An Unofficial Patriot by Helen H. Gardener
CHAPTER XV.
_"The depths and shoals of honor."_ Shakespeare.
When Griffith reached Washington he sent his name directly to thePresident, and was told to go to the room which Mr. Lincoln called hisworkshop, and where his maps were. The walls and tables were coveredwith them. There was no one in the room when Griffith entered. He walkedto a window and stood looking out. In the distance, across the river, hecould see the heights. He noticed a field-glass on the table. He tookit up and focused it. The powerful instrument seemed to bring the LongBridge to his very feet. He remembered in what tense excitement he hadseen and crossed that bridge last, and how he had thought and spoken ofit as the dead-line. He recalled the great relief he had felt when hisnegroes and his own carriage had at last touched free soil--were indeedin the streets of Washington. It came over him that the country, as wellas he, had traveled a very long way since that time--and over a stormyroad. A blare of martial music sounded in the distance. He watchedthe soldiers moving about in parade. He thought of his own sons, andwondered where they were and if they were all safe to-day. A heavy sighescaped him, and a hand fell upon his shoulder. He turned to face thetall, strange, dark man who had entered so silently. His simple andcharacteristically direct words were not needed to introduce him. Noone could ever mistake the strong face that had been caricatured oridealized by friend or foe in every corner of the land, but which,after all, had never been reproduced with its simple force and ruggedgrandeur. Before Griffith could speak he felt that the keen but kindlyeyes had taken his measure--he was being judged by a reader of thatmost difficult, varied and complicated of languages--the language of thehuman face.
"I am Abraham Lincoln," he said, as if he were introducing a man of butslight importance, "and you are Mr. Davenport. I was expecting you,"He took Griffith's hand and shook it warmly, in the hearty, westernfashion, which, in Mr. Lincoln's case, had also a personal quality offrankness and of a certain human longing for that contact of the realwith the real which it is the function of civilization to wipe out.
"I would have known you any place, Mr. Lincoln," began Griffith. "Yourpictures----"
"Anybody would," broke in the President, with his inimitable facialrelaxation, which was not a smile, but had in it a sense of humorstruggling to free it from its somber cast, "anybody would. My picturesare ugly enough, but none of'em ever did my ugliness full justice, butthen they never look like anybody else. I remember once, out in Sangamoncounty, I said if ever I saw a man who was worse looking than I, I'dgive him my jack-knife. The knife was brand new then."
He ran his hand through his stiff, black hair and gave it an additionalair of disorder and stubbornness. He had placed a chair for Griffithand taken one himself. He crossed one long leg over the other and made apause.
Griffith was waiting for the end of his story.
He concluded that there was to be no end, and he ventured a quizzicalquery:
"You don't mean to tell me that you are carrying that knife yet, Mr.President?"
Both laughed. Griffith felt strangely at home already with thiswonderful man. He did not realize that it was this particular aim whichhad actuated Mr. Lincoln from the moment he had entered the room. Thisreader and leader of men had taken the plan of his legal years, and wastaking time to analyze his guest while he threw him off his guard. Inthe midst of the laugh he stretched out his long leg and dived into histrousers' pocket.
"No, sir, you may not believe it, but that's not the same knife! Icarried the other one--well--I reckon it must have been as much asfifteen years--with that offer open. It lost its beauty--and I didn'tgain mine. It was along in the fifties somewhere, when one day Iwas talking with a client of mine on the corner of the main street inSpringfield, and along came a fellow and stopped within ten feet of us.I looked at him and he looked at me, and we both looked into alooking-glass in the store window. I'd tried to be an honorable man allmy life, and hard as it was to part with an old friend, I felt it was myduty to give him that knife--and I did."
There was a most solemn expression on his host's face. Griffith laughedheartily again. The President was gazing straight before him.
"I don't know where that man came from, and I don't know where he wentto, but he won that knife fair and square. I was a good deal of a beautycompared to him!"
The very muscles of his face twinkled with humor. No one would havefelt the homeliness of his face, lit as it now was in its splendidruggedness, with the light and glory of a great and tender soul playingwith its own freaks of fancy.
