" as the great leader
himself had condescended to use, to the open scorn of his enemies,
Lafayette had completely aborted the concerted invasion of Virginia, and
had gradually turned Cornwallis on to the open mouth of the trap which
was later to prove so fatal to him. The fight above mentioned was
undecisive, and had no other effect than to hurry Cornwallis' retreat to
the seashore--at a dear cost to us of one hundred and fifty men.
At Yorktown, the British awaited their fleet with convoys of needed
supplies, and hoped daily for reenforcements from General Clinton;
meantime working industriously to entrench themselves. We sat down at
Malvern Hill, watching, like a bull-dog before his enemy's gate. The sea
protected Cornwallis' position on three sides, and a few days sufficed
to erect strongly fortified works on their fourth--there was small
chance for the bull-dog, unless the desired prey could somehow be driven
from cover. But he crouched and waited on. This stubborn vigilance was
rewarded on the last day of August when the flagship of Count de Grasse
sailed into the Chesapeake Bay at the head of the French fleet.
Our camp went mad with joy as the three thousand French troops under
Marquis de Saint Simon landed to unite with us, and on the next day we
took position across the neck of the peninsula at Williamsburg.
Cornwallis was in the trap, and Lafayette had sprung shut the last door
which offered possible chance of escape. Admiral Graves with the English
fleet arrived too late. We watched anxiously the naval battle between
him and Count de Grasse, and exulted wildly when the defeated fleet
sailed away. Nine days' later, General Washington arrived, his presence
the final assurance of coming victory, and close on his heels the whole
northern army; by the twenty-sixth of September, the American and French
forces confronting Cornwallis were sixteen thousand strong. It was only
a question of days now. The brave British, inspired ever by the intrepid
Cornwallis, could not hold out long in their cramped condition, without
adequate supplies, and decimated daily by the deadly fire we were
presently ready to pour into the town. Our first parallel was opened on
the sixth of October; the men were so impatient with the prospect of
speedy victory after our long struggle against heavy odds, and so
reckless with mad enthusiasm, that it took all the authority of the
older and more prudent officers to restrain acts of needless risk and
exposure.
That night--I had helped to fire the first guns and had witnessed the
fearful havoc they made among the enemy's redoubts--my whole being was
in such tumult from violent and conflicting emotions that I could not
sleep. Patriotic joy uplifted my soul to a fervor of grateful emotion
one moment, and in the next, a wave of depression overwhelmed me. Apples
of Sodom would be even the success of the cause, which so long and so
fervently I had cherished, if the future held for me no hope of Ellen's
love, no promise of Ellen's companionship! Ah, if I had not lost my last
chance by the rashness of my tongue! had not thrown away my life's
happiness by yielding to unreasoning anger!
Had I but explained my true situation and feelings in regard to
Nelly Buford before I began to urge my suit so commandingly, I might
have had hope, at least, to feed upon, instead of the certainty of
disappointment. Yet why admit failure? If General Washington had done so
after Long Island, General Greene after Guilford; where would be to-day
the cause of American liberty? No, I would not recognize defeat! I would
fight on till no ray of hope was left me. This very night I would make a
last appeal to Ellen--set before her once again, but more persuasively,
all the reasons and arguments that to me seemed so clear. So I lit my
last end of candle, took my board upon my knee, found a bottle of
poke-berry ink, sharpened a quill and wrote--the ardent words flowing
from my quill's end more freely than the thin purplish red fluid in
which I transcribed them:
"Dear Heart of my Heart:
"Past midnight, and this vast camp lies wrapt in slumber. No
sounds disturb the star lighted peace save now and then the
faint call of the sentinels, and the distant roaring of an
occasional gun, fired from our first parallel which we opened
to-day. To my tent, far in the rear of our front line, these
sounds come softened into the musical echo of to-day's joyous
excitement, and hint of to-morrow's glorious promise. Though
the sweet and brooding peace of the night, the benediction of
the stars, and the caresses of a gentle breeze, all woo my
tired limbs and excited mind to needed repose, my heart is too
full of longing thoughts of you, dear Ellen, to admit sleep!
