The Crossing

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER VI. THE WIDOW BROWN’S

  It was not to my credit that I should have lost the trail, after Mr.Jackson put me straight. But the night was dark, the country unknown tome, and heavily wooded and mountainous. In addition to these thingsmy mind ran like fire. My thoughts sometimes flew back to the wondroussummer evening when I trod the Nollichucky trace with Tom and PollyAnn, when I first looked down upon the log palace of that prince of theborder, John Sevier. Well I remembered him, broad-shouldered, handsome,gay, a courtier in buckskin. Small wonder he was idolized by the Wataugasettlers, that he had been their leader in the struggle of Franklin forliberty. And small wonder that Nick Temple should be in his following.

  Nick! My mind was in a torment concerning him. What of his mother?Should I speak of having seen her? I went blindly through the woodsfor hours after the night fell, my horse stumbling and weary, until atlength I came to a lonely clearing on the mountain side, and a fiercepack of dogs dashed barking at my horse’s heels. There was a dark cabinahead, indistinct in the starlight, and there I knocked until a gruffvoice answered me and a tousled man came to the door. Yes, I had missedthe trail. He shook his head when I asked for the Widow Brown’s, andbade me share his bed for the night. No, I would go on, I was usedto the backwoods. Thereupon he thawed a little, kicked the dogs, andpointed to where the mountain dipped against the star-studded sky. Therewas a trail there which led direct to the Widow Brown’s, if I couldfollow it. So I left him.

  Once the fear had settled deeply of missing Nick at the Widow Brown’s, Iput my mind on my journey, and thanks to my early training I was ableto keep the trail. It doubled around the spurs, forded stony brooks indiagonals, and often in the darkness of the mountain forest I had tofeel for the blazes on the trees. There was no making time. I gained thenotch with the small hours of the morning, started on with the descent,crisscrossing, following a stream here and a stream there, until atlength the song of the higher waters ceased and I knew that I was in thevalley. Suddenly there was no crown-cover over my head. I had gained theroad once more, and I followed it hopefully, avoiding the stumps and thedeep wagon ruts where the ground was spongy.

  The morning light revealed a milky mist through which the trees showedlike phantoms. Then there came stains upon the mist of royal purple,of scarlet, of yellow like a mandarin’s robe, peeps of deep blue fadinginto azure as the mist lifted. The fiery eye of the sun was cocked overthe crest, and beyond me I saw a house with its logs all golden brownin the level rays, the withered cornstalks orange among the blackenedstumps. My horse stopped of his own will at the edge of the clearing. Acock crew, a lean hound prostrate on the porch of the house rose to hishaunches, sniffed, growled, leaped down, and ran to the road and sniffedagain. I listened, startled, and made sure of the distant ring of manyhoofs. And yet I stayed there, irresolute. Could it be Tipton and hismen riding from Jonesboro to capture Sevier? The hoof-beats grew louder,and then the hound in the road gave tongue to the short, sharp bark thatis the call to arms. Other dogs, hitherto unseen, took up the cry, andturning in my saddle I saw a body of men riding hard at me through thealley in the forest. At their head, on a heavy, strong-legged horse,was one who might have stood for the figure of turbulence, and I madeno doubt that this was Colonel Tipton himself,--Colonel Tipton, oncesecessionist, now champion of the Old North State and arch-enemy of JohnSevier. At sight of me he reined up so violently that his horse wentback on his haunches, and the men behind were near overriding him.

  “Look out, boys,” he shouted, with a fierce oath, “they’ve got guardsout!” He flung back one hand to his holster for a pistol, while theother reached for the powder flask at his belt. He primed the pan, and,seeing me immovable, set his horse forward at an amble, his pistol atthe cock.

  “Who in hell are you?” he cried.

  “A traveller from Virginia,” I answered.

  “And what are you doing here?” he demanded, with another oath.

  “I have just this moment come here,” said I, as calmly as I might. “Ilost the trail in the darkness.”

  He glared at me, purpling, perplexed.

  “Is Sevier there?” said he, pointing at the house.

  “I don’t know,” said I.

  Tipton turned to his men, who were listening.

  “Surround the house,” he cried, “and watch this fellow.”

