THE ROAD TO RICHMOND

The tobacco-roller and his son pitched their camp beneath a gum tree upon the edge of the wood. It was October, and the gum was the colour of blood. Behind it rolled the autumn forest; before it stretched a level of broom-sedge, bright ochre in the light of the setting sun. The road ran across this golden plain, and disappeared in a league-deep wood of pine. From an invisible clearing came a cawing of crows. The sky was cloudless, and the evening wind had not begun to blow. The small, shining leaves of the gum did not stir, and the flame of the camp-fire rose straight as a lance. The tobacco cask, transfixed by the trunk of a young oak and drawn by strong horses, had come to rest upon the turf by the roadside. Gideon Rand unharnessed the team, and from the platform built in the front of the cask took fodder for the horses, then tossed upon the grass a bag of meal, a piece of bacon, and a frying-pan. The boy collected the dry wood with which the earth was strewn, then struck flint and steel, guarded the spark within the tinder, fanned the flame, and with a sigh of satisfaction stood back from the leaping fire. His father tossed him a bucket, and with it swinging from his hand, he made through the wood towards a music of water. Goldenrod and farewell-summer and the red plumes of the sumach lined his path, while far overhead the hickories and maples reared a fretted, red-gold roof. Underfoot were moss and coloured leaves, and to the right and left the squirrels watched him with bright eyes. He found the stream where it rippled between banks of fern and mint. As he knelt to fill the pail, the red haw and the purple ironweed met above his head.

Below him was a little mirror-like pool, and it gave him back himself with such distinctness that, startled, he dropped the pail, and bending nearer, began to study the image in the water. Back in Albemarle, in his dead mother's room, there hung a looking-glass, but it was cracked and blurred, and he seldom gazed within it. This chance mirror of the woods was more to the purpose. The moments slipped away while he studied the stranger and familiar in the pool below him. The image was not formed or coloured like young Narcissus, of whom he had never heard, but he observed it with interest. He was fourteen, and old for his years. The eyes reflected in the stream were brooding, the mouth had lost its boyish curves, the sanguine cheek was thin, the jaw settling square. His imagination, slow to quicken, had, when aroused, quite a wizard might. He sank deeper amid the ironweed, forgot his errand, and began to dream. He was the son of a tobacco-roller, untaught and unfriended, but he dreamed like a king. His imagination began to paint without hands images of power upon a blank and mighty wall, and it painted like a young Michael Angelo. It used the colours of immaturity, but it conceived with strength. "When I am a man—" he said aloud; and again, "When I am a man—" The eyes in the pool looked at him yearningly; the leaves from the golden hickories fell upon the water and hid him from himself. In the distance a fox barked, and Gideon Rand's deep voice came rolling through the wood: "Lewis! Lewis!"

The boy dipped the pail, lifted it brimming, and rose from his knees. As he did so, a man parted the bushes on the far side of the stream, glanced at the mossed and slippery stones rising from its bed, then with a light and steady foot crossed to the boy's side. He was a young man, wearing a fringed hunting-shirt and leggins and a coonskin cap, and carrying a long musket. Over his shoulder was slung a wild turkey, and at his heels came a hound. He smiled, showing very white teeth, and drew forward his bronze trophy.

"Supper," he said briefly.

The boy nodded. "I heard your gun. I've made a fire yonder beneath a black gum. Adam Gaudylock, I am well-nigh a man!"

"So you be, so you be," answered the other; "well-nigh a man."

The boy beat the air with a branch of sumach. "I want to be a man! But I don't want to be a tobacco-roller like my father, nor—"

"Nor a hunter like me," the other finished placidly. "Be the Governor of Virginia, then, or come with me and make yourself King of the Mississippi! I've watched you, boy! You're growing up ambitious, ambitious as What's-his-name—him that you read of?"

"Lucifer," answered the boy—"ambitious as Lucifer."

"Well, don't spill the water, my kingling," said the hunter good-naturedly. "Life's not so strange as is the way folk look at it. You and I, now,—we're different! What I care for is just every common day as it comes naturally along, with woods in it, and Indians, and an elk or two at gaze, and a boat to get through the rapids, and a drop of kill-devil rum, and some shooting, and a petticoat somewhere, and a hand at cards,—just every common day! But you build your house upon to-morrow. I care for the game, and you care for the prize. Don't go too fast and far,—I've seen men pass the prize on the road and never know it! Don't you be that kind, Lewis."

"I won't," said the boy. "But of course one plays to win. After supper, will you tell me about New Orleans and the Mississippi, and the French and the Spaniards, and the moss that hangs from the trees, and the oranges that grow like apples? I had rather be king of that country than Governor of Virginia."

The sun set, and the chill dusk of autumn wrapped the yellow sedge, the dusty road, and the pines upon the horizon. The heavens were high and cold, and the night wind had a message from the north. But it was warm beneath the gum tree where the fire leaped and roared. In the light the nearer leaves of the surrounding trees showed in strong relief; beyond that copper fretwork all was blackness. Out of the dark came the breathing of the horses, fastened near the tobacco-cask, the croaking of frogs in a marshy place, and all the stealthy, indefinable stir of the forest at night. At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred and raised his head, then sank to dreams again. The tobacco-roller, weary from the long day's travel, wrapped himself in a blanket and slept in the lee of his thousand pounds of bright leaf, but the boy and the hunter sat late by the fire.

"We crossed that swamp," said Gaudylock, "with the canes rattling above our heads, and a panther screaming in a cypress tree, and we came to a village of the Chickasaws—"

"In the night-time?"

"In the night-time, and a mockingbird singing like mad from a china tree, and the woods all level before us like a floor,—no brush at all, just fine grass, with flowers in it like pinks in a garden. So we smoked the peace pipe with the Chickasaws, and I hung a wampum belt with fine words, and we went on, the next day, walking over strawberries so thick that our moccasins were stained red. At noon we overtook a party of boatmen from the Ohio,—tall men they were, with beards, and dark and dirty as Indians,—and we kept company with them through the country of the Chickasaws and the Choctaws until we came to a high bluff, and saw the Mississippi before us, brown and full and marked with drifting trees, and up the river the white houses of Natchez. There we camped until we made out the flat-boat,—General Wilkinson's boat, all laden with tobacco and flour and bacon, and just a few Kentucks with muskets,—that the Spaniards at Natchez had been fools enough to let pass! We hailed that boat, and it came up beneath the cottonwoods, and I went aboard with the letters from Louisville, and on we went, down the river, past the great woods and the strange little towns, and the cotton-fields and the sugar-canes, and the moss hanging like banners from taller trees than this gum, to New Orleans. And there the Intendant would have laid hands on our cargo and sent every mother's son of us packing, but Miro, that was governor, stood our friend, being frightened indeed of what Kentucky might do if put to it! And there, on the levee, we sold that tobacco and flour and bacon; and the tobacco which we sold at home for shillings and pence, we sold at New Orleans for joes and doubloons. Ay, ay, and not one picayune of duty did we pay! Ay, and we opened the Mississippi!"

The speaker paused to take from his pouch several leaves of tobacco, and to roll them deftly into a long cigar. The boy rose to throw more wood upon the fire, then sat again at the trader's feet, and with his chin in his hand stared into the glowing hollows.

"The West!" said Gaudylock, between slow puffs of smoke. "Kentucky and the Ohio and the Mississippi, and then Louisiana and all that lies beyond, and Mexico and its gold! Ha! the Mississippi open from its source—and the Lord in Heaven knows where that may be—to the last levee! and not a Spaniard to stop a pirogua, and right to trade in every port, and no lingo but plain English, and Mexico like a ripe apple,—just a touch of the bough, and there's the gold in hand! If I were a dreamer, I would dream of the West."

"Folk have always dreamed of the West," said the boy. "Sailors and kings, and men with their fortune to make. I've read about Cortez and Pizarro,—it would be fine to be like that!"

"I thought you wanted to study law."

"I do; but I could be a great soldier, too."

Gaudylock laughed. "You would trap all the creatures in the wood! Well, live long enough, and you'll hear a drum beat. They're restless, restless, yonder on the rivers! But they'll need the lawyers, too. Just see what the lawyers did when we fought the British! Mr. Henry and Mr. Jefferson—"

The boy put forth a sudden hand, gathered to him a pine bough, and with it smote the red coals of the fire. "Oh!" he cried, "from morn till night my father keeps me in the fields. It's tobacco! tobacco! tobacco! And I want to go to school—I want to go to school!"

"That's a queer wanting," said the other thoughtfully. "I've wanted fire when I was cold, and venison when I was hungry, and liquor when I was in company, and money when I was gaming, and a woman when the moon was shining and I wished to talk,—but I have never wanted to go to school. A schollard sees a wall every time he raises his head. I like the open."

"There are walls in the forest," answered the boy, "and I do not want to be a tobacco-roller! I want to study law!"

The hunter laughed. "Ho! A lawyer among the Rands! I reckon you take after your mother's folk!"

The boy looked at him wistfully. "I reckon I do," he assented. "But my name is Rand."

"There are worse folk than the Rands," said the woodsman. "I've never known one to let go, once he had man or beast by the throat! Silent and holdfast and deadly to anger—that's the Rands. If Gideon wants tobacco and you want learning, there'll be a tussle!"

"My father's a tyrant!" cried the boy passionately. "If he doesn't keep his hands off me, I'll—I'll kill him!"

Gaudylock took the cigarro from his lips. "You're too fond of that word," he exclaimed, with some sternness. "All the wolves that the Rands ever hunted have somehow got into their blood. Suppose you try a little unlearning? Great lawyers and great men and great conquerors and good hunters don't kill their fathers, Lewis,—no, nor any other man, excepting always in fair fight."

"I know—I know!" said Lewis. "Of course he's my father. But I never could stand for any one to get in my way!"

"That's just what the rattlesnake says—and after a while nobody does get in his way. But he must be a lonely creature."

"Do you think," asked the boy oddly,—"do you think I am really like that,—like a rattlesnake?"

Adam gave his mellow laugh. "No, I don't. I think you are just a poor human. I was always powerfully fond of you, Lewis,—and I never could abide a rattler! There's the moon, and it's a long march to-morrow, and folks sit up late in Richmond! Unroll the blankets, and let's to bed."

The boy obeyed, and the two lay down with the fire between them. The man's thoughts went back to the Mississippi, to cane-brakes and bayous and long levees; and the boy's mind perused the road before him.

"When I get to Richmond," he suddenly announced, "I am going to find a place where they sell books. I have a dollar."

The hunter put his hand in his pouch, drew out a shining coin, and tossed it across the fire. "There's another," he said. "Good Spanish! Buy your Cæsars and your Pompeys, and when you are a lawyer like Mr. Jefferson, come West—come West!"

Men and beasts slumbered through the autumn night, waked at dawn, and, breakfast eaten, took again the road. Revolving cask, horses, dogs, and men, they crossed the wet sedge and entered the pine wood, left that behind and traversed a waste of scrub and vine, low hills, and rain-washed gullies. Chinquapin bushes edged the road, the polished nut dark in the centre of each open burr; the persimmon trees showed their fruit, red-gold from the first frosts; the black haw and cedar overhung the ravines; there was much sassafras, and along the plashy streams the mint grew thick and pungent-sweet. In the deep and pure blue sky above them, fleecy clouds went past like galleons in a trade-wind.

The tobacco-roller was a taciturn man, and the boy, his son, never thought of disburdening his soul to his father. Each had the power to change for the other the aspect of the world, but they themselves were strangers. Gideon Rand, as he rode, thought of the bright leaf in the cask, of the Richmond warehouse, and fixed the price in his mind. His mind was in a state of sober jubilation. His only brother, a lonely, unloved, and avaricious merchant in a small way, had lately died, and had left him money. The hundred acres upon the Three-Notched Road that Gideon had tilled for another were in the market. The money would buy the land and the small, dilapidated house already occupied by the Rands. The purchase was in train, and in its own fashion Gideon's sluggish nature rejoiced. He was as land-mad as any other Virginian, but he had neither a lavish hand nor a climbing eye. What he loved was the black earth beneath the tobacco, and to walk between the rows and feel the thick leaves. For him it sufficed to rise at dawn and spend the day in the fields overseeing the hands, to come home at dusk to a supper of corn bread and bacon, to go to bed within the hour and sleep without a dream until cockcrow, to walk the fields again till dusk and supper-time. Church on Sunday, Charlottesville on Court Days, Richmond once a year, varied the monotony. The one passion, the one softness, showed in his love for horses. He broke the colts for half the county; there was no horse that he could not ride, and his great form and coal-black locks were looked for and found at every race. The mare that he was riding he had bought with his legacy, before he bought the land on the Three-Notched Road. He was now considering whether he could afford to buy in Richmond a likely negro to help him and Lewis in the fields. With all the stubbornness of a dull mind, he meant to keep Lewis in the fields. Long ago, when he was a handsome young giant, he had married above him. His wife was a beautiful and spirited woman, and when she married the son of her father's tenant, it was with every intention of raising him to her own level in life. But he was the stronger, and he dragged her down to his. As her beauty faded and her wit grew biting, he learned to hate her, and to hate learning because she had it, and the refinements of life because she practised them, and law because she came of a family of lawyers. She was dead and he was glad of it,—and now her son was always at a book, and wanted to be a lawyer! "I'll see him a slave-driver first!" said Gideon Rand to himself, and flecked his whip.

On the other side of the cask Adam Gaudylock whistled along the road. He, too, had business in Richmond, and problems not a few to solve, but as he was a man who never sacrificed the present to the past, and rarely to the future, he alone of the three really drank the wine of the morning air, saw how blue was the sky, and admired the crimson trailers that the dewberry spread across the road. When his gaze followed the floating down from a milkweed pod, or marked the scurry of a chipmunk at a white oak's root, or dwelt upon the fox-grape's swinging curtain, he would have said, if questioned, that life in the woods and in an Indian country taught a man the use of his eyes. "Love of Nature" was a phrase at which he would have looked blank, and a talisman which he did not know he possessed, and it may be doubted if he could have defined the word "Romance." He whistled as he rode, and presently, the sun rising higher and the clear wind blowing with force, he began to sing,—

"From the Walnut Hills to the Silver Lake,
Row, boatmen, row!
Danger in the levee, danger in the brake,
Row, boatmen, row!
Yellow water rising, Indians on the shore!"

Lewis Rand, perched upon the platform before the cask, his feet dangling, his head thrown back against the wood, and his eyes upon the floating clouds, pursued inwardly and with a swelling heart the oft-broken, oft-renewed argument with his father. "I do not want to go to the fields. I want to go to school. Every chance I've had, I've learned, and I want to learn more and more. I do not want to be like you, nor your father, nor his father, and I do not want to be like Adam Gaudylock. I want to be like my mother's folk. You've no right to keep me planting and suckering and cutting and firing and planting again, as though I were a negro! Negroes don't care, but I care! I'm not your slave. Tobacco! I hate the sight of it, and the smell of it! There's too much tobacco raised in Virginia. You fought the old King because he was a tyrant, but you would make me spend my life in the tobacco-field! You are a tyrant, too. I'm to be a man just as you're a man. You went your way; well, I'm going mine! I'm going to be a lawyer, like—like Ludwell Cary at Greenwood. I'm not afraid of your horse-whip. Strike, and be damned to you! You can break every colt in the country, but you can't break me! I've seen you strike my mother, too!"

"Way down in New Orleans,
Beneath an orange tree,
Beside the lapping water,
Upon the old levee,
A-laughing in the moonlight,
There sits the girl for me!"

sang Gaudylock.

"She's sweeter than the jasmine,
Her name it is Delphine."

The day wore on, the land grew level, and the clearings more frequent. Stretches of stacked corn appeared like tented plains, brown and silent encampments of the autumn; and tobacco-houses rose from the fields whence the weed had been cut. Blue smoke hung in wreaths above the high roofs, for it was firing-time. Now and then they saw, far back from the road and shaded by noble trees, dwelling-houses of brick or wood. Behind the larger sort of these appeared barns and stables and negro quarters, all very cheerful in the sunny October weather. Once they passed a schoolhouse and a church, and twice they halted at cross-road taverns. The road was no longer solitary. Other slow-rolling casks of tobacco with retinue of men and boys were on their way to Richmond, and there were white-roofed wagons from the country beyond Staunton. Four strong horses drew each wagon, manes and tails tied with bright galloon, and harness hung with jingling bells. Whatever things the mountain folk might trade with were in the wagons,—butter, flour, and dried meat, skins of deer and bear, hemp, flaxseed, wax, ginseng, and maple sugar. Other vehicles used the road, growing more numerous as the day wore into the afternoon, and Richmond was no longer far away. Coach and chaise, curricle and stick-chair, were encountered, and horsemen were frequent.

In 1790 men spoke when they passed; moreover, Rand and Gaudylock were not entirely unknown. The giant figure of the one had been seen before upon that road; the other was recognized as a very able scout, hunter, and Indian trader, restless as quicksilver and daring beyond all reason. Men hailed the two cheerily, and asked for the news from Albemarle, and from Kentucky and the Mississippi.

"Mr. Jefferson is coming home," answered Rand; and "Spain is not so black as she is painted," said the trader.

"We hear," quoth the gentleman addressed, "that the Kentuckians make good Spanish subjects."

"Then you hear a damned lie," said Gaudylock imperturbably. "The boot's on the other foot. Ten years from now a Kentuckian may rule in New Orleans."

The gentleman laughed, settled back in his stick-chair, and spoke to his horse. "Mr. Jefferson is in Richmond," he remarked to Rand, and vanished in a cloud of dust.

The tobacco-cask and its guardians kept on by wood and stream, plantation, tavern, forge, and mill, now with companions and now upon a lonely road. At last, when the frogs were at vespers, and the wind had died into an evening stillness, and the last rays of the sun were staining the autumn foliage a yet deeper red, they came by way of Broad Street into Richmond. The cask of bright leaf must be deposited at Shockoe Warehouse; this they did, then as the stars were coming out, they betook themselves to where, at the foot of Church Hill, the Bird in Hand dispensed refreshment to man and beast.

MR. JEFFERSON

By ten of the Capitol clock Gideon Rand had sold his tobacco and deposited the price in a well-filled wallet. "Eighteen shillings the hundred," he said, with grim satisfaction. "And the casks I sent by Mocket sold as well! Good leaf, good leaf! Tobacco pays, and learning don't. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lewis Rand!"

Father and son came out from the cool, dark store, upon the unpaved street, and joined Adam Gaudylock where he lounged beneath a sycamore. Up and down the street were wooden houses, shops of British merchants, prosperous taverns, and dwelling-houses sunk in shady gardens. An arrow-flight away brawled the river among bright islands. The sky above the bronze sycamores was very blue, the air crystal, the sunshine heavenly mild. The street was not crowded. A Quaker in a broad-brimmed hat went by, and then a pretty girl, and then a minister talking broad Scotch, and then a future chief justice who had been to market and had a green basket upon his arm. Gideon drew another breath of satisfaction. "I've been thinking this long time of buying a negro, and now I can do it! Mocket says there's a likely man for sale down by the market. Lewis, you go straight to Mocket now, and tell him I'll wait for him there! Are you coming with me, Adam Gaudylock?"

"Why," said Gaudylock, with candour, "I have business presently in Governor Street, and a man to meet at the Indian Queen. And I think I'll go now with Lewis. Somehow, the woods have spoiled me for seeing men bought and sold."

"They're black men," said Rand indifferently. "I'll see you, then, at dinner-time, at the Bird in Hand. I'm going home to-morrow.—Lewis, if you want to, you can look around this morning with Tom Mocket!" He glanced at his son's flushing face, and, being in high good humour, determined to give the colt a little rein. "Be off, and spend your dollar! See what sights you can, for we'll not be in Richmond again for many a day! They say there's a brig in from Barbadoes."

He put up his wallet, and with a nod to Gaudylock strode away in the direction of the market, but presently halted and turned his head. "Lewis!"

"Yes, father."

"Don't you be buying any more books! You hear me?"

He swung away, and his son stood under the sycamore tree and looked after him with a darkened face. Gaudylock put a hand upon his shoulder. "Never mind, Lewis! Before we part I'm going to talk to Gideon." He laughed. "Do you know what the Cherokees call me? They call me Golden-Tongue. Because, you see, I can persuade them to 'most anything,—always into the war-path, and sometimes out of it! Gideon may be obstinate, but he can't be as obstinate as an Indian. Now let's go to Mocket's."

The way to Mocket's lay down a steep hillside, and along the river-bank, under a drift of coloured leaves, and by the sound of falling water. Mocket dwelt in a small house, in a small green yard with a broken gate. A red creeper mantled the tiny porch, and lilac bushes, clucked under by a dozen hens, hedged the grassy yard. As the hunter and Lewis Rand approached, a little girl, brown and freckled, barefoot and dressed in linsey, sprang up from the stone before the gate, and began to run towards the house. Her foot caught in a trailing vine, and down she fell. Adam was beside her at once. "Why, you little partridge!" he exclaimed, and lifted her to her feet.

"It's Vinie Mocket," said his companion. "Vinie, where's your father?"

"I don't know, thir," answered Vinie. "Tom knows. Tom's down there, at the big ship. I'll tell him."

She slipped from Gaudylock's clasp and pattered off toward the river, where the brig from Barbadoes showed hull and masts. The hunter sat down upon the porch step, and drew out his tobacco pouch. "She's like a partridge," he said.

"She's just Vinie Mocket," answered the boy. "There's a girl who stays sometimes at Mrs. Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road. She's not freckled, and her eyes are big, and she never goes barefoot. I reckon it's silk she wears."

"What's her name?" asked the hunter, filling his pipe.

"Jacqueline—Jacqueline Churchill. She lives at Fontenoy."

"Fontenoy's a mighty fine place," remarked Gaudylock.

"And the Churchills are mighty fine people.—Here's the partridge back, with another freckle-face."

"That's Tom Mocket," said Lewis. "If Vinie's a partridge, Tom's a weasel."

The weasel, sandy-haired and freckled, came up the path with long steps. "Hi, Lewis! Father's gone toward the market looking for your father. That's a brig from the Indies down there, and the captain's our cousin—ain't he, Vinie? I know who you are, sir. You're Adam Gaudylock, the great hunter!"

"So I am, so I am!" quoth Adam. "Look here, little partridge, at what I've got in my pouch!"

The partridge busied herself with the beaded thing, and the two boys talked aside. "I've till dinner time to do what I like in," said Lewis Rand. "Have you got to work?"

"Not unless I want to," Young Mocket answered blissfully. "Father, he don't care! Besides"—he swelled with pride—"I don't work now at the wharf. I'm at Chancellor Wythe's."

"Chancellor Wythe's! What are you doing there?"

"Helping him. Maybe, by and by, I'll be a lawyer, too."

"Heugh!" said the other. "Do you mean you're reading law?"

"No-o, not just exactly. But I let people in—and I hear what they talk about. I like it better than the wharf, anyhow. I'll go with you and show you things. Is Mr. Gaudylock coming?"

"No," replied Adam. "I'll finish my pipe, and take a look at the ship down there, and then I'll meet a friend at the Indian Queen. Be off with you both! Vinie will stay and talk to me."

"Yeth, thir," said Vinie, her brown arm deep in the beaded pouch.

The two lads left behind the scarlet-clad porch, the hunter and Vinie, the little green yard and the broken gate. "Where first? demanded Tom.

"Where is the best place in Richmond to buy books?"

Young Mocket considered. "There's a shop near the bridge. What do you want with books?"

"I want to read them. We'll go to the bridge first."

Tom hung back. "Don't you want to see the brig from Barbadoes? She's a beauty. There's a schooner from Baltimore, too, at the Rock Landing. You won't? Then let's go over to Widewilt's Island. Well, they whipped a man this morning and he's in the pillory now, down by the market. Let's go look at him.—Pshaw! what's the use of books! Don't you want to see the Guard turn out at noon, and hear the trumpet blow? Well, come on to the bridge! Nancy, the apple-woman, is there too."

The shop near the bridge to which they resorted was dark and low, but learning was spread upon its counter, and a benevolent dragon of knowledge in horn spectacles ran over the wares for Lewis Rand. "De Jure Maritimo, six shillings eightpence, my lad. Burnet's History and Demosthenes' Orations, two crowns, Mr. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a great book and dear! Common Sense—and that's Tom Paine's, and you may have it for two pistareens."

The boy shook his head. "I want a law-book."

The genie put forth The Principles of Equity, and named the price.

"'Tis too dear."

A gentleman lounging against the counter closed the book into which he had been dipping, and drew nearer to the would-be purchaser.

"Equity is an expensive commodity, my lad," he said kindly. "How much law have you read?"

"I have read The Law of Virginia," answered the boy. "I borrowed it. I worked a week for Mr. Douglas, and read The Law of Nations rest-hours. Mrs. Selden, on the Three-Notched Road, gave me The Federalist. Are you a lawyer, sir?"

The gentleman laughed, and the genie behind the counter laughed. Young Mocket plucked Lewis Rand by the sleeve, but the latter was intent upon the personage before him and did not heed.

"Yes," said the gentleman, "I am a lawyer. Are you going to be one?"

"I am," said the boy. "Will you tell me what books I ought to buy? I have two dollars."

The other looked at him with keen light eyes. "That amount will not buy you many books," he said. "You should enter some lawyer's office where you may have access to his library. You spoke of the Three-Notched Road. Are you from Albemarle?"

"Yes, sir. I am Gideon Rand's son."

"Indeed! Gideon Rand! Then Mary Wayne was your mother?"

"Yes, sir."

"I remember," said the gentleman, "when she married your father. She was a beautiful woman. I heard of her death while I was in Paris."

The boy's regard, at first solely for the books, had been for some moments transferred to the gentleman who, it seemed, was a lawyer, and had known his people, and had been to Paris. He saw a tall man, of a spare and sinewy frame, with red hair, lightly powdered, and keen blue eyes. Lewis Rand's cheek grew red, and his eyes at once shy and eager. He stammered when he spoke. "Are you from Albemarle, sir?"

The other smiled, a bright and gracious smile, irradiating his ruddy, freckled face. "I am," he said.

"From—from Monticello?"

"From Monticello." The speaker, who loved his home with passion, never uttered its name without a softening of the voice. "From Monticello," he said again. "There are books enough there, my lad. Some day you shall ride over from the Three-Notched Road, and I will show you them."

"I will come," said Lewis Rand. The colour deepened in his face and a moisture troubled his vision. The shop, the littered counter, the guardian of the books, and President Washington's Secretary of State wavered like the sunbeam at the door.

Jefferson ran his hand over the row of books. "Mr. Smith, give the lad old Coke, yes, and Locke on Government, and put them to my account.—Where do you go to school?"

The boy swallowed hard, straightened his shoulders, and looked his questioner in the face. "Nowhere, sir—not now. My father hates learning, and I work in the fields. I am very much obliged to you for the books,—and had I best buy Blackstone with the two dollars?"

The other smiled. "No, no, not Blackstone. Blackstone's frippery. You've got old Coke. Buy for yourself some book that shall mean much to you all your life.—Mr. Smith, give him Plutarch's Lives—Ossian, too. He's rich enough to buy Ossian.—As for law-books, my lad, if you will come to Monticello, I will lend you what you need. I like your spirit." He looked at his watch. "I have to dine at the Eagle with the Governor and Mr. Randolph. When do you return to Albemarle?"

"To-morrow, sir."

"Then I may overtake you on the road. Once I did your father a good turn, and I shall be glad to have a word with him now. He must not keep the son of Mary Wayne in the fields. Some day I will ride down the Three-Notched Road, and examine you on old Coke. Don't spare study; if you will be a lawyer, become a good one, not a smatterer. Good-day to you!"

He left the shop. The bookseller gazed after him, then nodded and smiled at the boy. "You look transfigured, my lad! Well, he's a great man, and he'll be a greater one yet. He's for the people, and one day the people will be for him! I'll tie up your books—and if you can make a friend of Mr. Jefferson, you do it!"

Lewis Rand came out into the sunlight with "old Coke" and Locke, Plutarch and Ossian, under his arm, and in his soul I know not what ardour of hero-worship, what surging resolve and aspiration. Young Mocket, at his elbow, regarded him with something like awe. "That was Mr. Jefferson," he said. "He knows General Washington and Marquis Lafayette and Doctor Franklin. He's just home from Paris, and they have made him Secretary of State—whatever that is. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. He's a rich man—he's a lawyer, too. He lives at a place named Monticello."

"I know," said Lewis Rand, "I've been to Monticello. When I am a man I am going to have a house like it, with a terrace and white pillars and a library. But I shall have a flower garden like the one at Fontenoy."

"Ho! your house! Is Fontenoy where Ludwell Cary lives?"

"No; he lives at Greenwood. The Churchills live at Fontenoy.—Now we'll go see the Guard turn out. Is that the apple-woman yonder? I've a half-a-bit left."

An hour later, having bought the apples, and seen the pillared Capitol, and respectfully considered the outside of Chancellor Wythe's law office, and having parted until the afternoon with Tom Mocket, who professed an engagement on the Barbadoes brig, young Lewis Rand betook himself to the Bird in Hand. There in the bare, not over clean chamber which had been assigned to the party from Albemarle, he deposited his precious parcel first in the depths of an ancient pair of saddle-bags, then, thinking better of it, underneath the straw mattress of a small bed. It was probable, he knew, that even there his father might discover the treasure. What would follow discovery he knew full Well. The beating he could take; what he wouldn't stand would be, say, Gideon's flinging the books into the fire. "He shan't, he shan't," said the boy's hot heart. "If he does, I'll—I'll—"

Through the window came Gaudylock's voice from the porch of the Bird in Hand. "You Stay-at-homes—you don't know what's in the wilderness! There's good and there's bad, and there's much beside. It's like the sea—it's uncharted."

Lewis Rand closed the door of the room, and went out upon the shady porch, where he found the hunter and a lounging wide-eyed knot of listeners to tales of Kentucky and the Mississippi. The dinner-bell rang. Adam fell pointedly silent, and his audience melted away. The hunter rose and stretched himself. "There is prime venison for dinner, and a quince tart and good apple brandy. Ha! I was always glad I was born in Virginia. Here is Gideon swinging down the hill—Gideon and his negro!"

The tobacco-roller joined them, and with a wave of the hand indicated his purchase of the morning. This was a tall and strong negro, young, supple, and of a cheerful countenance. Rand was in high good-humour. "He's a runaway, Mocket says, but I'll cure him of that! He's strong as an ox and as limber as a snake." Taking the negro's hand in his, he bent the fingers back. "Look at that! easy as a willow! He'll strip tobacco! His name is Joab."

The namesake of a prince in Israel looked blithely upon his new family. "Yaas, marster," he said, with candour. "Dat is my name dat sho' is! Jes' Joab. An' I is strong as en ox,—don' know 'bout de snaik. Marster, is you gwine tek me 'way from Richmond?"

"Albemarle," said the tobacco-roller briefly. "To-morrow morning."

Joab studied the vine above the porch. "Kin I go tell my ole mammy good-bye? She's washin' yonder in de creek."

Rand nodded, and the negro swung off to where, upon the grassy common sloping to Shockoe Creek, dark washer-women were spreading clothes. The bell of the Bird in Hand rang again, and the white men went to dinner.

Following the venison, the tart, and apple brandy came the short, bright afternoon, passed by Lewis Rand upon the brig from the Indies with Tom Mocket and little Vinie and a wrinkled skipper who talked of cocoanuts and strange birds and red-handkerchiefed pirates, and spent by Gideon first in business with the elder Mocket, and then in conversation with Adam Gaudylock. Lewis, returning at supper-time to the Bird in Hand, found the hunter altered no whit from his habitual tawny lightness, but his father in a mood that he knew, sullen and silent. "Adam's been talking to him," thought the boy. "And it's just the same as when Mrs. Selden talks to him. Let me go—not he!"

In the morning, at six of the clock, the two Rands, the negro Joab, the horses, and the dogs took the homeward road to Albemarle. Adam Gaudylock was not returning with them; he had trader's business with the merchants in Main Street, hunter's business with certain cronies at the Indian Queen, able scout and man-of-information business in Governor Street, and business of his own upon the elm-shaded walk above the river. Over level autumn fields and up and down the wooded hills, father and son and the slave travelled briskly toward the west. As the twilight fell, they came up with three white wagons, Staunton bound, and convoyed by mountaineers. That night they camped with these men in an expanse of scrub and sassafras, but left them at dawn and went on toward Albemarle. A day of coloured woods, of infrequent clearings, and of streams to ford, ended in an evening of cool wind and rosy sky. They descended a hill, halted, and built their fire in a grassy space beside a river. Joab tethered the horses and made the fire, and fried the bacon and baked the hoecake. As he worked he sang:—

"David an' Cephas, an' ole brer Mingo,
Saul an' Paul, an' de w'ite folk sinners—
Oh, my chillern, follow de Lawd!"

Supper was eaten in silence. When it was over, Gideon Rand sat with his back against a pine and smoked his pipe. His son went down to the river and stretched his length upon a mossed and lichened boulder. The deep water below the stone did not give him back himself as had done the streamlet five days before. This was a river, marred with eddies and with drifting wood, and red with the soil. The evening wind was blowing, and the sycamore above him cast its bronze leaves into the flood which sucked them under, or bore them with it on its way to the larger river and the ultimate sea. This stream had no babbling voice; its note was low and grave. Youth and mountain sources forgotten, it hearkened before the time to ocean voices. The boy, idle upon the lichened stone, listened too, to distant utterances, to the sirens singing beyond the shadowy cape. The earth soothed him; he lay with half shut eyes, and after the day's hot communion with old wrongs, he felt a sudden peace. He was at the turn; the brute within him quiet behind the eternal bars; the savage receding, the man beckoning, the after man watching from afar. The inner stage was cleared and set for a new act. He had lowered the light, he had rested, and he had filled the interval with forms and determinations beautiful and vague, vague as the mists, the sounds, the tossed arms of the Ossian he had dared to open last night, before his father, by the camp-fire of the mountaineers. In the twilight of his theatre he rested; a shadowy figure, full of mysteries, full of possibilities, a boy in the grasp of the man within him, neither boy nor man unlovable, nor wholly unadmirable, both seen, and seeing, "through a glass darkly."

He turned on his side, and the light went up sharply. A man riding a beautiful and spirited horse was coming over the hilltop. Horse and rider paused a moment upon the crest, standing clear against the eastern sky. In the crystal air and the sunset glow they crowned the hill like a horse and rider nobly done in bronze. A moment thus, then they began to pick their way down the rocky road. Lewis Rand looked, and started to his feet. That horse had been bred in Albemarle, and that horseman he had met in Richmond. The boy's heart beat fast and the colour surged to his cheek. There was little, since the hour in the bookshop, that he would not have done or suffered for the approaching figure. All along the road from Richmond his imagination had conjured up a score of fantastic instances, in each of which he had rescued, or died for, or had in some impossibly romantic and magnificent fashion been the benefactor of the man who was drawing near to the river and camp-fire. As superbly generous as any other youth, he was, at present, in his progress through life, in the land of shrines. He must have his idol, must worship and follow after some visible hero, some older, higher, stronger, more subtle-fine and far-ahead adventurer. Heretofore, in his limited world, Adam Gaudylock had seemed nearest the gates of escape. But Adam, he thought, was of the woods and the earth, even as his father was, and as the tobacco was, and as he himself was. His enormous need was for some one to follow whose feet were above the fat, red fields and the leafy trails. All this was present with him as he watched the oncoming figure. Great men kept their word. Had not Mr. Jefferson said that he would overtake them?—and there he was! He was coming down to the camp-fire, he was going to stop and talk to the surly giant, like Giant Despair, who sat and smoked beside it.

Lewis Rand left the river and the windy sycamore and hastened across the sere grass. "Father, father!" he cried. "Do you know who that is?" In his young voice there was both warning and appeal. Adam Gaudylock, he knew, had spoken to his father, but Gideon had given no sign. Suppose, no matter who spoke, his father would give, forever, no other sign than that oft seen and always hated jerk of the head toward the tobacco-fields?

Gideon Rand took his pipe from his lips. "It's Mr. Jefferson," he answered laconically. "He's the one man in this country to whom I'd listen."

Jefferson rode up to the group about the camp-fire, checked his horse, and gave the tobacco-roller and his son a plain man's greeting to plain men. The eagerness of the boy's face did not escape him; when he dismounted, flung the reins of Wildair to his groom, and crossed the bit of turf to the fire beneath the pines, he knew that he was pleasing a young heart. He loved youth, and to the young he was always nobly kind.

