Part 44 (2/2)
”She is like the G.o.ddess of old who fought in the battles of Agamemnon,”
said Jack. ”Perhaps she is the angel of G.o.d who hath been given charge concerning us. Perhaps she is traveling up and down the land and overseas in our behalf.”
Was.h.i.+ngton sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. In a moment he said:
”She is like a wise and beautiful mother a.s.suring us that our sorrows will end, by and by, and that we must keep on.”
The General arose and went to his desk and returned with sealed letters in his hand and said:
”Colonel, I have a task for you. I could give it to no man in whom I had not the utmost confidence. You have earned a respite from the hards.h.i.+ps and perils of this army. Here is a purse and two letters. With them I wish you to make your way to France as soon as possible and turn over the letters to Franklin. The Doctor is much in need of help. Put your services at his disposal. A s.h.i.+p will be leaving Boston on the fourteenth. A good horse has been provided; your route is mapped. You will need to start after the noon mess. For the first time in ten days there will be fresh beef on the tables. Two hundred blankets have arrived and more are coming. After they have eaten, give the men a farewell talk and put them in good heart, if you can. We are going to celebrate the winter's end which can not be long delayed. When you have left the table, Hamilton will talk to the boys in his witty and inspiring fas.h.i.+on.”
Soon after one o'clock on the seventh of March, 1778, Colonel Irons bade Solomon good-by and set out on his long journey. That night he slept in a farmhouse some fifty miles from Valley Forge.
Next morning this brief note was written to his mother:
”I am on my way to France, leaving mother and father and sister and brother and friend, as the Lord has commanded, to follow Him, I verily believe. Yesterday the thought came to me that this thing we call the love of Liberty which is in the heart of every man and woman of us, urging that we stop at no sacrifice of blood and treasure, is as truly the angel of G.o.d as he that stood with Peter in the prison house. Last night I saw Liberty in my dreams--a beautiful woman she was, of heroic stature with streaming hair and the glowing eyes of youth and she was dressed in a long white robe held at the waist by a golden girdle. And I thought that she touched my brow and said:
”'My son, I am sent for all the children of men and not for America alone. You will find me in France for my task is in many lands.'
”I left the brave old fighter, Solomon, with tears in his eyes. What a man is Solomon! Yet, G.o.d knows, he is the rank and file of Was.h.i.+ngton's army as it stands to-day--ragged, honest, religious, heroic, half fed, unappreciated, but true as steel and willing, if required, to give up his comfort or his life! How may we account for such a man without the help of G.o.d and His angels?”
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER XXIV
IN FRANCE WITH FRANKLIN
Jack s.h.i.+pped in the packet Mercury, of seventy tons, under Captain Simeon Sampson, one of America's ablest naval commanders. She had been built for rapid sailing and when, the second day out, they saw a British frigate bearing down upon her they wore s.h.i.+p and easily ran away from their enemy. Their first landing was at St. Martin on the Isle de Rhe. They crossed the island on mules, being greeted with the cry:
”_Voila les braves Bostones_!”
In France the word _Bostone_ meant American revolutionist. At the ferry they embarked on a long gabbone for La Roch.e.l.le. There the young man enjoyed his first repose on a French _lit_ built up of sundry layers of feather beds. He declares in his diary that he felt the need of a ladder to reach its snowy summit of white linen. He writes a whole page on the sense of comfort and the dreamless and refres.h.i.+ng sleep which he had found in that bed. The like of it he had not known since he had been a fighting man.
In the morning he set out in a heavy vehicle of two wheels, drawn by three horses. Its postillion in frizzed and powdered hair, under a c.o.c.ked hat, with a long queue on his back and in great boots, hooped with iron, rode a lively little _bidet_. Such was the French stagecoach of those days, its running gear having been planned with an eye to economy, since vehicles were taxed according to the number of their wheels. The diary informs one that when the traveler stopped for food at an inn, he was expected to furnish his own knife. The highways were patrolled, night and day, by armed hors.e.m.e.n and robberies were unknown. The vineyards were not walled or fenced. All travelers had a license to help themselves to as much fruit as they might wish to eat when it was on the vines.
They arrived at Chantenay on a cold rainy evening. They were settled in their rooms, happy that they had protection from the weather, when their landlord went from room to room informing them that they would have to move on.
”Why?” Jack ventured to inquire.
”Because a _seigneur_ has arrived.”
”A _seigneur_!” Jack exclaimed.
”_Oui_, Monsieur. He is a very great man.”
”But suppose we refuse to go,” said Jack.
<script>