_ PART THREE
CHAPTER VI
I
"Father! Father! Where are you? Arnold has betrayed! He has betrayed his country!"
Breathless, Marjorie rushed into the hallway, leaving the door ajar behind her. It was late in the afternoon of a September day. The air was soft and hazy, tempered with just the chill of evening that comes at this time of the year before sundown.
More than two months had passed, months crowded with happiness which had filled her life with fancy. Her engagement to Captain Meagher had been announced, quietly and simply; their marriage was to take place in the fall. Day after day sped by and hid themselves in the records of time until the event, anxiously awaited, yet equally dreaded, was but a bare month distant. It would be a quiet affair after all, with no ostentation or display; but that would in no wise prevent her from looking her prettiest.
And so on this September afternoon while she was visiting the shops for the purpose of discovering whatever tempting and choice bits of ware they might have to offer, she thought she heard the blast of a trumpet from the direction of the balcony of the old Governor's Mansion. Attracted by the sound, which recalled to her mind a former occasion when the news of the battle of Monmouth was brought to the city by courier and announced to the public, she quickened her steps in the direction of the venerable building. True, a man was addressing the people who had congregated beneath the balcony. Straining every faculty she caught the awful news.
Straightway she sped homewards, running as often as her panting breath would allow. She did not wait to open the door, but seemed to burst through it.
"What was that, child?" her father asked quickly as he met her in the dining-room.
"Arnold ... Arnold ..." she repeated, waiting to catch her breath.
"Has betrayed, you say?"
"West Point."
"My God! We are lost."
He threw his hands heavenwards and started across the floor.
"What is it, Marjorie?" asked the mother, who now stood in the passageway, a corner of her apron held in both hands, a look of wonder and suspicion full upon her.
"No, Father!" the girl replied, apparently heedless of her mother's presence, "West Point is saved. Arnold has gone."
"Let him go. But West Point is still ours? Thank God! He is with the British, I suppose?"
"So they say. The plot was discovered in the nick of time. His accomplice was captured and the papers found upon him."
"When did this happen?"
"Only a few days ago. The courier was dispatched at once to the members of Congress. The message was delivered today."
"And General Arnold tried to sell West Point to the British?" commented Mrs. Allison, who had listened as long as possible to the disconnected story. "A scoundrel of a man."
"Three Americans arrested a suspicious man in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Upon searching him they discovered some papers in the handwriting of Arnold containing descriptions of the fortress. They took him for a spy."
"I thought as much," said Mrs. Allison. "Didn't I tell you that Arnold would do something like that? I knew it. I knew it."
"Thank God he is not one of us," was Mr. Allison's grave reply. "His act would only serve to fan into fury the dormant flames of Pope Day."
"This is an act of vengeance," Marjorie reflected. "He never forgot his court-martial, and evidently sought his country's ruin in revenge. Adversities he could contend with; humiliation he could not endure."
The little group presented a varied scene. The girl, young, tender, was plainly animated with a strong undercurrent of excitement which thrilled her entire frame, flushing her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes. Her tender years, her inexperience with the world, her guileless mind and frank open manner had not yet prepared her for the enormity of the crime which had of a sudden been flashed full upon her. For the moment realization had given way to wonder. She sensed only the magnitude of the tragedy without its atrocious and more insidious details. On the other hand there was the father, composed and imperturbable, to whom the disclosure of this scheme of the blackest treason was but another chapter added to the year of disasters which was just coming to a close. His more astute mind, schooled by long experience with the world and its artifices, had taught him to view the transit of events with a certain philosophy, a sort of pragmatic philosophy, with reference to the causes and the results of events and how they bore on the practical utility of all concerned; and finally the mother, who in her devout and pious way, saw only the Holy Will of God working in all things for His own praise and glory.
"And they found the dispatches in his own writing?" the father asked deliberately.
"In his stockings, beneath the soles of his feet."
Again there was silence.
"He is a prisoner?"
"Of course. He was arrested for a spy. They say he is an Adjutant in the British army. He was in full disguise."