"I see your dear face as last I saw it, flushed, hurt, angry,
and hear that voice, whose tender tremor is the sweetest music
my ears have known, ring sharp and firm in those words which
were the death knell of my hopes. In no other mood than that
one, in which I have seen you so rarely, can I recall you--the
hurt and angry state so foreign to your warm and generous
nature. Yet I cannot upbraid you, dearest, or in anywise blame
you, that last I saw you in a mood which so ill-becomes you,
for I was its just occasion. I was too impetuous, too
assertive, dear one. I knew it ere the rashness left me, and
would have given my right arm to have been able to blot my
foolish words from your memory. I longed to explain, to implore
your forgiveness, to humble myself before you, and to recall
all I had said that could give you offense--but you gave me no
opportunity; was it not, mavourneen, a needlessly cruel
punishment to deny me a last chance to beg for mercy, a moment
to say farewell? Yet, dear one, though I expressed myself
rudely, and went too far, much of what I said was true, as your
generous spirit has already admitted when you have, with
characteristic nobleness of soul, recalled my words in the hope
of finding excuses for me.
"Perhaps before this letter reaches you--it goes by special
courier to Richmond, with General Washington's dispatches to
Governor Jefferson--a glorious victory will be ours. General
Cornwallis and his army are completely surrounded, and must
surrender in a few days. This will end the war, think all the
officers, and bring us peace with Great Britain upon liberal
terms. The United States of America will be a free republic,
and before us stretches a noble future with the grandest
possibilities that the mind of statesmen have yet been able to
conceive. We shall have a free representative government
administered by noble patriots, such as Washington, Jefferson
and Adams. We shall abolish all prerogatives of class, party
and creed; not only life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
will be free to all, but entire freedom of religious thought
and free speech will be the unquestioned right of all the
inhabitants of America. And not only freedom, but prosperity
will be within reach of all. The wide and fertile plains of the
West await but the claim of the settler to constitute a rich
heritage. My heart thrills at the realization of the vast
territory which Clark and his handful of Virginians added to
that country which shall be called the American Republic. And
you, Ellen, and I had our share in that glorious enterprise.
Can any citizen of America fail to experience the glow of a
true patriot's fervor, a thrill of true patriot's pride, upon
contemplation of the noble destiny which a glowing future seems
to promise our land--with Freedom's crown upon it? A destiny
that will be shared with all who come to us.
"But oh, heart of my heart, my joy and exultation for my
country are overcast with the gloom of despair! despair of any
hope for my own life, any happiness for my own heart. Even my
joy in our victory will be but the dim shadow of what it would
be for my spirit is sick from this gnawing regret, and despair,
eating daily deeper and deeper into my heart, till all buoyancy
has left me, and I have longed for death. That madness is past,
dear Ellen, else I would not tell you of it, but in truth I
have sought death for days, as a mother seeks a lost child,
wooed it as a lover wooes his mistress while yet there is hope.
Not even death would come to my relief--and now I see it was a
weakness to have sought it, a blasphemy to have prayed for it.
I shall live out as even I must, the span allotted to me, and
strive at least for the patience of hopeless resignation.
"Two pictures, Ellen, haunt the sick visions of my idle, waking
hours, and glide nightly through my dreams. One is that which
might have been, the other that which, alas, likely will be! I
see a spacious mansion, crowning a green and gently sloping
hill; its wide windows open to the sweet air and gracious
sunshine of Virginia; its doors hospitably spread to welcome
kinsmen, friends, neighbors, or wayfarers, whether bringing or
needing blessing. At the foot of the hill, and seen from the
broad verandas, stretch luxuriant meadows, where sleek horses
and lazy herds of cattle wade knee deep in blossoming grass,
and pink headed clover.
"Roses, lilies, and pinks bloom in the garden behind the house,
and their fragrance floats in through doors and windows. Music
too is there, for happy, unmolested birds sing their praises to
their Creator, and the sweetest voice in all the world speaks
kindly to contented slave, or happy child, or croons tenderly
to the rosy infant. And beauty is there, rarer than that of the
fair landscape to be glimpsed through doors and windows, for
the fairest, loveliest woman in Virginia fills this happy home
with her sweet pervading presence, and casts over it a rare and
nameless charm--a spell which brings to all its inmates, from
master to slave, from visiting friend to chance guest, a sense
of assured comfort and cheerful content--Does not your heart
tell you, oh, heart of my heart, that such home might be ours!
and can you conceive for any woman, even for my own rare Ellen,
a nobler destiny than to be the mistress of such home, the
priestess of such heart shrine?