But before the laugh had died out of Griffith's voice, the whole mannerof the President had changed. He had opened the pen-knife and wasdrawing the point of the blade down a line on the large map which lay onthe table beside him.
"Morton tells me that you used to be a circuit-rider down in thesemountains here, and that you know every pass, defile and ford in theState." He looked straight at Griffith and ran his great, bony hand overhis head and face, but went hastily on: "I know how that is myself. Usedto be a knight of the saddlebags out in Illinois, along about thesame time--only my circuit was legal and yours was clerical. I carriedBlackstone in my saddlebags--after I got able to own a copy--and youhad a Bible, I reckon--volumes of the law in both cases! Let me see. Howlong ago was that?"
"I began in twenty-nine, Mr. President, and rode circuit for ten years.Then I was located and transferred the regular way each one or two yearsup to fifty-three. That--year--I--left--my--native--state."
Mr. Lincoln noticed the hesitancy in the last words, the change in thetone, the touch of sadness. He inferred at once that what Senator Mortonhad told him of this man's loyalty had had something to do with hisleaving the old home.
"Found it healthier for you to go West, did you? Traveled toward thesetting sun. Wanted to keep in the daylight as long as you could; butI see you took the memory of the dear old home with you. Have you neverbeen back?"
"I don't look like much of an outlaw, do I, Mr. Lincoln?" askedGriffith, with a sad smile.
"Can't say I would take you for one, no." The President turned a full,long, searching look upon him.
"Well, I have never been back--home--I--I left two freed slaves in theState when I came away, and, you know----"
Mr. Lincoln laughed for the first time aloud. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Youremind me of a case we had out in Illinois. There was an old fellowlaying to stock a pond he had with fish. Well, that pond was so closeto town and so handy, that the boys--some of 'em about as old as you andme--caught 'em out as fast as he put 'em in. By and by his son got intothe Legislature, and one day when there wasn't a great deal of otherlaw to make or to spoil, he got the other members to vote for a bill topunish anybody for taking anything out of that pond. His bill said, 'forfishing anything out of that pond.' Well, one day a little son of hisfell in and got so far from shore before they saw him that they had toliterally fish him out with a pole. Some of the fishermen around therewanted him arrested for violation of the law he had passed to hitthem.--Fact! He and you are about the same sort of criminals." He turnedto the map again. "Of course I understand what you mean. Yes, yes, Iknow. These very passes and fords are dear to you. Some people have thatsort of attachments. I have. Why, I'd feel like getting down off o' myhorse at many a place out on my old circuit and just making love to thevery earth beneath my feet! O, I know how you feel! These old fords areold friends. As you rode along at another place, certain thoughts came toyou, and kept you company for miles. They would come back to you rightthere again. Right over there was a sorrowful memory. You knew the birdsthat nested in this defile, and you stopped and put the little fellowsback in the nest when they had fallen out--and they were not afraidof you. I know how that is. They never were afraid of me--none but theyellow-legged chickens." He smiled in his quizzical way. He was stilltesting and studying his guest, while keeping him off his guard, andmaking him forget the President in his relations with the man.
Griffith had begun to wonder how he could know about those birds andwoodland friend
"I'm really glad to know that there are other circuit-riders than we ofthe cloth who strike terror to the inmates of the barnyard, but I neverbefore heard any one else accused of it."
"I remember, once," began Mr. Lincoln, recrossing his long legs andtaking up the penknife again--"I remember, once, when a lot of us wereriding over to a neighboring town from Springfield. I had the wrongend of a case, I know, and was feeling pretty chilly along the spinewhenever I thought of it. The judge was with the party, and the only wayI ever did win that suit was by pretending not to see the chickens hideunder the corn-shocks the minute he got off his horse. He'd eat a wholepullet every meal, and he got around so often they all knew him--some bysight and some by hearsay."
He drew the map toward him and indicated a spot by holding the point ofhis knife on it.