  I rode on perforce towards the house with Tipton and three others, whilehis men scattered over the corn-field and cursed the dogs. And then wesaw in the open door the figure of a woman shading her eyes with herhand. We pulled up, five of us, before the porch in front of her.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” said Tipton, gruffly.

  “Good morning, Colonel,” answered the widow.

  Tipton leaped from his horse, flung the bridle to a companion, andput his foot on the edge of the porch to mount. Then a strange thinghappened. The lady turned deftly, seized a chair from within, and pulledit across the threshold. She sat herself down firmly, an expressionon her face which hinted that the late lamented Mr. Brown had been adominated man. Colonel Tipton stopped, staggering from the very impetusof his charge, and gazed at her blankly.

  “I have come for Colonel Sevier,” he blurted. And then, his angerrising, “I will have no trifling, ma’am. He is in this house.”

  “La! you don’t tell me,” answered the widow, in a tone that was whollyconversational.

  “He is in this house,” shouted the Colonel.

  “I reckon you’ve guessed wrong, Colonel,” said the widow.

  There was an awkward pause until Tipton heard a titter behind him. Thenhis wrath exploded.

  “I have a warrant against the scoundrel for high treason,” he cried,“and, by God, I will search the house and serve it.”

  Still the widow sat tight. The Rock of Ages was neither more movable norcalmer than she.

  “Surely, Colonel, you would not invade the house of an unprotectedfemale.”

  The Colonel, evidently with a great effort, throttled his wrath for themoment. His new tone was apologetic but firm.

  “I regret to have to do so, ma’am,” said he, “but both sexes are equalbefore the law.”

  “The law!” repeated the widow, seemingly tickled at the word. She smiledindulgently at the Colonel. “What a pity, Mr. Tipton, that the lawcompels you to arrest such a good friend of yours as Colonel Sevier.What self-sacrifice, Colonel Tipton! What nobility!”

  There was a second titter behind him, whereat he swung round quickly,and the crimson veins in his face looked as if they must burst. He sawme with my hand over my mouth.

  “You warned him, damn you!” he shouted, and turning again leaped to theporch and tried to squeeze past the widow into the house.

  “How dare you, sir?” she shrieked, giving him a vigorous push backwards.The four of us, his three men and myself, laughed outright. Tipton’srage leaped its bounds. He returned to the attack again and again, andyet at the crucial moment his courage would fail him and he would letthe widow thrust him back. Suddenly I became aware that there were twonew spectators of this comedy. I started and looked again, and wasnear to crying out at sight of one of them. The others did cry out, butTipton paid no heed.

  Ten years had made his figure more portly, but I knew at once the manin the well-fitting hunting shirt, with the long hair flowing to hisshoulders, with the keen, dark face and courtly bearing and humorouseyes. Yes, humorous even now, for he stood, smiling at this comedyplayed by his enemy, unmindful of his peril. The widow saw him beforeTipton did, so intent was he on the struggle.

  “Enough!” she cried, “enough, John Tipton!” Tipton drew backinvoluntarily, and a smile broadened on the widow’s face. “Shame on youfor doubting a lady’s word! Allow me to present to you--Colonel Sevier.”

  Tipton turned, stared as a man might who sees a ghost, and broke intosuch profanity as I have seldom heard.

  “By the eternal God, John Sevier,” he shouted, “I’ll hang you to thenearest tree!”

  Colonel Sevier
merely made a little ironical bow and looked at thegentleman beside him.

  “I have surrendered to Colonel Love,” he said.

  Tipton snatched from his belt the pistol which he might have used on me,and there flashed through my head the thought that some powder mightyet be held in its pan. We cried out, all of us, his men, the widow, andmyself,--all save Sevier, who stood quietly, smiling. Suddenly, whilewe waited for murder, a tall figure shot out of the door past thewidow, the pistol flew out of Tipton’s hand, and Tipton swung about withsomething like a bellow, to face Mr. Nicholas Temple.

  Well I knew him! And oddly enough at that time Riddle’s words of longago came to me, “God help the woman you love or the man you fight.” Howshall I describe him? He was thin even to seeming frailness,--yet itwas the frailness of the race-horse. The golden hair, sun-tanned, awryacross his forehead, the face the same thin and finely cut face of theboy. The gray eyes held an anger that did not blaze; it was far moredangerous than that. Colonel John Tipton looked, and as I live herecoiled.

