University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.

More than three years from the date of our last
chapter had passed away. The European statesmen
were tired of the silly effort to keep grownup
men in leading-strings, and their soldiers were
wearied with combating in fields where no laurels
grew for them. The Americans were eager, the
old to rest from their labours, and the young to
reap the fruit of their toils; and all good and wise
men contemplated with joy the reunion of two
nations who were of one blood and one faith.
King George, firm or obstinate to the last, had
yielded his reluctant consent to the independence
of his American colonies; and the peace was
signed, which was welcomed by all parties, save
the few American royalists who were now to suffer
the consequences that are well deserved by
those who learn unwillingly, and too late, that their
own honour and interest are identified with their
country's.

The 25th of November, 1783, was, as we are

annually reminded by the ringing of bells and firing
of cannon, a momentous day in this city of New-York.
It was the time appointed for the evacuation
of the city by the British forces, and the entrance of
the American commander-in-chief with his army.
To the royalists who had remained in the garrisoned
city, attached from principle, and fettered by early
association, to the original government, this was a
day of darkness and mourning. With their foreign
friends went, as they fancied, all their distinction,
happiness, and glory. We may smile at their weakness,
but cannot deny them our sympathy. Such
men as Sir Guy Carleton (Sir Henry Clinton's successor),
who made even his enemies love him, had
a fair claim to the tears of his friends; and others
were there whose names grace the history of our
parent land, and names not mentioned that were
written on living hearts, and which made partings
that day

Though on the very verge of winter, the day
was bright and soft. The very elements were at
peace. At the rising of the sun, the British flag
on the Battery was struck. Boats were in readiness
at the wharves to convey the troops, and such
of the inhabitants as were to accompany them, down
to Staten Island, where the British ships were
awaiting them. At an early hour, and before the
general embarcation, a gentleman, much muffled,

and evidently sedulously avoiding observation, was
seen stealing through the by-streets to a boat, to
which his luggage had already been conveyed, and
which, as soon as he entered it, put off towards the
fleet. He looked soured and abstracted, eager to
depart, and yet not joyful in going. His attitude
was dejected, and his eyes downcast, till some
sound that betokened an approach to the ship roused
him, when suddenly looking up, he beheld, leaning
over the side of the vessel, an apparition that called
the blood and the spirit to his face. This apparition
was his wife—Mrs. Jasper Meredith. There she
stood, bowing to him, and smiling, and replying
adroitly to such congratulations from the officers
of the ship as, “Upon my word, Mrs. Meredith,
you leave the country with spirit—your husband
should take a leaf out of your book.”

Meredith entered the ship. His wife took him
by the arm and led him aside. “One word to you,
my dear love,” she said, “before that cloud on
your brow bursts. I have known from the first
your secret intention, and your secret preparations
to go off with the fleet, and leave me here to get
on as I could. I took my measures to defeat
yours. You should know, before this time of day,
that I am never foiled in what I undertake—”

“No, by Heaven, never.”

“There's no use in swearing about it, my love;
nor will there be any use,” she added, changing
her tone of irony to a cutting energy, “in doing

what, as my husband—my lord and master—you
may do, in raising a storm here, refusing to pay my
passage, and sending me back to the city. Officers—gentlemen,
you know, all take the part of
an oppressed wife—you would be put in Coventry,
and make your début in England at great disadvantage.
So, my dear, make the best of it; let
our plans appear to be in agreement. It is in bad
taste to quarrel before spectators—we will reserve
that to enliven domestic scenes in England.”

“In England! my mother declares she will never
receive you there; and I am now utterly dependant
on my mother.”

“I know all that; I have seen your mother's
letters.” Meredith stared. “Yes, all of them; and
in them all she reiterates her governing principle,
that `appearances must be managed.' I shall convince
her that I am one of the managers, and the
prima donna in this drama of appearances.”

Meredith made no reply. He saw no eligible
way of escape, and he was, like a captive insect,
paralyzed in the web that enclosed him. “You
are convinced, I perceive, my dear;” continued his
loving wife, “be kind enough to give me a few
guineas; I paid my last to the boatmen, and it is
awkward being without money.”

