A Soldier of Virginia Part 24

"At least," he said at last, turning back to us with a smile, "it were better to have died than to have lived. I am glad I do not have to live."

He soon lapsed again into delirium, and seemed to be living over a second time a meeting with some woman.

"Dear Pop," he said, "we are sent like sacrifices to the altar. They have given me a handful of men and expect me to conquer whole nations. I know that I shall never see you more. Good-by, Pop, and G.o.d bless you."

Orme turned away for a moment to master his emotion.

"'T was his last night in London," he said when he could speak. "He was to set out on the morrow, and he asked Colonel Burton and myself to go with him to visit a very dear protegee of his, George Anne Bellamy, the actress, to whom, I think, he has left all his property. He used to her almost the same words he has just repeated."

"So he had doubts of his success," said Was.h.i.+ngton musingly. "Well, he was a brave man, for he never permitted them to be seen."

He was fast growing weaker. His voice faltered and failed, and he lay without movement in his litter, continuing so until eight o'clock in the evening. We had halted for the night, and had gathered about his couch, watching him as his breathing grew slowly fainter. At last, when we thought him all but gone, he opened his eyes, and seeing the ring of anxious faces about him, smiled up at them.

"It is the end," he said quietly. "You will better know how to deal with them next time;" and turning his head to one side, he closed his eyes.

We buried him at daybreak. The grave was dug in the middle of the road, so that the wagons pa.s.sing over it might efface all trace of its existence and preserve it inviolate from the hands of the Indians. Our chaplain, Mr. Hughes, had been severely wounded, so it was Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton who read the burial service. I shall not soon forget that scene,--the open grave in the narrow roadway, the rude coffin draped with a flag, the martial figure within in full uniform, his hands crossed over the sword on his breast, the riderless charger neighing for its master, and the gray light of the morning over it all. The burial service has never sounded more impressively in my ears than it did as read that morning, in Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton's strong, melodious voice, to that little group of listening men, in the midst of the wide, unbroken, whispering forest. How often have I heard those words of hope and trust in G.o.d's promise to His children, and under what varying circ.u.mstances!

We lowered him into the grave, and lingered near until the earth was heaped about it. Then the drums beat the march, the wagons rolled over it, and in half an hour no trace of it remained. So to this day, he lies there undisturbed in the heart of the wilderness, in a grave which no man knows. Others have railed at him,--have decried him and slandered him,--but I remember him as he appeared on that last day of all, a brave and loyal gentleman, not afraid of death, but rather welcoming it, and the memory is a sweet and dear one. If he made mistakes, he paid for them the uttermost penalty which any man could pay,--and may he rest in peace.

Of the remainder of that melancholy flight little need be said. We struggled on through the wilderness, bearing our three hundred wounded with us as best we could, and marking our path with their shallow graves, as they succ.u.mbed one after another to the hards.h.i.+ps of the journey. On the twenty-second day of July we reached Fort c.u.mberland, and I learned with amazement that Dunbar did not propose to stop here, although he had placed near a hundred and fifty miles between him and the enemy, but to carry his whole army to Philadelphia, leaving Virginia open to Indian and French invasion by the very road which we had made. He alleged that he must go into winter quarters, and that, too, though it was just the height of summer. Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton ventured to protest against this folly, but was threatened with court-martial, and came out of Dunbar's quarters red with anger and chagrin.

And sure enough, on the second of August, Dunbar marched away with all his effective men, twelve hundred strong, leaving at the fort all his sick and wounded and the Virginia and Maryland troops, over whom he attempted to exercise no control. I bade good-by to Orme and Allen and such other of the officers as I had met. Colonel Burton took occasion to come to me the night before he marched, and presented me with a very handsome sword in token of his grat.i.tude, as he said, for saving his life,--an exploit, as I pointed out to him, small enough beside a hundred others that were done that day.

The sword he gave me hangs above my desk as I write. I am free to confess that I have performed no great exploits with it, and when I took it down from its hook the other day to look at it, I found that it had rusted in its scabbard.

CHAPTER XXI

VIRGINIA BIDS US WELCOME

"To my mind, there is only one thing to be done. That is to retire."

The speaker was Colonel Henry Innes, commandant of the fort, but as he looked up and down the row of faces opposite him, he saw few which showed a.s.sent. Scarcely had the rear-guard of Dunbar's troops disappeared among the trees which lined the narrow military road, when Colonel Innes had called this meeting of the officers left at the fort, "to decide," as the summons put it, "on our future course of action." As if, I thought indignantly to myself, there could be any question as to what our future course of action should be.

"We are left here," continued the speaker, in a louder voice and growing somewhat red in the face, "with scarce five hundred men, all provincials, and most of them unfit for service. A great part of the army's equipment has been abandoned or destroyed back there in the woods. In short, we are so weak that we can hope neither to advance against the enemy nor to repel an a.s.sault, should they march against us in force, as they are most like to do."

For a moment there was an ominous silence.

"May I ask what it is you propose, Colonel Innes?" asked Captain Waggoner at last.

"I propose to abandon the place," replied Innes, "and to fall back to Winchester or some other point where our wounded may lie in safety and our men have opportunity to recover from the fatigues of the campaign."

Again there was a moment's silence, and all of us, as by a common impulse, glanced at Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, who sat at one end of the table, his head bowed in gloomy thought. The fever, which he had shaken off for a time, had been brought back by the arduous work he had insisted on performing, and he was but the shadow of his former self. He felt our eyes upon him and suddenly raised his head.

