The Magnificent Adventure - Emerson Hough (fiction books to read .txt) 📗

Clark delayed yet a time. He found in the charms of the fair Judith herself somewhat to give him pause. Soon he was to take her as his bride down the Ohio to yonder town of St. Louis, for whose fame he had done so much, and was to do so much more.

Toward none of the fair maids who now flocked about them could Meriwether Lewis be more than smiling gallant, though rumors ran that either he or William Clark might well-nigh take his pick. He was alike to all of them in his courtesy.

One thought of eager and unalloyed joy rested with him. He was soon to see his mother. In time he rode down from the hilltops of old Albemarle to the point beyond the Ivy Depot where rose the gentle eminence of Locust Hill, the plantation of the Lewis family.

Always in the afternoon, in all weathers, his mother sat looking down the long lane to the gate, as if she expected that one day a certain figure would appear. Sometimes, old as she was, she dozed and dreamed—just now she had done so. She awoke, and saw standing before her, as if pictured in her dream, the form of her son, in bodily presence, although at first she did not accept him as such.

“My son!” said she at length, half as much in terror as in joy. “Merne!”

He stooped down and took her grayed head in his hands as she looked up at him. She recalled other times when he had come from the forest, from the wilderness, bearing trophies in his hands. He bore now trophies greater, perhaps, than any man of his age ever had brought home with him. What Washington had defended was not so great as that which Lewis won. It required them both to make an America for us haggling and unworthy followers.

“My son!” was all she could say. “They told me that you never would come back, that you were dead. I thought the wilderness had claimed you at last, Merne!”

“I told you I should come back to you safe, mother. There was no danger at any time. From St. Louis I have come as fast as any messenger could have come. Next I must go to see Mr. Jefferson at Washington—then, back home again to talk with you, for long, long hours.”

“And what have you found?”

“More than I can tell you in a year! We found the mysterious river, the Columbia—found where it runs into the ocean, where it starts in the mountains. We found the head of the Missouri—the Ohio is but a creek beside it. We crossed plains and mountains more wonderful than any we have ever dreamed of. We saw the most wonderful land in all the world, mother—and we made it ours!”

“And you did that? Merne, was that why the wilderness called to you? My boy has done all that? Your country will reward you. I should not complain of all these years of absence. You are happy now, are you not?”

“I should be the happiest of men. I can take to Mr. Jefferson, our best friend, the proof that he was right in his plans. His great dream has come true, and I in some part helped to make it true. Should I not now be happy?”

“You should be, Merne, but are you?”

“I am well, and I find you still well and strong. My friend, Will Clark, has come back with me hearty as a boy. Everything has been fortunate with us. Look at me,” he demanded, turning and stretching out his mighty arms. “I am strong. My men all came through without loss or injury—the splendid fellows! It is wonderful that in risks such as ours we met with no ill fortune.”

“Yes, but are you happy? Turn your face to me.”

But he did not turn his face.

“I told my friend, William Clark,” he said lightly, as he rose, “to join me here after an hour or so. I think I see his party coming now. York rides ahead, do you see? He is a free negro now—he will have stories enough to set all our blacks idle for a month. I must go down to meet Will and our other guests.”

William Clark, bubbling over with his own joy of life, set all the household in a whirl. There was nothing but cooking, festivity, dancing, hilarity, so long as he remained at Locust Hill.

But the mother of Meriwether Lewis looked with jealous eye on William Clark. Success, glory, honor, fame, reward—these now belonged to Meriwether Lewis, to them both, his mother knew. But why did not his laugh sound high like that of his friend? Her eyes followed her son daily, hourly, until at last she surrendered him to his duty when he declared he could no longer delay his journey to Washington.

Spick and span, cap-a-pie, pictures of splendid young manhood, the two captains rode one afternoon up to the great gate before the mansion house of the nation. Lewis looked about him at scenes once familiar; but in the three years and a half since he had seen it last the raw town had changed rapidly.

Workmen had done somewhat upon the Capitol building yonder, certain improvements had been made about the Executive Mansion itself; but the old negro men at the gate and at the door of the house were just as he had left them. And when, running on ahead of his companion, he knocked at Mr. Jefferson’s office door—flinging it open, as he did so, with the freedom of his old habit—he looked in upon a familiar sight.