"But the other picture! A gloomy convent cell in which a
spirit-worn one--whose lingering beauty glads no tender heart,
charms no eye of love--kneels with face of despair, to pray for
grace not to loathe a life of useless sacrifice, of cloistered
inaction,--so little suited to an ardent and loving soul, so
fruitless in bringing real peace, true heart renunciation,--a
life of small service to man or God, and of worth only because
it brings to the heavy-hearted nun daily self wrestlings. And
ever as she prays there comes between her and the Christ vision
for which she yearns, and hourly implores her God, the sad face
of a man, old before his time, and hopelessly resigned to sit
in listless idleness by another's fireside, because he has no
heart for one of his own.
"His old comrades and friends have built for themselves
spacious homes, transformed the wilderness into rich estates,
carved out useful and honorable careers, and are counted among
those Virginians who are laying broad and deep the foundations
of country, state, and family. But he, lacking the dear
responsibilities of wife and children, having no descendants to
carry the name in honorable memory and emulation to future
generations, has dropped out of the struggle, given over the
race; and, broken-hearted and despairing, lives only to recall
the memories of an active and inspired youth.
"Can you, Ellen, mavourneen, contemplate this last vision, and
not be moved to the thought that such end for God-endowed
spirits, destined to complete each other's lives, were indeed a
fearful sacrifice? That the tears, regrets and prayers of the
nun would be but poor recompense to God--if there can be a
reckoning between man and his Maker--for two unfulfilled lives,
and lost generation after generation of human souls adequately
gifted by noble birth, and honest inheritance, with health,
comeliness, happiness, and opportunities, and trained in love
of country, love of progress, love of virtue, love of God! My
children shall have no other mother, Ellen, should you finally
determine to let your superstition stifle your heart; know that
in doing so you cut off from the earth the race of McElroy.
Last male of the line am I, and vowed to go childless to my
grave unless my offspring may call mother the one woman who is
the love of my life, heart of my heart, hope and inspiration of
my soul!
"As soon as General Cornwallis surrenders I shall ask for a
furlough, and come home for my final answer. Oh, my Ellen,
dearest of dear ones, will you not crown my rejoicing, make of
true worth to me our hard-won victory! and fill one patriot's
breast with that supreme happiness of love accepted and
returned which is the wine of men's souls, the one elixir which
can furnish them with courage and inspiration for the
constantly repeated struggles and continually renewed efforts
of life!
"May that God who is your God and mine, the God of your fathers
and the God of mine, come to you in dream or vision, through
word of saint or prophet, and open your eyes to see, as I see,
that destiny which is the noblest and holiest for woman! Yet
always, dear one, whether the happiest, or the most sorely
bereft of men, I shall be
"Your true and loyal friend, your sworn knight, your devoted
lover,
"DONALD MCELROY."
My candle sputtered feebly in its last effort to do its duty as I folded
and sealed my letter. As I crossed the camp in search of the courier,
the formless dull gray of the eastern landscape was suddenly aroused by
the yet unrealized promise of the coming sun, and soon appeared a glow
of life, under whose influence the bolder features of the landscape
began slowly to assume their natural forms. Half an hour later, when I
was returning to my tent, the whole east was glowing gorgeously and
every smallest detail of the landscape was limned in vivid light. Nature
was pulsing with life in every part, beneath the first kiss of the sun.
So would a word of kindness from Ellen scatter the heavy, chill mist
from my heart, and set my whole nature a-quiver with a new life of hope
and joy.
* * * * *
To history belongs the record of those brave days when American and
Frenchman vied with one another in deeds of daring gallantry, and when
hour by hour our long delayed reward came nearer. General Cornwallis
made a brave resistance, and delayed surrender almost to the point of
madness. Our final exultation--the day Cornwallis gave up his sword, and
the long line of our prisoners marched between our lines to stack
arms--was, indeed, much softened by respectful admiration and sympathy
for our gallant late foes, and their broken-hearted General.
As we all know family quarrels are usually the bitterest, but somehow
this long contest between the American colonies and the mother country
did not seem to breed any deep-seated animosity between their respective
peoples. It may have been that the people of England--as certainly some
of their statesmen did--recognized that we were but leading the vanguard
of progress toward a happier order for all nations. England is not fond
of experiments, yet none are more freedom loving than her sons. They
have but moved on more conservatively, more deliberately to their goal.
Or perhaps the happy absence of any lasting bitterness may have been due
to the circumstance that our war--except for its few Indian
episodes--was conducted with as little savagery as war may well be.
Whatever the explanation, it is true that in two days after Cornwallis'
surrender the officers and men of the two armies were fraternizing like
brothers, and not a few of our late enemies were already declaring their
intention to remain in this new land of promise and to cast in their lot
with the American Republic.
