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 t