"Can"t say I would take you for one, no." The President turned a full, long, searching look upon him.
"Well, I have never been back--home--I--I left two freed slaves in the State when I came away, and, you know----"
Mr. Lincoln laughed for the first time aloud. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You remind me of a case we had out in Illinois. There was an old fellow laying to stock a pond he had with fish. Well, that pond was so close to town and so handy, that the boys--some of "em about as old as you and me--caught "em out as fast as he put "em in. By and by his son got into the Legislature, and one day when there wasn"t a great deal of other law to make or to spoil, he got the other members to vote for a bill to punish anybody for taking anything out of that pond. His bill said, "for fishing anything out of that pond." Well, one day a little son of his fell in and got so far from sh.o.r.e before they saw him that they had to literally fish him out with a pole. Some of the fishermen around there wanted him arrested for violation of the law he had pa.s.sed to hit them.--Fact! He and you are about the same sort of criminals." He turned to the map again. "Of course I understand what you mean. Yes, yes, I know. These very pa.s.ses and fords are dear to you. Some people have that sort of attachments. I have. Why, I"d feel like getting down off o" my horse at many a place out on my old circuit and just making love to the very earth beneath my feet! O, I know how you feel! These old fords are old friends. As you rode along at another place, certain thoughts came to you, and kept you company for miles. They would come back to you right there again. Right over there was a sorrowful memory. You knew the birds that nested in this defile, and you stopped and put the little fellows back in the nest when they had fallen out--and they were not afraid of you. I know how that is. They never were afraid of me--none but the yellow-legged chickens." He smiled in his quizzical way. He was still testing and studying his guest, while keeping him off his guard, and making him forget the President in his relations with the man.
Griffith had begun to wonder how he could know about those birds and woodland friends of long ago, but the yellow-legged chicken joke was so familiar to the preacher that he smiled absently, as in duty bound.
"I"m really glad to know that there are other circuit-riders than we of the cloth who strike terror to the inmates of the barnyard, but I never before heard any one else accused of it."
"I remember, once," began Mr. Lincoln, recrossing his long legs and taking up the penknife again--"I remember, once, when a lot of us were riding over to a neighboring town from Springfield. I had the wrong end of a case, I know, and was feeling pretty chilly along the spine whenever I thought of it. The judge was with the party, and the only way I ever did win that suit was by pretending not to see the chickens hide under the corn-shocks the minute he got off his horse. He"d eat a whole pullet every meal, and he got around so often they all knew him--some by sight and some by hearsay."
He drew the map toward him and indicated a spot by holding the point of his knife on it.
"There"s a strip along here," he began, and Griffith arose and bent over the map, "that I can"t make out. That seems to be an opening in the mountains; but----"
"No--no," said Griffith, taking up a pencil from the table. "No; the real opening--the road pa.s.s-- Let me see; what"s the scale of miles here? M-m-m! Four? No-- Why, the road pa.s.s is at least five miles farther on." He drew a line. "You see, it"s like this. There." He stopped and shook his head. "M-m-m! No, n-o-o; that map"s all wrong.
It ought to run along there--so. This way. The road--the _wagon_ road--trends along here--so. Then you go across the ridge at an angle here--so. There ought to be a stream here.
"O pshaw! this map"s-- Where did you get this map? It"s no account, at all. Why, according to this, there"s at least seven miles left out right here, between-- Why, right here, where they"ve got those little, insignificant-looking foothills, is one of the most rugged and impa.s.sable places in this world! Here, now!" He drew several lines and turned the map. "O pshaw! there"s no place left now for the--Here, right a-b-o-u-t h-e-r-e--no, there, right there--is the Bedolph estate--fine old stone house, corn-fields, wheat, orchards--a splendid place. Then, as you go up this way, you pa.s.s into a sort of pocket--a little strip pretty well hedged in. You couldn"t go with a carriage without making a circuit around here--this way--but a horseman can cut all that off and go--so. See? There is a mill--fine old mill stream--right here--runs this way."
Mr. Lincoln had followed every line eagerly, making little vocal sounds of understanding, or putting in a single word to lead Griffith on.
Suddenly he said:
"You"re a good Union man Morton tells me."
"I am, indeed, Mr. Lincoln. n.o.body in the world could be more sorry than I over the present situation. I----"
"How sorry are you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Griffith, straightening up. Mr. Lincoln arose at the same time.
"How much of a Union man are you?--"nough to help save it? How sorry are you?--sorry enough to act?"
Griffith had almost forgotten why he was here. It all came back to him.
He began to breathe hard.
"I have acted, I have helped," he said, moving toward the window. "When you came in the room I was looking through those fine gla.s.ses of yours at that bridge, across which I came in fifty-three, self-exiled, hastening to escape from the bondage of ownership, and, at the last, from the legal penalty of leaving behind me two freed, runaway negroes."
He had lifted the gla.s.ses to his eyes again. "I thought then that I had done my full duty--_all_ of it. But since then I have given my three sons to you--to my country. They----"
Mr. Lincoln"s muscular hand rested on Griffith"s shoulder.
"Look at that bridge again. Do you see any dead men on it? Do you see young sons like your own dragging bleeding limbs across it? Do you see terror-stricken horses struggling with and trampling down those wounded boys? Do you see----"
Griffith turned to look at him, in surprise.
"No," he said, "nothing of the kind. There are a few soldiers moving about down this side, but there"s nothing of that kind."
He offered the gla.s.ses to the President, who waved them away.
"I don"t need them!" and an inexpressibly sad expression crossed his face. "I don"t need them. I have seen it. I saw it all one day. I saw it all that night as it trailed past here. I heard the groans. The blood was under that window. I have seen it! I have seen nothing else since.