"There's a strip along here," he began, and Griffith arose and bentover the map, "that I can't make out. That seems to be an opening in themountains; but----"
"No--no," said Griffith, taking up a pencil from the table. "No; thereal opening--the road pass-- Let me see; what's the scale of mileshere? M-m-m! Four? No-- Why, the road pass is at least five milesfarther on." He drew a line. "You see, it's like this. There." Hestopped and shook his head. "M-m-m! No, n-o-o; that map's all wrong.It ought to run along there--so. This way. The road--the _wagon_road--trends along here--so. Then you go across the ridge at an anglehere--so. There ought to be a stream here.
"O pshaw! this map's-- Where did you get this map? It's no account, atall. Why, according to this, there's at least seven miles left outright here, between-- Why, right here, where they've got thoselittle, insignificant-looking foothills, is one of the most rugged andimpassable places in this world! Here, now!" He drew several lines andturned the map. "O pshaw! there's no place left now for the--Here, righta-b-o-u-t h-e-r-e--no, there, right there--is the Bedolph estate--fineold stone house, corn-fields, wheat, orchards--a splendid place. Then,as you go up this way, you pass into a sort of pocket--a little strippretty well hedged in. You couldn't go with a carriage without making acircuit around here--this way--but a horseman can cut all that off andgo--so. See? There is a mill--fine old mill stream--right here--runsthis way."
Mr. Lincoln had followed every line eagerly, making little vocal soundsof understanding, or putting in a single word to lead Griffith on.Suddenly he said:
"You're a good Union man Morton tells me."
"I am, indeed, Mr. Lincoln. Nobody in the world could be more sorry thanI over the present situation. I----"
"How sorry are you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Griffith, straightening up. Mr. Lincoln aroseat the same time.
"How much of a Union man are you?--'nough to help save it? How sorry areyou?--sorry enough to act?"
Griffith had almost forgotten why he was here. It all came back to him.He began to breathe hard.
"I have acted, I have helped," he said, moving toward the window. "Whenyou came in the room I was looking through those fine glasses ofyours at that bridge, across which I came in fifty-three, self-exiled,hastening to escape from the bondage of ownership, and, at the last,from the legal penalty of leaving behind me two freed, runaway negroes."He had lifted the glasses to his eyes again. "I thought then that I haddone my full duty--_all_ of it. But since then I have given my threesons to you--to my country. They----"
Mr. Lincoln's muscular hand rested on Griffith's shoulder.
"Look at that bridge again. Do you see any dead men on it? Do you seeyoung sons like your own dragging bleeding limbs across it? Do you seeterror-stricken horses struggling with and trampling down those woundedboys? Do you see----"
Griffith turned to look at him, in surprise.
"No," he said, "nothing of the kind. There are a few soldiers movingabout down this side, but there's nothing of that kind."
He offered the glasses to the President, who waved them away.
"I don't need them!" and an inexpressibly sad expression crossed hisface. "I don't need them. I have seen it. I saw it all one day. I sawit all that night as it trailed past here. I heard the groans. The bloodwas under that window. I have seen it! I have seen nothing else since.If you have never seen a panic of wounded men, pray to your God that younever may!" The sorrowful voice was attuned now to the sorrowful, thetragic face. "Do you see that lounge over there?" He pointed to theother side of the room. "Men think it is a great thing to be a Presidentof a great nation--and so it is, so it is; yet for three nights whileyou slept peacefully in your bed I lay there, when I wasn't readingtelegrams or receiving messages, not knowing what would comenext--waiting to be ready for whatever it might be."
He had not finished presenting the case in a light in which he felt sureit would touch the character of the man before him.
"Are your small personal needs paramount to those of your country? Haveyou no patriotism? Have you no _mercy_ upon our soldiers? Must morehundreds of them suffer defeat and death for the lack of what _you_ cangive them? Are you willing to receive the benefits of a free countrywhich you are not willing to help in her hour of greatest need?Can you--do you--want to leave your young sons and the sons of yourneighbors on the far side of the dead line marked by that bridge?" Theallusion was a chance one, but it struck home.
