From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  The benign Indian summer weather blessed the many children who had come with their families. The yard was covered with bright fallen leaves, and the air was warm and the ground was dry, so they could frolic outdoors without coats. There were two pony carts for them to ride, and a match of shuttlecock and battledore had been set up, and spirited games of whipcracker and hide-go-seek swirled around the grounds. Inevitably, games of Indian war were soon on, all over the estate, marked by long periods of silent sneaking suddenly broken by outbursts of ghastly screaming. Through energy and force of personality, Lucy Clark quickly rose to the rank of general in these affrays, but she grew discouraged as her foes conceived her to be General Braddock and kept defeating and killing her. Once her mother had to detain and disarm her after she ran upstairs and came down with both her rock sling and her new peashooter, with which she had hoped to turn the tides of war. Billy, meanwhile, lived and relived the role of master scout George Rogers Clark, creeping unseen and unnoticed along fencerows and under shrubs and around fodder shocks while ambushes and massacres raged nearby. On one of his patrols late in the afternoon he happened upon a gasping, moaning, breathless life-and-death struggle between two half-undressed people beside the herb-garden hedge. One of them was his brother Johnny; the other was a strange, strong young woman he was calling Betsy, who kept pulling him toward her while whispering desperately for him to go away. Billy watched this struggle, open-mouthed, for a while, then decided they were playing something and not really fighting, and with a shrug he crawled away to spy on General Lucy Braddock’s army.

  At dusk a stagecoach rumbled up the drive, bearing Patrick Henry from neighboring Hanover County and a raffish company of musicians rented from his father-in-law’s ordinary. They were quickly fed and cidered and then stationed at one end of the large downstairs parlor, which had been rearranged as a ballroom and lit by many candles. Jonathan led the assembling dancers in a toast to the bride and groom, and then another: “To my esteemed parents, the lord and mistress of this manor, on their birthday! Long may they live!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “Long live good friends and neighbors!”

  “Long live the King!” someone shouted, perhaps from habit.

  “And enlighten the bloody tyrant!” bawled a magnificent voice. Dubious laughter muttered through the room, as Mr. Henry paced forward to stand by his musicians. He swept up his glass of port in a grand gesture, scowled over his spectacles as if about to begin one of his ferocious speeches, but then broke into a smile and cried, “It’s time for music!”

  A fiddler tucked his instrument under his chin and sawed out two long, plaintive notes turned up at the ends like the baying of hounds. Lines of men and women began forming as if by magic. Squire John Clark bowed before his wife and took her hand, but she pulled back, protesting:

  “Get on with you, John! I? Dance? I’ve done nought but raise children for twenty-odd years, and I can’t remember …”

  But she went with him, and remembered how to dance a reel. With a cheer the lines of men and women advanced on each other with wide eyes and prancing steps, and the ball was in motion, with Patrick Henry in twice as much motion as anyone else.

  To most of the older guests, Henry was still that Hanover ne’er-do-well whose love of wine, dance, and debate had caused him to fail several times in both commerce and farming. He had married a pubkeeper’s daughter and had shown signs that he would never have anything but frivolity and tavern gossip in his head. But then he had read law and become a lawyer, and had made a name for himself a decade ago in a celebrated Hanover County case challenging a decree of King George III. Soon he had got elected to the House of Burgesses, where he had boldly denounced the Stamp Act of ’65 and made himself a popular champion of the common people in their efforts to gain more say over the governing of their own lives. Henry was one of the few out-of-county lawyers who had been qualified to practice in Caroline, where there was always a brisk business in slander and assault and battery cases, bastardies and creditors’ suits, and he was prospering. But he was still a man who loved loud words and music, and he maintained that the tavern is the best place for a lawyer or politician to educate himself about the leanings and meanings of men. It was said that when Patrick Henry replaced his spectacles from the bridge of his long nose to the top of his forehead and stood up to speak in the House of Burgesses, the conservatives would grip the edges of their seats and brace themselves for the worst. Nothing that King George III or Governor Lord Dunmore could do, it seemed, was agreeable to Patrick Henry. And the common people loved him, for at last they had a strong spokesman, in a colony whose courts and legislature had always been dominated by royal favorites.

