The Crossing Part 51

There were four of them now, indeed,--the youngest still in the bark cradle in the corner. He bore a no less ill.u.s.trious 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 of Kentucky 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt on contemptuous persons, though Justice at Danville had more compa.s.sion 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 impa.s.sioned 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 reenforcing the firelight and revealing the mud-c.h.i.n.ked 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sing 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. David Ritchie. When my men objected to marching through ice-skimmed water up to their necks, Mr. Ritchie showed them how."

"G.o.d bless my soul!" exclaimed the Major, staring at me from under his black eyebrows, "he was but a child."