"Good-evening, Mr. Rand," he said. "You are homeward bound, as I am. It is good to see Albemarle faces after years of the French. I had the pleasure of making your son's acquaintance yesterday. It is a great thing to be the father of a son, for so one ceases to be a loose end and becomes a link in the great chain. Your son, I think, will do you honour. And, man to man, you must pay him in the same coin. We on a lower rung of the ladder must keep our hands from the ankles of the climbers above us! Make room for me on that log, my lad! Your father and I will talk awhile."

Thus it was that an able lawyer took up the case of young Lewis Rand. It was the lawyer's pleasure to give aid to youth, and to mould the mind of youth. He had many protégés, to all of whom he was invariably kind, invariably generous. The only return he exacted was that of homage. The yoke was not heavy, for, after all, the homage was to Ideas, to large, sagacious, and far-reaching Thought. It was in the year 1790 that he broke Gideon Rand's resistance to his son's devotion to other gods than those of the Rands. The year that followed that evening on the Albemarle road found Lewis Rand reading law in an office in Charlottesville. A few more years, and he was called to the bar; a little longer, and his name began to be an oft-spoken one in his native county, and not unknown throughout Virginia.

FONTENOY

In the springtime of the year 1804 the spectacle of human conduct ranged from grave to gay, from gay to grave again much as it had done in any other springtime of any other year. In France the consular chrysalis was about to develop imperial wings. The British Lion and the Russian Bear were cheek by jowl, and every Englishman turned his spyglass toward Boulogne, where was gathered Buonaparte's army of invasion. In the New World Spanish troops were reluctantly withdrawing from the vast territory sold by a Corsican to a Virginian, while to the eastward of that movement seventeen of the United States of America pursued the uneven tenor of their way. Washington had been dead five years. Alexander Hamilton was yet the leading spirit of the Federalist party, while Thomas Jefferson was the idol of the Democrat-Republicans.

In the sovereign State of Virginia politics was the staple of conversation as tobacco was the staple of trade. Party feeling ran high. The President of the Union was a Virginian and a Republican; the Chief Justice was a Virginian and a Federalist. Old friends looked askance, or crossed the road to avoid a meeting, and hot bloods went a-duelling. The note of the time was Ambition; the noun most in use the name of Napoleon Buonaparte. It seemed written across the firmament; to some in letters of light and to others in hell fire. With that sign in the skies, men might shudder and turn to a private hearth, or they might give loosest rein to desire for Fame. In the columns of the newspapers, above the name of every Roman patriot, each party found voice. From a lurid background of Moreau's conspiracy and d'Enghien's death, of a moribund English King and Premier, of Hayti aflame, and Tripoli insolent, they thundered, like Cassandra, of home woes. To the Federalist, reverencing the dead Washington, still looking for leadership to Hamilton, now so near that fatal Field of Honour, unconsciously nourishing love for that mother country from which he had righteously torn himself, the name of Democrat-Republican and all that it implied was a stench in the nostrils. On the other hand, the lover of Jefferson, the believer in the French Revolution and that rider of the whirlwind whom it had bred, the far-sighted iconoclast, and the poor bawler for simplicity and red breeches, all found the Federalist a mete burnished fly in the country's pot of ointment. Nowhere might be found a man so sober or so dull as to cry, "A plague o' both your houses!"

In the county of Albemarle April was blending with May. The days were soft and sunshiny, apt to be broken by a hurry of clouds, of slanting trees, and silver rain. When the sun came out again, it painted a great bow in the heavens. Beneath that bright token bloomed a thousand orchards; and the wheat and the young corn waved in the wet breeze. The land was rolling and red in colour, with beautiful trees and narrow rivers. Eastward it descended to misty plains, westward the mountains rose, bounding a noble landscape of field and forest. For many years the axe had swung and trees had fallen, but the forest yet descended to the narrow roads, observed itself in winding streams, gloomed upon the sunlit clearings where negroes sang as they tilled the soil. In the all-surrounding green the plantations showed like intaglios. From pleasant hillsides, shady groves, and hamlets of offices and quarters, the sedate red-brick, white-porticoed "great houses" looked easily forth upon a world which interested them mightily.

Upon a morning in late April of the year 1804, the early sunshine, overflowing such a plantation, dipped at last into a hollow halfway between the house and the lower gates, and overtook two young creatures playing at make-believe, their drama of the moment being that of the runaway servant.

"Oh, the sun!" wailed Deb. "We can't pretend it's dark any longer! God has gone and made another day! We'll see you running away,—all of us white folk, and the overseer and Mammy Chloe! If you climb this willow, the dogs will tree you like they did Aunt Dinah's Jim! Lie down and I'll cover you with leaves like the babes in the wood!"

Miranda, a slim black limb of Satan in a blue cotton gown, flung herself with promptitude upon the ground. "Heap de beech leaves an' de oak leaves upon dis heah po' los' niggah. Oh, my lan'! don' you heah 'um comin'?"

Dead leaves fell upon her in a shower, and her accomplice gathered more with frantic haste. "Oh, it's the ghost in the tobacco-house! it's a rock rolling down the mountain! it's—it's something splashing in the swamp!"

"Is I a-hidin' in de swamp? Den don' th'ow no oak leaves on dis niggah, for dey don' grow dyar. Gawd A'moughty, lis'en to de river roarin'! I's hidin' by de river—I's hidin' by de river! I's hidin' by de river Jordan!"

Deb swayed to and fro, beating her hands in her excitement. "I see a boat—a great big boat! It's as big as the Ark! The finders are in it, and the dogs and the guns! Let us pray! O Jesus, save Miranda, even though it is a scarlet sin to run away! O Jesus, don't let them take her to the Court House! O Jesus, let them take me—"

Miranda reared herself from her leafy bed. "Humph! what you gwine do at de Co'te House? Answer me dat! I knows what de Lawd gwine say. He gwine say, 'Run for it, niggah!' Yaas, Lawd, I sholy gwine do what you say—I gwine run to de very aidge of de yearth.

"Oh, I fool you, Mister Oberseer Man!
Oh, I fool you, my ole Marster!
Cotch de mockin'bird co'tin' in de locus',
Cotch de bullfrog gruntin' in de ma'sh,
Cotch de black snake trabellin' 'long his road,
But you ain' gwine see dis niggah enny mo'!

"Miss Deb, ef I gets to de big gate fust, you gwine lemme hol' dat doll baby Marse Edward gin you?"

Deb brushed the last oak leaf from the skirt of her green gown, tossed her yellow hair out of her brown eyes, and scrambled up the steep side of the dell to a level of lawn and flowers. Her handmaiden followed her, and they paused for breath beneath the white blooms of a mighty catalpa. A hundred yards away, across an expanse of dewy turf, rose the great house, bathed in sunlight. Box, syringa, and honeysuckle environed it, and a row of poplars made a background of living green. It had tall white pillars, and shallow steps leading down to a gravelled drive. The drive was over-arched by elm and locust, and between the trees was planted purple lilac. All of fresh and fair and tender met in the late April weather, in the bright and song-filled morning, in the dew and in the flowers. Upon the steps, between the white pillars, were gathered several muslined figures, flowery bright to match the morning. In the drive below, two horsemen, booted and spurred, clad in many-caped riding-coats and attended by a negro groom, were in the act of lifting tall hats to the ladies of the house they were quitting.

"Hi!" panted Miranda. "Marse Ludwell Cary, Marse Fairfax Cary, an' dat brack niggah Eli! Whar dey gwine dis mawnin'?"

"To the Court House—to the election," answered Deb. "I know all about it, for I asked Uncle Edward. If the Federalists win, the crops will be good, and General Washington and my father and my grandfather will lie quiet in their graves. We are Federalists. If the Republicans win, the country will go to the devil."

"Hi, dat so?" said Miranda. "Le's run open de big gate. Dey two gent'men moughty free wid dey money."

Racing over the jewelled turf, mistress and maid arrived at the big gate in time to swing it open before the approaching riders. Young Fairfax Cary laughed and tossed a coin to Miranda, who bobbed and showed her teeth, while his elder brother stooped gallantly to the pretty child of the house he was leaving. "Do you know what you are like in your narrow green gown and your blowing, yellow hair? You are like a daffodil in your sister's garden."

"If you were to swing me up from the ground," said Deb meditatively, "I could stand upon the toe of your boot, and hold by Pluto's mane, and ride with you as far as the creek.—What flower is Jacqueline like?"

"Like no flower that blooms," said Mr. Ludwell Cary. "Ah, well sprung, Proserpina! Now shall we go fast as the wind?"

They went fast as the wind to the creek, and then went like the wind back to the gate, where Ludwell Cary swung the child down to earth and the waiting Miranda.

Deb curtsied to him. "Wish me good luck, Daffy-down-Dilly!" he said, with his charming smile.

"I do," she answered earnestly. "I hope that you will kill the Devil."

He looked puzzled. "Is that feasible? I don't know where to find him."

"Aren't you going to fight him at the Court House? Uncle Edward said that you were going to put down Lucifer."

The two brothers broke into laughter. "I say, Fair!" cried the elder. "Has Lewis Rand a cloven hoof? I've scarcely seen him, you know, since I went to England!"

"He's all cloven hoof, damn him!" the other answered cheerfully. "Best ride on. He'll have been at the Court House this hour!"

Ludwell Cary glanced at his watch. "Early or late, the result will be the same. The county's going for him twice over!"

"A damned tobacco-roller's son!" growled the other.

The elder brother laughed. "'A man's a man for a' that,' Fair. I dare say old Gideon rolled tobacco with all his might. As for his son, his worst enemy—and I don't know that I am that—couldn't deny him courage and energy."

"He's a dangerous man—"

"Most men are who have won by fighting. But I don't think he loves violence. Well, well, I'm coming! Good-bye, little one!"

Deb curtsied and Miranda bobbed, the gentlemen touched their hats, black Eli grinned, the horses began to canter, and, the leafy road bending sharply, the party for the Court House passed suddenly from view as though the earth had swallowed them up.

Miranda bent her eyes upon her mistress. "Hit's time you wuz in de schoolroom. An' Lan' o' Goshen! Jes' look at yo' wet shoes! I reckon Mammy Chloe gwine whup me!"

Deb considered her stockings and slippers. "There's no school to-day. Mr. Drew's going to the Court House to vote. Uncle Edward says it is the duty of every gentleman to vote against this damned upstart and the Democrat-Republican party. The damned upstart's other name is Lewis Rand. I'll ask Jacqueline to beg Mammy Chloe not to whip you. I like wet feet."

The parlour at Fontenoy was large and high and cool, hung with green paper, touched with the dull gold of old mirrors, of a carved console or two, of oval frames enclosing dim portraits. Long windows opened to the April breeze, and from above the high mantel a Churchill in lovelocks and plumed hat looked down upon Jacqueline seated at her harp. She was playing Water parted from the Sea, playing it dreamily, with an absent mind. Deb, hearing the music from the hall, came and stood beside her sister. They were orphans, dwelling with an uncle.

"Jacqueline," said the child, "do you believe in the Devil?"

Jacqueline played on, but turned a lovely face upon her sister. "I don't know, honey," she said. "I suppose we must, but I had rather not."

"Uncle Edward doesn't. He says 'What the Devil!' but he doesn't believe in the Devil. Then why do he and Uncle Dick call Mr. Lewis Rand the Devil?"

Jacqueline's hands left the strings. "They neither say nor mean that, Deb. Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward are Federalists. They do not like Republicans, nor Mr. Jefferson, nor Mr. Jefferson's friends. Mr. Lewis Rand is Mr. Jefferson's friend, and he is his party's candidate for the General Assembly, and so they do not like him. But they do not call him such names as that."

"Mr. Ludwell Cary doesn't like him either," said Deb. "Why, Jacqueline?"

"Mr. Ludwell Cary is his political opponent."

"And Mr. Fairfax Cary called him a damned tobacco-roller's son."

Jacqueline reddened. "Mr. Fairfax Cary might be thankful to have so informed a mind and heart. It is well to blame a man for his birth!"

"Mr. Ludwell Cary said, 'A man's a man for a' that.' What does that mean, Jacqueline?"

"It means," said Jacqueline, "that—that man stamps the guinea, but God sees the gold."

"Won't you tell me a story?" demanded Deb. "Tell me about the time when you were a little girl and you used to stay at Cousin Jane Selden's. And about the poor boy who lived on the next place—and the apple tree and the little stream where you played, and the mockingbird he gave you. And how his father was a cruel man, and you cried because he had to work so hard all day in the hot fields. You haven't told me that story for a long time."

"I have forgotten it, Deb."

"Then tell me about summer before last, when you were at Cousin Jane Selden's again, and you were grown, and you saw the poor boy again—only he was a man—and his father was dead, and he talked to you in Cousin Jane Selden's flower garden. You never told me that story but once."

"I have forgotten that one too."

"Why does your breath come long like that, Jacqueline? I have gotten my feet wet. Will you tell Mammy Chloe not to whip Miranda? Here is Uncle Edward!"

Major Edward Churchill entered from the garden, for which he had an attachment almost comparable to his love for the old Fontenoy library and the Fontenoy stables. He was a gentleman of the old school, slight, withered, high-nosed and hawk-eyed, dressed with precision and carrying an empty sleeve. The arm he had lost at Yorktown; a temper too hot to hold he daily lost, but he had the art to keep his friends. There were duels to his account, as well as a reputation for great courage and coolness during the late war. Under the name of Horatius he contributed to The Virginia Federalist diatribes of a polished ferocity against the Democrat-Republicans and their chief, and he owned Mustapha, the noblest race-horse of the day. He was a bachelor, a member of the Cincinnati, a Black Cockade, a friend of Alexander Hamilton, a scholar, and a sceptic; a proud, high, fiery man, who had watched at the death-bed of many things. He made his home with his brother, the master of Fontenoy; and his niece Jacqueline, the daughter of a younger, long dead brother, was to him youth, colour, music, and romance.

"The moss-rose is in bloom," he announced, standing in the parlour door. "Come see it, Jacqueline."

They went out into the garden and stood before the moss-rose bush. "Oh, beautiful!" exclaimed Jacqueline, and touched the rose with her lips. It was sunny in the garden, and the box smelled strong and sweet. The Major plucked a sprig and studied it as though box were a rarity. "I have found," he said, "Ludwell Cary's visit highly agreeable. He has come home to Virginia as likely a man as one could find in a summer day. He adorns the state. I predict for him a long and successful career."

"Yes, indeed," assented Jacqueline. "I like him very much. How well he talks! And travel has not made him forget the old days here."

The Major plucked another sprig of box. "In the old days, my dear, your father and your Uncle Dick and I used to plan—well, well, castles in Spain! castles in Spain! But he's a handsome fellow!"

"He is indeed," said Jacqueline. "His eyes are especially fine. I like that clear grey—frank and kind."

"He has sense and principle—he has mind."

"That is evident," answered his niece. "He does everything admirably. Last night after supper he read to Unity and me. He reads extremely well. The book was the Death of Wallenstein. He made me see that murder! My heart stood still."

"He is to be admired for standing up to-day against that damned demagogue, Lewis Rand! No matter if he is defeated. Every gentleman applauds him. You women adore victory, but let me tell you, a vanquished Federalist is still the conqueror of any ranting Republican!"

"Did I tell you," asked Jacqueline, "that Mr. Pincornet holds the dancing class at Fontenoy this week?"

"The dancing class be damned! Ludwell Cary is a man and a gentleman, Jacqueline—"

"Yes," said Jacqueline.

The Major threw away his sprig of box. "The Sphinx was a woman, and every woman is an incarnate riddle! Why don't you care for him, Jacqueline?"

"I do care for him. I like him very much."

"Pshaw!" said the Major irritably. "Don't look at that rose any longer! It's cankered! And it's time that Dick and I were off. We vote—" he put his shapely, nervous hand upon his niece's shoulder—"we vote, Jacqueline, for Ludwell Cary."

"Yes, uncle," said Jacqueline. "I know—I know."

Colonel Dick Churchill, large and beaming, and Major Edward Churchill, thin and saturnine, rode away, and from between the white pillars Deb and Jacqueline watched them go. Colonel Dick's wife was an invalid, and lay always in the cool and spacious "chamber," between dimity bed curtains, with her key basket on the counterpane.

"Jacqueline," said Deb, "whom do you vote for?"

"Women do not vote, honey."

"But if you did vote, Jacqueline?"

"Do you remember," asked Jacqueline, "how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu offended Mr. Alexander Pope?"

"Ah," said Deb. "I'm little, and I ask questions, but I'm not crooked! Will Mr. Lewis Rand ever come to Fontenoy, Jacqueline?"

"You are going to wear your blue gown to the dancing class," said Jacqueline. "Unity is going to wear her yellow jaconet, and I shall wear white. I will make you a wreath of syringa like stars. And you may wear your gloves."

"Oh-h!" breathed Deb. "And my cornelian ring—and the flowered scarf—and—and your fan, Jacqueline?"

"Yes," said Jacqueline. "I am tired this morning, Deb. The sunlight is so strong. I think I'll go darken my room, and lie down upon my bed."

"Does your head ache?"

"Yes, my head," said Jacqueline, and went into the house.

THE TWO CANDIDATES

The town, established forty years before this April morning, had been named for a Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, lately become Queen of England. During the Revolution it had been the scene of a raid of Tarleton's and a camp of detention for British prisoners. It was the county seat to which three successive presidents of the United States must travel to cast their votes; and somewhat later than the period of this story it was to rub elbows with a great institution of learning. No city even in our own time, it was, a hundred years ago, slight enough in size to suit the genius for tempered solitude characteristic of a tobacco-growing State.

A few dwelling-houses of frame and brick rose from an emerald mist of gardens, and there were taverns, much at the service of all who came to town with money in their purse. The Swan allured the gentlefolk of the county, the coach-and-four people, Jehus of light curricles, and riders of blooded horses. The Eagle had the stage-coach patronage, and thrice a week blew a lusty horn. Besides the inns and the dwelling-houses there were stores and a half-built church, the Court House, and the shady Court House yard.

For a great part of the time, the Court House, the centre of gravity for the county, appeared to doze in the sunshine. At stated intervals, however, it awoke, and the drowsy town with it. Once awake, both became very wide awake indeed. Court days doubled the population; an election made a beehive of the place.

It was the fourth Wednesday in April, and election day. A man was to be sent to the House of Delegates at Richmond. All likelihood was upon the side of the candidate of the Democrat-Republicans, but the Federalists had a fighting chance. There were reasons why this especial election was of great interest to the county, and the motto of both parties was "No malingering!" Early in the morning, by the Three-Notched Road, the Barracks Road, and the Secretary's Road, through the shady Thoroughfare, over the misty Rivanna, the Hardware, and the Rapidan, the county began to pour electors into Charlottesville. They came upon wheels, on horseback, and afoot; the strong and the weak, the halt and the blind, the sick and the well, the old and the young, all the free men of Albemarle, all alert, all pleasurably excited over the prospect of the fight.

Without the Court House yard, under the locust trees to the right of the open gate, were placed long tables, and on them three mighty punch-bowls, flanked by drinking-cups and guarded by house servants of venerable appearance and stately manners. Here good Federalists refreshed themselves. To the left of the gate, upon the trampled grass beneath a mulberry, appeared other punch-bowls, and in addition a barrel of whiskey, ready broached for all good Democrat-Republicans. The sunny street was filled with horses, vehicles, and servants; the broad path between the trees, the turf on either hand, and the Court House steps were crowded with riotous voters. All ranks of society, all ages, occupations, and opinions, met in the genial weather, beneath the trees where sang every bird of spring.

Within the Court House the throng, slight at first, was rapidly increasing. The building was not large, and from end to end, and on the high window-sills beneath the long green blinds, the people pushed and shoved and stood a-tiptoe. It was yet early morning, and for some unexplained reason the Federalist candidate had not arrived.

Upon the Justice's Bench, raised high above the crowded floor, sat the candidate of the Democrat-Republicans—the Republicans, pure and simple, as they were beginning to be called. Near him stood the sheriff and the deputy-sheriff; around him pressed committee-men, heelers with tallies, vociferous well-wishers, and prophets of victory, and a few, a very few, personal and private friends. On the other hand, strongly gathering and impatiently awaiting their candidate, his foes gloomed upon him. Everywhere was a buzzing of voices: farmers and townspeople voting loudly, the sheriff as loudly recording each vote, the clerk humming over his book, the crowd making excited comment. There was no ballot-voting; it was a viva voce matter, and each man knew his fellow's creed.

Lewis Rand sat at ease, a tall and personable man, with the head of a victor, and a face that had the charm of strength. The eye was keen and dark, the jaw square, the thick brown hair cut short, as was the Republican fashion. His dress was plain but good, worn with a certain sober effect, an "it pleases me," that rendered silk and fine ruffles superfluous. He was listening to a wide-girthed tavern-keeper and old soldier of the Revolution's loud declaration that Lewis Rand was the coming man, and that he was for Lewis Rand. The old county wanted no English-thinking young Federalist in Richmond. "Too many Federalists there a'ready! Mr. Lewis Rand, Mr. Sheriff!"

The Republicans applauded. The custom of the time required that the man voted for should thank the man who voted, and that aloud and aptly, with no slurring acknowledgment of service. Lewis Rand, a born speaker and familiar with his audience, was at no loss. "I thank you, Mr. Fagg! May your shadow never grow less! The old county—Mr. Jefferson's county, gentlemen—may be trusted to hold its own, in Richmond or in Washington, in Heaven or in Hell! Mr. Fagg, I will drink your health in punch of the Eagle's brewing! Your very obliged friend and servant!"

From street and yard without came a noise of cheering, with cries of "Black Cockade! Black Cockade! The party of Washington—Washington forever!—The old county for Cary!—Albemarle for Cary!—The county for a gentleman!"

"Mr. Ludwell Cary has arrived," announced the sheriff.

"Here comes the gentleman!" cried a man from a windowsill. "Stand up, Lewis Rand, and show him a man!"

The throng at the door parted, and with a Federalist and distinguished following the two Carys entered, the elder quiet and smiling, the younger flushed, bright-eyed, and anxious. The attachment between these two brothers was very strong; it was to be seen in every glance that passed between them, in every tone of voice used by each to the other. The elder played fond Mentor, and the younger thought his brother a demi-god. They were men of an old name, an old place, an inherited charm. "Ludwell Cary!" cried a mail. "Long live Ludwell Cary!"

Rand left the Justice's Bench, stepped forward, and greeted his opponent. The two touched hands. "I trust I see you in health, Mr. Cary?"

"Mr. Rand, I thank you, I am very well. You are early in the lists!"

"I am accustomed to early rising," answered Rand. "This morning I have ridden from the Wolf Trap. Will you sit?"

"Ah," said Cary, "I rode from Fontenoy. After you, sir!"

They sat down, side by side, upon the Justice's Bench, the Federalist very easy, the Republican, lacking the perfection of the other's manner, with a stiffness and constraint of which he was aware and which he hated in himself. He knew himself well enough to know that presently, in the excitement of the race, the ugly mantle would slip from the braced athlete, but at the moment he felt his disadvantage. Subtly and slowly, released from some deep, central tarn of his most secret self, a vapour of distaste and dislike began to darken the cells of clear thought. As a boy he had admired and envied Ludwell Cary; for his political antagonist, pure and simple, he had, unlike most around him, often the friendliest feeling; but now, sitting there on the Justice's Bench, he wondered if he were going to hate Cary. Suddenly an image came out of the vapour. "How long has he been at Fontenoy? Does he think he can win there, too?"

The younger Cary marched to the polls with his head held high, and voted loudly for his brother. The latter smiled upon him, and said with simplicity, "Thank you, Fair!" The Republican candidate looked attentively at the young man. The spirit and the fire, subdued in the elder brother, was in the younger as visible as lightning. Rand was quick at divining men, and now he thought, "This man would make a tireless enemy."

Following Fairfax Cary came another of the group who had entered with the Carys. "Mr. Peyton votes for Mr. Ludwell Cary!" cried the sheriff. The Federalists applauded, the Republicans groaned, the tallymen took note, and Cary bowed his thanks. "Mr. Peyton, your very humble servant! Mount Eagle and Greenwood are old comrades-at-arms!"

"I'll kill your vote, Craven Peyton!" came a voice. "I vote, Mr. Sheriff, for Lewis Rand!"

"Ludwell Cary!" cried another, "and there's a killer killed, Dick Carr!"

"I'll draw a bead on you, Gentry!" put in a third. "The best shot in the county, Mr. Sheriff, and that's Lewis Rand!"

"Lewis Rand stands ten ahead!" cried a committee-man; and the sheriff, "Gentlemen, gentlemen! order at the polls!"

A small, wizened man, middle-aged and elaborately dressed in much ancient and tarnished finery, came bowing through the crowd. A curled wig shadowed a narrow face, and lace ruffles fell over long-fingered hands, yellow as old ivory. The entire figure was fantastic, even a little grotesque, though after a pleasant fashion. In a mincing voice and with a strong French accent, M. Achille Pincornet, dancing-master and performer on the violin, intimated that he wished to vote for Mr. Ludwell Cary. Lewis Rand glanced sharply up, then made a sign to a sandy-haired and freckled man who, tally in hand, stood near him.

"I challenge that vote!" cried the man with the tally.

"Mr. Pincornet's vote is challenged!" shouted the sheriff.

"Order, order, gentlemen! Your reason, Mr. Mocket?"

"The gentleman is a Frenchman and not a citizen of the United States! He is not even a citizen of the French Republic! He is an émigré. He has no vote. Mark off his name!"

"Sir!" cried the challenged voter, "I am a de Pincornet, cadet of a house well known in Gascony! If I left France, I left it to find a great and free country, a country where one gentleman may serve another!"

A roar of laughter, led by Mocket, arose from the younger and lower sort of Republicans. "But you do serve, Mr. Pincornet! You teach all the 'Well-born' how to dance!"

"Didn't you teach the Carys? They dance beautifully."

"Are brocaded coats still worn in Gascony?"

"Ne sutor supra crepidam judicaret! Caper all you please on a waxed floor, but leave Virginians to rule!"

Fairfax Cary, hot and angry, put in an oar. "Mr. Sheriff, Mr. Sheriff! Mr. Pincornet has lived these twelve years in Albemarle! We have no more respected, no more esteemed citizen. His vote's as good as any man's—and rather better, I may remark, than that of some men!" He looked pointedly at Mocket.

Lewis Rand gave his henchman a second guiding glance.

"It is merely," said Mocket promptly, "a question of that Alien Law of which the 'Well-born' are so proud. Show your papers, Mr. Pincornet. If you are a citizen of the United States, you have papers to show for it."

"Yes, sir," agreed the sheriff. "That's right, Mr. Mocket. Let me see your papers, Mr. Pincornet."

"Papers, papers! I have no papers!" cried Mr. Pincornet.

"But every gentleman here—and I have no care for the canaille—knows that I live in Albemarle, in a small house between Greenwood and Fontenoy! I have lived there since I left France in the abhorred year of '92, with tears of rage in my eyes! I came to this land, where, seeing that I must eat, and that my dancing was always admired, I said to myself, 'T'enez, Achille, my friend, we will teach these Virginians to dance!' Mr. Fairfax Cary has been my pupil, and it gives me pleasure to vote for his brother to go make the laws for my adopted country—"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pincornet," interrupted the sheriff, "but you have no vote. I'll have to ask you to stand aside."

"Come up here, Mr. Pincornet," said Cary, from the Justice's Bench. "I want to ask you about a gentleman of your name whom I had the honour to meet in London—M. le Vicomte de Pincornet, a very gallant man—"

"That," said the dancing master, "would be my cousin Alexandre. He escaped during the Terror hidden under a load of hay, his son driving in a blouse and red nightcap. Will Mr. Cary honour me?" and out came a tortoise-shell snuff-box.

The voting quickened. "Rand is ahead—Rand is winning!" went from mouth to mouth. Fairfax Cary, caring much where his brother cared little, welcomed impetuously the wave of Federalists which that rumour brought in from the yard and street. "Ha, Mr. Gilmer, Mr. Carter, you are welcome! Who votes? Who votes as General Hamilton and Mr. Adams and Judge Marshall vote? Who votes as Washington would have voted?"

So many crowded to vote as Washington would have voted, that it almost seemed as though his shade might lead the Federalists to victory. But the dead Washington must cope with the living Jefferson; mild monarchism and stately rule with a spirit born of time, nursed by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, grown articulate in the French Revolution, and now full swing toward majority. When thrown, the Democrat-Republicans rose from the earth like Antæus. Much of the gentle blood and many of the prominent men of the county voted for Lewis Rand. Jefferson's personal following of friends and kinsmen was large; these accepted his man as a matter of course, while to the plain men of the county Lewis Rand was more even than the coming man: he was of them; he was a plain man. The clamour and excitement grew. "Here come the Three-Notched Road people!" cried a voice. "They all rolled tobacco with Gideon Rand!"

The Three-Notched Road people voted to a man for the son of Gideon Rand, and were promptly reinforced by a contingent of hot Republicans from the Ragged Mountains. At ten o'clock Lewis Rand was again well ahead, but at this hour there was a sharp rally of the Federalists. A cheering from without announced the arrival of some popular voter, and Colonel Churchill and his brother, Major Edward, and an array of Federalists from the Fontenoy district, entered the Court House.

"The Churchills are coming, Oho! Oho!" sang out a wag perched on the window-sill.

"Not to that tune," roared a Scot from the gallery. "Mon, they're Tories!"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! order at the polls!" shouted the sheriff. "Colonel Churchill, for whom do you vote?"

"I vote, sir," cried the Colonel, "for Mr. Ludwell Cary, for a gentleman and a patriot, sir, and may the old county never be represented but by such!"

"Order, order at the polls! Colonel Churchill votes for Mr. Ludwell Cary! Major Edward Churchill, whom do you vote for?"

"For whom do you suppose, Mr. Sheriff?" said the Major. "For Mr. Ludwell Cary."

Cary rose from the bench and stepped forward to the edge of the platform. "Colonel Dick, Major Edward, I thank you both. May I deserve your confidence and your favour! Fontenoy is as dear to me as Greenwood."

"By God, you shall win, Ludwell!" cried Colonel Dick. "Here's a regiment of us to see you through!"

"Rome hasn't fallen yet," added Major Edward. "I don't hear the geese cackling."

"One's cackling now," smiled Cary, and Mr. Tom Mocket stepped up to the polls.

"It's not a goose; it's a turkey buzzard!"

"It's not feathered at all," said Fairfax Cary. "It's a mangy jackal to a mangy lion."

The young man had spoken loudly and contemptuously. Rand, on the Justice's Bench, and Mocket, in the act of voting, both heard, and both looked his way. Ludwell Cary knit his brows, and meeting his brother's eyes, slightly shook his head. Look and gesture said, "Leave abuse alone, Fair."

Mocket voted for Rand. "I challenge that vote!" cried Major Edward Churchill. "The man's been in prison."

Amid the noise that followed, the Jackal was heard to cry, "It's a lie! Lewis, tell them it's a lie! Major Churchill, you'd better be careful! I was acquitted, and you know it."

"Do I?" answered the Major coolly. "I know that you ought to be making shoes in the penitentiary! Mr. Sheriff, you should really have this courtroom sprinkled with vinegar. There's gaol fever in the air."

"I don't see, Mr. Sheriff," came Rand's voice from the Justice's Bench, "that any more vinegar is needed. Gentlemen, all—whether Federalist or Republican—I was Mr. Mocket's lawyer in the case referred to. Twelve good men and true—men of this county—pronounced him innocent. It is not surprising that my friends the Federalists should wish to gain time,—they are leagued with old Time,—but I protest against their gaining it by such means. This is not a matter of parties; it is a matter of a man being held innocent till he is proved guilty. A hundred men here can testify as to the verdict in this case. Mr. Mocket, gentlemen—" He paused and regarded the sandy-haired and freckled Tom, the brother of little Vinie, the sometime door-boy in Chancellor Wythe's law office, with a smile so broadly humorous, humane, and tolerant, that suddenly the courtroom smiled with him. "Tom Mocket, gentlemen, is a scamp, but he's not a scoundrel! The election proceeds, Mr. Sheriff."

"I vote for Lewis Rand!" shouted the scamp out of the uproar. "Richmond now, then Washington! We'll send Lewis Rand as high as he can go!"

"As high as the gallows!" growled Major Edward Churchill.

"Send him," said a voice in the doorway, "out West. Mr. Jefferson gained Louisiana, but 'twill take a stronger man to gain Mexico. Mexico wants a Buonaparte."

The day wore on with no lessening of heat and clamour. The Court House becoming too full, men betook themselves to the yard or to the street, where, mounted on chairs or on wagons from which the horses had been taken, they harangued their fellows. Public speaking came easily to this race. To-day good liquor and emulation pricked them on, and the spring in the blood. Under the locusts to the right of the gate Federalists apostrophized Washington, lauded Hamilton, the Judiciary, and the beauty of the English Constitution, denounced the French, denounced the Louisiana Purchase, denounced the Man of the People, and his every tool and parasite, and lifted to the skies the name of Ludwell Cary. To the left of the gate, under the locusts, the Republicans praised the President of the United States and all his doings, and poured oblation to Lewis Rand. From side to side of the path there were alarms and incursions. Before noon there had occurred a number of hand-to-hand fights, one, at least, accompanied by "gouging," and a couple of duels had been arranged.

In the courtroom the parties jostled each other at the polls, and the candidates, side by side upon the Justice's Bench, watched the day go now this way and now that. Their partisans they must acceptably thank, and they must be quick of wit with their adversaries. Fatigue did not count, nor hoarseness from much speaking, nor an undercurrent of consciousness that there were, after all, more parties than two, more principles than those they advocated, more colours than black and white, more epithets than hero and villain. They must act in their moment, and accept its excitement. A colour burned in their cheeks, and the hair lay damp upon their foreheads. They must listen and answer to men saying loudly to their faces and before other men, "I hold with you, and your mind is brother to my mind"; or saying, "I hold not with you, and you and your mind are abominable to me! To outer darkness with you both!"

Sometimes they consulted with their committee-men, and sometimes punch was brought, and they drank with their friends. Occasionally they spoke to each other; when they did this, it was with extreme courtesy. Cary used the buttoned foil with polished ease. Rand's manner was less assured; there was something antique and laboured in his determined grasp at the amenities of the occasion. It was the only heaviness. To the other contest between them he brought an amazing sureness, a suppleness, power, and audacity beyond praise. He directed his battle, and at his elbow Tom Mocket, sandy-haired and ferret-eyed, did him yeoman service.

At one o'clock there was an adjournment for dinner. The principal Federalists betook themselves to the Swan; the principal Republicans to the Eagle. The commonalty ate from the packed baskets upon the trampled grass of the Court House yard. An hour later, when the polls were reopened, men returned to them flushed with drink and in the temper for a quarrel, the Republicans boisterous over a foreseen victory, the Federalists peppery from defeat. In the yard the constable had to part belligerents, in the courtroom the excitement mounted. The tide was set now for Lewis Rand. The Federalists watched it with angry eyes; the Republicans greeted with jubilation each new wave. The defeated found some relief in gibes. "Holoa! here's Citizen Bonhomme—red breeches, cockade, and Brutus crop!

"That man ran away from Tarleton!—yes, you did, the very day that Mr. Jefferson—a-hem!—absented himself from Monticello!"

"Challenge that man—he deserted in the Indian War!

"November the fourth, in the year ninety-one,
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson!"

"Here's a traveller who has seen the mammoth and climbed the Salt Mountain!"

"Here's a tobacco-roller! Hey, my man, don't you miss old friends on the road?"

Under cover of the high words, laughter, and vituperation which made a babel of the courtroom, Cary spoke to his opponent. "Mr. Rand, do you remember that frosty morning, long ago, when you and I first met? I came upon you in the woods, and together we gathered chinquapins. Does it seem long to you since you were a boy?"

"Long enough!" answered Rand. "I remember that day very well."

"We told each other our names, I remember, and what each meant to do in the world. We hardly foresaw this day." "It is not easy to foresee," said Rand slowly. "If we could, we might—"

"We might foresee our last meeting," smiled Cary, "as we remember our first." He took a glass of wine from a passing servant and put it to his lips, "To another meeting, in the wood!" he said, "since I may not quite drink to your victory."

"Ah, my victory!" answered Rand. "When I have it, I don't know that I shall care for it! That's a handsome youth, your brother—and he has worked for you like a Trojan! I'll drink to your brother!"

"Here are the Green Spring folk!" cried a voice. "They always vote like gentlemen!"

