"Then the decision rests with Ellen alone. Should she choose you, I promise to give my sanction to her choice. But I fear there is small hope for either of us. Have you not heard her say that she intends to take the veil, to be a nun?"
"Yes, but I have never believed that she meant it in her heart of hearts, though she has deceived herself into thinking she does, by telling herself that it is her holy duty."
"She does not seem to me called to the vocation of a nun." I was smiling at the mere thought of the brilliant Ellen in a nunnery.
"Surely she is not, McElroy; could she be happy, think you, shut out from a world which interests her so fully? Your quiet valley, with its dull routine of duty and religion made her rebellious, then how would she endure life in a convent? No, she greatly misunderstands herself. I should rather, by far, see her your wife, McElroy, than to know that all her brilliancy and charms were hidden behind the chill walls of a convent."
"And I would far rather see her your wife than a nun."
"Then let us pledge mutual aid, thus far – that we will both use all the influence we may have with her to keep her from a convent. Shall we go now to see her, and bid her choose between us?"
"It does not seem to me to be the wisest course. Suppose she should absolutely refuse both of us? or even in case we can persuade her that she is not called to a convent life, and can induce her to make choice, suppose one of us should be killed in this attack upon Vincennes, and he the one she had chosen? Might she not afterwards feel it disloyal to the memory of that one to listen to the addresses of the other, and so be more than ever disposed to think herself set apart to virgin consecration? Let us leave the matter undecided until one or both of us return from Vincennes. I can trust you to take no less interest in my safety on that account, and you, I think, can likewise trust me. Should I fall, my rights in Ellen, such as they are, become yours. Should you be killed, I inherit your claim to her. Meantime both are pledged to use our utmost endeavors to keep her out of a convent – even though to do so, we must help the other to win her."
"Shrewdly said, McElroy," replied the Colonel, with a hearty laugh. "It is a true Scotch-Irishman's bargain you propose – many chances to win, few to lose. Your hand on it. Once more we are good friends, and loyal comrades, pledged together and twice over to two noble causes: one – the independence of the United States of America and the saving of the world for democracy, and the other – to preserve to the world the beauty, the wit, and the spirit of Ellen O'Neil."
CHAPTER XXII
I shall pass over the details of our arduous midwinter march of one hundred and sixty miles to Vincennes across swamps and flooded plains. Also any account of the three separate mutinies of our French recruits and the almost irreparable loss of our boat, the Willing, and consequent lack of food and rest while we worked feverishly, knee deep in water, building canoes.
The timely capture, after we had crossed the swollen river and reached firmer ground, of an Indian canoe loaded with buffalo meat, corn, and (strange circumstance) several large kettles, alone saved our men from starving and our hazardous attempt from total disaster. On the afternoon of the eighteenth day we reached Vincennes, and with our numerous flags, which through all the suffering of the march we had never relinquished, mounted on long poles, Clark disposed his little band in squads, and ordered them to march some distance apart and to follow the winding road (easily seen from the village, though hidden from the fort) to the town.
Not only did we meet with no resistance from the townspeople, but numbers of them offered to assist us in storming the fort. Tabac and his hundred Indians, who were camping near the town, likewise offered their services as allies.
When the firing upon Fort Sackville began, General Hamilton was in Captain Helm's quarters playing piquet with his prisoner, while the latter brewed upon the hearth his favorite beverage – a spiced apple toddy. Helm's room had been pointed out to us, and we aimed at his chimney. Soot and plaster came tumbling down, half filled the kettle and ruined the smoking drink. The players sprang to their feet.
"I'll wager it's Clark, and his riflemen, General," said the jovial Helm. "They'll take the fort, for they are the finest marksmen in the world. Meantime they've spoiled our toddy, d – 'em, and with malicious intent you may be sure; some villager has indicated my quarters to McElroy, I dare say, and he pays his respects to me, and announces their presence this way. D – their sure bullets and their rude jokes; wish we had drunk that toddy sooner. Now look at it!" and he held out a ladle full, gritty with dried mud, and black with soot.
"You are cool ones, you Americans," said Hamilton, with an uneasy laugh. "Pray, how do you suppose Clark would get his men here through these floods?"
