The Crossing

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER VIII. TO ST. LOUIS

  By eleven o’clock the next morning I had wound up my affairs, havingarranged with a young lawyer of my acquaintance to take over such casesas I had, and I was busy in my room packing my saddle-bags for thejourney. The warm scents of spring were wafted through the open doorand window, smells of the damp earth giving forth the green things, andtender shades greeted my eyes when I paused and raised my head to think.Purple buds littered the black ground before my door-step, and againstthe living green of the grass I saw the red stain of a robin’s breast ashe hopped spasmodically hither and thither, now pausing immovable withhis head raised, now tossing triumphantly a wriggling worm from the sod.Suddenly he flew away, and I heard a voice from the street side thatbrought me stark upright.

  “Hold there, neighbor; can you direct me to the mansion of thatcelebrated barrister, Mr. Ritchie?”

  There was no mistaking that voice--it was Nicholas Temple’s. I heard alaugh and an answer, the gate slammed, and Mr. Temple himself in a longgray riding-coat, booted and spurred, stood before me.

  “Davy,” he cried, “come out here and hug me. Why, you look as if I wereyour grandmother’s ghost.”

  “And if you were,” I answered, “you could not have surprised me more.Where have you been?”

  “At Jonesboro, acting the gallant with the widow, winning and losingskins and cow-bells and land at rattle-and-snap, horse-racing with thatwild Mr. Jackson. Faith, he near shot the top of my head off because Ibeat him at Greasy Cove.”

  I laughed, despite my anxiety.

  “And Sevier?” I demanded.

  “You have not heard how Sevier got off?” exclaimed Nick. “Egad, thatwas a crowning stroke of genius! Cozby and Evans, Captains Greene andGibson, and Sevier’s two boys whom you met on the Nollichucky rode overthe mountains to Morganton. Greene and Gibson and Sevier’s boys hidthemselves with the horses in a clump outside the town, while Cozby andEvans, disguised as bumpkins in hunting shirts, jogged into the townwith Sevier’s racing mare between them. They jogged into the town, Isay, through the crowds of white trash, and rode up to the court-housewhere Sevier was being tried for his life. Evans stood at the open doorand held the mare and gaped, while Cozby stalked in and shoulderedhis way to the front within four feet of the bar, like a big, awkwardcountryman. Jack Sevier saw him, and he saw Evans with the mare outside.Then, by thunder, Cozby takes a step right up to the bar and criesout, ‘Judge, aren’t you about done with that man?’ Faith, it was likejudgment day, such a mix-up as there was after that, and NollichuckyJack made three leaps and got on the mare, and in the confusion Cozbyand Evans were off too, and the whole State of North Carolina couldn’tcatch ‘em then.” Nick sighed. “I’d have given my soul to have beenthere,” he said.

  “Come in,” said I, for lack of something better.

  “Cursed if you haven’t given me a sweet reception, Davy,” said he. “Haveyou lost your practice, or is there a lady here, you rogue,” and hepoked into the cupboard with his stick. “Hullo, where are you goingnow?” he added, his eye falling on the saddle-bags.

  I had it on my lips to say, and then I remembered Mr. Wharton’sinjunction.

  “I’m going on a journey,” said I.

  “When?” said Nick.

  “I leave in about an hour,” said I.

  He sat down. “Then I leave too,” he said.

  “What do you mean, Nick?” I demanded.

  “I mean that I will go with you,” said he.

  “But I shall be gone three months or more,” I protested.

  “I have nothing to do,” said Nick, placidly.

  A vague trouble had been working in my mind, but now the full horrorof it dawned upon me. I was going to St. Louis. Mrs. Temple and HarryRiddle were gone there, so Polly Ann had avowed, and Nick could nothelp meeting Riddle. Sorely beset, I bent over to roll up a shirt, andrefrained from answering.

  He came and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “What the devil ails you, Davy?” he cried. “If it is an elopement, ofcourse I won’t press you. I’m hanged if I’ll make a third.”

