DOWN TO THE SEA
Many days later the French servant, Peria, rode up to the gate, to the
door, of Locust Hall, the Lewis homestead in old Virginia. The news he
bore had preceded him. He met a stern-faced, dark-browed woman, who
regarded him coldly when he announced his name, regarded him in
silence. The servant found himself able to make but small speech.
"Your son was a brave man--he lived long," said Peria, haltingly, at
the close of his story.
"Yes," said the mother of Meriwether Lewis. "He was a brave man. He
was strong!"
"He was unhappy; but why he should have killed himself----"
"Stop!" The dark eyes blazed upon him. "What are you saying? My son
kill himself? It is an outrage to his memory to suggest it. He was the
victim of some enemy. As for you, begone!"
So Peria passed from sight and view, and almost from memory, not
accused, not acquitted. Long afterward a brother of Meriwether Lewis
met him, and found that he was carrying the old rifle and the little
watch which every member of the family knew so well. These things had
been missing from the effects of Meriwether Lewis in the
inventory--indeed, little remained in the traveling-cases save a few
scattered papers and the old spyglass. There was no gold. There were
no letters of any kind.
Soon there came down from Monticello to Locust Hall the coach of
Thomas Jefferson.
"Madam," said he, when finally he stood at the side of the mistress of
Locust Hall, "it is heavy news I thought to bring--I see that you have
heard it. What shall I say--what can we say to each other? I mourn him
as if he were my own son."
"It has come at last," said the mother of Meriwether Lewis. "The
wilderness has him, as I knew it would! I told him, here at this
place, when he was a boy, that at last the load would weigh him down."
"The rumor is that he died by his own hand. I find it difficult to
believe. It is far more likely that some enemy or robber was guilty of
the deed."
"Whom had he ever harmed?" she demanded of Jefferson.
"None in the world, with intent; but he had enemies. Whether by his
own hand or that of another, he died a gallant gentleman. He would not
think of himself alone. But listen--bear with me if I tell you that
could your son send out the news himself, perhaps he might say 'twas
by his own hand he perished, and not by that of another!"
"Never, Mr. Jefferson, never will I believe that! It was not in his
nature!"
"I agree with you. But when we take the last wishes of the dead, we
take what is the law for us. And the law of your son was the law of
honor. Suppose, my dear madam, there were a woman concerned in this
matter?"
"He never wronged a woman in his life----"
"Precisely, nor in his death would he wrong one! Do you begin to see?"
"Did he ever speak to you of her?"
"It was impossible that he should; but I knew them both. I knew their
secret. Were it in his power to do so, I am sure that he carried his
secret with him, so that it might never be shared by any. That secret
he has guarded in death as in life."
"But shall I let that stain rest on his name?" The dark eye of the old
woman gleamed upon her son's friend.
"Do not I love him also? I am speaking now only of his own wish--not
ours. I know that he would shield her at any cost--nay, I know he did
shield her at any cost. May not we shield him--and her--no matter what
the cost to us? If he laid that wish on us, ought we not to respect
it? Madam, I shall frame a letter which will serve to appease the
criticism of the public in regard to your son. If it be not the exact
truth--and who shall tell the exact truth?--it will at least be
accepted as truth, and it will forever silence any talk. What should
the public know of a life such as his? There are some lives which are
tragically large, and such was his. He lived with honor, and he could
not die without it. What was in his heart we shall not ask to know.
If ever he sinned, he is purged of any sin."
Jefferson was silent for a moment, holding the bereaved mother's hand
in his own.
"He shall have a monument, madam," he went on. "It shall mark his
grave in yonder wilderness. They shall name at least a county for him,
and hold it his sacred grave-place--there in Tennessee, by the old
Indian road. Let him lie there under the trees--that is as he would
wish. He shall have some monument--yes, but how futile is all that!
His greatest monument will be in the vast new country which he has
brought to us. He was a man of a natural greatness not surpassed by
any of his time."
* * * * *
What of Theodosia Alston, loyal and lofty soul, blameless wife,
devoted and pathetic adherent to the fallen fortunes of her
ill-starred father?
Three years after Meriwether Lewis laid him down to sleep in the
forest, a ship put out from Charleston wharf. It was bound for the
city of New York, where at that time there was living a broken,
homeless, forsaken man named Aaron Burr--a man execrated at home,
discredited abroad, but who now, after years of exile, had crept home
to the country which had cast him out.
A passenger on that ship was Theodosia Alston, the daughter of Aaron
Burr. That much is known. The ship sailed. It never came to port. No
more is known.
To this day none knows what was the fate of Aaron Burr's daughter,
one of the most appealing figures of her day, a woman made for
happiness, but continually in close touch with tragedy. Wherever her
body may lie, she has her wish. The sound of the eternal waters is the
continuous requiem in her ears. Her secret, if she had one, is washed
away long ere this, and is one with the eternal secrets of the sea. As
to her sin, she had none. Above her memory, since she has no grave,
there might best be inscribed the words she wrote at a time of her own
despair:
"I hope to be happy in the next world, for I have not been
bad in this."
Did the little brook in Tennessee ever find its way down to the sea?
Did it carry a scattered drop of a man's lifeblood, little by little
thinning, thinning on its long journey? Did ever a wandering flake of
ashes, melting, rest on its bosom for so great a journey as that
toward the sea?
Did the sound of a voice in the wilderness, passing across the unknown
leagues, ever reach an ear that heard? Who can tell? Perhaps in the
great ten thousand years such things may be--perhaps deep calls to
deep, and there are no longer sins nor tears.
A million hearth-fires mark the camp-fire trail of Meriwether Lewis.
We own the country which he found, and for which he paid. He sleeps.
Above him stands the monument which his chief assigned to him--his
country. It rises now in glory and splendor, the perfected vision
which he saw.
That is the happy ending of his story--his country! It is ours. As its
title came to us in honor, it is for us to love it honorably, to use
it honorably, and to defend it honorably. None may withstand us while
we hold to his ambitions--while our sons measure to the stature of
such a man.
"_The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay_"
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EMERSON HOUGH'S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
THE COVERED WAGON
An epic story of the Great West from which the famous
picture was made.
THE WAY OF A MAN
A colorful romance of the pioneer West before the
Civil War.
THE SAGEBRUSHER
An Eastern girl answers a matrimonial ad. and goes out
West in the hills of Montana to find her mate.
THE WAY OUT
A romance of the feud district of the Cumberland country.
THE BROKEN GATE
A story of broken social conventions and of a woman's
determination to put the past behind her.
THE WAY TO THE WEST
Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson figure in
this story of the opening of the West.
HEART'S DESIRE
The story of what happens when the railroad came to a
little settlement in the far West.
THE PURCHASE PRICE
A story of Kentucky during the days after the American
Revolution.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Magnificent Adventure, by Emerson Hough