  “If you touch him, I’ll kill you,” said Mr. Temple. Nor did he say itangrily. I marked for the first time that he held a pistol in his slimfingers. What Tipton might have done when he swung to his new bearingsis mere conjecture, for Colonel Sevier himself stepped up on the porch,laid his hand on Temple’s arm, and spoke to him in a low tone. What hesaid we didn’t hear. The astonishing thing was that neither of them forthe moment paid any attention to the infuriated man beside them. Isaw Nick’s expression change. He smiled,--the smile the landlord haddescribed, the smile that made men and women willing to die for him.After that Colonel Sevier stooped down and picked up the pistol fromthe floor of the porch and handed it with a bow to Tipton, butt first.Tipton took it, seemingly without knowing why, and at that instant anegro boy came around the house, leading a horse. Sevier mounted itwithout a protest from any one.

  “I am ready to go with you, gentlemen,” he said.

  Colonel Tipton slipped his pistol back into his belt, stepped down fromthe porch, and leaped into his saddle, and he and his men rode off intothe stump-lined alley in the forest that was called a road. Nick stoodbeside the widow, staring after them until they had disappeared.

  “My horse, boy!” he shouted to the gaping negro, who vanished on theerrand.

  “What will you do, Mr. Temple?” asked the widow.

  “Rescue him, ma’am,” cried Nick, beginning to pace up and down. “I’llride to Turner’s. Cozby and Evans are there, and before night we shallhave made Jonesboro too hot to hold Tipton and his cutthroats.”

  “La, Mr. Temple,” said the widow, with unfeigned admiration, “I neversaw the like of you. But I know John Tipton, and he’ll have ColonelSevier started for North Carolina before our boys can get to Jonesboro.”

  “Then we’ll follow,” says Nick, beginning to pace again. Suddenly, at acry from the widow, he stopped and stared at me, a light in his eye likea point of steel. His hand slipped to his waist.

  “A spy,” he said, and turned and smiled at the lady, who was watchinghim with a kind of fascination; “but damnably cool,” he continued,looking at me. “I wonder if he thinks to outride me on that beast? Lookyou, sir,” he cried, as Mrs. Brown’s negro came back struggling with adeep-ribbed, high-crested chestnut that was making half circles onhis hind legs, “I’ll give you to the edge of the woods, and lay youa six-forty against a pair of moccasins that you never get back toTipton.”

  “God forbid that I ever do,” I answered fervently.

  “What,” he exclaimed, “and you here with him on this sneak’s errand!”

  “I am here with him on no errand,” said I. “He and his crew came on mea quarter of an hour since at the edge of the clearing. Mr. Temple, I amhere to find you, and to save time I will ride with you.”

  “Egad, you’ll have to ride like the devil then,” said he, and he stoopedand snatched the widow’s hand and kissed it with a daring gallantry thatI had thought to find in him. He raised his eyes to hers.

  “Good-by, Mr. Temple,” she said,--there was a tremor in her voice,--“andmay you save our Jack!”

  He snatched the bridle from the boy, and with one leap he was on therearing, wheeling horse. “Come on,” he cried to me, and, waving his hatat the lady on the porch, he started off with a gallop up the trail inthe opposite direction from that which Tipton’s men had taken.

  All that I saw of Mr. Nicholas Temple on that ride to Turner’s washis back, and presently I lost sight of that. In truth, I never got toTurner’s at all, for I met him coming back at the wind’s pace, a huge,swarthy, determined man at his side and four others spurring after, thespume dripping from the horses’ mouths. They did not so much as look atme as they passed, and there was nothing left for me to do but to turnmy tired beast and follow at any pace I could make towards Jonesboro.

  It was late in the afternoon before I reached the town, the town setdown among the hills like a caldron boiling over with the wrath ofFranklin. The news of the capture of their beloved Sevier had flownthrough the mountains like seeds on the autumn wind, and from north,south, east, and west the faithful were coming in, cursing Tipton andCarolina as they rode.