"They swam, maybe – oh, Clark and his riflemen are equal to anything. Might as well run up your white flag, General, and be done the sooner with this unpleasant business; we can finish our game then, and have Clark in to help drink my second brewing – he's good at that as at fighting; we'll make a jolly party."
"Curse your impudence, Helm! I'll not surrender the fort while there's a man to the guns!" and Hamilton departed, sputtering with angry excitement.
All night brisk firing was kept up on both sides; at the same time detachments of us worked like beavers to make a trench about a hundred yards in front of the main gate. Early next morning Clark sent in a flag with a bold demand for surrender, and during the respite afforded by its reception the men ate a hearty breakfast, provided by the well disposed townspeople. It was the first meal they had had in five days. This was the message sent by Clark under his flag of truce, and it is so characteristic of the man that I quote it verbatim:
"Sir – In order to save yourself from the impending storm that now threatens you, I order you immediately to surrender yourself with all your garrison, stores, etc., etc. For if I am obliged to storm, you may depend on such treatment as is justly due a murderer. Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that are in your possession, for, by Heaven, if you do, there shall be no mercy shown you.
"G. R. Clark."
An angry and scornful refusal was returned by General Hamilton to this stern demand, and the firing was renewed. Wherever a port-hole was open, a dozen rifles were aimed upon it, and the bullets poured through like hail; the gunners were killed as fast as they were sent to the guns. Even the cracks in the walls afforded targets to the death-dealing bullets of the riflemen, and more than one of the garrison fell pierced through the eye.
The afternoon of the second day brought a flag of truce from General Hamilton, asking for a cessation of hostilities for three days, and a conference with Colonel Clark at the fort. Clark refused the terms offered by Hamilton, but agreed to a conference in the village church. At this conference Clark's bold determination again won, and next morning Fort Sackville was surrendered, with all its stores and supplies, and General Hamilton and his garrison became prisoners of war.
This was on the twenty-fifth day of February, 1779. It is a date deserving enrollment among eventful days of American history. Henceforth the Northwest was Virginia territory, until ceded by her to the Union. In the negotiations which preceded the final treaty with England, it was this fact – that Virginia troops had fought for, and conquered the right bank of the Mississippi – which gave potency to the claim of our commissioners, that the Father of Waters and not the Alleghanies, or the Ohio, was our rightful boundary line on the west.
Among our Revolutionary heroes, George Rogers Clark should stand high, not only because of his daring and his achievements, but because of the important and far-reaching results of his conquest.
In the last few years, observing the rapidity with which our vast Western territory is being settled and civilized, noting the rapid increase of its population and prosperity, I begin to set a true value upon the importance of this territory to the republic. Not only has it given us room for necessary expansion, but it has quickened all our energies, kindled our imaginations, and furnished a safe outlet for the vigorous, throbbing life of our young nation. Moreover, there is no way to calculate the important part this common territory has played in uniting, into a firm and reasonable union, the several States of America. It gave us a common interest, at a time when we thought our state interests divergent; furnished us a means of satisfying with land grants our discontented and unpaid soldiers; and is teaching us, through experience learned in governing a joint possession, broad principles of democratic government. In truth, the more I think upon it, the more highly I rate the achievement of George Rogers Clark – in which those of my race bore a worthy part.
"Since fate has not ended our rivalry for us, McElroy," said Clark – when affairs had been satisfactorily settled at Vincennes, Helm reinstated with a somewhat larger garrison, and the other troops ready to return to Kaskaskia – "the decision rests still with Queen Eleanor. We must force her to a choice, somehow, and certainty is preferable to this suspense."
"The sooner we know her decision the better I shall be suited," I responded, "for, now that my year's parole has expired, I am eager to get back to the regular service, especially as reënforcements from Virginia can now be counted upon. Moreover, you are not likely to need a large force to enable you to hold what we have won."
"I agree with you," replied Clark. "You have stood by me and the enterprise, like a brave man, and a true comrade, McElroy, and I am glad our business is finished before your duty calls you back to Virginia. You have been my right hand, though all my officers and men have alike acquitted themselves nobly, from first to last."
"With a leader such as we have had, only worthy conduct is possible," I said, my eyes suddenly dim.
"Thank you for that word, McElroy. That worthy men should deem me a worthy leader, is all the praise I ask. And whatever may come between us in the future, comrade, let us not forget that we have stood together in peril and in suffering, have shared risks and dangers in a cause dear to the hearts of both – not even the love of woman should separate comrades such as we have been."
