many days later the french servant, peria, rode up to the gate, to the door, of locust hall, the lewis homestead in old virginia. the news he bore had preceded him. he met a stern-faced, dark-browed woman, who regarded him coldly when he announced his name, regarded him in silence. the servant found himself able to make but small speech.
“your son was a brave man—he lived long,” said peria, haltingly, at the close of his story.
“yes,” said the mother of meriwether lewis. “he was a brave man. he was strong!”
“he was unhappy; but why he should have killed himself——”
“stop!” the dark eyes blazed upon him. “what are you saying? my son kill himself? it is an outrage to his memory to suggest it. he was the victim of some enemy. as for you, begone!”
so peria passed from sight and view, and almost from memory, not accused, not acquitted. long afterward a brother of meriwether lewis met him, and found that he was carrying the old rifle and the little [pg 352]watch which every member of the family knew so well. these things had been missing from the effects of meriwether lewis in the inventory—indeed, little remained in the traveling-cases save a few scattered papers and the old spyglass. there was no gold. there were no letters of any kind.
soon there came down from monticello to locust hall the coach of thomas jefferson.
“madam,” said he, when finally he stood at the side of the mistress of locust hall, “it is heavy news i thought to bring—i see that you have heard it. what shall i say—what can we say to each other? i mourn him as if he were my own son.”
“it has come at last,” said the mother of meriwether lewis. “the wilderness has him, as i knew it would! i told him, here at this place, when he was a boy, that at last the load would weigh him down.”
“the rumor is that he died by his own hand. i find it difficult to believe. it is far more likely that some enemy or robber was guilty of the deed.”
“whom had he ever harmed?” she demanded of jefferson.
“none in the world, with intent; but he had enemies. whether by his own hand or that of another, he died a gallant gentleman. he would not think of himself alone. but listen—bear with me if i tell you that could your son send out the news himself, perhaps he might say ’twas by his own hand he perished, and not by that of another!”
“never, mr. jefferson, never will i believe that! it was not in his nature!”
[pg 353]
“i agree with you. but when we take the last wishes of the dead, we take what is the law for us. and the law of your son was the law of honor. suppose, my dear madam, there were a woman concerned in this matter?”
“he never wronged a woman in his life——”
“precisely, nor in his death would he wrong one! do you begin to see?”
“did he ever speak to you of her?”
“it was impossible that he should; but i knew them both. i knew their secret. were it in his power to do so, i am sure that he carried his secret with him, so that it might never be shared by any. that secret he has guarded in death as in life.”
“but shall i let that stain rest on his name?” the dark eye of the old woman gleamed upon her son’s friend.
“do not i love him also? i am speaking now only of his own wish—not ours. i know that he would shield her at any cost—nay, i know he did shield her at any cost. may not we shield him—and her—no matter what the cost to us? if he laid that wish on us, ought we not to respect it? madam, i shall frame a letter which will serve to appease the criticism of the public in regard to your son. if it be not the exact truth—and who shall tell the exact truth?—it will at least be accepted as truth, and it will forever silence any talk. what should the public know of a life such as his? there are some lives which are tragically large, and such was his. he lived with honor, and he could not die without it. what was in his heart [pg 354]we shall not ask to know. if ever he sinned, he is purged of any sin.”
jefferson was silent for a moment, holding the bereaved mother’s hand in his own.
“he shall have a monument, madam,” he went on. “it shall mark his grave in yonder wilderness. they shall name at least a county for him, and hold it his sacred grave-place—there in tennessee, by the old indian road. let him lie there under the trees—that is as he would wish. he shall have some monument—yes, but how futile is all that! his greatest monument will be in the vast new country which he has brought to us. he was a man of a natural greatness not surpassed by any of his time.”
what of theodosia alston, loyal and lofty soul, blameless wife, devoted and pathetic adherent to the fallen fortunes of her ill-starred father?
three years after meriwether lewis laid him down to sleep in the forest, a ship put out from charleston wharf. it was bound for the city of new york, where at that time there was living a broken, homeless, forsaken man named aaron burr—a man execrated at home, discredited abroad, but who now, after years of exile, had crept home to the country which had cast him out.
a passenger on that ship was theodosia alston, the daughter of aaron burr. that much is known. the ship sailed. it never came to port. no more is known.
to this day none knows what was the fate of aaron [pg 355]burr’s daughter, one of the most appealing figures of her day, a woman made for happiness, but continually in close touch with tragedy. wherever her body may lie, she has her wish. the sound of the eternal waters is the continuous requiem in her ears. her secret, if she had one, is washed away long ere this, and is one with the eternal secrets of the sea. as to her sin, she had none. above her memory, since she has no grave, there might best be inscribed the words she wrote at a time of her own despair:
“i hope to be happy in the next world, for i have not been bad in this.”
did the little brook in tennessee ever find its way down to the sea? did it carry a scattered drop of a man’s lifeblood, little by little thinning, thinning on its long journey? did ever a wandering flake of ashes, melting, rest on its bosom for so great a journey as that toward the sea?
did the sound of a voice in the wilderness, passing across the unknown leagues, ever reach an ear that heard? who can tell? perhaps in the great ten thousand years such things may be—perhaps deep calls to deep, and there are no longer sins nor tears.
a million hearth-fires mark the camp-fire trail of meriwether lewis. we own the country which he found, and for which he paid. he sleeps. above him stands the monument which his chief assigned to him—his country. it rises now in glory and splendor, the perfected vision which he saw.
that is the happy ending of his story—his country! it is ours. as its title came to us in honor, it is for [pg 356]us to love it honorably, to use it honorably, and to defend it honorably. none may withstand us while we hold to his ambitions—while our sons measure to the stature of such a man.
