The Rose of Old St. Louis Part 20

She and mademoiselle walked as far as the top of the bluff with me (I would not let them come farther, for the bank was steep and muddy), and then I said my good-by to mademoiselle. I raised her hand to my lips as I said it, and she looked straight into my eyes with eyes that shone with something brighter than smiles as she answered:

"Au revoir, monsieur!"

The captain of the keel-boat was shouting to us to make haste, and there was no time for another word; and I was glad to have it so, for another word might have made me indeed the boy Aunt f.a.n.n.y was always calling me.

The two boys, Mr. Thruston, and my captain went down to the boat with me (which proved to be a more comfortable one than I had dared to hope for), and Fatima having been coaxed aboard and quarters found for her in a warm shed, and my captain pressing my hand with an affectionate "Good-by, dear lad," that was once more near to my undoing, we were untied, and the men at the poles pushed hard and walked rapidly back to the stern, and the men at the cordelle pulled all together, with a long-drawn "Heave, ho, heave!" and we were off.

I stood in the stern watching the two figures on the bluff until one of them went away and there was only one, slender and of but little stature, with soft dark curls, and eyes whose tender glow I could feel long after the figure was but one indistinct blur, with a white hand waving farewell.

Then came another bend in the river and shut her from my sight. And there was naught left to me of Mademoiselle Pelagie but a memory of tears and smiles; of hard words and gentle ones; of cold looks and kind ones; of alternate hopes and fears on my side; of scorning and--yes, I believed it with all my heart--of scorning and loving on hers.

CHAPTER XVI

A VIRGINIA FARMER

"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear."

"What, Fatima! You refuse?"

I dismounted and led her carefully down the steep bank and on to the ferry-boat. She followed me very willingly, but I stood with my arm over her glossy neck, for I saw she eyed the water distrustfully, and while I had no fear of her being disobedient to my word of command, I knew it would comfort her to feel my arm about her neck. She neighed her appreciation, and gently rubbed her nostrils against my side, ever a token of affection with her. When the boat began to move, the two stalwart negroes pulling at their great oars and chanting dismally in time to their pulling, Fatima again showed signs of excitement, but I easily quieted her, and then I had leisure to use my eyes.

This crossing the Potomac to Was.h.i.+ngton reminded me vividly of crossing the Mississippi to St. Louis more than three months before.

Nor did the capital look more impressive at this distance than the village of St. Louis. Both were embowered in trees, and, but for the two imposing white buildings,--the President's Palace and the Capitol,--Was.h.i.+ngton was much the less prepossessing village of the two, and I thought how much more worthy was our own city of Philadelphia to be the capital of the nation.

Indeed, when I had led Fatima off the ferry, she sank over her fetlocks in mud, and I had to lead her some distance before I found ground firm enough to warrant my mounting her, lest my weight should make the poor creature flounder hopelessly in the mire.

I bore in my pocket a letter from Captain Clarke introducing me to Mr.

Meriwether Lewis, which he had written at Mulberry Hill, after the boat that was to bear me away was in sight, and also an address he had given me of a respectable innkeeper where I might find lodging. The inn was my first quest, and that once found and a suitable toilet made, I was eager to present my letter of introduction, and, if chance favored me, meet the President also.

It was still early, and the road I found myself upon (for it could not be called a street, since there were no pavements and only at long intervals a house) was filled with a well-dressed throng all wending their way in one direction. It seemed to me too early an hour for gentlemen to be seeking a place of amus.e.m.e.nt, and too late and the throng too generally well dressed to be on their way to business. Some were in coaches, with coachmen in livery on the box and footmen standing up behind, and some were on horseback and some on foot, but all, or nearly all, were wearing silk stockings and fine ruffled s.h.i.+rts and carefully powdered queues and s.h.i.+ning shoe-buckles.

A little stretch of brick sidewalk gave an air of distinction to a solidly built two-story house with sloping roof and dormer-windows, and in front of the house, on a stool planted on the curb, sat an old negro, bandy-legged, with snowy wool, industriously polis.h.i.+ng a row of shoes neatly arranged in front of him, and crooning happily a plantation melody as he worked. I drew Fatima to the curb.

"Good morning, uncle," I said as the negro slowly lifted his head, bowed over his brush. "Can you tell me who all these people are and where they are going?"

"Mohnen, marsa," the negro returned politely, and then looked at me with round-eyed astonishment. "Yo' dunno whar they's gwine? Why, sah, dey's de Senatahs and Represenatahs, sah, and dey gwine to de Cap'tul, sah."

Of course! It was very stupid of me not to have thought of it. The negro evidently thought so, too, but a sudden excuse suggested itself to him.

"Mought yo' be a stranger in Was.h.i.+ngton, sah?" with a glance of such undisguised pity for any barbarian who did not know the capital that I felt myself coloring, and to recover my self-respect a.s.sured him that I had set foot in this "domtiferous" mud-hole for the first time just fifteen minutes before.

He was greatly impressed with my emphatic word, and addressed me with much-increased respect.

"Den, sah, if I might be so libertious, p'r'aps yo' like me to p'int out de 'stinguished gen'lemen."

