CHAPTER XXIX
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 reënforcements 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.