  John Clark had brought Mr. Henry to the wedding party mainly for the sake of the music, but of course the presence of the Great Gadfly added a special dimension to the event, and when, as the evening wore on and the talkers began to separate themselves from the dancers, and migrate into the library, they tried to draw Mr. Henry in with them. “What?” he cried. “Talk government whilst the bride and groom are still dancing?” And he plunged back into the ballroom.

  His musicians were a versatile lot, with two fiddles and a French horn, and a banjo in reserve for certain pieces, and they were able to perform with equal alacrity the jigs and reels the Albemarle folk liked and the minuets the Caroline gentry preferred. Dance, like everything else in Virginia society, from horse racing and wrestling to billiards, was competitive, and though scores were dancing, each man and woman was trying to out-caper or out-swoop all the others. It was said that courtship was the main concern of Virginians, and every swain and belle present was trying to cut an unforgettable figure.

  John Clark had unbunged a keg of whisky and one of cider, and for the more delicate drinkers there were such elegant mixtures as mulled Madeira, Sangaree, and orchard punch, as well as Virginia brandies and rums of the Indies. By midnight, even those who were not dancing reels were reeling. The groom, whose first swig of the day had been given him on the road from the church, had toasted and been toasted without pause ever since, and was too amiable a fellow to refuse any cup or goblet offered, and so was by now very unsteady. He waved his arms to keep his balance, and when he walked he appeared to be swimming in slow motion.

  Ann Rogers Clark watched her new son-in-law’s deteriorating condition with mixed feeling. He was comical, pathetic, a bit more human than he had ever seemed to her before, with his red-faced expression of woozy bliss. If he’s this agreeable a fellow drunk, she thought, he must indeed be as good a man as he seems. But Lord in Heaven, I’m afraid he’s not going to do poor Annie a whit o’ good on this night of nights. She watched Annie, happy Annie, with pity. Maybe I should have told her about a thing like this happening, she thought.

  But I just never thought of Owen drunk, she thought. I just never foresaw this kind o’ happenstance.

  It could be such a hurtful thing for Annie if Owen gets clumsy, or just falls asleep on ’er, she thought. Maybe I ought to get to her and forewarn her that suchlike might happen.

  Nay, maybe I rather hadn’t. It might make her afraid o’ the conjugal bed.

  But Annie solved the dilemma herself by coming to inquire. “Mama,” said she, with a dubious glance toward her stupefied groom, “can, ah … can a … is a gent … I mean …”

  “Darlin’, I’m glad ye asked, though I don’t know the answer, as your father has never got quite that unsteady. But whether he can or not, darlin’, remember this, and don’t forget it now: if he can’t, it’s not the end of th’ world, for come tomorrow, or the day after, at least, he’ll be sober.”

  “PA,” SAID EDMUND, “I WANT TO SHOW COUSINS JOHNNY and Joe the pistols.”

  John Clark twisted the spigot of the cider cask and turned. There stood Edmund, all dressed up and wearing shoes for a change, and with him stood his cousins, Joseph and John Rogers. They were tall, handsome youngsters, aged eighteen and sixteen, both redhaired and freckle-faced like their father Ge
orge Rogers.

  “If’t please, you, sir,” said Joseph. “Eddie told us you wouldn’t mind.”

  John Clark sipped from his cup of pungent cider and smacked his lips, and smiled. “I wouldn’t mind at all. Come along here.” He was proud of the pistols.

  He led them away from the sideboard, through the crowded hallway, past the ballroom, toward the master bedroom in the rear of the house.

  “Squire Clark,” called someone from the door of the ballroom as they passed, “not through dancing, are you?”