Meredith turned from her, and walked hurriedly
up and down the deck; then stopped, and took out
his pocket-book to satisfy her demand; but his
purpose was suspended by his eye falling accidentally

on the card, on which, ten years before,
he had recorded Effie's prediction. The card was
yellow and defaced; but like a talisman, it recalled
with the freshness of actual presence the long but
not forgotten past—the time when Isabella Linwood's
untamed pulses answered to his—when
Bessie Lee's soft eye fell tenderly upon him—
when he was linked in friendship with Herbert—
when the lights of nature still burned in his soul
—while as yet his spirit had not passed under the
world's yoke, and crouched under its burden of
vanity, heartlessness, and sordid ambition. His
eye glanced towards his wife, he tore the card in
pieces, and honest, bitter tears flowed down his
cheeks.

Bessie Lee, thou wert then avenged! Avenged?
Sweet spirit of Christian forgiveness and celestial
love, we crave thy pardon! Bessie Lee, restored
to her excellent mother, and to her peaceful and
now most happy home at Westbrook, was enjoying
her renovated health and “rectified spirit.”
The vigorous mind of Mrs. Archer, and Isabella's
frank communication of her own malady and its
cure, had aided in the entire dissipation of Bessie's
illusions, and no shadow of them remained but a
sort of nun-like shrinking from the admiration and
devotion of the other sex. She lived for others,
and chiefly to minister to the sick and sorrowful.
She no longer suffered herself; but the chord of
suffering had been so strained that it was weakened,

and vibrated at the least touch of the miseries
of others. The satirist who scoffs at the common
fact of devotion succeeding love in a woman's
heart, is superficial in the philosophy of our nature.
He knows not that woman's love implies a
craving for happiness, a dream of bliss that human
character and human circumstances rarely realize,
and a devotedness and self-negation due only to
the Supreme. The idol falls, and the heart passes
to the true God.
That love of God, that sustaining, life-giving principle,
waxed stronger and stronger in Bessie Lee
as she went on in her pilgrimage. Her pilgrimage
was not a long one; and when it ended, the transition
was gentle from the heaven she made on earth to
that which awaited her in the bosom of the Father.

We return to the shifting scenes in New-York.
The morning was allotted to the departure of the
British. “Rose,” said Mr. Linwood, “give me
my cloak and fur shoes, and I will go through the
garden to Broadway, and see the last of them—
God bless them!”

“And my cloak and calêche, Rose,” said Mrs.
Linwood; “it is a proper respect to show our
friends that our hearts are with them to the last—
it should be a family thing. Come, Belle; and you,
Lady Anne, come too.”

“With all my heart, dear mamma; but pray—
pray do not call me Lady Anne. I have told you,
again and again, that I have renounced my title,
and will have no distinction but that which suits
the country of my adoption—that which I may
derive from being a good wife and mother—the
true American order of merit.”

“As you please, my dear child; but it is a singular
taste.”

“Singular to prefer Mrs. Linwood to Lady Anne!
Oh, no, mamma.”

Mrs. Linwood received the tribute with a grateful
smile, and afterward less frequently forgot her
daughter-in-law's injunction. Her affections always
got the better of her vanity—after a slight
contest. “Rose,” continued Lady Anne, “please
put on little Herbert's fur cap, and take him out
to see the show too. Is not that a pretty cap,
mamma? I bought it at Lizzy Bengin's.”

“Lizzy Bengin's! Has Lizzy returned?”

“Yes, indeed; and re-opened her shop in the
same place, and hung up her little household deity
Sylvy again, who is screaming out as zealously as
ever—`Come in, come in.' Lizzy, they say, is to
have a pension from Congress.”[1]

“The d—l she is!” exclaimed Mr. Linwood;
“well, every thing is turned topsy-turvy now.
Come, are we not all ready? where lags Belle?”

Isabella entered in a very becoming hat and cloak,
adjusted with more than her usual care, and her
countenance brilliant with animation.

“Upon my word, Miss Belle,” said her father,
passing his hand over her glowing cheek, “you
are hanging out very appropriate colours for this
mournful occasion.”

“The heart never hangs out false colours, papa.”

“Ah, Belle, Belle! that I should live to see you
a traitor too; but I do live, and bear it better than
I could have expected.”

“Because, papa, it no longer seems to you the
evil it once did—does it?”

