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The Crossing, a novel by Winston Churchill |
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Book 2. Flotsam And Jetsam - Chapter 5. Meet An Old Bedfellow |
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_ Book II. Flotsam And Jetsam Chapter V. Meet An Old Bedfellow I shall burden no one with the dry chronicles of a law office. The acquirement of learning is a slow process in life, and perchance a slower one in the telling. I lacked not application during the three years of my stay in Richmond, and to earn my living I worked at such odd tasks as came my way. The Judge resembled Major Colfax in but one trait: he was choleric. But he was painstaking and cautious, and I soon found out that he looked askance upon any one whom his nephew might recommend. He liked the Major, but he vowed him to be a roisterer and spendthrift, and one day, some months after my advent, the Judge asked me flatly how I came to fall in with Major Colfax. I told him. At the end of this conversation he took my breath away by bidding me come to live with him. Like many lawyers of that time, he had a little house in one corner of his grounds for his office. It stood under great spreading trees, and there I was wont to sit through many a summer day wrestling with the authorities. In the evenings we would have political arguments, for the Confederacy was in a seething state between the Federalists and the Republicans over the new Constitution, now ratified. Between the Federalists and the Jacobins, I would better say, for the virulence of the French Revolution was soon to be reflected among the parties on our side. Kentucky, swelled into an unmanageable territory, was come near to rebellion because the government was not strong enough to wrest from Spain the free navigation of the Mississippi. And yet I yearned to go back, and looked forward eagerly to the time when I should have stored enough in my head to gain admission to the bar. I was therefore greatly embarrassed, when my examinations came, by an offer from Judge Wentworth to stay in Richmond and help him with his practice. It was an offer not to be lightly set aside, and yet I had made up my mind. He flew into a passion because of my desire to return to a wild country of outlaws and vagabonds. "Why, damme," he cried, "Kentucky and this pretty State of Franklin which desired to chip off from North Carolina are traitorous places. Disloyal to Congress! Intriguing with a Spanish minister and the Spanish governor of Louisiana to secede from their own people and join the King of Spain. Bah!" he exclaimed, "if our new Federal Constitution is adopted I would hang Jack Sevier of Franklin and your Kentuckian Wilkinson to the highest trees west of the mountains." I can see the little gentleman as he spoke, his black broadcloth coat and lace ruffles, his hand clutching the gold head of his cane, his face screwed up with indignation under his white wig. It was on a Sunday, and he was standing by the lilac bushes on the lawn in front of his square brick house. "David," said he, more calmly, "I trust I have taught you something besides the law. I trust I have taught you that a strong Federal government alone will be the salvation of our country." "You cannot blame Kentucky greatly, sir," said I, feeling that I must stand up for my friends. "The Federal government has done little enough for its people, and treated them to a deal of neglect. They won that western country for themselves with no Federal nor Virginia or North Carolina troops to help them. No man east of the mountains knows what that fight has been. No man east of the mountains knows the horror of that Indian warfare. This government gives them no protection now. Nay, Congress cannot even procure for them an outlet for their commerce. They must trade or perish. Spain closes the Mississippi, arrests our merchants, seizes their goods, and often throws them into prison. No wonder they scorn the Congress as weak and impotent." The Judge stared at me aghast. It was the first time I had dared oppose him on this subject. "What," he sputtered, "what? You are a Separatist,--you whom I have received into the bosom of my family!" Seizing the cane at the middle, he brandished it in my face. "Don't misunderstand me, sir," said I. "You have given me books to read, and have taught me what may be the destiny of our nation on this continent. But you must forgive a people whose lives have been spent in a fierce struggle for their homes, whose families have nearly