The Green Spring folk were a squadron, and they voted Cary again within sight of the goal. A man who had been standing just without the open door rested his long musket against the wall and advanced to the polls. "Last time I voted here," he said, "'twas for Mr. Jefferson. I reckon I'll have to vote to-day for Lewis Rand."

A tumult arose. "Adam Gaudylock belongs upon the Mississippi!—He isn't an Albemarle man!—He's a Kentuck—He's a Louisianian—He's a subject of Jefferson's new kingdom!—Challenged!—He can't vote in Albemarle!"

The hunter waited for the uproar to cease. "You Federalists are mighty poor shots!" he exclaimed at last. "You make no account of the wind. I am subject of no man's kingdom. I trade in New Orleans, and I travel on the great rivers, and I've friends in Kentucky, and I hunt where the hunting's good, but when I want to vote I come back to my own county where I was born, and where I grew up among you all, and where I've yet a pretty piece of land between here and the mountains. I voted here before, and I'll vote here again. The Gaudylocks may wander and wander, but their home is on the Three-Notched Road, and they vote in Albemarle."

The vote standing, and Adam being followed by a string of hunters, traders, and boatmen, the Republican candidate was again and finally in advance. The winds blew for him from the four quarters. In the last golden light of the afternoon there was a strong and sudden muster of Republicans. From all directions stragglers appeared, voice after voice proclaiming for the man who, regarded at first as merely a protégé of Jefferson, had come in the last two years to be regarded for himself. The power in him had ceased to be latent, and friend and foe were beginning to watch Lewis Rand and his doings with intentness.

As the sun set behind the Ragged Mountains, the polls closed, and the sheriff proclaimed the election of the Republican candidate.

The Court House was quickly emptied, nor was the Court House yard far behind. The excitement had spent itself. The result, after all, had been foreknown. It drew on chilly with the April dusk, and men were eager to be at home, seated at their supper-tables, going over the day with captured friends and telling the women the news. On wheels, on horseback or afoot, drunk and sober, north, south, east, and west, they cantered, rolled, and trudged away from the brick Court House and the trampled grass, and the empty bowls beneath the locust trees.

The defeated candidate and the successful shook hands: Cary quiet and smiling, half dignified and half nonchalant; Rand with less control and certainty of himself. The one said with perfection the proper things, the other said them to the best of his ability. Young Fairfax Cary, standing by, twisting his riding-whip with angry fingers, curled his lip at the self-made man's awkwardness of phrase. Rand saw the smile, but went on with his speech. Colonel Churchill, who had been talking with Adam Gaudylock, left the hunter and came up to Cary. "Ludwell, you and Fair are not going to Greenwood to-night! I have orders from the ladies to bring you back to Fontenoy—alive or dead!"

"I find myself very much alive, Colonel!" answered Cary. "Thank you, I'll gladly spend the night at Fontenoy. Fontenoy would draw me, I think, if I were dead!"

"Dick has a middling Madeira," remarked Major Edward. "And after supper Jacqueline shall sing to us. Good-evening, Mr. Rand!"

"Good-evening to you, Major Churchill," said Rand. "Good-evening, Mr. Cary. Good-evening, gentlemen!"

"Here are Eli and Mingo with the horses," said Fairfax Cary, his back to the Republican. "Let's away, Ludwell!"

Colonel Churchill laughed. "Fontenoy draws you too, Fairfax? Well, my niece Unity is a pleasing minx—yes, by gad! Miss Dandridge is a handsome jade! Come away, come away, gentlemen!"

Federalists and Republicans exchanged the stiffest of bows, and the party for Fontenoy mounted and took the road. The Republicans whom they left behind had a few moments of laughter and jubilation, and then they also quitted the Court House yard and called to the servants for the horses.

"You'll spend the night at Edgehill, I hope, Mr. Rand?" cried one. "Mrs. Randolph expects you—she will wish to write to her father of your day—"

"No, no, come with me!" put in another. "There's all this business to talk over—and I've a letter to show you from Mr. Madison—"

"Best come to the Eagle!" cried a third. "No end of jolly fellows, and bumpers to next year—"

Rand shook his head. "Thank you, Colonel Randolph—but I am riding to Monticello. Mr. Jefferson has written for some papers from the library. Burwell will care for me to-night. Present, if you will, my humble services to Mrs. Randolph and the young ladies. By the same token I cannot go with you, Mr. Carr, nor to the Eagle, Mr. Jones.—My grateful thanks to you, one and all, gentlemen! I am a plain man—I can say no more. We will ride together as far as the creek."

The negro Joab brought his horse, a magnificent animal, the gift of Jefferson. He mounted and the party kept together as far as the creek, where their ways parted. Rand checked his horse, said good-bye, and watched the gentlemen who had given him their support ride cheerfully away toward the light of home. He himself was waiting for Adam Gaudylock, who was going with him to Monticello. After a moment's thought he decided not to wait there beside the creek, but to turn his horse and leave a message for Tom Mocket at a house which he had passed five minutes before.

MONTICELLO

The house, a low frame one, stood back from the road, in a tangle of old, old flowering shrubs. Rand drew rein before the broken gate, and a young woman in a linsey gown rose from the porch step and came down the narrow path toward him. She carried an earthenware pitcher and cup. "It's water just from the well," she said, "fresh and cool. Won't you have some?"

"Yes, I will," answered Rand. "Vinie, why don't you mend that gate?"

"I don't know, thir," said Vinie. "Tom's always going to."

Rand laughed. "Don't call me 'thir'! Vinie, I'm elected."

Vinie set down her pitcher beside a clump of white phlox and wiped her hands on the skirt of her linsey dress. "Are you going away to Richmond?" she asked.

"Not until October. When I do I'll go see the little old house you used to live in, Vinie!"

"It's torn down," remarked Vinie soberly. "Here's Tom now, and—and—"

"Adam Gaudylock. Don't you remember Adam?"

The hunter and Tom Mocket came up together. "We beat them! we beat them, hey, Lewis!" grinned the scamp; and Gaudylock cried, "Why, if here isn't the little partridge again! Don't you want to see what I've got in my pouch?"

"Yeth, thir," said Vinie.

Rand and his lieutenant talked together in a low voice, Mocket leaning against black Selim's neck, Rand stooping a little, and with earnestness laying down the law of the case. They talked for ten minutes, and then Rand gathered up the reins, asked for another cup of water, and with a friendly "Good-bye, Vinie!" rode off toward Monticello, Adam Gaudylock going with him.

Brother and sister watched the riders down the road until the gathering dark and the shadow of the trees by the creek hid them from sight. "Just wait long enough and we'll see what we see," quoth Tom. "Lewis Rand's going to be a great man!"

"How great?" asked Vinie. "Not as great as Mr. Jefferson?"

"I don't know," the scamp answered sturdily. "He might be. One thing's certain, anyhow; he's not built like Mr. Madison or Mr. Monroe. He'll not be content to travel the President's road always. He'll have a road all his own." The scamp's imagination, not usually lively, bestirred itself under the influence of the day, of wine, and the still audible sound of horses' hoofs. "By George, Vinie! it will be a Roman road, hard, paved, and fit for triumphs! He thinks it won't, but he's mistaken. He doesn't see himself!"

Vinie took the pitcher from beneath the white phlox. "It's getting dark. Tom, aren't we ever going to have that gate mended?—He's going away to Richmond in October."

The successful candidate and Adam Gaudylock, followed by Joab on a great bay horse, crossed Moore's Creek, and took the Monticello road. A red light yet burned in the west, but the trees were dark along the way, and the hollows filled with shadow. The dew was falling, the evening dank and charged with perfume.

"I asked you to come with me," said Rand, "because I wanted to talk to some one out of the old life. Mocket's out of the old life too, he and Vinie. But—" he laughed. "They're afraid of me. Vinie calls me 'thir.'"

"Well, I'm not afraid of you," Adam said placidly. "No one at home at Monticello?"

"No, but Burwell keeps a room in readiness. I am often there on errands for Mr. Jefferson. Well, how go matters west of the mountains?"

"Christmas I spent at Louisville," answered Gaudylock, "and then went down the river to New Orleans. The city's like a hive before swarming. There are more boats at its wharves than buds on yonder Judas tree. And back from the river the cotton's blooming now."

"Ah!" said Rand, "I should like to see that land! When you have done a thing, Adam, a thing that you have striven with all your might to do, does it at once seem to you a small thing to have done? It does to me—tasteless, soulless, and poor, not worth a man's while. Where lies the land of satisfaction?"

"No," answered Adam, "I don't look at things that way. But then I'm not ambitious. Last year, in New Orleans, I watched a man gaming. He won a handful of French crowns. 'Ha!' says he, 'they glittered, but they do not glitter now! Again!'—and this time he won doubloons. 'We'll double these,' says he, and so they did, and he won. 'This is a small matter,' he said. We'll play for double-eagles,' and so they did, and he won. 'Haven't you a tract of sugar-canes?' says he. 'Money's naugh. Let us play for land!' and he won the sugar-canes. 'That girl, that red-lipped Jeanne of thine, that black eye in the Street of Flowers—I'll play for her! Deal the cards!' But he never won the girl, and he lost the sugar-canes and the gold."

"A man walks forward, or he walks backward. There's no standing still in this world or the next. Where were you after New Orleans, before you turned homeward?"

"At Mr. Blennerhassett's island in the Ohio. And that's a pleasant place and a pleasant gentleman—"

"Listen!"

"Aye," answered the other; "I heard it some moments back. Some one is fiddling beyond that tulip tree."

They were now ascending the mountain, moving between great trees, fanned by a cooler wind than had blown in the valley. The road turned, showing them a bit of roadside grass, a giant tulip tree, and a vision of a moon just rising in the east. Upon a log, beneath the tree, appeared the dim brocade and the curled wig of M. Achille Pincornet, resting in the twilight and solacing his soul with the air of "Madelon Friquet." Around him sparkled the fireflies, and above were the thousand gold cups of the tulip tree. His bow achieved a long tremolo; he lowered the violin from his chin, stood up, and greeted the travellers.

"That was a pretty air, Mr. Pincornet," said Rand. "Why are you on the Monticello road? Your next dancing class is at Fontenoy."

"And how did you know that, sir?" demanded the Frenchman in his high, thin voice. As he spoke, he restored his fiddle to its case with great care, then as carefully brushed all leaf and mould from his faded silken clothes.

"I know—I know," replied Rand. He regarded the figure in dusty finery with a certain envy of any one who was going to Fontenoy, even as dancing master, even as a man no longer young. Mr. Pincornet looked, in the twilight, very pinched, very grey, very hungry. "Come on with me to Monticello," said the young man. "Burwell will give us supper, and find us a couple of bottles to boot."

"Sir," answered the Frenchman stiffly, but with an inner vision of Monticello cheer, "I would not vote for you—"

Rand laughed. "I bear no malice, Mr. Pincornet. Opinion's but opinion. I'll cut no traveller's throat because he likes another road than mine! Come, come! Fish from the river, cakes and coffee, Mr. Pincornet—and afterwards wine on the terrace!"

The road climbed on. Between the stems of the tall trees, feathered with the green of mid-spring, the dogwood displayed its stars, and the fringe tree rose like a fountain. Everywhere was the sound of wind in the leaves. When the riders and the dancing master, who was afoot, reached the crest of the little mountain, shaven and planed by the hand of man into a fair plateau, the moon was shining brightly. In the silver light, across the dim lawns, classically simple, grave, and fair, rose the house that Jefferson had built. The gate clanged behind the party from Charlottesville, a dog barked, a light flared, voices of negroes were heard, and hurrying feet from the house quarter. Upon the lawn to the right and left of the mansion were two toy houses, tiny brick offices used by Jefferson for various matters. The door of one of these now opened, and Mr. Bacon, the overseer, hastening across the wet grass, greeted Rand and Gaudylock as they dismounted before the white portico.

"Evening, evening, Mr. Rand! I knew you'd be coming up, so I hurried on afore ye. Cæsar and Joab, you take the horses round! Glad to see you, Adam; you too, Mr. Pincornet! Well, Mr. Rand, you spoiled the Egyptians this day! I never saw a finer election! Me and Mr. Fagg were talking of you. 'His father was a fighter before him,' says Mr. Fagg, says he, 'and he's a fighter, too, damn him!' says he, 'and we'll send him higher yet. Damn the Federalists!' says he. 'He's a taller man than Ludwell Cary!'"

"I'm a mighty hungry man, Mr. Bacon," said Rand. "And so is Adam, and so is Mr. Pincornet! You'll take supper with us, I hope? We'll make Adam Gaudylock tell us stories of Louisiana."

"Thank'ee, Mr. Rand, I will. Your room's all ready, sir, and Burwell shall bring you a julep. I reckon you're pretty tired. Lord! I'd rather clear a mountain side and then plough it, than to have to sit there all day on that there Justice's Bench and listen to them Federalists! They're a lot! And that Fairfax Cary—he's a chip of the old block, he surely is! He'd have gone through fire to-day to see his brother win. This way, gentlemen! Sally'll have supper ready in a jiffy. I smell the coffee now. Well, well, Mr. Rand! to think of the way you used to trudge up here all weathers, snow or storm or hot sun, just for a book—and now you come riding in on Selim, elected to Richmond, over the heads of the Carys! Life's queer, ain't it? We'll hear of you at Fontenoy next!"

Rand smiled. "Life's not so queer as that, Mr. Bacon. I wish you might—" he broke off.

"Might what?" asked Bacon.

"Hear of me at Fontenoy," answered Rand, and entered the wide hall as one who was at home there. "I'll go bathe my face and hands," he said, and turned into the passage that led to the bedrooms.

A tall clock struck the hour, a bell rang cheerfully, and Burwell flung open the dining-room door. Rand, entering a moment later, found the overseer, the hunter, and the dancing master awaiting him. With a nod and a "Ha, Burwell!" for the old servant, he took his place at the table, and he took it like a prince, throwing his tall, vigorous figure into the armchair which marked the head of the board, seating himself before the other and older men. In the wave of his hand toward the three remaining places there was a condescension not the less remarkable that it was entirely unconscious. The life within him was moving with great rapidity. It was becoming increasingly natural for him to act, simply, without thought, as his inner man bade. What yesterday was uneasiness, and to-day seemed assurance, was apt by to-morrow to attain convincingness. It was not that he appeared to value himself too highly. Instead, he made no attempt at valuation; he went his way like wind or wave. He took the armchair at the head of the Monticello table with the simplicity of a child, and the bearing of a general who sups with his officers after a victorious field.

The unfolding of the petal was not missed by his companions. Adam Gaudylock, with a glance, half shrewd and half affectionate, for the man whom he had known from boyhood, sank into the opposite seat with a light and happy laugh. It mattered little to Adam where he sat in life, provided that it was before a window. The overseer, a worthy, plain man, had a thought of old Gideon Rand, but, remembering in time Mr. Jefferson's high opinion of the man now occupying his chair, sat down and unfolded his damask napkin with great care. Mr. Pincornet, indeed, raised his eyebrows and made a backward movement from the table, but at that moment a mulatto boy appeared with a plate of waffles. The light from the wax candles burned, too, in certain crimson decanters. "Sit down, sit down, Mr. Pincornet!" said Rand, and the dancing master took the remaining place.

An hour later Rand pushed back his heavy chair and rose from the table, ending the meal with as little ceremony as he had used in beginning it. "I shall go write to Mr. Jefferson," he announced, as the four passed into the hall. "You, Adam, what will you do?"

"First I'll smoke and then I'll sleep," said Adam. The moonlight streamed in upon them through the open hall door. "I'll smoke outside. That's a southern moon.

"Kiss me, kiss me, flower o' night!
Madelon!
'Ware the voices, 'ware the light!
Madelon!

"Will you smoke with me, Mr. Bacon? I'd like to try the Monticello leaf."

"I have to go to the quarters for a bit," answered the overseer. "There's sickness there. I'll join you later, Mr. Gaudylock."

He went whistling away. Adam sat down upon the broad steps whitened by the moon, filled his pipe, struck a spark from his flint and steel, and was presently enveloped in fragrant smoke. The dancing-master, hesitating somewhat disconsolately in the hall, at last went also into the moonlight, where he walked slowly up and down upon the terrace, his thin, beruffled hands clasped behind his old brocaded coat. What with the moonlight and the ancient riches of his apparel, and a certain lost and straying air, he had the seeming of a phantom from some faint, bewigged, perfumed, and painted past.

Lewis Rand paused for a moment before the door, and looked out upon the splendid night, then turned and passed into the library, where he called for candles, and, sitting down at a desk, began to write. His letter was to the President of the United States, and it was written freely and boldly. "'Twas thus they did—'twas so I did. We won, and I am glad; they lost, and that also is to my liking. As the party owes its victory to your name and your power, so I owe my personal victory to your ancient and continued kindness. May my name be abhorred if ever I forget it! The Federalists mustered strongly. Mr. Ludwell Cary is extremely 'well born,' and that younger brother of his is—I know not why, he troubles me. There is a breath of the future about him, and it breathes cold. Well! I have fought and I have won. 'Let the blast of the desert come: I shall be renowned in my day!' To-night, you see, I quote Ossian. The moon is flooding the terrace. Were you here in your loved home, we would talk together. Adam Gaudylock is with me. Lately he was in Louisiana, and then with a Mr. Blennerhassett upon the Ohio. General Wilkinson is at New Orleans. The Spaniards are leaving, the French well affected. The mighty tide of our people has topped the mountains and is descending into those plains of the Mississippi made ours by your prophetic vision and your seizure of occasion. The First Consul is a madman! He has sold to us an Empire! Empire! Emperor—Emperor of the West! The sound is stately. You laugh. We are citizens of a republic. Well! I am content. I aspire no higher. I am not Buonaparte. Your lilies are budding beneath the windows; the sweet williams are all in bloom. I have little news for you of town or country—Mrs. Randolph, doubtless, sends you all. Work goes on upon the church. For me, I worship in the fields with the other beasts of burden or of prey. The wheat looks well, and there will be this year a great yield of apples. Major Churchill's Mustapha won at Winchester. Colonel Churchill has cleared a large tract of woods behind Fontenoy and will use it for tobacco. I rode by his plant bed the other day, and the leaf is prime. I am a judge of tobacco. They are bitter, the Fontenoy men. Mr. Ludwell Cary will, I suppose, remain in the county. He is altering and refurnishing Greenwood. I suppose that he will marry. The rains have been frequent this spring, the roads heavy and the rivers turbid. The stream is much swollen by my house on the Three-Notched Road. We hear that the feeling grows between General Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Should the occasion arise, pray commend me to the latter, whose acquaintance I had the honour to make last year when I visited New York. There, if you please, is a spirit restless and audacious! The mill on the Rockfish is grinding this spring. The murder case of which I wrote you will be tried next court day. One Fitch killed one Thomas Dole in North Garden; knocked at his door one night, called him out, and shot him down. Dole had thwarted Fitch in some project or other. I am retained by the State, and I mean to hang Fitch. Adam Gaudylock says there is a region of the Mississippi where the cotton grows taller than a man's head. We may find our gold of Ophir in that plant. To-night I am a victor. I salute you, so much oftener than I a victor! But victory is a mirage: this that I thought so fair is but a piece of the desert; the magnum bonum shines, looms, and beckons still ahead! Had I been defeated, I believe I should have been in better spirits. Now to the papers which you desired me to read and comment upon: I find—"

The quill travelled on, conveying to sheet after sheet the opinion upon certain vexed questions of a very able lawyer. The analysis was keen, the reasoning just, the judgment final, the advice sound. The years since that determinative hour in the Richmond book-shop had been well harvested. The paper when he had finished it would have pleased the ideal jurist.

He wrote until the clock struck ten; then folded, sealed, and superscribed his letter, pushed back the heavy hair from his forehead, and rose from the desk. The long windows opened upon the terrace, and through them came the moonbeams and the fragrance of the April night—music too, for Mr. Pincornet was playing the violin. The young man extinguished the candles, and stepped into the silvery world without the room. Adam Gaudylock had disappeared, and the overseer was gone to bed. Lights were out in the quarters; the house was as still and white as a mansion in a fairy tale. Mr. Pincornet was no skilled musician, but the air he played was old and sweet, and it served the hour. Below their mountain-top lay the misty valleys; to the east the moon-flooded plains; to the west the far line of the Blue Ridge. The night was cloudless.

Rand stood with his hands upon the balustrade, then walked down the terrace and paused before the dancing master. "Before he hurt his hand Mr. Jefferson played the violin beautifully," he said. "When I was younger, in the days when I tried to do everything that he did, I tried to learn it too. But I have no music in me."

"It is a solace," answered Mr. Pincornet. "I learned long ago, in the South."

"I like the harp," announced Rand abruptly.

"It is a becoming instrument to a woman," replied Mr. Pincornet, and in a somewhat ghostly fashion became vivacious. "Ah, a rounded arm, a white hand, the rise and fall of a bosom behind the gold wires—and the notes like water dropping, sweet, sweet! Ah, I, too, like the harp!"

"I have never heard it but twice," said Rand, and turned again to the balustrade. Below him lay the vast and shadowy landscape. Here and there showed a light—a pale earth-star shining from grey hill or vale. Rand looked toward Fontenoy, and he looked wistfully. Behind him the violin was telling of the springtime; from the garden came the smell of the syringas; the young man's desire was toward a woman. "Is she playing her harp to-night? is she playing to Ludwell Cary?"

"Belle saison de ma jeunesse—
Beaux jours du printemps!"

sang the violin. A shot sounded near the house. Adam Gaudylock emerged from the shadow of the locust trees and crossed the moonlit lawn below the terrace. "I've shot that night-hawk. He'll maraud no more," he said, and passed on toward his quarter for the night.

Rand made a motion as if to follow, then checked himself. It was late, and it had been a day of strife, but his iron frame felt no fatigue and his mood was one of sombre exaltation. What was the use of going to bed, of wasting the moonlit hours? He turned to the Frenchman. "Play me," he commanded, "a conquering air! Play me the Marseillaise!"

Mr. Pincornet started violently. Down came the fiddle from his chin, the bow in his beruffled hand cut the air with a gesture of angry repudiation. When he was excited he forgot his English, and he now swore volubly in French; then, recovering himself, stepped back a pace, and regarded with high dudgeon his host of the night. "Sir," he cried, "before I became a dancing master I was a French gentleman! I served the King. I will teach you to dance, but—Morbleu!—I will not play you the Marseillaise!"

"I beg your pardon," said Rand. "I forgot that you could not be a Republican. Well, play me a fine Royalist air."

"Are you so indifferent?" asked the dancing master, not without a faded scorn. "Royalist or Republican—either air?"

"Indifferent?" repeated Rand. "I don't know that I am indifferent. Open-minded, perhaps,—though I don't know that that is calling it rightly. The airs the angels sing, and the thundering march of the damned through hell—why should I not listen to them both? I don't believe in hell, nor much in angels, save one, but I like the argument. Mr. Pincornet, I don't want to sleep. Suppose—suppose you teach me a minuet?"

He laughed as he spoke, but he spoke in earnest. "Knowledge! I want all kinds of knowledge. I know law, and I know what to do with a jury, and I know tobacco—worse luck!—but I don't know the little things, the little gracious things that—that make a man liked. If I were a Federalist, and if I didn't know so much about tobacco, I would go, Mr. Pincornet, to your dancing class at Fontenoy!" He laughed again. "I can't do that, can I? The Churchills would all draw their swords. Come! I have little time and few chances to acquire that which I have longed for always,—the grace of life. Teach me how to enter a drawing-room; how to—how to dance with a lady!"

His tone, imperious when he demanded the Marseillaise, was now genial, softened to a mellow persuasiveness. Mr. Pincornet shrugged his shoulders. He had been offended, but he was not unmagnanimous, and he had a high sense of the importance of his art. He had seen in France what came of uncultivated law-givers. If a man wanted knowledge, far be it from Achille de Pincornet to withhold his handful! "You cannot learn in a night," he said, "but I will show you the steps."

"I can manage a country dance, a reel or Congo," said Rand simply. "I want to know politer things."

They left the terrace, went into the drawing-room, and lit the candles. The floor, rubbed each morning until it shone, gave back the heart-shaped flames. The slight furniture they pushed aside. The dancing master tucked his violin under his chin, drew the bow across the strings, and began the lesson.

The candles burned clear, strains of the minuet de la cour rose and fell in the ample room, the member from Albemarle and Mr. Pincornet stepped, bent, and postured with the gravity of Indian sachems. The one moved through the minuet in top-boots and riding-coat, the other taught in what had been a red brocade. Rand, though tall and largely built, moved with the step and carriage, light and lithe, of one who has used the woods; the Frenchman had the suppleness of his profession and of an ancient courtier. Now they bowed one to the other, now each to an imaginary lady. Mr. Pincornet issued directions in the tone of a general ordering a charge, his pupil obeyed implicitly. In the silent house, raised high on a mountain-top above a sleeping world, in the lit room with many open windows, through which poured the fragrance of spring, they practised until midnight the minuet de la cour. The hour struck; they gravely ceased to dance, and after five minutes spent in mutual compliments, closed the long windows and put out the superfluous lights, then said good-night, and, bedroom candle in hand, repaired each to his own chamber. Rand had risen at dawn, and his day had been a battlefield, but before he lay down in the dimity-hung, four-post bed he sat long at the window of his small, white, quiet room. The moon shone brightly; the air was soft and sweet. In the distance a lamb bleated, then all was still again. The young man rested his chin on his hand, and studied the highest stars. That day a milestone had been passed. He saw his road stretching far, far before him, and he saw certain fellow travellers, but the companion whom his heart cried for he could not see.

"Her way and mine are far apart—are far apart. I had better marry Vinie Mocket." He spoke half aloud and with bitterness, looking from the window toward Fontenoy. Suddenly the water smarted in his eyes, and he stretched out his arms. "Oh, pardon, love!" he whispered, "I love but you—and I'll love you to the end!" His fancy dwelt on Fontenoy. It was for him enchanted land, the sleeping palace, strongly hedged. "But I am not the appointed man," he thought. "I am a pauper, and no prince. It is Ludwell Cary that goes in and out."

RAND COMES TO FONTENOY

"I never dance but by candlelight," remarked Unity. "A Congo in the heat of the afternoon, a jig before sunset,—la! I had rather plough by moonlight. As well be a grasshopper in a daisy field! Elegance by waxlight becomes rusticity in the sunshine,—and of all things I would not be rustic! Oh, Mr. Cary, I've caught my gown in this rosebush!"

Mr. Fairfax Cary knelt to release the muslin prisoner. "Rusticity becomes you so that if I were a king, you should dance with me the livelong day. But I'll not grumble if only you'll dance with me as soon as the candles are lit! Last night you were all for that booby, Ned Hunter!"

"He's no booby," said Miss Dandridge. "He is bashful—though, indeed, I think he is only bashful in company! We sat on the porch, and he told me the long history of his life."

"Confound his impudence—"

"Oh, it was interesting as—as the Mysteries of Udolpho! You are a long time over that briar, Mr. Cary. There! thank you! Listen to Mr. Pincornet's fiddle. Scrape, scrape, scrape! The children are dancing, and Jacqueline is helping them. Jacqueline is always helping some one. But Mr. Pincornet thinks it is because she is in love with him. He is sorry for her because he rather prefers me. I am in love with him too. So is Molly Carter, so is Anne Page, and so will be little Deb as soon as she is old enough. He is fifty, and French, and a dancing master, and he wears an old, old, lace cravat and a powdered wig! When are we going back to the house, Mr. Cary?"

"Let us walk a little farther!" pleaded the gentleman. "It is cool and pleasant, with no fuss, and no Ned Hunter, with the history of his life, confound him! Other men have histories as well as he! Your gown looks so pretty against the leaves. Let us walk down to the lower gate."

Unity pursed her red lips, and considered the distance with velvety black eyes. "I have on my dancing shoes,—but perhaps you will help me across the brook!"

"I will," declared Fairfax Cary, and, when the brook was reached, was as good as his word.

"I shall tell Uncle Dick to put safer stepping-stones," quoth Miss Dandridge, with heightened colour. "How thick the mint grows here! We are at the gate, Mr. Cary."

"Let us walk to the bend of the road! The wild honeysuckle is in bloom there; I noticed it riding to Charlottesville the other morning. It is just the colour of your gown."

"Then it must be beautiful," said Miss Dandridge, "for this rose-coloured muslin came from London. Ah, you looked so angry and so beaten on Wednesday, when you came back from Charlottesville!"

"I was not angry, and I was not beaten."

"Fie! You mean that your brother was."

"I mean nothing of the kind!" cried the younger Cary hotly. "My brother, at the importunity of his friends, and for the good of the county, consented to stand against this pet of Jefferson's, this—this vaurien Lewis Rand. Some one had to stand. He knew what the result would be. 'Twas but a skirmish—just a seat in a tri-colour Republican House of Delegates! My faith! the honour's not great. But wait awhile, Miss Dandridge! The real battle's not yet. Beaten! Rands, Miss Dandridge, don't beat Carys!"

"La, so warm!" exclaimed Unity. "I have never seen a man love a brother so!"

"Ludwell Cary is worthy of any man's love—or any woman's either!"

"The pair of you ought to be put in the wax-works, and labelled 'The Loving Brothers.' When you marry, there'll be no love left for your wife."

"Just you try and see."

"The man whom I marry," said Miss Dandridge, "must have no thought but for me. He must swoon if I frown, laugh if I smile, weep if I sigh, be altogether desperate if I look another way. I am like Falkland in The Rivals. Heigho! this is the bend of the road, Mr. Cary."

"I am altogether desperate when you look another way. When you looked at Ned Hunter last night, I wanted to blow his brains out. He hasn't any, but I should like to try."

"Then you would have been hanged for murder," remarked Miss Dandridge. "Think how terrible that would be for us all!—Did you know that Mr. Hunter once dined with General Washington?"

"You are a royal coquette. See, there is the honeysuckle! If I gather it for you, will you wear one spray to-night?"

"It is a very stiff flower," said Unity thoughtfully, "and I have an idea that Mr. Hunter will bring me violets. But—I will see if I can find a place for one small spray."

She sat down upon a fallen tree, took her round chin into her hand, and studied the point of her morocco shoe, while her cavalier, not without detriment to his pumps and silk stockings, scrambled up the red bank to the rosy flowers.

The honeysuckles did not grow upon the main road, but upon a rough and narrow cross-country track, little used except by horsemen pressed for time. Now, clear through the still afternoon, a sound of hoofs gave warning that riders were coming down the steep and dangerous hill beyond the turn. Unity looked up with interest, and Fairfax Cary paused with his hand upon a coral bough. Suddenly there was a change in the beat, then a frightened shout, and a sound of rolling stones and a wild clatter of hoofs. Unity sprang to her feet; Cary came down the bank at a run, tossed her his armful of blossoms, and was in the middle of the road in time to seize by the bridle the riderless horse which came plunging around the bend.

Fairfax Cary was strong, the black horse not quite mad with terror, and the man mastered the brute. "Whose is he?" he asked. "If you will hold him—he is quite quiet now—I will go see."

A negro came panting around the turn. "Gawd-a-moughty, marster! did you cotch dat horse? You, Selim, I's gwine lam' you, I's gwine teach you er lesson—dancin' roun' on yo' two foots 'cause you sees er scrap of paper! R'arin' an' pitchin' an' flingin' white folks on er heap of stones! I'll larn you! Yo' marster was a-dreamin', or you'd never th'owed him! You jes wait twel I git you home! Marse Fairfax Cary, dis debbil done th'owed my marster, an' he lyin' by de roadside, an' I don' know whether he live or daid!"

"I know you now," exclaimed the younger Cary. "You're Mr. Lewis Rand's servant. Hadn't you better stay here, Miss Dandridge, until I see what really is the matter? Here, boy, stop chattering your teeth! Your master's not killed. Was it at the top of the hill?"

"Halfway down, Marse Fairfax, whar de footpath goes down through de papaw bushes. Joab'll show you."

"I'm coming too," said Miss Dandridge. "I'll lead Selim."

Without more ado the four rounded the bend of the road and began to climb the hill. Halfway up, as Joab had stated, they found their man. He lay beside the papaw bushes, among the loose stones, and he lay very still. One arm was doubled under him. His head was thrown back, and his brown hair was matted with blood.

"Oh!" cried Unity pitifully, and went down upon her knees beside the unfortunate.

Cary examined the cut in the head. "Well, he's not dead, but he's had a pretty fall! What's to be done? Joab—"

"Joab," commanded Miss Dandridge, "ride straight to Fontenoy and tell Colonel Dick to send Big Jim and a couple of men with the old litter!—and then ride to Charlottesville and bring Dr. Gilmer—"

"Are you going to take him to Fontenoy?" asked the younger Cary.

"Why not?" flashed Miss Dandridge. "Would you leave him to bleed to death by the roadside? 'My enemy's dog—' and so forth. Hurry, Joab!"

The negro mounted his horse that had been grazing by the papaw bushes, and was off at a gallop, leaving Unity and Cary with the luckless rider. Cary brought water from the brook that brawled at the foot of the steep hillside, and Unity wet the brow and lips of the unconscious man, but he had given no sign of life when the relief party arrived from Fontenoy. This consisted of four stout negroes bearing the litter, and of Colonel Dick Churchill and Mr. Ned Hunter.

"Tut, tut!" cried Colonel Dick. "What's this? what's this? Damn this place! My mare Nelly threw me here thirty years ago!—I was coming home from a wedding. Senseless and cut across the head!—and I don't like the way that arm's bent.—Ned Hunter, you take Big Jim's corner of the litter for a minute. Now, Big Jim, you lift Mr. Rand.—So! we'll have him at Fontenoy in a jiffy, and in bed in the blue room. Run ahead, Unity, and tell Jacqueline and Mammy Chloe to make ready. His boy's gone for Gilmer. Easy now, men! Yes, 'twas at this very spot my mare Nelly threw me!—it was Maria Erskine's wedding."

The sun was low in the heavens when the good Samaritans and the unconscious man arrived at the foot of the wide, white-pillared Fontenoy porch. The arrival had many witnesses; for on hearing of the accident the large party assembled for the dancing class had at once dropped all employment and flocked to various coigns of vantage. A bevy of young girls looked from one parlour window, and another framed Mr. Pincornet's face and wig and flowered coat. In the hall and on the porch the elders gathered, while on the broad porch steps young men in holiday dress waited to see if they might be of help. Around the corner of the house peered the house negroes, pleasurably excited by any catastrophe and any procession, even that of a wounded man borne on a litter.

The cortège arrived. In the midst of much ejaculation, and accompanied by a fire of directions from Colonel Dick, Lewis Rand was borne up the steps and across the porch into the cool, wide hail. Here the litter was met by Jacqueline Churchill. She came down the shadowy staircase in a white gown, with a salver and a glass in her hand. "The room is ready, Uncle Dick," she said, in a steady voice. "The blue room. Aunt Nancy says you must make him take this cordial. I have lint and bandages all ready. This way, Big Jim. Mind the wall!"

She turned and preceded the men up the stair, along a hallway and into a pleasant chamber hung with blue and white. "Turn down the sheet, Mammy Chloe," she directed a negro woman standing beside the bed. "Quick! quick! he is bleeding so."

Rand was laid upon the bed, and as the men drew their arms from beneath him, he moved his head, and his lips parted. A moment later he opened his eyes. Colonel Dick heaved a sigh of relief. "He'll do now! Gilmer shall come and bleed him, and he'll be out again before you can say Jack Robinson! I'll have that place in the road mended to-morrow. Yes, yes, Mr. Rand, you've had an accident. Lie still! you're with friends. Hey, what did you say?"

Rand had said nothing articulate. His eyes were upon Jacqueline, standing at the foot of the bed. The room was in the western wing of the house, and where she stood she was bathed in the light of the sinking sun. It made her brown hair golden and like a nimbus. Rand made a straying motion with his hand. "I did not believe in heaven," he muttered. "If I have erred—"

"Lie still, lie still!" said Jacqueline. In a moment she turned, left the room, and went downstairs. "He is better," she told her cousin Unity, who with Fairfax Cary was waiting in the lower hall; then went on to the library, opened the door, and closed it softly behind her.

The room was dim, and she thought it vacant. There was an old leather chair which she loved, which had always stood beside the glass doors that gave upon the sunset, in whose worn depths she had, as a child, told herself fairy tales, and found escape from childish woes. She went straight to it now, sank into its old arms, and pressed her cheek against the cool leather. She closed her eyes, and sat very still, and tried to ease the throbbing of her heart. Some one coughed, and she looked up to find her Uncle Edward regarding her from his own favourite chair.