Nothing could have pleased me better, and I drew Fatima still closer to the curb while Bandy Jim--for that, he said, was his name--proceeded to point out the celebrities.

There was pa.s.sing at that moment a very elegant coach, with mounted postilions in pink plush and gold lace, and an exceedingly handsome man with an aristocratic face leaning back among the cus.h.i.+ons, his eyes half closed, as if mentally conning a speech for delivery in Congress. Bandy Jim did not wait for the eager question on the tip of my tongue.

"Dat, sah, is de welfiest and most 'stocratic gen'leman in Was.h.i.+ngton.

Dat am Mistah Gubernoor Morris of de gre't city of New York. I 'low he studying dis minnit on a speech 'bout de Mississippi Riber and dem Spanish men."

I looked at him again, more eagerly than before. I knew Gouverneur Morris well by reputation, though I had never seen him, as one of the most polished and scholarly men of the country, and the devoted friend of Hamilton, whom I idolized as all that was brilliant, great, and n.o.ble. But my eagerness was largely due to Bandy Jim's suggestion that they were discussing the Mississippi question in Congress, and as I looked more keenly I hoped he was on the right side, for I thought that broad white brow could think great thoughts and those clear-cut lips could utter them with force.

"Why do you think it will be on the Mississippi this morning, uncle?"

I inquired, amused that the old darky should seem to know the doings in Congress. "Do you go up to the Capitol to listen to the debates?"

"Sometimes, sah, but mos'ly I reads dem in de 'Post,' sah!" And the proud air with which he let me know of his unusual accomplishment beggars description.

"And so you can read, Uncle? And who taught you?"

"Ole Miss, sah. I's a free n.i.g.g.e.r, sah. Ole Miss gib me my papers so I mought stay wid my fambly when she follow de gin'ral and his father to Mulberry Hill in Kaintuck'."

I confess Bandy Jim seemed like an old friend at once when I found he had belonged to the Clarkes, and in my delight at seeing "one of the family" in a strange land, I slipped from Fatima's back and grasped him by the hand.

When he found I was just from Kentucky and Mulberry Hill, he was more excited than I, and especially was he eager for news of "Ma.r.s.e William."

"He mah baby, sah!" he repeated over and over, his old eyes s.h.i.+ning with visions of other days.

"An' Yorke, sah,--you know Yorke?--he mah son!" with great dignity and much evident pride in a son of such distinction.

I had many things to tell him of Yorke's prowess and address that pleased the old fellow greatly. I might also have recounted the many times when I had had all the will in the world to horsewhip the rascal, but I did not distress his old father with any of his shortcomings.

The morning was fast slipping away when I bethought me it was time to be looking up my lodging and making myself ready for my call at the President's Palace. I flung Bandy Jim a piece of gold and told him I would see him again. And then as I was in the act of mounting Fatima it occurred to me he could no doubt direct me.

"Can you tell me how to find the Mansion House, Uncle?"

"Right here, sah," grinning with delight; and sure enough, what had seemed to me the home of some respectable citizen proved to be mine inn. And a very good one indeed; for when Bandy Jim had called a boy to lead Fatima around the house to the stables in the rear, and another to take me in to the landlord, I found myself in as clean and comfortable a hostelry as one could hope to find. My chamber was a large square one, on the second landing, and from its windows I could catch glimpses through the bare trees of the white building on the hill that I knew was the Capitol.

And when a boy had brought my saddle-bags, Bandy Jim himself hobbled in to help me dress. He had been body-servant to both General Clarke and his father, and, old as he was, bent nearly double and dim of sight, his fingers were skilled for lacers and laces, for buckles and ribbons.

I thought I looked quite as a gentleman should for a morning call at the "White House," for that, I understand, is what Mr. Jefferson prefers to have the President's Palace called. Indeed, I have heard he very vehemently objects to having it called a palace at all. I was wearing a plain cloth habit of dark green with no lace at wrist or knee and only a small lace tie at the neck. My shoe-buckles were of the plainest silver, but Bandy Jim had polished them till they shone like new. I had some thoughts of deferring my visit until later in the day, when I might with a good grace have worn satin and velvet and fine lace ruffles, for I am afraid I was something of a beau in those days in my liking for dress. But bethinking me that the plainness of my costume would only be an additional recommendation in the eyes of the President, should I have the good fortune to meet him, I set off on Fatima's back, following the straight road, as Bandy Jim had directed.

A more forlorn village it has rarely been my lot to see: stretches of mud road with neither houses nor fields to outline it, and then for a block or more bare and ugly houses, hideous in their newness, not having even the grace of age to soften their ill proportions. I was glad mademoiselle was not there to gaze upon the capital of America with eyes that knew so well how to be scornful, and that would so soon find her own gay French capital so beautiful.

I was in the very act of saying to myself for the twentieth time, "Idiots and dolts, not to have selected beautiful Philadelphia for a nation's capital!" when there rode up beside me a farmer in plain, almost rough, clothes, but riding a magnificent horse. He was about to pa.s.s me (for I was riding slowly, out of respect to the mud, which might easily have bespattered me so that I would be in no condition for a call), but I hailed him:

"Are you going my way, my friend?"

"If you are going mine."

"I am going straight ahead to the President's Palace."

"And I to the White House, sir."