Chapter 18

Military officers, acting for the governor of Mississippi Territory, lay in wait to seize Burr and Blennerhassett. To the governor's aide-de-camp the chief conspirator said with bitter resentment:

"As to any projects or plans which may have been formed between General Wilkinson and myself, heretofore, they are now completely frustrated by the treacherous conduct of Wilkinson; and the world must pronounce him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed, my portfolio will prove him such."

This petulant outburst was of no avail to stave off the minions of the law. Burr was again in the toils. He, the distinguished attorney who had won so many cases before the New York bench, and who had presided over the Senate of the United States, was summoned to a hearing before a grand jury in the obscure village of Washington. What a descent from Washington, the capital, to Washington, the frontier hamlet; from presidency of the Senate to a prisoner's box in a backwoods court-house!

The good genius of Burr did not desert him at the hour of this, his second humiliating ordeal. Fortune, who had rescued him in Kentucky, again favored him in Mississippi. The grand jury, to the chagrin of judge and territorial governor, brought in the unexpected presentment that Aaron Burr was not guilty of any crime or misdemeanor. The jury was dismissed, but the prisoner was not discharged. Burr, who had many secret friends, was advised that the governor intended to seize on his person the moment the court should release him. The conspirator resolved to elude judiciary and executive by flight. Prudence and dignity, however, forbade precipitate action. Never was fugitive so intrepid, so calm. No valet had ever regarded him less than a hero. But how would Madam Blennerhassett judge him? She had arrived at Bayou Pierre--that Burr knew--and the first tidings she heard of her husband told her that he and Burr had been arrested. Burr sat down, and penned the following:

"WASHINGTON, MISS., Jan. 31, 1807.

"_Mrs. M. Blennerhassett._

"Dear Madam: Your good husband has informed you of the miscarriage of our plans, and of our humiliating detention by Government officials. This temporary delay on the road to Beulah is wholly chargeable to the treachery of one individual in whom I placed absolute trust. No fit abiding place is yet provided for you on the Wachita acres. And Orleans is a port closed against us. How mortifying! Let not these tidings distress you, but draw upon the infinite resources of a determined will. I am not discouraged--only pestered and stung by a swarm of mosquitoes in the shape of magistrates, militia colonels, and false witnesses. Doubtless, Mr. Blennerhassett will be restored to you soon; as for myself, I take all the responsibility for his misfortunes upon my shoulders. Circumstances compel me, for the present, to move with circumspection, but you shall hear from me in good time.

"Last night, in my sleep, I had a delightful experience. I dreamed we were all sailing the Mediterranean, in a silken-sailed barge, bound for Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and every spicy, flowery land. I awoke to the 'slumbery agitation' of today's evil chances. However, 'there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' The Kingdom is within us. You recollect old Shirley's solemn lines,

'The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things.'

The only substantial world is comprised within the two hemispheres of the human heart.

"Dear madam, will you console Theodosia with one of your brave, loving, womanly letters? She is the one who will suffer most from the miserable collapse of our plans--she and poor little Gampy.

"I presume you will return to the Enchanted Ground! 'Tis a heavenly retreat. I enclose a sprig of Spanish moss from a cypress-tree near the village jail. Adieu,

"A. B."

The gallant traitor did not linger for the governor's catchpoll to seize him. French leave was better than a sheriff's hospitality. Three of Burr's faithful adherents agreed to convey him secretly, in a skiff, to a point twenty miles from Bayou Pierre, and there to provide him with a horse and a mounted guide, to facilitate his escape from the Territory. In pursuance of his project, he was about to leave Washington, on foot, to join his clandestine abettors, when he was curtly accosted by a young man whom he was startled to recognize at that time and place. Burr put out his hand, but the young man haughtily withheld his own. He spoke vehemently.

"Colonel Burr, I challenged a brave man, a patriotic soldier, to fight a duel with me, because he spoke severe words about you. He wronged you a little, but you have wronged me much--my friends more. You called Hamilton to the field for traducing you; I demand satisfaction from you for treacherously involving me and my family name with your own, in charges of disloyalty to the Government. You lied to me!"