all lost some member by massacre, who are separated by hundreds of miles of wilderness from you." He looked at me speechless, and turned and walked into the house. I thought I had sinned past forgiveness, and I was beyond description uncomfortable, for he had been like a parent to me. But the next morning, at half after seven, he walked into the little office and laid down some gold pieces on my table. Gold was very scarce in those days. "They are for your journey, David," said he. "My only comfort in your going back is that you may grow up to put some temperance into their wild heads. I have a commission for you at Jonesboro, in what was once the unspeakable State of Franklin. You can stop there on your way to Kentucky." He drew from his pocket a great bulky letter, addressed to "Thomas Wright, Esquire, Barrister-at-law in Jonesboro, North Carolina." For the good gentleman could not bring himself to write Franklin. It was late in September of the year 1788 when I set out on my homeward way--for Kentucky was home to me. I was going back to Polly Ann and Tom, and visions of that home-coming rose before my eyes as I rode. In a packet in my saddle-bags were some dozen letters which Mr. Wrenn, the schoolmaster at Harrodstown, had writ at Polly Ann's bidding. I have the letters yet. For Mr. Wrenn was plainly an artist, and had set down on the paper the words just as they had flowed from her heart. Ay, and there was news in the letters, though not surprising news among those pioneer families whom God blessed so abundantly. Since David Ritchie McChesney (I mention the name with pride) had risen above the necessities of a bark cradle, two more had succeeded him, a brother and a sister. I spurred my horse onward, and thought impatiently of the weary leagues between my family and me. I have often pictured myself on that journey. I was twenty-one years of age, though one would have called me older. My looks were nothing to boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the pony. I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried four precious law books, the stock in trade which my generous patron had given me. But as I mounted the slopes of the mountains my spirits rose too at the prospect of the life before me. The woods were all aflame with color, with wine and amber and gold, and the hills wore the misty mantle of shadowy blue so dear to my youthful memory. As I left the rude taverns of a morning and jogged along the heights, I watched the vapors rise and troll away from the valleys far beneath, and saw great flocks of ducks and swans and cackling geese darkening the air in their southward flight. Strange that I fell in with no company, for the trail leading into the Tennessee country was widened and broadened beyond belief, and everywhere I came upon blackened fires and abandoned lean-tos, and refuse bones gnawed by the wolves and bleached by the weather. I slept in some of these lean-tos, with my fire going brightly, indifferent to the howl of wolves in chase or the scream of a panther pouncing on its prey. For I was born of the wilderness. It had no terrors for me, nor did I ever feel alone. The great cliffs with their clinging, gnarled trees, the vast mountains clothed in the motley colors of the autumn, the sweet and smoky smell of the Indian summer,--all were dear to me. As I drew near to Jonesboro my thoughts began to dwell upon that strange and fascinating man who had entertained Polly Ann and Tom and me so lavishly on our way to Kentucky,--Captain John Sevier. For he had made a great noise in the world since then, and the wrath of such men as my late patron was heavy upon him. Yes, John Sevier, Nollichucky Jack, had been a king in all but name since I had seen him, the head of such a principality as stirred the blood to read about. It comprised the Watauga settlement among the mountains of what is now Tennessee, and was called prosaically (as is the wont of the Anglo-Saxon) the free State of Franklin. There were certain conservative and unimaginative souls in this mountain principality who for various reasons held their old allegiance to the State of North Carolina. One Colonel Tipton led these loyalist forces, and armed partisans of either side had for some years ridden up and down the length of the land, burning and pillaging and slaying. We in Virginia had heard of two sets of courts in Franklin, of two sets of legislators. But of late the rumor had grown persistently that Nollichucky Jack was now a kind of fugitive, and that he had passed the summer pleasantly