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President without a Party
President without a Party

THE LIFE OF JOHN TYLER

Christopher J. Leahy

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

BATON ROUGE
Published with the assistance of the V. Ray Cardozier Fund

Published by Louisiana State University Press

Copyright © 2020 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing

DESIGNER: Mandy McDonald Scallan

TYPEFACE: Whitman
PRINTER AND BINDER: Sheridan Books, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Leahy, Christopher J., author.
Title: President without a Party : The Life of John Tyler / Christopher J. Leahy.
Description: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2020] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019041356 (print) | LCCN 2019041357 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-8071-
7254-4 (cloth) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7355-8 (pdf) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7354-1 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Tyler, John, 1790–1862. | Presidents—United States—Biography. | United
States—Politics and government—1841–1845.
Classification: LCC E397 .L43 2020 (print) | LCC E397 (ebook) | DDC 973.5/8092 [B]—
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041356
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041357

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
To Sharon

and to the memories of

Patricia A. Leahy and

David R. Williams
Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Prologue: Decision at Harrisburg

Introduction
1. A Virginia Inheritance
2. Restless Ambition
3. The Perils of National Politics
4. A Scheme to Go Back
5. A Not So Dedicated Jacksonian
6. Absence as a Way of Life
7. Becoming a Whig
8. Taking Charge
9. The Power Struggle Begins
10. Banishment
11. The Ill-Fated Exchequer Plan
12. Putting His Stamp on the Presidency
13. A Victory in Rhode Island
14. Aggressive Foreign Policy
15. A Tyler Party?
16. Miss Gardiner
17. A New Bride and a New State
18. You Can Take the Man out of Politics . . .
19. Fatherhood, Part Two
20. Renouncing the Union
Epilogue: History’s Judgment