At a banquet given by our colonels to those of the British army, toasts
were drunk to a firmly cemented and lasting peace between our respective
countries and then to a steadfast alliance between England and America.
In response to the last of these I ventured the prophecy that the two
great English-speaking peoples would not only be bound together
presently by ties of blood and language into a close alliance for mutual
welfare, but that side by side they would go forward toward higher and
higher ideals of free government and universal brotherhood, pointing the
way to a nobler civilization than had yet been conceived. Carried away
by my own fervor, I even predicted a time when the two nations, England
and the United States of America, that was to be, supported by France
perhaps, would make the last fight against autocratic power and military
rule, to conquer the world for democracy--to the end that war might
forever cease, and the world begin to be made ready for the coming of
the "Prince of Peace."
It was a perfervid and wild harangue doubtless, and some of my
fellow-officers who heard it never ceased to twit me about my one burst
of eloquence. Nevertheless, it seemed at the time to chime in with the
mood of my hearers, who soundly applauded these sentiments. If events
since, and especially more recent ones, have made me appear but a poor
prophet, I am still not ready to withdraw my prediction, and I still
believe that the destiny of humanity lies in the keeping of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples, who will, I yet maintain, go steadily forward
through mistakes and errors to a better understanding and a closer
friendship.
General Lafayette granted my request for furlough with playful jest
about the fair refugee who awaited my coming, and my blush and stammer
doubtless confirmed his suspicions. I lost no more time getting home
than I could help, you may be sure, but every man I met stopped me to
get details of the big news, which had spread like fairy fire, and men,
women, and children ran out to question me as I passed each hamlet.
Jean was on the porch enjoying the bracing balminess of a bright October
afternoon when I rode up, and ran with glad cry to meet me. Father and
mother were gone to Staunton for the day--father to get further news,
mother to lay in the fall supplies--and Ellen was back again with Aunt
Martha, whose health failed more and more, so that Ellen was her chief
dependence. All this Jean told me and more, while she urged upon me the
laziest chair, and brought sangaree and spiced cake to refresh me.
"You, dear Jean, are well again and happy if your face is index to your
feelings," I said, when my first eager questions had been answered.
"Have father and mother already been won over to Buford's cause? I knew
they never could stand to see our little maid wear sad face, and lose
all her pretty bloom."
"It was not all done by my reproachful looks," she answered, smiling and
blushing. "Ellen's influence more than any other has changed them. Oh,
Donald, she is the dearest girl, and her tact is wonderful! Neither
father nor mother know when it was done, but gradually she has made them
like Captain Buford, till now they are willing for his sake as well as
for mine. Mother told me yesterday that they but waited for your full
approval to withdraw all objection to our marriage."
"Then, little sister, Buford's happiness is assured, and yours too, I
believe. He is a brave and an honorable gentleman, and likely to make
his wife a happy woman. His poverty, for most of his property will be
confiscated, doubtless, is the one drawback, but if I get my western
bounty lands, I shall be able to make up for that. A deed to one-half of
my share shall be my wedding gift to you."
"Dear Donald, you are the very dearest of brothers," and Jean perched
herself upon the arm of my chair, kissed my forehead, and began to
thread my somewhat neglected locks with her slender fingers. "Will you
think me presumptuous, brother, if I ask you a personal question?" she
began presently, with apparent hesitation.
"I can hardly think of a question my little sister would not have the
right to ask me," turning my head to smile encouragement upon her.
"Did you ever think Nelly Buford a coquette?" she asked, waiting for my
answer with amusing anxiety.
"Can any one who has ever known her exonerate her from the charge?" I
replied with a smile--"unless it is Buford, who has never guessed his
sister's weakness. Is it high treason in his eyes for his prospective
wife to harbor such suspicions?"
"Oh, we never discuss family matters; I was thinking only of your
opinion of Nelly."
"Is my judgment upon coquettes so valuable?"
"Then you do not love Nelly, Donald? Oh! I'm so glad!"
"No, I do not love Nelly Buford, though she's a winsome maiden. But why
rejoice, little sister? Do you disapprove of too close family
entanglements?"
"I could not be happy if it were not so," Jean responded enigmatically.
"And why?" Indifferent to Jean's meaning, my thoughts wandered off to
the far greater likelihood of my love for Ellen bringing me unhappiness.
"She has promised to marry Thomas!"
"Thomas?" I almost sprang from my chair with surprise. "Thomas and Nelly
Buford to be married?" and then I laughed long and heartily.
