2.4. CHAPTER IV
I CROSS THE MOUNTAINS ONCE MORE
“ '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.
Tom 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
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.