54-40 or Fight
Page 3
CHAPTER III
IN ARGUMENT
The egotism of women is always for two.--_Mme. De Staeel_.
The thought of missing my meeting with Elisabeth still rankled in mysoul. Had it been another man who asked me to carry this message, I musthave refused. But this man was my master, my chief, in whose service Ihad engaged.
Strange enough it may seem to give John Calhoun any title showing loveor respect. To-day most men call him traitor--call him the manresponsible for the war between North and South--call him the archapostle of that impossible doctrine of slavery, which we all now admitwas wrong. Why, then, should I love him as I did? I can not say, exceptthat I always loved, honored and admired courage, uprightness,integrity.
For myself, his agent, I had, as I say, left the old Trist homestead atthe foot of South Mountain in Maryland, to seek my fortune in ourcapital city. I had had some three or four years' semi-diplomatictraining when I first met Calhoun and entered his service as assistant.It was under him that I finished my studies in law. Meantime, I was hismessenger in very many quests, his source of information in many matterswhere he had no time to go into details.
Strange enough had been some of the circumstances in which I foundmyself thrust through this relation with a man so intimately connectedfor a generation with our public life. Adventures were always to myliking, and surely I had my share. I knew the frontier marches ofTennessee and Alabama, the intricacies of politics of Ohio and New York,mixed as those things were in Tyler's time. I had even been as far westas the Rockies, of which young Fremont was now beginning to write sounderstandingly. For six months I had been in Mississippi and Texasstudying matters and men, and now, just back from Natchitoches, I feltthat I had earned some little rest.
But there was the fascination of it--that big game of politics. No, Iwill call it by its better name of statesmanship, which sometimes itdeserved in those days, as it does not to-day. That was a day ofWarwicks. The nominal rulers did not hold the greatest titles.Naturally, I knew something of these things, from the nature of my workin Calhoun's office. I have had insight into documents which neverbecame public. I have seen treaties made. I have seen the making ofmaps go forward. This, indeed, I was in part to see that very night, andcuriously, too.
How the Baroness von Ritz--beautiful adventuress as she was sometimescredited with being, charming woman as she was elsewhere described,fascinating and in some part dangerous to any man, as alladmitted--could care to be concerned with this purely political questionof our possible territories, I was not shrewd enough at that moment inadvance to guess; for I had nothing more certain than the rumor she wasEngland's spy. I bided my time, knowing that ere long the knowledge mustcome to me in Calhoun's office even in case I did not first learn morethan Calhoun himself.
Vaguely in my conscience I felt that, after all, my errand wasjustified, even though at some cost to my own wishes and my own pride.The farther I walked in the dark along Pennsylvania Avenue, into whichfinally I swung after I had crossed Rock Bridge, the more I realizedthat perhaps this big game was worth playing in detail and withoutquibble as the master mind should dictate. As he was servant of apurpose, of an ideal of triumphant democracy, why should not I alsoserve in a cause so splendid?
I was, indeed, young--Nicholas Trist, of Maryland; six feet tall, thin,lean, always hungry, perhaps a trifle freckled, a little sandy of hair,blue I suppose of eye, although I am not sure; good rider and goodmarcher, I know; something of an expert with the weapons of my time andpeople; fond of a horse and a dog and a rifle--yes, and a glass and agirl, if truth be told. I was not yet thirty, in spite of my westerntravels. At that age the rustle of silk or dimity, the suspicion ofadventure, tempts the worst or the best of us, I fear. Woman!--the verysound of the word made my blood leap then. I went forward ratherblithely, as I now blush to confess. "If there are maps to be madeto-night," said I, "the Baroness Helena shall do her share in writing onmy chief's old mahogany desk, and not on her own dressing case."
That was an idle boast, though made but to myself. I had not yet met thewoman.