NOTES
NOTE ON SOURCES
INDEX
Photographs
Acknowledgments

Completing this work has taken far longer than I anticipated at the
outset. During the course of my research and writing, I have
benefited from the help of many people, and I am pleased at long
last to be able to thank them for their assistance. I apologize in
advance for anyone I inadvertently fail to mention. Any errors of
fact or interpretation that may have remained in the book are
entirely my own.
I spent weeks and months at various archives throughout the
United States immersing myself in manuscript collections essential
to understanding the life of John Tyler. At the Earl Gregg Swem
Library at the College of William and Mary, Margaret Cook
welcomed me at the very start of the project and alerted me to
collections that proved crucial to my research. Her vast knowledge
and good cheer made working at Swem Library one of the very best
experiences of my career as a historian. I would also like to thank
Susan Riggs, who often went above and beyond the call of duty to
help me track down an obscure document. Susan also contacted me
whenever William and Mary purchased another John Tyler letter.
The staff of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond aided my
research and writing in many ways. I would especially like to thank
Nelson D. Lankford, whose support of my work was instrumental in
me being awarded two Mellon Fellowships that allowed me to spend
concentrated periods of time in the VHS collections. John McClure,
director of library and research at the VHS, and Senior Archivist
Eileen Parris helped with tying up loose ends as I completed the
project. I thank Graham T. Dozier, Managing Editor of Publications
and Virginius Dabney editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography, for permission to reprint portions of two articles I
published with the journal.
 Reference librarians at the Library of Virginia in Richmond
helped me navigate through pertinent collections and state
documents located there. Brent Tarter encouraged me as I began the
project, and his unsurpassed knowledge of Virginia’s rich history
helped me a great deal. Similarly, the staff at the Albert and Shirley
Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville was both welcoming and helpful. My research at the
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke
University yielded unexpected treasures that (I hope) greatly
enhanced the book. I am grateful to the staff there and would like to
especially thank Elizabeth Dunn. The Wilson Library at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC’s Southern
Historical Collection also proved important to my work. I thank the
staff who helped me during my time in Chapel Hill. I would also like
to thank the staff who aided me at the W. S. Hoole Special
Collections Library at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
I was able to complete most of the research in the John Tyler
Papers of the Library of Congress by using microfilm. When I did
find it necessary to travel to Washington, DC, to work through Tyler
papers not collected on microfilm, or when I wanted to look through
other collections relevant to my project, I received a great deal of
help and expertise from the staff at the Library of Congress. By
chance one day, while working in the Madison Building, I also met
and talked with Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense under
President Ronald Reagan, which was a welcome diversion from the
seemingly endless William Cabell Rives Papers.
At Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven,
Connecticut, Michael Frost and Jessica Becker were especially
helpful as I braved the massive collection of Gardiner-Tyler Family
Papers. I requested hundreds of pages of photocopies of letters while
I was at Yale, which the staff members cheerfully and expeditiously
fulfilled to my great gratitude.
Archivists at libraries I did not visit personally also graciously
provided me with photocopies of letters relevant to my project. I
would like to thank the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany,
New York; Julie Koven of the American Jewish Historical Society,
New York City; Maggie Heran of the Cincinnati Historical Society,
Cincinnati, Ohio; Brian Moeller of the Huntington Library,
Huntington, California; Kay Vander Meulen of Seymour Library,
Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois; Elisabeth Proffen of the Maryland
Historical Society, Baltimore; the Fales Library and Special
Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New
York City; Sigrid P. Perry of the Charles Deering McCormick Library
of Special Collections, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois;
Dr. Edwin Frank of the Ned R. McWherter Library, University of
Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee; and the Archives and Special
Collections Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
New York.
Judith Ledbetter of Charles City County, Virginia, kindly shared
her work on John Tyler’s possible African American descendants
with me.
Meghan Townes and Mark Fagerburg of the Library of Virginia
facilitated the process whereby I secured permission to use the
wonderful portrait from the library for the cover of the book.
A number of my former professors and colleagues encouraged me
and provided feedback on my work on John Tyler over the years.
They include Larry Shumsky at Virginia Tech University; Court
Carney, John Rodrigue, Charles Royster, John Sacher, and Chad
Vanderford at Louisiana State University; Jeffrey Bell, Sam Hyde,
Michael Kurtz, Harry Laver, Peter Petrakis, and William Robison at
Southeastern Louisiana University; and Sander Diamond and David
Leon at Keuka College. My thanks to them all.
Bertram Wyatt-Brown offered words of wisdom as I began to
revise my dissertation into this book and encouraged me to pursue
publication with LSU Press. On a research trip to Duke University, I
was fortunate to meet Robert Durden, who took an interest in my
work and offered sound advice over lunch at the Duke Faculty Club.
A number of people read portions of this work, either as
conference papers or after I completed a first draft, and offered
valuable feedback. I would especially like to thank Fred Bailey,
Fergus Bordewich, Andrew Burstein, Phillip Hamilton, John Lauritz
Larson, and Harry L. Watson. Erik Chaput and Russ DeSimone read
the chapter on the Dorr Rebellion and offered helpful suggestions.
Christopher Childers read the book’s early chapters and challenged
me to sharpen the thematic aspect of the work. Robert Gudmestad
took on the chore of reading the chapters covering Tyler’s
presidency and impressed upon me the importance of tightening the
narrative. He also persuaded me that it is okay to leave some things
on the cutting-room floor. I would also like to thank an anonymous
reviewer of the manuscript for LSU Press.
The two institutional homes where I have climbed the ranks from
assistant professor to full professor have greatly aided me in the
completion of this work. At Southeastern Louisiana University my
department head, William Robison, helped facilitate a University
Faculty Grant that allowed me to spend a portion of one summer in
Richmond and New Haven completing research. At Keuka College I
want to thank the Faculty Development Committee, as well as
President Jorge Diaz-Herrera and Vice President for Academic
Affairs Anne Weed, for awarding me a sabbatical in the spring of
2015, when I completed a significant portion of the writing. My
Division Chair at Keuka, Tom Tremer, has steadfastly supported my
scholarly work. The interlibrary-loan staffs at both Southeastern and
Keuka never failed to secure for me obscure journal articles and
hard-to-find books. I thank especially Kimberly Fenton, Judith
Jones, Hilda Mannato, and Linda Park at Keuka for their help. I also
want to take the opportunity to thank the students in my methods
class at Keuka, who (somewhat) enthusiastically embraced the
theme of John Tyler in the fall semester 2014. One of the students
in that class, Richard Matrassi, deserves special mention for his
perceptive reading of Tyler’s “Ann Eliza” letter. Four other Keuka
students—Kraig Connor, Daniel Esworthy, Matthew McFetridge, and
Dillon Springer—never tired of asking me about Tyler and professed
to have faith that I would complete the biography in due time.
My greatest intellectual debt is to my dissertation director,
William J. Cooper. Through his impeccable scholarship, his
towering reputation in the fields of southern history and antebellum
politics, his masterly teaching, and his commitment to his graduate
students, Bill has set a high standard for what it means to be an
academic historian. I went to LSU with a single-minded purpose to
work under his direction after having read two of his seminal books
as an undergraduate, and he proved to be an outstanding, tough,
and fair adviser. His influence permeates this biography, and I hope
that he feels I have learned well at least some of the lessons he
imparted. Bill played an instrumental role in launching my career,
and his expectation that I would eventually finish this book, and his
encouragement to keep going, buoyed me during some very low
times. He also put me in touch with Christopher Childers. I cannot
thank him enough.
I was fortunate to meet John Tyler’s grandsons Lyon Tyler and
Harrison Tyler during the course of my work on this book. Harrison
graciously invited my wife and me to join the Tyler family for the
US Army’s ceremony at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery
commemorating President Tyler’s birthday on March 29, 2004. He
and his wife, Payne, also invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at
Sherwood Forest in 2008, an experience we will never forget. We
are grateful for their friendship and kindness and miss Payne, who
died in February 2019. I also want to thank Harrison’s son, William
Tyler, and his wife, Kay, for their hospitality and interest in my
work over the years.
At LSU Press I want to thank Editor in Chief Rand Dotson for his
support and patience. I also want to thank Senior Editor Neal
Novak; the book’s designer, Mandy Scallan; and the marketing staff,
especially Kate Barton, for their roles in bringing the book to life.
Kevin Brock is a superb copyeditor and was a pleasure to work with.
My wife’s family supported my work by providing lodging and by
their interest in what I was doing. My mother-in-law, Marie
Williams, deserves special thanks, as does my wife’s aunt, Norma
Williams. My brother-in-law, David R. Williams, III, offered helpful
editorial advice. I regret that my father-in-law, David R. Williams,
Jr., did not live to see the publication of this book.
Finally, the most important acknowledgment. My wife, Sharon,
never doubted that I could produce a biography of President Tyler,
and if she doubted that I would produce it, she never let on. Sharon
has been my biggest supporter, a tough and perceptive critic, and a
source of unending comfort over the years it took to finish the book.
She also has an uncanny ability to make me laugh when I need to
most. A talented historian in her own right, she transcribed many of
Julia Tyler’s letters, has a fine ear for language and wields a wicked
red pen; her favorite word as an editor is “condense.” Thankfully, I
am smart enough to take her advice most of the time. Dedicating the
book to her seems a small and inadequate repayment for all that she
has done for me along the way. I never could have done it without
her. So, it is with much love that I offer the dedication and thank
her for keeping the faith and for the indispensable role she played in
ensuring that I completed what I set out to do.
President without a Party
 PROLOGUE
Decision at Harrisburg

