The Crossing

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER VII. I MEET A HERO

  When left to myself, I was wont to slide into the commonplace; and wheremy own dull life intrudes to clog the action I cut it down here andpare it away there until I am merely explanatory, and not too muchin evidence. I rode out the Wilderness Trail, fell in with othertravellers, was welcomed by certain old familiar faces at Harrodstown,and pressed on. I have a vivid recollection of a beloved, vigorousfigure swooping out of a cabin door and scattering a brood of childrenright and left. “Polly Ann!” I said, and she halted, trembling.

  “Tom,” she cried, “Tom, it’s Davy come back;” and Tom himself flew outof the door, ramrod in one hand and rifle in the other. Never shall Iforget them as they stood there, he grinning with sheer joy as of yore,and she, with her hair flying and her blue gown snapping in the wind,in a tremor between tears and laughter. I leaped to the ground, andshe hugged me in her arms as though I had been a child, calling my nameagain and again, and little Tom pulling at the skirts of my coat. Icaught the youngster by the collar.

  “Polly Ann,” said I, “he’s grown to what I was when you picked me up, afoundling.”

  “And now it’s little Davy no more,” she answered, swept me a courtesy,and added, with a little quiver in her voice, “ye are a gentleman now.”

  “My heart is still where it was,” said I.

  “Ay, ay,” said Tom, “I’m sure o’ that, Davy.”

  I was with them a fortnight in the familiar cabin, and then I took upmy journey northward, heavy at leaving again, but promising to seethem from time to time. For Tom was often at the Falls when he wenta-scouting into the Illinois country. It was, as of old, Polly Ann whoran the mill and was the real bread-winner of the family.

  Louisville was even then bursting with importance, and as I rode intoit, one bright November day, I remembered the wilderness I had seenhere not ten years gone when I had marched hither with Captain Harrod’scompany to join Clark on the island. It was even then a thriving littletown of log and clapboard houses and schools and churches, and wise menwere saying of it--what Colonel Clark had long ago predicted--that itwould become the first city of commercial importance in the district ofKentucky.

  I do not mean to give you an account of my struggles that winterto obtain a foothold in the law. The time was a heyday for youngbarristers, and troubles in those early days grew as plentifully inKentucky as corn. In short, I got a practice, for Colonel Clark washere to help me, and, thanks to the men who had gone to Kaskaskia andVincennes, I had a fairly large acquaintance in Kentucky. I hired roomsbehind Mr. Crede’s store, which was famed for the glass windows whichhad been fetched all the way from Philadelphia. Mr. Crede was theembodiment of the enterprising spirit of the place, and often of anevening he called me in to see the new fashionable things his barges hadbrought down the Ohio. The next day certain young sparks would drop intomy room to waylay the belles as they came to pick a costume to be wornat Mr. Nickle’s dancing school, or at the ball at Fort Finney.

  The winter slipped away, and one cool evening in May there came a negroto my room with a note from Colonel Clark, bidding me sup with him atthe tavern and meet a celebrity.

  I put on my best blue clothes that I had brought with me from Richmond,and repaired expectantly to the tavern about eight of the clock, pushedthrough the curious crowd outside, and entered the big room wherethe company was fast assembling. Against the red blaze in the greatchimney-place I spied the figure of Colonel Clark, more portly thanof yore, and beside him stood a gentleman who could be no other thanGeneral Wilkinson.

  He was a man to fill the eye, handsome of face, symmetrical of figure,easy of manner, and he wore a suit of bottle-green that became himadmirably. In short, so fascinated and absorbed was I in watching him ashe greeted this man and the other that I started as though something hadpricked me when I heard my name called by Colonel Clark.

  “Come here, Davy,” he cried across the room, and I came and stoodabashed before the hero. “General, allow me to present to you thedrummer boy of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, Mr. David Ritchie.”

  “I hear that you drummed them to victory through a very hell of torture,Mr. Ritchie,” said the General. “It is an honor to grasp the hand of onewho did such service at such a tender age.”

  General Wilkinson availed himself of that honor, and encompassed me witha smile so benignant, so winning in its candor, that I could only muttermy acknowledgment, and Colonel Clark must needs apologize, laughing, formy youth and timidity.

  “Mr. Ritchie is not good at speeches, General,” said he, “but I makeno doubt he will drink a bumper to your health before we sit down.Gentlemen,” he cried, filling his glass from a bottle on the table, “atoast to General Wilkinson, emancipator and saviour of Kentucky!”

  The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and satdown at the long table. Chance placed me between a young dandy fromLexington--one of several the General had brought in his train--andMr. Wharton, a prominent planter of the neighborhood with whom I hada speaking acquaintance. This was a backwoods feast, though served insomething better than the old backwoods style, and we had venison andbear’s meat and prairie fowl as well as pork and beef, and breads thatcame stinging hot from the Dutch ovens. Toasts to this and that wereflung back and forth, and jests and gibes, and the butt of many of thesewas that poor Federal government which (as one gentleman avowed) waslike a bantam hen trying to cover a nestful of turkey’s eggs, andclucking with importance all the time. This picture brought on gusts oflaughter.