"I did not know you were there," she exclaimed. "I thought the room was empty. What are you reading?"

"A Treatise on Hospitality," answered Major Churchill, with great dryness. "I suppose Dick is making posset in his best racing cup? How is the interesting patient?"

Jacqueline coloured. "Uncle Dick—"

"Uncle Dick," interrupted the Major, "is the best of fellows, but he is not perspicacious. I am, and I say again, why the deuce did this damned Republican get himself thrown at our very gates? In my day a horse might act a little gaily, but a man kept his seat!"

Jacqueline coloured more deeply. "It was that bad place on the hill road. I do not suppose that Mr. Rand is a poor horseman."

"Who said that he was?" demanded the Major testily. "A poor horseman! He and his old wolf of a father used to break all the colts for twenty miles round! That place in the road! Pshaw! I've ridden by that place in the road for forty years, but I never had the indecency to be brought on a litter into a gentleman's house who was not of my way of thinking! And every man and woman on the place—barring poor Nancy—out to receive him! I am not at home among fools, so I came here—though the Lord knows there's many a fool to be found in a library!—Well, are any bones broken?"

"Dr. Gilmer will tell us—oh, he looked like death!"

"Who?—William Gilmer?" demanded Uncle Edward with asperity. "Your pronoun 'he' stands for your antecedent 'Gilmer.' But what's the English tongue when we have a Jacobin in the house! Women like strange animals, and they are vastly fond of pitying. But you were always a home body, Jacqueline, and left Unity to run after the sea lions and learned pigs! And now you sit there as white as your gown!"

Jacqueline smiled. "Perhaps I am of those who pity. I hear a horse upon the road! It may be Dr. Gilmer!" and up she started.

"The horse has gone by," said Uncle Edward. "Gilmer cannot possibly be here for an hour. Sit down, child, and don't waste your pity. The Rands are used to hard knocks. I've seen old Gideon in the ring, black and blue and blind with blood, demanding proof that he was beaten. The gentleman upstairs will take care of himself. Bah!—Where is Ludwell Cary this afternoon?"

"He rode, I think, to Charlottesville."

"You think! Don't you know?—What woman was ever straightforward!"

Major Churchill opened his book, looked at it, and tossed it aside; took The Virginia Federalist from the table, and for perhaps sixty seconds appeared absorbed in its contents, then with a loud "Pshaw!" threw it down, and rising walked to a bookcase. "I am reading Swift," he said, and brought a calf-bound volume to the window. "There was a man who knew hatred and the risus sardonicus! Listen to this, Jacqueline."

Major Churchill read well, and it was his habit to read aloud to Jacqueline, whose habit it was to listen. Now she sat before the window, in the old leather chair, her slender face and form in profile, and her eyes upon the sunset sky. It was her accustomed attitude, and Uncle Edward read on with growing satisfaction, finding that he was upon a passage which gave Democracy its due. He turned a page, then another, glanced from the book, and discovered that his niece was not attending. "Jacqueline!"

Jacqueline withdrew her eyes from the fading gold, and, turning in her chair, faced her uncle with a faint smile. She loved him dearly, and he loved her, and they had not many secrets from each other. Now she looked at him with a wavering light upon her face, shook her head as if in answer to some dim question of her own, and broke into silent weeping.

"Bless my soul!" cried Uncle Edward, and started up in alarm. He had a contemptuous horror of women's tears; but Jacqueline was different, Jacqueline was not like other women. He could not remember having seen Jacqueline cry since she was a child, and the sight troubled him immensely. She wept as though she were used to weeping. He crossed to the chair by the window and touched her bowed head with his wrinkled hand. "What is it, child?" he asked. "Tell Uncle Edward."

But Jacqueline, it appeared, had nothing to tell. After a little she wiped her eyes, and brokenly laughed at herself; and then, a sound coming through the window, she started to her feet. "That is Dr. Gilmer! I hear his horse at the gate. Joab must have met him upon the road!"

"Joab?"

"Mr. Rand's servant."

"You appear," said the Major, "to know a deal more than I do about Mr. Rand. Where did you learn so much?"

Jacqueline, halfway to the door, turned upon him her candid eyes. "Don't you remember?" she answered, "the month that I spent, summer before last, at Cousin Jane Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road? I saw Mr. Rand very often that summer. Cousin Jane liked him, and he was welcome at her house. And when I used to stay there as a child I saw him then, and—and was sorry for him. Don't you remember? I told you at the time."

"No, I don't remember," replied Uncle Edward grimly. "I have other things to think of than the Rands. There should have been no association—though I am surprised at nothing which goes on beneath Jane Selden's roof. Jane Selden has a most erratic mind.—Don't sympathize too much, Jacqueline, with that damned young Republican upstairs! He's an enemy." The Major walked to the window. "It is Gilmer, sure enough, and—ah, it is Ludwell Cary with him, riding Prince Rupert. Come look, Jacqueline!"

Receiving no answer, he turned to find that his niece had vanished and he was alone in the library. Presently he heard from the hail, through the half-open door, the doctor's voice and Ludwell Cary's expressions of concern, Jacqueline's low replies, a confusion of other voices, and finally, from the head of the stairs, Colonel Dick's hearty "Come up, Gilmer, come up! D'ye remember that damned place in the hill road where my mare Nelly threw me, coming home at dawn from Maria Erskine's wedding?"

Steps and voices died away. The evening shadows lengthened, and filled the library where Uncle Edward sat, propping his lean old chin upon his lean old hand, and staring at a dim old clock in the corner, as if it could tell him more than the time of day. He heard Mr. Pincornet's fiddle from the long parlour in the other wing. Since the doctor was come, the younger part of the gathering at Fontenoy had cheerfully returned to its business. The dancing class was not long neglected. Uncle Edward disliked France, disliked even monarchical and émigré France. And he disliked all music but Jacqueline's singing, and disliked the fiddle because Thomas Jefferson played it. He half rose to shut the door and so keep out Mr. Pincornet's Minuet from Ariadne, but reflected that the door would also keep out the doctor's descending voice and final dicta delivered at the stair-foot. Uncle Edward was as curious as a woman, and the door remained ajar. He tried to read, but the words conveyed no meaning to his mind, which became more and more frowningly intent upon the fact of Jacqueline's weeping. What had the child to weep for? He determined to send to Richmond to-morrow for a certain watch which he had in his mind,—plain gold with J.C. upon it in pearls. He reflected with satisfaction that Cary as well as Churchill began with a C.

The glass door led by a flight of steps down to the flower garden. Deb came up the steps and into the library. "Kiss me good-night, Uncle Edward. It's mos' seven o'clock. I've had my supper at the Quarter with Aunt Daphne. The scarlet beans over her door are in bloom, and Uncle Mingo told me about the rabbit and the fox. Miranda is going to put me to bed because Mammy Chloe is busy in the blue room with the doctor and the man whose horse threw him."

Uncle Edward put his one arm around the child and drew her close to his chair. Deb touched with her brown fingers the sleeve that was pinned across his coat. "Does your arm that is buried at Yorktown hurt you to-day, Uncle Edward? Tell me a story about General Washington."

"No; you tell me a story."

Deb considered. "I'll tell you a story about the man upstairs in the blue room."

"What do you know about the man in the blue room?"

"Jacqueline told me. She knows," answered Deb. "I am going to begin now, Uncle Edward."

"I am listening," said the Major.

"Once upon a time there lived on the Three-Notched Road a boy, a poor boy. He lived in a log house that was not so good as an overseer's house, and there were pine trees all around it, and wild flowers, but no other kinds of flowers. And in the trees there were owls, and in the bushes there were whip-poor-wills, and sometimes a mockingbird, but no other kinds of birds, and at night the fireflies were all about. And outside the pine trees, all around the house, the tobacco grew and grew. It grew so broad and high that the children might have played I-spy in it,—only there weren't any children. There was only the boy, and he hated tobacco. He was poor, and his father was a hard man. He had no time to play or to learn—he worked all day in the fields like a hand. He had to work like the men at the lower Quarter, like Domingo and Cato and Indian Jim. He worked all the time. I never saw the sun get up, but he saw it every day. In the long afternoons when it was hot, and we make the rooms cool and dark, and rest with a book, he was working, working like a friendless slave. And at night, when the moon rises, and we sit and watch it, and wonder, and remember all the battles that were ever won and lost, and all the songs that ever were sung, he could only stumble to his own poor corner, and sleep, and sleep, with a hot and heavy heart, and the blisters on his poor, poor hands!"

Major Churchill sank back in his chair and stared at his niece. "Good God, child! whose words are you using?"

"Jacqueline's," answered Deb, staring in her turn. "Jacqueline told it to me just that way, one hot night when I could not sleep, and there was heat lightning, and she took me in her lap and we sat by the window. Are you tired, Uncle Edward? Does your arm hurt? Suppose I finish the story to-morrow?"

"No, I'm not tired," said Uncle Edward. "Finish it now."

"The boy," went on Deb, using now her own and now Jacqueline's remembered words,—"the boy did not want to work all his life long in the tobacco-fields, working from morning to night, with his hands, at the thing he hated. He wanted books, he wanted to learn, and to work with his mind in the world beyond the Three-Notched Road. The older he grew the more he wanted it. And Jacqueline said that the mind finds a way, and that the boy got books together, and he studied hard. You see, Jacqueline knows, for when she was a little girl, she used to stay sometimes with Cousin Jane Selden on the Three-Notched Road. And Cousin Jane Selden's farm was next to where the boy lived. There was just a little stream between them. There were no children at Cousin Jane Selden's, and Jacqueline was lonely. And she used to sit under the apple tree on the bank of the little stream and send chip boats down it, just as Miranda and I do. Only she didn't have Miranda, and she was all by herself. And she could see the boy working on the other side of the stream, and there wasn't any shade in the tobacco-field, and Jacqueline was so sorry for him. And one day he came down to the stream for water and they talked to each other. And Jacqueline told Cousin Jane Selden, and Cousin Jane Selden did not mind. She said she was sorry for the boy, and that she had given his father a piece of her mind,—only he wouldn't take it. So Jacqueline used to see the boy often and often, for she always played under the apple tree by the stream, and he had a little time to rest every day at noon, and he would come down to the shade on his side of the stream, and Jacqueline told him all about Fontenoy. And he told Jacqueline what he was going to do when he was a man, and he asked her if she had ever read Cæsar, and she had not, and he told her all about it. And Jacqueline told him fairy tales, but he said they were not true, and that a harp could not sing by itself, nor a hen lay golden eggs, nor a beanstalk grow a mile. He said he did not like lies,—which wasn't very polite. He was older, you see, than Jacqueline, ever so much older. But she knew how to dance, and she was taking music lessons, and so she seemed older, and he liked Jacqueline very much. What is the matter, Uncle Edward?"

"Nothing. Go on, child."

"Then the summer was over, and Jacqueline came back to Fontenoy. But the next summer, when she went to Cousin Jane Selden's, there was the boy working in the tobacco on the other side of the stream. And Jacqueline called to him from under the apple tree. And then the month that she was to stay with Cousin Jane Selden went by, and she came back to Fontenoy. And the next summer she didn't go to the Three-Notched Road, but one day the boy came to Fontenoy."

"Ah!" said the Major.

"The boy's father sent him to pay some money that he owed to Uncle Dick. Jacqueline says his father was an honest man, though he was so unkind. And Uncle Dick sent for Jacqueline and said, 'Jacqueline, this is young Lewis Rand. Take him and show him the garden while I write this receipt!' So Jacqueline and the boy went into the flower garden, and she showed him the roses and the peacock and the sundial. And then he went away, and she didn't see him any more for years and years, not till she was grown, and everything was changed. And—and that is the end of the story. But the boy's name was Lewis Rand, and the man's name, up in the blue room, is Mr. Lewis Rand, and I heard Mr. Fairfax Cary say that Lewis Rand was the Devil,—but Jacqueline wouldn't have liked the Devil, would she, Uncle Edward?"

"No, child, no, no!" exclaimed Uncle Edward, with violence. He rose so suddenly from his chair, and he looked so grim and grey, that Deb was almost frightened.

"Didn't you like the story, Uncle Edward? I did like it so much when Jacqueline told it to me—only she would never tell it to me again."

"Yes, yes, I liked it, honey. Don't I like all your stories? But I don't like Mr. Rand."

"Will he stay always upstairs in the blue room?"

"The Lord forbid!" cried Major Churchill.

The door opened wide, and Mr. Ned Hunter put in an important face. "Are you there, Major? Here's the devil to pay. Rand's arm is broken and his ankle wrenched and his head cut open! The doctor says he mustn't be moved for at least a fortnight. I thought you'd like to know." He was gone to spread the news.

Major Churchill stood still for a moment, then turned to the table, placed with deliberation a marker between the leaves of Swift, took up the volume, and restored it to its proper shelf.

"It is getting dark—I must go to bed," said Deb. "Uncle Edward, who pays the devil?"

"His hosts, child," answered Uncle Edward, looking very grim and very old.

THE BLUE ROOM

The news of the accident to Lewis Rand spread far and wide. Both as a lawyer and as Mr. Jefferson's adjutant he had become in two years' time a marked man. Federalist and Republican were agreed that the recent election was but a foot in the stirrup. Another two years might see him—almost anywhere. He was likely to ride far and to ride fast. To the Federalists his progress from the tobacco-fields to the Elysian Heights of office was but another burning sign of the degeneracy of the times and the tendencies of Jefferson. On the other hand, the Republicans quoted the Rights of Man and the Declaration of Independence, and made the name of Lewis Rand as symbolic as a liberty pole. He was bon enfant, bon Républicain. Virginia, like Cornelia, numbered him among her starry gems. He was of the Gracchi. He was almost anything Roman, Revolutionary, and Patriotic that the mind of a perfervid poet could conjure up and fix in a corner of the Argus or the Examiner. Every newspaper in the state mentioned the accident, and in a letter from a Gentleman of Virginia, an account of it was read by the subscribers to the Aurora.

All this was somewhat later, when the stage-coach and the mail-rider had distributed the slow-travelling news. In the mean time Lewis Rand lay in the curtained bed in the blue room at Fontenoy, and wondered at that subtle force called Chance. The blue roses upon the hangings, the blue willows and impossible bridges of the china, the apple-cheeked moon surmounting the face of the loud-ticking clock were not more fantastically unnatural than that he, Lewis Rand, should be lying there between the linen sheets, in the sunny morning stillness of the fourth day after his fall, listening for the stir of the awakening house, for one step upon the stair, and for one voice. He was where he had desired to be; he was at Fontenoy; but the strangeness of his being there weighed upon him. He would hear the step and the voice; chance had brought him past every ward of a hostile house, and had laid him there in the blue room to be generously pitied and lavishly cared for; chance had given him leverage. To each the chaos of his own nature; if, with Rand, the Spirit brooded none too closely over the face of the deep, yet was there light enough to tread by. As he lay in the blue room, watching the early sunlight steal through the window and lay a golden finger on his bed, he had no sense of triumph, no smugness of satisfaction over the attainment of his dream. He thought of how often as a boy, working under the glare of the sun, in the shadeless tobacco-fields, he had dreamed of the poplars of Fontenoy, the cool porches, the cool rooms, the rest from labour, and the books, of all that the little girl named Jacqueline had told him, sitting under the apple tree beside the stream that flowed between a large and a small farm on the Three-Notched Road. As a boy, he would have been puzzled to choose between "Will you go to Heaven?" and "Will you go to Fontenoy?" The one seemed as remote, as unattainable, and as happy as the other. The advantage was possibly with Fontenoy, for he could picture that to himself. He could not have described the mansions in the skies, but, thanks to Jacqueline, he knew every room at Fontenoy. Before he was laid in it, he had known the blue room, the roses on the curtains, and the peacock-feathered mandarin forever climbing a dull yellow screen. The library should be below, with the bookshelves, and the glass door opening on the snowball bushes. Outside his window was the flower garden. He had seen the garden with his bodily eyes, for there was the morning he had spent at Fontenoy. In the desert of his hardly-treated, eager, and longing youth the place and the life of which the girl who came to Mrs. Selden's had told him was become the vision of an oasis and a paradise. The magic word was Fontenoy. If Gideon Rand or Adam Gaudylock chanced to pronounce it, it was as though the Captain of the Thieves had said, "Open Sesame!" The cave door opened, and he saw strange riches.

That day at Fontenoy! He tried to recall it, but it did not stand out in his memory; it was curiously without edge. Trying to remember was like remembering a dream, delicious and evasive. The child named Jacqueline had changed to a girl named Jacqueline. She had spoken to him shyly, and he had answered with much greater shyness, with a reddening cheek and a stumbling tongue. He remembered her dress, a soft blue stuff that he was afraid of touching, and he remembered how burning was his consciousness of his coarse shoes, his shirt of osnaburg, the disreputable hat upon his sunburnt hair. Then they had walked in the garden, and sat on the steps of a summer house, and he had been very happy after all. And then a black boy had come to tell him that the Colonel was ready with the receipt he was to carry back to the Three-Notched Road. He said good-bye with great awkwardness, and went away, and he saw the girl no more for a long, long time, for so long a time that insensibly her image faded. It was in the October of that year that he went to Richmond with Gideon, and met Mr. Jefferson in the bookshop by the bridge.

The years that followed that meeting! Rand, lying still upon his pillows, with his eyes upon the yellow mandarin, passed them in review,—well, they had not been wasted! Usually he saw the approximate truth about himself, and he knew that these years of toil and achievement were honourable to him. He thought of all those years, and then he turned his head upon the pillow and faced through widely opened windows the misty, fragrant morning. His mind turned with suddenness to a morning two summers past. His father, who had lived to take grim pride in the son he had been used to thwart, was six months dead, and he himself was living alone, as he yet lived alone, in the small house upon the Three-Notched Road. He lived there with his ambitions, which were many. That morning he had gone, without knowing why, down through the tobacco-field to the stream which parted his patrimony from his neighbour's grassy orchard. And there, beneath the apple tree, across the clear, brown water stood Jacqueline. He forgot her no more. "Fontenoy" was again the magic word, the "Open Sesame," but Jacqueline was the wealth of all the world. He was young, and he was a man of strong passions who had lived, perforce, a rigid, lonely, and ascetic life. He had dreamed of most things, and he had dreamed of love. It was the hectic vision of a hued pool. Love, entered, proved to be the sea, boundless and strong, salt, clean, and the nurse of life. He loved Jacqueline to the end of his life; he never swerved from allegiance to the sea.

For a summer month he saw her almost every day,—twice or thrice beneath the apple tree beside the stream, and at other times in Mrs. Jane Selden's parlour, porch, or little friendly garden. He did not tell Jacqueline that he loved her; he had not dared so much. The fact that he was the son of Gideon Rand while she was a Churchill mattered little to his common sense and his Republicanism. His blood was clean. He had never heard of a Rand in prison or a beggar. Moreover, he meant to make his name an honoured one. But he was a poor man, though he meant also to become a rich man, and he was a Republican, with no thought of changing his party. Politics might not matter, perhaps, to Miss Churchill, but they mattered decidedly to her uncles and guardians, whom she loved and obeyed. Wealth and birth mattered too, to them. Lewis Rand set no great store upon obedience for obedience' sake, but he divined that Miss Churchill rarely vexed those she loved. He had an iron will, and he set his lips, and resolved that this was not the time to speak of that ocean on whose shore he stood. He meant that the time should come. The probability of a rejection he looked full in the face, and found that he did not believe in it, though when he looked as fully at his assurance, that, too, became incredibly without foundation. Jacqueline's spirit might dwell in the mountains, and never dream of the sea; she gave him no sign, and he could not tell. The summer month went by; she returned to Fontenoy, and he saw her no more for a long time. When she was gone, he fell upon work like a bereaved lion upon his prey. As best he might, he would make that hunting do. He worked at first with lonely fury, though at last with zest. Only by this road, he knew, could he enter the gates of Fontenoy. Success begets success; let him make himself a name, and the gates might open! When he was not in court, or not most diligently preparing a case, or not instructing Tom Mocket, who was on the way to become his partner, or not busied with affairs of his patron, or not keenly observant of the methods of the poor whites whom he hired to tend his tobacco, he read. He read history: Clarendon, Gibbon, and Hume; Aristotle, Bacon, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, and Voltaire, Rousseau, and Tom Paine. His Ossian, Cæsar, and Plutarch belonged to his younger days. A translation of the Divina Commedia fell into his hands, and once he chanced to take up, and then read with the closest attention, Godwin's Caleb Williams. From Monticello he received the hot and clamorous journals of the day, Federalist and Republican. He studied the conditions they portrayed with the intentness of a gladiator surveying his arena. The Examiner, the Argus, the Aurora, the Gazette gave, besides the home conflict, the foreign news. He missed no step of Buonaparte's.

Thrice in these two years he had seen Jacqueline. Once he rode to church at Saint Anne's that he might see her. She had been at the great race when Major Churchill's Mustapha won over Nonpareil and Buckeye. The third time was a month ago in Charlottesville. She was walking, and Ludwell Cary was with her. When she bowed to Rand, Cary had looked surprised, but his hat was instantly off. Rand bowed in return, and passed them, going on to the Court House. He had not seen her again until four days ago, when he opened his eyes upon her face. The golden finger on his bed became a shining lance that struck across to the wall. There were ivy and a climbing rose about the window through which he looked to the shimmering poplars and the distant hills. Many birds were singing, and from the direction of the quarters sounded the faint blowing of a horn. A bee came droning in to the pansies in a bowl. Rand's dark eyes made a journey through the room, from the flowered curtains to the mandarin on the screen, from the screen to the willowed china and the easy chair, from the chair to the picture of General Washington on the wall, the vases on the mantel-shelf, and the green hemlock branches masking for the summer the fireplace below. Over all the blue room and the landscape without was a sense of home, of order and familiar sweetness. It struck to the soul of a too lonely and too self-reliant man. Suddenly, without warning, tears were in his eyes. Raising his uninjured arm, he brushed them away, settled his bandaged head upon the pillows, and stared at the clock. The half-shut door of a small adjoining room opened very slowly and softly, and Joab entered on tiptoe, elaborate caution surrounding him like an atmosphere.

"You, Joab," said Rand. "It's time you were in the field."

Joab's preternaturally lengthened countenance became short, broad, and genial. He threw back his head and breathed relief. "Dar now! What I tell em? Cyarn Selim nor no urr boss kill you, Marse Lewis! Mornin', sah. I reckon hit is time I wuz in de field, but I reckon I got to stay heah to tek care of you. How yo ahm, Marse Lewis?"

"It's not so bad."

"You sho wuz ressless in yo sleep—a-talkin' an' a-turnin' an' sayin' you mustn't keep de cote waitin'. I done sit by you ter keep de kivers on twill de cock crow. What you reckon you said to me? You said, 'Is dat you, Gineral Buonaparte?'"

Rand laughed, "Did you say, 'Yes, sire my brother?'"

"No, sah, I say, 'Hit's Joab, Marse Lewis.' I gwine now ter git de water to shave you ef dar's fire in de kitchen. Folks git up moughty late at Fontenoy. I don' know when I gwine git yo breakfast."

An hour later appeared the master of the house, red and jovial, solicitous for his guest's comfort, and prodigal of suggestions for his ease and entertainment. Not until Rand was well and gone from Fontenoy would Colonel Dick let his mind rest upon the indubitable fact that here had been an upstart and an enemy. Hard upon the Colonel's steps came the doctor. Arm and ankle and wounded head were doing well—there was no fever to speak of—Mr. Rand had an unabused constitution and would make a rapid recovery. For precaution's sake, best let a little blood. Rest, gruel, and quiet, and in a few days Mr. Rand would be downstairs with the ladies. The blood was let, and the doctor rode away. Joab and the culprit Selim went on Rand's errands to the town and to the home on the Three-Notched Road. Mammy Chloe, in white apron and kerchief and coloured turban, presented herself with a curtsy, delivered kindly messages from the ladies of the house, and sat down with her sewing in the little adjoining room. The morning advanced, sunny and peaceful, with vague sounds, faint laughter from distant rooms, droning of bees, and rustling of cool poplar leaves.

Rand, lying high upon his pillows, stopped his work of writing with his left hand to listen to a step coming up the polished stairway and along the passage leading to his room. His ear was almost as quick and accurate as was Adam Gaudylock's, and he rightly thought he knew the step. A somewhat strange smile was on his lips when Ludwell Cary knocked lightly at the blue room door. "Come in!" called Rand, and Cary, entering, closed the door behind him and came up to the bed with an outstretched hand and a pleasant light upon his handsome face.

"Ah, Mr. Rand," he said, smiling, "I see my revenge. I shall sit each day by your bedside, and read you the Federalist! How is the arm? Your right! That's bad!"

"It will heal," answered Rand. "Will you not take a chair?"

Cary pushed the easy chair nearer the bed, and sat down. "The ladies charge me," he said pleasantly, "with more messages of sympathy and hopes for your recovery than I can remember. Miss Dandridge vows that you have supplanted in her affections the hero of her favourite romance. 'Twas she and my brother, you know, who found you upon the road. Colonel Churchill and the county must mend that turn where you came to grief. It is a dangerous place."

"I was not attentive," said Rand, "and my horse is a masterful brute. Pray assure Miss Dandridge and your brother of my gratitude. I am under deep obligation to all at Fontenoy."

"It is a kindly place," said Cary simply. He looked about him. "The blue room! When I was a boy and came a-visiting, they always put me here. That screen would set me dreaming—and the blue roses and the moon clock. I used to lie in that bed and send myself to sleep with more tales than are in the Arabian Nights. There's a rift in the poplars through which you can see a very bright star—Sirius, I believe. May you have pleasant dreams, Mr. Rand, in my old bed!" He glanced from Rand's flushed face to the papers strewn upon the counterpane. "You have been writing? Would Dr. Gilmer approve?"

Rand looked somewhat ruefully at the scrawled sheets and the ink upon his fingers. "It is a necessary paper of instructions," he said. "I was retained by the State for the North Garden murder case. It is to be tried next week—and here am I, laid by the heels! My associate must handle it." He made a movement of impatience. "He's skilful enough, but he's not the sort to convince a jury—especially in Albemarle, where they don't like to hang people. If he's left to himself, Fitch may go free."

"The murderer?"

"Yes, the murderer. These," he laid his hand upon the papers, "are the points that must be made. If Mocket follows instructions, the State will win. But I wish that Selim had not chosen to break my right arm—it is difficult to write with the left hand."

"Could not Mr. Mocket take his instructions directly from you?"

Rand moved again impatiently, and with a quick sigh. "I sent him word not to come. I will not bring a friend or ally where I myself must seem an intruder and a most unwelcome guest. There's a fine irony in human affairs! Selim might have thrown me before Edgehill or Dunlora—but to choose Fontenoy!" He looked at Cary with a certain appeal. "I shall, of course, remove myself as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you could assure me that Colonel Churchill and his family understand—"

"Set your mind at rest," said Cary at once. "Colonel Churchill is the soul of kindness and hospitality, and the ladies of Fontenoy are all angels. You must not think yourself an unwelcome guest." He glanced again at the papers. "I am sure you should not try to write. Will you not accept me as amanuensis? The matter is not private?"

Not at all: but—"

"Then let me write from your dictation. I have nothing at all to do for the next two hours,—I am staying in the house, you know,—and it will give me genuine pleasure to help you. You have no business with such labour. Dr. Gilmer, I know, must have forbidden it. Come! I write a very fair clerkly hand."

"You don't know the imposition," said Rand, with an answering smile. "It is nothing less than a Treatise on Murder."

"I shall be glad," replied Cary, "to hear what you have to say on the subject. Come! here are blank sheets and a new quill and an attentive secretary!"

Rand smiled. "It's the strangest post for you!—but all life's a dream just now. I confess that writing is uphill work! Well—since you are so good."

He began to dictate. At first his words came slowly, with some stiffness and self-consciousness. This passed; he forgot himself, thought only of his subject, and utterance became quiet, grave, and fluent. He did not speak as though he were addressing a jury. Gesture was impossible, and his voice must not carry beyond the blue room. He spoke as to himself, as giving reasons to a high intelligence for the invalidity of murder. For an infusion of sentiment and rhetoric he knew he might trust Mocket's unaided powers, but the basis of the matter he would furnish. He spoke of murder as the check the savage gives to social order, as the costliest error, the last injustice, the monstrousness beyond the brute, the debt without surety, the destruction by a fool of that which he knows not how to create. He spoke for society, without animus and without sentiment; in a level voice marshalling fact and example, and moving unfalteringly toward the doom of the transgressor. Turning to the case in hand, he wove strand by strand a rope for the guilty wretch in question; then laid it for the nonce aside and spoke of murder more deeply with a sombre force and a red glow of imagery. Then followed three minutes of slow words which laid the finished and tested rope in the sheriff's hand. Rand's voice ceased, and he lay staring at the poplar leaves without the window.

Cary laid the pen softly down, sat still and upright in his chair for a minute, then leaned back with a long breath. "The poor wretch!" he said.

"Poor enough," assented Rand abruptly. "But Nature does not, and Society must not, think of that. As he brewed, so let him drink, and the measure that he meted, let it be meted to him again. There is on earth no place for him." He fell silent again, his eyes upon the dancing leaves.

"You will make your mark," said Cary slowly. "This is more than able work. You have before you a great future."

Rand looked at him half eagerly, half wistfully. "Do you really think that?"

"I cannot think otherwise," Cary answered. "I saw it plainly in the courtroom the other day." He smiled. "I deplore your political principles, Mr. Rand, but I rejoice that my conqueror is no lesser man. I must to work against the next time we encounter."

"You have been long out of the county," said Rand. "I had the start of you, that is all. You were trained to the law. Will you practise it, or will Greenwood take all your time?"

"I shall practise. A man's life is larger than a few acres, a house, and slaves. But first I must put Greenwood in order, and I must—" He did not finish the sentence, but sat looking about the blue room. "The old moon clock! I used to listen to it in the night and dream of twenty thousand things, and never once of what I dream of now! What a strange young savage is a boy!" He gathered the written sheets together. "You will want to look these over? I shall be very glad to see that they reach Mr. Mocket safely, or to serve you in any way. Just now I am very idle, and I will be your secretary every day with pleasure." He rose. "And now you must rest, or we will have a rating from Dr. Gilmer. Is there any message I may take for you?"

"My devotion and my thanks to the ladies of the house," replied Rand—"to Mrs. Churchill and Miss Dandridge and to Miss Churchill. For these"—he put his hand upon the papers—"I shall look them over, and Joab will take them to Charlottesville to Mocket. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your aid and for your kindness."

Cary went, and Rand lay back upon his pillows, weary enough, though with a smile upon his lips. He valued Cary's visit, valued the opinion of his fellow lawyer and fellow thinker. He valued praise from almost any source, though this was a hidden thirst. Where he loved, there he valued good opinion most; but also he strongly desired that his enemies should think highly of him. To be justly feared was one thing, to be contemned quite another. Apparently Ludwell Cary neither feared nor contemned. As, a few days before on the Justice's Bench, Rand had wondered if he were going to hate Cary, so now, lying in the quiet blue room, weakened by pain and loss of blood, softened by exquisite kindness, and touched by approbation, he wondered if he were going to like Cary. Something of the old charm, the old appeal, the old recognition, with no mean envy, of a golden nature moving in harmonious circumstance, stirred in Lewis Rand's breast. He sighed and lay still, his eyes upon the pansies on the table beside his bed. The moon clock ticked; the sunshine entered softly through the veil of poplar leaves; upon the bough that brushed the window, a cicada shrilled of the approaching summer. Rand put out his uninjured arm and took a pansy from the bowl. The little face, brave and friendly, looked at him from the white counterpane where he laid it. He studied it for a while, touching it gently, with the thought in his mind that Jacqueline might have gathered the pansies, and then he left it there, took up his papers, and turned to the argument which must hang Fitch.

CARY AND JACQUELINE

At supper table that evening at Fontenoy, Ludwell Cary said something complimentary to the prisoner in the blue room. Fairfax Cary fired up. "You are too easy, Ludwell! Lewis Rand, I warn you, is a dangerous man! Serve him once, and you serve him once too often!—begging your pardon, Colonel Churchill!"

"We could hardly have left him, you know," reasoned his host good-naturedly, "on the roadside, and Dick Wood's the nearest house! And once within a man's doors, every attention, of course, must be shown. But, as you say, he is a dangerous fellow."

"Dangerous fiddlesticks!" growled Major Churchill from the other side of the table, where he sat at Jacqueline's right hand. "I would have as soon called old Gideon Rand dangerous! Like father, like son. You may be sure that this fellow's spirit rolls tobacco. Maybe now and then it breaks a colt.

"Dangerous' implies power to be dangerous," said Cary, "and conversely power to be humane. A turn, and all the strength of the man may flow toward good."

"A fool and his doctrine!" snapped Major Edward. "I do not expect grapes from thistles, or a silk purse from a sow's ear."

"Tut, tut, Ned! The man who carries this county may be a damned Republican, but he is not a fool," pronounced Colonel Dick. "Jacqueline, my dear, another cup of coffee."

"If we were all as good as gold," said Unity pensively, "and as wise as—as Socrates, and wore black cockades, and cared only for the Washington March, and hated Buonaparte, and the Devil, how tiresome life would be!—Myself, I like variety and the Marseillaise!"

"Then you differ from the other rogues only in liking the Rogue's March," said Uncle Edward. "Jacqueline, more sugar!"

The younger Cary rushed to Miss Dandridge's defence. "Well, sir, in itself the Marseillaise is a very noble air. It is better than Jefferson's March!"

"Oh, a very good air to go to the gallows by!" snapped Uncle Edward. "Jacqueline, some cream!"

"Well, well," said his brother amicably, from the head of the table, "we must care for a man when he's wounded at our door, friend or foe, Federalist or damned Republican. Noblesse oblige. I was glad enough the night my mare Nelly threw me, coming home from Maria Erskine's wedding, to hear Bob Carter's voice behind me! And if Gideon Rand was a surly old heathen, he broke colts well, and he rolled tobacco well. We'll treat his son like a Christian."

"And he'll repay you like a Turk!" broke out Major Edward. "I tell you it is bred in the bone—"

"Mr. Rand is our guest," said Jacqueline, in a clear voice, from her place behind the coffee urn. Her hands made a little noise amid the rosebud china. "Mr. Cary, may I not pour you another cup?—Caleb, Mr. Cary's cup.—Bring more waffles, Scipio."

"The work at Greenwood is nearly finished, sir," remarked Ludwell Cary, addressing his host. "I rode over this afternoon, and the men assure me that the house will soon be habitable. Fair and I have no excuse for staying longer."

"Then stay without excuse," answered Colonel Dick heartily. "Fontenoy will miss you—eh, Unity, eh, Jacqueline?"

"It will indeed," said Jacqueline, with a smile; and Unity, "Will I have time to order a black scarf from Baltimore? Will you leave us mourning rings?"

"If Miss Dandridge would accept another fashion of ring!" cried Fairfax Cary, and all at table laughed. Scipio took away the rosebud china, and laid the purple dessert service for the strawberries and floating island and Betty Custis cake. Caleb placed the decanters of claret and Madeira, and the Fontenoy men began to talk of horse-racing, of Mustapha, Nonpareil, York, and Victor.

Jacqueline and Unity, leaving the gentlemen at their wine, came out into the broad hall and stood at the front door looking out at the coloured clouds above the hills. They supped early at Fontenoy, and the evening was yet rosy.

"He is going to speak to-night," said Unity, with conviction. "It is written in his eye."

"If you mean Mr. Cary—"

"Whom else should I mean? What are you going to say to him, Jacqueline? I want you to say Yes, and I want you to say No."

"Don't, Unity—"

"If you say Yes, you will have Greenwood and the most charming husband in the world, and be envied of every girl in the county; and if you say No, I'll have you still—"

"I shall say No."

"What ails you, Jacqueline? I could swear that you're in love, and yet I don't believe you are in love with Ludwell Cary!—though I am sure you ought to be. It's not Mr. Lee, nor Mr. Page, nor Jack Martin, nor—you're never in love with Fairfax Cary?"

Jacqueline laughed, "How absurd, Unity!—though may be some day I shall love him as a cousin!"

Unity regarded her with a puzzled gathering of black brows. "There's no one else that by any stretch of imagination I can believe you in love with—unless it's Mr. Pincornet!"

"Oh, now you certainly have it!" cried Jacqueline, with another tremulous laugh. She released herself from her cousin's arm. "I am going to tell Deb good-night. And Unity—I don't want Mr. Cary to speak to-night, nor to-morrow night, nor any other night! I'll stay at Fontenoy—I'll stay at Fontenoy and care for Aunt Nancy and Deb and Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward. I'll dance at your wedding, Unity, but you'll not dance at mine!"