Nobody wanted the vice-presidential nomination. The party leaders

tried to get Senator Benjamin Watkins Leigh of Virginia to take it,
but he flatly refused their offer. Next, they tried former senator John
M. Clayton of Delaware. He expected they might ask and prepared a
written statement declining. Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge of New
York also said no. So, too, did New Jersey senator Samuel L.
Southard. At least two other men reportedly begged off. The man
whom Pennsylvania Whigs wanted, Daniel Webster, was at that
moment crossing the stormy Atlantic after completing a European
tour and had not indicated his desire for the nomination.
The members of the General Committee of the Whig Party were
understandably in a panic. They were having a difficult time
completing the 1840 ticket so as to launch their campaign to unseat
the incumbent president, Democrat Martin Van Buren. The Whigs
had formed into a coalition opposed to Van Buren’s predecessor,
Andrew Jackson, in 1834 and offered voters a set of regional
candidates for president in 1836. But it was not until the first week
of December 1839 that they met in a national convention, this at the
newly rebuilt Zion Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
There, delegates from twenty-two of the Union’s twenty-six states
nominated William Henry Harrison for president. Henry Clay had at
one time been the frontrunner for the nomination, but his opponents
at the convention maneuvered to deny him the prize and secure the
top spot for the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. Now several
prominent Whigs rebuffed attempts to enlist them as Harrison’s
running mate.1
Their refusal was understandable. John Adams, the nation’s first
vice president, had deemed the office insignificant and spent his two
terms in George Washington’s administration in virtual obscurity.
Adams, of course, ended up winning the presidency in 1796. John
C. Calhoun, on the other hand, twice accepted the vice presidency
with the thought it would bolster his chances to capture the brass
ring. He failed to reach the White House. The vice presidency was
not usually a stepping stone to the presidency. In fact, only three of
the nine men who served as vice president in the eight
administrations before 1840 had been elected president. Surely, the
men who refused the offer to join Harrison’s ticket recognized this
historical pattern.
John Tyler, however, had no qualms about the constitutionally
undistinguished position. In fact, he was relatively confident the
Whigs would prevail in 1840, so he saw his nomination for the post
as a way to continue his national political career, which had ended
with his resignation from the US Senate in 1836. The forty-nine-
year-old Whig delegate from the Williamsburg district of Virginia
eagerly accepted when party leaders approached him about joining
the ticket. Striking the pose of disinterestedness honed by the
politicians of an earlier time, but which had largely disappeared in
an era of unabashed partisanship, he claimed later that his
nomination “was up to the moment of its being made, wholly
unanticipated by me.” The Virginian claimed that he had “never
reached forth [his] hand for any office.” This was typical Tyler
posturing and was not true. He had shrewdly advertised his
availability by being named a convention delegate and showing up
in Harrisburg. He had all but jumped up and down and begged the
convention to choose him. Easy to pick out in a crowd, Tyler was
tall—roughly six feet, one inch in height—and thin, with blue-gray
eyes, receding sandy-colored hair, a high forehead, and a prominent
nose. He worked the spacious second-floor sanctuary of the church
where the proceedings were held with the smooth assurance of a
consummate politician. Catching up with men he already knew or
introducing himself to men he did not, he was in his element. And
in the end, of the 231 votes cast for vice president at the conclave,
John Tyler received every last one of them. Whig chieftains
breathed a sigh of relief.2
 The difficulty the Whigs faced in coming up with a vice-
presidential nominee demonstrated that their party lacked
cohesiveness and coherence. They seemed to be in disarray. What
prompted the General Committee to settle on Tyler was not merely
desperation, though it surely seemed like that on the surface. In fact,
his nomination made sense for a number of reasons. For one thing,
he was a Clay delegate and had come to Harrisburg to vote for the
former secretary of state and Speaker of the House—and current
senator—from Kentucky. He fulfilled his duty. A story circulated at
the convention that Tyler had “shed tears” when Harrison surrogates
had wrested the presidential nomination from the man generally
regarded as the heart and soul of the Whig Party. Tyler had not
wept, but Clay had been the presumptive nominee. Now the party
sought to mollify Clay—if indeed that could be done—by placing
one of his avowed supporters on the ticket with Harrison. “It was an
attempt of the triumphant Harrisonites to heal the wounds of Mr.
Clay’s devoted friends,” wrote one observer. The irony of that effort
would become apparent later.3
Tyler brought other benefits to the nomination. He boasted an
impressive political resume, having served in the Virginia
legislature, as the Old Dominion’s governor, and as a congressman
and senator. He was a southerner who would balance Harrison—by
this time a resident of Ohio—on the ticket. He had also run for vice
president as a regional Whig candidate in the campaign of 1836 and
had instant name recognition, especially south of the Mason-Dixon
Line. The Washington Daily National Intelligencer, the Whig Party’s
newspaper in the capital, confidently pointed out that “all
intelligent citizens are acquainted with [Tyler’s] character and
abilities, both of which qualify him to discharge with ability and
honor the trust which he is invited to accept.”4
But if Tyler’s nomination had clear merit, in other respects his
selection was a curious one. Along with that name recognition came
clear indications of where he stood on the vital issues of the day—
and throughout his long career as a champion of Old Republican,
states’ rights ideology, he had demonstrated positions that were
decidedly not within the mainstream of the Whig Party. For
example, he had long opposed a national bank. President Jackson
had killed the Second Bank of the United States in 1836. Whigs
looked to create a third bank if they could win control of Congress
and the White House in 1840, believing their efforts could return
the county to economic prosperity after the bleak years that
followed the Panic of 1837. The party also favored higher tariffs to
stimulate and protect American industry. Yet as a supporter of free
trade, Tyler had reflexively favored low duties and made that
position clear many times. In addition, he had also once been a
Jacksonian Democrat. Did any of this matter? The Whigs apparently
thought not.
So out of the Harrisburg convention emerged the Harrison-Tyler
ticket, and what is surely the most recognizable presidential
campaign slogan of all time—“Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” The
Whig diarist Philip Hone would later write that “there was rhyme
but no reason in it,” suggesting that perhaps the Whigs should have
given more thought to whether Tyler could reconcile his
longstanding political views with the principles of the party.5
But nobody thought to ask.
 INTRODUCTION

