"It is to you soley that I owe the honour of having enjoyed the personal
consideration of the President. His reception of me had been in the highest
degree ceremonious and distant; but upon my mentioning the names of father
and brother, his manner grew warm: I had touched that trait of affectionate
faithfulness with which he has always held on to every tie of kin and
friendship. That your father should have fought against him and your brother
under him made no difference in his memory. He had many questions to ask
regarding you--your happiness, your family--to some of which I could return
the answers that gave him pleasure or left him thoughtful. Upon my setting
out from Mount Vernon, his last words made me the bearer of his message to
you, the child of an old comrade and the sister or a gallant young soldier."
Beyond this there was nothing personal in his letter and nothing as to his
return.
When she next heard, he was in Philadelphia, giving his attention to the
choosing and shipment of the books. One piece of news, imparted in perfect
calmness by him, occasioned her acute disappointment. His expectation of
coming into possession of some ten thousand dollars had not quite been
realized. An appeal had been taken and the case was yet pending. He was
pleased neither with the good faith nor with the good sense of the counsel
engaged; and he would remain on the spot himself during the trial. He added
that he was lodging with a pleasant family. Then followed the long winter
during which all communication between the frontier and the seaboard was
interrupted. When spring returned at last and the earliest travel was
resumed, other letters came, announcing that the case had gone against him,
and that he had nothing.
She sold at once all the new linen that had been woven, got together all the
money she otherwise could and despatched it with Major Falconer's consent,
begging him to make use of it for the sake of their friendship--not to be
foolish and proud: there were lawyers' fees it could help to pay, or other
plain practical needs it might cover. But when the post-rider returned, he
brought it all back with a letter of gratitude: only, he couldn't accept it.
And the messenger had been warned not to let it be known that he was in
prison for debt on account of these same suit expenses; for having from the
first formed a low opinion of his counsel's honour and ability and having
later expressed this opinion at the door of the court-room with a good deal
of fire and a good deal of contempt, and being furthermore unable and
unwilling to pay the exorbitant fee, he had been promptly clapped into jail
by the incensed attorney, as well for his poverty and for his temper and his
pride.