She was gone. Unity sat down upon the porch steps and began to name upon her fingers the eligible young men of three counties. In her anxiety to account for Jacqueline's pallor and the dark beneath her eyes, she went far afield, but she met with no success. "It's not one of them!" she sighed at last. "And yet, she's changed—"

Jacqueline went slowly upstairs, a slender figure in white, touching with her hand the polished balustrade. When she reached the long and wide upper hall, she passed steadily along it, but she turned her eyes upon a door at the far end, the door of the blue room. Arrived in her own cool and fragrant chamber, she found Deb already asleep in the small bed, her yellow hair spread upon the pillow, her gown open at the throat, a rag doll in the hollow of her arm. Upon the floor, with her head against the bed, sat Miranda, as fast asleep as her mistress. At Jacqueline's touch she awoke, smiled widely, and was on her feet with a spring. "Yaas, Miss Jacqueline, I done put Miss Deb to bed. Mammy Chloe say dat niggah Joab don' know nothin' 'bout er broken ahm, an' she too busy in de blue room. Yaas'm, I done mek Miss Deb wash her face an' say her prayers. Kin I go now?"

Alone, Jacqueline stood for a minute beside the sleeping child, then bent and kissed Deb's brown neck. Moving to a window, she sat down before it, resting her arm upon the sill and her head upon her arm. Outside the window grew a giant fir tree, shading the room, and giving it at times an aspect too cold and northern. But Jacqueline loved the tree, and loved and fed the birds that in winter perched upon the dark boughs. Now, between the needles, the eastern sky looked blue and cold. Jacqueline, sitting idle, felt her eyes fill with slow tears. They did not fall. She was not lacking in self-control, and she told herself that of late she had wept too often. She sat very still, her head bowed upon her listless arm, while the moments passed, bearing with them pictures seen through unshed tears. She was living over the days of the Three-Notched Road, and she beheld each shifting scene by the light of a passion that she believed to be unreasonable, unnatural, secret, and without hope. Her uncle's voice came to her from the hall below. "Jacqueline, Jacqueline!" She arose, bathed her eyes, and went downstairs.

It was the custom of the family to gather after supper upon the great white pillared porch, and to sit through the twilight. The men smoked slowly and reflectively, the women sat with folded hands, watching the last glow upon the hills, and the brightening of the evening star; dreamily listening to the choir of frogs, the faint tinkle of cowbells, the bleating of folded lambs, and the continual rustle of the poplar leaves.

Jacqueline took her seat beside Unity. Colonel Churchill, in his especial chair, was smoking like a benevolent volcano; at a small table Major Edward was playing Patience. On the broad porch steps below Jacqueline and Unity half sat, half lay, the two Carys. The fireflies were beginning to show, and out of the distance came a plaintive Whip-poor-will—Whip-poor-will!

"I shall have," said Ludwell Cary, "the vines at Greenwood trained like these. There could be no better way."

"Is the drawing-room finished?" asked Unity.

"Almost finished. The paper came to-day from Baltimore. The ground is silver, and there are garlands of roses and a host of piping shepherds."

"Oh, lovely!" cried Unity. "But no shepherdesses?"

"Yes, in among the roses. It is quite Arcadian. When will the princesses come to see the shepherdesses?"

He looked at them both. "The Princess and her waiting-maid," said Unity demurely, "will come very soon." She rose from the green bench. "The waiting-maid is going now to her harpsichord!" Her eyes rested upon the younger Cary. "Will you be so very good as to turn the leaves for me?"

Fairfax Cary embracing with alacrity the chance of goodness, the two went into the house. The dusk deepened; the odour of honeysuckle and syringa grew heavier, and white moths sailed by on their way to the lighted windows.

"Since love—since love is blissful sorrow,
Then bid the lad—then bid the lad—
Then bid the lad a fair good morrow!"

flowed in soprano from the parlour.

Colonel Churchill laid down his pipe and lifted his burly figure from the great chair. "I forgot," he remarked to Jacqueline, "to tell your Aunt Nancy that Charles Carter is going to marry Miss Lewis," and he left the porch. The rose in the sky turned to pearl, the fireflies grew brilliant, and the wind brought the murmur of streams and the louder rustling of the poplar leaves. "It is too dark to see the cards," said Major Edward. "I'll go read what the Gazette has to say of Burr and the Massachusetts secession fools. Don't move, Cary!" He deftly gathered up the cards, and went indoors.

"It is dark night," said Jacqueline. "Shall we not go in?"

Cary put out an appealing hand. "Don't rise! May we not stay like this a little longer?—Miss Churchill, there is something that I ardently wish to say to you."

"Yes, Mr. Cary?"

"It is too soon to speak, I know,—it must seem too soon to you. But to-day I said, 'The spring is flying—I'll put my fortune to the touch!' I think that you must guess the thing I wish to say—"

"Yes, I know. I wish that you would leave it unsaid."

"I love you. On the day, three months ago, when I saw you after my return and found the lovely child I remembered changed into the loveliest of all women, I loved you. If then, what now, when I have seen you, day by day?—I love you, and I shall never cease to love you."

"Oh, with all my heart I wish that you did not!"

"I ask you to be my wife. I beg you to let me prove throughout my life the depth of my love, of my solicitude for your happiness—"

"Ah, happiness!" cried Jacqueline sharply. "I do not see it in my life. The best that you can do is to forget me quite."

"I will remember you when I draw my dying breath. And if we remember after death, I will remember you then. With all my strength I love you."

"I am sorry—I am sorry!" she cried. "Oh, I hoped 'twas but a fancy, and that you would not speak! I do not love you—"

"Let me wait," said Cary, after a pause. "I said that I was speaking too soon. Let me wait—let me prove to you. Your heart may turn."

She shook her head. "It will not change."

"Is there," asked Cary, in a low voice, "is there another before me?"

She looked at him strangely. "You have no right to question me. I do not think that I shall ever marry. For you, you will live long and be happy. You deserve happiness. If I have wounded you, may it soon heal! Forget this night, and me."

"Forget!" said Cary. "I am not so lightly made! But neither will I despair. I will wait. If there is no man before me, I will win you yet! There is little reason, God knows, why you should care for me, but I shall strive to make that reason greater!"

"There is reason," answered Jacqueline. "I think highly, highly of you! You would make a woman happy;—all her life she would travel a sunny road! I prize your friendship—I am loth to lose it. But as for me,"—she locked her hands against her breast,—"there is that within me that cries, The shadowed road!—the shadowed road!"

She rose, and Cary rose with her. "Forgive me," she said. "Is it not cruel that we hurt each other so? Forgive—forget."

"I would forgive you," he answered, with emotion, "the suffering and the sorrow of a thousand lives. But forget you—never! I'll love you well and I'll love you long. Nor will I despair. To-night is dark, but the sun may shine to-morrow. Think of me as of one who will love you to the end." He took her hand and kissed it, then stood aside, saying, "I will not face the lights quite yet." She passed into the hail and up the stairway, and he turned and went down the porch steps into the May night.

EXPOSTULATION

The next morning Ludwell Cary rose early, ordered his horse, and opened the door of his brother's room. "Fair," he said, as the younger Cary sat up in bed, with a nightcap wonderfully askew upon his handsome head, "I am off for Greenwood. Make my excuses, will you, to Colonel Churchill and the ladies? I will not be back till supper-time." He turned to leave the room. "And Fair—if you have anything to say to Miss Dandridge, this is the shepherd's hour. We go home to-morrow."

"What the Devil?"—began the younger Cary.

"No, not the Devil," said the other, with a twist of the lip half humorous, half piteous. "Just woman."

He was gone. Fairfax Cary looked at his watch, then rose from his bed and looked out of the window at the rose and dew of the dawn. "What the Devil!" he said again to himself; and then, with a forehead of perplexity, "He was up late last night—out in the garden alone. He rides off to Greenwood with the dawn, and we go home to-morrow. She can't have refused him—that's not possible!" He went back to bed to study matters over. At last, "The jade!" he exclaimed with conviction, and two hours later, when he came down to breakfast, wished Miss Churchill good-morning with glacial courtesy.

Jacqueline, behind the coffee urn, had heavy-lidded eyes, and her smile was tremulous. Unity, brilliant and watchful, regarded the universe and the hauteur of young Mr. Cary with lifted brows. Major Churchill, when he appeared, shot one glance at the place that was Ludwell Cary's, another at his niece, then sat heavily down, and in a querulous voice demanded coffee. Colonel Dick wore a frown. Deb, who before breakfast had visited a new foal in the long pasture, kept for a time the ball of conversation rolling; but the dulness and the chill in the air presently enwrapped her also. The meal came to an end with only one hazard as to what could have taken Ludwell Cary to Greenwood for the entire day. That was Unity's, who remarked that pains must be bestowed upon the hanging of a drawing-room paper, else the shepherds and the shepherdesses would not match.

Fairfax Cary asked after Lewis Rand and his broken arm, and Colonel Dick responded with absent-mindedness that the arm did very well, and that its owner would soon be going about his business with all the rest of the damned Republican mischief-makers: then, "Scipio, did you take that julep and bird up to the blue room?"

"Yaas, marster," answered Scipio. "The gent'man say tell you 'Thank you.' He say he ain't gwine trouble you much longer, an' he cyarn never forgit what Fontenoy's done fer him."

"Deb!" said Uncle Edward, with great sharpness, "you are spilling that cup of milk. Look what you are doing, child!"

The uncomfortable meal came to an end. Outside the dining-room door Uncle Dick mentioned to Unity that her aunt wanted her in the chamber to cut off linsey gowns for the house servants, and Uncle Edward inquired if it would be troublesome to Fairfax Cary to ride over to Tom Wood's and take a look at that black stallion Tom bragged of. Unity went to her aunt's chamber; the younger Cary walked away somewhat stiffly to the stables; Uncle Edward sent Deb to her lessons, and Uncle Dick told Jacqueline to come in half an hour to the library. Edward and he wanted to speak to her.

Jacqueline gave her directions, or her aunt's directions, to Scipio, then crossed the paved way to the kitchen and talked of dinner and supper with the turbaned cook; opened with her keys the smokehouse door, and in the storeroom superintended the weighing of flour and sugar and the measuring of Java coffee, and finally saw that the drawing-room was properly darkened against the sunny morning, and that the water was fresh in the bowls of flowers. She leaned for a moment against her harp, one hand upon its strings, her forehead resting upon her bare arm; then she turned from the room and entered the library, where she found her uncles waiting for her, Uncle Dick upon the hearth rug and Uncle Edward at the table.

"Jacqueline," began the first, then, "Edward, I never could talk to a woman! Ask her what all this damned nonsense means!"

"Your uncle doesn't mean that it is all damned nonsense, Jacqueline," said Uncle Edward, with gentleness. "Not perhaps from your point of view, my dear. But both he and I are greatly grieved and disappointed—"

"It was all arranged ages ago!" broke in the elder brother. "Fauquier Cary and your dear father, my brother Henry, settled it when you were born and Fauquier's son was a lad at Maury's school! When Henry died, and Fauquier Cary died, my brother Edward here and I said to each other that we would see the matter out! So we will, by God!"

"Gently, Dick! Jacqueline, child, you know how dear you are to us, and how the future and the happiness of you and of Unity and of Deb is our jealous care—"

"Fauquier Cary was as noble a man as ever breathed," cried the other, "and his son's his image! There's no better blood in Virginia—and the land beside—"

"It does not matter about the land, Jacqueline," said Uncle Edward, "though God forbid that I should depreciate good land—"

"Land's land," quoth Colonel Dick, "and good blood's gospel truth!"

"Bah! it's nature's truth!" said Uncle Edward. "Jacqueline, my dear, our hearts are set on this match. Mr. Ludwell Cary asked your uncle's permission to speak to you, and your uncle gave it gladly, and neither he nor I ever dreamed—"

"Of course we didn't," broke in the other. "We didn't dream that Jacqueline could be unreasonable or ungrateful, and we don't dream it now! Nor blind. Ludwell Cary's a man and a gentleman, and the woman who gets him is lucky!"

"We approved his suit, Jacqueline, and we hoped to be happy to-day in your happiness—"

"And in he comes at midnight last night, with his father's own look on his face, and what does he say to Edward and me, sitting here, waiting, with a thousand fancies in our heads? 'Miss Churchill will not have me,' says he, 'and you who have been so good to me, are to be good still, and not by word or look reproach her or distress her. The heart goes its own way, and loves where it must. She is an angel, and to-night I am a poor beaten and weary mortal. I thank you again, both of you, and wish you good-night.' And off he goes before a man could say Jack Robinson! Those were his very words, weren't they, Edward?"

"Yes," answered Edward. "He is a brave and gallant gentleman, Jacqueline. I love you, child, more than my old tongue can say. My Castle in Spain is Greenwood with you and Ludwell Cary and the children of you both."

"Oh, cruel!" cried Jacqueline. "He is brave and good—He is all that you say. But I shall never live at Greenwood!"

"It was your father's dearest wish," said the Major. "It is ours—Richard's and mine. We are not men who give up easily. God forbid, child, that I should hint to you, who are the darling of us all, of obligation—and yet I put it to you if obedience is not owed—"

"Yes, yes," answered Jacqueline. "It is owed. I am not ungrateful—I am mad—perhaps I am wicked! I wish that I were dead!"

"The Churchills," said Uncle Edward, "have never in their marriages set vulgar store by money. Blood we ask, of course, and honourable position, and the right way of thinking. Individually I am a stickler for mind. To his wealth and to his name and his great personal advantages Ludwell Cary adds intellect. He may become a power in his country and his time. You would so aid him, child! I am called a woman-hater, but once, Jacqueline, I loved too well. For all that I am a sorry old bachelor, I know whereof I speak. With a man, a woman to fight for is not half the battle—it is all the battle."

"He is all that you say," answered Jacqueline. "But I do not love him."

"You like him. You admire him."

"Yes, yes. That is not love."

"It is mighty near kin," said Uncle Dick. "No end of happy folk begin with esteem and go on like turtle doves. My little Jack, you shall have the prettiest wedding gown! It's all a mistake and a misunderstanding, and the good Lord knows there's too much of both in this old world! You'll think better of it all, and you'll find that you didn't know your own mind,—and there'll be a smile for poor Cary when he comes riding back to-night?"

"No, no," cried Jacqueline. "There is no mistake and no misunderstanding. Love cannot be forced, and I'll not marry where I do not love!"

"You don't," said Colonel Churchill slowly, "you don't by any chance love some one else? What does that colour mean, Jacqueline? Don't stammer! Speak out!"

But Jacqueline, standing by the old leather chair, bowed her head upon its high green back, and neither could nor would "speak out." The two men, grey and withered, obstinate and imperious in a day and generation that subordinated youth to the councils of the old, gazed at their niece with perplexity and anger. With the simpler of the two the perplexity was the greater, with the other anger. A fear was knocking at Major Churchill's heart. He would not admit it, strove not to listen to it, or to listen with contemptuous incredulity. "It's not possible," he said to himself. "Not a thousand summers at Jane Selden's would make her so forget herself! Jacqueline in love with that damned Jacobin demagogue upstairs! Pshaw!" But the fear knocked on.

Jacqueline lifted her head. "Be good to me, Uncle Dick! If I could love, if I could marry Mr. Cary, I would—I would indeed! But I cannot. Please let me go!"

"Not till I know more than I know now," said Colonel Churchill. "If it's George Lee, Jacqueline, I'll not say a word, sorry as I am for Cary. But if it's Will Allen, I'll see you dead before I give my consent! He's a spendthrift and a Republican!"

"I care neither for Mr. Lee nor Mr. Allen," said Jacqueline, with a burning cheek. "Oh, Uncle Edward, make Uncle Dick let me go!"

"It is not wise," Major Churchill considered within himself, "to push a woman too far. I'm a suspicious fool to think this thing of Jacqueline. It's all some girl's fancy or other, and if we go easily Cary will yet win—by God, he shall win! This damned Yahoo upstairs is neither here nor there!"

He spoke aloud to his brother. "Best let the child go think it over, Dick. She knows her duty—and that we expect her compliance. She doesn't want to wound us cruelly, to make us unhappy, to prove herself blind and ingrate. Give her a kiss and let her go."

"You come down and sing to us to-night, my little Jack, in your blue gown," quoth Uncle Dick. "Don't you ever let a time come when your singing won't be the sweetest sound in the world to me! Now go, and think of what we have said, and of poor Cary, ridden off to Greenwood!"

Jacqueline gazed at the two for a moment, and made as if to speak, but the words died in her throat. She uttered a broken cry, turned, groped a little for the door, found and opened it, and was gone. They heard the click of her slippers upon the stairs, and presently the closing of a blind in the room that was hers.

The brothers sat heavily on in the sunshine-flooded library, the elder red and fuming, the younger silent and saturnine. At last Colonel Dick broke out, "What the devil ails her, Edward? Every decent young fellow in the county comes to Fontenoy straight as a bee to the honey-pot! I've heard them sighing for her and Unity, but I never could see that she favoured one man more than another,—and she's no coquette like Unity! Except for that fine blush of hers, I'd never have thought. What do you think, Edward?"

"The ways of women are past my finding out," said Edward. "Let it rest for a while, Dick." He rose from his chair stiffly, like an old man. "Let Cary go home to-morrow as he intends. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,' they say. She may find that she misses him, and may look for him when he comes riding over. Never fear but he'll ride over often! He mustn't guess, of course, that you have spoken to her. And that's all we can do, Dick, except—" Major Edward walked stiffly across the floor and paused before the portrait of his brother Henry, dead and gone these many years. The face looked imperiously down upon him. Henry had stood for something before he died,—for grace and manly beauty, pride and fire. The Major's eyes suddenly smarted. "Poor white trash," he said between his teeth, "and Henry's daughter!" He turned and came back to the table. "Dick! just as soon as you can, you clear the house of old Gideon Rand's son!"

"What's he got to do with it?" asked Colonel Dick.

"I don't know," said the other. "But I want him out of the blue room, and out of Fontenoy! and now, Dick, I've got a piece to write this morning on the designs of Aaron Burr."

At five in the afternoon Cary returned, quiet and handsome, ready with his account of matters at Greenwood, from the stable, upon which Major Churchill must pronounce, to the drawing-room paper, which awaited Miss Dandridge's sentence. His behaviour was perfection, but "He's hard hit," said his brother to himself. "What, pray, would Miss Churchill have?" And Unity, "The shepherds and shepherdesses don't match. How can she have the heart?" And Major Churchill, "Are women blind? This is Hyperion to a satyr." And Jacqueline, "Oh, miserable me! Is he writing or reading, or is he lying thinking, there in the blue room?"

TO ALTHEA

Adam Gaudylock came, when his leisure served him, to Fontenoy as he went everywhere, by virtue of his quality of free lance and golden-tongued narrator of western news. The stress of thought at the moment was to the West and the empire that had been purchased there; and a man from beyond Kentucky, with tales to tell of the Mississippi Territory, brought his own welcome to town, tavern, and plantation. If this were true of all, it was trebly true of Adam, who had been born open-eyed. As the magnet draws the filings, so he drew all manner of tidings. News came to him as by a thousand carrier pigeons. He took toll of the solitary in the brown and pathless woods, of the boatmen upon fifty rivers, of the Indian braves about the council-fire, of hunters, trappers, traders, and long lines of Conestoga wagons, of soldiers on frontier posts, Jesuit missionaries upon the Ohio, camp-meeting orators by the Kentucky and the upper James, martial emissaries of three governments, village lawyers, gamblers, dealers in lotteries, and militia colonels, Spanish intendants, French agents, American settlers, wild Irish, thrifty Germans, Creoles, Indians, Mestizos, Quadroons, Congo blacks,—from the hunter in the forest to the slave in the fields, and from the Governor of the vast new territory to the boatman upon a Mississippi ark, not a type of the restless time but imparted to Adam something of its view of life and of the winds that vexed its sea. He was a skilful compounder, and when, forever wandering, he wandered back by wood and stream to the sunny, settled lands east of the Blue Ridge, he gave to the thirsty in plantation and town bright globules of hard fact in a heady elixir of fancy. While he talked all men were adventurers, and all women admired him. Adam liked this life and this world; asked nothing better than to journey through a hundred such.

Now, sitting at his ease in the blue room, a fortnight after Rand's accident, he delivered a score of messages from the Republicans of the county, gentle and simple, whom he had chanced to encounter since the accident to their representative.

"Colonel Randolph says the President has bad luck with the horses he gives—young Mr. Carr was thrown by a bay mare from Shadwell. Old Jowett swears that a trooper of Tarleton's broke his neck at that identical place—says you can hear him any dark night swearing like the Hessian he was. They drank your health at the Eagle, the night they heard of the accident, with bumpers—drank it just after Mr. Jefferson's and before the memory of Washington. 'Congress next!' they said. 'Hurrah! He'll scatter the Black Cockades—he'll make the Well-born cry King's Cruse! Hip, hip, hurrah! What's he doing at Fontenoy? They'll put poison in his cup! Hurrah!'"

"Fontenoy will not put poison in my cup," said Rand. "I hope some one was there to say as much."

"I said it," answered Adam. "They are a noisy lot. Tom Mocket made a speech and compared you to Moses. He wept when he made it, and they had to hold him steady on his feet. When they broke up, I took him home to the Partridge. I'll tell you one speech that he never made by himself, and that's the speech that's going to hang Fitch."

"No," said Rand. "I wrote it. You were at the trial?"

"Ay. It would have hung Abel, so poor Cain had no chance. Mr. Eppes says Mr. Jefferson counts upon your becoming a power in the state. I don't know—but it seems to me there's power enough in these regions! It's getting crowded. First thing you know, you'll be jealous of Mr. Jefferson, or he'll be jealous of you. If I were you, I'd look to the West."

"The old song!" exclaimed Rand. "What should I do in the West?"

"Rule it," said Adam.

Rand shot a glance at the hunter where he lounged against the window, a figure straight and lithe as an Indian, not tall, but gifted with a pantherish grace, and breathing a certain tawny brightness as of sunshine through pine needles. "You're daft!" he said; then after a moment, "Are you serious?"

"Why should I not be serious?" asked Adam. "My faith! it's a restless land, the West, and it's a far cry from the Mississippi to the Potomac. The West doesn't like the East anyhow. But it wants a picked man from the East. It will get one too! The wind's blowing hard from the full to the empty, from the parcelled-out to the virgin land!"

"Yes," said Rand.

"Why shouldn't you be the man?" demanded Gaudylock. "Just as well you as Claiborne—Wilkinson's naught, I don't count him—or any one still East, like—like—Aaron Burr."

"Aaron Burr?"

"Well, I just instance him. He's ambitious enough, and there doesn't seem much room for him back here. If Adam Gaudylock was ambitious and was anything but just an uneducated hunter with a taste for danger—I tell you, Lewis, I can see the blazed trees, I can see them with my eyes shut, stretching clean from anywhere—stretching from this room, say—beyond the Ohio, and beyond the Mississippi, and beyond Mexico to where the sun strikes the water! It's a trail for fine treading and a strong man, but it leads—it leads—"

"It might lead," said Rand, "to the Tarpeian Rock."

"Where's that?"

"It's where they put to death a sort of folk called traitors—Benedict Arnolds and such."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Adam. "Traitors! Benedict Arnold was a traitor. This is not like that. America's large enough for a mort of countries. All the states are countries—federated countries. Say some man is big enough to make a country west of the Mississippi—Well, one day we may federate too. Eh, Lewis, 'twould be a powerful country—great as Rome, I reckon! And we'd smoke the calumet with old Virginia—and she'd rule East and we'd rule West. D'you think it's a dream?—Well, men make dreams come true."

"Yes: Corsicans," answered Rand. "Aaron Burr is not a Corsican." He looked at his left hand, lying upon the arm of his chair, raised it, shut and opened it, gazing curiously at its vein and sinew. "You are talking midsummer madness," he said at last. "Let's leave the blazed trees for a while—though we'll talk of them again some time. Have you been along the Three-Notched Road?"

"Yes," replied Adam, turning easily. "Your tobacco's prime, the wheat, too, and the fencing is all mended and white-washed. It's not the tumble-down place it was in Gideon's time—you've done wonders with it. The morning-glories were blooming over the porch, and your white cat washing itself in the sun."

"It's but a poor home," said Rand, and he said it wistfully. He wished for a splendid house, a home so splendid that any woman must love it.

"It's not so fine as Fontenoy," quoth Adam, "nor Monticello, nor Mr. Blennerhassett's island in the Ohio, but a man might be happy in a poorer spot. Home's home, as I can testify who haven't any. I've known a Cherokee to die of homesickness for a skin stretched between two saplings. How long before you are back upon the Three-Notched Road?"

Rand moved restlessly. "The doctor says I may go downstairs to-day. I shall leave Fontenoy almost immediately. They cannot want me here."

"Have you seen Mr. Ludwell Cary?"

"He and his brother left Fontenoy some time ago. But he rides over nearly every day. Usually I see him."

"He is making a fine place of Greenwood. And he has taken a law office in Charlottesville—the brick house by the Swan.

"Yes. He told me he would not be idle."

Adam rose, and took up the gun which it was his whim to carry. "I'll go talk ginseng and maple sugar to Colonel Churchill for a bit, and then I'll go back to the Eagle. As soon as you are on the Three-Notched Road again I'll come to see you there."

"Adam," said Rand, "in the woods, when chance makes an Indian your host, an Indian of a hostile tribe, an Indian whom you know the next week may see upon the war-path against you—and there is in his lodge a thing, no matter what, that you desire with all your mind and all your heart and all your soul, and he will not barter with you, and the thing is not entirely his own nor highly valued by him, while it is more than life to you, and moreover you believe it to be sought by one who is your foe—would you, Adam, having eaten that Indian's bread, go back into the forest, and leave behind, untouched, unspoken of, that precious thing your soul longed for? The trail you take may never lead again to that lodge. Would you leave it?"

"Yes," answered Adam. "But my trail should lead that way again. It is a hostile tribe. I would come back, not in peace paint, but in war paint. I would fairly warn the Indian, and then I would take the bauble."

"Here is Mammy Chloe," said the other. "What have you there, mammy—a dish of red pottage?"

"No, sah," said Mammy. "Hit's a baked apple an' whipped cream an' nutmeg. Ole Miss she say Gineral Lafayette sho' did favour baked apples wunst when he wuz laid up wid a cold at her father's house in Williamsburgh. An' de little posy, Miss Deb she done gather hit outer her square in de gyarden. De Cun'l he say de fambly gwine expect de honour of yo' company dis evenin' in de drawin'-room."

Adam said good-bye and went away. An hour later, going down the Fontenoy road, he came upon a small brown figure, seated, hands over knees, among the blackberry bushes.

"Why, you partridge!" he exclaimed. "You little brown prairie-hen, what are you doing so far from home? Blackberries aren't ripe."

"No," said Vinie. "I was just a-walking down the road, and I just walked on. I wasn't tired. I always think the country's prettier down this way. Did you come from Fontenoy, Mr. Adam?"

"Yes," replied Adam, sitting down beside her. "I went to see Lewis Rand—not that I don't like all the people there anyway. They're always mighty nice to me."

Vinie dug the point of her dusty shoe into the dusty road.

"How ith Mr. Rand, Mr. Adam?"

"He 'ith' almost well," answered Adam. "He's going down into the parlour to-night, and pretty soon he's going home, and then he'll be riding into town to his office."

He looked kindly into the small, freckled, pretty face. The heat of the day stood in moisture on Vinie's brow, she had pushed back her sunbonnet, and the breeze stirred the damp tendrils of her hair. "Tom must miss him," said the hunter.

"Yeth, Tom does." Vinie drew toward her a blackberry branch, and studied the white bloom. "Which do you think is the prettiest, Mr. Adam,—Miss Unity or Miss Jacqueline?"

"Why, I don't know," answered Adam. "They are both mighty pretty."

"I think Miss Unity's the prettiest," said Vinie. "It's time I was walking back to Charlottesville." She rose and stood for a moment in the dusty road below the blackberry bushes, looking toward Fontenoy. "I don't suppose he asked after Tom and me, Mr. Adam?"

"Why, surely!" protested Adam, with cheerful mendacity. "He asked after you both particularly. He said he certainly would like a cup of water from your well."

"Did he?" asked Vinie, and grew pink. "That water's mighty cold."

"I'd like a cup of it myself," said Adam. "Since we are both walking to town, we might as well walk together. Don't you want me to break some cherry blossoms for your parlour?"

"Yeth, if you please," replied Vinie, and the two went up the sunny road to Charlottesville.

Back at Fontenoy, in the blue room, Rand, resting in the easy chair beside the window, left the consideration of Adam and Adam's talk, and gave his mind to the approaching hour in the Fontenoy drawing-room. He both desired and dreaded that encounter. Would Miss Churchill be there? Aided by the homely friendliness of her cousin's house on the Three-Notched Road, he had met her and conversed with her without being greatly conscious of any circumstance other than that she was altogether beautiful, and that he loved her. But this was not Mrs. Selden's, this was Fontenoy. He had stood here hat in hand, within Miss Churchill's memory—certainly within the memory of the men of her family. Well! He was, thank God! an American citizen. The hat was now out of his hand and upon his head. The conditions of his boyhood might, he thought, be forgotten in the conditions of his manhood. But—they would all be gathered in the drawing-room. Should he speak first to Colonel Churchill as his host, or first to the ladies of the house, to Miss Churchill and Miss Dandridge? If Miss Churchill or Miss Dandridge were at the harpsichord, should he wait at the door until the piece was ended? He had a vision of a great space of polished floor reflecting candlelight, and of himself crossing that trackless desert beneath the eyes of goddesses and men. The colour came into his face. There were twenty things he might have asked Mr. Pincornet that night at Monticello. He turned with hot impatience from the consideration of the usages of society, and fell to building with large and strong timbers the edifice of his future. He built on while the dusk gathered, and he built while Joab helped him to dress, and he was yet busy with beam and rafter when at eight o'clock, with some help from the negro, he descended the stairs and crossed the hall to the parlour door. How was he dressed? He was dressed in a high-collared coat of blue cloth with eagle buttons, in cloth breeches and silk stockings, in shoes with silver buckles, and a lawn neckcloth of many folds. His hair was innocent of powder, and cut short in what the period supposed to be the high Roman fashion. It was his chief touch of the Republican. In the matter of dress he had not his leader's courage. Abhorring slovenliness and the Jacobin motley, he would not affect them. He was dressed in his best for this evening; and if his attire was not chosen as Ludwell Cary would have chosen, it was yet the dress of a gentleman, and it was worn with dignity.

Music was playing, as he paused at the half-open door,—he could see Miss Dandridge at the harpsichord. The room seemed very light. For a moment he ceased to be the master-builder and sank to the estate of the apprentice, awkward and eaten with self-distrust; the next, with a characteristic abrupt motion of head and hand, he recovered himself, waved Joab aside, and boldly crossed the threshold.

Unity, at the harpsichord, was playing over, very rapidly, one after another, reels, hornpipes, jigs, and Congos, and looking, meanwhile, slyly out of velvet eyes at Fairfax Cary, who had asked for a particularly tender serenade. He stood beside her, and strove for injured dignity. It was a day of open courtship, and polite Albemarle watched with admiration the younger Cary's suit to Miss Dandridge. He had ridden alone to Fontenoy; his brother, who had business in Charlottesville, promising to join him later in the evening. Mr. Ned Hunter, too, was at Fontenoy, and he also would have been leaning over the harpsichord but for the fact that Colonel Dick had fastened upon him and was demonstrating with an impressive forefinger the feasibility of widening into a highway fit for a mail-coach a certain forest track running over the mountains and through the adjoining county. They stood upon the hearth, and Mr. Hunter could see Miss Dandridge only by much craning of the neck. "Yes, yes," he said vaguely, "it can easily be widened, sir."

Major Churchill, playing Patience at the small table, raised his head like a war-horse. "Nonsense! widen on one side and you will fall into the river; on the other, and a pretty cliff you'll have to climb! You could as well widen the way between Scylla and Charybdis—or Mahomet's Bridge to Paradise—or Thomas Jefferson's Natural Bridge! Pshaw!" He began to build from the five of clubs.

"A detour can be made," said Colonel Dick.

"Around the Blue Ridge?" asked the Major scornfully. "Pshaw! And it passes my comprehension what a stage-coach would do in that country. There are not ten houses on that cart track."

"Nonsense! there are fifty."

"Fifty-three, I assure you, sir."

The Major laid down his cards and turned in his chair. "I counted every structure the last time I was on that road. Taking in Fagg's Mill and Brown's Ferry and the Mountain Schoolhouse, there are just ten houses. It is my habit, sir, to reckon accurately."

Mr. Hunter grew red. "But, sir, the count was taken before the last election, and fifty-three—"

"Ten, sir!" said the Major, and placed the queen of diamonds.

"When did you ride that way, Edward?" queried his brother. "I don't believe you've been across the mountain since the war."

"I was on that road in '87," said the Major. "I rode that way on the sixth of April with Clark. And there are ten houses; I counted them."

"But good Lord, sir, this is 1804!"

The Major's hawk eyes, dark and bright beneath shaggy brows, regarded Mr. Ned Hunter with disfavour. "I am aware, sir, that this is 1804," he said, and placed the king of diamonds.

Jacqueline arose from her chair beside the open window, softly crossed the floor, and touched Colonel Churchill upon the arm. "Uncle Dick," she murmured, and with the slightest of gestures indicated Rand standing in the door.

Colonel Churchill started, precipitantly left Mr. Hunter, and crossed the floor to his guest of two weeks. "My dear sir, you came in so quietly! I welcome you downstairs. Gilmer says you're a strong fighter. When I was thrown at that same turn coming home from a wedding, I believe I was in bed for a month!—Allow me to present you to my nieces—Miss Churchill, Miss Dandridge. My poor wife, you know, never leaves her chamber. Mr. Ned Hunter, Mr. Rand. Mr. Fairfax Cary I think you know, and my brother Edward."

The young men's greeting, if somewhat constrained, was courteous. Major Churchill played the card which he held in his hand, then slowly rose, came stiffly from behind the small table, and made an elaborate bow. There was in his acknowledgment of the honour of Mr. Rand's acquaintance so much accent, cruelty, and hauteur that the younger man flushed. "This is an enemy," said a voice within him. He bowed in return, and he no longer felt any distrust of himself. When Miss Dandridge, leaving the harpsichord, established herself upon the sofa before him and opened a lively fire of questions and comment, he answered with readiness. He thought her pretty figure in amber lutestring, and the turn of her ringleted head, and the play of her scarlet lips all very good to look at, and he looked without hesitation. The account which she demanded of the accident which had placed him there he gave with a free, bold, and pleasing touch, and the thanks that were her due as the immediate Samaritan he chivalrously paid. Unity made friends with all parties, and she now found, with some amusement, that she was going to like Lewis Rand.

Rand looked too, freely and quietly, at the young men, his fellow guests. Each, he knew, was arrogantly impatient of his presence there. Well, they had nothing to do with it! His sense of humour awoke, and Federalist hauteur ceased to fret him. Colonel Churchill, the most genial of men, pushed his chair into the Republican's neighbourhood, and plunged into talk. Conversation in Virginia, where men were concerned, opened with politics, crops, or horseflesh. Colonel Dick chose the second, and Rand, who had a first-hand knowledge of the subject, met him in the fields. The trinity of corn, wheat, and tobacco occupied them for a while, as did the fruit and an experiment in vine-growing. The horse then entered the conversation, and Rand asked after Goldenrod, that had won the cup at Fredericksburg. "I broke him for you, you know, sir, seven years ago."

Colonel Churchill, who in his own drawing-room would not for the world have mentioned this little fact to his guest, suddenly thought within his honest heart, "This is a man, even if he is a damned Republican!" He gave a circumstantial account of Goldenrod, and of Goldenrod's brother, Firefly, and he said to himself, "I'll keep off politics." Presently Rand began to speak of Adam Gaudylock's account of New Orleans.