John Tyler advanced to the pinnacle of American politics on April 4,

1841, because the man who preceded him in office—William Henry
Harrison—died just thirty-two days into his term as president.
Tyler’s political opponents, who quickly dubbed him “His
Accidency,” never tired of reminding him how he had ended up in
the White House as the nation’s tenth chief executive. Many—if not
most—of these men regarded Tyler as a mediocrity, as someone not
fit for the high station in which he found himself.
This was more than just sour grapes. It is true that when placed
alongside the leading politicians of his era, Tyler comes up short. He
had neither the intellectual ability of John C. Calhoun nor the
organizational genius of Martin Van Buren. He could not match the
beguiling charisma of Henry Clay or the inspired oratory of Daniel
Webster. In fact, he often seemed to be a mere bit player while these
other men starred on the stage of national politics. Yet Tyler’s career
surpassed them all, with the exception of Van Buren, the eighth
president of the United States—and Tyler’s tenure in the White
House was much more consequential than Van Buren’s. He
confounded them all. Why?
The answer can be found in the three main themes of Tyler’s life
and career. First, he was a southerner. When the Whig Party
nominated him for the vice presidency as Harrison’s running mate,
geography clinched the deal. Where he came from mattered. Fate
took over from there. Tyler was very much a southern man. His
attachment to the South and the strong sense of place that came
with it shaped every aspect of his life. It defined his politics. As a
public figure, Tyler unapologetically defended the South against
external threats by using the region’s primary political principles—
states’ rights and a strict construction of the Constitution—as
rhetorical weapons. Before his presidency, he took on a hostile US
Another random document with
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gangway, was a bewildered-looking, well-dressed couple,
whose fate seemed to be to get in everybody's way, while
their immediate object was to get out of it.

"I never was so pushed about in all my life, John," said

the lady. "And do you think we shall find them in this
crowd?"

"We will try, Sarah," said the gentleman. "If there were
anybody I could ask now, we should be all right, but I don't
see—"

"Look, look, John!" cried Sarah in an excited, agitated

tone. "Isn't that Walter up there? Him with the beard, I
mean, and that beautiful girl! But, oh, how bad he seems!"

John looked as he was directed; and then the Tincrofts,

squeezing their way, presently made good their footing on
the quarter-deck. In another half minute, or less, Sarah's
trembling hand was laid on the bearded man's arm.

"Walter!"

Yes, it was Walter Wilson, of course. And the recognition

was mutual. It needed only to turn his eyes upon the half-
frightened woman—indeed, it needed only to hear that one
word, uttered by her voice, to tell the returned emigrant
who it was that stood beside him.

"Sarah, dear Cousin Sarah, I did not think of this. It is

very kind of you to come here to welcome me back; but I
did not think of it; I couldn't have expected it."

And then, with tears in both pairs of eyes, there was a

cousinly embrace.
 "It was John that did it, Cousin Walter; he would have
me come. He is so good; and I love him; and so will you,
Cousin Walter, when you know him."

All this amid tears and sobs and hand-pressings; and

then, because it was safer, perhaps, to prevent an entire
breakdown by talking without exactly knowing what she
said, Sarah went on:

"And you are to come to live with us, Walter, and that's
John's doings; and Helen, your dear, beautiful Helen—oh, I
shall love her, and—"

There is no need to write down more. The talking was,

at that time, almost all done by Sarah, for Walter was
struggling with too many conflicting emotions, besides
being too weak and ill, to say much. Presently he turned to
Tincroft, and led him to the side of the ship, leaning on his
arm, while Sarah made friends with the wondering Helen.

"Mr. Tincroft," said Walter, hoarsely and feebly, "you

remember when and where we saw one another before, and
how we parted?"

"It is so long ago," replied John, cheerily, "that it is

never worth while to try to tax the memory. All, or the best,
we have to do now, is to get you down to Tincroft House,
and try to make you well soon; and then will be time
enough to talk about what is past and gone."

"I shall never be well again, Mr. Tincroft," rejoined the

other. "It is not for long that I shall—however, I will accept
your invitation and go back with you for a little while. But I
must remind you of what passed when we parted. 'You will
some day be sorry,' you said, Mr. Tincroft. I am sorry. I
cruelly misunderstood and misinterpreted you. Forgive me!"
 A good deal more passed in this strange meeting than I
can write down. It is enough to say that it was late in the
day when they were all four, with sundry portions of
luggage, driven up to the door of John's boarding-house,
where we must leave them to talk over the plans which had
been mapped out, and to say as much or as little about the
past as it pleased them.