Thomas Jefferson was sitting bent over his desk, as usual littered with a thousand papers. The long frame of his multigraph copying-machine was at one side. Folded documents lay before him, unfinished briefs upon the other side; a rack of goose quills and an open inkpot stood beyond. And on the top of the desk, spread out long and over all, lay a great map, whose identity these two young men easily could tell—the Lewis and Clark map sent back from the Mandan country! Thomas Jefferson had kept it at his desk every day since it had come to him, more than two years before.

He turned now toward the door, casually, for he was used to the interruptions of his servants. What he saw brought him to his feet. He spread out his arms impulsively—he shook the hand of each in turn, drew them to him before he motioned them to seats. Never had Meriwether Lewis seen such emotion displayed by his chief.

“I could hardly wait for you!” said Mr. Jefferson. He began to pace up and down. “I knew it, I knew it!” he exclaimed. “Now they will call us constitutional, perhaps, since we have added a new world to our country! My son, that was our vision. You have proved it. You have been both dreamer and doer!”

He came up and placed a half playful hand on Meriwether Lewis’s shoulder.

“Did I know men, then?” he demanded.

“And did I, Mr. Jefferson? Captain Clark——”

“You do not say the title correctly! It is not Captain Clark, it is not Captain Lewis, that stand before me now. You are to have sixteen hundred acres of land, each of you. You, my son, will be Governor Lewis of the new Territory of Louisiana; and your friend is not Captain Clark but General Clark, agent of all the Indian tribes of the West!”

In silence the hand of each of the young men went out to the President. Then their own eyes met, and their hands. They were not to be separated after all—they were to work together yonder in St. Louis!

“Governor—General—I welcome you back! You will come back to your old rooms here in my family, Merne, and we will find a place for your friend. What we have here is at the service of both of you. You are the guests of the nation!”

CHAPTER XV MR. JEFFERSON’S ADVICE

“

Merne, my boy,” said Thomas Jefferson, when at length they two were alone once more in the little office, “I cannot say what your return means to me. You come as one from the grave—you resurrect another from the grave.”

“Meaning, Mr. Jefferson?——”

“You surely have heard that my administration is in sad disrepute? There is no man in the country hated so bitterly as myself. We are struggling on the very verge of war.”

“I heard some talk in the West, Mr. Jefferson,” hesitated Meriwether Lewis.

“Yes, they called this Louisiana Purchase, on which I had set my heart, nothing but extravagance. The machinations of Colonel Burr have added nothing to its reputation. General Jackson is with Burr, and many other strong friends. And meantime you know where Burr himself is—in the Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration! You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for which I have planned so much, your failure would have cost us all the Mississippi Valley, besides all the valley of the Missouri and the Columbia. Yes, had you not succeeded, Aaron Burr would have succeeded! Instead of a great republic reaching from ocean to ocean, we should have had a scattered coterie of States of no endurance, no continuity, no power. Thank God for the presence of one great, splendid thing gloriously done! You cannot, do not, begin to measure its importance.”

“We are glad that you have been pleased, Mr. Jefferson,” said Lewis simply.

“Pleased! Pleased! Say rather that I am saved! Say rather that this country is saved! Had you proved disloyal to me—had you for any cause turned back,” he went on, “think what had been the result! What a load, although you knew it not, was placed on your shoulders! Suppose that you had turned back on the trail last year, or the summer before—suppose you had not gotten beyond the Mandans—can you measure the difference for this republic? Can you begin to see what responsibility rested on you? Had you failed, you would have dragged the flag of your country in the dust. Had you come back any time before you did, then you might have called yourself the man who ruined his President, his friend, his country!”

“And I nearly did, Mr. Jefferson!” broke out Meriwether Lewis. “Do not praise me too much. I was tempted——”

The old man turned toward him, his face grave.

“You are honest! I value that above all in you—you are punctilious to have no praise not honestly won. Listen, now!” He leaned toward the young man, who sat beside him. “I know—I knew all along—how you were tempted. She came here—Theodosia—the very day you left!”

Lewis nodded, mute.

“In some way, I knew, the conspirators fought against your success and mine. I knew what agencies they intended to use against you—it was this woman! Had you failed, I should have known why. I know many things, whether or not you do. I know the character of Aaron Burr well enough. He has been crazed, carried away by his own ambitions—God alone knows where he would have stopped. He has been a man not surpassed in duplicity. He would stop at nothing. Moreover, he could make black look white. He did so for his daughter. She believed in him absolutely. And knowing somewhat of his plans, I imagined that he would use the attraction of that