“Yes, I'll be hanged if it don't, just the same;
but then, Belle, I'll tell you what it is that's kept
the sap running warm and freely in this old, good-for-nothing
trunk of mine. My child,” the old
man's voice faltered, “you have been true and
loyal to me through all this dark time of trial and
adversity; you have been a perpetual light and
blessing to my dwelling, Belle; and Herbert—if a
man serves the devil, I'd have him serve him faithfully—Herbert,
in temptation and sore trials, has
been true to the cause he chose—up to the mark.
This it is that's kept me heart-whole. And, Belle,
if ever you are a parent, which God grant, for you
deserve it, you'll know what it is to have your very
life rooted in the virtue of your children, and sustained
by that—yes, as mine is, sustained and
made pretty comfortable too, even though my king

has to succumb to these rebel upstarts, and I have
to look on and see every gentleman driven out of
the land to give place to these rag-tag and bobtails.”

“But, papa,” said Isabella, anxious to turn her
father's attention from the various groups gathering
in the street, and who, it was evident, were
only waiting, according to the previous compact, for
the last British boat to leave the wharf, to give utterance
to their joyous “huzzas;” “but, papa, you
have overlooked some important items in your consolations.”

“I have not mentioned them; but they are main
props. Anne, God bless her! and that little dog,”
he shook his cane lovingly at his grandson, who
crowed a response, “though he was born under
Washington's flag, and sucks in independence and
republicanism with his mother's milk, the little
rascal.”

In spite of Mr. Linwood's habitual vituperation,
it was evident that his cup of happiness was full
to overflowing, and that there was in it only a few
salutary bitter drops, without which there is no
draught commingled for human lips.

Mrs. Archer with her children now joined her
friends, and they were all grouped under a fine old
locust that stood just without the wall of Mr. Lin
wood's garden, and was among the few trees that
retained any foliage at this advanced season.

The last foreign regiment were passing from

Broadway to the Battery, in the admirable order
and condition of British troops: their arms glittering,
the uniform of the soldiers fresh and unsullied,
and that of the officers, who had seen little service
to deface and disarrange it, in a state of preservation
rather indicating a drawing-room than a battlefield.
Mr. Linwood gazed after them, and said,
sorrowfully, “We ne'er shall look upon their like
again.”

“I hope not,” muttered Rose to herself, in the
back-ground; “this a'n't to be the land for them
that strut in scarlet broadcloth and gold epaulets,
and live upon the sweat of working people's brows.
No, thank God—and General Washington.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Archer, “there is good old
General Knyphausen turning the key of his door
for the last time. Heaven's blessing will go with
him, for he never turned it upon a creature that
needed his kindness.” The good old German
crossed the street, grasped Mr. Linwood's hand,
kissed the hands of the ladies, and without speaking,
rejoined his suite and passed on.

“Who are those young gallants, Isabella,” asked
Mr. Linwood, “that seem riveted to the pavement
at Mrs.—'s door?”

Isabella mentioned their names, and added,
“Miss—is there, a magnet to the last moment
—a hard parting that must be.”

No wonder it was deemed a “hard parting,” if
half that is told by her contemporaries of Miss

—'s beauty and auxiliary charms be true; a marvellous
tale, but not incredible to those who see
her as she now is, after the passage of more than
fifty years, vivacious, courteous, and bright-eyed.

While Lady Anne was deepening the colour on
Isabella's cheek by whispering, “Better a coming
than a parting lover!” our old friend Jupiter, arm
in arm with his boon companion “the gen'ral,”
was passing.

“Where are you going in such haste, Jupe?”
asked his ex-master, in reply to Jupiter's respectful
salutation.

“I am 'gaged to `black Sam' to dine with General
Washington, sir.”

Mr. Linwood had been told that a fête was in
preparation at “black Sam's,” the great restaurateur
of his day, for General Washington and his
friends. He was ready to believe almost any extravagance
of the levelling Americans; but the
agrarianism that made Jupiter a party at the festive
board with the commander-in-chief rather astounded
him. “By the Lord!” he whispered to
Isabella, “Herbert shall come home and eat his
dinner.”

“You mean, Jupe,” said Miss Linwood, without
directly replying to her father, “that you are engaged
to wait on General Washington, at black
Sam's?”

“Sartin, Miss Isabella; did not I'spress myself
so?”

