“Yes, a new country is the place for you. You are now about to be admitted to practice law; not because you know law, but for the reason that I have recommended it. As I say, you have little law knowledge; but you possess courage, brains, perseverance, honesty, prudence and divers other traits, which you take from your Carrickfergus ancestors. These should carry you farther in the wilderness than any knowledge of the books.”
The predatory nose snorts, and the horse face begins to glow resentfully.
“You think I know no law?”
“No more than does Necessity! Not enough to keep you from being laughed at in Rowan County! How should you? Your attention and your interest have both run away to other things. I've watched you for two years past. You are deep in the lore of cockfighting, but guiltless of the Commentaries of our worthy Master Blackstone. If I were to ask you for the Rule in Shelly's Case, you would be posed. At the same time you could expound every rule that governs a horse race. In brief you are accomplished in many gentlemanly things, while as barren of law learning as a Hottentot. Now if you were a lad of fortune, instead of being as poor as the crows, you might easily cut a figure of elegant idleness on the North Carolina circuits. But you lack utterly of that money required to gild and make tolerable your ignorance here at home. In the woods along the Cumberland, that is to say in the Nashville and Jonesboro courts, where ignorance and poverty are the rule, your deficiencies will count for trifles. Also you will be surrounded by conditions that promote courage, honesty and quickness to a first importance. On the Cumberland the fact that you are a dead shot with rifle or pistol, and can back the most unmanageable horse that ever looked through a bridle, will place you higher in the confidence of men than would all the law that Hobart, Hales and Hawkins ever knew. Now don't get angry. Think over what I've said; the longer you look at it, the more you'll feel that I am right. I'll see that you are given your sheepskin as a lawyer; and, when you decide to migrate, I'll have you commissioned in that new country as attorney for the state. This last will send you headlong into the midst of a backwoods practice, where those native virtues you own should find a field for their exercise, and your talents for cockfighting and horse racing, added to your absolute genius for firearms, be sure to advance you far.”
Spruce McCay raps the ashes from his corncob pipe. Just then one of the house negroes taps at the door, as preliminary to intruding a respectful head. The respectful head announces that visitors have arrived at the big white mansion. Spruce McCay at this quits the office, and the horse-faced Andy finds himself alone.
For one hour he ponders the unpalatable words of his worthy master. His vanity has been hurt; his self-love ruffled. None the less he feels that a deal of truth lies tucked away in what Spruce McCay has said. Besides a plunge into the untried wilderness rather matches his taste, and a promised state's attorneyship is not to be despised.
As the horse-faced Andy ruminates these things, laughter and much joyous clatter is heard at the door. This time it is his two fellow students, Crawford and McNairy. These young gentlemen have been out with their guns, and now present themselves with a double backload of quails as the fruits of it. The pair begin vociferously to inform the horse-faced Andy concerning their day's adventures. He halts the conversational flow with a repressive lift of the hand.
“Gentlemen,” says he, with a vast affectation of dignity, and as though sixty were the years of each instead of twenty, “I desire your company at supper in my rooms. Come at 7 o'clock. I shall have news for you—news, and a proposition.”