  “It is no elopement,” I retorted, my face growing hot in spite ofmyself.

  “Then I go with you,” said he, “for I vow you need taking care of.You can’t put me off, I say. But never in my life have I had such areception, and from my own first cousin, too.”

  I was in a quandary, so totally unforeseen was this situation. And thena glimmer of hope came to me that perhaps his mother and Riddle mightnot be in St. Louis after all. I recalled the conversation in the cabin,and reflected that this wayward pair had stranded on so many beaches,had drifted off again on so many tides, that one place could scarce holdthem long. Perchance they had sunk,--who could tell? I turned to Nick,who stood watching me.

  “It was not that I did not want you,” I said, “you must believe that.I have wanted you ever since that night long ago when I slipped out ofyour bed and ran away. I am going first to St. Louis and then toNew Orleans on a mission of much delicacy, a mission that requiresdiscretion and secrecy. You may come, with all my heart, with onecondition only--that you do not ask my business.”

  “Done!” cried Nick. “Davy, I was always sure of you; you are the onefixed quantity in my life. To St. Louis, eh, and to New Orleans? Egad,what havoc we’ll make among the Creole girls. May I bring my nigger?He’ll do things for you too.”

  “By all means,” said I, laughing, “only hurry.”

  “I’ll run to the inn,” said Nick, “and be back in ten minutes.” He gotas far as the door, slapped his thigh, and looked back. “Davy, we mayrun across--”

  “Who?” I asked, with a catch of my breath.

  “Harry Riddle,” he answered; “and if so, may God have mercy on hissoul!”

  He ran down the path, the gate clicked, and I heard him whistling in thestreet on his way to the inn.

  After dinner we rode down to the ferry, Nick on the thoroughbred whichhad beat Mr. Jackson’s horse, and his man, Benjy, on a scraggly ponybehind. Benjy was a small, black negro with a very squat nose, alert andtalkative save when Nick turned on him. Benjy had been born at TempleBow; he worshipped his master and all that pertained to him, and heshowered upon me all the respect and attention that was due to a memberof the Temple family. For this I was very grateful. It would have beenan easier journey had we taken a boat down to Fort Massac, but such aproceeding might have drawn too much attention to our expedition. Ihave no space to describe that trip overland, which reminded me at everystage of the march against Kaskaskia, the woods, the chocolate streams,the coffee-colored swamps flecked with dead leaves,--and at length theprairies, the grass not waist-high now, but young and tender, givingforth the acrid smell of spring. Nick was delighted. He made me recountevery detail of my trials as a drummer boy, or kept me in continuousspells of laughter over his own escapades. In short, I began to realizethat we were as near to each other as though we had never been parted.

  We looked down upon Kaskaskia from the self-same spot where I had stoodon the bluff with Colonel Clark, and the sounds were even then thesame,--the sweet tones of the church bell and the lowing of the cattle.We found a few Virginians and Pennsylvanians scattered in amongst theFrench, the forerunners of that change which was to come over thiscountry. And we spent the night with my old friend, Father Gibault,still the faithful pastor of his flock; cheerful, though the savings ofhis lifetime had never been repaid by that country to which he had givenhis allegiance so freely. Travelling by easy stages, on the afternoon ofthe second day after leaving Kaskaskia we picked our way down the highbluff that rises above the American bottom, and saw below us that yellowmonster among the rivers, the Mississippi. A blind monster he seemed,searching with troubled arms among the islands for his bed, swept onwardby an inexorable force, and on his heaving shoulders he carried greattrees pilfered from the unknown forests of the North.

  Down in the moist and shady bottom we came upon the log hut of ahalf-breed trapper, and he agreed to ferry us across. As
for our horses,a keel boat must be sent after these, and Monsieur Gratiot would nodoubt easily arrange for this. And so we found ourselves, about fiveo’clock on that Saturday evening, embarked in a wide pirogue on thecurrent, dodging the driftwood, avoiding the eddies, and drawing nearto a village set on a low bluff on the Spanish side and gleaming whiteamong the trees. And as I looked, the thought came again like a twingeof pain that Mrs. Temple and Riddle might be there, thinking themselvessecure in this spot, so removed from the world and its doings.