enough fighting Indians in the vicinity of Nick-a-jack Cave. It was court day as I rode into the little town of Jonesboro, the air sparkling like a blue diamond over the mountain crests, and I drew deep into my lungs once more the scent of the frontier life I had loved so well. In the streets currents of excited men flowed and backed and eddied, backwoodsmen and farmers in the familiar hunting shirts of hide or homespun, and lawyers in dress less rude. A line of horses stood kicking and switching their tails in front of the log tavern, rough carts and wagons had been left here and there with their poles on the ground, and between these, piles of skins were heaped up and bags of corn and grain. The log meeting-house was deserted, but the court-house was the centre of such a swirling crowd as I had often seen at Harrodstown. Now there are brawls and brawls, and I should have thought with shame of my Kentucky bringing-up had I not perceived that this was no ordinary court day, and that an unusual excitement was in the wind. Tying my horse, and making my way through the press in front of the tavern door, I entered the common room, and found it stifling, brawling and drinking going on apace. Scarce had I found a seat before the whole room was emptied by one consent, all crowding out of the door after two men who began a rough-and-tumble fight in the street. I had seen rough-and-tumble fights in Kentucky, and if I have forborne to speak of them it is because there always has been within me a loathing for them. And so I sat quietly in the common room until the landlord came. I asked him if he could direct me to Mr. Wright's house, as I had a letter for that gentleman. His answer was to grin at me incredulously. "I reckoned you wah'nt from these parts," said he. "Wright's-out o' town." "What is the excitement?" I demanded. He stared at me. "Nollichucky Jack's been heah, in Jonesboro, young man," said he. "What," I exclaimed, "Colonel Sevier?" "Ay, Sevier," he repeated. "With Martin and Tipton and all the Caroliny men right heah, having a council of mility officers in the court-house, in rides Jack with his frontier boys like a whirlwind. He bean't afeard of 'em, and a bench warrant out ag'in him for high treason. Never seed sech a recklessness. Never had sech a jamboree sence I kept the tavern. They was in this here room most of the day, and they was five fights before they set down to dinner." "And Colonel Tipton?" I said. "Oh, Tipton," said he, "he hain't afeard neither, but he hain't got men enough." "And where is Sevier now?" I demanded. "How long hev you ben in town?" was his answer. I told him. "Wal," said he, shifting his tobacco from one sallow cheek to the other, "I reckon he and his boys rud out just afore you come in. Mark me," he added, "when I tell ye there'll be trouble yet. Tipton and Martin and the Caroliny folks is burnin' mad with Chucky Jack for the murder of Corn Tassel and other peaceful chiefs. But Jack hez a wild lot with him,--some of the Nollichucky Cave traders, and there's one young lad that looks like he was a gentleman once. I reckon Jack himself wouldn't like to get into a fight with him. He's a wild one. Great Goliah," he exclaimed, running to the door, "ef thar ain't a-goin' to be another fight! Never seed sech a day in Jonesboro." I likewise ran to the door, and this fight interested me. There was a great, black-bearded mountaineer - farmer - desperado in the midst of a circle, pouring out a torrent of abuse at a tall young man. "That thar's Hump Gibson," said the landlord, genially pointing out the black-bearded ruffian, "and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment ag'in him. He's got spunk, but I reckon Hump'll t'ar the innards out'n him ef he stands thar a great while." "Ye'll git jedgment ag'in me, ye Caroliny splinter, will ye?" yelled Mr. Gibson, with an oath. "I'll pay Bill Wilder the skins when I git ready, and all the pinhook lawyers in Washington County won't budge me a mite." "You'll pay Bill Wilder or go to jail, by the eternal," cried the young man, quite as angrily, whereupon I looked upon him with a mixture of admiration and commiseration, with a gulping certainty in my throat that I was about to see murder done. He was a strange young man, with the rare marked look that would compel even a poor memory to pick him out again. For example, he was very tall and very slim, with red hair blown every which way over a high and towering forehead that seemed as long as the face under it. The face, too, was long, and all freckled