Walter Wilson was deplorably ill. After a day or two in

London, taking the rest rendered absolutely necessary by a
state of exhaustion into which he sank on reaching the
temporary lodgings provided for him—which exhaustion was
probably increased by the sudden excitement caused by his
meeting with John Tincroft and his cousin; and after
another day or two partly spent in conferences with his
lawyer—he travelled by short stages to John's home. His
daughter and Tincroft were his travelling companions, Sarah
having gene on before to make all needful preparations.

Tincroft House was ready to receive the visitors,

therefore; and the sick man was at once installed in his
state apartments, while the wondering and half-frightened
little Australian bird, called Helen, had taken possession of
her beautified bower.

All these arrangements were quietly submitted to,

rather than actively acquiesced in and assisted, by Wilson,
who was in fact, too ill to make difficulties, if he had any to
make, and who was glad enough to rest his shattered
frame. As to Helen, she was with her father; and if her
accommodations had been far less inviting, they would have
been good enough, and only too good for her, she said.
Nevertheless, she was impressed with their magnificence.

"If you had only seen my poor little room in our old log-
house, as I remember it at first," said she to Sarah.
 By the way, Sarah's simple-heartedness had already
found its way to the girl's feelings.

"She isn't like my mother, not at all," Helen said to

herself; "but then, nobody could be, or ever was, like dear
mother—" and here her tears began to flow; "but Mrs.
Tincroft is so good to me, and does everything she can
think of for poor father, that I can't help liking her."

It was quite true that Walter Wilson had received, and

was receiving, all the attention from both John and Sarah
that could have been shown had he been a very dear
brother. His apartments were studiously and carefully kept
at an equable temperature; his table was supplied with all
such delicacies as would be likely to tempt a sick man's
appetite, or to create it. The best medical advice in Trotbury
had been invoked on his behalf, and the doctor visited him
every day.

Helen was with her father the greater part of the day,
reading to him if he could bear it, and silently waiting on
him when his nerves were unstrung, and his distressing
paroxysms of weakness came on.

The establishment at Tincroft House was enlarged now

by the addition of another female domestic; and more
frequent calls were made at its gates by that benevolent
race who delight to supply, and even to anticipate and
forestall, the animal requirements of their fellows. No
doubt, the wants were even now moderate enough; but,
excepting when Grigson or two, or a small flock of the
species, as the case might be, had alighted on the premises
for a few days—

"There had never been such goings on at Tincroft House

—" as the village grocer said to the village butcher—"any
time within the last twenty years."

"And that's ever since the place has been inhabited in

the memory of man," responded the purveyor of beef and
mutton.

There never had been such good times at Tincroft

House, in John's memory, at least, as were now
inaugurated. It had come at last. He had striven for it, and
patiently waited for it; and it had come. And he never felt
more secure in the affection and entire confidence of his
Sarah than when he saw her tenderly watching over the
sick man, once her lover.

And so time passed on. A long dreary winter was

succeeded by the premonitions of spring. Crocuses and
snowdrops and hepaticas pushed themselves out of the
ground, in the flower garden beneath the young Helen's
window; and, with the returning milder weather, the more
distressing symptoms of Wilson's disorder somewhat
abated. Not that it was believed he would recover, or even,
for any length of time, rally. That he was slowly dying, he
himself knew, and all around him knew it; but still his
strength for a time increased. He had even ventured
occasionally, when the midday sun shone out, to walk—well
wrapped up—on the dry gravel paths of the flower garden,
leaning his feeble frame on John's arm.

On one of these occasions the invalid halted in his slow

progress, and turned to his supporter.

"In all the time I have been here, and living at your cost
—I and my Helen—we have never spoken a word about
money matters," said he, breathing hard.

"Really," replied John, "I don't know what there is to

say, Walter." (For John had learned to call his guest by his
familiar name.) "All I can say is that you are heartily
welcome to the small accommodation we have been able
provide for you. I only wish it had been larger."

"That is all very well, and I am sure you mean what you
say, Mr. Tincroft; but we ought to be coming to an
understanding. I don't want to be living at free cost. I can
afford to pay for what we eat and drink, I hope."

"I have no doubt of it, my friend; but we will not discuss

that question now," rejoined John; "there will be time
enough for that another day. But there is something I have
been thinking about. May I mention it?"
 "If it is not very unpleasant," said Wilson, with a faint
laugh.

"I hope it will not be, I and sure it should not be," said
John; and then, after a little while, he went on:

"Do you know, Walter, what has been my greatest

drawback—what I most of all regret in my life's history,
looking back upon it as I do now?"

Wilson did not know—could not guess, as he looked

inquiringly into his host's countenance.

"I never knew my parents," said John, speaking slowly.

"My mother died when I was an infant; my father, when I
was a mere child. I was thus thrown upon the tender
mercies of strangers; and that made me—but I won't speak
about that. What I mean is—I have been thinking, Wilson,
that you have a father and mother—brothers and sister too,
all living in England."

"I suppose I have," said the other, rather haughtily, as it

seemed to John, who went on, nevertheless.

"You have never written to them since you came back

from Australia, I think?" John continued.

"No, nor for a long time before, if the truth were

known."

"I am afraid you are not quite good friends with them?"
said John.

"Possibly," said Walter, curtly; "I was not over and

above pleased with what they did between us two and
another, years ago," he added.