"Hm!"
Mr. Allison set his lips.
"I think," continued Marjorie, "that it was the effect of a stroke of good fortune. He was taken by three men who were lying in wait for robbers. Otherwise he might have continued his journey in safety and the plot would have succeeded."
"Thank God and His Blessed Mother!" breathed Mrs. Allison as she clasped her hands together before her in an attitude of prayer.
"And Arnold?" methodically asked Mr. Allison.
"He escaped to the British lines. I do not know how, but it seems that he has departed. The one important item, which pleased and interested the people, was the capture of the spy and the frustration of the plot."
The father left the chair and began to pace the room, his hands behind him.
"It is a bad blow. Too bad! Too bad!" he repeated. "I do not like it, for it will destroy the courage and confidence of our people. Arnold was the idol of the army, and I fear that his defection will create a great change of heart."
"The army will be better off without him," said Mrs. Allison.
"I agree with you," was the reply. "But the people may decide in a different manner. There is reason for worry."
"What was the effect of Lee's attempted treason?" spoke up Marjorie. "The people loathe him, and he will die an outcast."
"There is no punishment too severe for Lee. He has been from the start nothing but a selfish adventurer. But the cases are not parallel. Lee was never popular with the army. Arnold, you must remember, was the most successful leader in the field and the officer most prized by the Commander-in-chief."
"Nevertheless he will sink as fast as he climbed, I think. The country must not tolerate a traitor."
"Must not! But will not the circumstance alter the case? I say that unless the proofs of Arnold's treason are irrefutable, the people will be slow to believe. I don't like it. I don't."
There was some logic in his argument which began to impress Marjorie. Arnold could exercise a tremendous amount of influence over the army. Whether the strings of loyalty which had united their hearts with his would be now snapped by his act of perfidy was the mooted question. As a matter of fact a spirit of mutiny already was beginning to make itself manifest. The soldiers of Pennsylvania who were encamped on the heights of Morristown marched out of camp the following January and set out for Philadelphia. They were rebuked by Washington, who sent a letter by General Wayne, whereupon they returned to their posts. Later in the same month another mutiny occurred among the New Jersey troops, but this, too, was quickly suppressed. Just how much responsibility for these uprisings might be traced to the treason of Arnold can not be estimated. There is no question, however, that his act was not wholly unproductive of its psychological effects.
"I feel so sorry for Peggy," Marjorie sighed.
"The young wife has a sore burden thrown upon her. A sorry day it was when she met him," was Mrs. Allison's comment.
"Strange, I never suspected Peggy for a moment," Marjorie said. "I had been raised with her and thought we knew each other. I am sorry, very sorry."
"We do not know how much she is concerned with this," announced Mr. Allison, "but her ambition knew no restraint or limitation. She has her peerage now."
"And her husband?"
"The grave of a traitor, the sole immortality of degraded ambition, religious prejudice, treason and infamy."
"God help him!" exclaimed Mrs. Allison.
II
In July, 1780, General Arnold had been placed in command of West Point; two months later he was safe on board the British sloop-of-war,
Vulture. He had attempted to betray his country; he received in exchange six thousand pounds sterling, together with a brigadiership in the British Army.
From the time he left Philadelphia until the morning of his flight he had kept up a continual correspondence with John Anderson. Information was at length conveyed to him that Sir Henry Clinton was in possession of advices that the American Commander-in-chief contemplated an advance on New York by way of King's Bridge. Clinton's scheme would allow the army of General Washington to move upon the city, having collected all his magazines at the fortification at West Point, but at a given moment Arnold was expected to surrender the fort and garrison and compel the army of Washington to retire immediately or else suffer capture in the field.
Still Arnold felt that everything was not quite settled between Sir Henry and himself, and wrote accordingly, advising that a written guarantee be forwarded or delivered in person to him by an officer of Sir Henry's staff of his own mensuration. He was informed by way of reply that the necessary meeting might be arranged, and that the emissary would be the Adjutant-General of the British Army.
