When Men Grew Tall, or The Story Of Andrew Jackson. Lewis Alfred Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ Overton approaches the wounded Dickinson. One glance is enough. He crosses to the General and takes his arm.

      “Come!” he says. “There is nothing more to do!”

      Hair-trigger Overton leads the General back to their inn. As the pair journey through the poplar wood, he asks:

      “What was that you put in your mouth?”

      “It was a bullet,” returns the General; “I placed it between my teeth. By setting my jaws firmly upon it I make my hand as steady as a church.”

      As the General says this, he gives that steadying pellet of lead to hair-trigger Overton, who looks it over curiously. It has been crushed between the clenched teeth of the General until now it is as flat and thin as a two-bit piece. As the two approach the tavern they come upon a negress churning butter, and the General pauses to drink a quart of milk.

      Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls off the General’s boot, which is full of blood.

      “Not there!” says the General. “His bullet found me here”; and he throws open the black coat.

      Dead-shot Dickinson’s aim was better than his surmise. He struck that indicated third button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair-trigger Overton which prompted the voluminous coat, the button did not cover the General’s heart. The deceived bullet has only broken two ribs and grazed the breastbone.

      The surgeon is called; the wound is dressed and bandaged. He describes it as serious, and shakes his head.

      “Still,” he observes, “you are more fortunate than Mr. Dickinson. He cannot live an hour.” As the man of probe and forceps is about to retire the General detains him.

      “You are not to speak of my wound until we are back in Nashville.”

      He of the probe and forceps bows assent. When he has left the room hair-trigger Overton asks:

      “What was that for?”

      The brow of the General grows cloudy with a reminiscent war frown.

      “Have you forgotten those four shots inside the circle of a dollar, and that bullet-severed string? I want the braggart to die thinking he has missed a man at twelve paces.”

      The two light pipes and hair-trigger Overton sends for his whisky. Once it has come he gives the General a stiff four fingers, and under the fiery spell of the liquor the color struggles into the pale hollow of his cheek.

      He of the probe and forceps comes to the door.

      “Gentlemen,” he says, palms outward with a sort of deprecatory gesture – “gentlemen, Mr. Dickinson is dead.”

      The General knocks the ashes from his pipe. Then he crosses to the open window and looks out into the May sunshine. From over near the poplar wood drifts up the liquid whistle of a quail. Presently he returns to his seat and begins refilling his pipe.

      “It speaks worlds for your will power, that you should have kept your feet after being hit so hard. Not one in ten thousand could have held himself together while he made that shot!” This is a marvelous burst of loquacity for hair-trigger Overton, who deals out words as some men deal out ducats.

      “I was thinking on her, whom his slanderous tongue had hurt. I should have stood there till I killed him, though he had shot me through the heart!”

      CHAPTER VIII – ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED WAR

      THE saw-handles are cleaned and oiled and laid away to that repose which they have won. No more will they be summoned to defend the blooming Rachel. No one now speaks evil of her; for that tragedy which reddened a May Kentucky morning has sealed the lips of slander. The General does not speak of that battle at twelve paces in the poplar wood; and yet the blooming Rachel knows. She, like her lover-husband, never refers to it; but her worship of him finds multiplication, while he, towards her, grows more and more the Bayard. Much are they revered and looked up to along the Cumberland, he for his gentle loyalty, she for her love; and the common tongue is tireless in reciting the story of their perfect happiness.

      The currents of time roll on and the General is busy with his planting, his storekeeping, and his boat building. He is fortunate; and the three-sided profits pile themselves into moderate riches. In the midst of his prosperity he is visited by Aaron Burr. The late vice-president has killed Alexander Hamilton – a name despised along the Cumberland. Also he was aforetime the champion of Tennessee, when she asked the boon of statehood.

      For these sundry matters, as well as for what good unconscious lessons in deportment were taught him by the courtly Colonel Burr, the General fails not to take that polished exile to his heart and to his hearth. Colonel Burr is in and out of Nashville many times. He comes and goes and comes and goes and comes again; and writes his daughter Theodosia:

      “I am housed with General Jackson, who is one of those prompt, frank, loyal souls whom I like.”

      Colonel Burr has been in France, and tells the General of Napoleon. He draws a battle map of Quebec, shows where Montgomery fell, and relates how he, Colonel Burr, bore that dead chieftain from the field. In the end, he gives a dim outline of his dreams for the conquest of that Spanish America, lying on the thither side of the Mississippi; and to these latter tales of empire the General lends eager ear.

      By the General’s suggestion a dinner is given at the Nashville Inn in honor of Colonel Burr. The General presides, and, with a heart full of anger against Barbary pirates, offers among others the toast:

      “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!”

      Colonel Burr, being dined, confides to the General how he is not without an ally in the Southwest, and says that Commander Wilkinson, in control for the Government at New Orleans, stands ready to advance his anti-Spanish projects. At the name of “Wilkinson” the General shakes his prudent head. He declares that Commander Wilkinson is a faithless, caitiff creature, with a brandified nose, a coward heart, and a weakness for breaking his word. The crafty Burr, confident to vanity of his own genius for intrigue, insists that he can trust Commander Wilkinson. Then he arranges with the General for the building of a flotilla of flat-boats at the latter’s yards, and goes his scheming way. Later, when Colonel Burr is on trial for treason in Richmond, the General will ride over the Blue Ridge to give him aid and comfort, and make street-corner speeches defending him, wherein he will say things more explicit than flattering concerning President Jefferson, who is urging the prosecution of Colonel Burr.

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