awoman, tall, somewhat angular, dark of hair and eye, strong of features—a woman now approaching middle age—sat looking out over the long, tree-clad slopes that ran down from the gallery front of the mansion house to the gate at the distant roadway. she had sat thus for some moments, many moments, her gaze intently fixed, as though waiting for something—something or someone that she did not now see, but expected soon to see.
it was late afternoon of a day so beautiful that not even old albemarle, beauty spot of virginia, ever produced one more beautiful—not in the hundred years preceding that day, nor in the century since then. for this was more than a hundred years ago; and what is now an ancient land was then a half opened region, settled only here and there by the great plantations of the well-to-do. the house that lay at the summit of the long and gentle slope, flanked by its wide galleries—its flung doors opening it from front to rear to the gaze as one approached—had all the rude comfort and assuredness usual with the gentry of that time and place.
it was the privilege, and the habit, of the widow lewis to sit idly when she liked, but her attitude now was not that of idleness. intentness, reposeful acceptance of life, rather, showed in her motionless, long-sustained position. she was patient, as women are; but her strong pose, its freedom from material support, her restrained power to do or to endure, gave her the look of owning something more than resignation, something more than patience. a strong figure of a woman, one would have said had one seen her, sitting on the gallery of her old home a hundred and twenty-four years ago.
the widow lewis stared straight down at the gate, a quarter of a mile away, with yearning in her gaze. but as so often happens, what she awaited did not appear at the time and place she herself had set. there fell at the western end of the gallery a shadow—a tall shadow, but she did not see it. she did not hear the footfall, not stealthy, but quite silent, with which the tall owner of the shadow came toward her from the gallery end.
it was a young man, or rather boy, no more than eighteen years of age, who stood now and gazed at her after his silent approach, so like that of an indian savage. half savage himself he seemed now, as he stood, clad in the buckskin garments of the chase, then not unusual in the virginian borderlands among settlers and hunters, and not held outré among a people so often called to the chase or to war.
his tunic was of dressed deer hide, his well-fitting leggings also of that material. his feet were covered [pg 5]with moccasins, although his hat and the neat scarf at his neck were those of a gentleman. he was a practical youth, one would have said, for no ornament of any sort was to be seen upon his garb. in his hand he carried a long rifle of the sort then used thereabout. at his belt swung the hide of a raccoon, the bodies of a few squirrels.
had you been a close observer, you would have found each squirrel shot fair through the head. indeed, a look into the gray eye of the silent-paced youth would have assured you in advance of his skill with his weapons—you would have known that to be natural with him.
you would not soon have found his like, even in that land of tall hunting men. he was a grand young being as he stood there, straight and clean-limbed; hard-bitten of muscle, albeit so young; powerful and graceful in his stride. the beauty of youth was his, and of a strong heredity—that you might have seen.
the years of youth were his, yes; but the lightness of youth did not rest on his brow. while he was not yet eighteen, the gravity of manhood was his.
he did not smile now, as he saw his mother sitting there absorbed, gazing out for his return, and not seeing him now that he had returned. instead, he stepped forward, and quietly laid a hand upon her shoulder, not with any attempt to surprise or startle her, but as if he knew that she would accept it as the announcement of his presence.
he was right. the strong figure in the chair did not start away. no exclamation came from the [pg 6]straight mouth of the face now turned toward him. evidently the nerves of these two were not of the sort readily stampeded.
the young man’s mother at first did not speak to him. she only reached up her own hand to take that which lay upon her shoulder. they remained thus for a moment, until at last the youth stepped back to lean his rifle against the wall.
“i am late, mother,” said he at length, as he turned and, seating himself at her feet, threw his arm across her lap—himself but boy again now, and not the hunter and the man.
she stroked his dark hair, not foolishly fond, but with a sort of stern maternal care, smoothing it back in place where it belonged, straightening out the riot it had assumed. it made a mane above his forehead and reached down his neck to his shoulders, so heavy that where its dark mass was lifted it showed the skin of his neck white beneath.
“you are late, yes.”
“and you waited—so long?”
“i am always waiting for you, merne,” said she. she used the elizabethan vowel, as one should pronounce “bird,” with no sound of “u”—“mairne,” the name sounded as she spoke it. and her voice was full and rich and strong, as was her son’s; musically strong.