  I tethered my tired beast at the first picket, and was no sooner on myfeet than I was caught in the hurrying stream of the crowd and fairlypushed and beaten towards the court-house. Around it a thousand furiousmen were packed. I heard cheering, hoarse and fierce cries, threatsand imprecations, and I knew that they were listening to oratory. I wassuddenly shot around the corner of a house, saw the orator himself, andgasped.

  It was Nicholas Temple. There was something awe-impelling in the tall,slim, boyish figure that towered above the crowd, in the finely wrought,passionate face, in the voice charged with such an anger as is given tofew men.

  “What has North Carolina done for Franklin?” he cried. “Protected her?No. Repudiated her? Yes. You gave her to the Confederacy for a wardebt, and the Confederacy flung her back. You shook yourselves free fromCarolina’s tyranny, and traitors betrayed you again. And now they havebetrayed your leader. Will you avenge him, or will you sit down likecowards while they hang him for treason?”

  His voice was drowned, but he stood immovable with arms folded untilthere was silence again.

  “Will you rescue him?” he cried, and the roar rose again. “Will youavenge him? By to-morrow we shall have two thousand here. Invade NorthCarolina, humble her, bring her to her knees, and avenge John Sevier!”

  Pandemonium reigned. Hats were flung in the air, rifles fired, shoutsand curses rose and blended into one terrifying note. Gradually, in themidst of this mad uproar, the crowd became aware that another manwas standing upon the stump from which Nicholas Temple had leaped.“Cozby!” some one yelled, “Cozby!” The cry was taken up. “Huzzay forCozby! He’ll lead us into Caroliny.” He was the huge, swarthy man I hadseen riding hard with Nick that morning. A sculptor might have chosenhis face and frame for a type of the iron-handed leader of pioneers.Will was supreme in the great features,--inflexible, indomitable will.His hunting shirt was open across his great chest, his black hairfell to his shoulders, and he stood with a compelling hand raised forsilence. And when he spoke, slowly, resonantly, men fell back before hiswords.

  “I admire Mr. Temple’s courage, and above all his loyalty to our belovedGeneral,” said Major Cozby. “But Mr. Temple is young, and the heatedcounsels of youth must not prevail. My friends, in order to save JackSevier we must be moderate.”

  His voice, strong as it was, was lost. “To hell with moderation!” theyshouted. “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 acrossthe mountains now, his blood will be upon your heads. No man is a betterfriend to Jack Sevier than I. Leave his rescue to me, and I will get himfor you.” He paused, and they were stilled perforce. “I will get him foryou,” he repeated slowly, “or North Carolina will pay fo
r the burial ofJames 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 nearthe stump. It may have been this that turned their minds. Others took upthe question, “How will ye do it, Major Cozby?”

  “I don’t know,” cried the Major, “I don’t know. And if I did know, Iwouldn’t tell you. But I will get Nollichucky Jack if I have to burnMorganton 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 saidwas lost in the roar. Fighting my way forward, I saw him get down fromthe stump, put his hand kindly on Nick’s shoulder, and lead him into thecourt-house. They were followed by a score of others, and the door wasshut behind them.

  It was then I bethought myself of the letter to Mr. Wright, and I soughtfor some one who would listen to my questions as to his whereabouts.At length the man himself was pointed out to me, haranguing an excitedcrowd of partisans in front of his own gate. Some twenty minutes musthave passed before I could get any word with him. He was a vigorouslittle man, with black eyes like buttons, he wore brown homespun andwhite stockings, and his hair was clubbed. When he had yielded theground 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 wasfull, and though he had several friends staying in his house I shouldjoin them. Was my horse fed? Dinner had been forgotten that day, butwould I enter and partake? In short, I found myself suddenly providedfor, and I lost no time in getting my weary mount into Mr. Wright’slittle 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 afterthat 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 fancyyou, he may quarrel with you and shoot you. And he is in no temper tobectrifled 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 goingto the court-house, and I will see if I can get a word with the youngHotspur and send him to you. Do you wait here.”

  I waited on the porch as the day waned. The tumult of the place had dieddown, for men were gathering in the houses to discuss and conjecture.And presently, sauntering along the street in a careless fashion, hisspurs trailing in the dust, came Nicholas Temple. He stopped before thehouse and stared at me with a fine insolence, and I wondered whether Imyself had not been too hasty in reclaiming him. A greeting died on mylips.