"Nor shall it," I answered earnestly. "God bear me witness, Clark, that I shall feel no malice should Ellen's heart answer to yours. I shall wish you both happiness in all sincerity, and seek solace in my duty."
"No fear, McElroy; you have the sturdiest and best traits of a noble people. I have some of them, doubtless, as my Saxon blood gives me right, but mixed, I fear, with a strain of wildness. I doubt if the anchors of duty are strong enough to hold me to a wise, sane life – unless Ellen's love shall help to weight them. As you have said, comrade, an adventurous, reckless life has strong temptation for me; therefore, if Ellen's love is not for me – and I forebode it is not, though I'm not yet ready to resign all hope – I shall take it for a sign that a kind fate is sparing her the woeful doom of a drunkard's wife." He added, after a brief pause, during which a deep melancholy settled upon his face, "Sometimes a man is doomed from his birth; from the beginning he moves on to a prefixed destiny, and all his struggles to save himself from the end he fears, avail nothing."
My reply combatted Clark's fatalism with all the arguments I could command, but I soon saw that his views on the subject of his destiny were fixed; that with all his cheerful courage, and calculating boldness, there was in his nature that strange vein of superstition or fatalism which has marked so many military heroes: – Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, Robert Bruce, Frederick the Great, and others less renowned. Nor can one lay the fatalistic views Clark held to the charge of his religion. Though Scotch-Irish by birth, he knew no more of Presbyterian doctrines than did Father Gibault, and he had no religious principles.
Clark, as I have said, was a fatalist, though he had no religion. I was and am a Presbyterian, yet I have always believed in cause and effect, the working of natural laws to natural ends. Nevertheless, though it be apparently a contradiction, I believe in an overruling Providence, and the care of God over the most insignificant of His creatures. Therefore, when I knew myself to be ill, on that last day of our return march, and said to Clark, "It seems, after all, comrade, as if fate meant to settle this matter of rivalry between us," I meant it not as it was said, but as Clark might look upon it. My future lay, I knew, in God's hands, and even in that hour of evil apprehension – for I realized that my illness would be a long and serious one – I felt satisfied to leave it there, and to trust my life and Ellen's to His guidance.
A faith that can sustain a man, and leave him calm and undismayed in each crisis of his life, is worth much to him – call it by what name or sect, distinguish it by whatsoever creed, you will. And these small variations of our small minds, are, I conceive, little taken into account by the Infinite, who knows we are but children, in mental and spiritual development, and values our faith and our honest striving without regard to the creeds with which we confuse ourselves.
CHAPTER XXIII
Beyond this comforting assurance of my religion, there was but one idea floating through my confused and fever-consumed brain, and that was a longing vision rather than an idea – a vision of my mother's downy, rose-scented beds; and then, as next best, of the heaps of feathers, covered with gay Indian blankets, which constituted the pride of the Kaskaskian homes. Oh, to feel a thick pillow under my head, to stretch my aching limbs on the yielding feathers! It was the one thing in life I wanted. I longed for rest as a tired infant longs for his mother's soft breast, and tender arms. The hope of it alone gave me courage to drag my weighted feet over the last two miles of our way.
It was a little strange that the realization of the bliss of repose was my first conscious thought after an illness of many days, so that I could never realize that more than a night had intervened between the longing and the realization, the agony and the relief. My first conscious moment lasted just long enough for me to appreciate the comfort of my couch; almost immediately I sank again into sleep or unconsciousness. The next time I came to myself I was not only wide awake, but alert and curious as I opened my eyes to note my surroundings. They were rough limed walls with a low sloping ceiling; bright-hued Indian rugs were upon the floor, and half-burned logs on heavy dog-irons, with sputtering candle ends, burning upon a round stand, in the farthest corner. In the shadow of the corner sat a figure, its head against the wall. Some one had been good enough to sit up all the night with me, and now that day was breaking, his eyes could be kept open no longer, and he had fallen into a doze. I would be very quiet and not wake him.
Presently the figure stirred, rose and came to the bedside. I recognized Clark, even in the dimness of the gray dawn.
