“Theywas that destitute,” said Tom, “'twas a pity to see 'em.”
“And they be grand folks, ye say?” said Polly Ann.
“Grand folks, I reckon. And helpless as babes on the Wilderness Trail. They had two niggers—his nigger an' hers—and they was tuckered, too, fer a fact.”
“Lawsy!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “Be still, honey!” Taking a piece of corn-pone from the cupboard, she bent over and thrust it between little Peggy's chubby fingers “Be still, honey, and listen to what your Pa says. Whar did ye find 'em, Tom?”
“'Twas Jim Ray found 'em,” said Tom. “We went up to Crab Orchard, accordin' to the Colonel's orders, and we was thar three days. Ye ought to hev seen the trash we turned back, Polly Ann! Most of 'em was scared plum' crazy, and they was fer gittin 'out 'n Kaintuckee at any cost. Some was fer fightin' their way through us.”
“The skulks!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “They tried to kill ye? What did ye do?”
Tom grinned, his mouth full of bacon.
“Do?” says he; “we shot a couple of 'em in the legs and arms, and bound 'em up again. They was in a t'arin' rage. I'm more afeard of a scar't man,—a real scar't man—nor a rattler. They cussed us till they was hoarse. Said they'd hev us hung, an' Clark, too.Said they hed a right to go back to Virginny if they hed a mind.”
“An' what did ye say?” demanded Polly Ann, pausing in her work, her eyes flashing with resentment. “Did ye tell 'em they was cowards to want to settle lands, and not fight for 'em? Other folks' lands, too.”
“We didn't tell 'em nothin',” said Tom; “jest sent 'em kitin' back to the stations whar they come from.”
“I reckon they won't go foolin' with Clark's boys again,” said Polly Ann, resuming a vigorous rubbing of the skillet. “Ye was tellin' me about these fine folks ye fetched home.” She tossed her head in the direction of the open door, and I wondered if the fine folks were outside.
“Oh, ay,” said Tom; “they was comin' this way, from the Carolinys. Jim Ray went out to look for a deer, and found 'em off 'n the trail. By the etarnal, theywastuckered.Hewas the wust, Jim said, lyin' down on a bed of laurels she and the niggers made. She has sperrit, that woman. Jim fed him, and he got up. She wouldn't eat nothin', and made Jim put him on his hoss. She walked. I can't mek out why them aristocrats wants to come to Kaintuckee. They're a sight too tender.”
“Pore things!” said Polly Ann, compassionately. “So ye fetched 'em home.”
“They hadn't a place ter go,” said he, “and I reckoned 'twould give 'em time ter ketch breath, an' turn around. I told 'em livin' in Kaintuck was kinder rough.”
“Mercy!” said Polly Ann, “ter think that they was use' ter silver spoons, and linen, and niggers ter wait on 'em. Tom, ye must shoot a turkey, and I'll do my best to give 'em a good supper.” Tom rose obediently, and seized his coonskin hat. She stopped him with a word. “Tom.”
“Ay?”
“Mayhap—mayhap Davy would know 'em. He's been to Charlestown with the gentry there.”
“Mayhap,” agreed Tom. “Pore little deevil,” said he, “he's hed a hard time.”
“He'll be right again soon,” said Polly Ann. “He'sbeen sleepin' that way, off and on, fer a week.” Her voice faltered into a note of tenderness as her eyes rested on me.
“I reckon we owe Davy a heap, Polly Ann,” said he.
I was about to interrupt, but Polly Ann's next remark arrested me.
“Tom,” said she, “he oughter be eddicated.”
“Eddicated!” exclaimed Tom, with a kind of dismay.
“Yes, eddicated,” she repeated. “He ain't like you and me. He's different. He oughter be a lawyer, or somethin'.”
Tom reflected.
“Ay,” he answered, “the Colonel says that same thing. He oughter be sent over the mountain to git l'arnin'.”
“And we'll be missing him sore,” said Polly Ann, with a sigh.
I wanted to speak then, but the words would not come.
“Whar hev they gone?” said Tom.
“To take a walk,” said Polly Ann, and laughed. “The gentry has sech fancies as that. Tom, I reckon I'll fly over to Mrs. McCann's an' beg some of that prime bacon she has.”
Tom picked up his rifle, and they went out together. I lay for a long time reflecting. To the strange guests whom Tom in the kindness of his heart had brought back and befriended I gave little attention. I was overwhelmed by the love which had just been revealed to me. And so I was to be educated. It had been in my mind these many years, but I had never spoken of it to Polly Ann. Dear Polly Ann! My eyes filled at the thought that she herself had determined upon this sacrifice.