"But that is past and gone. And, after all, though it was
a mistake on their part, it may have turned out for the best,
you know," said John, in his simplicity, which, after all, was
better than some men's cunning. "If such and such events
hadn't happened, others would have come to pass which
would have brought their share of trouble, I daresay. And,
as it was, you have enjoyed much happiness and some
prosperity in life, although not in the way you first thought
of."

"And am come back to die," said the other, sadly.

"And death is the portal of life—the entrance into it, if

we could but see it so," rejoined Tincroft. "But I was
speaking of your parents and your old home. Don't you
think you ought to let bygones be bygones, and make it up
with them?"

"Do you think so, Mr. Tincroft?"

"I do think so," said John. "I am quite sure that it will
be one of the happiest days of your life when you can feel
that you have forgiven, from your heart, the trespasses
which men have trespassed against you."

"Ah! And how do you know that?" demanded Wilson,

quickly.

"By having tried it, Walter," said John, meekly.

The conversation, broken and disjointed as it was, and

imperfectly as it has been reported, did not terminate here;
but it took another turn. But as this bore upon matters
which do not immediately concern our history, it may be
omitted here. It is enough to say that, a few days
afterwards, Wilson renewed the former subject.

"I have been thinking over what you said, and I think I
ought not to keep up my bad feelings. I mean to write
home and offer to be friends."

"I am glad you do think and mean so," said John,

dubiously.

"Of course, I shall expect some acknowledgment,"

added Wilson.

"I was afraid of that. If I were you, I wouldn't make that

a condition."

"Wouldn't you, though, really?"

"No. Only think a little, Walter."

"I have thought. And all I can make of it is that they

used me badly—father, mother, Elizabeth, and all. And you
came in for your share of it, Mr. Tincroft, and Cousin Sarah,
she did too. And it seems to me that it is only right that
they should make some sort of acknowledgment, as I said a
minute ago."

"I would not insist upon it, Walter," said John, and he
repeated, in the same tone as before, the same words,
"Only think a little."

"I have very little power of thought left," said Walter,

with a heavy sigh. "You must help me. What would you
have me think?" he asked.

"Think of what our dear Lord said," replied John, gently

and lovingly, "when He taught us to pray, 'Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.'"

It was in the early twilight of evening when, as the two

sat together, these words were spoken, and before either
spoke again the twilight had deepened into darkness.

CHAPTER XXV.
HIGH AND LOW BEECH.

THE families at High and Low Beech continued to

prosper, after a fashion; that is to say, they worked hard,
lived frugally for the most part, and made some money.
 Matthew Wilson was an old man now. He was not young
when we first made his acquaintance, and add twenty years
or more to fifty and a little over, and we arrive at the
threescore and ten, or going on for fourscore, in which not
much remains of the human life.

Not that Matthew thought much of this. He was strong

and hearty, he said. His teeth were sound, some of them at
any rate; and he could stump about his farm as well, pretty
near, as he had done any time in the last ten years. He was
not made of such stuff as the young people of modern
days; he was born before nerves came in fashion; he hadn't
given in to bad habits like some—not he. He didn't go to
public-houses as his brother Mark had done; and he didn't
go about with a dirty pipe in his mouth all day long, as
some others did that he could name, but he wouldn't. And
about that nasty tobacco, it was his opinion that it was
taking all the manliness out of people nowadays. Look at
horses, they never smoked; the same with cows and sheep;
and even hogs, though they did sometimes run about with
straws in their mouths—but that was only when rough
weather was coming—they didn't set a light to the ends and
smoke them. They were a deal too knowing for that.

All this, or something very much like it, and a great deal
more of the same sort, Matthew Wilson was in the habit of
gravely going over with any old crony whom he could get to
listen to him. And lacking this, he could propound it at his
own fireside on a winter's evening, his wife and his
daughter being now his principal listeners there.

For his sons had, years before, all flitted from under the
parental roof-tree. George, the next oldest to Walter, was,
as our readers may remember, married some twenty years
before, and had settled on poor Mark's late holding at High
Beech. There he still remained, with a large family growing
up around him; but holding no intercourse (or very little,
and that not of the pleasantest complexion) with his father
and other members of his family. The truth is, George was
charged, with how much or how little truth it does not
concern us to know, with having, in some family dealings,
been too sharp by half.

Now, Matthew liked sharpness well enough in general,

and was always sufficiently disposed to sneer at and run
down any one who, in his opinion, was deficient in that
admirable qualification for getting on in the world, according
to his view. But it is one thing to admire sharpness when
practised on Number Two, and quite another thing to
approve of it when it is brought home to Number One. And
so, having been outwitted, as he imagined, by his son
George, Matthew Wilson was too much in the habit of
pouring out vials of wrath when the occupant of High Beech
was mentioned.

"Brother Mark was bad enough," said the old farmer;

"and I lost a good five hundred by him; but I don't know if
George isn't the worse of the two—and he, my own boy."

Now, I am not at all sure that Matthew had any real

ground of complaint against his "own boy." At the best of
times, perhaps, the old farmer had been an avaricious man;
and it is notorious that the vice of avarice grows as age
advances. No doubt it is true that as we brought nothing
with us into the world, so it is certain we can carry nothing
out of it. But there is as little doubt that we (not you and I,
reader, who don't love money at all, but I at this present
moment identify myself with those who do) like to retain
our hold of what we have got as long as we can, and to
increase it if it lies in our power. So, I daresay, Matthew
Wilson was altogether under a mistake concerning George's
too great sharpness. Nevertheless, George lay under the
stigma.