“Not precisely, Jupe; but I understood you so.”

Jupiter drew near to Miss Linwood, whom he,
in common with others, looked upon as the presiding
genius of the family, to unfold a wish that lay
very near his heart. But Jupe was a diplomatist,
and was careful not to commit himself in the terms
of a treaty. “Miss Belle,” he said, “I hear Mrs.
Herbert Linwood has got a nice char'ot sent over
from England, and if she wants a coachman, I
don't know but I might like to come back to the
old place.”

“Very well, Jupe, I will speak to my sister, and
we will consider of it.”

“Do, Miss Belle, and I'll 'sider of it too. I
have not 'finitly made up my mind to stay in New-York.
They say there's to be such bustle and
racket here, building ships and stores, and all this
space,” pointing to the still vacant space between
Broadway and the river, “all this space to be covered
with housen bigger than them burnt down.
I'm afraid there'll be too much work and 'fusion
for me; 'tant genteel, you know, Miss Belle, and I
think of 'tiring to the manor.”

“That will be wisest, Jupe; New-York will no
longer be a place for idlers of any degree.”

Jupiter, all complacency in a classification which
sorted him with those whom he styled the genteel,
bowed and passed on.

Music was now heard from the extremity of the
Battery. All had embarked save the band. The

band, that had been the pride and delight of the
inhabitants, through winter and summer, now
struck up, for the last time, “God save the king!”
Every sound was hushed, and white handkerchiefs
were waved from balconies, windows, and doors.
Mr. Linwood uncovered his head, and the tears
trickled down his cheeks. As the music ceased,
Edward Archer, who stood with his arm over his
sister's shoulder, said, “Oh, Lizzy, how we shall
miss the band!”

“Miss them! No, Ned; not when we get
back to dear breezy Beech Hill, and hear the birds,
and smell the flowers, and have none to hurt us nor
make us afraid.”

The last boat put off from the wharf, and at the
next instant the “star-spangled banner” was unfurled
from the flagstaff, and every bell in the city
poured forth its peal of welcome to the deliverer
of his country, who was seen, at the head of a detachment
of his army, approaching the city through
the Fields, then the general designation of all that
portion of New-York beyond the British palisades
which traversed Broadway at Chambers-street.

Those who are familiar with the location of this
our noble street of Broadway, the pride of the metropolis,
can imagine the thrilling effect of the moment
on the spectators. They saw the flag of an
independent empire waving on the Battery; beyond,
the bay, glittering in the meridian sun; and, floating
on the bay, the ships that were to convey their late

masters for ever from the land that had rejected
them. At the upper extremity of the street appeared
General Washington, the spotless patriot,
the faultless military chieftain, the father of his
country; “first in war, first in peace, and first in
the hearts of his countrymen:” he on whom every
epithet of praise has been exhausted, and whose
virtues praise never yet reached. With him were
his companions in arms and glory, and following
him his soldiers, their garments worn and soiled,
and their arms broken and defaced. It mattered
not. The period of toils and hardship, of hope
and fear, of seed-time, was past—the harvest was
to come, the abundant harvest to them, their children's
children, and the stranger within their gates.

The procession drew near to Wall-street, where
it was to turn; a few paces lower down was the
locust-tree where our friends were grouped. As
the cavalcade approached, Mr. Linwood began to
show signs of fidgeting. Isabella's arm was in
his: “Let us go in, sir,” she said.

“Presently, my dear, presently; I'll have one
look at Washington. By George of Oxford! a
noble figure of a man! Ah, but for him, the rebels
would never have carried the day.”

“For him, and the Lord on their side!” involuntarily
added Rose, who had advanced to give
her little charge a chance at a glance at his father.

“The Lord on the side of such a ragged regiment
of ragamuffins? High sons of liberty, forsooth!”

replied Mr. Linwood, chuckling at the
wretched appearance of the American soldiers.

“They are extremely ragged,” said Mrs. Linwood;
“such a contrast to our army.”

