Volume I Part 2 (2/2)
Though white with wrath, I spoke nor moved not till he had given me twelve severe blows, then, drawing my dagger with my left hand (unfortunately my right was disabled and in a sling, having been caught and much injured in the wheels of the steam-engine), I stabbed him and he instantly fell. Old Mr.
Berthoud and others, who were hastening to the spot, now came up, and carried him home on a plank. Thank G.o.d, his wound was not mortal, but his friends were all up in arms and as hot-headed as himself. Some walked through my premises armed with guns; my dagger was once more at my side, Mr. Berthoud had his gun, our servants were variously armed, and our carpenter took my gun ”Long Tom.” Thus protected, I walked into the Judiciary Court, that was then sitting, and was blamed, _only_,--for not having killed the scoundrel who attacked me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AUDUBON'S MILL AT HENDERSON, KENTUCKY.
NOW OWNED BY MR. DAVID CLARK.]
The ”bad establishment,” as I called the steam-mill, worked worse and worse every day. Thomas Bakewell, who possessed more brains than I, sold his town lots and removed to Cincinnati, where he has made a large fortune, and glad I am of it.
From this date my pecuniary difficulties daily increased; I had heavy bills to pay which I could not meet or take up. The moment this became known to the world around me, that moment I was a.s.sailed with thousands of invectives; the once wealthy man was now nothing. I parted with every particle of property I held to my creditors, keeping only the clothes I wore on that day, my original drawings, and my gun.
Your mother held in her arms your baby sister Rosa, named thus on account of her extreme loveliness, and after my own sister Rosa. _She_ felt the pangs of our misfortunes perhaps more heavily than I, but never for an hour lost her courage; her brave and cheerful spirit accepted all, and no reproaches from her beloved lips ever wounded my heart. With her was I not always rich?
Finally I paid every bill, and at last left Henderson, probably forever, without a dollar in my pocket, walked to Louisville alone, by no means comfortable in mind, there went to Mr.
Berthoud's, where I was kindly received; they were indeed good friends.
My plantation in Pennsylvania had been sold, and, in a word, nothing was left to me but my humble talents. Were those talents to remain dormant under such exigencies? Was I to see my beloved Lucy and children suffer and want bread, in the abundant State of Kentucky? Was I to repine because I had acted like an honest man? Was I inclined to cut my throat in foolish despair? No!! I _had_ talents, and to them I instantly resorted.
To be a good draughtsman in those days was to me a blessing; to any other man, be it a thousand years hence, it will be a blessing also. I at once undertook to take portraits of the human ”head divine,” in black chalk, and, thanks to my master, David, succeeded admirably. I commenced at exceedingly low prices, but raised these prices as I became more known in this capacity. Your mother and yourselves were sent up from Henderson to our friend Isham Talbot, then Senator for Kentucky; this was done without a cent of expense to me, and I can never be grateful enough for his kind generosity.
In the course of a few weeks I had as much work to do as I could possibly wish, so much that I was able to rent a house in a retired part of Louisville. I was sent for four miles in the country, to take likenesses of persons on their death-beds, and so high did my reputation suddenly rise, as the best delineator of heads in that vicinity, that a clergyman residing at Louisville (I would give much now to recall and write down his name) had his dead child disinterred, to procure a fac-simile of his face, which, by the way, I gave to the parents as if still alive, to their intense satisfaction. My drawings of birds were not neglected meantime; in this particular there seemed to hover round me almost a mania, and I would even give up doing a head, the profits of which would have supplied our wants for a week or more, to represent a little citizen of the feathered tribe. Nay, my dear sons, I thought that I now drew birds far better than I had ever done before misfortune intensified, or at least developed, my abilities. I received an invitation to go to Cincinnati,[14] a flouris.h.i.+ng place, and which you now well know to be a thriving town in the State of Ohio. I was presented to the president of the Cincinnati College, Dr. Drake, and immediately formed an engagement to stuff birds for the museum there, in concert with Mr. Robert Best, an Englishman of great talent. My salary was large, and I at once sent for your mother to come to me, and bring you. Your dearly beloved sister Rosa died shortly afterward. I now established a large drawing-school at Cincinnati, to which I attended thrice per week, and at good prices.
The expedition of Major Long[15] pa.s.sed through the city soon after, and well do I recollect how he, Messrs. T. Peale,[16]
Thomas Say,[17] and others stared at my drawings of birds at that time.
So industrious were Mr. Best and I that in about six months we had augmented, arranged, and finished all we could do for the museum. I returned to my portraits, and made a great number of them, without which we must have once more been on the starving list, as Mr. Best and I found, sadly too late, that the members of the College museum were splendid promisers and very bad paymasters.
In October of 1820 I left your mother and yourselves at Cincinnati, and went to New Orleans on board a flat-boat commanded and owned by a Mr. Haromack. From this date my journals are kept with fair regularity, and if you read them you will easily find all that followed afterward.
In glancing over these pages, I see that in my hurried and broken manner of laying before you this very imperfect (but perfectly correct) account of my early life I have omitted to tell you that, before the birth of your sister Rosa, a daughter was born at Henderson, who was called, of course, Lucy. Alas!
the poor, dear little one was unkindly born, she was always ill and suffering; two years did your kind and unwearied mother nurse her with all imaginable care, but notwithstanding this loving devotion she died, in the arms which had held her so long, and so tenderly. This infant daughter we buried in our garden at Henderson, but after removed her to the Holly burying-ground in the same place.