"Ay, ay," said the Colonel, "there's a city! But it's not English—it is Spanish and French. And all that new land now! 'twill never be held—begging your pardon, Mr. Rand—by Thomas Jefferson and a lot of new-fangled notions! No Spaniard ever did believe that all men are born equal, and no Frenchman ever wanted liberty long—not unadorned liberty, anyway. As for our own people who are pouring over the mountains—well, English blood naturally likes pride and power and what was good enough for its grandparents! Louisiana is too big and too far away. It takes a month to go from Washington to New Orleans. Rome couldn't keep her countries that were far away, and Rome believed in armies and navies and proper taxation, and had no pernicious notions—begging your pardon again, Mr. Rand—about free trade and the abolishment of slavery! I tell you, this new country of ours will breed or import a leader—and then she'll revolt and make him dictator—and then we'll have an empire for neighbour, an empire without any queasy ideas as to majorities and natural rights! And Thomas Jefferson—begging your pardon, Mr. Rand—is acute enough to see the danger. He's not bothering about majorities and natural rights either—for the country west of the Ohio! He's preparing to govern the Mississippi Territory like a conquered province. Mark my words, Mr. Rand, she'll find a Buonaparte—some young demagogue, some ambitious upstart without scruple or a hostage to fortune some common soldier like Buonaparte or favourite like—like—"

"Like—" queried Rand. But the Colonel, who had suddenly grown very red, would not or could not continue his comparison. He floundered, drew out his snuff-box and restored it to his pocket, and finally was taken pity on by Unity, who with dancing eyes reëntered the conversation, and asked if Mr. Rand had read The Romance of the Forest. Fairfax Cary left the harpsichord, where he had been impatiently turning over the music, and, strolling to one of the long windows, stood now looking out into the gloomy night, and now staring with a frowning face at the lit room and at Miss Dandridge, in her amber gown, smiling upon Lewis Rand! Near him, Major Churchill, preternaturally grey and absorbed, played Patience. The cards fell from his hand with the sound of dead leaves. Beside a second window sat Jacqueline, looking, too, into the night. She sat in a low chair covered with dull green silk, and the straight window curtains, of the same colour and texture, half enshadowed her. Her dress was white, with coral about her throat and in her hair. She leaned her elbow on her knee, and with her chin in her hand looked upon the dark mass of the trees, and the stars between the hurrying clouds.

The younger Cary, at his window, leaned out into the night, listened a moment, then turned and left the room. "It is my brother, sir," he announced, as he passed Colonel Churchill. "I hear him at the gate."

Ten minutes later Ludwell Cary entered. He was in riding-dress, his handsome face a little worn and pale, but smiling, his bearing as usual, quiet, manly, and agreeable. "It is a sultry night, sir," he said to Colonel Churchill. "There is a storm brewing.—Miss Dandridge, your very humble servant!—Mr. Rand—" He held out his hand. "I am rejoiced to see you recovered!"

Rand stood up, and touched the extended hand. "Thank you," he said, with a smile. "I were a Turk if I did not recover here amidst all this goodness."

"Yes, yes, there's goodness," answered Cary, and moved on to the window where Jacqueline sat in the shadow of the curtains. Rand, looking after him, saw him speak to her, and saw her answer with a smile.

A pang ran through him, acrid and fiery. It was not like the vapour of distaste and dislike, of which he had been conscious on the day of the election. That had been cold and clinging; this was a burning and a poisoned arrow. It killed the softening, the consciousness of charm, the spell of Cary's kindness while he lay there helpless in the blue room. Not since the old days when his heart was hot against his father, had he felt such venom, such rancour. That had been a boy's wild revolt against injustice; this passion was the fury of the adolescent who sees his rival. He looked at Cary through a red mist. This cleared, but a seed that was in Rand's nature, buried far, far down in the ancestral earth, swelled a little where it lay in its dim chasm. The rift closed, the glow as of heated iron faded, and Rand bitterly told himself, "He will win; more than that, he deserves to win! As for you, you are here to behave like a gentleman." He turned more fully to Unity, and talked of books and of such matters as he thought might be pleasing to a lady.

Fairfax Cary entered, brushing the drops from his coat-sleeve. "The rain is coming down," he said, and with deliberation seated himself beside Miss Dandridge.

"That's good!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Now things will grow!—Jacqueline, child, aren't you going to sing to us?"

Jacqueline rose, left the window, and went to her harp, Cary following her. She drew the harp toward her, then raised her clear face. "What shall I sing?" she asked.

Cary, struck by a note in her voice, glanced at her quickly where she now sat, full in the light of the candles. She had no colour ordinarily, but to-night the fine pale brown of her face was tinged with rose. Her eyes were lustrous. As she spoke she drew her hands across the strings, and there followed a sound, faint, far, and sweet. Cary wondered. He was not a vain man, nor over-sanguine, but he wondered, "Is the brightness for me?" The colour came into his own cheek, and a vigour touched him from head to heel. "I don't care what you sing!" he said. "Your songs are all the sweetest ever written. Sing To Althea!"

She sang. Rand watched her from the distance—the hands and the white arm seen behind the gold strings, the slender figure in a gown of filmy white, the warm, bare throat pouring melody, the face that showed the soul within. All the room watched her as she sang,—

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."

Through the window came the sound of rain, the smell of wet box and of damask roses. Now and then the lightning flashed, showing the garden and the white bloom of locust trees.

"Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."

Rand's heart ached with passionate longing, passionate admiration. He thought that the voice to which he listened, the voice that brooded and dreamed, for all that it was so angel-sweet, would reach him past all the iron bars of time or of eternity. He thought that when he came to die he would wish to die listening to it. The voice sang to him like an angel voice singing to Ishmael in the wilderness.

The song came to an end, but after a moment Jacqueline sang again, sonorous and passionate words of a lover to his mistress. It was not now the Cavalier hymning of constancy; it was the Elizabethan breathing passion, and his cry was the more potent.

"The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine"—

Blinding lightning, followed by a tremendous crash, startled the singer from her harp and brought all in the room to their feet. "That struck!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Look out, Fairfax, and see if 't was the stables! I hear the dogs howling.

"'Twas the big pine by the gate, I think, sir," answered Fairfax Cary, half in and half out of the window. "Gad! it is black!"

"You two cannot go home to-night," cried Colonel Churchill, with satisfaction. "And here's Cato with the decanters! We might have a hand at Loo—eh, Unity? you and Fairfax, Ned Hunter and I.—The card-table, Cato!"

The four sat down, the card-table being so placed as to quite divide Jacqueline and Ludwell Cary, at the harp, from Major Edward's small table and Rand beside the sofa. "Edward!" said the Colonel. His brother nodded, gathered up his cards, and turned squarely to the entertainment of the Republican. "So, Mr. Rand, Mr. Monroe goes to Spain! What the Devil is he going to do there? I wish that your party, sir, would send Mr. Madison to Turkey and Colonel Burr to the Barbary States! And what, may I ask, are you going to do with the Mississippi now that you've got it? It's a damned expensive business buying from Buonaparte. Sixty millions for a casus belli! That's what you have paid, and that's what you have acquired, sir!"

"I don't think you can be certain that it's a casus belli, sir—"

"Sir," retorted the Major, "I may not know much, but what I know, I know damned well! You cry peace, but there'll be no peace. There'll be war, sir, war, war, war!"

Unity glanced from the card-table. "Sing again, Jacqueline, do! Sing something peaceful," and Jacqueline, still with a colour and with shining eyes, laughed, struck a sounding chord, and in her noble contralto sang Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.

IN THE GARDEN

In the forenoon of the next day Rand closed, for the second time that morning, the door of the blue room behind him, descended the stairs, and, passing through the quiet house, went out into the flower garden. He was going away that afternoon. Breakfast had been taken in his own room, but afterward, with some dubitation, he had gone downstairs. There Colonel Churchill met him heartily enough, but presently business with his overseer had taken the Colonel away. Rand found himself cornered by Major Edward and drawn into a discussion of the impeachment of Judge Chase. Rand could be moved to the blackest rage, but he had no surface irritability of temper. To his antagonists his self-command was often maddening. Major Churchill was as disputatious as Arthur Lee, and an adept at a quarrel, but the talk of the impeachment went tamely on. The Republican would not fight at Fontenoy, and at last the Major in a cold rage went away to the library—first, however, watching the young man well on his way up the stairs and toward the blue room. But Rand had not stayed in the blue room. Restless and unhappy, the garden, viewed through his window, invited him. He thought: "I'll walk in it once again; I'll find the summer-house where I sat beside her," and he had acted upon his impulse. No one was about. Within and without, the house seemed lapped in quiet. He had been given to understand that the ladies were busy with household matters, and he believed the Carys to have ridden to Greenwood. That afternoon he would mount Selim, and with Joab would go home to the house on the Three-Notched Road.

After the rain of the night before the garden was cool and sweet. The drops yet lay on the tangle of old-fashioned flowers, on the box and honeysuckle and the broad leaves of the trees where all the birds were singing. The gravel paths were wet and shining. Rand walked slowly, here and there, between the lines of box or under arching boughs, his mind now trying to bring back the day when he had walked there as a boy, now wondering with a wistful passion if he was to leave Fontenoy without again seeing Jacqueline. He meant to leave without one word that the world might not hear, but he thought it hard that he must go without a touch of the hand, without a "From my heart I thank you for your kindness. Good-bye, good-bye!" That would not be much; Fontenoy might give him that.

He reached an edge of the garden where a thread-like stream trickled under a bank of periwinkle, phlox, and ivy, and on through a little wood of cedars. The air was cool beneath the trees, and Rand raised his forehead to the blowing wind. The narrow pathway turned, and he came upon Deb and Miranda seated upon the bare, red earth and playing with flower dolls.

Deb had before her a parade of morning-glories, purple and white, pink and blue, while Miranda sat in a ring of marigolds and red columbines. Each was slowly swaying to and fro, murmuring to herself, and manipulating with small, darting fingers her rainbow throng of ladies. Rand, unseen, watched the manoeuvres for a while, then coughed to let them know he was there, and presently sat down upon a root of cedar, and gave Deb his opinion of the flower people. Children and he were always at their ease together.

"Hollyhocks make the finest ladies," he announced gravely. "Little Miss Randolph puts snapdragon caps upon them and gives them scarfs of ribbon grass."

"Hollyhocks are not in bloom," said Deb. "I use snapdragon for caps, too.—Now she has on a red and gold cap. This is a currant-leaf shawl."

"Do you name them?" asked Rand, poising a columbine upon the back of his hand.

"Of course," answered Deb. "All people have names. That is Sapphira."

Miranda advanced a flourishing zinnia. "Dishyer Miss Keren-Happuch—Marse Job's daughter."

Deb regarded with shining eyes a pale blue morning-glory with a little cap of white. "This is Ruth—I love her! The dark one is Hagar—she was dark, you know—and those two are Rachel and Leah."

"Ol' Miss Babylon!" said Miranda succinctly, and put forth a many-petalled red lady.

"Babylon, Babylon,
Red an' sinnin' Babylon,
Wash her han's in Jordan flood,
Still she's sinnin' Babylon!"

"And, these three?" asked Rand.

"Faith, Hope, and Charity," answered Deb. "Faith is blue, Hope is pink, and that white one is Charity."

"She has a purple edge to her gown."

"Yes," said Deb, "and I am going to give her a crown, 'for the greatest of these is Charity!' That yellow lily is the Shulamite. Miranda and I are going now to gather more ladies." She looked at Rand with large child's eyes. "If you want somebody to talk to, my sister Jacqueline is reading over there in the summer-house."

The blood rushed to Rand's face. His heart beat so loud and fast that it stifled a voice within him. He did not even hear the voice. He rose at once, turned, and took the path that Deb's brown finger indicated. Had he been another man, had he been, perhaps, Ludwell Cary, he might not have gone. But he was Lewis Rand, the product and effect of causes inherited and self-planted, and his passion, rising suddenly, mastered him with a giant's grip. The only voice that he heard was the giant's urgent cry, and he went without protest.

The summer-house was a small, latticed place, overgrown with the Seven Sisters rose, and set in a breast-high ring of box opening here and there to the garden paths. A tulip tree towered above the gravel space before it, and two steps led to a floor chequered with light and shade, and to a rustic chair and table. Jacqueline was not within the summer-house; she sat in the doorway, upon the step. She was not reading. She sat bowed together, her head upon her folded arms, a figure still and tragic as a sphinx or sibyl. Rand's eyes upon her roused her from her brooding. She lifted her head, saw him, and her face, which had been drawn and weary, became like the face of the young dawn.

As Rand crossed the space between them, she rose. He saw the colour and the light, and he uttered only her name—"Jacqueline, Jacqueline!" A moment, and they were in each other's arms.

It was their golden hour. Neither thought of right or wrong, of the conditions of life beyond their ring of box, of wisdom or its contrary. It was as though they had met in the great void of space, the marvel called man and the wonder that is woman, each drawn to each over the endless fields and through the immeasurable ages. Each saw the other transfigured, and each wished for lover and companion the other shining one.

They moved to the summer-house, and sat down upon the step. About them was the Seven Sisters rose, and above towered the tulip tree with a mockingbird singing in its branches. The place was filled with the odour of the box. To the end of their lives the smell of box brought back that hour in the Fontenoy garden. The green walls hid from view all without their little round. They had not heard step or voice when suddenly, having strolled that way by accident, there emerged from the winding path into the space about the summer-house Colonel Churchill and Ludwell Cary. There was a second's utter check, then, "Sir!" cried the Colonel, in wrathful amazement.

The hands of the lovers fell apart. Rand rose, but Jacqueline sat still, looking at her uncle with a paling cheek and a faint line between her brows. The mockingbird sang on, but the garden appeared to darken and grow cold. The place seemed filled with difficult breathing. Then, before a word was spoken, Cary turned, made a slight gesture with his hand, and went away, disappearing between the lines of box. The sound of his footsteps died in the direction of the stream and the dark wood. Colonel Churchill moistened his lips and spoke in a thick voice. "You scoundrel! Was it for this? You are a scoundrel, sir!"

"I have asked Miss Churchill to be my wife," said Rand, with steadiness. "She has consented. I love your niece, sir, with all my heart, most truly, most dearly! I will ask you to believe that it was not in my mind to speak to her to-day, or to speak at all without your knowledge. I confess the impropriety of my course. But we met unawares. It is not to be helped. In no way is she to blame."

Jacqueline rose, came to her uncle, and tried to take his hand. He repulsed her. "Is this true—what this man says?"

"Yes, yes," said Jacqueline. "It is true. Oh, forgive him!"

The Colonel struck down her outstretched hands. "I do not believe you are Henry's child! Your mother was a strange woman. You are not a Churchill. My God! Henry's child talking of marrying this—this—this gentleman. You are mad, or I am mad. Come away from him, Jacqueline!"

"I love him!" cried Jacqueline. "Oh, Uncle Dick, Uncle Dick!—"

"I loved your niece, sir, when I was a boy," said Rand; "and I love her now that I am a man. I grant that I should not have spoken to her to-day. I ask your pardon for what may seem to you insult and thanklessness. But the thing itself—is it so impossible? Why is it impossible that I should wed where I love with all my heart?" He broke a piece of the box beside him and drew it through his hands, then threw it away, and squarely faced the elder man. "I had my way to make in life. Well, I am making it fast. I am making it faster, perhaps, than any other man in the county, be he who he may! I am poor, but I am not so poor as once I was, and I shall be richer yet. My want of wealth is perhaps the least—why should I not say that I know it is the least objection in your mind? My party? Well, I shall become a leader of my party—and Republicans are white as well as Federalists. It is not forgery or murder to detest Pitt and George the Third, or to believe in France! Is it so poor a thing to become a leader of a party that has gained an empire, that has put an end to the Algerine piracy, that has reduced the debt, that has made easier every man's condition, and that stands for freedom of thought and deed and advance of all knowledge? Party! Now and then, even in Virginia, there is a marriage between the parties! My family—or my lack of family? The fact that my father rolled tobacco, and that now and then I broke a colt for you?" He smiled. "Well, you must allow that I broke them thoroughly—and Goldenrod was a very demon! Pshaw! This is America, and once we had an ideal! For the rest, though I do not go to church, I believe in God, and though I have been called an unscrupulous lawyer, I take no dirty money. Some say that I am a demagogue—I think that they are wrong. I love your niece, sir, and more than that—oh, much more than that!—she says that she loves me. She says that she will share my life. If I make not that sharing sweet to her, then indeed—But I will! I will give her wealth and name and place, and a heart to keep. Again I say that the fault of this meeting is all mine. I humbly beg your pardon, Colonel Churchill, and I beg your consent to my marriage with your niece—"

A MARRIAGE AT SAINT MARGARET'S

"Yes," said Unity. "That is just what the Argus says. 'On Thursday M. Jérôme Buonaparte, the younger brother of the First Consul, passed through Annapolis with his bride—lately the lively and agreeable Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. M. Buonaparte's Secretary and Physician followed in a chaise, and the valets and femmes-de-chambre in a coach. The First Consul's brother wore—' I protest I don't care what the First Consul's brother wore! The Argus is not gallant. If you were the First Consul's brother—"

"The Argus should describe the bride's dress, not mine," said Fairfax Cary. "How lovely you would look, in that gown you have on, in a curricle drawn by grey horses! What is the stuff—roses and silver?"

"Heigho!" sighed Unity. "'Tis a bridesmaid's gown. I am out with men. I shall never wear a bride's gown."

"Don't jest—"

"Jest! I never felt less like jesting! I laugh to keep from crying. Here is the coach."

The great Fontenoy coach with the Churchill arms on the panel drew up before the porch. It was drawn by four horses, and driven by old Philip in a wig and nosegay. Mingo was behind, and Phyllis's Jim and a little darky ran alongside to open the door and let down the steps. "All alone in that!" exclaimed Cary. "I shall ride with you as far as the old road to Greenwood. Don't say no! I'll hold your flowers."

Unity looked down upon the roses in her arms. "They should all be white," she said. "I feel as though I were going to see them bury Jacqueline." Her voice broke, but she bit her lip, forced back the tears, and tried to laugh. "I'm not. I'm going to her wedding—and people know their own business best—and she may be as happy as the day is long! He is fascinating,—he is dreadfully fascinating,—and we have no right to say he is not good—and everybody knows he is going to be great! Why shouldn't she be happy?"

"I don't know," answered Cary. "But I know she won't be."

"You say that," cried Unity, turning on him, "because you are a Federalist! Well, women are neither Federalists nor Republicans! They have no party and no soul of their own! They are just what the person they love is—"

"That's not so," said Cary.

"Oh, I know it's not so!" agreed Miss Dandridge, with impatience. "It's just one of those things that are said! But it remains that Jacqueline must be happy. I'll break my heart if she's not! And as long as I live, I'll say that Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward are to blame—"

"Where are they?"

"Oh, Uncle Dick is in the long field watching the threshing, and Uncle Edward is in the library reading Swift! And Aunt Nancy has ordered black scarfs to be put above the pictures of Uncle Henry and of Great-Aunt Jacqueline that Jacqueline's named for. Oh, oh!"

"And Deb?" asked the young man gently.

"Deb is at Cousin Jane Selden's. She has been there with Jacqueline a week—she and Miranda. Oh, I know—Uncle Dick is a just man! He does what he thinks is the just thing. Deb shall go visit her sister—every now and then! And all that Uncle Henry left Jacqueline goes with her—there are slaves and furniture and plate, and she has money, too. The Rands don't usually marry so well—There! I, too, am bitter! But Uncle Dick swears that he will never see Jacqueline again—and all the Churchills keep their word. Oh, family quarrels! Deb's coming back to Fontenoy to-morrow—poor little chick! Aunt Nancy's got to have those mourning scarfs taken away before she comes!"

Miss Dandridge descended the porch steps to the waiting coach. The younger Cary handed her in with great care of her flowers and gauzy draperies, and great reluctance in relinquishing her hand. "I may come too?" he asked, "just as far as the old Greenwood road? I hate to see you go alone."

"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Miss Dandridge absently, and, sinking into a corner, regarded through the window the July morning. "Those black scarfs hurt me," she said, and the July morning grew misty. "It's not death to marry the man one loves!"

The coach rolled down the drive to the gate, and out upon the sunny road. The dust rose in clouds, whitening the elder, the stickweed, and the blackberry bushes. The locusts shrilled in the parching trees. The sky was cloudless and intensely blue, marked only by the slow circling of a buzzard far above the pine-tops. There were many pines, and the heat drew out their fragrance, sharp and strong. The moss that thatched the red banks was burned, and all the ferns were shrivelling up. Everywhere butterflies fluttered, lizards basked in the sun, and the stridulation of innumerable insects vexed the ear. The way was long, and the coach lumbered heavily through the July weather. "I do not want to talk," sighed Unity. "My heart is too heavy."

"My own is not light," said Cary grimly. "I am sorry for my brother."

"We are all sorry for your brother," Unity answered gently, and then would speak no more, but sat in her silver and roses, looking out into the heat and light. The Greenwood road was reached in silence. Cary put his head out of the window and called to old Philip. The coach came slowly to a stop before a five-barred gate. Mingo opened the door, and the young man got out. "Unless you think I might go with you as far as the church—" he suggested, with his hand on the door. Unity shook her head. "You can't do that, you know! Besides, I am going first to Cousin Jane Selden's. Good-bye. Oh, it is going to be a happy marriage—it must be happy!"

"What is going to make it happy?" demanded Cary gloomily. "It's a match against nature! When I think of your cousin in that old whitewashed house, and every night Gideon Rand's ghost making tobacco around it! I am glad that Ludwell has gone to Richmond. He looks like a ghost himself."

"Oh, the world!" sighed Unity. "Tell Philip, please, to drive on."

"I'll ride over to Fontenoy to-morrow," said Fairfax Cary. "'Twill do you good to talk it over."

The coach went heavily on through the dust of the Three-Notched Road. The locusts shrilled, the pines gave no shade, in the angle of the snake fences pokeberry and sumach drooped their dusty leaves. The light air in the pine-tops sounded like the murmur of a distant sea, too far off for coolness. Unity sighed with the oppression of it all. The flowers were withering in her lap. After a long hour the road turned, discovering yellow wheat-fields and shady orchards, the gleam of a shrunken stream and a brick house embowered in wistaria. Around the horse-block and in the shade of a great willow were standing a coach or two, a chaise, and several saddle-horses. "All of them Republican," commented Unity.

At the door she was met by Cousin Jane Selden herself, a thin and dark old lady with shrewd eyes and a determined chin. "I'm glad to see you, Unity, though I should have been more glad to see Richard and Edward Churchill! 'Woe to a stiff-necked generation!' says the Bible. Well! you are fine enough, child, and I honour you for it! There are a few people in the parlour—just those who go to church with us. The clock has struck, and we'll start in half an hour. Jacqueline is in her room, and when she doesn't look like an angel she looks like her mother. You had best go upstairs. Mammy Chloe dressed her."

Unity mounted the dark, polished stairs to an upper hall where stood a tall clock and a spindle-legged table with a vast jar of pot-pourri. A door opened, framing Jacqueline, dressed in white, and wearing her mother's wedding veil. "I knew your step," she said. "Oh, Unity, you are good to come!"

In the bedroom they embraced. "Wild horses couldn't have kept me from coming!" declared Unity with resolute gaiety. "Whichever married first, the other was to be bridesmaid!—we arranged that somewhere in the dark ages! Oh, Jacqueline, you are like a princess in a picture-book!"

"And Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

"Well, the Churchills are obstinate folk, as we all know!" answered Unity cheerfully. "But I think time will help. They can't go on hating forever. Uncle Dick is in the fields, and Uncle Edward is in the library reading. There, there, honey!"

Mammy Chloe bore down upon them from the other end of the room. "Miss Unity, don' you mek my chile cry on her weddin' mahnin'! Hit ain't lucky to cry befo' de ring's on!"

"I'm not crying, Mammy," said Jacqueline. "I wish that I could cry. It is you, Unity, that are like a princess in your rose and silver, with your dear red lips, and your dear black eyes! Isn't she lovely, Mammy?" She came close to her cousin and pinned a small brooch in the misty folds above the white bosom. "This is my gift—it is mother's pearl brooch. Oh, Unity, don't think too ill of me!"

"Think ill!" cried Unity, with spirit. "I think only good of you. I think you are doing perfectly right! I'll wear your pearl always—you were always like a pearl to me!"

"Even pearls have a speck at heart," said Jacqueline. "And there's nothing perfectly right—or perfectly wrong. But most things cannot be helped. Some day, perhaps, at home—at Fontenoy—they will think of the time when they were young—and in love." She turned and took up her gloves from the dressing-table. "I have had a letter from Ludwell Cary," she said, then spoke over her shoulder with sudden lire. "He is the only one of all I know, the only one of all my people, who has been generous enough, and just enough, to praise the man I marry!"

"Oh, Jacqueline!" cried Unity, "I will praise him to the skies, if only he will make you happy! Does not every one say that he has a great future? and surely he deserves all credit for rising as he has done—and he is most able—"

"And good," said Jacqueline proudly. "Don't praise him any more, Unity." She put her hands on her cousin's shoulders and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Now and then, my dear, will you come to see me on the Three-Notched Road? I shall have Deb one week out of six."

"I shall come," answered Unity. "Where is Deb?"

"She is asleep. She cried herself to sleep."

"Chillern cry jes' fer nothin' at all," put in Mammy Chloe. "Don' you worry, honey! Miss Deb's all right. I's gwine wake her now, an' wash her face, an' slip on her li'l white dress. She's gwine be jes' ez peart an' ez happy! My Lawd! Miss Deb jes' gainin' a brother!"

"Jacqueline," came Cousin Jane Selden's voice at the door. "It is almost time."

The coach of the day was an ark in capacity, and woman's dress as sheathlike as a candle flame. Jacqueline, Unity, Deb, Cousin Jane Selden, and a burly genial gentleman of wide family connections and Republican tenets travelled to church in the same vehicle and were not crowded. The coach was Cousin Jane Selden's; the gentleman was of some remote kinship, and had been Henry Churchill's schoolmate, and he was going to give Jacqueline away. He talked to Cousin Jane Selden about the possibilities of olive culture, and he showed Deb a golden turnip of a watch with jingling seals. Jacqueline and Unity sat in silence, Jacqueline's arm around Deb. Behind their coach came the small party gathered at Mrs. Selden's. The church was three miles down the road. It was now afternoon, and the heat lay like a veil upon wood and field and the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge. The dust rose behind the carriage, then sank upon and further whitened the milkweed and the love vine and the papaw bushes. The blaze of light, the incessant shrilling of the locusts, the shadeless pines, the drouth, the long, dusty road—all made, thought Unity, a dry and fierce monotony that seared the eyes and weighed upon the soul. She wondered of what Jacqueline was thinking.

The Church of Saint Margaret looked forth with a small, white-pillared face, from a grove of oaks. It had a flowery churchyard, and around it a white paling, keeping in the dead, and keeping out all roaming cattle. There was a small cracked bell, and the swallows forever circled above the eaves and in and out of the belfry. Without the yard, beneath the oaks, were a horserack and a shed for carriages. To-day there were horses at the rack and tied beneath the trees; coaches, chaises, and curricles, not a few, beneath the shed and scattered through the oak grove. The church within was all rustle and colour. Saint Margaret's had rarely seen such a gathering, or such a wholly amicable one, for to-day all the pews were of one party. The wedding was one to draw the curious, the resolutely Republican, the kindred and friends of Jefferson,—who, it was known, had sent the bride a valuable present and a long letter,—the interested in Rand, the inimical, for party and other reasons, to the Churchills and the Carys. The county knew that Miss Churchill might have had Greenwood. The knowledge added piquancy to the already piquant fact that she had chosen the house on the Three-Notched Road. Colonel Churchill and Major Edward, the county knew, would not come to the wedding; neither, of course, would the two Carys; neither, it appeared, would any other Federalist. The rustling pews looked to all four corners and saw only folk of one watchword. True, under the gallery was to be seen Mr. Pincornet, fadedly gorgeous in an old green velvet, but to this English stock Mr. Pincornet might give what word he chose; he remained a French dancing master. The rustling pews nodded and smiled to each other, waiting to see Jacqueline Churchill come up the aisle in bridal lace. Under the gallery, not far from Mr. Pincornet, sat Adam Gaudylock, easy and tawny, dressed as usual in his fringed hunting-frock, with his coonskin cap in his hand, and his gun at his feet. Beside him sat Vinie Mocket, dressed in her best. Vinie's eyes were downcast, and her hands clasped in her lap. She wondered—poor little partridge!—why she was there, why she had been so foolish as to let Mr Adam persuade her into coming Vinie was afraid she was going to cry. Yet not for worlds would she have left Saint Margaret's; she wanted, with painful curiosity, to see the figure in bridal lace She wondered where Tom was Tom was to have joined Mr. Adam and herself an hour ago The bell began to ring, and all the gathering rustled loudly. "She's coming—she's coming?" whispered Vinie, and Adam, "Why, of course, of course, little partridge. Now don't you cry—you'll be walking up Saint Margaret's aisle yourself some day!"

The bell ceased to ring. Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood beside the chancel rail. A sound at the door, a universal turning as though the wind bent every flower in a garden—and Jacqueline Churchill came up the aisle between the coloured lines. Her hand was upon the arm of her father's schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed her. Rand met her at the altar, and the old clergyman who had baptized her married them. It was over, from the "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together," to the "Until Death shall them part!" Lewis and Jacqueline Rand wrote their names in the register, then turned to receive the congratulations of those who crowded around them, to smile, and say the expected thing. Rand stooped and kissed Deb, wrung Mrs. Selden's hand, then held out his own to Unity with something of appeal in his gesture and his eyes. Miss Dandridge promptly laid her hand in his, and looked at him with her frank and brilliant gaze. "Now that we are cousins," she said, "I do not find you a monster at all. Make her happy, and one day we'll all be friends." "I will—I will!" answered Rand, with emotion, pressed her hand warmly, and was claimed by others of his wedding guests. Jacqueline, too, had clung at first to Unity and Deb and Cousin Jane Selden, but now she also turned from the old life to the new, and greeted with a smiling face the people of her husband's party. Many, of course, she knew; only a difference of opinion stood between them and the Churchills; but others were strangers to her—strangers and curious. She felt it in the touch of their hands, in the stare of their eyes, and her heart was vaguely troubled. She saw her old dancing master, tiptoeing on the edge of the throng, and her smile brought Mr. Pincornet, his green velvet and powdered wig, to her side. He put his hand to his heart and bowed as to a princess.

"Ha! Mr. Pincornet," exclaimed Rand, "I remember our night at Monticello. Now I have a teacher who will be with me always!—Jacqueline, I want you to speak to my old friend, Adam Gaudylock."

"Ah, I know Mr. Gaudylock," answered Jacqueline, and gave the hunter both her hands. "We all know and admire and want to be friends with Adam Gaudylock!"

The picture that she made in her youth and beauty and bridal raiment was a dazzling one. Adam looked at her so fully and so long that she blushed a little. She could not read the thought behind his blue eyes. "You shall be my Queen if you like," he said at last, and Jacqueline laughed, thinking his speech the woodsman's attempt to say a pretty thing.

Rand drew forward with determination a small brown figure. "Jacqueline, this is another good friend of mine—Miss Lavinia Mocket, the sister of my law partner.—Vinie, Vinie, you are shyer than a partridge! You shan't scuttle away until you have spoken to my wife!"

"Yeth, thir," said Vinie, her hand in Jacqueline's. "I wish you well, ma'am."

Rand and Adam laughed. Jacqueline, with a sudden soft kindliness for the small flushed face and startled eyes, bent her flower-crowned head and kissed Vinie. "Oh!" breathed Vinie. "Yeth, yeth, Mith Jacqueline, I thertainly wish you well!"

"Where's Tom?" asked Rand. "Tom should be here—" but Vinie had slipped from the ring about the bride. Adam followed; Mr. Pincornet had already faded away. More important folk claimed the attention of the newly wedded pair, and Mr. Mocket had not yet appeared when at last the gathering, bound for the wedding feast at Mrs. Selden's, deserted the interior of the church and flowed out under the portico and down the steps to the churchyard and the coaches waiting in the road. Lewis and Jacqueline Rand came down the path between the midsummer flowers. They were at the gate when the sight and sound of a horse coming at a gallop along the road drew from Rand an exclamation. "Tom Mocket—and his horse in a lather! There's news of some kind—"

It was so evident, when the horse and rider came to a stop before the church gate, that there was news of some kind, that the wedding guests, gentle and simple, left all talk and all employment to crowd the grassy space between the gate and the road and to demand enlightenment. Mocket's horse was spent, and Mocket's face was fiery red and eager. He gasped, and wiped his face with a great flowered handkerchief. "What is it, man?" cried a dozen voices.

Mocket rose in his stirrups and looked the assemblage over. "We're all Republicans—hip, hip, hurrah! Eh, Lewis Rand, I've brought you a wedding gift! The stage had just come in—I got the news at the Eagle! Hip, hip—"

"Tom," said Rand at his bridle rein, "you've been drinking. Steady, man. Now, what's the matter?"

"A wedding gift! a wedding gift!" repeated Tom, taken with his own conceit. "And I never was soberer, gentlemen, never 'pon honour! Hip, hip, hurrah! we're all good Republicans—but you'll never guess the news!—The Creole's dead!"

"No!" cried Rand.

There arose an uproar of excited voices. "Yes, yes, it's true!" shouted Mocket. "The stage brought it. He was challenged by Aaron Burr. They met at a place named Weehawken. Burr's first shot ended it.—Sandy'll trouble us no more!"

"It's rumour—"

"No, no, it's gospel truth! There's a messenger from the President, and letters from all quarters. He's dead, and Burr's in hiding! Gad! We'll have a rouse at the Eagle to-night! Blue lights for Assumption and Funding and the Sedition Bill and Taxes and Standing Armies and the British Alliance—

"Oh, Alexander, King of Macedon,
Where is your namesake, Andy Hamilton?

"In a hotter place, I hope, than Saint Kitts!"

"Hush!" said Rand. "Don't be ranting like a Mohawk! When a man's dead, it's time to let him rest."

He turned to the excited throng, and as he did so, he was aware that Jacqueline was standing white and frozen, and that Unity was trying to take her hand. He felt for her an infinite tenderness, and he promised himself to give Tom Mocket an old-time rating for at least one ill-advised expression. Such wedding gifts were not for Jacqueline. But as for the news—Rand felt his cheek grow hot and his eyes glow. In all the history of the country this was the decade in which political animosity, pure and simple, went its greatest length. Each party thought of the struggle as a battlefield; the Federalist strength was already broken, and now if the leader was down, it was not in fighting and Republican nature to restrain the wild cheer for the rout that must follow. Rand was a fighter too, and a captain of fighters, and the hundred whirling thoughts, the hundred chances, the sense of victory, and the savage joy in a foe's defeat—all the feeling that swelled his heart left him unabashed. But he thought of Jacqueline, and he tried to choose his words. There would be now, he knew, no wedding feast at Mrs. Selden's. Randolphs, Carrs, Coles, Carters, Dabneys, Gordons, Meriwethers, and Minors—all would wish to hurry away. Plantation, office, or tavern, there would be letters waiting, journals to read, men to meet, committees, clamour, and debate. Of the ruder sort who had crowded to the church, many were already on the point of departure, mounting their horses, preparing for a race to the nearest tavern and newspaper. "Gentlemen," exclaimed Rand, "if it's true news—if we have indeed to deplore General Hamilton's death—"

"'Deplore!'" cried Mocket.

"'Deplore!'" echoed bluntly a Republican of prominence. "Don't let's be hypocrites, Mr. Rand. We'll leave the Federalists to 'deplore'—"

"Oh, I'll deplore him with pleasure!" cried a third. "It won't hurt to drop a tear—but for all that it's the greatest news since 1800!"

"Hip, hip, hurrah!"

"Weehawken! where's Weehawken? What's Burr in hiding for? Can't a gentleman fight a duel? Let him come down here, and we'll give him a triumph!"

"'Deplore!'"—

"I chose my word badly," said Rand, with the good-nature that always disarmed; "I shall not weep over my enemy, I only mean that I would not ignobly exult. Of course, sir, it is great news—the very greatest! And all here will now want the leisure of the day."

"Tell them, Lewis, that I'll excuse them," said Cousin Jane Selden. "We won't have a feast on the day of a funeral."

A little later, deep in the embrace of the old Selden coach, husband and wife began their journey to the house on the Three-Notched Road. In the minutes that followed the disposal of their wedding guests it had been settled that they would not return to Mrs. Selden's—it was best to go home instead. Cousin Jane would take Deb; Unity must return at once to Fontenoy. Hamilton and Edward Churchill had served together on Washington's staff; of late years they had seldom met, but the friendship remained. Unity knew, but would not speak of it, that Uncle Edward had finished, only the night before, a long letter to his old comrade-at-arms. With the exception of Deb, all the little party were aware that Jacqueline Rand's chances for forgiveness from her uncles were measurably slighter for this day's tidings. She seemed dazed, pale as her gown, but very quiet. She held Deb in her arms, and kissed Unity and Cousin Jane Selden. Her husband lifted her into the coach, wrung the others' hands, and followed her. "Good-bye, Lewis," said Mrs. Selden at the door. "I'll send a bowl of arrack to your men, and I'll ride over to-morrow to see Jacqueline. Good-bye, children, and God bless you both!"