  “How now, my man of mysterious affairs?” cried Nick, from the bottom ofthe boat; “you are as puckered as a sour persimmon. Have you a treatywith Spain in your pocket or a declaration of war? What can troubleyou?”

  “Nothing, if you do not,” I answered, smiling.

  “Lord send we don’t admire the same lady, then,” said Nick. “Pierrot,” he cried, turning to one of the boatmen, “il y a des belles demoiselleslà, n’est-ce pas?”

  The man missed a stroke in his astonishment, and the boat swunglengthwise in the swift current.

  “Dame, Monsieur, il y en a,” he answered.

  “Where did you learn French, Nick?” I demanded.

  “Mr. Mason had it hammered into me,” he answered carelessly, his eyes onthe line of keel boats moored along the shore. Our guides shot the canoedeftly between two of these, the prow grounded in the yellow mud, and welanded on Spanish territory.

  We looked about us while our packs were being unloaded, and the placehad a strange flavor in that year of our Lord, 1789. A swarthy boatmanin a tow shirt with a bright handkerchief on his head stared at us overthe gunwale of one of the keel boats, and spat into the still, yellowwater; three high-cheeked Indians, with smudgy faces and dirty redblankets, regarded us in silent contempt; and by the water-side aboveus was a sled loaded with a huge water cask, a bony mustang pony betweenthe shafts, and a chanting negro dipping gourdfuls from the river. Aroad slanted up the little limestone bluff, and above and below us stonehouses could be seen nestling into the hill, houses higher on the riverside, and with galleries there. We climbed the bluff, Benjy at our heelswith the saddle-bags, and found ourselves on a yellow-clay street linedwith grass and wild flowers. A great peace hung over the village, an airof a different race, a restfulness strange to a Kentuckian. Clematis andhoneysuckle climbed the high palings, and behind the privacy of these,low, big-chimneyed houses of limestone, weathered gray, could be seen,their roofs sloping in gentle curves to the shaded porches in front;or again, houses of posts set upright in the ground and these filledbetween with plaster, and so immaculately whitewashed that they gleamedagainst the green of the trees which shaded them. Behind the houses wasoften a kind of pink-and-cream paradise of flowering fruit trees, sodear to the French settlers. There were vineyards, too, and thriftypatches of vegetables, and lines of flowers set in the carefully rakedmould.

  We walked on, enraptured by the sights around us, by the heavy scentof the roses and the blossoms. Here was a quaint stone horse-mill, astable, or a barn set uncouthly on the street; a baker’s shop, with aglimpse of the white-capped baker through the shaded doorway, and anappetizing smell of hot bread in the air. A little farther on we heardthe tinkle of the blacksmith’s hammer, and the man himself looked upfrom where the hoof rested on his leather apron to give us a kindly“Bon soir, Messieurs,” as we passed. And here was a cabaret, with theinevitable porch, from whence came the sharp click of billiard balls.

  We walked on, stopping now and again to peer between the palings, whenwe heard, amidst the rattling of a cart and the jingling of bells, achorus of voices:--

  “À cheval, à cheval, pour aller voir ma mie, Lon, lon, la!”

  A shaggy Indian pony came ambling around the corner between the longshafts of a charette. A bareheaded young man in tow shirt and trouserswas driving, and three laughing girls were seated on the stools in thecart behind him. Suddenly, before I quite realized what had happened,the young man pulled up the pony, the girls fell silent, and Nick wasstanding in the middle of the road, with his hat in his hand, bowingelaborately.

  “Je vous salue, Mesdemoiselles,” he cried, “mes anges à char-à-banc.Pouvez-vous me diriger chez Monsieur Gratiot?”

  “Sapristi!” exclaimed the young man, but he laughed. The young womenstood up, giggling, and peered at Nick over the young man’s shoulder.One of them wore a fresh red-and-white calamanco gown. She had acomplexion of ivory tinged with red, raven hair, and dusky, long-lashed,mischievous eyes brimming with merriment.