"You have been watching me, my Colonel?" I questioned, trying to smile, and to put out the hand that was too feeble to answer to my will. Clark came closer, saw my purpose, gave my hand a warm pressure, and lifted me a little higher on my pillows.
"Have I been very ill?" I asked.
"You have been near enough the happy hunting ground to know the way, my lad. But, thank God, you are better, and will live long enough, I trust, to forget the route before you take another journey in that direction."
"Where are we?"
"In Kaskaskia, in one of the loft rooms of the Commandant's house."
"Is Ellen below?"
"Yes, and asleep, I hope; she and Angélique tend you by day, Légère, Givens and I by night; but you must not talk yet a while; that's Dr. Lafonte's orders. Drink this and go to sleep."
I obeyed like a child, settling myself deeper in the feathers, with a sigh of content.
Upon my third awaking, I recognized Ellen's voice, and felt her soft hand upon my brow.
"Ellen!" I whispered, and opened my eyes to look at the face bending above mine with the rapture a saint might feel upon seeing some beatific vision, long prayed for.
"Do not talk, Cousin Donald," she said, beaming a smile of cheerful affection upon me; "Dr. Lafonte says you must be very quiet for a few days more."
I managed, despite my weakness, to get hold of her hand, and clung to it feebly. "I will be perfectly quiet," I answered in tones so weak that I wondered if it could be really I who was speaking, "if you will sit beside me and hold my hand."
She smiled, flushed a little, and as she held a glass of cordial to my lips said coaxingly, "If you'll drink this and go to sleep, I will." Then she sat down beside me, and held my nerveless fingers in her warm, soft clasp, till I was dreaming an odd jumble of pleasant visions through all of which flitted Ellen's face and form.
This sort of half dream life went on I know not how long. I only remember an incident here and there – floating faces, cups held to my lips, and then the pleasant drifting off into long periods of dreamless rest. At last I was strong enough to sit part of each day in a high-backed chair, and after that I saw little of Ellen. She came twice each day for a brief visit, but Angélique brought my broth and wine, helped me from bed to chair, smoothed my pillows, and sometimes sang me to sleep with wild, sweet Acadian ballads. Clark came in and out with cheery presence, and encouraging words – but now that summer had come again he had more affairs to administer, and so less time to give me. Givens would linger, though, when he came on his daily visit, to tell me the gossip of the village, of which the half wild, half drowsy life suited him well. Légère and others visited me almost daily, and my monotonous life was not a lonely one, though forced inaction grew more and more irksome as my strength returned.
"Clark," I said to him one day, "I can't stand this suspense any longer. I want to know all, even if it be the worst. Since I am better, Ellen comes in only when others are here, and makes prompt excuses to get away. Her kindness is barely cousinly. And you too seem to avoid being left alone with me. Have you spoken to Ellen?"
"Yes, I have spoken – though to do so, comported not fairly with our compact. But my feelings overmastered me. I have avoided telling you till you should be stronger."
"I am strong enough now," I answered, though I trembled from head to foot; "tell me all – and quickly."
"It was one evening when we thought you dying. I followed her from the room, and was moved to tell her your last words to me – when you left her to my care, and bade me give her perfect freedom in the disposition of her life, but left us your blessing could she love me enough to link her fate with mine. She wept afresh at the recital of your words; and then with friendly candor there was no mistaking, thanked me for my love, and accepted my offer of protection, even while she told me that whether you lived or died there was no hope for me. Her quiet decision awed me, and forced back all the protestations I had formulated against her vow of nunnery. She declared it was no rash or hasty one, made to be repented of, but that she held it to be more sacred and binding than any other claim upon her heart and life, and that she waited only for your restoration to health to go, under Father Gibault's escort, and yours, if you would, to the convent at Quebec."
"Comrade," I said, putting out my shaking hand to clasp his, "that is not the news I expected – but it is much more distressing to me."