The coach and four took the dusty road. A turn, and Saint Margaret's was hidden, another, and they were in a wood of beech and maple. The heat of the day was broken, and a wind was blowing. Rand took Jacqueline's hands, unclasped and chafed them. "So cold!" he said. "Why could we not have heard this news to-morrow!"

She shuddered strongly. "The noble—the great—" her voice broke.

"Is it so you think of him?" he asked. "Well—I, too, will call him noble and great—to-day.

"No more for him the warmth of the bright sun;
Nor blows upon his brow the wind of night!

"He's gone—and we all shall go. But this is our wedding day. Let us forget—let us forget all else but that!"

"I grieve for the country," she said.

He kissed her hand. "Poor country! But her Sons die every day. She is like Nature—she takes no heed. Let us, too, forget!"

"Oh, his poor wife—"

Rand drew her to him. "Will you mourn for me when I am dead?"

"No," she answered. "We will die together.—Oh, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!"

"You promised that you would be happy," he said, and kissed her. "You promised you would not let Fontenoy and the things of Fontenoy stand like a spectre between us. Forget this, too. Everywhere there is dying. But it is our wedding day—and I love you madly—and life and the kingdoms of life lie before us! If you are not happy, how can I be so?"

"But I am!" she cried, and showed him a glowing face. "I am happier than the happiest!"

The wood thinned into glades where the shadows of beech and maple were beginning to be long upon the grass; then, in the afternoon light, the coach entered open country, fields of ox-eyed daisies, and tall pine trees standing singly.

"I never came this far," said Jacqueline. "I never saw the house."

"It is there where the smoke rises beyond that tobacco-field," answered Rand. "All the tobacco shall be changed into wheat."

They came in sight of the house,—a long storey-and-a-half structure of logs, with two small porches and a great earthen chimney. Pine trees gave a scanty shade. House and outbuildings and fencing had all been freshly whitewashed; over the porches flourished morning-glory and Madeira vines, and the little yard was bright with hollyhock and larkspur. Jacqueline put her hand in her husband's. Rand bent and kissed it with something in touch and manner formal and chivalrous. "It is a poor house for you. Very soon I shall build you a better."

"I want no better," she answered. "Have you not lived here all these years?"

"Adam called you Queen. You should have a palace—"

"If I am Queen, then you must be a King. I think it is a lovely palace. What is that tree by the gate—all feathery pink?"

"A mimosa. Mr. Jefferson gave it to me. It is like you—it does not belong on the Three-Notched Road. It should stand in a palace garden with dim alleys, fountains, and orange groves." He ended in a deeper tone, "Why not? One day we may plant a mimosa in such a garden, and smile and say, 'Do you remember the tree—do you remember our wedding day?' Who knows—who knows?"

"You shall stay in that palace all alone," said Jacqueline. "I like this one best."

The house stood back from the road in its clump of pines. The coach stopped, and Rand and Jacqueline, descending, crossed a strip of short grass tufted with fennel and velvet mullein to the gate beneath the mimosa, entered the gay little yard, and moved up the path to the larger of the two porches. They were at home. On the porch to welcome them they found the white man who worked on shares and oversaw the farm, Joab and three other slaves of Rand's, Mammy Chloe, Hannah, and the negro men who belonged to Jacqueline. These gave a noisy greeting. Rand put money into the hands of the slaves and sent them away happy to the tumble-down quarter behind the house. The white man took his leave, and Mammy Chloe and Hannah retired to the kitchen, where supper was in preparation. Rand and Jacqueline entered together the clean, bare rooms.

Later, when Hannah's supper had been praised and barely touched, the two came again to the porch, and presently, hand in hand, moved down the steps, and over the dry summer grass to the mimosa at the gate. Here they turned, and in the gathering dusk looked back at the house, the sleeping pines, and all the shadowy surrounding landscape.

"Hear the frogs in the marsh!" said Rand. "They are excited to-night. They know I have brought a princess home."

"Listen to the cow-bells," she said. "I love to hear them, faint and far like that. I love to think of you, a little barefoot boy, bringing home the cows—and never, never dreaming once of me!"

"When could that have been?" he asked. "I have always dreamed of you—even when 'twas pain to dream!—There is the first whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will! Once it had the loneliest sound! The moon is growing brighter. The dark has come."

"I love you, Lewis."

"Darling, darling! Listen! that is the night horn. The lights are out in the quarter. Do you hear the stream—our stream—hurrying past the apple tree? It is hurrying to the sea—the great sea. We've put out to sea together—you and I, just you and I!"

"Just you and I!" she echoed. "Oh, bliss to be together!"

"Let us go," he whispered. "Let us go back to the house," and with his arm around her, they moved up the path between the flowers that had closed with the night.

THE THREE-NOTCHED ROAD

Lewis Rand and his wife dwelt that summer and autumn in the house on the Three-Notched Road, and were happy there. If the ghost of Gideon Rand walked, the place, renovated, clean, bright, and homely sweet, showed no consciousness of any influence of the dark. Passers-by on the dusty road looked curiously at the gay little yard and the feathery mimosa and the house behind the pines. "Lewis Rand lives there," they said, and made their horses go more slowly.

The pines hid the porch where Jacqueline sat with her work, or, hands about her knees, dreamed the hours away. She was much alone, for after the first week Rand rode daily to his office in Charlottesville. There was no reconciliation with her people. All her things had been sent from Fontenoy. Linen that had been her mother's lay with bags of lavender in an old carved chest from Santo Domingo, and pieces of slender, inlaid furniture stood here and there in the room they called the parlour. Her candlesticks were upon the mantel, and her harp made the room's chief ornament. Her fortune, which was fair, had been formally made over to her and to Rand. She was glad it was no less; had it been vastly greater, she would only have thought, "This will aid him the more." The little place was very clean, very sweet, ordered, quiet, and lovable. She was a trained housewife as well as the princess of his story, and she made the man she loved believe in Paradise. Each afternoon when he left the jargon and wrangling of the courtroom his mind turned at once to his home and its genius. All the way through the town, beckoning him past the Eagle and past every other house or office which had for him an open door, he saw Jacqueline waiting beneath the mimosa at the gate, clad in white, her dark hair piled high, about her throat a string of coral or of amber. Out on the road, beneath the forest trees, in the radiance of the evening, he rode with his head high and a smile within his eyes. All the scheming, all the labour and strife of the day, fell from him like rusty armour, and his spirit bathed itself in the thought of that meeting. She did not always await him at the gate; sometimes he found her half a mile from home, sitting in the sunset light upon a stone beside the road. Then he dismounted, kissed her, and they walked together back to their nest in the tree of life. Supper-time would follow, with the lighted candles and the fragrance from Hannah's kitchen, and the little humorous talk with the old, fond, familiar servants, and the deeper words between husband and wife of things done or to be done; then quiet upon the porch, long silences, broken sentences of deep content, while the glow faded and the stars came out; then the candles again and his books and papers, while she read or sewed beside him. When his task was done she sang to him, and so drew on the hour when they put out the lights and entered the quiet, spotless chamber where the windows opened to the east.

Rand worked as he had not worked before. All the springs were running, all the bitter wells were sweet; to breathe was to draw in fulness of life, and all things were plastic to his touch. Love became genius, and dreaming accomplishment. In Albemarle, in Virginia, in the country at large, the time was one of excitement, fevered labour, and no mean reward. The election for President was drawing on. Undoubtedly the Republicans and Jefferson would sweep the country, but it behooved them to sweep it clean. The Federalist point of view was as simple. "Win! but we'll not make broad the paths before you! Winning shall be difficult." The parties worked like Trojans, and he who could speak spoke as often as any leader of heroic times.

At court house and at tavern banquets, at meetings here and meetings there, barbecues, dinners, races, militia musters, gatherings at crossroads and in the open fields, by daylight and by candlelight and by torchlight, Republican doctrine was expounded, and Federalist doctrine made answer. The clash of the brazen shields was loud. It was a forensic people and a plastic time. He who could best express his thought might well, if there were power in the thought, impress it so deeply that it would become the hall-mark of his age. His chance was good. Something more than fame of a day shone and beckoned before every more than able man. To stamp a movement of the human mind, to stamp an age, to give the design to one gold coin from the mint of Time,—what other prize worth striving for? The design?—one thought of moderate Liberty and the head of Washington, another thought of Liberty and the head of Jefferson, another of License and a head like Danton's, another of Empire and a conqueror's head.

In Albemarle, at all Republican gatherings the man most in demand was Lewis Rand; and the surrounding counties of Fluvanna, Amherst, Augusta, and Orange considered themselves happy if he could be drawn to this or that mass meeting. It was not easy to attract him. He never consciously said to himself, "Be chary of favours; they will be the more prized"; he said instead, "I'll not waste an arrow where there's no gold to hit." When he saw that it was worth his while to go, he went, and sent an arrow full into the gold. Amherst and Augusta, Fluvanna and Orange, broke into applause and prophecy, while upon each return home Republican Albemarle welcomed him with added rapture, and Federalist Albemarle hurled another phrase into its already comprehensive anathema. His reputation grew amain, both in his native section and in the state at large. Before the autumn his election to the House of Delegates, which in April seemed so great a thing, began to assume the appearance of a trifle in his fortunes. He would overtop that, and how highly no man was prepared to say. Through all the clashing of shields, through Republican attack and Federalist resistance, through the clamour over Hamilton's death, the denunciation and upholding of Burr, the impeachment of Chase, the situation in Louisiana, the gravitation towards France, and the check of England, the consciousness of Pitt and the obsession of Napoleon,—through all the commotion and fanfaronade of that summer Rand kept a steady hand and eye, and sent his arrows into the gold. In the law, as in politics, he was successful. A comprehensive knowledge and an infinite painstaking, a grasp wide and firm, a somewhat sombre eloquence, a personal magnetism virile and compelling,—these and other attributes began to make his name resound. He won his cases, until presently to say of a man, "He has Lewis Rand," was in effect to conclude the matter. He had no Federalist clients; that rift widened and deepened. Federalist Albemarle meant the Churchills and the Carys, their kinsmen, connections, and friends. The gulf seemed fixed.

Jacqueline, keeping at home in the house on the Three-Notched Road, saw very few from out her old life. Those who had been her girlhood friends kept aloof. If their defection pained her, she gave no sign—she had something of her father's pride. Among the Republican gentry she was of course made much of, and she saw something of the plainer sort of her husband's friends. Tom Mocket came occasionally on business with Rand, and once he brought Vinie with him. Jacqueline liked the sandy-haired and freckled scamp, and made friends with Vinie. In the first July days Adam Gaudylock often sat upon her porch, but now for weeks he had been wandering in the West. Once or twice Mr. Pincornet, straying that way, had delicately looked his pity for a lovely woman in a desert waste. Cousin Jane Selden remained her good neighbour and kind friend, and once Mr. Ned Hunter brought a message from Unity. Her old minister came to see her, and Dr. Gilmer, when illness called him in that direction, always drew rein at her gate. Ludwell Cary was out of the county, and Fairfax Cary never rode that way. Unity came whenever it was possible, and thrice, between July and October, Deb and Miranda and a horsehair trunk arrived for a blissful week. To Deb they were unshadowed days. The log house, the pine wood and singing stream, an owl that hooted each night, a row of tiger lilies and a thicket of blackberries, Jacqueline to tell her stories, Mammy Chloe and Hannah, the new brother who came home every evening riding a great bay horse and kissing Jacqueline beneath the mimosa tree, the brother who showed her twenty unguessed treasures and gave her the Arabian Nights,—Deb thought the week on the Three-Notched Road a piece out of the book, and wept when she must go back to Fontenoy.

But Colonel Churchill and Major Edward never came, never wrote, never sent messages to Jacqueline, never, she forced Unity to tell her, mentioned her name or would hear it mentioned at Fontenoy. Only Aunt Nancy, lying always in the chamber, her key-basket beside her on the white counterpane, talked of her when she chose. "But she talks as though you were dead," acknowledged Unity; then, "Oh, Jacqueline, it must all come right some day! And as for him, he's talked of more and more,—everywhere one goes, one hears his name! He's head and front of his party here. Oh, what a party! Mrs. Adams writes that at Washington they eat soup with their fingers and still think Ça Ira the latest song! Cannot you convert him? They say the Mammoth's jealous, and that your husband and Colonel Burr correspond in cipher. Is that so?"

"I don't know," said Jacqueline. "I shall not try to convert him. I would have a man loyal to his beliefs—so would you, Unity! Suppose yourself of another party—would you change Fairfax Cary? You would wish him to stay always the Federalist that he is! So with me. I love my great Republican."

"I love you," said Unity. "Kiss me. Now, when do you go to Richmond?"

"Next month. Oh, Unity, if Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward would but make friends before we go!"

Unity, stopping for an hour at Cousin Jane Selden's, remarked to that lady, "Ah, she is happy! She does not know and she does not care what is said of Lewis Rand. They say dreadful things. The last Gazette—"

"She doesn't hear a Federalist upon the subject," replied Cousin Jane. "The last Gazette! Pooh! who believes what a Federalist paper says of a Republican, or a Republican paper says of a Federalist? Most men and all newspapers are liars."

"It says that he is a Buonaparte ready to break the shell."

"Buonaparte's a great man, my dear."

"And that the Mammoth's alarmed—"

"Like the hen that hatched the eaglet—"

"And that Lewis Rand's no more Republican at heart than he is Federalist. He's just for Lewis Rand."

"Hm-m-m!"

"And that his name's known as far west as the Mississippi."

"There's no law against a man's name spreading. It's what every man strives for. One succeeds, and the birds that carried the news are indignant."

"And that he's an Atheist."

"Lewis Rand's no saint, child, but he's no fool either. You'll be telling me next that he mistreats his wife."

"Ah, he does not do that!" exclaimed Unity. "She's deep in love. He can't be so very bad, can he, Cousin Jane?"

"He's not a monster, child: he's just a man.—And now, Unity, I am making damson preserves to-day."

"I'll go," said Unity, rising. "But they believe these things at Fontenoy."

"Do they believe them at Greenwood?"

"I don't know. Ludwell Cary is still away—"

"When are you going to marry his brother?"

"Why, I don't know that I am going to marry his brother at all," answered Unity, her foot upon the coach step. "Good-bye, Cousin Jane. I wish I could make pot-pourri like yours."

"You must know what spices to use, and when to gather the roses," said Cousin Jane. "Good-bye, child! You read too many romances, but you're a loyal soul and one of your gowns is prettier than another. Don't you believe all the world says of Lewis Rand. It's mighty prone to make mistakes. The man's just a sinner like the rest of us."

At Fontenoy, that September afternoon, Fairfax Cary, riding over from Greenwood, found Miss Dandridge seated upon the steps which ran down to the garden from the glass doors of the library. Her chin was in her hands, and her black eyes were suspiciously bright. "You were crying," exclaimed the younger Cary. "Why?"

"I've been reading about the Capulets and the Montagues."

"You are not one to cry for the dead," said the young man. "Tell me truly."

"No; I'm crying for the living. I've been talking to the Capulets. I've been giving Uncle Edward a piece of my mind."

"Which he would not take?"

"Just so. Oh, it was a battle royal! But I lost—I always lose. He is sitting there in triumphant misery, reading Swift. I brought my defeat out here. Now and then I am glad I am a woman."

"I'm glad all the time," said Fairfax Cary. "Don't dwell on lost battles. Unity, when are you going to let me fight all your battles?"

"I don't know," answered Miss Dandridge promptly. "I don't even know that I would like to have all my battles fought for me. I'm not lazy, and I believe my ancestors fought their own. Besides—would you fight this one?"

There was a pause; then, "Do you love your cousin so?" asked the young man.

"Love Jacqueline? Jacqueline is like my sister. If she is not happy, then neither am I!"

"But she is happy. She loved Lewis Rand, and she married him."

"Yes, yes. But a woman may marry her lover and yet be unhappy. If he takes her to a strange country, she may perish of homesickness."

"Has he taken her to a strange country?"

"Yes," cried Unity, with fire. "How can it but be a strange country?" Her eyes filled with tears. "Why, why did she not love your brother!"

"That," said the younger Cary grimly, "is what I do not profess to understand. And I would fight for your cousin, but I will not fight for Lewis Rand. My brother's enemies are mine."

"You see. You wouldn't fight this battle, after all."

"Would Miss Dandridge wish me to?"

Unity regarded the sunset beyond the snowball bushes. "No," she said at last, with a sigh and a shake of her head, "no, I wouldn't. I had rather a man behaved like a man than like an angel."

"You are the angel. At least your cousin will not live much longer in that log house, with the pines and the tobacco and the ghost of old Gideon. Lewis Rand has bought Roselands."

"Roselands!"

"You knew it was for sale. Well, he's bought it. I had the news from the agent. It's to be put in order this winter, and in the spring Rand will come back from Richmond and take possession. It is strange to think of a Rand owning Roselands!"

"A Churchill will own it, too! It will have been bought with Churchill money. I am so glad! It can be made a lovely place. Jacqueline will have the garden and the old, long drawing-room! Deb and I can go there easily. It is all more fitting—I am glad!"

"It is too near Greenwood," said the other gloomily. "I think that Ludwell will stay in Richmond."

"I'm sorry," said Unity softly and brightly. "I wish, I wish—but what's the use in wishing? There! the sun has gone, and it is growing cold. I have sat here until I'm no longer angry with Uncle Edward. Poor man! to be reading Swift all this time!—I'll walk with you to the front porch."

"I thought," ventured the young man, "I thought that perhaps you might ask me to stay to supper. It's so lonely at Greenwood."

"You stayed to supper last night," said Miss Dandridge pensively, "and you were here to dinner the day before, and you rode over the preceding afternoon, and the morning before that you read me Vathek.—Oh, stay to supper by all means!"

Cary picked up her scarf and handed her down the steps to the path that was beginning to be strewn with autumn leaves. "Miss Dandridge—Unity—it has been fourteen mortal days since I last asked you to marry me! You said I might ask you once a month—"

"I didn't," said Unity serenely. "I said once a month was too often."

"Aren't you ever going to love me?"

"Why, some day, yes!" replied Miss Dandridge. "When you've swum the Hellespont like Leander, or picked a glove out of the lion's den like the French knight, or battered down a haunted castle like Rinaldo, or taken the ring from a murderer's hand like Onofrio, or set free the Magician's daughter like Julio—perhaps—perhaps—"

"I must cast about to win my spurs!" said the younger Cary. "In the mean time I'll ask you again, come fourteen days."

Late September passed into October. The nuts ripened, the forests grew yellow and red, and the corn was stacked in the long, sere fields, above which, each morning, lay a white mist. Goldenrod and farewell-summer faded, but sumach and alder-berry still held the fence corners. The air was fragrant with wood smoke; all sound was softened, thin, and far away. A frost fell and the persimmons grew red gold. The song birds had gone south, but there were creatures enough left in the trees. Sometimes, through the thin forest, in the blue distance, deer were seen; bears began to approach the corn-cribs, and in the unbroken wilderness wolves were heard at night. Early and late the air struck cold, but each midday was a halcyon time. In the last of October, on a still and coloured morning, Rand and Jacqueline, having shaken hands with the overseer and the slaves they were leaving, caressed the dogs, and said good-bye to the cat, quitted the house on the Three-Notched Road. At the gate they turned, and, standing beneath the mimosa, looked back across the yard where the flowers had been touched by the frost, to the house and the sombre pines. They stood in silence. Jacqueline thought of the first evening beneath the mimosa, of the July dusk, and the cry of the whip-poor-will. Rand thought, suddenly and inconsequently, of his father and mother, standing here at the gate as he had often seen them stand. There was no mimosa then.—Jacqueline turned, caught his hand, and pressed it to her lips. He strained her in his arms and kissed her, and they entered the chaise which was to carry them to Richmond. Before them lay a hundred miles of sunny road, three days' companionship in the blue, autumnal weather. A few moments, and the house, the pines, and the hurrying stream were lost to view. "A long good-bye!" said Rand. "In the spring we'll enter Roselands!"

"You value it more than I," answered Jacqueline. "I loved the house behind us. Loved! I am speaking as though it were a thing of the long past. Farewells are always sad."

"I value it for you," said Rand. "Have I not chafed, ever since July, to see you in so poor a place? Roselands is not ideal, but it is a fairer nest for my bird than that we've left!"

Jacqueline laughed. "'Roselands is not ideal!' I think Roselands quite grand enough! Oh, Lewis, Lewis, how high you build! Take care of the upper winds!"

"I'll build firmly," he answered. "The winds may do their worst. Here is the old road to Greenwood. Now that the trees are bare, you can see the house."

They drove all day by field and woodland. At noon they paused for luncheon beside a bubbling spring in a dell strewn with red leaves, then drove on through the haze of afternoon. There were few leaves left upon the boughs. In the fields that they passed the stacked corn had the seeming of silent encampments, deserted tents of a vanished army, russet and empty wigwams drawn against a deep blue sky. Now and then, in the darker woods, there was a scurry of partridges, the red gleam of a fox, or a vision of antlers, and once a wild turkey, bronze and stately, crossed the road before the chaise. When they passed a smithy or a mill, the clink of iron, the rush of water, came to them faintly in the smoky air. That night they slept at the house of a wealthy planter and good Republican, where, after supper, all sat around a great fire, the children on footstools between the elders, and stories were told of hunting, of Indian warfare, and of Tarleton's raid. At ten they made a hall and danced for an hour to a negro's fiddling, then a bowl of punch was brought and the bedroom candles lighted.

In the morning Rand and Jacqueline went on towards Richmond, and at sunset they found themselves before a country tavern, not over clean or comfortable, but famous for good company. The centre of a large neighbourhood, it had been that day the scene of some Republican anniversary, and a number of gentlemen, sober and otherwise, had remained for supper and a ride home through the frosty moonlight. Among them were several lawyers of note, and a writer and thinker whose opinion Rand valued. Besides all these there were at the inn a group of small farmers, a party of boatmen from the James, the local schoolmaster and the parson, a Scotch merchant or two, and the usual idle that a tavern draws. All were Republicans, and all knew their party's men. Rand descended from the chaise amidst a buzz of recognition, and after supper came a demand that he should speak from the tavern porch to an increasing crowd. He did not refuse. To his iron frame the fatigue of the day was as naught, and there were men in the throng whom he was willing to move. It came to him suddenly, also, that Jacqueline had never heard him speak. Well, he would speak to her to-night.

His was an universal mind. On occasion he could stoop to praise one party and vituperate another, but that was his tongue serving his worldly interest. The man himself dealt with humanity, wherever found and in whatever time, however differentiated, however allied, with its ancestry of the brute and its destiny of the spirit; with the root of the tree and the far-off flower and every intermediate development of stem and leaf; with the soil that sustained the marvellous growth, and with the unknown Gardener who for an unfathomable purpose had set the inexplicable seed in an unthinkable universe. From the ephemera to the star he accepted and conjectured, and while he often thought ill of the living, he had never yet thought ill of life. He had long been allied with a thinker who, with a low estimate of at least so much of human nature as ran counter to his purposes, yet believed with devoutness in the perfectibility of his species, and had of the future a large, calm, and noble vision. If Lewis Rand had not Jefferson's equanimity, his sane and wise belief in the satisfying power of common daylight, common pleasures, all the common relations of daily life; if some strangeness in his nature thrilled to the meteor's flight, craved the exotic, responded to clashing and barbaric music, yet the two preached the same doctrine. He believed in the doctrine, though he also believed that great men are not mastered by doctrine. They made doctrine their servant, their useful slave of the lamp. He knew—none better—that the genie might turn and rend; that there was always one last, one fatal thing that must not be asked. But his mind was supple, and he thought that he could fence with the genie. Usually, when he spoke, he believed all that he said, believed it with all the strength of his reason, and yet—he saw the kingdoms of the world. To-night, in the autumn air, pure and cold beneath the autumn stars, with the feeling and the fragrance of the forest day about him, in sympathy with his audience, and conscious in every fibre of the presence of the woman whom he loved, he saw no other kingdom than that of high and tranquil thought.

Jacqueline, seated at her open window, listened for the first time to any public utterance of her husband's. He was not a man who often spoke of the processes of his thought. Sometimes, in the house on the Three-Notched Road, he told her, briefly, his conclusions on such and such a matter, but he rarely described the road by which he travelled. She knew the conservative, the British, the Federal side of most questions. That was the cleared country, familiar, safe, and smiling; her husband's side was the strange forest which she had entered and must travel through. She was yet afraid of the forest, of its lights and its shadows, the rough places and the smooth, the stir of its air and the possibility of wild beasts. To her it was night-time there, and where the ground seemed fair and the light to play, she thought of the marsh and the will-o'-the-wisp. She could not but be loyal to the old, trodden ways. She had married Lewis Rand, not his party or its principles. But to-night, as she listened, the light seemed to grow until it was dawn in the forest, and the air to blow so cold, strong, and pure that she thought of mountain peaks and of the ocean which she had never seen. She was no longer afraid of the country in which she found herself.

Rand, standing in the red torchlight above the attentive crowd, preached a high doctrine, preached it austerely, boldly, and well. He did not speak to-night of the hundred party words, the flaunting banners, systems, expedients, and policies fit for this turn of the spiral, born to be disavowed, discarded, and thrown down by a higher, freer whorl; but he gave his voice for the larger Republicanism, for the undying battle-cry, and the ever-streaming battle-flag. He had no less a text than the Liberty and Happiness of the human race, and he made no straying from the subject.

Freedom! Happiness! What is freedom? What is happiness? Freedom is the maximum of self-government finally becoming automatic, and the minimum of government from without finally reduced to the vanishing-point. Happiness is the ultimate bourne, the Olympian goal, the intense and burning star towards which we travel. Does not its light even now fall upon us? even now we are palely happy. And how shall we know the road? and what if, in the night-time, we turn irremediably aside? How are they to be attained, true Liberty and true Happiness? Learn! Light the lamp, and the shadows will flee.—Self-government. Teach thyself temperance, foresight, and wise memory of the past. Thou thyself, in thine own body, art a community. See, then, that thy communal life is clean, that thy will is in right operation, and thy minds divide thee not to disaster. Thy very ego, is it not but thy president, the voice of all thy members, representative of all that thy race has made thee to be, effect of ten million causes, and cause of effects thou canst not see? Let thy ego strengthen itself, deal justly, rule wisely, that thy state fall not behind in this world-progress and be lost out of time and out of mind, in a night without a dawn. There have been such things: over against immortal gain there lies immortal loss. Work, then, while it is day, for if thou work not, the night will make no tarrying. Know thyself, and, knowing, rule that strange world of thine. Were it not a doom, were it not a frightful doom, that it should come to rule thee? ... Government from without! Government of to-day, Government abroad as we see it in every journal, in every letter that we open—how heavy, how heavy is the ball and chain the nations wear! If we alone in this land go free, if for four golden years we have moved with lightness, look to it lest a gaoler come! Government! What is the ideal government? It is a man of business, worthy and esteemed, administering his client's affairs with thoroughness, economy, and honour. It is a wise judge, holding the balances with a steadfast hand, sitting there clothed reverently, to judge uprightly and to do no more. It is a skilled council, a picked band, an honourable Legion, chosen of the multitude, to determine the line of march for an advancing civilization; to make such laws as are according to reason and necessity and to make none that are not, and to provide for the keeping of the law that is made. The careful man of affairs, the upright judge, the honest maker of honest laws must needs present an account for maintenance and for that expenditure which shall give offence neither to generosity nor to justice; and the account must be paid, yea, and ungrudgingly! Let us pay, then, each man according to his ability, the tax that is right and fitting; and let us, moreover, give due honour to the vanguard of the people. It is there that the great flag waves with all the blazonry of the race. But we want no substituted banner, no private ensign, no conqueror's flapping eagles! Government! Honour the instrument by which we rule ourselves; but worship not a mechanical device, and call not a means an end! Admirable means, but oh, the sorry end! Therefore we'll have no usurping Prætorian, no juggling sophist, no bailiff extravagant and unjust, no spendthrift squandering on idleness that which would pay just debts! A ruler! There's no halo about a ruler's head. The people—the people are the sacred thing, for they are the seed whence the future is to spring. He who betrays his trust, which is to guard the seed,—what is that man—Emperor or President, Louis or George, Pharaoh or Cæsar—but a traitor and a breaker of the Law? He may die by the axe, or he may die in a purple robe of a surfeit, but he dies! The people live on, and his memory pays. He has been a tyrant and a pygmy, and the ages hold him in contempt.... War! There are righteous wars, and righteous men die in them, but the righteous man does not love war. Conquest! Conquest of ignorance, superstition, and indolence, conquest of the waste and void, of the forces of earth, air, and water, and of the dying beast within us, but no other conquest! We attained Louisiana by fair trade, for the benefit of unborn generations. Standing armies! We want them not. Navies! The sea is the mother of life; why call her that of death? Her highways are for merchant ships, for argosies carrying corn and oil, bearing travellers and the written thought of man; for voyages of discovery and happy intercourse, and all rich exchange from strand to strand. Why stain the ocean red? Is it not fairer when 'tis blue? Guard coast-line and commerce, but we need no Armada for that. Make no quarrels and enter none; so we shall be the exemplar of the nations.... Free Trade. We are citizens and merchants of the world. No man or woman but lives by trade and barter. Long ago there was a marriage between the house of Give and the house of Take, and their child is Civilization. Sultan or Czar may say, "Buy here, sell there, and at this price. You are my slave. Obey!" But who, in this century and this land, shall say that to me—or to you? Are we free men? Then let us walk as such through the marts of the earth. "Trade where you will," saith Nature. "It was so I brought the tree to the barren isle, and scattered the life of the seas." Authority of law! Respect the law, and to that end let us have laws that are respectable. Laws are made to be kept, else we live in a house of chicane. But there is a danger that decrees may thicken until they form a dungeon grate for Freedom, until, like Gulliver, she is held down to earth by every several hair. Few laws and just, and those not lightly broken. The Contract between the States—let it be kept. It was pledged in good faith—the cup went around among equals. There is no more solemn covenant; we shall prosper but as we maintain it. Is it not for the welfare and the grandeur of the whole that each part should have its healthful life? The whole exists but by the glow within its parts. Shall we become dead members of a sickly soul? God forbid! but sister planets revolving in their orbits about one central Idea, which is Freedom by Coöperation. To each her own life, varied, rich, complete, and her communal life, large with service rendered and received! Each bound to other and to that central Thought by primal law, but each a sovereign orb, grave mistress of her own affairs! Slavery! Ay, I will give you that though you want it not! Slavery is abominable. There is a tree that grows in the tropics which they call the upas tree. All who lie in the shadow of its branches fall asleep, and die sleeping. To-day we lie under the upas tree—would that we were awake! I have heard that—in the tropics—the sons sometimes hew down that which the fathers have planted. I would that it were so in Virginia! Freedom of thought, of speech, and of pen. I will away with this cope of lead, this Ancient Authority, which is too often an Ancient Iniquity. Did it not have once a minority? was it not once a New Thought? Is not a man's thought to-day as potent, holy, and near the right as was his great-grandfather's thought which was born in a like manner, of the brain of a man, in a modern time? I will think freely and according to reason. When it seems wise to tell my mind I will speak; and with judgment I will write down my thought; and fear no man's censure. Knowledge! I was a poor boy, and I strove for learning, strove hard, and found it worth the striving. I know the hunger, and I know the rage when one asks for knowledge and asks in vain. Is it not a shameful thing that happy men, lodged warm and clear in the Interpreter's house, should hear the groping in the dark without, know that their fellows are searching, in pain and with shortness of breath, for the key which let the fortunate in, and make no stir to aid those luckless ones? Give of your abundance, or your abundance will decay in your hands and turn to that which shall cause you shuddering!

His words went on, magnetic as the man. He spoke for an hour, coming at the last to a consideration of those particular questions which hung in Virginian air. He dealt with these ably, and he subtly conciliated those of his audience who might differ with him. None could have called him flatterer, but when he ceased to speak his hearers, feeling for themselves a higher esteem, had for him a reflex glow. It was what he could always count upon, and it furthered his fortunes. Now they crowded about him, and it was late before, pleading the fatigue of his journey, he could escape from their friendly importunity. At last, it being towards midnight and the moon riding high, the neighbouring planters and their guests got to saddle and, after many and pressing offers of hospitality to Rand and his wife, galloped off to home and bed. The commonalty and the hangers-on faded too into the darkness, and the folk who were sleeping at the inn took their candles and said good-night. All was suddenly quiet,—a moonlit crossroads in Virginia, tranquil as the shaven fields and the endless columns of the pine.

Upstairs, in the low "best room," Rand found his wife still seated by the open window, her folded arms upon the sill, her eyes raised to the stars that shone despite the moon. He crossed to her and closed the window. "The night is cold. Dearest, have you been sitting here all this time?"

She rose, turning upon him a radiant face. "All this time. I was not cold. I was warm. I am so happy that I'm frightened."

"Did you like it?" he asked. "I hoped that you would. I thought of you—my star, my happiness!"

"I used to wonder," she said; "when they would come home to Fontenoy and say, 'Lewis Rand spoke to-day,' I used to wonder if I should ever hear you speak! And when they blamed you I said to my aching heart, 'They need not tell me! He's not ambitious, self-seeking, a leveller, a demagogue and Jacobin!-he is the man I met beneath the apple tree!' And I was right—I was right!"

"Am I that man?" he asked. "I will try to be, Jacqueline. Leveller, demagogue, and Jacobin I am not; but for the rest, who knows—who knows? Men are cloudy worlds—and I dream sometimes of a Pursuer."

The next morning the skies had changed, and Rand and Jacqueline fared forward through a sodden, grey, and windy day. The rain had ceased to fall when at twilight they came into Richmond by the Broad Street Road. Lights gleamed from the wet houses; high overhead grey clouds were parting, and in the west was a line of red. The wind was high, and the sycamores with which the town abounded rocked their speckled arms. The river was swollen and rolled hoarsely over the rocks beneath the red west. Rand had taken a house on Shockoe Hill, not far from the Chief Justice's, and to this he and Jacqueline came through the wet and windy freshness of the night. Smiling in the doorway were the servants—Joab and Mammy Chloe and Hannah—who had set out from Albemarle the day before their master and mistress. Rand and Jacqueline, leaving the mud-splashed chaise, were welcomed with loquacity and ushered into a cheerful room where there was a crackling fire and a loaded table.

"Mrs. Leigh's compliments, Miss Jacqueline, an' she done sont de rolls. Mrs. Fisher's best wishes, an' she moughty glad to hab a neighbour, an' she done sont de broiled chicken. An' Mr. Hay, he done sont de oysters wid he compliments—an' de two bottles Madeira Mr. Ritchie sont—an' Mr. Randolph lef' de birds, an' he gwine come roun' fust thing in de mawnin'—"

"We shall have friends," said Rand. "I am glad for you, sweetheart. But I wish that one Federalist had had the grace to remember that Jacqueline Churchill came to town to-day."

"Ah, once I would have cared," answered Jacqueline. "It does not matter now."

"There's a tear on your hand—"

Jacqueline laughed. "At least, it doesn't matter much.—Is that all, Joab?"

"An' Marse Ludwell Cary, he ride erroun in de rain an' leave he compliments for Marse Lewis, an' he say will Miss Jacqueline 'cept dese yer flowers—"

"One remembered," said Rand, and watched his wife put the flowers in water.

THE LAW OFFICE

"If you were not so damned particular—" said the weasel disconsolately.

"I'm not damned particular," answered Rand. "I've wanted wealth and I've wanted power ever since I went barefoot and suckered tobacco—as you know who know me better than almost any one else! But this"—he tapped the papers on the table before him—"this is cheating."

"Oh, you!" complained the scamp. "You are of the elect. What you want you'll take by main force. You are a strong man! You've taken a deal since that day we went into the bookshop by the bridge. But I'm no Samson or David—I'm just Tom Mocket—and still, why shouldn't I have my pennyworth?"

