The Crossing Part 57

His voice, strong as it was, was lost. "To h.e.l.l with moderation!" they shouted. "Down with North Carolina! We'll fight her!"

He got silence again by the magnetic strength he had in him.

"Very good," he said, "but get your General first. If we lead you across the mountains now, his blood will be upon your heads. No man is a better friend to Jack Sevier than I. Leave his rescue to me, and I will get him for you." He paused, and they were stilled perforce. "I will get him for you," he repeated slowly, "or North Carolina will pay for the burial of James Cozby."

There was an instant when they might have swung either way.

"How will ye do it?" came in a thin, piping voice from somewhere near the stump. It may have been this that turned their minds. Others took up the question, "How will ye do it, Major Cozby?"

"I don't know," cried the Major, "I don't know. And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. But I will get Nollichucky Jack if I have to burn Morganton and rake the General out of the cinders!"

Five hundred hands flew up, five hundred voices cried, "I'm with ye, Major Cozby!" But the Major only shook his head and smiled. What he said was lost in the roar. Fighting my way forward, I saw him get down from the stump, put his hand kindly on Nick's shoulder, and lead him into the court-house. They were followed by a score of others, and the door was shut behind them.

It was then I bethought myself of the letter to Mr. Wright, and I sought for some one who would listen to my questions as to his whereabouts.

At length the man himself was pointed out to me, haranguing an excited crowd of partisans in front of his own gate. Some twenty minutes must have pa.s.sed before I could get any word with him. He was a vigorous little man, with black eyes like b.u.t.tons, he wore brown homespun and white stockings, and his hair was clubbed. When he had yielded the ground to another orator, I handed him the letter. He drew me aside, read it on the spot, and became all hospitality at once. The town was full, and though he had several friends staying in his house I should join them. Was my horse fed? Dinner had been forgotten that day, but would I enter and partake? In short, I found myself suddenly provided for, and I lost no time in getting my weary mount into Mr. Wright's little stable. And then I sat down, with several other gentlemen, at Mr.

Wright's board, where there was much guessing as to Major Cozby's plan.

"No other man west of the mountains could have calmed that crowd after that young daredevil Temple had stirred them up," declared Mr. Wright.

I ventured to say that I had business with Mr. Temple.

"Faith, then, I will invite him here," said my host. "But I warn you, Mr. Ritchie, that he is a trigger set on the hair. If he does not fancy you, he may quarrel with you and shoot you. And he is in no temper to be trifled with to-day."

"I am not an easy person to quarrel with," I answered.

"To look at you, I shouldn't say that you were," said he. "We are going to the court-house, and I will see if I can get a word with the young Hotspur and send him to you. Do you wait here."

I waited on the porch as the day waned. The tumult of the place had died down, for men were gathering in the houses to discuss and conjecture.

And presently, sauntering along the street in a careless fashion, his spurs trailing in the dust, came Nicholas Temple. He stopped before the house and stared at me with a fine insolence, and I wondered whether I myself had not been too hasty in reclaiming him. A greeting died on my lips.

"Well, sir," he said, "so you are the gentleman who has been d.o.g.g.i.ng me all day."

"I dog no one, Mr. Temple," I replied bitterly.

"We'll not quibble about words," said he. "Would it be impertinent to ask your business--and perhaps your name?"

"Did not Mr. Wright give you my name?" I exclaimed.

"He might have mentioned it, I did not hear. Is it of such importance?"

At that I lost my temper entirely.

"It may be, and it may not," I retorted. "I am David Ritchie."

He changed before my eyes as he stared at me, and then, ere I knew it, he had me by both arms, crying out:--

"David Ritchie! My Davy--who ran away from me--and we were going to Kentucky together. Oh, I have never forgiven you,"--the smile that there was no resisting belied his words as he put his face close to mine--"I never will forgive you. I might have known you--you've grown, but I vow you're still an old man,--Davy, you renegade. And where the devil did you run to?"

"Kentucky," I said, laughing.

"Oh, you traitor--and I trusted you. I loved you, Davy. Do you remember how I clung to you in my sleep? And when I woke up, the world was black.

I followed your trail down the drive and to the cross-roads--"

"It was not ingrat.i.tude, Nick," I said; "you were all I had in the world." And then I faltered, the sadness of that far-off time coming over me in a flood, and the remembrance of his generous sorrow for me.

"And how the devil did you track me to the Widow Brown's?" he demanded, releasing me.

"A Mr. Jackson had a shrewd notion you were there. And by the way, he was in a fine temper because you had skipped a race with him."

"That sorrel-topped, lantern-headed Mr. Jackson?" said Nick. "He'll be killed in one of his fine tempers. d.a.m.n a man who can't keep his temper.

I'll race him, of course. And where are you bound now, Davy?"

"For Louisville, in Kentucky, at the Falls of the Ohio. It is a growing place, and a promising one for a young man in the legal profession to begin life."

"When do you leave?" said he.

"To-morrow morning, Nick," said I. "You wanted once to go to Kentucky; why not come with me?"

His face clouded.

"I do not budge from this town," said he, "I do not budge until I hear that Jack Sevier is safe. d.a.m.n Cozby! If he had given me my way, we should have been forty miles from here by this. I'll tell you. Cozby is even now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and he puts me off with a kind word. He'll not have me, he says."

"He thinks you too hot. It needs discretion and an old head," said I.

"Egad, then, I'll commend you to him," said Nick.

"Now," I said, "it's time for you to tell me something of yourself, and how you chanced to come into this country."

"'Twas Darnley's fault," said Nick.

"Darnley!" I exclaimed; "he whom you got into the duel with--" I stopped abruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in my side. 'Twas Nick took up the name.

"With Harry Riddle." He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part of it. "David, I've looked for that man in Italy and France, I've scoured London for him, and, by G.o.d, I'll find him before he dies. And when I do find him I swear to you that there will be no such thing as time wasted, or mercy."

I shuddered. In all my life I had never known such a moment of indecision. Should I tell him? My conscience would give me no definite reply. The question had haunted me all the night, and I had lost my way in consequence, nor had the morning's ride from the Widow Brown's sufficed to bring me to a decision. Of what use to tell him? Would Riddle's death mend matters? The woman loved him, that had been clear to me; yet, by telling Nick what I knew I might induce him to desist from his search, and if I did not tell, Nick might some day run across the trail, follow it up, take Riddle's life, and lose his own. The moment, made for confession as it was, pa.s.sed.

"They have ruined my life," said Nick. "I curse him, and I curse her."

"Hold!" I cried; "she is your mother."

"And therefore I curse her the more," he said. "You know what she is, you've tasted of her charity, and you are my father's nephew. If you have been without experience, I will tell you what she is. A common--" I reached out and put my hand across his mouth.

"Silence!" I cried; "you shall say no such thing. And have you not manhood enough to make your own life for yourself?"

"Manhood!" he repeated, and laughed. It was a laugh that I did not like.

"They made a man of me, my parents. My father played false with the Rebels and fled to England for his reward. A year after he went I was left alone at Temple Bow to the tender mercies of the n.i.g.g.e.rs. Mr. Mason came back and s.n.a.t.c.hed what was left of me. He was a good man; he saved me an annuity out of the estate, he took me abroad after the war on a grand tour, and died of a fever in Rome. I made my way back to Charlestown, and there I learned to gamble, to hold liquor like a gentleman, to run horses and fight like a gentleman. We were speaking of Darnley," he said.

"Yes, of Darnley," I repeated.