Accordingly the British sloop
Vulture moved up the river as far as Stony Point, bearing the Adjutant-General. Arnold had fixed on the house of Joshua Smith as the place for the meeting. On the night of the twenty-first of September, he sent a boat to the
Vulture which brought the emissary shore. In a thick grove of cedars, in the shroud of the blackest night, Arnold waited the return of the rowboat, its oars muffled with sheepskins, its passenger on board. The latter sprang lightly to the shore, his large blue watchcoat and high boots alone visible. As he climbed the bank and approached the grove, he threw back his cloak and revealed the full British uniform of a general officer.
"Anderson?" Arnold exclaimed. "You?"
"No! Andre, Major Andre," was the reply.
"Hm! I thought as much. I suspected you from the moment I met you in Philadelphia."
"Come. Let us finish. I must return before daybreak."
"Where is your disguise? I advised you to come in disguise."
He understood the piercing glance.
"I have come thus under General Clinton's orders," was the reply. "My safety lies in open uniform."
"Let it go at that. Here! I have with me the plans of West Point, together with a full inventory of its armament and stores and a roster of its garrison."
Andre took the papers and glanced at them as best he could by means of the lantern light.
"But I do not see here a written promise to surrender the fortress?"
"No! Nor, by Heaven, you shall not receive it," Arnold snapped. "I have given my word. That is enough. I have already placed myself in your hands by these plans and inventories made in my own handwriting. This is all.... No more."
"General Washington visits here on Saturday?"
"Yes."
"The surrender must take place that night."
Arnold looked fiercely at him. This was one matter which seemed intolerable. To betray his country was treason; to betray his sole friend and benefactor was unknown to him by any name in the English language. He refused absolutely. Andre insisted, and the discussion became violent.
Neither became aware of the dawn which was about to break through the thicket of fir-trees which bounded the opposite bank of the Hudson. Still the details had not been arranged; the matter of Arnold's reward was still unsettled. There had been various promises of compensation, maintenance of military rank, a peerage or a viceroyalty in one of the colonies, but Andre was empowered to offer no more than compensation and military rank. With the dawning light, the boatmen became alarmed and refused to take Andre back to his ship, with the result that the two conspirators were obliged to pass the time until the next night in the house of Joshua Smith.
It so happened that the day brought to pass an unforeseen accident. Livingston, the Colonel of "Congress' Own," in command of the batteries on the opposite side of the river at Verplanck's Point, opened fire upon the
Vulture, compelling her to drop down the river. It was necessary, therefore, for Major Andre to proceed by land down the opposite shore until he had met with his vessel, and so late at night he departed, his uniform and coat exchanged for a disguise, the six papers in Arnold's handwriting crammed between his stockings and feet.
It also happened, by a strange irony of fate, that a party of American soldiers had set out that very morning to intercept a band of robbers who had infested the roadways of this neighborhood, and who had rendered the highways impassable because of their depredations. Near Tarrytown, three of this party confronted a passing traveler, and leveling their muskets at him, ordered him to halt. They were obeyed on the instant, and because of the suspicious manner of the stranger, a complete search of him was made. The set of papers was found in their hiding place, and he was placed under arrest, and sent to North Castle. There the papers were examined, and instead of being sent to General Arnold himself, were forwarded to His Excellency, who was known to be lodged at West Point. At the same time a complementary letter was sent to General Arnold, informing him of what had taken place.
He was at breakfast when the news was brought him. The letter was crumbled in his hand as he hastily arose from the table and rushed to Peggy's room where he acquainted her of his fate. She screamed and fainted. He stooped to kiss his sleeping child; then rushing from the house was soon mounted and on his way to the place where he knew a barge had been anchored. Jumping aboard he ordered the oarsmen to take him to the
Vulture, eighteen miles down the river. Next morning he was safe within the enemy's lines at New York.
