FAREWELL
A perfect woman, nobly plann’d,
To warn, to comfort, and command,
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light. —Wordsworth
A good man, and an angel! there between,
How thin the barrier! What divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year. —Young.
The lives of Kate and Major Gordon were as happy as might have been
foretold, from their mutual affection, their firm principles, their good
sense, and the adaptability of their characters. They were not exempt
from the ordinary mutations of life, having their disappointments and
griefs like other people; but these sorrows were never of their own
making, but mysterious dispensations from an all-wise Providence.
They had the misfortune to lose their first-born, a beautiful little
girl, in her early childhood, just as her budding intellect and grateful
tenderness were making her dearer than ever to the heart of her parents.
But with this great sorrow, came also many mercies. Other children, good
and beautiful daughters, brave and conscientious sons, grew up around
them, filling their household with happy faces, sweet laughter and
dutiful affection. As years rolled by, and the parents verged to middle
age, they had the gratification to see these daughters married to worthy
men, the choice of their own hearts, and to know that these sons had
found partners, who were not mere playthings of the hour, but companions
competent for all the varied duties of life. One of the sons-in-law was
an eminent Senator, and his wife an acknowledged leader of society in
Washington, who is still remembered for her grace, her goodness and her
rare talents. A son distinguished himself greatly at Tripoli, and
another rose to be a foreign ambassador. Our heroine, in her mature
middle age, and when still a beautiful woman, could say, with the
British matron, that all her daughters were virtuous and all her sons
brave.
At first, part of the year was spent at Sweetwater, and part in
Philadelphia, but finally the residence of the family became fixed in
the city, except for the summer months. This was in consequence of the
professional calls on Major Gordon, and the unwillingness of Kate to be
separated from her husband; for the Major, after the close of the war,
had resumed the practice of the law, declaring that he could not be an
idle man, even if his fortune was ten times as great. He brought up his
sons, in imitation of his own example, each to some particular pursuit.
“Every man, who wishes to be either happy, or useful,” the Major was
accustomed to say, “must have some business to follow; for otherwise
the mind eats itself, and _ennui_ and ill-health follow, even if
idleness does not lead to evil courses.” Thus it happened, that while
other rich men’s sons were bringing the gray hairs of their fathers
prematurely to the grave, the children of our hero and heroine grew up
to “honor their father and mother,” and call their names
“blessed.”
But the Major, even to a late period in life, was always glad to escape
to Sweetwater. Once a year, during the hunting season, he visited it for
the purpose of bringing down a deer; and many an exciting day he and
Uncle Lawrence had in the old forests round about. The veteran came at
last to say that the “Major,” as he still called our hero, “was
nigh about as good a shot as himself;” and many a tale was he
accustomed to rehearse, with a low, triumphant chuckle, of their mutual
success. Even Mullen often received a visit from our hero. The waterman,
though dangerously wounded at the fight on the Neck, subsequently
recovered, and settled down, at the close of hostilities, in the
harmless pursuit of a fisherman. He knew where all the best places to
catch the finny tribe were to be found, and religiously kept the fact to
himself, only admitting Major Gordon to the knowledge of it, and this
under strict promise of secrecy. But, at last, our hero, profiting by
this information, became so successful, that he often excelled his
teacher and patron. Mullen, now grown to be a hardy, weather-beaten old
man, with a face the color of mahogany, and a form as wiry as if made of
steel, was accustomed, after such defeats, to shake his head, saying,
half in jest and half in earnest, “That such treatment was too bad, he
had a _despise_ for it; it was _scan-dal-ous_.”
Uncle Lawrence lived to a good old age. To the last he retained his
fondness for the chase, as well as the physical vigor to endure its
fatigues. In rain or shine he would set out, even when past the “three
score and ten” allotted as the term of human life, with his gun on his
shoulder, whistling as he went. At night his return would be announced
by that low, monotonous whistle, long before his form could be
discovered through the gloom or falling mist. His death was consistent
with his life. One winter Sunday he walked to the old, dear church at
Sweetwater; participated in the exercises with even more than his usual
earnestness; answered the ordinary kind inquiries of his friends as to
his health; and was told by the Major, who happened to be on a business
visit to the place, that he had “never seen him looking better,” on
which he answered, “the Lord is merciful to me, and I have long since
tried, as much as poor, human flesh can, to set my house in order.”
