CHAPTER XXIII
AND SO IT ENDED
Our story must end here, because at this point its current flows awayforever from old Vincennes; and it was only of the post on the Wabashthat we set out to make a record. What befell Alice and Beverley afterthey went to Virginia we could go on to tell; but that would be anotherstory. Suffice it to say, they lived happily ever after, or at leastsomewhat beyond three score and ten, and left behind them a good nameand numerous descendants.
How Alice found out her family in Virginia, we are not informed; butafter a lapse of some years from the date of her marriage, thereappears in one of her letters a reference to an estate inherited fromher Tarleton ancestors, and her name appears in old records signed infull, Alice Tarleton Beverley. A descendant of hers still treasures thelocket, with its broken miniature and battered crest, which wonBeverley's life from Long-Hair, the savage. Beside it, as carefullyguarded, is the Indian charm-stone that stopped Hamilton's bullet overAlice's heart The rapiers have somehow disappeared, and there is atradition in the Tarleton family that they were given by Alice toGaspard Roussillon, who, after Madame Roussillon's death in 1790, wentto New Orleans, where he stayed a year or two before embarking forFrance, whither he took with him the beautiful pair of colechemardesand Jean the hunchback.
Oncle Jazon lived in Vincennes many years after the war was over; buthe died at Natchez, Mississippi, when ninety-three years old. He said,with almost his last breath, that he couldn't shoot very well, even inhis best days; but that he had, upon various occasions, "jes' kind o'happened to hit a Injun in the lef' eye." They used to tell a story, aslate as General Harrison's stay in Vincennes, about how Oncle Jazonburied his collection of scalps, with great funeral solemnity, as hispart of the celebration of peace and independence about the year 1784.
Good old Father Beret died suddenly soon after Alice's marriage anddeparture for Virginia. He was found lying face downward on the floorof his cabin. Near him, on a smooth part of a puncheon, were themildewed fragments of a letter, which he had been arranging, as if toread its contents. Doubtless it was the same letter brought to him byRene de Ronville, as recorded in an early chapter of our story. Thefragments were gathered up and buried with him. His dust lies under thepresent Church of St. Xavier,--the dust of as noble a man and as true apriest as ever sacrificed himself for the good of humanity.
In after years Simon Kenton visited Beverley and Alice in theirVirginia home. To his dying day he was fond of describing their happyand hospitable welcome and the luxuries to which they introduced him.They lived in a stately white mansion on a hill overlooking a vasttobacco plantation, where hundreds of negro slaves worked and sang byday and frolicked by night. Their oldest child was named FitzhughGaspard. Kenton died in 1836.
There remains but one little fact worth recording before we close thebook. In the year 1800, on the fourth of July, a certain leading Frenchfamily of Vincennes held a patriotic reunion, during which a little oldflag was produced and its story told. Some one happily proposed that itbe sent to Mrs. Alice Tarleton Beverley with a letter of explanation,and in profound recognition of the glorious circumstances which made itthe true flag of the great Northwest.
And so it happened that Alice's little banner went to Virginia and isstill preserved in an old mansion not very far from Monticello; but itseems likely that the Wabash Valley will soon again possess theprecious relic. The marriage engagement of Miss Alice Beverley to ayoung Indiana officer, distinguished for his patriotism and militaryardor, has been announced at the old Beverley homestead on the hill,and the high contracting parties have planned that the wedding ceremonyshall take place under the famous little flag, on the anniversary ofdark's capture of Post Vincennes. When the bride shall be brought toher new home on the banks of the Wabash, the flag will come with her;but Oncle Jazon will not be on hand with his falsetto shout: "VIVE LABANNIERE D'ALICE ROUSSILLON! VIVE ZHORZZH VASINTON!"
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