Part 2 (2/2)

”LEVANT, 2 2' S. @ 131 W.

”DEAR FRED:--I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room,--a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,--the first time the doctor had been in the state-room,--and he said he should like to see me. O dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Was.h.i.+ngton, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!'

And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,'

and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that sh.o.r.e he had defined nothing.

”'O Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this s.h.i.+p, that there is not in America,--G.o.d bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank G.o.d for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away: I thank G.o.d for that. I know by that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,' he sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me,--tell me something,--tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!'

”Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy's treason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I will tell you every thing you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'

”O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, 'G.o.d bless you' 'Tell me their names,' he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi,--that was where Fort Adams is,--they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?'

”Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;--that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that sh.o.r.e, though the s.h.i.+ps were there so much. 'And the men,' said he, laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then he went back--heavens, how far!--to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever tried again,--and he ground his teeth with the only pa.s.sion he showed.

But in a moment that was over, and he said, 'G.o.d forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,--told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java,--asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

”How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?' I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must he a ruin now.

'It must be at old Vick's plantation,' at Walnut Hills, said he: 'well, that is a change!'

”I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs,--of inventions, and books, and literature,--of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School,--but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the acc.u.mulated questions of fifty-six years!

”I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit to Was.h.i.+ngton. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Was.h.i.+ngton: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!

”And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a gla.s.s of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away.

Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,'

which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right place,--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, 'For ourselves and our country, O gracious G.o.d, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,'--and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me: 'Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority,'--and the rest of the Episcopal collect. 'Danforth,' said he, 'I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.' And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away.

”But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.

”But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.

”We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:--

”'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore G.o.d is not ashamed to be called their G.o.d: for he hath prepared for them a city.'

”On this slip of paper he had written:--

”'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:--

”'_In Memory of_

PHILIP NOLAN,

_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_, He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands.'”

THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.

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