  “And what say you of the Jay?” cried one; “what will he hatch?”

  Hisses greeted the name, for Mr. Jay wished to enter into a treaty withSpain, agreeing to close the river for five and twenty years. ColonelClark stood up, and rapped on the table.

  “Gentlemen,” said he, “Louisville has as her guest of honor to-night aman of whom Kentucky may well be proud [loud cheering]. Five years agohe favored Lexington by making it his home, and he came to us with thelaurel of former achievements still clinging to his brow. He fought andsuffered for his country, and attained the honorable rank of Major inthe Continental line. He was chosen by the people of Pennsylvania torepresent them in the august body of their legislature, and now he hasgot new honor in a new field [renewed cheering]. He has come to Kentuckyto show her the way to prosperity and glory. Kentucky had a grievance[loud cries of ‘Yes, yes!’]. Her hogs and cattle had no market, hertobacco and agricultural products of all kinds were rotting because theSpaniards had closed the Mississippi to our traffic. Could the Federalgovernment open the river? [shouts of ‘No, no!’ and hisses]. Whoopened it? [cries of ‘Wilkinson, Wilkinson!’]. He said to the Kentuckyplanters, ‘Give your tobacco to me, and I will sell it.’ He put itin barges, he floated down the river, and, as became a man of suchdistinction, he was met by Governor-general Miro on the levee at NewOrleans. Where is that tobacco now, gentlemen?” Colonel Clark was hereinterrupted by such roars and stamping that he paused a moment, andduring this interval Mr. Wharton leaned over and whispered quietly in myear:--

  “Ay, where is it?”

  I stared at Mr. Wharton blankly. He was a man nearing the middleage, with a lacing of red in his cheeks, a pleasant gray eye, and asingularly quiet manner.

  “Thanks to the genius of General Wilkinson,” Colonel Clark continued,waving his hand towards the smilingly placid hero, “that tobacco hasbeen deposited in the King’s store at ten dollars per hundred,--aprivilege heretofore confined to Spanish subjects. Well might Wilkinsonreturn from New Orleans in a chariot and four to a grateful Kentucky!This year we have tripled, nay, quadrupled, our crop of tobacco, andwe are here to-night to give thanks to the author of this prosperity.” Alas, Colonel Clark’s hand was not as steady as of yore, and he spilledthe liquor on the table as he raised his glass. “Gentlemen, a health toour benefactor.”

  They drank it willingly, and withal so lengthily and noisily that Mr.Wilkinson stood smiling and bowing for full three minutes before hecould be heard. He was a very paragon o
f modesty, was the General, anda man whose attitudes and expressions spoke as eloquently as his words.None looked at him now but knew before he opened his mouth that he wasdeprecating such an ovation.

  “Gentlemen,--my friends and fellow-Kentuckians,” he said, “I thank youfrom the bottom of my heart for your kindness, but I assure you that Ihave done nothing worthy of it [loud protests]. I am a simple, practicalman, who loves Kentucky better than he loves himself. This is no virtue,for we all have it. We have the misfortune to be governed by a set ofworthy gentlemen who know little about Kentucky and her wants, and thinkless [cries of ‘Ay, ay!’]. I am not decrying General Washington andhis cabinet; it is but natural that the wants of the seaboard and thewelfare and opulence of the Eastern cities should be uppermost in theirminds [another interruption]. Kentucky, if she would prosper, must lookto her own welfare. And if any credit is due to me, gentlemen, it isbecause I reserved my decision of his Excellency, Governor-general Miro,and his people until I saw them for myself. A little calm reason, aplain statement of the case, will often remove what seems an insuperabledifficulty, and I assure you that Governor-general Miro is a mostreasonable and courteous gentleman, who looks with all kindliness andneighborliness on the people of Kentucky. Let us drink a toast to him.To him your gratitude is due, for he sends you word that your tobaccowill be received.”

  “In General Wilkinson’s barges,” said Mr. Wharton, leaning over andsubsiding again at once.

  The General was the first to drink the toast, and he sat down verymodestly amidst a thunder of applause.

  The young man on the other side of me, somewhat flushed, leaped to hisfeet.

  “Down with the Federal government!” he cried; “what have they done forus, indeed? Before General Wilkinson went to New Orleans the Spaniardsseized our flat boats and cargoes and flung our traders into prison, ay,and sent them to the mines of Brazil. The Federal government takes sideswith the Indians against us. And what has that government done for you,Colonel?” he demanded, turning to Clark, “you who have won for them halfof their territory? They have cast you off like an old moccasin. TheContinental officers who fought in the East have half-pay for life orfive years’ full pay. And what have you?”