  “Not at all, Judge!” he called back. “Just cooling my shanks and warming my cockles!” He raised his cup to the guest and opened the door to lead the three boys in. There was already a candle burning in the room, and a figure moved in the shadows near the dresser. “Ah! Pardon us, dear wife,” he said. “What are—”

  “Nay, come on in. But shut the door. I don’t want the rest to see me doing this. They’d think I was gettin’ old.” She sat on a cushioned chair, her shoes off and her feet in a bowl of water. “You almost ruined my old feet, y’ dancing fool. Hello, Joseph, John. Don’t tell your father you saw me thisaway, promise?”

  “Promise, Auntie Ann.”

  “I brought them in to see what our Seldom-Seen Son brought me. Here we are, lads.” He set his cider cup on the dresser, pulled open a small top drawer, and lifted out a tiny brass key. He pulled the pistol case to the front of the dresser top, moved the candle up close to it, and unlocked the box. When he raised the lid the candlelight gleamed on the silver and steel, and the Rogers boys moved close. Their eyes were wide, and Joe’s lips formed a silent whistle.

  “Lord above,” he said, “I’d give a pretty for a pair like them!”

  “I guess they’d cost a pretty,” John Clark said. “George is a pretty extravagant fellow. In every way,” he added. He knew these two lads idolized George as much as his own brothers did, if not more. They were always begging their father to let them go west with him. “If my sons ever disappear,” George Rogers would josh John Clark, “I’ll know ’twas your son led ’em off.” “That could well be,” John Clark would retort, “but it’d be your Rogers blood that’d make ’em follow. They’re three of a kind, as alike as the three tines o’ the Devil’s pitchfork.” George Rogers would laugh and nod then, because he felt that was true, and he liked it. George Rogers Clark was his godson and namesake, and his favorite one of his many, many nephews.

  “Uncle John, may I heft ’em?” asked Johnny Rogers.

  He took up one in each hand, held them up in front of his shoulders and turned them in the light, looking from one to the other, caressing their flintlocks with his thumbs. He leveled first one, then the other, toward a far corner of the bedroom where a cloak hung on a coatrack looking like a man in the shadows. He clucked his tongue twice and jerked the guns upward as if they were recoiling. Edmund looked at his father, remembering the lecture in the slaughter pen. If John Clark was thinking those things now, he didn’t show it. He was sipping his cider and watching Johnny Rogers hand the weapons to his brother Joe. But then he began musing aloud, as he usually did only when he was working.

  “Well, a pair o’ pistols like those, they’re a handsome possession, certainly. But they remind me somewhat o’ jewelry, there in that velvet case like that. Pistols might be o’ use to some kinds o’ folk. Highwaymen. An officer of troops. I’d personally never bought pistols. Pistols are made to point at people, and I’ve no occasion to do such a thing. A long gun’s useful, though, as we’ve all got to provide for our families, isn’t that so, Eddie my boy? But pistols, well, like I say, they’re pretty, and valuable, but somewhat useless, like jewelry.”

  Ann Rogers Clark sat behind them in the shadows, shaking her head slowly and half-smiling. She’d heard all this before, at least three times since George had brought the pistols. Her husband was a lieutenant of county militia, and had been for ten years, but fortunately those had been peaceful years, for John Clark was so imbued with the Sixth Commandment that surely he would never raise his sights on a man, enemy or no. And she thought now, too:

  If’t had been Jonathan gave him those pistols, not George, he’d have worked it out some way in his head that pistols are as useful as hammers and saws.

  Joseph Rogers had taken his turn sighting on the cloak, and had handed the weapons back to John Clark, who now was locking them back in their case. “So there they are, boys,” he said. “Pretty, aren’t they? But extravagant. Well, now, dear wife,” he said, turning, “are y’ ready to put your dancin’ shoes back on and take another tour o’ the ball?”

  “Thankee all the same, John,” she replied, wiggling her toes in the tepid water, “but my feet were made to walk to and fro, bed to cradle, and they find dancing to be extravagant.”

