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, 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 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 niggers.  Mr. Mason came back and snatched 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.

“The devil of a man,” said Nick; “do you remember him, with the cracked voice 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 out here in the Cumberland country of three thousand acres.  And now I own it.”

“You own it!” I exclaimed.

“Rattle-and-snap,” said Nick; “I played him for the land at the ordinary one 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 crossed the mountains to have a look at it, fell in with Nollichucky Jack, and went 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 of his head we’ll sack the State of North Carolina from Morganton to the sea.”

“But the land?” I asked.

“Oh, a fig for the land,” answered Nick; “as soon as Nollichucky Jack is safe 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 to Kentucky, didn’t we?  What is the name of the place you are to startle with your learning and calm by your example?”