by the weather. The blue eyes held me in wonder, and these blazed with such prodigious wrath that, if a look could have killed, Hump Gibson would have been stricken on the spot. Mr. Gibson was, however, very much alive. "Skin out o' here afore I kill ye," he shouted, and he charged at the slim young man like a buffalo, while the crowd held its breath. I, who had looked upon cruel sights in my day, was turning away with a kind of sickening when I saw the slim young man dodge the rush. He did more. With two strides of his long legs he reached the fence, ripped off the topmost rail, and his huge antagonist, having changed his direction and coming at him with a bellow, was met with the point of a scantling in the pit of his stomach, and Mr. Gibson fell heavily to the ground. It had all happened in a twinkling, and there was a moment's lull while the minds of the onlookers needed readjustment, and then they gave vent to ecstasies of delight. "Great Goliah!" cried the landlord, breathlessly, "he shet him up jest like a jack-knife." Awe-struck, I looked at the tall young man, and he was the very essence of wrath. Unmindful of the plaudits, he stood brandishing the fence-rail over the great, writhing figure on the ground. And he was slobbering. I recall that this fact gave a twinge to something in my memory. "Come on, Hump Gibson," he cried, "come on!"--at which the crowd went wild with pure joy. Witticisms flew. "Thought ye was goin' to eat 'im up, Hump?" said a friend. "Ye ain't hed yer meal yet, Hump," reminded another. Mr. Hump Gibson arose slowly out of the dust, yet he did not stand straight. "Come on, come on!" cried the young lawyer-fellow, and he thrust the point of the rail within a foot of Mr. Gibson's stomach. "Come on, Hump!" howled the crowd, but Mr. Gibson stood irresolute. He lacked the supreme test of courage which was demanded on this occasion. Then he turned and walked away very slowly, as though his pace might mitigate in some degree the shame of his retreat. The young man flung away the fence-rail, and, thrusting aside the overzealous among his admirers, he strode past me into the tavern, his anger still hot. "Hooray fer Jackson!" they shouted. "Hooray fer Andy Jackson!" Andy Jackson! Then I knew. Then I remembered a slim, wild, sandy-haired boy digging his toes in the red mud long ago at the Waxhaws Settlement. And I recalled with a smile my own fierce struggle at the schoolhouse with the same boy, and how his slobbering had been my salvation. I turned and went in after him with the landlord, who was rubbing his hands with glee. "I reckon Hump won't come crowin' round heah any more co't days, Mr. Jackson," said our host. But Mr. Jackson swept the room with his eyes and then glared at the landlord so that he gave back. "Where's my man?" he demanded. "Your man, Mr. Jackson?" stammered the host. "Great Jehovah!" cried Mr. Jackson, "I believe he's afraid to race. He had a horse that could show heels to my Nancy, did he? And he's gone, you say?" A light seemed to dawn on the landlord's countenance. "God bless ye, Mr. Jackson!" he cried, "ye don't mean that young daredevil that was with Sevier?" "With Sevier?" says Jackson. "Ay," says the landlord; "he's been a-fightin with Sevier all summer, and I reckon he ain't afeard of nothin' any more than you. Wait--his name was Temple--Nick Temple, they called him." "Nick Temple!" I cried, starting forward. "Where's he gone?" said Mr. Jackson. "He was going to bet me a six-forty he has at Nashboro that his horse could beat mine on the Greasy Cove track. Where's he gone?" "Gone!" said the landlord, apologetically, "Nollichucky Jack and his boys left town an hour ago." "Is he a man of honor or isn't he?" said Mr. Jackson, fiercely. "Lord, sir, I only seen him once, but I'd stake my oath on it. "Do you mean to say Mr. Temple has been here--Nicholas Temple?" I said. The bewildered landlord turned towards me helplessly. "Who the devil are you, sir?" cried Mr. Jackson. "Tell me what this Mr. Temple was like," said I. The landlord's face lighted up. "Faith, a thoroughbred hoss," says he; "sech nostrils, and sech a gray eye with the devil in it fer go--yellow ha'r, and ez tall ez Mr. Jackson heah." "And you say he's gone off again with Sevier?" "They rud into town" (he lowered his voice, for the room was filling), "snapped their fingers at Tipton and his warrant, and rud out ag'in. My God, but that was like Nollichucky Jack. Say, stranger, when your Mr. Temple smiled--" "He is the man!" I cried; "tell me where to find him." Mr. Jackson, who