There were footsteps at the door, and these I heard, and heeded not. Then there came a voice,—a woman's voice, modulated and trained in the perfections of speech and in the art of treating things lightly. At the sound of that voice I caught my breath.
“What a pastoral! Harry, if we have sought for virtue in the wilderness, we have found it.”
“When have we ever sought for virtue, Sarah?”
It was the man who answered and stirred another chord of my memory.
“When, indeed!” said the woman; “'tis a luxury that is denied us, I fear me.”
“Egad, we have run the gamut, all but that.”
I thought the woman sighed.
“Our hosts are gone out,” she said, “bless their simple souls! 'Tis Arcady, Harry, 'where thieves do not break in and steal.' That's Biblical, isn't it?” She paused, and joined in the man's laugh. “I remember—” She stopped abruptly.
“Thieves!” said he, “not in our sense. And yet a fortnight ago this sylvan retreat was the scene of murder and sudden death.”
“Yes, Indians,” said the woman; “but they are beaten off and forgotten. Troubles do not last here. Did you see the boy? He's in there, in the corner, getting well of a fearful hacking. Mrs. McChesney says he saved her and her brats.”
“Ay, McChesney told me,” said the man. “Let's have a peep at him.”
In they came, and I looked on the woman, and would have leaped from my bed had the strength been in me. Superb she was, though her close-fitting travelling gown of green cloth was frayed and torn by the briers, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the marks of I know not what trials and emotions. Little, dark-pencilled lines under the eyes were nigh robbing these of the haughtiness I had once seen and hated. Set high on her hair was a curving, green hat with a feather, ill-suited to the wilderness.
I looked on the man. He was as ill-equipped as she. A London tailor must have cut his suit of gray. A single band of linen, soiled by the journey, was wound about his throat, and I remember oddly the buttons stuck on his knees and cuffs, and these silk-embroidered in a criss-cross pattern of lighter gray. Some had been torn off. As forhis face, 'twas as handsome as ever, for dissipation sat well upon it.
My thoughts flew back to that day long gone when a friendless boy rode up a long drive to a pillared mansion. I saw again the picture. The horse with the craning neck, the liveried servant at the bridle, the listless young gentleman with the shiny boots reclining on the horse-block, and above him, under the portico, the grand lady whose laugh had made me sad. And I remembered, too, the wild, neglected lad who had been to me as a brother, warm-hearted and generous, who had shared what he had with a foundling, who had wept with me in my first great sorrow. Where was he?
For I was face to face once more with Mrs. Temple and Mr. Harry Riddle!
The lady started as she gazed at me, and her tired eyes widened. She clutched Mr. Riddle's arm.
“Harry!” she cried, “Harry, he puts me in mind of—of some one—I cannot think.”
Mr. Riddle laughed nervously.
“There, there, Sally,” says he, “all brats resemble somebody. I have heard you say so a dozen times.”
She turned upon him an appealing glance.
“Oh!” she said, with a little catch of her breath, “is there no such thing as oblivion? Is there a place in the world that is not haunted? I am cursed with memory.”
“Or the lack of it,” answered Mr. Riddle, pulling out a silver snuff-box from his pocket and staring at it ruefully. “Damme, the snuff I fetched from Paris is gone, all but a pinch. Here is a real tragedy.”
“It was the same in Rome,” the lady continued, unheeding, “when we met the Izards, and at Venice that nasty Colonel Tarleton saw us at the opera. In London we must needs run into the Manners from Maryland. In Paris—”
“In Paris we were safe enough,” Mr. Riddle threw in hastily.
“And why?” she flashed back at him.
He did not answer that.
“A truce with your fancies, madam,” said he. “Behold a soul of good nature! I have followed you through half the civilized countries of the globe—none of them are good enough. You must needs cross the ocean again, and come to the wilds. We nearly die on the trail, are picked up by a Samaritan in buckskin and taken into the bosom of his worthy family. And forsooth, you look at a backwoods urchin, and are nigh to swooning.”
“Hush, Harry,” she cried, starting forward and peering into my face; “he will hear you.”
“Tut!” said Harry, “what if he does? London and Paris are words to him. We might as well be speaking French. And I'll take my oath he's sleeping.”
The corner where I lay was dark, for the cabin had no windows. And if my life had depended upon speaking, I could have found no fit words then.
She turned from me, and her mood changed swiftly. For she laughed lightly, musically, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Perchance I am ghost-ridden,” she said.