  There was a breathless hush. A swift vision came to me of a man, young,alert, commanding, stern under necessity, self-repressed at all times--aman who by the very dominance of his character had awed into submissionthe fierce Northern tribes of a continent, who had compelled men tofollow him until the life had all but ebbed from their bodies, who hadled them to victory in the end. And I remembered a boy who had stoodawe-struck before this man in the commandant’s house at Fort Sackville.Ay, and I heard again his words as though he had just spoken them,“Promise me that you will not forget me if I am--unfortunate.” I did notunderstand then. And now, because of a certain blinding of my eyes, Idid not see him clearly as he got slowly to his feet. He clutchedthe table. He looked around him--I dare not say--vacantly. And then,suddenly, he spoke with a supreme anger and a supreme bitterness.

  “Not a shilling has this government given me,” he cried. “Virginia hasmore grateful; from her I have some acres of wild land and--a sword.”He laughed. “A sword, gentlemen, and not new at that. Oh, a gratefulgovernment we serve, one careful of the honor of her captains.Gentlemen, I stand to-day a discredited man because the honest debts Iincurred in the service of that government are repudiated, because myfriends who helped it, Father Gibault, Vigo, and Gratiot, and othershave never been repaid. One of them is ruined.”

  A dozen men had sprung clamoring to their feet before he sat down. One,more excited than the rest, got the ear of the company.

  “Do we lack leaders?” he cried. “We have them here with us to-night, inthis room. Who will stop us? Not the contemptible enemies in Kentuckywho call themselves Federalists. Shall we be supine forever? We havefought once for our liberties, let us fight again. Let us make a commoncause with our real friends on the far side of the Mississippi.”

  I rose, sick at heart, but every man was standing. And then a strangething happened. I saw General Wilkinson at the far end of the room; hishand was raised, and there was that on his handsome face which mighthave been taken for a smile, and yet was not a smile. Others saw himtoo, I know not by what exertion of magnetism. They looked at him andthey held their tongues.

  “I fear that we are losing our heads, gentlemen,” he said; “and Ipropose to you the health of the first citizen of Kentucky, ColonelGeorge George Rogers Clark.”

  I found myself out of the tavern and alone in the cool May night. And asI walked slowly down the deserted street, my head in a whirl, a handwas laid on my shoulder. I turned, startled, to face Mr. Wharton, theplanter.

  “I would speak a word with you, Mr. Ritchie,” he said. “May I come toyour room for a moment?”

  “Certainly, sir,” I answered.

  After that we walked along together in silence, my own mind heavilyoccupied with what I had seen and heard. We came to Mr. Crede’s store,went in at the picket gate beside it and down the path to my own door,which I unlocked. I felt for the candle on the table, lighted it, andturned in surprise to discover that Mr. Wharton was poking up the fireand pitching on a log of wood. He flung off his greatcoat and sat downwith his feet to the blaze. I sat down beside him and waited, thinkinghim a sufficiently peculiar man.

  “You are not famous, Mr. Ritchie,” said he, presently.

  “No, sir,” I answered.

  “Nor particularly handsome,” he continued, “nor conspicuous in any way.”

  I agreed to this, perforce.

  “You may thank God for it,” said Mr. Wharton.

  “That would be a strange outpouring, sir,” said I.

  He looked at me and smiled.

  “What think you of this paragon, General Wilkinson?” he demandedsuddenly.

  “I have Federal leanings, sir,” I answered

  “Egad,” said he, “we’ll add caution to your lack of negativeaccomplishments. I have had an eye on you this winter, though you didnot know it. I have made inquiries about you, and hence I am not hereto-night entirely through impulse. You have not made a fortune at thelaw, but you have worked hard, steered wide of sensation, kept yourmouth shut. Is it not so?”

  Astonished, I merely nodded in reply.

  “I am not here to waste your time or steal your sleep,” he went on,giving the log a push with his foot, “and I will come to the point. Whenfirst laid eyes on this fine gentleman, General Wilkinson, I too fella victim to his charms. It was on the eve of this epoch-making trip ofwhich we heard so glowing an account to-night, and I made up my mindthat no Spaniard, however wily, could resist his persuasion. He said tome, ‘Wharton, give me your crop of tobacco and I promise you to sell itin spite of all the royal mandates that go out of Madrid.’ He went, hesaw, he conquered the obdurate Miro as he has apparently conquered therest of the world, and he actually came back in a chariot and four asbefitted him. A heavy crop of tobacco was raised in Kentucky that year.I helped to raise it,” added Mr. Wharton, dryly. “I gave the General mysecond crop, and he sent it down. Mr. Ritchie, I have to this day neverreceived a piastre for my merchandise, nor am I the only planter in thissituation. Yet General Wilkinson is prosperous.”

