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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