“They are not ghosts of a past happiness, at all events,” he answered.
She sat down on a stool before the hearth, and clasping her fingers upon her knee looked thoughtfully into the embers of the fire. Presently she began to speak in a low, even voice, he looking down at her, his feet apart, his hand thrust backward towards the heat.
“Harry,” she said, “do you remember all our contrivances? How you used to hold my hand in the garden under the table, while I talked brazenly to Mr. Mason? And how jealous Jack Temple used to get?” She laughed again, softly, always looking at the fire.
“Damnably jealous!” agreed Mr. Riddle, and yawned. “Served him devilish right for marrying you. And he was a blind fool for five long years.”
“Yes, blind,” the lady agreed. “How could he have been so blind? How well I recall the day he rode after us in the woods.”
“'Twas the parson told, curse him!” said Mr. Riddle.“We should have gone that night, if your courage had held.”
“My courage!” she cried, flashing a look upwards, “my foresight. A pretty mess we had made of it without my inheritance. 'Tis small enough, the Lord knows. In Europe we should have been dregs. We should have starved in the wilderness with you a-farming.”
He looked down at her curiously.
“Devilish queer talk,” said he, “but while we are in it, I wonder where Temple is now. He got aboard the King's frigate with a price on his head. Williams told me he saw him in London, at White's. Have—have you ever heard, Sarah?”
She shook her head, her glance returning to the ashes.
“No,” she answered.
“Faith,” says Mr. Riddle, “he'll scarce turn up here.”
She did not answer that, but sat motionless.
“He'll scarce turn up here, in these wilds,” Mr. Riddle repeated, “and what I am wondering, Sarah, is how the devil we are to live here.”
“How do these good people live, who helped us when we were starving?”
Mr. Riddle flung his hand eloquently around the cabin. There was something of disgust in the gesture.
“You see!” he said, “love in a cottage.”
“But it is love,” said the lady, in a low tone.
He broke into laughter.
“Sally,” he cried, “I have visions of you gracing the board at which we sat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel broth with the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots and pans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnet for your lord and master.”
“My lord and master!” said the lady, and there was so much of scorn in the words that Mr. Riddle winced.
“Come,” he said, “I grant now that you could make pans shine like pier-glasses, that you could cook bacon to a turn—although I would have laid an hundred guineas against it some years ago. What then? Are you to becontented with four log walls? With the intellectual companionship of the McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement upon the chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red fiends? Come, we'll go back to theRue St. Dominique, to the suppers and the card parties of the countess. We'll be rid of regrets for a life upon which we have turned our backs forever.”
She shook her head, sadly.
“It's no use, Harry,” said she, “we'll never be rid of regrets.”
“We'll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, and gentry round about. But, damn it, the Rebels have spoiled all that since the war.”
“Those are not the regrets I mean,” answered Mrs. Temple.
“What then, in Heaven's name?” he cried. “You were not wont to be thus. But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?”
She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staring at her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,—the pattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook the woman's shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in a butternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm.
Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned and flung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed his brown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very still on her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The lady smiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her fair cheeks.
As for Mr. Riddle, he went to the door, looked out, and took a last pinch of snuff.
“Here is the mistress of the house coming back,” he cried, “and singing like the shepherdess in the opera.”
It was Polly Ann indeed. At the sound of his mother's voice, little Tom jumped down from the lady's lap andran past Mr. Riddle at the door. Mrs. Temple's thoughts were gone across the mountains.
“And what is that you have under your arm?” said Mr. Riddle, as he gave back.
“I've fetched some prime bacon fer your supper, sir,” said Polly Ann, all rosy from her walk; “what I have ain't fit to give ye.”
Mrs. Temple rose.
“My dear,” she said, “what you have is too good for us. And if you do such a thing again, I shall be very angry.”
“Lord, ma'am,” exclaimed Polly Ann, “and you use' ter dainties an' silver an' linen! Tom is gone to try to git a turkey for ye.” She paused, and looked compassionately at the lady. “Bless ye, ma'am, ye're that tuckered from the mountains! 'Tis a fearsome journey.”
“Yes,” said the lady, simply, “I am tired.”
“Small wonder!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “To think what ye've been through—yere husband near to dyin' afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin' yere own life to save him—so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out a-fightin' redskins I'm that fidgety I can't set still. I wouldn't let him know what I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who love yere husband like that.”
The lady would have smiled bravely, had the strength been given her. She tried. And then, with a shudder, she hid her face in her hands.