  My astonishment somewhat prevented me from replying to this, too. Was itpossible that Mr. Wharton meant to sue the General? I reflected while hepaused. I remembered how inconspicuous he had named me, and hope died.Mr. Wharton did not look at me, but stared into the fire, for he wasplainly not a man to rail and rant.

  “Mr. Ritchie, you are young, but mark my words, that man Wilkinson willbring Kentucky to ruin if he is not found out. The whole district fromCrab Orchard to Bear Grass is mad about him. Even Clark makes a fool ofhimself--”

  “Colonel Clark, sir!” I cried.

  He put up a hand.

  “So you have some hot blood,” he said. “I know you love him. So do I,or I should not have been there tonight. Do I blame his bitterness? Do Iblame--anything he do
es? The treatment he has had would bring a blushof shame to the cheek of any nation save a republic. Republics arewasteful, sir. In George Rogers Clark they have thrown away a generalwho might some day have decided the fate of this country, they have leftto stagnate a man fit to lead a nation to war. And now he is readyto intrigue against the government with any adventurer who may haveconvincing ways and a smooth tongue.”

  “Mr. Wharton,” I said, rising, “did you come here to tell me this?”

  But Mr. Wharton continued to stare into the fire.

  “I like you the better for it, my dear sir,” said he, “and I assureyou that I mean no offence. Colonel Clark is enshrined in our hearts,Democrats and Federalists alike. Whatever he may do, we shall love himalways. But this other man,--pooh!” he exclaimed, which was as near avigorous expression as he got. “Now, sir, to the point. I, too, am aFederalist, a friend of Mr. Humphrey Marshall, and, as you know, we aresadly in the minority in Kentucky now. I came here to-night to ask youto undertake a mission in behalf of myself and certain other gentlemen,and I assure you that my motives are not wholly mercenary.” He paused,smiled, and put the tips of his fingers together. “I would willinglylose every crop for the next ten years to convict this Wilkinson oftreason against the Federal government.”

  “Treason!” I repeated involuntarily.

  “Mr. Ritchie,” answered the planter, “I gave you credit for someshrewdness. Do you suppose the Federal government does not realize thedanger of this situation in Kentucky. They have tried in vain to openthe Mississippi, and are too weak to do it. This man Wilkinson goes downto see Miro, and Miro straightway opens the river to us through him. Howdo you suppose Wilkinson did it? By his charming personality?”

  I said something, I know not what, as the light began to dawn on me. Andthen I added, “I had not thought about the General.”

  “Ah,” replied Mr. Wharton, “just so. And now you may easily imagine thatGeneral Wilkinson has come to a very pretty arrangement with Miro. Fora certain stipulated sum best known to Wilkinson and Miro, GeneralWilkinson agrees gradually to detach Kentucky from the Union and join itto his Catholic Majesty’s dominion of Louisiana. The bribe--the openingof the river. What the government could not do Wilkinson did by thelifting of his finger.”

  Still Mr. Wharton spoke without heat.

  “Mind you,” he said, “we have no proof of this, and that is my reasonfor coming here to-night, Mr. Ritchie. I want you to get proof of it ifyou can.”

  “You want me--” I said, bewildered.

  “I repeat that you are not handsome,”--I think he emphasized thisunduly,--“that you are self-effacing, inconspicuous; in short, you arenot a man to draw suspicion. You might travel anywhere and scarcely benoticed,--I have observed that about you. In addition to this you arewary, you are discreet, you are painstaking. I ask you to go first toSt. Louis, in Louisiana territory, and this for two reasons. First,because it will draw any chance suspicion from your real objective,New Orleans; and second, because it is necessary to get letters to NewOrleans from such leading citizens of St. Louis as Colonel Chouteau andMonsieur Gratiot, and I will give you introductions to them. You arethen to take passage to New Orleans in a barge of furs which MonsieurGratiot is sending down. Mind, we do not expect that you will obtainproof that Miro is paying Wilkinson money. If you do, so much thebetter; but we believe that both are too sharp to leave any tracks. Youwill make a report, however, upon the conditions under which our tobaccois being received, and of all other matters which you may think germaneto the business in hand. Will you go?”

  I had made up my mind.

  “Yes, I will go,” I answered.

  “Good,” said Mr. Wharton, but with no more enthusiasm than he hadpreviously shown; “I thought I had not misjudged you. Is your lawbusiness so onerous that you could not go to-morrow?”

  I laughed.

  “I think I could settle what affairs I have by noon, Mr. Wharton,” Ireplied.

  “Egad, Mr. Ritchie, I like your manner,” said he; “and now for a fewdetails, and you may go to bed.”

  He sat with me half an hour longer, carefully reviewing hisinstructions, and then he left me to a night of contemplation.