"Perhaps I am wrong to tell you, and am but making the harder for you the final disappointment," continued Clark after a silence of some moments, during which he seemed to be thinking deeply, "but I am not convinced that Ellen looks forward to the life of a nun. I believe she once made a foolish vow and thinks it sacrilege to break it. And if I can read a woman's heart through her face, McElroy, Ellen O'Neil feels for you a tenderness that is neither usual nor natural for a woman to feel towards one she regards only as a distant kinsman. I believe she loves you – yet I cannot honestly say I think you will win her. Her will is strong, and her religion has so far been the dominant principle of her life. One side of her nature is fitted to the martyr's role, the other side is strongly human – throbs with the full current of youth, loves daring and doing, experiencing and enjoying, even as you and I. Which part of her complex nature will triumph I cannot foresee. This I can say honestly, comrade," and Clark laid a hand upon my knee, and his truth-speaking eyes looked straight into mine, "even with my own grievous disappointment fresh upon me, I would see Ellen the happy and joy-giving wife of my true-hearted friend with delight, compared to the feeling with which I shall see her the self-immolated 'bride of the church' – which is, in my opinion, but another name for victim to superstition and priestly tyranny. The fates grant that you may win her, McElroy."
An hour I sat in deep thought – then I made my vow. If in Ellen's heart there dwelt but the weakest germ of love for me, it should grow on until it uprooted all other influences. I bade the whole Roman Church defiance. A girl's superstition to come between Ellen and her life's fulfillment? between me and lifelong happiness? I swore it should not be! She should love me more and more till love mastered her, choking superstition and conquering her will. Once convinced, she would see it all as I did, and be glad all her life that I had saved her from a fatal mistake. I girded myself afresh for the conflict, as it were, each hour of the days that followed, and planned my campaign against a maiden's heart as carefully as a general plans an advance into the enemy's country. My first move must be to keep her from reaching a final decision as long as possible; my second to take her, upon some pretext, back to the valley with me.
Meanwhile I hastened my recovery by every means possible, watching impatiently the summer moving on to autumn. From my window I could see the slow, gliding river, glancing in the sun's rays, and the stagnant, spreading bayous, gay with spotted lilies, and fringed with swaying grasses, while birds, as gayly colored as the blossoms, rode blithely upon the springy reeds. The meadows were green with waving corn, or yellow with the ripened grass, and the rich odor of the wild grapes came upon the breeze with other and more elusive fragrances. But gliding river, reed-fringed bayou, and luxuriant meadow, were not half so fair to my real vision as the dear valley to my imaginary one. I longed to see the undulating blue ranges, and the varied landscape, with the comfortable farmhouses dotted over it. I was eager to be off for home, to hear the late news from the war, and to bear Ellen away from Romish influences.
At last spirit could wait the body's leisure no longer, and though still weak and emaciated, I made a firm resolve to start for home within a week or two. Then I sent Angélique with a message to Ellen, demanding a private interview.
"Your message is earnest, almost peremptory, Cousin Donald," said Ellen, coming in with a playful smile on her lips; "am I to have another scolding, and for what? My conscience acquits me this time; I have stopped coquetting with the officers, or walking alone without the village; therefore I know not what wrong I have done to deserve a kinsman's reprimand."
"'Tis not to scold, but to entreat that I have sent for you, Ellen," I replied. "Will you sit down here before me, and give me your serious attention for a brief while?" Perhaps it was the tone of my voice, or it may have been that my face betrayed me, for Ellen flushed and dropped her lids an instant over her eyes, as she took the chair I had indicated, yet saying with an air of banter:
"My 'serious attention,' Cousin Donald? You plead for it as if 'twere a rare favor, and one most difficult to obtain; – am I so seldom serious?"
"Two weeks from to-day, Ellen, I start back to Virginia," ignoring her playful manner; "my duty calls me thither; but I cannot leave you here in Kaskaskia without lawful guardian or protector. You have long known, Ellen, that I love you with my whole being, that the dearest and most sacred wish of my heart is to make you my wife. Will you marry me, Ellen, and go back to Virginia to a home of your own, with the protection and constant devotion of one whose whole life shall be dedicated to your happiness?"
The flush on Ellen's cheeks leaped upward to her brow in a flame of crimson; her eyes grew darker; and upon her face came a look of mingled sorrow, yearning and resolve.