  AT ABOUT ONE IN THE MORNING, WHILE THE MUSICIANS were resting, mopping their sweaty brows, and re-cidering themselves at the cider cask, the wedding guests decided it was time for the bride and groom to take to their nuptial bed, and set up a great merry rush and clamor about it. All the men and boys crowded in to try to kiss her goodnight as the ladies, giggling and cooing, propelled her through the ballroom and hallway and swept her up the stairs. Just before she disappeared beyond the upstairs balustrade, she cast one last desperate look over the laughing, shouting mob below. She found her mother’s face and looked wildly into her teary blue eyes, her own face full of imploring. Ann Rogers Clark, her heart swollen painfully with care, raised her chin in that way which made her look regal as any queen, shut her eyes, and pursed her lips in a kiss, a kiss across the distance. When she opened her eyes Annie was being pulled into the bridal chamber, her head tossed back as if she were being abducted from the familiar life she had known. But she smiled for her mother. Then the door closed, and a great cheer went up from the mob downstairs. Now, they knew, the women up there would be undressing her, perfuming and caressing her, to make her ready to receive her groom.

  The menfolk now turned to give Owen Gwathmey his finishing touches. They encircled him and poured him glass after glass of courage and passion, advising him, giving him specific instructions that caused him, even in his stunned condition, to blush livid. This was a moment of torment for John Clark, who for this moment almost hated his good friends for the words that were coming from their stinking, drooling mouths.

  Finally, when poor Owen couldn’t stand up anymore they declared that it must be time for him to lie down, and so they shouldered him and carried him upstairs to the bridal chamber, held him up swaying and sagging and stripped him, and dumped him into bed beside the cowering bride, jibing him to do his bounden duty. And then they roared back downstairs singing, leaving the pair alone at last. In the darkness Annie Clark lay stiff, almost sickened by the alcoholic vapors emanating from the big, gasping, naked man beside her, and she heard the fiddles downstairs strike up the rowdy old tune, “Hang On Till Morning.”

  NOW THAT THE BRIDE AND GROOM HAD RETIRED, PATRICK Henry got less musical and more political. He took over the library and started trying to make it sound like the floor of the House of Burgesses. He stalked about, waving his cup, his spectacles on the top of his head, and orated.

  “Since Lord Dunmore repacked the Caroline Court, surely you all have noticed, at least half a dozen of your friends have been brought to trial on charge of making seditious remarks against the Crown! Remember John Penn? Remember … Why, damn my eyes, there’s two people in this very house right now, dancing in that room, who have been indicted for criticizing King George! I, who’ve said three times as much, by some odd quirk have yet to be tried.” One got the impression that Henry would like nothing better. “Our aristocrats,” he went on, “believe those good people take their sauciness from my own intemperate mouth. Nonsense! I only echo the people’s sentiments, I don’t shape them!”

  “Mister Henry,” interjected John Clark, “you’re being modest.”

  Laughter rippled around the room. Patrick Henry himself had to lick a smile off his lips before continuing, a
s ferociously as ever. “The only representation you’ve ever had has been your peer juries. Thank God for the juries, God bless the juries! Were’t not for you, every man heard blowing his nose in the direction of London would be on the pillories.” They all knew of the Penn case. The jury of common planters that had served in John Penn’s trial had been instructed by the magistrates to find him guilty of sedition and fine him heavily. They had instead decreed a fine of one penny. Only by such means had the ordinary colonists mitigated the heavy-handed authority that filtered down from King George through his colonial governor to the magistrates he appointed. But even jurors could be intimidated. Most of the tobacco merchants were royalists, and they were not above warning a juror that they would grade his tobacco inferior if he dared to thwart the magistrates’ intentions. Patrick Henry, after a lifetime of listening in taverns and courthouses, knew well all the royalists’ methods, and hated them. Perhaps it was true, as he said, that he only echoed the common men’s sentiments, but he made a point of echoing them and echoing them until the common people could never forget their grievances for a waking minute.