“Oh, don't!” she exclaimed, “don't!”
Mr. Riddle went out.
“There, there, ma'am,” she said, “I hedn't no right ter speak, and ye fair worn out.” She drew her gently into a chair. “Set down, ma'am, and don't ye stir tell supper's ready.” She brushed her eyes with her sleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me. “Davy,” she said, “Davy, how be ye?”
“Davy!”
It was the lady's voice. She stood facing us, and never while I live shall I forget that which I saw in her eyes. Some resemblance it bore to the look of the hunted deer,but in the animal it is dumb, appealing. Understanding made the look of the woman terrible to behold,—understanding, ay, and courage. For she did not lack this last quality. Polly Ann gave back in a kind of dismay, and I shivered.
“Yes,” I answered, “I am David Ritchie.”
“You—you dare to judge me!” she cried.
I knew not why she said this.
“To judge you?” I repeated.
“Yes, to judge me,” she answered. “I know you, David Ritchie, and the blood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish—saint” (she laughed), “who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. That was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand sermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into the mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. A Calvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular weakness of his own—”
“Stop, Mrs. Temple!” I cried, lifting up in bed. And to my astonishment she was silenced, looking at me in amazement. “You had your vengeance when I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of your shoulders at the news of my father's death. And now—”
“And now?” she repeated questioningly.
“Now I thought you were changed,” I said slowly, for the excitement was telling on me.
“You listened!” she said.
“I pitied you.”
“Oh, pity!” she cried. “My God, that you should pity me!” She straightened, and summoned all the spirit that was in her. “I would rather be called a name than have the pity of you and yours.”
“You cannot change it, Mrs. Temple,” I answered, and fell back on the nettle-bark sheets. “You cannot change it,” I heard myself repeating, as though it were another's voice. And I knew that Polly Ann was bending over me and calling me.
“Where did they go, Polly Ann?” I asked.
“Acrost the Mississippi, to the lands of the Spanish King,” said Polly Ann.
“And where in those dominions?” I demanded.
“John Saunders took 'em as far as the Falls,” Polly Ann answered. “He 'lowed they was goin' to St. Louis. But they never said a word. I reckon they'll be hunted as long as they live.”
I had thought of them much as I lay on my back recovering from the fever,—the fever for which Mrs. Temple was to blame. Yet I bore her no malice. And many other thoughts I had, probing back into childhood memories for the solving of problems there.
“I knowed ye come of gentlefolks, Davy,” Polly Ann had said when we talked together.
So I was first cousin to Nick, and nephew to that selfish gentleman, Mr. Temple, in whose affectionate care I had been left in Charlestown by my father. And my father? Who had he been? I remembered the speech that he had used and taught me, and how his neighbors had dubbed him “aristocrat.” But Mrs. Temple was gone, and it was not in likelihood that I should ever see her more.
Twoyears went by, two uneventful years for me, two mighty years for Kentucky. Westward rolled the tide of emigrants to change her character, but to swell her power. Towns and settlements sprang up in a season and flourished, and a man could scarce keep pace with the growth of them. Doctors came, and ministers, and lawyers; generals and majors, and captains and subalterns of the Revolution, to till their grants and to found families. There were gentry, too, from the tide-waters, come to retrieve the fortunes which they had lost by their patriotism. There were storekeepers like Mr. Scarlett, adventurers and ne'er-do-weels who hoped to start with a clean slate, and a host of lazy vagrants who thought to scratch the soil and find abundance.
I must not forget how, at the age of seventeen, I became a landowner, thanks to my name being on the roll of Colonel Clark's regiment. For, in a spirit of munificence, the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia had awarded to every private in that regiment one hundred and eight acres of land on the Ohio River, north of the Falls. Sergeant Thomas McChesney, as a reward for his services in one of the severest campaigns in history, received a grant of two hundred and sixteen acres! You who will may look at the plat made by William Clark, Surveyor for the Board of Commissioners, and find sixteen acres marked for Thomas McChesney in Section 169, and two hundred more in Section 3. Section 3 fronted the Ohio some distance above Bear Grass Creek, and was, of course,on the Illinois shore. As for my own plots, some miles in the interior, I never saw them. But I own them to this day.
I mention these things as bearing on the story of my life, with which I must get on. And, therefore, I may not dwell upon this injustice to the men who won an empire and were flung a bone long afterwards.
It was early autumn once more, and such a busy week we had had at the mill, that Tom was perforce obliged to remain at home and help, though he longed to be gone with Cowan and Ray a-hunting to the southwest. Up rides a man named Jarrott, flings himself from his horse, passes the time of day as he watches the grinding, helps Tom to tie up a sack or two, and hands him a paper.