Burr compressed his lips and filled his lungs with a quick-drawn breath. His cheeks purpled and his eyes shot dark fire.

"Mr. Arlington, you go too far. I cannot brook insult."

"Do not brook it. Resent it. You have smutched my honor. You have ruined the Blennerhassetts. You have betrayed a host of confiding people. You have endeavored to destroy the Union. I can right myself before the country and in my own estimation only by calling you to personal account. Will you meet me with pistol or with sword?"

Burr quenched the resentful fires that burnt in his heart, and replied calmly:

"My friend, I decline to meet you in any form of duel. You cannot provoke me to accept your challenge. I respect you too much to kill you. You demand satisfaction. Arlington, no satisfaction comes to either party in a fatal conflict. The dead man is indifferent to the boast of honor vindicated. I have fought my last duel. But don't imagine me afraid of threats, or bullets, or swords."

The Virginian responded in milder tones.

"Can you justify your deceptions, practised on me, or make amends for the injury done the Blennerhassetts?"

"I justify nothing. I promise no reform. My plan failed. I did my best. I am no traitor. I meant to benefit everybody. I shall be vindicated. Good-bye. Go, Arlington, marry the belle of Marietta, and be a happy man."

Arlington's nostrils quivered. A second surge of anger swept over him. Burr continued:

"I advise seriously. Win Miss Hale. I know she likes you. She is the finest woman west of the Appalachians--or east of them. I had matrimonial inclinings toward the paragon myself."

"That I know," said the young man, with crabbed acrimony.

"Yes, you know that. That is an additional reason, you think, for wishing to meet me in dudgeon. A lover hates a rival, even an unsuccessful one, and cherishes hotter resentment against the man who steals a kiss from his lady love than against him who violates a dozen federal constitutions, and breaks all the apron strings of his mother country."

The flippancy of this speech renewed Arlington's animosity.

"You will not, then, permit me to right myself by the code of honor?"

"No, Arlington, as I told you, I fought my last duel on the bank of the Hudson. Good-bye. I am not the bad man you believe me to be. But I am under a cloud. My hopes are darkened. I would like to keep your friendship, but cannot demand it. It was in our plans to make you a 'belted knight, a marquis, duke, and a' that,' but the Creator anticipated me by making you a true gentleman, which is the highest title of nobility."

Burr started on the path which led to the covert where his three faithful friends awaited his coming, to row him down the river. Halting for a minute, he looked back at Arlington wistfully, and said:

"I am an outcast and an outlaw. Farewell."

Burr followed the path which he hoped would extricate him from the labyrinth of his troubles, and Arlington left the village of Washington, and was soon on the way to New Orleans, where Evaleen Hale expected him at the house of her uncle.

XXVII. FLIGHT AND SURRENDER.

Disguised in the borrowed clothes of a boatman--pantaloons of coarse stuff, dyed in copperas, a drab-colored roundabout, a broad-brimmed slouch hat much the worse for hard usage in rain and sun--Aaron Burr fled. He deemed it impossible that any detective could recognize him. One precaution, however, he neglected to take; his genteel feet disdained the boatman's cowhide shoes, nor would he put on the pair of big Suarrow boots proffered by one of his followers. He insisted on wearing, as usual, his tight-fitting, neat, elegant city-boots of polished calfskin.

Clad and accoutred for flight through a wild country, mounted upon a spirited horse provided by devoted accessories for the severe journey, and accompanied by a guide who knew the forest ways, he set out, a fugitive from justice. Both he and his pilot carried pistols in holster and provisions in saddle-bags. Their route lay through a desolate region sparsely settled by pioneers, and not yet relinquished by wandering aborigines, nor by the bear and the catamount. The month of February was spent before they reached the valley of the Tombigbee, a distance of two hundred miles from the Mississippi River.

Late one evening the weary travellers drew rein at the door of a log tavern in Alabama. A bright fire was crackling within, and several guests sat conversing before the broad hearth.

"Hello the house!" shouted Burr's attendant. Not hearing a prompt response to the call, the guide dismounted, rapped on the deal door, at the same time jerking a stout leathern bobbin which drew up the wooden latch inside. The door flew open, disclosing a puncheon floor, a bar with bulging decanters of whiskey, and the group of talkers sitting in the ruddy glow of the wide fireplace. The landlord came to the threshold.

