all be wise to keep out of this matter, but we cannot. We must make some provision for this poor creature’s defense, because that same mob who would shun us for defending the woman would be just as quick to condemn us for negligence if we abandoned her to her fate. We must steer a safe course between these two evils.”
“But what is the alternative? No lawyer wants this case.”
Colonel James Erwin looked thoughtful. “There may be one that does.”
“But whois Nicholas Woodfin?” Elizabeth asked me when I returned from the lawyers meeting at McEntire’s tavern (but for the presence of Mr. Wilson, I might have termed the gathering a family reunion with perfect truth).
“I have met him but once, I think. He has been a licensed attorney now for precisely one year, but we hear good things of him—at least your cousin James says so.”
“Woodfin . . . Woodfin . . .” Elizabeth shut her eyes and wrinkled her forehead. A sign, no doubt, that she was flipping through the pages of that great studbook-cum-social register that all the frontier gentlewomen seem to have indexed in their brains.
“Asheville,” I said helpfully.
She opened her eyes wide. “Asheville! So near! And his wife is—?”
“He doesn’t have one. He’s only twenty-one, and doubtless he has been working too hard in his studies to find time for courtship. But there is someone of your acquaintance who may vouch for him, and you will value his opinion even above mine—Mr. David Lowry Swain.”
Elizabeth gave me a look. “I might have guessed that, Burgess. Cousin James would not recommend a young novice for an important case unless there was some sign of distinction about him. For an Asheville attorney, that sign could only be a clerkship with the honorable David Swain, who is surely one of the most promising young men on the frontier—excepting yourself, my dearest.”
I smiled at her generosity of spirit, but I did not think I merited the comparison. I am a simple country lawyer, content with my lot in life. Never was I as driven to succeed as the tireless Mr. David Swain of Asheville, whose ambition might pass for ruthlessness in the eyes of more humble folk. In the score of months that I had been an attorney in Burke County, I had heard much about him and his aspirations. Although he was not from a prominent family, he had struggled and sacrificed to attain a good education, after which he worked harder than any three so-called gentlemen to better his lot in life. He was barely thirty, yet already he had served five terms in the North Carolina legislature. His days of toil and poverty were behind him, and I daresay he was now as much a gentleman as anyone in Carolina.
“David Lowry Swain,” said Elizabeth thoughtfully. “But he is forever traveling, and he stays for months in Raleigh, does he not? One wonders that he would have had time to mentor a lawyer in Asheville. Is he still the member for Buncombe County in the House?”
“No. He refused a sixth term. He is a circuit court judge now.”
Elizabeth sighed. “He married exceedingly well.”
“Really? Pretty, is she?”
That look again. Elizabeth takes a dim view of my teasing. “Eleanor White is the daughter of a North Carolina secretary of state,” she said primly. “Her maternal grandfather was Richard Caswell, governor during the Revolution. Thanks to Eleanor, and to his own efforts, of course, David Swain has connections that extend well beyond Asheville. That whole family has prospered in state politics. James Lowry of the State House of Commons is his half brother, you know.”
I didn’t know. Latin verbs are child’s play compared to unraveling the tangled lineages of the North Carolina gentry. “David LowrySwain and James Lowryare half brothers? Curious coincidence of names.”
“Not a coincidence at all,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t you know that story? It’s common talk in the western legal circle. David Swain’s mother was Miss Caroline Lane, who as a young woman was married to a Mr. David Lowry. They lived on a farm in north Georgia, and she bore him a number of children. Sadly for his wife and babes, David Lowry was killed in an Indian raid, and poor Caroline Lowry married again—to a Mr. George Swain, who is a merchant and a physician. They had six or seven children—I forget the exact number—”
“Really? I would have thought you’d have their birthdays down by heart.”
She waved away the Swain offspring. “They aren’t important, except for the