had been divided between astonishment and impatience and anger, burst out again. "What the devil do you mean by interfering with my business, sir?" "Because it is my business too," I answered, quite as testily; "my claim on Mr. Temple is greater than yours." "By Jehovah!" cried Jackson, "come outside, sir, come outside!" The landlord backed away, and the men in the tavern began to press around us expectantly. "Gallop into him, Andy!" cried one. "Don't let him git near no fences, stranger," said another. Mr. Jackson turned on this man with such truculence that he edged away to the rear of the room. "Step out, sir," said Mr. Jackson, starting for the door before I could reply. I followed perforce, not without misgivings, the crowd pushing eagerly after. Before we reached the dusty street Jackson began pulling off his coat. In a trice the shouting onlookers had made a ring, and we stood facing each other, he in his shirt-sleeves. "We'll fight fair," said he, his lips wetting. "Very good," said I, "if you are still accustomed to this hasty manner. You have not asked my name, my standing, nor my reasons for wanting Mr. Temple." I know not whether it was what I said that made him stare, or how I said it. "Pistols, if you like," said he. "No," said I; "I am in a hurry to find Mr. Temple. I fought you this way once, and it's quicker." "You fought me this way once?" he repeated. The noise of the crowd was hushed, and they drew nearer to hear. "Come, Mr. Jackson," said I, "you are a lawyer and a gentleman, and so am I. I do not care to be beaten to a pulp, but I am not afraid of you. And I am in a hurry. If you will step back into the tavern, I will explain to you my reasons for wishing to get to Mr. Temple." Mr. Jackson stared at me the more. "By the eternal," said he, "you are a cool man. Give me my coat," he shouted to the bystanders, and they helped him on with it. "Now," said he, as they made to follow him, "keep back. I would talk to this gentleman. By the heavens," he cried, when he had gained the room, "I believe you are not afraid of me. I saw it in your eyes." Then I laughed. "Mr. Jackson," said I, "doubtless you do not remember a homeless boy named David whom you took to your uncle's house in the Waxhaws--" "I do," he exclaimed, "as I live I do. Why, we slept together." "And you stumped your toe getting into bed and swore," said I. At that he laughed so heartily that the landlord came running across the room. "And we fought together at the Old Fields School. Are you that boy?" and he scanned me again. "By God, I believe you are." Suddenly his face clouded once more. "But what about Temple?" said he. "Ah," I answered, "I come to that quickly. Mr. Temple is my cousin. After I left your uncle's house my father took me to Charlestown." "Is he a Charlestown Temple?" demanded Mr. Jackson. "For I spent some time gambling and horse-racing with the gentry there, and I know many of them. I was a wild lad" (I repeat his exact words), "and I ran up a bill in Charlestown that would have filled a folio volume. Faith, all I had left me was the clothes on my back and a good horse. I made up my mind one night that if I could pay my debts and get out of Charlestown I would go into the back country and study law and sober down. There was a Mr. Braiden in the ordinary who staked me two hundred dollars at rattle-and-snap against my horse. Gad, sir, that was providence. I won. I left Charlestown with honor, I studied law at Salisbury in North Carolina, and I have come here to practise it." "You seem to have the talent," said I, smiling at the remembrance of the Hump Gibson incident. "That is my history in a nutshell," said Mr. Jackson. "And now," he added, "since you are Mr. Temple's cousin and friend and an old acquaintance of mine to boot, I will tell you where I think he is." "Where is that?" I asked eagerly. "I'll stake a cowbell that Sevier will stop at the Widow Brown's," he replied. "I'll put you on the road. But mind you, you are to tell Mr. Temple that he is to come back here and race me at Greasy Cove." "I'll warrant him to come," said I. Whereupon we left the inn together, more amicably than before. Mr. Jackson had a thoroughbred horse near by that was a pleasure to see, and my admiration of his mount seemed to set me as firmly in Mr. Jackson's esteem again as that gentleman himself sat in the saddle. He was as good as his word, rode out with me some distance on the road, and reminded me at the last that Nick was to race him. _ |
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