Hundreds of anecdotes I could relate to you, my dear sons, about those times, and it may happen that the pages that I am now scribbling over may hereafter, through your own medium, or that of some one else be published. I shall try, should G.o.d Almighty grant me life, to return to these less important portions of my history, and delineate them all with the same faithfulness with which I have written the ornithological biographies of the birds of my beloved country.
Only one event, however, which possesses in itself a lesson to mankind, I will here relate. After our dismal removal from Henderson to Louisville, one morning, while all of us were sadly desponding, I took you both, Victor and John, from s.h.i.+ppingport to Louisville. I had purchased a loaf of bread and some apples; before we reached Louisville you were all hungry, and by the river side we sat down and ate our scanty meal. On that day the world was with me as a blank, and my heart was sorely heavy, for scarcely had I enough to keep my dear ones alive; and yet through these dark ways I was being led to the development of the talents I loved, and which have brought so much enjoyment to us _all_, for it is with deep thankfulness that I record that you, my sons, have pa.s.sed your lives almost continuously with your dear mother and myself. But I will here stop with one remark.
One of the most extraordinary things among all these adverse circ.u.mstances was that I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way that I could; nay, during my deepest troubles I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me, and retire to some secluded part of our n.o.ble forests; and many a time, at the sound of the wood-thrush's melodies have I fallen on my knees, and there prayed earnestly to our G.o.d.
This never failed to bring me the most valuable of thoughts and always comfort, and, strange as it may seem to you, it was often necessary for me to exert my will, and compel myself to return to my fellow-beings.
To speak more fully on some of the incidents which Audubon here relates, I turn to one of the two journals which are all that fire has spared of the many volumes which were filled with his fine, rather illegible handwriting previous to 1826. In the earlier of these journals I read: ”I went to France not only to escape Da Costa, but even more to obtain my father's consent to my marriage with my Lucy, and this simply because I thought it my moral and religious duty to do so. But although my request was immediately granted, I remained in France nearly two years. As I told you, Mr. Bakewell considered my Lucy too young (she was then but seventeen), and me too unbusiness-like to marry; so my father decided that I should remain some months with him, and on returning to America it was his plan to a.s.sociate me with some one whose commercial knowledge would be of value to me.
”My father's beautiful country seat, situated within sight of the Loire, about mid-distance between Nantes and the sea, I found quite delightful to my taste, notwithstanding the frightful cruelties I had witnessed in that vicinity, not many years previously. The gardens, greenhouses, and all appertaining to it appeared to me then as if of a superior cast; and my father's physician was above all a young man precisely after my own heart; his name was D'Orbigny, and with his young wife and infant son he lived not far distant. The doctor was a good fisherman, a good hunter, and fond of all objects in nature.
Together we searched the woods, the fields, and the banks of the Loire, procuring every bird we could, and I made drawings of every one of them--very bad, to be sure, but still they were of a.s.sistance to me. The lessons which I had received from the great David[18] now proved all-important to me, but what I wanted, and what I had the good fortune to stumble upon a few years later, was the knowledge of putting up my models, in true and good positions according to the ways and habits of my beautiful feathered subjects. During these happy years I managed to make drawings of about two hundred species of birds, all of which I brought to America and gave to my Lucy.[19]
”At last my father a.s.sociated me with Ferdinand Rozier, as you already know, and we were fairly smuggled out of France; for he was actually an officer attached to the navy of that country, and though I had a pa.s.sport stating I was born at New Orleans, my French name would have swept that aside very speedily. Rozier's pa.s.sport was a Dutch one, though he did not understand a single word in that language. Indeed, our pa.s.sengers were a medley crowd; two days out two monks appeared among us from the hold, where our captain had concealed them.”
This same ”medley crowd” appears to have comprised many refugees from the rule of Napoleon, this being about 1806, and the amus.e.m.e.nts were varied, including both gaming and dancing. To quote again: ”Among the pa.s.sengers was a handsome Virginian girl, young and graceful. She was constantly honored by the attentions of two Frenchmen who belonged to the n.o.bility; both were fine young fellows, travelling, as was not uncommon then, under a.s.sumed names. One lovely day the bonnet of the fair lady was struck by a rope and knocked overboard. One of the French chevaliers at once leaped into the ocean, captured the bonnet, and had the good fortune to be picked up himself by the yawl. On reaching the deck he presented the bonnet with a graceful obeisance and perfect _sang froid_, while the rival looked at him as black as a raven. No more was heard of the matter till dawn, when reports of firearms were heard; the alarm was general, as we feared pirates. On gaining the deck it was found that a challenge had been given and accepted, a duel had positively taken place, ending, alas! in the death of the rescuer of the bonnet. The young lady felt this deeply, and indeed it rendered us all very uncomfortable.”
The voyage ended, Audubon returned to Mill Grove, where he remained some little time before his marriage to Lucy Bakewell. It was a home he always loved, and never spoke of without deep feeling. His sensitive nature, romantic if you will, was always more or less affected by environment, and Mill Grove was a most congenial spot to him.
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