  “Well, sir” he said, “so you are the gentleman who has been dogging meall day.”

  “I dog no one, Mr. Temple,” I replied bitterly.

  “We’ll not quibble about words,” said he. “Would it be impertinent toask 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 toKentucky together. Oh, I have never forgiven you,”--the smile that therewas no resisting belied his words as he put his face close to mine--“Inever will forgive you. I might have known you--you’ve grown, but I vowyou’re still an old man,--Davy, you renegade. And where the devil didyou run to?”

  “Kentucky,” I said, laughing.

  “Oh, you traitor--and I trusted you. I loved you, Davy. Do you rememberhow 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 ingratitude, Nick,” I said; “you were all I had in theworld.” And then I faltered, the sadness of that far-off time comingover 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, hewas in a fine temper because you had skipped a race with him.”

  “That sorrel-topped, lantern-headed Mr. Jackson?” said Nick. “He’ll bekilled in one of his fine tempers. Damn 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 growingplace, and a promising one for a young man in the legal profession tobegin 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 hearthat Jack Sevier is safe. Damn Cozby! If he had given me my way, weshould have been forty miles from here by this. I’ll tell you. Cozby iseven now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and heputs 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, andhow 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 stoppedabruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in myside. ‘Twas Nick took up the name.

  “With Harry Riddle.” He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part ofit. “David, I’ve looked for that man in Italy and France, I’ve scouredLondon for him, and, by God, I’ll find him before he dies. And when I dofind 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 ofindecision. Should I tell him? My conscience would give me no definitereply. The question had haunted me all the night, and I had lost myway in consequence, nor had the morning’s ride from the Widow Brown’ssufficed to bring me to a decision. Of what use to tell him? WouldRiddle’s death mend matters? The woman loved him, that had been clear tome; yet, by telling Nick what I knew I might induce him to desist fromhis search, and if I did not tell, Nick might some day run across thetrail, follow it up, take Riddle’s life, and lose his own. The moment,made for confession as it was, passed.

  “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 youhave 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 notmanhood 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 theRebels and fled to England for his reward. A year after he went I wasleft alone at Temple Bow to the tender mercies of the niggers. Mr. Masoncame back and snatched what was left of me. He was a good man; he savedme an annuity out of the estate, he took me abroad after the war ona grand tour, and died of a fever in Rome. I made my way back toCharlestown, and there I learned to gamble, to hold liquor like agentleman, to run horses and fight like a gentleman. We w
ere speaking ofDarnley,” he said.

  “Yes, of Darnley,” I repeated.

  “The devil of a man,” said Nick; “do you remember him, with the crackedvoice and fat calves?”

  At any other time I should have laughed at the recollection.

  “Darnley turned Whig, became a Continental colonel, and got a grant outhere in the Cumberland country of three thousand acres. And now I ownit.”

  “You own it!” I exclaimed.

  “Rattle-and-snap,” said Nick; “I played him for the land at the ordinaryone night, and won it. It is out here near a place called Nashboro,where this wild, long-faced Mr. Jackson says he is going soon. I crossedthe mountains to have a look at it, fell in with Nollichucky Jack, andwent off with him for a summer campaign. There’s a man for you, Davy,” he cried, “a man to follow through hell-fire. If they touch a hair ofhis head we’ll sack the State of North Carolina from Morganton to thesea.”

  “But the land?” I asked.

  “Oh, a fig for the land,” answered Nick; “as soon as Nollichucky Jack issafe I’ll follow you into Kentucky.” He slapped me on the knee. “Egad,Davy, it seems like a fairy tale. We always said we were going toKentucky, didn’t we? What is the name of the place you are to startlewith your learning and calm by your example?”

  “Louisville,” I answered, laughing, “by the Falls of the Ohio.”

  “I shall turn up there when Jack Sevier is safe and I have won some moreland from Mr. Jackson. We’ll have a rare old time together, though Ihave no doubt you can drink me under the table. Beware of these sobermen. Egad, Davy, you need only a woolsack to become a full-fledgedjudge. And now tell me how fortune has buffeted you.”

  It was my second night without sleep, for we sat burning candles in Mr.Wright’s house until the dawn, making up the time which we had lost awayfrom each other.