"Do you really antic.i.p.ate that the French will march against us, Colonel Innes?" he asked quietly. "There were scarce three hundred of them at the fort three weeks ago, hardly enough for an expedition of such moment, and it is not likely that they can be reinforced to undertake any campaign this summer."

"There would be little danger from the French themselves," retorted Innes, with an angry flush, "but they will undoubtedly rally the Indians, and lead them against us along the very road which Braddock cut over the mountains. Fort c.u.mberland stands at one end of that road."

Was.h.i.+ngton smiled disdainfully.

"I have heard of few instances," he said, "where Indians have dared attack a well-manned fortification, and of none where they have captured one. To retreat from here would be to leave our whole frontier open to their ravages, and would be an act of cowardice more contemptible than that which Colonel Dunbar performed this morning, when he marched his troops away."

I had never seen him so moved, and I caught the infection of his anger.

"Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton is right!" I cried hotly. "Our place is here."

Innes did not so much as look at me. His eyes were on Was.h.i.+ngton, and his face was very red.

"Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton," he sneered, his lips curling away from his teeth with rage, "was, I believe, an aide on the general's staff. Since the general is dead, that position no longer exists. Consequently, Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton is no longer an officer of the army, and I fail to see what right he has to take part in this discussion."

Half a dozen of us were on our feet in an instant, but Was.h.i.+ngton was before us and waved us back with a motion of his hand.

"Colonel Innes is right," he said, his deep-set eyes gleaming like two coals of fire. "I am no longer an officer of the army, and I thank G.o.d this is so, since it is about to further disgrace itself."

"Take care, sir," cried Innes, springing to his feet. "You forget there is such a thing as court-martial."

"And you forget that I am no longer of the army, and so can defy its discipline."

He stood for a moment longer looking Innes in the eyes, and then, without saluting, turned on his heel and left the place. A moment later the council broke up in confusion, for Innes saw plainly that the sentiment of nearly all the other officers present was against him, and he did not choose to give it opportunity of expression. I had scarcely reached my quarters when I received a note from his secretary stating that as the mortality among the Virginia companies had been so heavy, it had been decided to unite the three into one, and my lieutenancy was therefore abolished. Trembling with anger, I hurried to Was.h.i.+ngton's quarters and laid the note before him.

"Why, Tom," he said, with a short laugh, after he had read it, "we seem to have fallen into disgrace together. But come," he added more cheerfully, seeing my downcast face, "do not despair. We may yet win out.

The governor and the House of Burgesses will not receive so quietly this project to retire from the frontier. I had a letter from Dinwiddie but the other day, in which he said as much. In the mean time, I am going home to Mount Vernon to rest, and you must come with me."

I accepted readily enough, for I knew not what else to do, and on the morrow we set out. Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton was so ill that we could proceed but slowly. We finally reached Winchester, and from there, because of the better road, crossed the river to Frederick, where a great surprise awaited us. For scarcely were we off our horses at the little tavern, than the host, learning our names, rushed away down the wide, rambling street, crying the news aloud, to our great wonderment, who saw not why it should interest any one. In an incredibly short time, above a hundred people had gathered before the inn, cheering and hallooing with all their might, while we looked at them in dumb amazement. We sent for the host to learn what this might mean, thinking doubtless there was some mistake, and even as he entered, a dozen men burst into the room, and insisted that we should not be permitted for a moment to think of putting up at an inn, but should accompany them home.

"But, gentlemen," protested Was.h.i.+ngton, "you have mistaken us for some one else. We have done nothing to deserve your hospitality."

"Have you not?" they cried, and they hustled us out into the yard. There was no denying them, so off we rode again, greatly bewildered, and in the course of half an hour were being introduced by our self-appointed entertainer to his wife and three pretty daughters.

"'T is Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, you understand, wife," he cried. "Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, whose advice, had it been followed, would have saved the expedition."

A great light broke upon me. So my friend's merits were to be recognized at last,--were to win him something more than contumely and insult,--and as he would have made denial, I cut him short.

"Do not listen to him!" I cried. "'T is true, every word of it, and much more besides."

Whereat the girls smiled at me very sweetly, our host wrung my hand again, and I swear there were tears in Was.h.i.+ngton's eyes as he looked at me in feigned anger. Such a night's entertainment as was given us I shall not soon forget, nor Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton either, I dare say. Word of our presence had got about the neighborhood with singular speed, and the people flocked in by dozens, until the great hallway, which ran through the house from front to rear, was crowded from end to end. Then, nothing would do but that Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton must tell the story of the advance, the ambuscade, and the retreat, which he did with such consummate slighting of his own part in the campaign that I interrupted him in great indignation, and, unheeding his protests, related some of the things concerning him which I have already written, and which, I swear, were very well received.

"But Lieutenant Stewart says nothing of what he himself did," cried Was.h.i.+ngton, when I had finished.

"Because I did nothing worth relating," I retorted, my cheeks hot with embarra.s.sment at the way they looked at me.

"Ask him how he won that sword he wears at his side," he continued, not heeding my interruption, his eyes twinkling at my discomfiture. "Believe me, 'tis not many Virginia officers can boast such a fine one."

And then, of course, they all demanded that he tell the story, which he did with an exaggeration that I considered little less than shameful.

In some mysterious manner, tankards of cold, bitter Dutch beer, the kind that is so refres.h.i.+ng after a journey or at the close of a hot day's work, had found their way into the right hand of every man present, and as Was.h.i.+ngton ended the story and I was yet denying, our host sprang to his feet.