As to Alfred and James, they had stuck to the farming,

as they had always said they would do; and had managed
by this time to have farms of their own—wives and children
also, no doubt. But as our history has not hitherto
concerned itself about these scions of the Wilson stock, we
may take short notice of them here.

The mother of these young men plodded on by her

husband's side on the down-hill of life, not altogether
without her troubles and vexations. Among these minor
miseries of human existence was the completest conviction,
amounting to certainty, that servant girls were good-for-
nothing, that education had ruined them out and out, that
all the learning people of that sort needed to be taught, if it
didn't come by nature, was to know how to wash, and brew,
and bake, and scour and scrub, and milk cows, and churn,
and so forth from morning to night. If they wanted anything
else by way of recreation, hadn't they got their clothes to
mend and their stockings to darn? If they wanted any
teaching of another sort, they could go to church on
Sundays, when their mistresses could spare them, and get
it there. As to their sitting down, Sundays or work-a-days,
with a book in their hands, as they were let to do in some
houses (not in hers, she was thankful to say), she hadn't
patience with it. But she knew what would come of it:
mistresses would soon be maids, and maids mistresses. She
only hoped the world would last out her time.

I should explain that this somewhat violent philippic was

called forth on one particular occasion, when a Sunday
school was started in the village by the successor of our
venerable friend Mr. Rubric. For this worthy gentleman (who
was aged when we first made his acquaintance) had
departed this life some three or four years before the time
in our history at which we have arrived. Another had
entered on the scene of his labours, a younger man, and
with a good many whims (I am using Mrs. Matthews
expression, "a good many whims") in his brain, among
which was the very old one that "for the soul to be without
knowledge is not good."

Now, Mr. Rubric had held the same opinion, and had
taught the people sound doctrine in his weekly ministration
and his frequent visitations; and also in his careful
supervision of the village national school, but he had not
ventured so far as to "set up a Sunday school." (Mrs.
Matthew's phrase again, not mine.) And this was going so
far in advance of that good lady's ideas that she could not,
at first, restrain her indignation. Mr. Newcome was, no
doubt, a good man in his way—he could not be otherwise,
seeing he was in the Church—and he preached good
sermons, no doubt, if folks could only understand them.
But, for all that, give her back her dear old Mr. Rubric. Ah!
There were no parsons like the old ones that were dying
out, stock and branch. She didn't know whether the
railroads that there was such a talk about had anything to
do with it. She should not wonder if they had; and if they
had, it was no more than was to be expected; and it was all
the worse for them. They had enough to answer for—taking
away people's lives, as they were said to do—without
having that!

Another sign of the degeneracy of the times, according

to Mrs. Matthew, was that the cows didn't yield so much
milk by half as they used to do; and that the milk, little as it
was, did not produce so much cream; and that the cream
didn't make such butter as when she was young. Moreover,
the best sorts of potatoes were dying out, and the potato
disease was coming in, which was a sign the world was in,
or approaching unto, its last stage of decrepitude (not Mrs.
Matthew's expression); and all she could hope was that it
would last her time.

Now, all these fancies were harmless enough, though

rather tiresome, perhaps, in their re-re-reiteration. And if
Mrs. Matthews had remembered a certain piece of advice
given in an old book about not saying that the former days
were better than the present, she might have modified her
views. But she did not remember this, and as it probably
afforded the good old lady some satisfaction to dwell upon
these imaginary grievances, I do not know that you and I,
friend, need find fault with her.

We shall be old some day, if we live long enough; and

then, perhaps, other story-tellers, now in their cradles, will
be saying the same things of us.

Mrs. Matthew's troubles already mentioned were, after

all, theoretical, and I am inclined to think she did not half
believe in them herself. There was another nearer home
which I shall only hint at, rather than dwell upon. Her
daughter Elizabeth had become, more and more, a thorn in
her side. Not that there was any positive unkindness of
heart between the two, but there was much heart-burning
at times. For one thing, the old farmer's wife had
sometimes great difficulty in upholding her supreme
authority at Low Beech, in all domestic affairs. And if it is
true that two kings cannot sit upon the same throne, it is
equally certain that a household does not get on at all times
very amicably where there are two mistresses.

And so there were times when near approaches were

made to disruption, for Elizabeth, as we have seen, was
warm-tempered, and she declared, again and again, that
she would go out to service, that she would, rather than be
so put upon at home, and be looked upon as nothing and
nobody. And though these passages of arms, or rather of
tongue, ended in each party cooling down for the time, the
burning discontent remained, ready to break out again on
sufficient or insufficient occasion.

The truth, perhaps, is that the daughter's temper had

not improved with her years, which my readers may reckon
up with some approach to accuracy; and with the decrease
of the hope which is said to have a place in every gentle
bosom. Since the disappointment of that hope, of which I
have told, no other admiring swain had ventured the offer
of an arm in a country walk, or had breathed a sigh at the
shrine of Elizabeth's beauty. Ah, well-a-day! And so the
world goes round and round, and "that which hath been, is
now; and that which is to be, hath already been."

There was one subject which, as I have already told,

always produced discord at Low Beech Farm, when touched
upon. And there was another so closely bordering upon it,
that it had been almost dropped in conversation. This was
the question, "What had become of Walter?" Eventually, it
came to be generally concluded that Walter was dead, or
something would have been heard of him. To this conclusion
the old folks at Low Beech had settled down; and though
the supposititious death of the first-born was felt by them
as a kind of trouble, it was nevertheless borne with degree
of composure which perhaps did not very much surprise
those who were most intimately acquainted with Mr. and
Mrs. Matthew Wilson—or would not have done had they
remembered that where the love of money is the supreme
affection, all other natural feelings are inevitably deadened.