“i am always waiting for you, merne,” said she. “but i long ago learned not to expect anything else of you.” she spoke with not the least reproach in her tone. “no, i only knew that you would come [pg 7]back in time, because you told me that you would.”
“and you did not fear for me, then—gone overnight in the woods?” he half smiled at that thought himself.
“you know i would not. i know you, what you are—born woodsman. no, i trust you to care for yourself in any wild country, my son, and to come back. and then—to go back again into the forest. when will it be, my son? tomorrow? in two days, or four, or six? sometime you will go to the wilderness again. it draws you, does it not?”
she turned her head slightly toward the west, where lay the forest from which the boy had but now emerged. he did not smile, did not deprecate. he was singularly mature in his actions, though but eighteen years of age.
“i did not desert my duty, mother,” said he at length.
“oh, no, you would not do that, merne!” returned the widow.
“please, mother,” said he suddenly, “i want you to call me by my full name—that of your people. am i not meriwether, too?”
the hand on his forehead ceased its gentle movement, fell to its owner’s lap. a sigh passed his mother’s set lips.
“yes, my son, meriwether,” said she. “this is the last journey! i have lost you, then, it seems? you do not wish to be my boy any longer? you are a man altogether, then?”
“i am meriwether lewis, mother,” said he gravely, and no more.
[pg 8]
“yes!” she spoke absently, musingly. “yes, you always were!”
“i went westward, clear across the ragged mountains,” said the youth. “these”—and he pointed with contempt to the small trophies at his belt—“will do for the darkies at the stables. i put yon old ringtail up a tree last night, on my way home, and thought it was as well to wait till dawn, till i could see the rifle-sights; and afterward—the woods were beautiful today. as to the trails, even if there is no trail, i know the way back home—you know that, mother.”
“i know that, my son, yes. you were born for the forest. i fear i shall not hold you long on this quiet farm.”
“all in time, mother! i am to stay here with you until i am fitted to go higher. you know what mr. jefferson has said to me. i am for washington, mother, one of these days—for i hold it sure that mr. jefferson will go there in some still higher place. he was my father’s friend, and is ours still.”
“it may be that you will go to washington, my son,” said his mother; “i do not know. but will you stay there? the forest will call to you all your life—all your life! do i not know you, then? can i not see your life—all your life—as plainly as if it were written? do i not know—your mother? why should not your mother know?”
he looked around at her rather gravely once again, unsmilingly, for he rarely smiled.
“how do you know, mother? what do you know? tell me—about myself! then i will tell you also. [pg 9]we shall see how we agree as to what i am and what i ought to do!”
“my son, it is no question of what you ought to do, for that blends too closely in fate with what you surely will do—must do—because it was written for you. yonder forest will always call to you.” she turned now toward the sun, sinking across the red-leaved forest lands. “the wilderness is your home. you will go out into it and return—often; and then at last you will go and not come back again—not to me—not to anyone will you come back.”
the youth did not move as she sat, her hands on his head. her voice went on, even and steady.
“you are old, meriwether lewis! it is time, now. you are a man. you always were a man! you were born old. you never have been a boy, and never can be one. you never were a child, but always a man. when you were a baby, you did not smile; when you were a boy, you always had your way. my boy, a long time ago i ceased to oppose that will of yours—i knew that it was useless. but, ah, how i have loved that will when i felt it was behind your promise! i knew you would do what you had set for yourself to do. i knew you would come back with deeds in your hand, my boy—gained through that will which never would bend for me or for anyone else in the world!”
he remained motionless, apparently unaffected, as his mother went on.
“you were always old, always grown up, always resolved, always your own master—always meriwether lewis. when you were born, you were not a child. [pg 10]when the old nurse brought you to me—i can see her black face grinning now—she carried you held by the feet instead of lying on her arm. you stood, you were so strong! your hair was dark and full even then. you were old! in two weeks you turned where you heard a sound—you recognized sight and sound together, as no child usually does for months. you were beautiful, my boy, so strong, so straight—ah, yes!—but you never were a boy at all. when you should have been a baby, you did not weep and you did not smile. i never knew you to do so. from the first, you always were a man.”
she paused, but still he did not speak.
“that was well enough, for later we were left alone. but your father was in you. do i not know well enough where you got that settled melancholy of yours, that despondency, that somber grief—call it what you like—that marked him all his life, and even in his death? that came from him, your father. i thank god i did not give you that, knowing what life must hold for you in suffering! he suffered, yes, but not as you will. and you must—you must, my son. beyond all other men, you will suffer!”