“What's this?” says Tom, staring at it blankly.
“Ye won't blame me, Mac,” answers Mr. Jarrott, somewhat ashamed of his rôle of process-server. “'Tain't none of my doin's.”
“Read it, Davy,” said Tom, giving it to me.
I stopped the mill, and, unfolding the paper, read. I remember not the quaint wording of it, save that it was ill-spelled and ill-writ generally. In short, it was a summons for Tom to appear before the court at Danville on a certain day in the following week, and I made out that a Mr. Neville Colfax was the plaintiff in the matter, and that the suit had to do with land.
“Neville Colfax!” I exclaimed, “that's the man for whom Mr. Potts was agent.”
“Ay, ay,” said Tom, and sat him down on the meal-bags. “Drat the varmint, he kin hev the land.”
“Hev the land?” cried Polly Ann, who had come in upon us. “Hev ye no sperrit, Tom McChesney?”
“There's no chance ag'in the law,” said Tom, hopelessly. “Thar's Perkins had his land tuck away last year, and Terrell's moved out, and twenty more I could name. And thar's Dan'l Boone, himself. Most the rich bottom he tuck up the critters hev got away from him.”
“Ye'll go to Danville and take Davy with ye and fightit,” answered Polly Ann, decidedly. “Davy has a word to say, I reckon. 'Twas he made the mill and scar't that Mr. Potts away. I reckon he'll git us out of this fix.”
Mr. Jarrott applauded her courage.
“Ye have the grit, ma'am,” he said, as he mounted his horse again. “Here's luck to ye!”
The remembrance of Mr. Potts weighed heavily upon my mind during the next week. Perchance Tom would have to pay for this prank likewise. 'Twas indeed a foolish, childish thing to have done, and I might have known that it would only have put off the evil day of reckoning. Since then, by reason of the mill site and the business we got by it, the land had become the most valuable in that part of the country. Had I known Colonel Clark's whereabouts, I should have gone to him for advice and comfort. As it was, we were forced to await the issue without counsel. Polly Ann and I talked it over many times while Tom sat, morose and silent, in a corner. He was the pioneer pure and simple, afraid of no man, red or white, in open combat, but defenceless in such matters as this.
“'Tis Davy will save us, Tom,” said Polly Ann, “with the l'arnin' he's got while the corn was grindin'.”
I had, indeed, been reading at the mill while the hopper emptied itself, such odd books as drifted into Harrodstown. One of these was called “Bacon's Abridgment”; it dealt with law and it puzzled me sorely.
“And the children,” Polly Ann continued,—“ye'll not make me pick up the four of 'em, and pack it to Louisiana, because Mr. Colfax wants the land we've made for ourselves.”
There were four of them now, indeed,—the youngest still in the bark cradle in the corner. He bore a no less illustrious name than that of the writer of these chronicles.
It would be hard to say which was the more troubled, Tom or I, that windy morning we set out on the Danville trace. Polly Ann alone had been serene,—ay, and smiling and hopeful. She had kissed us each good-by impartially. And we left her, with a future governor ofKentucky on her shoulder, tripping lightly down to the mill to grind the McGarrys' corn.
When the forest was cleared at Danville, Justice was housed first. She was not the serene, inexorable dame whom we have seen in pictures holding her scales above the jars of earth. Justice at Danville was a somewhat high-spirited, quarrelsome lady who decided matters oftenest with the stroke of a sword. There was a certain dignity about her temple withal,—for instance, if a judge wore linen, that linen must not be soiled. Nor was it etiquette for a judge to lay his own hands in chastisement on contemptuous persons, though Justice at Danville had more compassion than her sisters in older communities upon human failings.
There was a temple built to her “of hewed or sawed logs nine inches thick”—so said the specifications. Within the temple was a rude platform which served as a bar, and since Justice is supposed to carry a torch in her hand, there were no windows,—nor any windows in the jail next door, where some dozen offenders languished on the afternoon that Tom and I rode into town.
There was nothing auspicious in the appearance of Danville, and no man might have said then that the place was to be the scene of portentous conventions which were to decide the destiny of a State. Here was a sprinkling of log cabins, some in the building, and an inn, by courtesy so called. Tom and I would have preferred to sleep in the woods near by, with our feet to the blaze; this was partly from motives of economy, and partly because Tom, in common with other pioneers, held an inn in contempt. But to come back to our arrival.