  “Volontiers, Monsieur,” she answered, before the others could catchtheir breath, “première droite et première gauche. Allons, Gaspard!” shecried, tapping the young man sharply on the shoulder, “es tu fou?”

  Gaspard came to himself, flicked the pony, and they went off down theroad with shouts of laughter, while Nick stood waving his hat until theyturned the corner.

  “Egad,” said he, “I’d take to the highway if I could be sure of holdingup such a cargo every time. Off with you, Benjy, and find out whereshe lives,” he cried; and the obedient Benjy dropped the saddle-bags asthough such commands were not uncommon.

  “Pick up those bags, Benjy,” said I, laughing.

  Benjy glanced uncertainly at his master.

  “Do as I tell you, you black scalawag,” said Nick, “or I’ll tan you.What are you waiting for?”

  “Marse Dave--” began Benjy, rolling his eyes in discomfiture.

  “Look you, Nick Temple,” said I, “when you shipped with me you promisedthat I should command. I can’t afford to have the town about our ears.”

  “Oh, very well, if you put it that way,” said Nick. “A little honestdiversion--Pick up the bags, Benjy, and follow the parson.”

  Obeying Mademoiselle’s directions, we trudged on until we came to acomfortable stone house surrounded by trees and set in a half-blockbordered by a seven-foot paling. Hardly had we opened the gate when atall gentleman of grave demeanor and sober dress rose from his seat onthe porch, and I recognized my friend of Cahokia days, Monsieur Gratiot.He was a little more portly, his hair was dressed now in an eelskin,and he looked every inch the man of affairs that he was. He greetedus kindly and bade us come up on the porch, where he read my letter ofintroduction.

  “Why,” he exclaimed immediately, giving me a cordial grasp of the hand“of course. The strategist, the John Law, the reader of character ofColonel Clark’s army. Yes, and worse, the prophet, Mr. Ritchie.”

  “And why worse, sir?” I asked.

  “You predicted that Congress would never repay me for the little loan Iadvanced to your Colonel.”

  “It was not such a little loan, Monsieur,” I said.

  “N’importe,” said he; “I went to Richmond with my box of scrip andpromissory notes, but I was not ill repaid. If I did not get my money,I acquired, at least, a host of distinguished acquaintances. But, Mr.Ritchie, you must introduce me to your friend.”

  “My cousin, Mr. Nicholas Temple,” I said.

  Monsieur Gratiot looked at him fixedly.

  “Of the Charlestown Temples?” he asked, and a sudden vague fear seizedme.

  “Yes,” said Nick, “there was once a family of that name.”

  “And now?” said Monsieur Gratiot, puzzled.

  “Now,” said Nick, “now they are become a worthless lot of refugees andoutlaws, who by good fortune have escaped the gallows.”

  Before Monsieur Gratiot could answer, a child came running around thecorner of the house and stood, surprised, staring at us. Nick made aface, stooped down, and twirled his finger. Shouting with a terrifiedglee, the boy fled to the garden path, Nick after him.

  “I like Mr. Temple,” said Monsieur Gratiot, smiling. “He is young, buthe seems to have had a history.”

  “The Revolution ruined many families--his was one,” I answered, withwhat firmness of tone I could muster. And then Nick came back, carryingthe shouting youngster on his shoulders. At that instant a lady appearedin the doorway, leading another child, and we were introduced t
o MadameGratiot.

  “Gentlemen,” said Monsieur Gratiot, “you must make my house your home.I fear your visit will not be as long as I could wish, Mr. Ritchie,” headded, turning to me, “if Mr. Wharton correctly states your business. Ihave an engagement to have my furs in New Orleans by a certain time.I am late in loading, and as there is a moon I am sending off my boatsto-morrow night. The men will have to work on Sunday.”

  “We were fortunate to come in such good season,” I answered.