“you were better named cassandra, mother!” yet the young man scarce smiled even now.
“yes, i am a prophetess, all too sooth a prophetess, my son. i see ahead as only a mother can see—perhaps as only one of the old highland blood can see. i am soothseer and soothsayer, because you are blood of my blood, bone of my bone, and i cannot help but know. i cannot help but know what that melancholy [pg 11]and that resolution, all these combined, must spell for you. you know how his heart was racked at times?”
the boy nodded now.
“then know how your own must be racked in turn!” said she. “my son, it is no ordinary fate that will be yours. you will go forward at all costs; you will keep your word bright as the knife in your belt—you will drive yourself. what that means to you in agony—what that means when your will is set against the unalterable and the inevitable—i wish—oh, i wish i could not see it! but i do see it, now, all laid out before me—all, all! oh, merne—may i not call you merne once more before i let you go?”
she let her hands fall from his head to his shoulders as she gazed steadily out beyond him, as if looking into his future; but she herself sat, her strong face composed. she might, indeed, have been a prophetess of old.
“tragedy is yours, my son,” said she, slowly, “not happiness. no woman will ever come and lie in your arms happy and content.”
“mother!”
he half flung off her hands, but she laid them again more firmly on his shoulders, and went on speaking, as if half in reverie, half in trance, looking down the long slope of green and gold as if it showed the vista of the years.
“you will love, my boy, but with your nature how could love mean happiness to you? love? no man could love more terribly. you will be intent, resolved, but the firmness of your will means that much more [pg 12]suffering for you. you will suffer, my boy—i see that for you, my first-born boy! you will love—why should you not, a man fit to love and be loved by any woman? but that love, the stronger it grows, will but burn you the deeper. you will struggle through on your own path; but happiness does not lie at the end of that path for you. you will succeed, yes—you could not fail; but always the load on your shoulders will grow heavier and heavier. you will carry it alone, until at last it will be too much for you. your strong heart will break. you will lie down and die. such a fate for you, merne, my boy—such a man as you will be!”
she sighed, shivered, and looked about her, startled, as if she had spoken aloud in some dream.
“well, then, go on!” she said, and withdrew her hands from his shoulders. the faces of both were now gazing straight on over the gold-flecked slope before them. “go on, you are a man. i know you will not turn back from what you undertake. you will not change, you will not turn—because you cannot. you were born to earn and not to own; to find, but not to possess. but as you have lived, so you will die.”
“you give me no long shrift, mother?” said the youth, with a twinkle in his eye.
“how can i? i can only tell you what is in the book of life. do i not know? a mother always loves her son; so it takes all her courage to face what she knows will be his lot. any mother can read her son’s future—if she dares to read it. she knows—she knows!”
[pg 13]
there was a long silence; then the widow continued.
“listen, merne,” she said. “you call me a prophetess of evil. i am not that. do you think i speak only in despair, my boy? no, there is something larger than mere happiness. listen, and believe me, for now i could not fail to know. i tell you that your great desire, the great wish of your life, shall be yours! you never will relinquish it, you always will possess it, and at last it will be yours.”
again silence fell between them before she went on, her hand again resting on her son’s dark hair.
“your great desire will cost me my son. be it so! we breed men for the world, we women, and we give them up. out of the agony of our hearts, we do and must always give them up. that is the price i must pay. but i give you up to the great hope, the great thing of your life. should i complain? am i not your mother, and therefore a woman? and should a woman complain? but, oh, merne, merne, my son, my boy!”
she drew his head back, so that she could see deep into his eyes. her dark brows half frowning, she gazed down upon him, not so much in tenderness as in intentness. for the first time in many months—for the last time in his life—she kissed him on the forehead; and then she let him go.
he rose now, and, silently as he had come, passed around the end of the wide gallery.
her gaze did not follow him. she sat still looking down the golden-green slope where the leaves were dropping silently. she sat, her chin in her hand, her [pg 14]elbows upon her knees, facing that future, somber but splendid, to which she had devoted her son, and which in later years he so singularly fulfilled.
that was the time when the mother of meriwether lewis gave him to his fate—his fate, so closely linked with yours and mine.