It was a sunny and windy afternoon, and the leaves were flying in the air. Around the court-house was a familiar, buzzing scene,—the backwoodsmen, lounging against the wall or brawling over their claims, the sleek agents and attorneys, and half a dozen of a newer type. These were adventurous young gentlemen of family, some of them lawyers and some of them late officers in the Continental army who had been rewarded with grants of land.These were the patrons of the log tavern which stood near by with the blackened stumps around it, where there was much card-playing and roistering, ay, and even duelling, of nights.
“Thar's Mac,” cried a backwoodsman who was sitting on the court-house steps as we rode up. “Howdy, Mac; be they tryin' to git your land, too?”
“Howdy, Mac,” said a dozen more, paying a tribute to Tom's popularity. And some of them greeted me.
“Is this whar they take a man's land away?” says Tom, jerking his thumb at the open door.
Tom had no intention of uttering a witticism, but his words were followed by loud guffaws from all sides, even the lawyers joining in.
“I reckon this is the place, Tom,” came the answer.
“I reckon I'll take a peep in thar,” said Tom, leaping off his horse and shouldering his way to the door. I followed him, curious. The building was half full. Two elderly gentlemen of grave demeanor sat on stools behind a puncheon table, and near them a young man was writing. Behind the young man was a young gentleman who was closing a speech as we entered, and he had spoken with such vehemence that the perspiration stood out on his brow. There was a murmur from those listening, and I saw Tom pressing his way to the front.
“Hev any of ye seen a feller named Colfax?” cries Tom, in a loud voice. “He says he owns the land I settled, and he ain't ever seed it.”
There was a roar of laughter, and even the judges smiled.
“Whar is he?” cries Tom; “said he'd be here to-day.”
Another gust of laughter drowned his words, and then one of the judges got up and rapped on the table. The gentleman who had just made the speech glared mightily, and I supposed he had lost the effect of it.
“What do you mean by interrupting the court?” cried the judge. “Get out, sir, or I'll have you fined for contempt.”
Tom looked dazed. But at that moment a hand was laid on his shoulder, and Tom turned.
“Why,” says he, “thar's no devil if it ain't the Colonel. Polly Ann told me not to let 'em scar' me, Colonel.”
“And quite right, Tom,” Colonel Clark answered, smiling. He turned to the judges. “If your Honors please,” said he, “this gentleman is an old soldier of mine, and unused to the ways of court. I beg your Honors to excuse him.”
The judges smiled back, and the Colonel led us out of the building.
“Now, Tom,” said he, after he had given me a nod and a kind word, “I know this Mr. Colfax, and if you will come into the tavern this evening after court, we'll see what can be done. I have a case of my own at present.”
Tom was very grateful. He spent the remainder of the daylight hours with other friends of his, shooting at a mark near by, serenely confident of the result of his case now that Colonel Clark had a hand in it. Tom being one of the best shots in Kentucky, he had won two beaver skins before the early autumn twilight fell. As for me, I had an afternoon of excitement in the court, fascinated by the marvels of its procedures, by the impassioned speeches of its advocates, by the gravity of its judges. Ambition stirred within me.
The big room of the tavern was filled with men in heated talk over the day's doings, some calling out for black betty, some for rum, and some demanding apple toddies. The landlord's slovenly negro came in with candles, their feeble rays reënforcing the firelight and revealing the mud-chinked walls. Tom and I had barely sat ourselves down at a table in a corner, when in came Colonel Clark. Beside him was a certain swarthy gentleman whom I had noticed in the court, a man of some thirty-five years, with a fine, fleshy face and coal-black hair. His expression was not one to give us the hope of an amicable settlement,—in fact, he had the scowl of a thundercloud. He was talking quite angrily, and seemed not to heed those around him.
“Why the devil should I see the man, Clark?” he was saying.
The Colonel did not answer until they had stopped in front of us.
“Major Colfax,” said he, “this is Sergeant Tom McChesney, one of the best friends I have in Kentucky. I think a vast deal of Tom, Major. He was one of the few that never failed me in the Illinois campaign. He is as honest as the day; you will find him plain-spoken if he speaks at all, and I have great hopes that you will agree. Tom, the Major and I are boyhood friends, and for the sake of that friendship he has consented to this meeting.”
“I fear that your kind efforts will be useless, Colonel,” Major Colfax put in, rather tartly. “Mr. McChesney not only ignores my rights, but was near to hanging my agent.”
“What?” says Colonel Clark.