Jean laughed too. "It is funny, Don, for at first Thomas barely endured
Nelly. I believe his indifference nettled her into a determination to
win him. She seems entirely unsuited to a parson's wife, much less a
missionary's. Thomas declares he is going to Kentucky as a border
missionary, and that Nelly is willing to go with him anywhere."
"And give up her Tory principles, and her Episcopal faith? Wonder of
wonders is this love which overleaps all barriers as easily as a hunter
takes his ditch. Does Ellen know of this?"
"Yes, and seems to be very happy over it. I think she feels now for the
first time easy in conscience, since Thomas' happiness, as well as his
calling is assured."
"And what says Aunt Martha?"
"She says very little about it, though we all know that Nelly would not
have been her choice for Thomas. She told Ellen, when first she heard
it, that she had interfered, already, too much with the lives that other
people had to live, and that she no longer felt that confidence in her
own judgment she once had; that humility was the latest flower of her
Christian experience, and though but a weak and sickly bloom, she wished
to cherish it."
"Poor Aunt Martha. She has suffered much, then?"
"Yes, but mother and Ellen say she has grown daily gentler under her
sufferings."
"Only natures of true worth are 'refined by the furnace of affliction,'
to my observation--Aunt Martha evidently deserved not the youthful scorn
I felt for her. But tell me more of Ellen--she is, you think, really
happy to be Aunt Martha's nurse?"
"Yes, Ellen is more light-hearted recently than I have ever known her;
Aunt Martha called her, talking to mother yesterday, 'a well-spring of
happiness,' and said it made her very thankful when she considered how
Providence had forced upon her a daughter against her time of need, in
spite of her utter undeservingness."
Scarcely could I wait to greet my parents, I was so eager to see Ellen,
to fathom the true cause of her unaccustomed gayety of spirits, which
even the love-absorbed Jean had noticed. I found her so busy with
household duties, and attentions to Aunt Martha, that I was obliged to
content myself, after the first greetings--which told me without need of
words that I was forgiven--with the vision of her flitting about busily,
and the exchange of an occasional meaningless remark. When reluctantly I
rose to go, Uncle Thomas asked me to stay to tea, and I accepted so
eagerly, that I think Aunt Martha guessed, at last, my secret. Either
because of that, or the way my truant gaze followed Ellen's every
movement. At any rate she surmised the real reason of my prompt visit to
them, and when supper was over, came to my help with something of my own
mother's tactfulness.
"Donald," she said, "take Ellen out to the porch, and make her rest
while you tell her all about Yorktown--as you told it to me while she
was at the dairy; Ellen never takes time to rest unless I make her.
Thomas will sit with me."
For a while we talked perfunctorily, and with embarrassed
self-consciousness, like children who are bidden to be sociable; and I
did describe to her the final scenes at Yorktown, but with such lack of
interest in my own story--my mind all the time on other words I wished
to speak--that there was no spirit in the narrative. Disgusted with my
bungling of such an inspiring subject, I broke off abruptly, then after
a silence surcharged with emotion--"Oh, heart of my heart," I asked,
"have you ready the answer to my letter?"
"Almost," and there was the dear harp-like tremor in her tones, which
bespoke deep feeling.
"Meantime I may feed on hope, may I not, mavourneen?"
"Some men need only their own resolution, Donald, to base assurance
upon," and she smiled at me, in such wise that I grew suddenly dizzy,
then gliding away from me to the top of the steps--"you are one of those
masterful men, cousin, whose will is not to be gainsaid by any weaker
vessel."
"So I fail not this time, I can trust my will for all the rest of my
life," I answered--"but you know full well, Ellen, that with you I am
very coward," following her, and capturing the hands she had clasped
about a column of the porch. "Dearest one, I have waited long, and, it
seems to me, most patiently and humbly--ask not, I beseech you, much
more of my fortitude." Then I kissed softly the blue-veined wrists,
where her heart's blood pulsed warmest, and asked once more, "May I
hope, mavourneen?" getting for answer a low, but tenderly spoken "Yes,
but ask no more, now. Be patient, dear Donald, only a little longer,"
and once more she lifted her quivering eyelids, and flashed a smile upon
me which filled my veins with an all-pervading thrill of fiery joy.
Again I kissed the white wrists, looked into her eyes for one instant,
spoke a murmured word of joy, then--lest I could no longer resist the
mad impulse to clasp her in my arms, and ease all my violent emotion in
passionate caresses--turned, and, without daring to grant myself a
single backward glance, walked swiftly away in the starlight. No single
self-conquest of my life cost me the effort of that one.