merne, my boy,” said thomas jefferson, when at length they two were alone once more in the little office, “i cannot say what your return means to me. you come as one from the grave—you resurrect another from the grave.”
“meaning, mr. jefferson?——”
“you surely have heard that my administration is in sad disrepute? there is no man in the country hated so bitterly as myself. we are struggling on the very verge of war.”
“i heard some talk in the west, mr. jefferson,” hesitated meriwether lewis.
“yes, they called this louisiana purchase, on which i had set my heart, nothing but extravagance. the machinations of colonel burr have added nothing to its reputation. general jackson is with burr, and many other strong friends. and meantime you know where burr himself is—in the richmond jail. i understand that his friend, mr. merry, has gone yonder to visit him. our country is degenerated to be no more than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. you come back just in the nick of time. [pg 309]you have saved this administration! you bring back success with you. if the issue of your expedition were anything else, i scarce know what would be my own case here. for myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for which i have planned so much, your failure would have cost us all the mississippi valley, besides all the valley of the missouri and the columbia. yes, had you not succeeded, aaron burr would have succeeded! instead of a great republic reaching from ocean to ocean, we should have had a scattered coterie of states of no endurance, no continuity, no power. thank god for the presence of one great, splendid thing gloriously done! you cannot, do not, begin to measure its importance.”
“we are glad that you have been pleased, mr. jefferson,” said lewis simply.
“pleased! pleased! say rather that i am saved! say rather that this country is saved! had you proved disloyal to me—had you for any cause turned back,” he went on, “think what had been the result! what a load, although you knew it not, was placed on your shoulders! suppose that you had turned back on the trail last year, or the summer before—suppose you had not gotten beyond the mandans—can you measure the difference for this republic? can you begin to see what responsibility rested on you? had you failed, you would have dragged the flag of your country in the dust. had you come back any time before you did, then you might have called yourself the man who ruined his president, his friend, his country!”
“and i nearly did, mr. jefferson!” broke out meriwether [pg 310]lewis. “do not praise me too much. i was tempted——”
the old man turned toward him, his face grave.
“you are honest! i value that above all in you—you are punctilious to have no praise not honestly won. listen, now!” he leaned toward the young man, who sat beside him. “i know—i knew all along—how you were tempted. she came here—theodosia—the very day you left!”
lewis nodded, mute.
“in some way, i knew, the conspirators fought against your success and mine. i knew what agencies they intended to use against you—it was this woman! had you failed, i should have known why. i know many things, whether or not you do. i know the character of aaron burr well enough. he has been crazed, carried away by his own ambitions—god alone knows where he would have stopped. he has been a man not surpassed in duplicity. he would stop at nothing. moreover, he could make black look white. he did so for his daughter. she believed in him absolutely. and knowing somewhat of his plans, i imagined that he would use the attraction of that young lady for you—the power which, all things considered, she might be supposed to possess with you. i knew the depth of your regard for her, the deeper for its hopelessness. and more than all, i knew the intentness and resolution of your character. it was one motive against the other! which was the stronger? you were a young man—the hot blood of youth was yours, and i know its power. had the woman [pg 311]not been married, i should have lost! you would have sold a crown for her. it was honor saved you—your personal honor—that was what brought us success. no country is bigger than the personal honor of its gentlemen.”
the bowed head of meriwether lewis was his only answer. the keen-faced old man went on:
“i knew that before you had left the mouth of the ohio river he would do his best to stop you—i knew it before you had left harper’s ferry; but i placed the issue in the lap of the gods. i applied to you all the tests—the severest tests—that one man can to another. i let you alone! for a year, two years, three years, i did not know. but now i do know; and the answer is yonder flag which you have carried from one ocean to the other. the answer is in this map, all these hides scrawled in coal—all those new thousands of miles of land—our land. god keep it safe for us always! and may the people one day know who really secured it for them! it was not so much thomas jefferson as it was meriwether lewis.
“each time i dreamed that my subtle enemies were tempting you, i prayed in my own soul that you would be strong; that you would go on; that you would be loyal to your duty, no matter what the cost. god answered those prayers, my boy! whatever was your need, whatever price you paid, you did what i prayed you would do. when the months passed and you did not come back, i knew that not even the woman you loved could have called you back. i knew that you had learned the priceless lesson of renunciation, of sacrifice, [pg 312]through which alone the great deeds of the world always have been done.”
meriwether lewis stood before his chief, cold and pale, unable to complete much speech. thomas jefferson looked at him for a moment before he went on.