"Oh, my cousin, have I not said it often enough," with the sob-suggesting catch, vibrating like harp tones through her words – "that never can I be wife to any man? Do even you believe that all this time I have been jesting on a subject so sacred – that I have but used pretense of holy calling as a coquettish wile to lure men on? Yet how can I find fault with you for having thought so, since my life has so belied my words? I have been naught but a frivolous coquette these months past – as if I would get all of worldly triumph, and food for vanity possible out of my life, during the respite which circumstances have afforded me from the fulfillment of my vow. Mine has been lip service, only, not yet have I known true heart consecration. But I will know it, Donald, will possess the true nun's heart, if all of self must be immolated by hourly chastisement and self-denial to achieve it. I have solemnly pledged my life to prayer, and penance, and holy service. Will not you, Cousin Donald, my only friend and protector, my one source of human strength, help me to keep my vow to God?" and she clasped her hands in passionate entreaty, and lifted moist eyes and trembling lips to my serious gaze.
"Dear Ellen!" and I spoke with a new emotion of respect for the depth of her feeling, "I want more than aught else to help you, but I do not fully understand, nor see the reason for your being so determined, and feeling so strongly – will you not tell me all, so that I can better understand you? When was this vow you speak of made?"
"That bitter night I was lost upon the mountain, when, numb with cold, and shaken with terror of the wolves pursuing us, I fell from the rearing horse, frightened too by the wild beasts, and lay there in agony of fear and pain, through long hours, listening to the wolves, as they chased the poor horse, and each moment expecting to feel their fangs in my flesh. I prayed as never I had prayed before, to the Holy Virgin and her sacred Son, promising to consecrate all the rest of my life to prayer and humble service, in some rigorous convent, if they would send me deliverance from a violent death. Even as I prayed I fell into sleep, or unconsciousness, and awoke in Father Givens' house. He nursed me back to health, and I had it in my mind to induce him to take me to Baltimore to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, had you not come by with the message from Mr. Jefferson. I saw the scout's desire was to go with you, and I would not stand between him and his wish. Already he had done too much for a willful girl who had no claim upon his charities, save the claim of common humanity. I gave all my energies to persuading him that a life of adventure appealed to me even more strongly than the life of a convent retreat, and so fed his inclination to join in the adventure that he could not resist it. At last he consented to purchase for me the coveted disguise as his foster son, and when once he had seen me wear it, and watched my rifle practice, he grew interested in my plans, and made no further difficulty.
"For the first weeks I was buoyed by the spirit of excitement, and enjoyed the free, outdoor life I had been accustomed to as a child. Not until you and Thomas joined us did I realize the boldness of my deed. I dreaded to have you find me out, yet I could not bear to be left behind in Kentucky. What the result might be haunted my thoughts and my dreams. Again I added daily vows to daily prayers. Were I safely delivered once more, delivered from the coil of questionable circumstances with which I had rashly surrounded myself, I would without delay, find my way to some peaceful convent and atone for all my willful past by years of devout consecration. You know how wonderfully I was delivered – was spared even blame or question; how fortunately I have since been placed.
"Were not all my prayers heard and answered? Dare I then break my vows – lie to the holy Virgin and her sacred Son? Accept divine deliverance, and repay with broken promises, violated oaths? Could you love and trust a wife who would come to you with a sacrilege upon her conscience?"
"My dear one!" answering her solemnly, as she had spoken, and taking the fluttering fingers firmly in my own to still them; "I will not ask you to violate a vow you regard so sacredly. I will live all my life with an unsatisfied longing, an aching, hungry heart, rather than to say one word to urge you against your conscience. But I think you reason and feel morbidly. Is there no other life of consecration to God's service for a woman than that to be found behind convent walls? Think you the life of wife and mother less holy, less self-sacrificing, of less savory incense to God than that of a nun?
"What service can a nun render to God that a consecrated wife and mother may not offer Him? Prayer? Does not the wife pray with added fervor – for herself, that she may live a worthy exemplar to those she loves – for them, with more earnest zeal because love prompts each petition – and for all the world more fervently because those she lives for are a part of it. Deeds of unselfish charity? Are they less in God's sight, believe you, than the daily immolation of her own wishes which each true wife practices upon the altar of domestic duty. And what need we most in this new world? Is it not consecrated men and women to spend all the powers of their being for peace, purity and enlightenment? We hope to found in this virgin land a wondrous republic where freedom of conscience and equal opportunities will be offered to the downtrodden of all nations. But we may not hope to perpetuate such republic, unless there be noble women – women of the unusual intelligence and gifts with which God has honored you – to strive with us toward that ideal."