"Alight and come in, stranger. I have good beds."

"We are obliged to you, landlord," said Burr from the saddle, "but we can't stop. We hailed the house only to inquire the way to Colonel Hinson's. How far is it?"

"A long seven miles, and all that isn't stump is mud hole. Better put up here till morning. A bite of pork and pone, washed down with a cup of hot coffee, will make a new man of you."

"Thank you, my friend, but we are in some hurry. What direction shall we take?" The tavern-keeper gave the desired information, with tedious minuteness. Meanwhile the party at the fireside took sharp notice of the man on horseback, whom they could plainly see in the outshining light of the fire. A tall gentleman, whom the host called "colonel," inspected the strangers with comprehensive scrutiny.

"Neighbors," said he, listening to the receding hoof-beats of the horses, "did you notice that man's face and his feet? He don't look like a common man. Our backwoodsmen don't wear shiny boots." Leaving his companions mystified by this speech, the colonel hurried from the inn, and bent his steps toward a cabin, from the single small window of which a lard-lamp levelled its faint ray. This was the lodge of the district sheriff. The tall colonel called the officer out and described the appearance and actions of the two travellers.

"Brightwell, I have my suspicions. Hadn't we better go--you and I--to Hinson's, and learn who these parties are and what they want? I doubt if your cousin, Mrs. Hinson, knows that her husband sympathizes with a certain individual who falls under the charges of Jefferson's proclamation."

Colonel Perkins easily persuaded the sheriff it was their duty to follow the suspected persons, and the self-constituted spies saddled horses and spurred through the woods, along a solitary road, to Hinson's lonely cottage. Perkins remained outside, holding the horses and shivering under the gusty pines. The sheriff knocked at the back door of the cabin; the mistress of the house received him kinswomanly in the kitchen. From this rear apartment Brightwell could peep into the front room, where sat the object of his curiosity. Having exchanged a few familiar remarks and inquiries with Mrs. Hinson, the sheriff asked, in a whisper:

"Who is that man--the small man with black eyes and white hands?"

"He calls himself Hodge--Jeremiah Hodge--and claims acquaintance with my husband. He says he came by request to have a talk with Hinson about raft-building on the Tombigbee."

"Do you believe this?"

"I don't know what to think. He is a civil man--very civil--as soft spoken as a girl, and he has the nicest table manners I ever seen in a _man_. I couldn't turn strangers away on such a raw night."

"No," said the sheriff, "you could not; we must be neighborly; but I have my doubts of Jeremiah Hodge. Good-bye, Jane. Drop over and see Fanny and the new baby."

The officer, highly satisfied with his cunning detective work, slipped out and joined his impatient companion, Perkins, who agreed to communicate straightway with Lieutenant Gaines, commandant at Fort Stoddart, a post on the Tombigbee. Having secured a canoe and a colored boy to paddle it, Colonel Perkins, on the following morning, descended the river, and told Gaines his story.

While Perkins was floating down the Tombigbee, the polite boatman, Jeremiah Hodge, was writing letters, eating breakfast, and chatting most agreeably with his admiring hostess. At about nine-o'clock he requested his fellow-traveller to saddle the horses, and within the few minutes required for this to be done he surprised Mrs. Hinson by disclosing his real name.

"Madam, if you should ever chance to meet a boatman by the name of Jeremiah Hodge, which is not probable, please make my apologies to him for borrowing his name, as I have borrowed also another man's clothes. I am Aaron Burr, of New York, a name pretty widely known and much bandied about in these scandalmongering days. I know your husband well; Colonel Hinson and myself are old friends; I saw him lately in Natchez, and he was kind enough to invite me to make his house my home, in case I had need of a comrade soldier's hospitality. Under the circumstances now existing I cannot remain longer."

Mrs. Hinson looked incredulous and scared.

"Mercy me!" was her suppressed interjection.

"Pardon me for giving a false name, and not a pretty one, either. A reward of two thousand dollars is offered to any one who will give information leading to my arrest. Such a snug sum might serve you for pin-money." This was jocularly said and with a smile. Mrs. Hinson found a tongue to protest.