Returning home, he saw that the fire wanted some fresh wood, and his
children being, by this time, grown up, and absent, he went out to get
an arm-load. He had, however, scarcely laid it on the hand-irons, and
was stretching out his palms to warm them, as the logs snapped and
crackled into a merry blaze, when he suddenly fell over in his chair,
and was dead before his wife could reach his side. The physician
pronounced the cause of his sudden demise to be a disease of the heart.
He was buried in the grave-yard at Sweetwater, in the spot he had
mentioned to Major Gordon; and the leaves rustled, the birds sang, and
the flowers blossomed over him, as he had desired. His farm passed long
since into other hands. Lately it has been abandoned to the forest,
which is growing up, wild and rank, on the fields where the patriarch
tilled the soil, and close around the hearth where he offered his
morning and evening prayers. Mother earth has claimed not only his own
ashes, but even “the place that knew him.” His memory, however,
still lives, and he is yet traditionally known, in his native region, as
a mighty hunter, who left no successor.
Mrs. Warren and Maggy are the only persons of whom it remains to speak.
The former was characteristic to the last, and died at a good old age,
about the period that Louis the Sixteenth, to use her own phrase,
“suffered.” In fact, the good lady never recovered from the blow,
which the execution of that monarch inflicted on her heart. She had,
originally, almost detested him, because he had taken sides against King
George; for Mrs. Warren lived and died a tory. But when what she called
“the _canaille_” obtained the ascendancy in Paris; when Lafayette
carried the king and queen in triumph from Versailles; and when the
monarchy itself fell on the fatal tenth of August, she became as violent
a friend of the dethroned king as she had ever been his enemy. The trial
and execution of the monarch smote her heart to its core. She could talk
of nothing else. The bloody deed, in fact, brought second childhood upon
her. And when, a few months after, Marie Antoinette herself was so
brutally led to the scaffold, Mrs. Warren gave up the ghost, declaring
that all order was lost, that birth was no more respected, and that the
world was coming to an end; adding that “she had known it would happen
all along, she had felt certain something dreadful would occur.” In
her will, she left what little she had saved to be equally divided
between Maggy and “her cousin, Lord Alvanley,” thus paying tithe of
mint to affection and of cummin to rank.
Maggy grew up all that her friends could have desired, and finally made
what everybody admitted was a brilliant match. It was, in truth, more
lastingly brilliant than such unions generally are; for it was one of
real esteem on both sides, and not a mere marriage of convenience. Her
husband was a wealthy Virginia planter, who spent his time on his
estates, devoting it to the improvement of his numerous servants: a man,
who, though wealthy and well-born beyond most, considered it his duty to
labor in his sphere for the interests of his race, and despise no man,
however humble, poor, or degraded. In Maggy he found a help-meet, in the
full sense of that good old Saxon word; a companion, a counsellor, and
co-worker, who “smiled when he smiled, and wept when he wept.” If we
had not already reached the limits of our story, or if we should ever
again take up the pen, we should be tempted to describe the married life
of Maggy, in order to show that all romance does not cease when the
nuptial knot is tied, and that there is a bliss of domestic life as
perfect as the raptures of an Amanda Malvina or a Lord Mortimer.
The whole of that section of New Jersey in which the events of our story
occurred, has greatly changed since the period of which we write.
Sweetwater itself is in decay; the Forks is in ruins; and vast portions
of the original forest have fallen before the woodman’s axe. A
railroad runs close to the place where the hut of the refugee stood; the
scream of the locomotive is fast driving away the few deer left in the
region. As we send these sheets to press, we notice that a land company
is in operation in the neighborhood, and is issuing proposals to furnish
“cheap homesteads,” according to the approved fashion of these
modern associations. All things have changed. If the author has
succeeded in describing, however faintly, a region, a society, and a
state of manners already nearly eradicated, he will be content to let
the genius of improvement complete the work of destruction, and forever
remove all traces of the ruder, but more picturesque past.