If you have never seen a panic of wounded men, pray to your G.o.d that you never may!" The sorrowful voice was attuned now to the sorrowful, the tragic face. "Do you see that lounge over there?" He pointed to the other side of the room. "Men think it is a great thing to be a President of a great nation--and so it is, so it is; yet for three nights while you slept peacefully in your bed I lay there, when I wasn"t reading telegrams or receiving messages, not knowing what would come next--waiting to be ready for whatever it might be."
He had not finished presenting the case in a light in which he felt sure it would touch the character of the man before him.
"Are your small personal needs paramount to those of your country? Have you no patriotism? Have you no _mercy_ upon our soldiers? Must more hundreds of them suffer defeat and death for the lack of what _you_ can give them? Are you willing to receive the benefits of a free country which you are not willing to help in her hour of greatest need?
Can you--do you--want to leave your young sons and the sons of your neighbors on the far side of the dead line marked by that bridge?" The allusion was a chance one, but it struck home.
Griffith put out his hand.
"What do you want me to do?" he gasped, hoa.r.s.ely.
The President grasped his hand and held it in a vice-like grip.
"What--do--I--want--you--to--do?" he asked, with a deliberation strangely at variance with the pa.s.sion of his words a moment ago. He looked down searchingly, kindly, pityingly into the troubled eyes before him. "What do I want you to do? I--want--you--to--follow-- your--conscience----for--the--benefit--of--your--country--instead--of-- for--your--own--personal--comfort,--until--that--conscience--tells--you-- your--country--needs--you--no--longer; that you have, in deed and in truth, done your share fully! I want you to go with an advance guard down through that very country"--his long finger pointed to the disfigured map on the table--"and show our commander the _real_ topography of that land. I want you to make him as familiar with it as you are yourself. I want you to show him where the pa.s.ses and fords are, where supplies can be carried across, where water is plenty, and where both advance and retreat are possible without useless and horrible slaughter. I want you--" He was still holding Griffith"s right hand. He placed his left on his shoulder, again. "No man has done his duty in a crisis like this until he has done _all_ that he can to hasten the dawn of peace;" he lowered his voice, "and he that is not with us is against us," he said solemnly, the scriptural language falling from his lips as if their professions were reversed.
"How far do you want me to go?" asked Griffith, looking up with an appeal in every tense muscle of his miserable face. "It is my native State! They are my people! I love every foot of ground--I love those--"
He was breathing so hard he stopped for a moment. "That we do not think alike--that they are what you call rebels to our common country--does not change my love. I--Mr. Lincoln----"
The President seemed to tower up to a greater height than even his former gigantic alt.i.tude. He threw both arms out in a sudden pa.s.sion: "Forget your love! Forget your native State! Forget _yourself!_ Forget _everything_ except that this Union must and shall be saved, and that _you_ can hasten the end of this awful carnage!" The storm had swept over. He lowered his voice again, and with both hands on the preacher"s shoulders: "I will agree to this. When you have gone so far that you can come back here to me and say, "I _know_ now that I have done enough. My conscience is clear. My whole duty is done." When you can come back here and say that to me--when you can say (if you and I had changed places) that you could ask no more of me--then I will agree to ask no more of you." Then, suddenly, "When will you start? To-night?"
"Yes," said Griffith, almost inaudibly, and sank into a chair.
Mr. Lincoln strode to the table and pushed aside the disfigured map. "I will write your instructions and make necessary plans," he said. "There is not much to do. The General and the engineer corps are ready. I hoped and believed you would go." His pen flew over the paper. Then he paused and looked at his visitor. "We must fix your rank. Will you volunteer, or shall I----?"
"Is that necessary, Mr. Lincoln? I am a preacher, you know. I---- Can"t I go just as I am--just--as----?"
The President had turned again to the table, and was writing. Griffith stepped to his side.
"Do you realize, Mr. Lincoln, that every man, woman and child in that whole country will recognize me--and--?"
"Yes, yes, I know, I know. We must do everything we can to protect you from all danger--against a.s.sa.s.sination or----"
"It is not _that_," said Griffith, hoa.r.s.ely. "Do you care nothing for the good-will--for the confidence--of your old neighbors hack in Illinois?"
The stroke went directly home.
"Do I care for it?" There was a long pause. The sunken eyes were drawn to a mere line. "I"d rather lose anything else in this world. It is meat and drink to me. I----"
"Look here, Mr. Davenport; don"t make the mistake of thinking that I don"t realize what I"m asking you to do--that I don"t see the sacrifice.
I do. I do, fully, and I want to do everything I can to--to make it up to you. I know you used to be greatly trusted and beloved down there.
Morton has told me. He told me all about the pathos of that old negro following you, too, and how you made out to keep her. I know, I know it all, and I wouldn"t ask you if I knew how to avoid it. I tell you that I"d rather give up everything else in this world than the good-will of those old friends of mine back there in Illinois; but if I had to give up the respect and confidence and love of every one of them, or forfeit that of Abraham Lincoln, who has sworn" to sustain this Union, I"d have to stick to old Abe! It would go hard with me--harder than anything I know of--but it would have to be done. We have _got_ to sustain this Union! We"ll save her with slavery at the South and with friends to ourselves, if we can; but, by the Eternal I we"ll save her anyhow!"
He struck over and over the same chord--the Union must be saved. Every road led back to that one point. Every argument hinged upon it. Every protest was met by it. He hammered down all other questions.
"If we are Union men, this is the time and the place to show it. All other objects, motives, methods, private interests, tastes, loves or preferences must yield to the supreme test--What are we willing to do to save the Union?" Once he said:
"You don"t suppose my position is particularly agreeable,"do you? Do you fancy it is easy, or to my liking?"
"No, no, Mr. President, of course not. I understand that; but you are holding a public office, and----"