Griffith put out his hand.
"What do you want me to do?" he gasped, hoarsely.
The President grasped his hand and held it in a vice-like grip."What--do--I--want--you--to--do?" he asked, with a deliberationstrangely at variance with the passion of his words a moment ago. Helooked down searchingly, kindly, pityingly into the troubledeyes before him. "What do I want you to do? I--want--you--to--follow--your--conscience----for--the--benefit--of--your--country--instead--of--for--your--own--personal--comfort,--until--that--conscience--tells--you--your--country--needs--you--no--longer; that you have, in deed and intruth, done your share fully! I want you to go with an advance guarddown through that very country"--his long finger pointed to thedisfigured map on the table--"and show our commander the _real_topography of that land. I want you to make him as familiar with it asyou are yourself. I want you to show him where the passes and fords are,where supplies can be carried across, where water is plenty, and whereboth advance and retreat are possible without useless and horribleslaughter. I want you--" He was still holding Griffith's right hand. Heplaced his left on his shoulder, again. "No man has done his duty in acrisis like this until he has done _all_ that he can to hasten the dawnof peace;" he lowered his voice, "and he that is not with us is againstus," he said solemnly, the scriptural language falling from his lips asif their professions were reversed.
"How far do you want me to go?" asked Griffith, looking up with anappeal in every tense muscle of his miserable face. "It is my nativeState! They are my people! I love every foot of ground--I love those--"He was breathing so hard he stopped for a moment. "That we do not thinkalike--that they are what you call rebels to our common country--doesnot change my love. I--Mr. Lincoln----"
The President seemed to tower up to a greater height than even hisformer gigantic altitude. He threw both arms out in a sudden passion:"Forget your love! Forget your native State! Forget _yourself!_ Forget_everything_ except that this Union must and shall be saved, and that_you_ can hasten the end of this awful carnage!" The storm had sweptover. He lowered his voice again, and with both hands on the preacher'sshoulders: "I will agree to this. When you have gone so far that you cancome back here to me and say, 'I _know_ now that I have done enough. Myconscience is clear. My whole duty is done.' When you can come back hereand say that to me--when you can say (if you and I had changed places)that you could ask no more of me--then I will agree to ask no more ofyou." Then, suddenly, "When will you start? To-night?"
"Yes," said Griffith, almost inaudibly, and sank into a chair.
Mr. Lincoln strode to the table and pushed aside the disfigured map. "Iwill write your instructions
"Is that necessary, Mr. Lincoln? I am a preacher, you know. I---- Can'tI go just as I am--just--as----?"
The President had turned again to the table, and was writing. Griffithstepped to his side.
"Do you realize, Mr. Lincoln, that every man, woman and child in thatwhole country will recognize me--and--?"
"Yes, yes, I know, I know. We must do everything we can to protect youfrom all danger--against assassination or----"
"It is not _that_," said Griffith, hoarsely. "Do you care nothingfor the good-will--for the confidence--of your old neighbors hack inIllinois?"
The stroke went directly home.
"Do I care for it?" There was a long pause. The sunken eyes were drawnto a mere line. "I'd rather lose anything else in this world. It is meatand drink to me. I----"
"Look here, Mr. Davenport; don't make the mistake of thinking that Idon't realize what I'm asking you to do--that I don't see the sacrifice.I do. I do, fully, and I want to do everything I can to--to make it upto you. I know you used to be greatly trusted and beloved down there.Morton has told me. He told me all about the pathos of that old negrofollowing you, too, and how you made out to keep her. I know, I know itall, and I wouldn't ask you if I knew how to avoid it. I tell you thatI'd rather give up everything else in this world than the good-will ofthose old friends of mine back there in Illinois; but if I had to giveup the respect and confidence and love of every one of them, or forfeitthat of Abraham Lincoln, who has sworn' to sustain this Union, I'd haveto stick to old Abe! It would go hard with me--harder than anything Iknow of--but it would have to be done. We have _got_ to sustain thisUnion! We'll save her with slavery at the South and with friends toourselves, if we can; but, by the Eternal I we'll save her anyhow!"