III
The minute details of the attempted plot had not filtered into Philadelphia when a demonstration had begun in celebration of its frustration. Spontaneously and exuberantly the citizens of the city gathered in the public square and for several hours the joy-making continued with unabated energy and enthusiasm. Like a flash it seemed that the full realization of what this news had meant broke like a rushing tide upon their consciousness. The country had been threatened; but the danger had been averted.
In a few hours the streets were mad with hundreds of people singing and shouting and marching in unrestrained glee. Bulletins had been posted in the public square acquainting the people of the great facts, yet this did not begin to equal the amount of news which had been relayed from mouth to mouth and grew in detail and magnitude as it went. Chains, trays, broken iron were dragged in rattling bundles up and down the streets amid the laughs and cheers of the mass of humanity that had swarmed upon the roadways and sidewalks.
Marjorie and her father were among the early arrivals on Market Street. Little by little items of information came to them as they alternately talked with their many acquaintances. Out of the many and varied accounts one or two points had stood out prominently--Arnold had attempted to surrender the fortress while Washington was lodged there in the hope that complete disaster would befall the American cause; he had completed negotiations with the British emissary; who was known as Major Andre, whom the people of Philadelphia associated with the person of John Anderson, a frequent visitor of the Arnolds during their stay in the city; the officer had been taken prisoner by the American forces and the papers found upon him; while Arnold and his wife had escaped to the British forces in the city of New York.
When the gayety seemed to have attained its climax, a procession began to wend its way through the howling crowd. There was no attempt at regular formation, the multitude trailing along in whatever order seemed most desirable to them. In the midst of the line of march, two gaunt figures towered aloft over the heads of the marchers, the one bearing a placard upon which was scrawled the name "Arnold the traitor," the other, "Andre the spy." These were carried with great acclaim several times around the city until the procession rested at the square, where amid cheers and huzzas they were publicly burned. This seemed to satisfy the crowd, for they gradually began to disperse. The hour was late and Marjorie and her father journeyed homewards, passing the watchman at the corner as he announced the hour, "Eleven o'clock and Arnold is burned."
The state bordering on frenzy into which the mob had been cast was responsible, for the most part, for the violence of the celebration, nevertheless there stood many sober and composed individuals apart from the ranks who had looked on in silent acquiescence during the riotous proceedings. Arnold had fallen to the lowest ebb of infamy and contempt so that even his past services were entirely forgotten. There was no palliation. There were no extenuating circumstances. The enormity of his crime alone mattered. His name could not be mentioned without a shudder.
Mount Pleasant was not permitted to remain idle. It soon was seized by the city authorities and rented to Baron Steuben, the disciplinarian of the American Army and the author of its first Manual of Arms. The household furniture, too, had been removed and offered for sale at public auction, while the coach and four was bought by a trader at the Coffee House. Arnold's presence in the city was now no more than a memory--a memory, indeed, but a sad one.
"He would never escape the fury of that crowd," Mr. Allison observed to his daughter as the two journeyed homewards.
"They would surely put him to death."
"If they ever lay hands on him--they might perhaps cut off his wounded leg, but the rest of him they would burn."
She considered.
"I can scarce believe it--it seems too awful."
"Well! I never could see much good in a bigot. A man with a truly broad and charitable soul has no room in him for base designs. Arnold would crucify us if he could, yet we have lived to see him repudiated by his own."
"It does seem after all that God takes care of His own. Even the sparrow does not fall to the ground."
Plainly the spirit of the evening had awakened a serious vein of thought in the two. They could take no delight in a tragedy so intimately interwoven with pity and compassion. The fate of the two principal actors, the courageous Arnold and the ambitious Andre, erstwhile known as Anderson, could not fail to touch their hearts. Their lot was not enviable; but it was lamentable.
"And John Anderson, too," said Marjorie, "I cannot believe it."
"When the truth is known, I am of the opinion that he will be more pitied and less condemned. Arnold was the chief actor. Andre a mere pawn."
"How brilliant he was! You remember his visits? The afternoon at the piano?"
"Yes. He was talented. But to what purpose?"
"I am sorry."
And so were the many. _