“my boy, you are so simple that you will not understand. you do not understand how well i understand you! these things are not done without cost. if there was punishment for you, you took that punishment—or you will! you kept your oath as an officer and your unwritten oath as a gentleman. it is a great thing for a man to have his honor altogether unsullied.”
“mr. jefferson!” the young man before him lifted a hand. his face was ghastly pale. “do not,” said he. “do not, i beg of you!”
“what is it, merne?” exclaimed the old man. “what have i done?”
“you speak of my honor. do not! indeed, you touch me deep.”
thomas jefferson, wise old man, raised a hand.
“i shall never listen, my son,” said he. “i will accord to you the right of hot blood to run hot—you would not be a man worth knowing were it not so. all i know or will know is that whatever the price, you have paid it—or will pay it! but tell me, merne, can you not tear her from your soul? it will ruin you, this hopeless attachment which you cherish. is it always to remain with you? i bid you find some other woman. the best in the land are waiting for you.”
“mr. jefferson, i shall never marry.”
the two sat looking into each other’s eyes for just [pg 313]a moment. said thomas jefferson at length, slowly:
“so! you have come back with all happiness, all success, for me and for others—but not for yourself! such proving as you have had has fallen to the lot of but few men. i know now how great has been the cost—i see it in your face. the fifteen millions i paid for yonder lands was nothing. we have bought them with the happiness of a human soul! the transient gratitude of this republic—the honor of that little paper—bah, they are nothing! but perhaps it may be something for you to know that at least one friend understands.”
lewis did not speak.
“what is lost is lost,” the president began again after a time. “what is broken is broken. but see how clearly i look into your soul. you are not thinking now of what you can do for yourself. you are not thinking of your new rank, your honors. you are asking now, at this moment, what you can do for her! is it not so?”
the smile that came upon the young man’s face was a beautiful, a wonderful thing to see. it made the wise old man sad to see it—but thoughtful, too.
“she is at richmond, merne?” said mr. jefferson a moment later.
the young man nodded.
“and the greatest boon she could ask would be her father’s freedom—the freedom of the man who sought to ruin this country—the man whom i scarcely dare release.”
the thin lips compressed for a moment. it was not [pg 314]in implacable, vengeful zeal—it was but in thought.
“now, then,” said thomas jefferson sharply, “there comes a veil, a curtain, between you and me and all the world. no record must show that either of us raised a hand against the full action of the law, or planned that colonel burr should not suffer the full penalty of the code. yes, for him that is true—but not for his daughter!”
“mr. jefferson!” the face of meriwether lewis was strangely moved. “i see the actual greatness of your soul; but i ask nothing.”
“why, in my heart i feel like flinging open every prison door in the world. if you have gained an empire for your country, and paid for it as you have, could not a great and rich country afford to pay to the extent of a woman’s happiness? when a king is crowned, he sets free the criminals. and this day i feel as proud and happy as if i were a king—and king of the greatest empire of all the world! i know well who assured that kingdom. let me be, then”—he raised his long hand—“say nothing, do nothing. and let this end all talk between us of these matters. i know you can keep your own counsel.”
lewis bowed silently.
“go to richmond, merne. you will find there a broken conspirator and his unhappy daughter. both are ostracized. none is so poor as to do either of them reverence. she has no door opened to her now, though but lately she was daughter of the vice-president, the rich mrs. alston, wife of the governor of her state. go to them now. tell colonel burr that [pg 315]the president will not ask mercy for him. john marshall is on the bench there; but before him is a jury—john randolph is foreman of that jury. it is there that case will be tried—in the jury room; and politics will try it! go to theodosia, merne, in her desperate need.”
“but what can i do, mr. jefferson?” broke out his listener.
“do precisely what i tell you. go to that social outcast. take her on your arm before all the world—and before that jury! sit there, before all richmond—and that jury. an hour or so will do. do that, and then, as i did when i trusted you, ask no questions, but leave it on the knees of the gods. if you can call me chief in other matters,” the president concluded, “and can call me chief in that fashion of thought which men call religion as well, let me give you unction and absolution, my son. it is all that i have to give to one whom i have always loved as if he were my own son. this is all i can do for you. it may fail; but i would rather trust that jury to be right than trust myself today; because, i repeat, i feel like flinging open every prison door in all the world, and telling every erring, stumbling man to try once more to do what his soul tells him he ought to do!”
