“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.
448Music 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 449him 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.
450“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 451to 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 452doctrines can be effectually overthrown, and the arguments of the more resp
ectable 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.
453NOTE TO VOLUME SECOND
ONE of the thousand pleasing anecdotes related of La Fayette at his last visit to America, was, that a rich iron-merchant in one of our large cities was presented to him, and after the customary courtesies, took out his watch and showed it to La Fayette, asking him if he remembered it. La Fayette seemed to have an indistinct reminiscence of some circumstance connected with the watch. “You do not remember, sir,” said the merchant, “that at a certain time and place” (specifying both), “you stopped at a blacksmith’s shop to have your horse shod. The smith and his family were ill, and in a most wretched condition. He was obliged to be upheld while he shod the horse. You told him you had no money to spare, and gave him this watch. He pledged it—afterward redeemed it, and here it is, still in his possession!”
As the circumstance related of La Fayette in our text has no connexion with historical events, we trust our friends of the legal profession will not prove an alibi against us.
the end.
455ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK was born to a prominent New England family in 1789 and went on to become one of the most celebrated novelists of her time. A proud patriot, Sedgwick chronicled the major social issues of early American society—slavery, religious freedom, women’s rights, and the ongoing struggle between native and foreign forces—with a unique mix of radical and conservative perspectives. She died in 1867.
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iiiALSO BY CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK
A New England Tale
Redwood
Hope Leslie
Clarence
The Twin Lives of Edwin Robbins
Home
The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man
Live and Let Live
The Boy of Mount Rhigi
Married or Single?
CREDITS
COVER DESIGN BY FEEZA MUMTAZ
COVER ART © MARART / SHUTTERSTOCK
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viCOPYRIGHT
THE LINWOODS. Introduction copyright © 2014 by Margot Livesey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* It has been suggested, that the title might be deemed ambitious; that it might indicate an expectation, that “this sixty years since in America” would take place with the “sixty years since” of the great Master. I have not yet forgotten the literature of my childhood—the fate of the ambitious frog. To those who know me, I need not plead “not guilty” to a charge of such insane vanity, and those who do not will believe me when I say, that the only moment when I could wish the benefactor of the universal reading public to be forgotten, is when my humble productions are under perusal.
* Lizzy Bengin actually received the pension.
The Linwoods Page 41