"Don't fear I'll blab. I wish I could help you to get out of danger. Now I see why cousin Brightwell was Paul Prying here last night. There's your horse saddled and bridled. Take keer of yourself."

"Good-bye, my dear madam. I cannot, of course, offer to pay you for your generous entertainment of me and my follower. But you must not deny me one small favor--take this ring as a keepsake from Jeremiah Hodge."

He waited not for a reply, but gently raising her hand, which was a very pretty one, he placed on her finger Salome Rosemary's diamond ring! Bowing a graceful adieu, the versatile fugitive rode away at his faithful servant's side.

The brace of horsemen had not trotted a mile before they were overtaken on the highway by a rider who accosted them very cordially. His sorrel steed kept even pace with the other two horses.

"A nice frosty morning," chirpped the friendly bore. "I hope I don't intrude. I like company myself when I am on the road. Which way are you bound? Pensacola?"

Burr made no reply, but his attaché answered freely:

"Yes, Pensacola. Which is the best road from here to Carson's Ferry?"

"The best road and the shortest is by way of the cut-off. I am going that way--I'll show you the road."

All three cantered forward. In half an hour they came to a place where the road made an abrupt turn, and just at this bend a file of mounted and armed soldiers stopped their progress. Lieutenant Gaines and Colonel Perkins rode at the head of the troopers. The lieutenant waved a military salute and spoke.

"Have I the honor of addressing Colonel Burr?"

"You have that honor; I am Aaron Burr."

"You are my prisoner."

"By what authority do you detain me, a private citizen, attending peaceably to my own affairs, on a public thoroughfare?"

"I arrest you, Aaron Burr, in the name and at the instance of the United States of America. I hold in my hand the proclamation of President Jefferson. I am a lieutenant in the United States Army. The gentleman at your side is Theodore Brightwell, a sheriff, and the officer accompanying me is Colonel Nicholas Perkins, who detected you last evening when you rode up to the Piny Woods Tavern."

Burr surrendered. That night he slept, a prisoner, in Fort Stoddart.

XXVIII. WHAT BECAME OF THEM.

Almost eight years had elapsed since the date of Burr's arrest and imprisonment, when on the first day of May, 1815, two young families loitered away an afternoon in picnic outing on Blennerhassett Island. The party consisted of eight persons--Colonel Warren Danvers, his wife and a small daughter; and Mr. and Mrs. Arlington, their two pretty little girls and a boy-baby. The children, excepting the infant, were old enough to enjoy gathering wild-flowers. They kept within call of the parents, who, conversing on events familiar to them all, strolled over the deserted grounds of an estate rendered sadly famous by the misfortunes of its former possessors. Amid scenes associated with the disastrous failure of a treasonable conspiracy, it was natural to speak of Burr.

"He is paying a bitter penalty for his crime," Danvers commented. "Though acquitted by the Federal Court at Richmond, in spite of Wirt's arraignment, the traitor will not recover the people's good-will. He lives in New York City, a man forbid. His four years' self-exile in Europe, I am told, was a humiliating banishment from the loyal and patriotic. No country can be a "Sweet Home" to the man who repudiates his own nation's flag. Burr declares himself severed from the human race, and so he is."

"You are relentless, Warren," said his sister. "I feel much pity for the man, since his heart-breaking experience of two or three years ago."

"Ah, yes; yes," Lucrèce impulsively said; "Theodosia was her father's incentive and his happiness. It was bad enough to lose the little grandson. Think how you would grieve if your dear little boy should die."

"We don't ever think of dying, do we, Dicky?" Evaleen cooed, making mother eyes at her baby. "The world must have seemed a blank to Burr after Theodosia was drowned."

"_Was_ she drowned?" questioned Arlington. "That was a mysterious affair--the disappearance of the schooner--what was the vessel's name, Danvers?"

"The Patriot. She sailed from Charleston for New York in the winter of 1812. I remember reading of the disaster just before marching with General Harrison to Fort Meigs."

