ssing triumphantly a wriggling worm from the sod.
Suddenly he flew away, and I heard a voice from the street side that
brought me stark upright.

"Hold there, neighbor; can you direct me to the mansion of that
celebrated barrister, Mr. Ritchie?"

There was no mistaking that voice--it was Nicholas Temple's. I heard a
laugh and an answer, the gate slammed, and Mr. Temple himself in a long
gray riding-coat, booted and spurred, stood before me.

"Davy," he cried, "come out here and hug me. Why, you look as if I were
your grandmother's ghost."

"And if you were," I answered, "you could not have surprised me more.
Where have you been?"

"At Jonesboro, acting the gallant with the widow, winning and losing
skins and cow-bells and land at rattle-and-snap, horse-racing with that
wild Mr. Jackson. Faith, he near shot the top of my head off because I
beat him at Greasy Cove."

I laughed, despite my anxiety.

"And Sevier?" I demanded.

"You have not heard how Sevier got off?" exclaimed Nick. "Egad, that was
a crowning stroke of genius! Cozby and Evans, Captains Greene and
Gibson, and Sevier's two boys whom you met on the Nollichucky rode over
the mountains to Morganton. Greene and Gibson and Sevier's boys hid
themselves with the horses in a clump outside the town, while Cozby and
Evans, disguised as bumpkins in hunting shirts, jogged into the town with
Sevier's racing mare between them. They jogged into the town, I say,
through the crowds of white trash, and rode up to the court-house where
Sevier was being tried for his life. Evans stood at the open door and
held the mare and gaped, while Cozby stalked in and shouldered his way
to the front within four feet of the bar, like a big, awkward countryman.
Jack Sevier saw him, and he saw Evans with the mare outside. Then, by
thunder, Cozby takes a step right up to the bar and cries out, 'Judge,
aren't you about done with that man?' Faith, it was like judgment day,
such a mix-up as there was after that, and Nollichucky Jack made three
leaps and got on the mare, and in the confusion Cozby and Evans were off
too, and the whole State of North Carolina couldn't catch 'em then."
Nick sighed. "I'd have given my soul to have been there," he said.

"Come in," said I, for lack of something better.

"Cursed if you haven't given me a sweet reception, Davy," said he. "Have
you lost your practice, or is there a lady here, you rogue," and he poked
into the cupboard with his stick. "Hullo, w