He struck over and over the same chord--the Union must be saved. Everyroad led back to that one point. Every argument hinged upon it. Everyprotest was met by it. He hammered down all other questions.
"If we are Union men, this is the time and the place to show it. Allother objects, motives, methods, private interests, tastes, loves orpreferences must yield to the supreme test--What are we willing to do tosave the Union?" Once he said:
"You don't suppose my position is particularly agreeable,'do you? Doyou fancy it is easy, or to my liking?"
"No, no, Mr. President, of course not. I understand that; but you areholding a public office, and----"
"So are you," came like a shot. "In times like this _all_ men who areor who have been trusted by their fellow men, are now, in a sense,leaders--are in a public position. Their influence is for or againstthis Union. There is no neutral ground. I've already been driven a gooddeal farther than I ever expected to have to go, and it looks as if I'dhave to jump several more fences yet; but you'll see me jump'em when thetime comes, or I'll break my neck trying it!" He wheeled back to thetable. "Here, why not let me put you down as a chaplain? Carry you onthe rolls that way? It----"
"No, Mr. Lincoln, that won't do. I won't agree to that. If I go it isnot as chaplain. We know that, and there must be no pretense. I will notuse my ministerial standing as a cloak. I--"
"You are right, too. I wouldn't, myself. Then you won't be with any onedivision long at a time. You'll have to transfer as the need comes. Letme see--m-m-m----"
"If I do this thing I will do it outright. I'll ask one thing of you--Idon't want it known; for, of course, none of my friends can understandthe way you look at it and the way you have made me see it. But whenI go, I'll want a good horse, and I'll ride in the lead. I'll not stayback as a chaplain, nor sutler, nor as anything but as what I shall be,God help me! a guide!"
"Well, suppose we just call you that--Government Guide. But since it isto be such extraordinary service--so vital to our cause--we'll make yourpay extraordinary, too. How does a colonel's pay strike you?"
Griffith was on his feet in a flash. He stood looking straight at thePresident, who had not turned as he asked the question. The hands of thepreacher were grasping the back of his chair.
"On the pay-roll," began Mr. Lincoln, "you will appear as----"
"Pay-roll! Pay-roll!" burst from Griffith, and the President turned.The expression of the preacher's face was a complete surprise, but theastute man understood it instantly. Griffith was moving toward the door."Mr. Lincoln, you do not understand me. You have mistaken your man!You--I----"
The President had followed him hastily and his own hand reached the doorfirst.
"Stop!" he said kindly. "It is _you_ who do not understand _me_. I--"
"I understood you twice to say--to offer to _pay_ me to lead a hostilearmy--to take troops into--to the homes of--"
"No, no, don't look at it that way. It is right you should havesome--some--rank-- and--" He was going to utter again the word pay, butdid not. Suddenly he thought of a way out of the dilemma.
"You see, it is like this. You've got to have grub--rations. Now, wecan't issue rations to men who don't exist--ain't doing some sort ofservice, don't y' see? Then suppose you should be captured. I don't wantto suppose anything of the kind, and of course we've got to take everypossible precaution against such a disaster--but suppose you werecaptured, unless you are recognized as--unless you have some status--wecan't require the rebels to treat you as a prisoner of war and exchangeyou for some officer. We've got to arrange so you will be treated asa regular, and an important prisoner of war-- don't you see?" Thedangerous shoals were being skilfully crossed. The sagacious lawyer andreader of men was retrieving his blunder. He passed his hand throughGriffith's arm, and turned him from the door. "_That_ was what I meant!We'll have to carry you, somehow, on the rolls--for rations and things.You'll mess with the General, of course, and we'll see that you havethe very best horse in the army--you see, I know the circuit rider'sweakness. The fact is----" He was leading Griffith back to the tablewhere the great disfigured map lay--where he deftly slipped the papercontaining the half-written instructions, upon which the subject of payhad been begun, under its edge, took another sheet in its stead, andbegan anew with the rank and the pay left out.