I glanced at Tom. However helpless he might be in a court, he could be counted on to stand up stanchly in a personal argument. His retorts would certainly not be brilliant, but they surely would be dogged. Major Colfax had begun wrong.
“I reckon ye've got no rights that I know on,” said Tom. “I cleart the land and settled it, and I have a better right to it nor any man. And I've got a grant fer it.”
“A Henderson grant!” cried the Major; “'tis so much worthless paper.”
“I reckon it's good enough fer me,” answered Tom. “It come from those who blazed their way out here and druv the redskins off. I don't know nothin' about this newfangled law, but 'tis a queer thing to my thinkin' if them that fit fer a place ain't got the fust right to it.”
Major Colfax turned to Colonel Clark with marked impatience.
“I told you it would be useless, Clark,” said he. “I care not a fig for a few paltry acres, and as God hears me I'm a reasonable man.” (He did not look it then.) “But I swear by the evangels I'll let no squatter have the better of me. I did not serve Virginia for gold or land, but I lost my fortune in that service, and before I know it these backwoodsmen will have every acre of my grant.It's an old story,” said Mr. Colfax, hotly, “and why the devil did we fight England if it wasn't that every man should have his rights? By God, I'll not be frightened or wheedled out of mine. I sent an agent to Kentucky to deal politely and reasonably with these gentry. What did they do to him? Some of them threw him out neck and crop. And if I am not mistaken,” said Major Colfax, fixing a piercing eye upon Tom, “if I am not mistaken, it was this worthy sergeant of yours who came near to hanging him, and made the poor devil flee Kentucky for his life.”
This remark brought me near to an untimely laugh at the remembrance of Mr. Potts, and this though I was far too sober over the outcome of the conference. Colonel Clark seized hold of a chair and pushed it under Major Colfax.
“Sit down, gentlemen, we are not so far apart,” said the Colonel, coolly. The slovenly negro lad passing at that time, he caught him by the sleeve. “Here, boy, a bowl of toddy, quick. And mind you brew it strong. Now, Tom,” said he, “what is this fine tale about a hanging?”
“'Twan't nothin',” said Tom.
“You tell me you didn't try to hang Mr. Potts!” cried Major Colfax.
“I tell you nothin',” said Tom, and his jaw was set more stubbornly than ever.
Major Colfax glanced at Colonel Clark.
“You see!” he said a little triumphantly.
I could hold my tongue no longer.
“Major Colfax is unjust, sir,” I cried. “'Twas Tom saved the man from hanging.”
“Eh?” says Colonel Clark, turning to me sharply. “So you had a hand in this, Davy. I might have guessed as much.”
“Who the devil is this?” says Mr. Colfax.
“A sort of ward of mine,” answers the Colonel. “Drummer boy, financier, strategist, in my Illinois campaign. Allow me to present to you, Major, Mr. DavidRitchie. When my men objected to marching through ice-skimmed water up to their necks, Mr. Ritchie showed them how.”
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the Major, staring at me from under his black eyebrows, “he was but a child.”
“With an old head on his shoulders,” said the Colonel, and his banter made me flush.
The negro boy arriving with the toddy, Colonel Clark served out three generous gourdfuls, a smaller one for me. “Your health, my friends, and I drink to a peaceful settlement.”
“You may drink to the devil if you like,” says Major Colfax, glaring at Tom.
“Come, Davy,” said Colonel Clark, when he had taken half the gourd, “let's have the tale. I'll warrant you're behind this.”
I flushed again, and began by stammering. For I had a great fear that Major Colfax's temper would fly into bits when he heard it.
“Well, sir,” said I, “I was grinding corn at the mill when the man came. I thought him a smooth-mannered person, and he did not give his business. He was just for wheedling me. 'And was this McChesney's mill?' said he. 'Ay,' said I. 'Thomas McChesney?' 'Ay,' said I. Then he was all for praise of Thomas McChesney. 'Where is he?' said he. 'He is at the far pasture,' said I, 'and may be looked for any moment.' Whereupon he sits down and tries to worm out of me the business of the mill, the yield of the land. After that he begins to talk about the great people he knows, Sevier and Shelby and Robertson and Boone and the like. Ay, and his intimates, the Randolphs and the Popes and the Colfaxes in Virginia. 'Twas then I asked him if he knew Colonel Campbell of Abingdon.”
“And what deviltry was that?” demanded the Colonel, as he dipped himself more of the toddy.
