"'Tis what ye've a right to, Davy," said Polly Ann, and she handed me a
little buckskin bag on which she had been sewing. I opened it with
trembling fingers, and poured out, chinking on the table, such a motley
collection of coins as was never seen,--Spanish milled dollars, English
sovereigns and crowns and shillings, paper issues of the Confederacy, and
I know not what else. Tom looked on with a grin, while little Tom and
Peggy reached out their hands in delight, their mother vigorously
blocking their intentions.
"Ye've earned it yerself," said Polly Ann, forestalling my protest;
"'tis what ye got by the mill, and I've laid it by bit by bit for yer
eddication."
"And what do you get?" I cried, striving by feigned anger to keep the
tears back from my eyes. "Have you no family to support?"
"Faith," she answered, "we have the mill that ye gave us, and the farm,
and Tom's rifle. I reckon we'll fare better than ye think, tho' we'll
miss ye sore about the place."
I picked out two sovereigns from the heap, dropped them in the bag, and
thrust it into my hunting shirt.
"There," said I, my voice having no great steadiness, "not a penny more.
I'll keep the bag for your sake, Polly Ann, and I'll take the mare for
Tom's."
She had had a song on her lips ever since our coming back from Danville,
seven days agone, a song on her lips and banter on her tongue, as she
made me a new hunting shirt and breeches for the journey across the
mountains. And now with a sudden movement she burst into tears and flung
her arms about my neck.
"Oh, Davy, 'tis no time to be stubborn," she sobbed, "and eddication is a
costly thing. Ever sence I found ye on the trace, years ago, I've
thought of ye one day as a great man. And when ye come back to us so big
and l'arned, I'd wish to be saying with pride that I helped ye."
"And who else, Polly Ann?" I faltered, my heart racked with the parting.
"You found me a homeless waif, and you gave me a home and a father and
mother."
"Davy, ye'll not forget us when ye're great, I know ye'll not. Tis not
in ye."
She stood back and smiled at me through her tears. The light of heaven
was in that smile, and I have dreamed of it even since age has crept upon
me. Truly, God sets his own mark on the pure in heart, on the unselfish.
I glanced for the last time around the rude cabin, every timber of which
was dedicated to our sacrifices and our love: the fireplace with its
rough stones, on the pegs the quaint butternut garments which Polly Ann
had stitched, the baby in his bark cradle, the rough bedstead and the
little trundle pushed under it,--and the very homely odor of the place is
dear to me yet. Despite the rigors and the dangers of my life here,
should I ever again find such happiness and peace in the world? The
children clung to my knees; and with a "God bless ye, Davy, and come back
to us," Tom squeezed my hand until I winced with pain. I leaped on the
mare, and with blinded eyes rode down the familiar trail, past the mill,
to Harrodsburg.
There Mr. Neville Colfax was waiting to take me across the mountains.
There is a story in every man's life, like the kernel in the shell of a
hickory nut. I am ill acquainted with the arts of a biographer, but I
seek to give in these pages little of the shell and the whole of the
kernel of mine. 'Twould be unwise and tiresome to recount the journey
over the bare mountains with my new friend and benefactor. He was a
strange gentleman, now jolly enough to make me shake with laughter and
forget the sorrow of my parting, now moody for a night and a day; now he
was all sweetness, now all fire; now he was abstemious, now
self-indulgent and prodigal. He had a will like flint, and under it a
soft heart. Cross his moods, and he hated you. I never thought to cross
them, therefore he called me Davy, and his friendliness grew with our
journey. His anger turned against rocks and rivers, landlords and
emigrants, but never against me. And for this I was silently thankful.
And how had he come to take me over the mountains, and to put me in the
way of studying law? Mindful of the kernel of my story, I have shortened
the chapter to tell you out of the proper place. Major Colfax had made
Tom and me sup with himself and Colonel Clark at the inn in Danville.
And so pleased had the Major professed himself with my story of having
outwitted his agent, that he must needs have more of my adventures.
Colonel Clark gave him some, and Tom,--his tongue loosed by the
toddy,--others. And the Colonel added to the debt I owed him by
suggesting that Major Colfax take me to Virginia and recommend me to a
lawyer there.
"Nay," cried the Major, "I will do more. I like the lad, for he is
modest despite the way you have paraded him. I have an uncle in
Richmond, Judge Wentworth, to whom I will take him in person. And when
the Judge has done with him, if he is not flayed and tattooed with
Blackstone, you may flay and tattoo me."
Thus did I break through my environment. And it was settled that I
should meet the Major in seven days at Harrodstown.
Once in the journey did the Major make mention of a subject which had
troubled me.
"Davy," said he, "Clark has changed. He is not the same man he was when
I saw him in Williamsburg demanding supplies for his campaign."
"Virginia has used him shamefully, sir," I answered, and suddenly there
came flooding to my mind things I had heard the Colonel say in the
campaign.
"Commonwealths have short memories," said the Major, "they will accept
any sacrifice with a smile. Shakespeare, I believe, speaks of royal
ingratitude--he knew not commonwealths. Clark was close-lipped once, not
given to levity and--to toddy. There, there, he is my friend as well as
yours, and I will prove it by pushing his cause in Virginia. Is yours
Scotch anger? Then the devil fend me from it. A monarch would have
given him fifty thousand acres on the Wabash, a palace, and a sufficient
annuity. Virginia has given him a sword, eight thousand wild acres to be
sure, repudiated the debts of his army, and left him to starve. Is there
no room for a genius in our infant military establishment?"
At length, as Christmas drew near, we came to Major Colfax's seat, some
forty miles out of the town of Richmond. It was called Neville's Grange,
the Major's grandfather having so named it when he came out from England
some sixty years before. It was a huge, rambling, draughty house of
wood,--mortgaged, so the Major cheerfully informed me, thanks to the
patriotism of the family. At Neville's Grange the Major kept a somewhat
roisterous bachelor's hall. The place was overrun with negroes and dogs,
and scarce a night went by that there was not merrymaking in the house
with the neighbors. The time passed pleasantly enough until one frosty
January morning Major Colfax had a twinge of remembrance, cried out for
horses, took me into Richmond, and presented me to that very learned and
decorous gentleman, Judge Wentworth.
My studies began within the hour of my arrival.
Read next: BOOK II - FLOTSAM AND JETSAM#V - I MEET AN OLD BEDFELLOW
Read previous: BOOK II - FLOTSAM AND JETSAM#III - WE GO TO DANVILLE
Table of content of Crossing
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your reviewYour review will be placed after the table of content of this book