“They are, God bless them!” said Isabella,
“and sacred, in my eyes, as the garments of the
saints, are these outward signs of their brave toils.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. Herbert Linwood, “I see
my husband!—and there, Belle, is Colonel Lee,
on the very horse General Putnam gave him. I
wish his poor man Kisel, of whom I have so often
heard him speak, had lived to amble after him this
day. `Poor fool!' Eliot will always have `one part
in his heart that's sorry yet for thee.' ”

Isabella's eye had followed the direction of her
sister's; her cheek became suddenly pale, and she
reiterated her wish to her father to return into the
house.

“In a minute, my dear child, in a minute; let's
first see them wheel into Wall-street. Who is
that Colonel Lee you spoke of, Anne?”

“Eliot Lee, sir. Did not Belle tell you how he
was sent with the detachment from the northern
army to the south, and how he behaved with such
gallantry at the taking of Cornwallis, that he received
a colonelcy immediately after from Congress—did
you not tell, Belle?” she added, archly
smiling at her sister.

The turn into Wall-street was now to be made,
and the officers riding ahead came nearly parallel

to our friends. General Washington seeing, and
instantly recognising, Isabella Linwood and her
sister, saluted them. Mr. Linwood instinctively
doffed his hat, and bowed low to the commander
of the rebel army. Eliot Lee's eye met Isabella's,
and returned its brightest beam to the welcome
that flashed from hers. Herbert kissed his hand
to his friends, and stretched his arms to his boy.
Rose lifted the little fellow high in the air; he
was inspired with the animation of the scene, and
the word that was then shouted forth from a thousand
tongues, the first he ever uttered, burst from
his lips—“Huzza!”

The following, and many successive evenings,
Eliot Lee passed with the Linwoods. Those of
our kind readers whose patience has brought them
to the close of these volumes, will not be surprised
that our heroine, after her conquest over a misplaced,
and, as it may strictly be termed, an accidental
passion, should return with her whole heart
his love who deserved, if man could deserve it, that
treasure.

Did the course of their true love run smooth?
Yes, true love though it was, it did. The bare
fact that his daughter Isabella, who seemed to
him fit to grace a peerage, was to wed the portionless
son of a New-England farmer, was at first
startling to Mr. Linwood. But, as few men are,
he was true to his theories; and when Isabella,

quoting his own words on a former occasion,
frankly confessed that she had given her heart to
Eliot Lee, and “that meant her respect, honour,
esteem, and all that one of God's creatures can feel
for another,” he replied, fondly kissing her, “Then
God's will be done, my child, and give your hand
too!”

We are aware that the champions of romance,
the sage expounders of the laws of sentiment,
maintain that there can be but one love. We will
not dispute with them, though we honestly believe,
that in the capacities of loving, as in all other capacities,
there be diversities of gifts; but we will
concede that such a sentiment as united Isabella
and Eliot Lee can never be extinguished; and
therefore can never be repealed. It blended their
purposes, pursuits, hopes, joys, and sorrows; it
became a part of their spiritual natures, and independent
of the accidents of life.

As the cause of humanity and the advance of
civilization depend mainly on the purity of the institution
of marriage, I shall not have written in vain
if I have led one mind more highly to appreciate its
responsibilities and estimate its results; its effect
not only on the happiness of life, but on that portion
of our nature which is destined to immortality:
if I persuade even one of my young countrywomen
so to reverence herself, and so to estimate the
social duties and ties, that she will not give her
hand without her heart, nor her heart till she is

quite sure of his good desert who seeks it. And,
above all, I shall not have written in vain if I save
a single young creature from the barter of youth
and beauty for money, the merely legal union of
persons and fortunes multiplying among us, partly
from wrong education and false views of the objects
of life, but chiefly from the growing imitation
of the artificial and vicious society of Europe.

It is only by entering into these holy and most
precious bonds with right motives and right feelings,
that licentious doctrines can be effectually
overthrown, and the arguments of the more respectable
advocates of the new and unscriptural
doctrine of divorce can be successfully opposed.

We boldly then advise our young friends so far
to cultivate the romance of their natures (if it be
romance to value the soul and its high offices
above all earthly consideration), as to eschew rich
old roué bachelors, looking-out widowers with large
fortunes, and idle, ignorant young heirs; and to
imitate our heroine in trusting to the honourable
resources of virtue and talent, and a joint stock of
industry and frugality, in a country that is sure to
smile upon these qualities, and reward them with
as much worldly prosperity as is necessary to happiness,
and safe for virtue.