"The boat may have foundered or wrecked," said Arlington. "Some believe it was captured by pirates, who carried Theodosia away to a foreign port."

"That's an absurd theory!" declared Danvers.

"But not impossible, my dear," put in Lucrèce. "I hope the poor lady was not carried away; drowning is preferable," said Evaleen.

"You two wouldn't drown when you had a chance at Cypress Bayou," laughed the husband. "You chose to be carried away by one robber and brought back by another."

Lucrèce snugged close to her soldier, and he gave her a playful kiss.

"Spoony," sang Evaleen, whereupon her prim younger daughter, whose plump fist tightly held a bunch of spring-beauties, looked up in wonder and lisped:

"Mamma, what is spoony?"

The elder sister, some seven years old, came running to her mother's side.

"There's a man by the well!"

"I saw him first," chimed in the smaller child. "Didn't I see him first, Eva?"

The rambling party had returned from the woodland to the cleared tract, in the midst of which the White House of Blennerhassett formerly stood. The mansion, never occupied after the ill-starred family left it, was destroyed by fire a few years before the time of the picnic excursion. Near the low foundation walls of blackened stone stood the wooden curb surrounding the mouth of a deep well. The old windlass, below which a leaky bucket still swung, was kept in repair by unknown hands. Upon looking for the man whom Eva had discovered, Mrs. Arlington saw leaning upon the curb, in a posture of meditation, a figure which both she and her husband recognized. There was no possibility of avoiding or of evading a meeting with the meddlesome babbler who had volunteered to prescribe "cowcumber bitters" as a sure cure for Chester's love. Within the ten years since the revelation on the summit of the mound, and the piroque tour to the island, Arlington had seen and heard a good deal of Plutarch Byle. Though it was always more or less of a social annoyance, and at times an intolerable bore, to encounter the gossipy humorist, his numberless acquaintances, far from wishing him ill, admired his honesty and lauded his goodness of heart.

Byle heard the children's voices, and straightening up his awkward form, turned to observe the advancing group. His wide mouth opened with a grin of pleasure; he came forward with gangling strides.

"By crackey, if it isn't the Arlingtons! Home from Virginia, Evaleen, to old Marietta, on a visit to the folks? You're looking peart. How do you all do?"

Arlington, out of regard for his wife and kinsfolk, made some dignified efforts to stem the tide of Byle's familiarity, but his polite formality was not noticed by the associable democrat, who shook hands with every one, beginning with the baby.

"So these is your offspring, as the preacher says, are they, Chester? I knowed you'd have a lot of 'em when I recommended the match. Here's the suckin' kid; let Uncle Byle heft him once. Gosh, baby, you want to grab uncle's nose, do you? Well, then, pull away till the cows come home. What's 'is name?"

"Richard," answered the mother.

"Why didn't you name him after me? P. B. Arlington would sound sort of uppercrusty, eh? 'Richard,' you say? Oh, I see. Named for your daddy's Orleens brother, the cripple! Yes! yes! Did Richard leave you as big a pile of money as folks say? It must have been a heavy slam on you, Evaleen, when he dropped off. Lucky, too, in another pint of view; he's better off, and so are you--lots better off."

Danvers and Lucrèce, wishing to prevent posthumous comments on Uncle Richard, came to Evaleen's rescue.

"You are a frequent comer to this island. You know its products and topography?"

"Topography, yarbography, bugology and the dickens knows wot ology. The ground is jest kivered, in places with Injun arrers, and pipes and stone hatchets, and I've dug up some of the durndest queer-shaped arthen pots you ever sot eyes on. Yes, I reckon I know Bacchus Island, major."

"Not major," interrupted Arlington. "He was promoted after the battle of New Orleans. He is now Colonel Danvers."

"Jehoshaphat! Let's shake hands on that, Danvers. No resk this time, Arlington, _is_ there? You recollect, don't you? the day I first seed you and Hoopsnake on the roof of his flatboat? I read t'other day in the noospaper that Harry Clay met the aforesaid in the court-house in New York. The sarpent put out his hand, but Harry wouldn't tech it. By gum, Clay was smarter than me."

Danvers and Lucrèce looked mystified. Byle winked at Arlington.