  After a delicious supper of gumbo, a Creole dish, of fricassee, of crêmebrûlé, of red wine and fresh wild strawberries, we sat on the porch. Thecrickets chirped in the garden, the moon cast fantastic shadows from thepecan tree on the grass, while Nick, struggling with his French, talkedto Madame Gratiot; and now and then their gay laughter made MonsieurGratiot pause and smile as he talked to me of my errand. It seemedstrange to me that a man who had lost so much by his espousal of ourcause should still be faithful to the American republic. Although helived in Louisiana, he had never renounced the American allegiance whichhe had taken at Cahokia. He regarded with no favor the pretensions ofSpain toward Kentucky. And (remarkably enough) he looked forward eventhen to the day when Louisiana would belong to the republic. I exclaimedat this.

  “Mr. Ritchie,” said he, “the most casual student of your race must cometo the same conclusion. You have seen for yourself how they have overrunand conquered Kentucky and the Cumberland districts, despite a hideouswarfare waged by all the tribes. Your people will not be denied, andwhen they get to Louisiana, they will take it, as they take everythingelse.”

  He was a man strong in argument, was Monsieur Gratiot, for he loved it.And he beat me fairly.

  “Nay,” he said finally, “Spain might as well try to dam the Mississippias to dam your commerce on it. As for France, I love her, though mypeople were exiled to Switzerland by the Edict of Nantes. But France isrotten through the prodigality of her kings and nobles, and she cannothold Louisiana. The kingdom is sunk in debt.” He cleared his throat. “Asfor this Wilkinson of whom you speak, I know something of him. I haveno doubt that Miro pensions him, but I know Miro likewise, and you willobtain no proof of that. You will, however, discover in New Orleansmany things of interest to your government and to the Federal party inKentucky. Colonel Chouteau and I will give you letters to certain Frenchgentlemen in New Orleans who can be trusted. There is Saint-Gré, forinstance, who puts a French Louisiana into his prayers. He has neverforgiven O’Reilly and his Spaniards for the murder of his father insixty-nine. Saint-Gré is a good fellow,--a cousin of the present Marquisin France,--and his ancestors held many positions of trust in thecolony under the French régime. He entertains lavishly at Les Îles, hisplantation on the Mississippi. He has the gossip of New Orleans at histongue’s tip, and you will be suspected of nothing save a desireto amuse yourselves if you go there.” He paused, interrupted by thelaughter of the others. “When strangers of note or of positiondrift here and pass on to New Orleans, I always give them letters toSaint-Gré. He has a charming daughter and a worthless son.”

  Monsieur Gratiot produced his tabatière and took a pinch of snuff. Isummoned my courage for the topic which had trembled all the evening onmy lips.

  “Some years ago, Monsieur Gratiot, a lady and a gentleman were rescuedon the Wilderness Trail in Kentucky. They left us for St. Louis. Didthey come here?”

  Monsieur Gratiot leaned forward quickly.

  “They were people of quality?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “And their name?”

  “They--they did not say.”

  “It must have been the Clives,” he cried; “it can have been no other.Tell me--a woman still beautiful, commanding, of perhaps eight andthirty? A woman who had a sorrow?--a great sorrow, though we have neverlearned it. And Mr. Clive, a man of fashion, ill content too, and piningfor the life of a capital?”

  “Yes,” I said eagerly, my voice sinking near to a whisper, “yes--it isthey. And are they here?”

  Monsieur Gratiot took another pinch of snuff. It seemed an age before heanswered:--

  “It is curious that you should mention them, for I gave them letters toNew Orleans,--amongst others, to Saint-Gré. Mrs. Clive was--what shallI say?--haunted. Monsieur Clive talked of nothing but Paris, where theyhad lived once. And at last she gave in. They have gone there.”

  “To Paris?” I said, taking breath.

  “Yes. It is more than a year ago,” he continued, seeming not to noticemy emotion; “they went by way of New Orleans, in one of Chouteau’sboats. Mrs. Clive seemed a woman with a great sorrow.”