Part 9 (2/2)
Separation for a time even from those we love is trying.”
The heroic in Colonel Harris soon enabled him to plan well for the afternoon. He telegraphed Mr. Wilson of his decision to return, and then said, ”We will leave New York at 6 o'clock this evening for Harrisville.
Mr. Searles, we will try to use the afternoon for your pleasure. Driver, please take us to the Windsor Hotel, via the Produce Exchange.” The colonel having left the Waldorf did not wish, under the circ.u.mstances, again to enter his name on its register.
The ride down West Street, New York, at midday, is anything but enjoyable, as few thoroughfares are more crowded with every kind of vehicle conveying merchandise from s.h.i.+p to warehouse, and from warehouse to s.h.i.+p and cars. However, the ride impressed Searles with the immensity of the trade of the metropolis. West Street leads to Battery Park, the Produce, and Stock Exchanges, which Colonel Harris desired Mr. Searles and his daughter Gertrude to see in the busy part of the day.
Colonel Harris explained that here in Battery Park terminated the Metropolitan Elevated Railway. A railway in the air with steam-engines and coaches crowded with people interested Mr. Searles greatly.
”In London,” he said, ”we are hurried about under ground, in foul air, and darkness often.”
”Here at Battery Park, Mr. Searles, November 25, 1783, Sir Guy Carleton's British army embarked. Our New Yorkers still celebrate the date as Evacuation Day. Near by at an earlier date Hendrick Christianson, agent of a Dutch fur trading company, built four small houses and a redoubt, the foundation of America's metropolis. In 1626 Peter Minuit, first governor of the New Netherlands, bought for twenty-six dollars all Manhattan Island.”
Mr. Searles visited the tall Was.h.i.+ngton Building which occupies the ground where formerly stood the headquarters of Lords Cornwallis and Howe. He told Gertrude that he had read that, in July, 1776, the people came in vast crowds to Battery Park to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, and that they knocked over the equestrian statue of George III., which was melted into bullets to be used against the British.
”Yes,” replied Colonel Harris, ”in early days, Americans doubtless lacked appreciation of art, but we always gave our cousins across-sea a warm reception.”
”Colonel Harris,” said Mr. Searles, ”it has always puzzled me to understand why you should have built near Boston the Bunker Hill Monument.”
”Mr. Searles, because we Americans whipped the British.”
”Oh no, Colonel, that fight was a British victory.”
”Father,” said Gertrude, ”Mr. Searles is right; the British troops, under General Gage, drove the American forces off both Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill. The obelisk of Quincy granite was erected at Charlestown, I think, to commemorate the stout resistance which the raw provincial militia made against regular British soldiers, confirming the Americans in the belief that their liberty could be won.”
Mr. Searles thanked Miss Harris for her timely aid and added that a patriot is a rebel who succeeds, and a rebel is a patriot who fails. He observed also the witty sign over the entrance of a dealer in American flags, ”Colors warranted not to run.”
The party drove to the Produce Exchange, one of the most impressive buildings in New York. It is of rich Italian Renaissance architecture.
Beneath the projecting galley-prows in the main hall, the fierce bargaining of excited members reminded Mr. Searles of a pitched battle without cavalry or artillery.
Gertrude was anxious to climb the richly decorated campanile that rises two hundred and twenty-five feet, which commands an unrivalled bird's-eye view of lower New York, the bay, Brooklyn, Long Island, and the mountains of New Jersey. All hoped to catch a glimpse of the ”Majestic,” but she was down the Narrows and out of sight.
Mr. Searles desired to see Trinity Church, so he was driven up Broadway to the head of Wall Street. Its spire is graceful and two hundred and eighty-four feet high. The land on which it stands was granted in 1697 by the English government. There were also other magnificent endowments.
Trinity Parish, or Corporation, is the richest single church organization in the United States, enjoying revenues of over five hundred thousand dollars a year. In Revolutionary times the royalist clergy persisted in reading prayers for the king of England till their voices were drowned by the drum and fife of patriots marching up the center aisle.
It was now past two o'clock and the Harris party was driven to the Hotel Windsor for lunch. Promptly at six o'clock the conductor of the fast Western Express shouted, ”All aboard,” and Colonel Harris, Gertrude, and Mr. Searles in their own private car, left busy New York for Harrisville.
The Express creeps slowly along the steel way, under cross-streets, through arched tunnels, and over the Harlem River till the Hudson is reached, and then this world-famed river is followed 142 miles to Albany, the capital of the Empire State. This tide-water ride on the American Rhine is unsurpa.s.sed. The Express is whirled through tunnels, over bridges, past the magnificent summer houses of the magnates of the metropolis that adorn the high bluffs, past wooded hill and winding dale, grand mountains, and sparkling rivulets. Every object teems with historic memories. This ride, in June, is surpa.s.sed only when the forests are in a blaze of autumnal splendor.
For twenty miles in sight are the battlemented cliffs of the Palisades.
Mr. Searles was familiar with the facile pen of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, and from the car caught sight of ”Sunny Side” covered with nouris.h.i.+ng vines, grown from slips, which Irving secured from Sir Walter Scott at Abbottsford.
Pa.s.sing Tarrytown Colonel Harris said, ”Here Major Andre was captured, and the treachery of Benedict Arnold exposed, otherwise, we might to-day have been paying tribute to the crown of Great Britain.”
”Yes,” replied Mr. Searles, ”George Was.h.i.+ngton, patriot, hung Major Andre, the spy. You made Was.h.i.+ngton president, and we gave Andre a monument in Westminster Abbey.”
<script>