Of course it was very wrong in Walter not to write home

in all the years of his growing prosperity in Australia. But he
is not the first man, nor will he be the last, who, having,
under either real or fancied grievances, hastily cut the tie
which bound him to the family circle, has felt it a matter of
selfish pride, or some other bad feeling, to widen the breach
thus made by haughty and obstinate silence.

This, Walter had done; and now, in his sorrowful

bereavement and personal affliction, he felt a strange
reluctance to renew his intercourse with them.

"I daresay they think me to be dead, as I soon shall

be," said he to Tincroft on the day after the conversation we
have recorded in the last chapter; "and I don't know why I
should disturb their thoughts."

But John wouldn't suffer the subject to drop. "You

promised me you would write to them," said he,
persuasively. "And I would, if I were you."

And though nothing came of it that day, nor the next,

nor for many nexts, the perpetual dropping of Tincroft's soft
words and hard arguments at length wore into the hard
stone of his friend's unwillingness.

"I tell you what I have been thinking, Mr. Tincroft," said
he, one day, as they were together. "I feel stronger now
than I did, and instead of writing, I'll go and see father and
the rest while I'm able; that will be better than writing."

"Perhaps it will," said John. "I am inclined to think that

it only needs for you all to be brought together again to
wipe out anything of the past unpleasant to think about.
And writing might stir up these remembrances."

"But you must go with me, Mr. Tincroft."

"Yes, if you wish it," said John, hesitatingly. "But would

it not be better if you and your daughter were to see them
first of all alone? I would travel with you, of course, if you
wish it."

"I shall not take Helen with me," said Wilson. "They
mightn't take to her, or she mightn't take to them. No! If
you will go and help me through with it, well and good. If
not, it must drop."

"Oh, it mustn't drop," said John, cheerily.

It might be a week or more after this conversation that

as the small family at Low Beech Farm were seated at their
midday meal, in the large stone-floored kitchen, a single
gentle, not to say timid, knock was heard at the outer door
of the adjoining hall or passage.

"Go and see who it is, Martha," said the old farmer to
the servant-of-all-work, who sat at the same table with her
master and mistresses, and drank her portion from the
same general pewter pot which served for all dinner
purposes: "one of those travelling tinkers, I guess; I saw
old Ripley about yesterday. They're none too honest, I
think, and their room is better than their company."

While thus discharging himself of his grumble, Martha

had opened the door, and before she had recovered her
surprise, the two strangers whom she had admitted walked
slowly by her, and softly entered the kitchen.

They were a singular and yet not ill-assorted pair. One

of them was a gentleman—rather lean-visaged and pale in
complexion, partially bald, and what hair he had, inclining
to grey. There was a kindly, half-pitying, half-inquiring
glance in his dark grey eyes—that is to say, if the eyes
expressed what was then uppermost in his mind. He was
well-dressed, though plainly, in black.

The other stranger, who, like him, had entered bare-

headed, was leaning heavily on his friend's arm, for he was
very feeble. His face was masked in a dark beard, which,
however, did not altogether conceal the strong muscular
working of his lips as he, more than once, vainly attempted
to utter the word which would not come. His dress was
warm, though of a rougher texture than that of his
companion.

For one moment, the old farmer and his wife and
daughter sat suddenly transfixed, as it seemed, with
astonishment at the intrusion; and then a gleam of
intelligence lighted up Matthew's countenance.

"Mr. Tincroft, if I am not mistaken?" said he, without

any great emotion.

It needed only this to convey quick intelligence to the

mother's bewildered thoughts. The transition from Tincroft
to Sarah and from Sarah to Walter was natural enough, no
doubt.

"And 'tis Walter come back again!" she cried, shrilly, as

she hastily rose, to be saved from falling only by the
intervention of Elizabeth's stout arm.

"'Tis Walter, sure enough!" said the old farmer.

And there was a grasping of hands and a general

embracing, for the over-surprised and startled mother soon
returned to her normal condition.

"And where in the world have you been all these years,
Walter?" demanded Matthew, when the confusion had a
little subsided.

"And why haven't you written home all this time, my

boy?" said Mrs. Matthew, plaintively.

"And how ill you look, Walter," said softened Elizabeth;

"and you are ill, too, aren't you?"

"I'll tell you all about it, father, mother, sister," said
Walter, feebly, "if you will give me a moment to rest in."

"And a chair," thought John, placing one in position. And

then he added, inwardly, "I think I am not wanted here any
longer. Walter will settle down more comfortably without my
help. And though these family transports are very touching
to all concerned, they are carried on better, I daresay, in the
absence of outsiders."

And so, with commendable consideration, Tincroft

quietly withdrew himself from the kitchen at Low Beech. We
shall imitate his example, and accompany him on his way to
the Manor House, where he felt sure of a hospitable
welcome from Mr. Richard Grigson, in the character of an
uninvited guest.

For he and Walter, without giving notice of their

intention, had travelled straight from Tincroft House to
London by the Trotbury coach; and thence on and on by the
old Tally-ho, not yet discarded, though the railway era had
commenced, till they reached the little town where, so
many years ago, John had alighted from the same public
conveyance to make his first entrance on enchanted
ground.

In the best inn's best room they had rested awhile and
refreshed themselves after the fatigues of the journey, and
then had taken a post-chaise to convey them to their