“I'll come to it, sir. Yes, Colonel Campbell was his intimate, and ranted if he did not tarry a week with himat Abingdon on his journeys. After that he follows me to the cabin, and sees Polly Ann and Tom and the children on the floor poking a 'possum. ‘Ah,’ says he, in his softest voice, ‘a pleasant family scene. And this is Mr. McChesney?’ ‘I’m your man,’ says Tom. Then he praised the mill site and the land all over again. ‘‘Tis good enough for a farmer,’ says Tom. ‘Who holds under Henderson's grant,’ I cried. ‘‘Twas that you wished to say an hou ago,’ and I saw I had caught him fair.”
“By the eternal!” cried Colonel Clark, bringing down his fist upon the table. “And what then?”
I glanced at Major Colfax, but for the life of me I could make nothing of his look.
“And what did your man say?” said Colonel Clark.
“He called on the devil to bite me, sir,” I answered. The Colonel put down his gourd and began to laugh. The Major was looking at me fixedly.
“And what then?” said the Colonel.
“It was then Polly Ann called him a thief to take away the land Tom had fought for and paid for and tilled. The man was all politeness once more, said that the matter was unfortunate, and that a new and good title might be had for a few skins.”
“He said that?” interrupted Major Colfax, half rising in his chair. “He was a damned scoundrel.”
“So I thought, sir,” I answered.
“The devil you did!” said the Major.
“Tut, Colfax,” said the Colonel, pulling him by the sleeve of his greatcoat, “sit down and let the lad finish. And then?”
“Mr. Boone had told me of a land agent who had made off with Colonel Campbell's silver spoons from Abingdon, and how the Colonel had ridden east and west after him for a week with a rope hanging on his saddle. I began to tell this story, and instead of the description of Mr. Boone's man, I put in that of Mr. Potts,—in height some five feet nine, spare, of sallow complexion and a green greatcoat.”
Major Colfax leaped up in his chair.
“Great Jehovah!” he shouted, “you described the wrong man.”
Colonel Clark roared with laughter, thereby spilling some of his toddy.
“I'll warrant he did so,” he cried; “and I'll warrant your agent went white as birch bark. Go on, Davy.”
“There's not a great deal more, sir,” I answered, looking apprehensively at Major Colfax, who still stood. “The man vowed I lied, but Tom laid hold of him and was for hurrying him off to Harrodstown at once.”
“Which would ill have suited your purpose,” put in the Colonel. “And what did you do with him?”
“We put him in a loft, sir, and then I told Tom that he was not Campbell's thief at all. But I had a craving to scare the man out of Kentucky. So I rode off to the neighbors and gave them the tale, and bade them come after nightfall as though to hang Campbell's thief, which they did, and they were near to smashing the door trying to get in the cabin. Tom told them the rascal had escaped, but they must needs come in and have jigs and toddies until midnight. When they were gone, and we called down the man from the loft, he was in such a state that he could scarce find the rungs of the ladder with his feet. He rode away into the night, and that was the last we heard of him. Tom was not to blame, sir.”
Colonel Clark was speechless. And when for the moment he would conquer his mirth, a glance at Major Colfax would set him off again in laughter. I was puzzled. I thought my Colonel more human than of old.
“How now, Colfax?” he cried, giving a poke to the Major's ribs; “you hold the sequel to this farce.”
The Major's face was purple,—with what emotion I could not say. Suddenly he swung full at me.
“Do you mean to tell me that you were the general of this hoax—you?” he demanded in a strange voice.
“The thing seemed an injustice to me, sir,” I replied in self-defence, “and the man a rascal.”
“A rascal!” cried the Major, “a knave, a poltroon, a simpleton! And he came to me with no tale of havingbeen outwitted by a stripling.” Whereupon Major Colfax began to shake, gently at first, and presently he was in such a gale of laughter that I looked on him in amazement, Colonel Clark joining in again. The Major's eye rested at length upon Tom, and gradually he grew calm.
“McChesney,” said he, “we'll have no bickerings in court among soldiers. The land is yours, and to-morrow my attorney shall give you a deed of it. Your hand, McChesney.”
The stubbornness vanished from Tom's face, and there came instead a dazed expression as he thrust a great, hard hand into the Major's.
“'Twan't the land, sir,” he stammered; “these varmints of settlers is gittin' thick as flies in July. 'Twas Polly Ann. I reckon I'm obleeged to ye, Major.”
“There, there,” said the Major, “I thank the Lord I came to Kentucky to see for myself. Damn the land. I have plenty more,—and little else.” He turned quizzically to Colonel Clark, revealing a line of strong, white teeth. “Suppose we drink a health to your drummer boy,” said he, lifting up his gourd.