Rand paused in his walking up and down the office in Main Street. It was the late winter, a year and more from that evening when he and Jacqueline had first come to the house on Shockoe Hill. Standing by the rough deal table, he laid an authoritative hand upon the documents with which it was strewn. "You'll never get your pennyworth here. The scheme these gentry have afoot is just a Yazoo business. If these lands exist, they're only a hunting-ground of swamp, Indians, and buffalo. The survey is paper, the cleared fields a fable, the town Manoa, the scheme a bubble, the purchasers fools, and the sellers knaves,—and there's your legal opinion in a nutshell!"

"I didn't ask for a legal opinion," said Mocket. "I'm a lawyer myself. There's land there, you'll not deny, and a river, and plenty of game If a Yankee doesn't find it Paradise, he had no chance anyhow, and a Kentuck can care for himself! There's no sense in calling it a bubble, or being so damned scrupulous!"

Rand made a gesture of contempt. "You let Yazoo companies and the Promised Land alone! People are ceasing to be fools. To-day they demand a hair of the mammoth or a sample of the salt mountain."

Mocket ceased rustling the papers on the table, and turned to regard his chief more closely. "Lewis, I've heard you say things like that more than once lately. A year ago you were mighty respectful to Mr. Jefferson's salt mountain and strange bones and great elk and silk grass and all the rest of it. That was a curious letter of yours in the Examiner. If't was meant to defend his neutrality doings, 'twas a damned lukewarm defence! If I hadn't known 'twas yours, sink me if I wouldn't have thought it a damned piece of Federal sarcasm!—Did you send that paper to the President?"

"No, I did not send it."

"Lewis," said the scamp slowly, "are you breaking with Mr. Jefferson?"

Rand walked to the window and stood looking out upon the winter afternoon. It was snowing hard, and through the drifting veil the trees across the way could hardly be discerned. "Yes," he said deliberately. "Yes,—if you call it breaking with a man to have grown away from him. If he served me once—yes, and greatly!—have I not worked for him since, hand and foot? We are quits, I think. I shall not cease to esteem him."

Mocket breathed hard with excitement. "You haven't been natural for a long time—but I didn't know 't was this—"

"I am being natural now," said Rand somewhat sternly. "I've told you, Tom, and now let it alone. Least said is soonest mended."

"But—but—" stammered the scamp, "are you going over to the other camp?"

Rand did not at once answer. From a plate on the windowsill he took a crust of bread, and, raising the sash, crumbled it upon the snow without. The sparrows came at once, alighting near his hand with a tameness that spoke of pleasing association with the providence above them. "No," said Rand at last, "I am not going over to the other camp—if by that you mean the Federalist camp. Must one forever sign under a captain? It is not my instinct to serve.—Now let it alone."

He closed the window and, turning again to the table, bent over an unrolled map which covered half its surface. The chart was a large one, showing the vast territory drained by the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Mississippi, and the imagination of the cartographer had made good his lack of information. Rivers and mountains appeared where nature had made no such provision, while the names, quaint and uncouth, with which Jefferson proposed to burden states yet in embryo sprawled in large letters across the yellow plain. "Assenispia—Polypotamia—Chersonesus—Michigania," read Rand. "Barbarous! I could name them better out of Ossian!" He traced with his finger the lower Ohio. "This is where Blennerhasset's island should be." The finger went on down the Mississippi. "What a river! When it is in flood, it is a sea. And the rich black fields on either side! Cotton! Our Fortunatus purse shall be spun of that. They call the creeks bayous. All these little towns—French and Spanish. To speak to them of Washington is to speak of the moon—so distant and so cold. Here are Indians. Here are settlers from the East, and the burden of their song is, 'We are so far from the Old Thirteen that we care not if we are farther yet!'"

"Hey!" exclaimed Mocket. "That's treason!"

"Here Adam Gaudylock met Wilkinson. The river narrows here, and runs deep and strong." Rand's hand rested on the coast-line. "New Orleans," he said, "but capable of becoming a new Rome. Here to the westward is the Perdido that they call the boundary,—then Mexico and the City of Mexico. If not New Orleans, then Mexico!" He straightened himself with a laugh. "I am dreaming, Tom—just as I used to dream in the fields! Ugh! I feel the hot sun, and the thick leaves draw through my hands! Let's get back to every day. To-morrow in the House I am going to carry the Albemarle Resolutions. The last debate is on. Wirt speaks first, and then I speak."

"Ludwell Cary is fighting you," said Mocket. "Fighting hard."

"Yes."

"Well, I'll be there to hear you speak. Lord! if I could speak like you, Lewis, and plan like you, and if whiskey would let me alone, and if I wasn't afraid of the dark, I'd make a stir in the country—I'd go higher than a Franklin kite!"

"You might manage the rest," said Rand, with good-natured scorn; "but it doesn't do to be afraid of the dark."

From the pegs behind the door he took his greatcoat and beaver. "I am going home now," he said. "I have company to supper."

"Who, then?" asked Mocket. "Adam Gaudylock? He's in town."

Rand laughed. "Who, then?' Tom, Tom, you've the manners of the West Indian skippers you consort with! No, it's not Adam Gaudylock. It is—" He hesitated, then took up a pen and wrote two words. "That's his name—but you are to keep it dark."

Mocket's tilted chair came noisily to the floor. "What! In Richmond!—he in Richmond! When did he come? Where's he staying?"

"He came last night, and he's staying quietly at Bowler's Tavern. It isn't known that he's here, and he is not anxious that it should be known. He's here on business, and he goes to-morrow. That is all—and you're to say no word of what I tell you."

"All right," quoth Tom. "I won't blab. But I'd mightily like to see the man who shot Alexander Hamilton."

"I've told you he's not anxious for company."

"Oh, I know!" said Tom, not without humility. "I'm small fry. Well, there are curious things said about him, and you and he are strange bedfellows! How did it happen?"

"Tom, Tom," answered Rand, "you ask too many questions! It was an accident, or it was predestined and foreordained when I was dust blown about by the wind. You may take your choice according to your theology! I'm going now. Be at the House early to-morrow."

"Are you going to take that Mathews case? Young Mathews was here yesterday, swearing that if he couldn't get you, he would hang himself."

"I've said that I would take it."

"Ludwell Cary's for the other side."

"Yes, I know. I'll win."

"Well, you're fairly pitted. Half the town backs one and half the other. That letter signed 'Aurelius' in the Gazette—did you know 'twas his?"

Rand dropped his hand from the latch. The colour rushed to his face, then ebbed as quickly. "No, I did not know," he said, in a voice that was not quite steady. "I thought of quite another man."

"It is Ludwell Cary's, and every Black Cockade in Richmond, and not a few Republicans, are quoting it. My certie! it was a commentary in caustic—and so damned courteous all the time!"

"I don't care for such courtesy," answered Rand "Ludwell Cary had best look where he treads."

"Well, I thought I'd tell you," said his colleague "I don't like the Carys, either!—And so I'm not to go into that land scheme?"

"No. It's a small thing, and not honest. Some day, Tom, I'll help you to a larger thing than that."

"And honest?" said Mocket shrewdly.

The other turned upon him with anger, black as it was sudden. "Honest! Yes, honest as this storm, honest as any struggle for any piece of earth wider than a coffin space! Who are you to question me? I give you warning—"

"Gently, gently!" exclaimed the scamp, and started back. "Lord, how Gideon peeps out of you now and then!"

"You need not say that, either," retorted Rand grimly. He stood for a moment, a cloudy presence in the darkening room, then with a short laugh recovered himself. "I thought the black dog was dead," he said. "It's this gloomy day—and I did not sleep last night. Honest! We're all indifferent honest!"

"Well, well," answered the pacific Tom, "I'll sink or swim with you. I've followed where you have led this many a day."

Outside the red brick office the snow lay deep. It was still falling steadily, in large flakes, grey in the upper air, feathery white and pure against the opposite houses and the boles of leafless trees. The day was closing in. Up and down the street merchants were putting up their shutters; customers had been few on such a snowy day. Here and there appeared a figure, booted and greatcoated, emerging from a tavern or from a law office such as Rand's. A sledge passed, laden with pine and hickory, drawn by mules with jangling bells; and a handful of boys loosed from school threw down their bags of books and fell to snowballing. A negro shuffled by with a spade on his shoulder, singing as he went,—

"Didn't my Lawd deliber Daniel,
Didn't my Lawd deliber Daniel,
An' why not ebery man?
He delibered Daniel from de lions' den,
An' de Hebrew Chillern from de furnace,
He delibered David from de han' of Saul,
An' why not ebery man?"

Rand turned into Governor Street, climbed its white ascent, and struck across the Capitol Square. Above him every bough had its weight of snow, and seen through the drifting veil the pillared Capitol looked remote as that building of which it was a copy. He walked quickly, with a light and determined step, a handsome figure in a many-caped coat of bottle green, striding through the snow toward the cheer of home. In his outer man, at least, the eighteen months since his marriage had wrought a change. What was striking then was more striking now,—his ease and might of frame, the admirable poise of his head, and the force expressed in every feature, the air of power that was about him like an emanation. The difference was that what had been rude strength was now strength polished and restrained. The deeps might hide abrupt and violent things, but the surface had assumed a fine amenity. Where he wished to learn he was the aptest pupil, and from the days of the tobacco-field he had longed for this smooth lustre. Not Gideon, but the mother, spoke in the appreciation and the facility. Manner counted for much in Lewis Rand's day; the critical point was not what you did, but the way you did it. Rand set himself to learn from his wife all the passwords of the region native to her, but into which he had broken. She taught him that code with a courtesy and simplicity exquisitely high-minded and sweet, and he learned with quickness, gratitude, and lack of any false shame. What else he might have learned of her he dimly felt, but he had not covenanted with existence for qualities that would war with a hundred purposes of his brain and will. He and Jacqueline were lovers yet. At the sight of each other the delicate fire ran through their veins; in absence the mind felt along the wall and dreamed of the gardens within. If the woman who had given all was the more constant lover; if the man, while his passion sweetened all his life, yet bowed before his great idol and fought and slaved for Power, it was according to the nature of the two, and there was perhaps no help.

He left the Capitol Square and went on toward the house he had retaken for the second winter in Richmond. Few were afoot, though now and then a sleigh went by. Rand's mind as he walked was busy, not with the debate of to-morrow or the visitor of to-night, the Mathews trial or Tom Mocket's puerile schemes, but with the letter in the Gazette signed "Aurelius." It had been an attack, able beyond the common, certainly not upon Lewis Rand, but upon the party which, in the eyes of the generality, he yet most markedly represented. In the inflamed condition of public sentiment such attacks were of weekly occurrence; the wise man was he who put them by unmoved. For the most part Rand was wise. Federal diatribes upon the Tripoli war, the Florida purchase, the quarrel with Spain, Santo Domingo, Neutral Trade, and Jefferson's leanings toward France left him cold. This letter in the Gazette had not done so. It had gone to the sources of things, analyzing with a coolness and naming with a propriety the more remarkable that it acknowledged, on certain sides, a community of thought with the party attacked. The result was that, as in civil war, the quarrel, through understanding, was the more determined. The man who signed "Aurelius" had not spared to point out, with a certain melancholy sternness, the plague spots, the defenceless places. Moreover, throughout his exposition there ran a harsh and sombre thread, now felt in denunciation and now in ironic praise. There was more than unveiling of the weakness of any human policy or party; the letter was in part a commination of individual conduct. No name was used, no direct reference given or example quoted; but one with acumen might guess there was a man in mind when the writer sat in judgment. The writer himself was perhaps not aware of the fulness of this betrayal, but Lewis Rand was aware. The paper had angered him, and he had not lacked intention of discovering at whose door it was to be laid. He had enemies enough—but this one was a close observer. The subtlety of the rebuke shook him. How had the writer who signed "Aurelius" known or divined? He thought of Major Edward Churchill, but certain reasons made him sure the letter was not his. And now it seemed that it was Ludwell Cary's.

Rand's lips set closely. Ludwell Cary might not know where all his shafts were striking, but Rand felt the sting. Fair fight in the courtroom,—that was one thing,—but this paper was wrought of sterner stuff. There was in it even a solemnity of warning. Rand's soul, that was in the grasp of Giant Two-Ways, writhed for a moment, then lay still again. With his characteristic short laugh, he shook off the feeling that he mistook for weakness, dismissed the momentary abashment, and pursued his way through the snowy streets. The question now in his mind was whether or no he should make his resentment plain to Ludwell Cary. At long intervals, three or four times in the winter, perhaps, it was the latter's custom to lift the knocker of Rand's door, and to sit for an hour in Jacqueline's drawing-room. Sometimes Rand was there, sometimes not; Cary's coming had grown to be a habit of the house, quiet, ordered, and urbane as all its habits were. Its master now determined, after a moment's sharp debate, to say nothing that he might not have said before he knew the identity of that writer to the Gazette. He was conscious of no desire for immediate retaliation; these things settled themselves in the long run. He did not intend speaking of the matter to Jacqueline. Pride forbade his giving Cary reason to surmise that he had hit the truth. Rand was willing to believe that many of the shafts were chance-sent. The reflection hardly lessened his anger, but it enabled him to thrust the matter behind him to the limbo of old scores.

He was crossing Broad Street when the door of a house before him opened, and a young man, with a gay word of farewell to some one in the doorway, ran down the steps and into the snowy street. It was Fairfax Cary. Rand and he, passing, lifted their hats, but they did not speak. Had it been the elder Cary, there would have been a moment's tarrying, an exchange of courteous speech. But Fairfax Cary made no secret of his enmity. If he did not offensively publish it, if he was, indeed, for so young a man, somewhat grimly silent upon those frequent occasions when Rand was talked of, the hostility was defined, and at times frank. He went on now with his handsome head held high. Rand looked after him with a curious, even a wistful smile upon his lips. He was himself a man young in years and strength of passion, but older far in experience and in thought. He did not dislike Fairfax Cary; he thought indeed that the young man's spirit, bearing, and partisanship were admirable. His smile was for the thought that had lightened through his mind: "If in after years I could have a son like that!" He wanted children; he wanted a son. Rand sighed. The day had been vexatious, and there were heavy questions yet to settle before the evening closed. After all, what was the use, since Jacqueline cared nothing for baubles, and there was no child! Better live out his days at Roselands, a farmer and a country lawyer! He shook off the weight, summoned all his household troop of thoughts, and went on homewards through the falling snow.

COMPANY TO SUPPER

Jacqueline arranged the flowers, cut from her window stand, in the porcelain vase, and set the vase with care in the centre of the polished table. All was in order, from the heavy damask napkins and the Chelsea plates to the silver candlesticks and the old cut-glass. She turned her graceful head, and called to her husband, whose step she heard in the adjoining room. He came, and, standing beside her, surveyed the mahogany field. "Is there anything lacking?" she asked.

He turned and kissed her. "Only that you should be happy!" he said.

"If I am not," she answered, "he will never find it out! But when I see him, I shall hear that fatal shot!"

"He will make you quite forget it. All women like him."

"Then I shall be the exception. General Hamilton was Uncle Edward's friend. At Fontenoy they'll call it insult that I have talked with this man!"

"They will not know," Rand replied. "It was an honest duel fought nigh two years ago. Forget—forget! There's so much one must forget. Besides, others are forgiving. There is not now the old enmity between him and the Federalists." "No?" said Jacqueline. "Why is that?"

"I cannot tell you, but old differences are being smoothed over. It is rather the Republicans who are out with him."

"I know that he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson."

"No, he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson. The room looks well, sweetheart. But some day you shall have a much grander one, all light and splendour, and larger flowers than these—"

His wife rested her head against his shoulder. "I don't want it, Lewis. It is only you who care for magnificence. Sometimes I wonder that you should so care."

"It is my mother in me," he answered. "She cared—poor soul. But I don't want magnificence for myself. I want it for you—"

"You must not want it for me," cried Jacqueline, with wistful passion. "I am happy here, and I am happy at Roselands—but I was happiest of all in the house on the Three-Notched Road!"

There was a moment's silence, then Rand spoke slowly. "I was not born for content. I am urged on—and on—and I cannot always tell right from wrong. There is a darkness within me—I wish it were light instead!" He laughed. "But if wishes were horses, beggars might ride!—And you've cut all your pretty bright flowers! After supper, before we begin our talk, you must sing to him. They say his daughter is an accomplished and beautiful woman. But you—you are Beauty, Jacqueline!"

The knocker sounded. "That is he," exclaimed Rand, and went into the hail to welcome his guest. Jacqueline returned to the drawing-room, and waited there before the fire. She was dressed in white, with bare neck and arms and her mother's amethysts around her throat. In a moment the two men entered. "This is my wife, Colonel Burr," said Rand.

Jacqueline curtsied. A small, slight, black-eyed, and smiling gentleman bowed low, and with much grace of manner took and kissed her hand. "Mr. Rand, now I understand the pride in your voice! Madam, I wish my daughter Theodosia were with me. She is my pride, and when I say that you two would be friends, I pay you both a compliment!"

"I have heard much of her," answered Jacqueline, "and nothing but good. My husband tells me that you have been in the South—and in Virginia we are welcoming you with a snowstorm!"

"The cold is all outside," said Colonel Burr. "Permit me—"

He handed his hostess to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. "Your harp!" he exclaimed. "I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing to the guitar in New Orleans!—My dear sir, your fair wife and my Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in that richer, sweeter land! They shall use the mantilla and wield the fan. Crowns are too heavy—they shall wear black lace!"

He spoke with not unpleasant brusqueness, a military manner tempered with gallantry, and he looked at Rand with quick black eyes. "Yes, they must meet," said Rand simply. He spoke composedly, but he had nevertheless a moment's vision of Jacqueline, away from the snow and the storm, walking in beauty through the gardens of a far country. He saw her with a circlet of gold upon her head, a circlet of Mexican gold. Crowns were heavy, but men—ay, and women, too!—fought for them. Hers should be light and fanciful upon her head. She should wear black lace if she chose,—though always he liked her best in white, in her kingdom, in the kingdom he was going to help Aaron Burr establish.—No! in the kingdom Aaron Burr should help Lewis Rand establish! His dream broke. He was not sure that he meant to come to an understanding with Burr. It depended—it depended. But still he saw Jacqueline in trailing robes, with the gold circlet on her head.

Joab at the door announced supper, and the three went into the dining-room, where the red geraniums glowed between the candles. Jacqueline took her place behind the coffee-urn, and Joab waited.

The meal went pleasantly on. Colonel Burr was accomplished in conversation, now supple and insinuating as a courtier, now direct, forceful, even plain, as became an old soldier of the Revolution, always agreeable, and always with a fine air of sincerity. The daughter of Henry Churchill did not lack wit, charm, and proper fire, and the Virginia hostess never showed her private feelings to a guest. She watched over the stranger's comfort with soft care, and met his talk with graceful readiness. He spoke to her of her family: of her grandfather, whose name had been widely known, of her father, whose praises he had heard sung, of Major Churchill, whom he had met in Philadelphia in General Washington's time. He spoke of her kinsmen with an admiration which went far toward including their opinions. Jacqueline marvelled. Surely this gentleman was a Democrat-Republican, lately the Vice-President of that party's electing. It was not two years since he had slain General Hamilton; and now, in a quiet, refined voice, he was talking of Federalists and Federal ways with all the familiarity, sympathy, and ease of one born in the fold and contented with his lot. She wondered if he had quarrelled with his party, and while he was talking she was proudly thinking, "The Federalists will not have him—no, not if he went on his knees to them!" And then she thought, "He is a man without a country."

Rand sat somewhat silent and distrait, his mind occupied in building, building, now laying the timbers this way and now that; but presently, upon his guest's referring to him some point for elucidation, he entered the conversation, and thenceforth, though he spoke not a great deal, his personality dominated it. The acute intelligence opposite him took faint alarm. "I am bargaining for a supporter," Burr told himself, "not for a rival," and became if possible more deferentially courteous than before. The talk went smoothly on, from Virginia politics to the triumphal march of Napoleon through Europe; from England and the death of Pitt to the Spanish intrigues, and so back to questions of the West; and to references, which Jacqueline did not understand, to the Spanish Minister, Casa Yrujo, to the English Mr. Merry, and to Messieurs Sauvé, Derbigny, and Jean Noël Destréhan of New Orleans.

Joab took away the Chelsea plates and dishes, brushed the mahogany, and placed before his master squat decanters of sherry and Madeira. The flowing talk took a warmer tone, and began to sing with the music of the South and the golden West; to be charged with Spanish, French, and Indian names, with the odour of strange flowers, the roll of the Mississippi, and the flashing of coloured wings. It was the two men now who spoke. Jacqueline, leaning back in her chair, half listened to the talk of the Territory of Orleans, the Perdido, and the road to Mexico, half dreamed of what they might be doing at Fontenoy this snowy night. The knocker sounded. "That is Adam Gaudylock," exclaimed Rand. "Joab, show Mr. Gaudylock in."

Jacqueline rose, and Colonel Burr sprang to open the door for her. "We may sit late, Jacqueline," said Rand, and their guest, "Madam, I will make court to you in a court some day!"

Gaudylock's voice floated in from the hall: "Is a little man with him?—a black-eyed man?" She passed into the drawing-room, and, pressing her brow against the window-pane, looked out into the night. The snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling with the breaking clouds. The door opened to admit her husband, who came for a moment to her side. "It is not snowing now," he said. "A visitor will hardly knock on such a night. If by chance one should come, say that I am engaged with a client, make my excuses, and as soon as possible get rid of him. On no account—on no account, Jacqueline, would I have it known that Aaron Burr is here to-night. This is important. I will keep the doors shut, and we will not speak loudly." He turned to go, then hesitated. "On second thoughts, I will tell Joab to excuse us both at the door. For you—do not sit up, dear heart! It will be late before our business is done."

He was gone. Jacqueline went back to the fire and, sitting down beneath the high mantel, opened the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe. She read for a while, then closed the book, and with her chin in her hand fell to studying the ruddy hollows and the dropping coals. Perhaps half an hour passed. The door opened, and she looked up from her picture in the deep hollows to see Ludwell Cary smiling down upon her and holding out his hand. "Perhaps I should have drifted past with the snow," he said, "but the light in the window drew me, and I heard to-day from Fontenoy. Mr. Rand, I know, is at home."

"Yes," answered Jacqueline, rising, "but he is much engaged to-night with—with a friend. Did Joab not tell you?"

"Mammy Chloe let me in. I did not see Joab. I am sorry—"

He hesitated. There came a blast of wind that rattled the boughs of the maple outside the window. The fire leaped and the shadows danced in the corners of the room. Jacqueline knew that it was cold outside—her visitor's coat was wet with snow. Sitting there before the fire she had been lonely, and her heart was hungry for news from home.

"May I stay a few minutes?" asked Cary. "I will read you what Major Edward says of Fontenoy."

She was far from dreaming how little Rand would wish this visitor to know of his affairs that night. Her knowledge extended no further than the fact that for some reason Colonel Burr did not wish it known that he was in Richmond. She listened, but the walls were thick, and she heard no sound from the distant dining-room. Cary would know only what she told him, and in a few minutes he would be gone. "I should like to hear the letter," she said, and motioned to the armchair beside the hearth. He took it, and she seated herself opposite him, upon an old, embroidered tabouret. Between them the fire of hickory logs burned softly; without the curtained windows the maple branches, moved by the wind, struck at intervals against the eaves. Jacqueline faced the door. It was her intention, should she hear steps, to rise and speak to Lewis in the hail without.

The letter which Cary drew from his breast pocket was from Major Churchill. That he did not read it all was due to his correspondent's choice of subjects and great plainness of speech; but he read what the Major had to say of Fontenoy, of the winter weather and the ailing slaves, of Mustapha, of county deaths and marriages, of the books he had been reading, and the men to whom he wrote. Major Edward's strain was ironic, fine, and very humanly lonely. Jacqueline's eyes filled with tears, and all the flames of the fire ran together like shaken jewels.

"Almost all the rest," said Cary, "has to do with politics. I will not read you what he has to say of us slight, younger men and the puny times in which we live. But this will interest you—this is of general import."

He turned the page and read: "I have to-day a letter from G. Morris with the latest mischief from the North. Aaron Burr is going West, but with, I warrant you, no thought of the setting sun. The Ancient Iniquity in Washington smiles with thin lips and pronounces that all men and Aaron Burr are unambitious, unselfish, and peace-loving—but none the less, he looks askance at the serpent's windings. The friends of Burr are not the friends of Jefferson. There are Federalists—'tis said they increase in numbers—who do not wish the former ill; myself I am not of them. Colonel Burr desired that duel; he lay in wait for the affront which should be his opportunity; he murdered Hamilton. He risked his own life—very true, the majority of murderers do the same. The one who does not is a dastard in addition—voila tout!

"Burr quits the East, and all men know that the West, like Israel of old, is weary of an Idea and would like to have a King. If the world revolves this way much longer, the Man of the People will not be asked to write the next Declaration of Independence, and the country west of the Ohio will be celebrating not the Fourth of July but an eighteenth Prairial. Aaron Burr and his confederates intend an Empire. 'Tis said there are five hundred men in his confidence here in the East, and that the chief of these wait but for a signal from him or from Wilkinson—whereupon they'll follow him and he'll make them dukes and princes.

"Like Macbeth, he has done his murder and is on his way to be crowned at Scone. He has not a wife, but he has a daughter ambitious as himself. She has a son. He sees his line secured. He has suborned other murderers and made traitors of honest men—and our Laputa philosopher at Washington smiles and says there is nothing amiss!

"May I be gathered soon out of this cap-and-bells democracy to some Walhalla where I may find Hamilton and General Washington and be at peace! This world is growing wearisome to me.

"G. Morris speaks of the bulk of his news as report merely, but I'll stake my head the report is true."

Cary ceased to read. Jacqueline sat motionless, and in the silence of the room they heard the wind outside and the tapping of the maple branches.

"If I were Mr. Jefferson," said Cary presently, "I would arrest Colonel Burr this side of the Ohio. He has been West too often; he is in the East now, and I would see to it that he remained here. But Mr. Jefferson will temporize, and Burr will make his dash for a throne. Well! he is neither Cæsar nor Buonaparte; he is only Aaron Burr. He is the adventurer, not the Emperor. The danger is that in all the motley he is enlisting there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer and any delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West! War and brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!"

He spoke with conviction, but now, as though to lighten his own mood, he laughed. "All this may not be so," he said. "It may be but a dream of our over-peaceful night."

Jacqueline rose, motioned him with a smile to keep his seat, and, moving to an escritoire standing near the door, wrote a line upon a sheet of paper, then rang the bell and when Joab appeared, put the paper into his hand. "Give this to your master," she said, and came back to Cary beside the fire. She smiled, but he saw with concern that she was very pale, and that the amethysts were trembling at her throat. "I should not have read you this letter," he exclaimed. "It is over-caustic, over-bitter. Do not let it trouble you. You have grown pale!"

She bent over the fire as if she were cold. "It is nothing. Yes, I was troubled—I am always troubled when I think of Fontenoy. But it is over now—and indeed I wanted to hear Uncle Edward's letter." She straightened herself and turned to him a smiling face. "And now tell me of yourself! You are looking worn. Men work too hard in Richmond. Oh, for the Albemarle air! The snow will be white to-morrow on my fir tree, and Deb will have to throw crumbs for the birds. I have learned a new song. When next you come, I will sing it to you."

"Will you not," asked Cary,—"will you not sing it to me now?"

She shook her head. "Not now. How the branches strike against the roof to-night!"

As she spoke she moved restlessly, and Cary saw the amethysts stir again. A thought flashed through his mind. It had to do with Lewis Rand, of whom he often thought, sometimes with melancholy envy, sometimes with strong dislike, sometimes with unwilling admiration, and always with painful curiosity. Now, the substance of Major Churchill's letter strongly in mind, with senses rendered more acute and emotions heightened as they always were in the presence of the woman he had not ceased to love, troubled, too, by something in her demeanor, intangibly different from her usual frank welcome, he suddenly and vividly recalled a much-applauded speech that Rand had made three days before in a public gathering. It had included a noteworthy display of minute information of western conditions, extending to the physical features of the country and to every degree of its complex population. One sentence among many had caught Cary's attention, had perplexed him, and had remained in his memory to be considered afterwards, closely and thoughtfully. There was one possible meaning—

Cary crumpled the letter in his hand. Rand's speech perplexed him no longer. That was it—that was it! His breath came quickly. He had builded better—he had builded better than he knew, when he wrote that paper signed "Aurelius"!

With fingers that were not quite steady he smoothed and refolded Major Churchill's letter He was saying to himself, "What does she know She grew pale Thou suspicious fool! That was for thought of home He will have told her nothing—nothing! Her soul is clear."

He pocketed his letter and, rising, spoke to her with a chivalrous gentleness "I will go now Do not let the thought of Fontenoy distress you Do you remember the snow man we made there once, wreathing his head with holly? But I'll tell you a strange thing,—even on such a night as this, I always see Fontenoy bathed in summer weather!"

"Yes, yes," she answered "I, too. Oh, home!"

He held out his hand "You'll give my compliments to Mr. Rand?"

"Yes," she said. "He is busy to-night with a client from the country. He works too hard."

"Take him soon to Roselands and tie him there. Sing him To Althea and make him forget." He bent and kissed her hand. "Good-night—good-night!"

"Good-night," she answered, and moved with him to the door. Standing there, she watched him through the hail and out of the house, then turned and, going to the window, pressed her brow against the pane and watched him down the street. The night had cleared; there was a high wind and many stars.

In Rand's dining-room the three men sat late over the wine and the questions that had brought them together, but at last the conference was somewhat stormily over. Burr and Adam Gaudylock left the house together, the hunter volunteering to guide the stranger to his inn. It was midnight, and Colonel Burr did not see his hostess. He sent her courtly messages, and he pressed Rand's hand somewhat too closely, then with his most admirable military air and frankest smile, thrust his arm through Gaudylock's and marched away. Rand closed the door, put down the candle that he held, and turned into the drawing-room.

Before the dying fire he found Jacqueline in her white gown, the amethysts about her throat, and her scarf of silver gauze fallen from her hand upon the floor. In her young face and form there should have been no hint, no fleeting breath of tragedy, but to-night there was that hint and that breath. The fire over which she bent and brooded seemed to leave her cold. The room was no longer brightly lighted, and she appeared mournfully a part of the hovering shadows. Her spirit had power to step forth and clothe the flesh. Almost always she looked the thing she felt. Now, in the half light, bent above the fading coals, she looked old. Her husband, with his hand upon the mantel-shelf, gazed down upon her. "It was wise of you to send me that note. Burr and I might have walked in here, or we might have spoken loudly. I heard Cary when he went out. How did you manage?"

"He asked for you. I told him that you were engaged with a client from the country. Oh, Lewis!"

Rand stooped and kissed her. "It was the best thing you could say. I would not have had him guess our visitor to-night. You are trembling like a leaf!"

"The best that I could say!—I don't know that. I feel like a leaf in the wind! I did not understand—but I was afraid for you. It is done, but I prefer to tell the truth!"

"I prefer it for you," said Rand. "To-night was mere unluckiness. And he suspected nothing?"

"He went without knowing who was in the dining-room. Lewis, what is there to suspect?"

He stood looking down upon her with a glow in his dark eyes and an unwonted red in his cheek. "Suspect? There is nothing to suspect. But to expect—there might be expectations, my Queen!"

"As long as you live you are my King" she said. "To-night I am afraid for my King. I do not like Colonel Burr!"

"I am sorry for that. He is said to be a favourite with women."

"Lewis!" she cried, "what does he want with you? Tell me!"

So appealing was her voice, so urgent the touch of her hand, that with a start Rand awoke from his visions to the fact of her emotion. His eye was hawklike, and his intuition unfailing. "What did Ludwell Cary say to you?" he demanded.

She took her scarf from the floor, wound her hands in it, and clasped them tightly before her. "When I told him,—Mammy Chloe let him in,—when I told him that you were busy with your client, he thought no more of it. And then we talked of Fontenoy, and he read me a letter from Uncle Edward. Much of the letter was about Colonel Burr, and—and suspicions that were aroused. Uncle Edward called him a traitor and a maker of traitors. That is an ugly name, is it not? Ludwell Cary did not think the rumour false. He said that if he were Mr. Jefferson, he would arrest Colonel Burr. He, also, called him traitor. I can tell you what he said. He said, 'But Mr. Jefferson will temporize, and Burr will make his dash for a throne. Well! he is neither Cæsar nor Buonaparte; he is only Aaron Burr. The danger is that in all the motley he is enlisting there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer and any delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West! War and brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!' That is what he said."

There was a silence, then Rand spoke in a curious voice, "Saul among the prophets! In the future, let us have less of Ludwell Cary."

"Lewis, why did Colonel Burr come here to-night?"

Rand turned from the fire and began to pace the room, head bent and hand at mouth, thinking rapidly. His wife raised her hands, still wrapped in the silver scarf, to her heart, and waited. As he passed for the third time the tall harp, he drew his hand heavily across the strings. The room vibrated to the sound. Rand came back to the hearth, took the armchair in which Cary had sat, and drew it closer to the glowing embers. "Come," he said. "Come, Jacqueline, let us look at the pictures in the fire."

She knelt beside him on the braided rug. "Show me true pictures! Home in Virginia, and honourable life, and noble service, and my King a King indeed, and this Colonel Burr gone like a shadow and an ugly dream!—that is the picture I want to see."

For a moment there was silence before the white ash and the dying heart of the wood, then Rand with the tongs squared a flaky bed and drew from top to bottom a jagged line. "This," he said, "is the great artery; this is the Mississippi River." He drew another line. "Here to the southwest is Mexico, and that is a country for great dreams. There the plantain and the orange grow and there are silver and gold—and the warm gulf is on this side, and the South Sea far, far away, and down here is South America. The Aztecs lived in Mexico, and Cortez conquered them. He burned his ships so that he and his Spaniards might not retreat. Here is the land west of the Mississippi, unknown and far away. There are grassy plains that seem to roll into the sun, and there are great herds of game, and warlike Indians, and beyond the range of any vision there are vast mountains white with snow. Gold, too, may be there. It is a country enormous, grandiose, rich, and silent,—a desert waiting dumbly for the strong man's tread." He turned a little and drew another line. "To this side, away, away to the east, here where you and I are sitting, watching, watching, here are the Old Thirteen,—the Thirteen that the English took from the Indians, that the children of the English took from England. It is the law of us all, Jacqueline, the law of the Three Kingdoms: the battle is to the strong and the race to the swift. The Old Thirteen are stable; let them rest! Together they make a great country, and they will be greater yet But here is the Ohio—la belle Rivière, the Frenchmen call it. And beyond and below the Ohio, through all the gigantic valley of a river so great that it seems a fable, south to New Orleans, and westward to the undiscovered lies the country that is to be! And Napoleon, in order that he may brandish over England one thunderbolt the more, sells it for a song!—and we buy it for a song—and not one man in fifty guesses that we have bought the song of the future! The man who bought it knows its value—but Mr. Jefferson cares only for Done lays. He'll not have the Phrygian. He dreams of cotton and olives, of flocks and herds, rock salt and peaceful mines, and the manors of the Golden Age,—all gathered, tended, worked, administered by farmers, school-teachers, and philosophers! The ploughshare (improved) and the pruning-hook, a pulpit for Dr. Priestley, and a statue of Tom Paine, a glass house where the study of the mastodon may lead to a knowledge of man, slavery abolished, and war abhorred, the lion and the lamb to lie down together and Rousseau to come true—all the old mirage—perfectibility in plain sight! That is his dream, and it is a noble one. There is no room in it for the wicked man. In the mean time he proposes to govern this land of milk and honey, this bought-and-paid-for Paradise, very much as an eastern Despot might govern a conquered province. The inconsistencies of man must disconcert even the Thinker up in the skies. Well—it happens that the West and this great new city of ours, there at the mouth of the river, with her levees and her ships, her merchants, priests, and lawyers, do not want government by a satrap. They want an Imperial City and a Cæsar of their own. Throughout the length and breadth of this vast territory there is deep dissatisfaction—within and without, for Spain is yet arrogant upon its borders. The Floridas—Mexico—fret and fever everywhere! It is so before all changes, Jacqueline. The very wind sighs uneasily. Then one comes, bolder than the rest, sees and takes his advantage. So empires and great names are made."

"So good names are lost!" she cried. "It is not thus that you spoke one October evening on our way from Albemarle!"

Rand dropped the iron from his hand. "That was a year and a half ago, and all things move with rapidity. A man's mind changes. That evening!—I was in Utopia. And yet, if we reigned,—if we two reigned, Jacqueline,—we might reign like that. We might make a kingdom wise and great."

"And Mr. Jefferson, and all that you owe to him? And your letter to him every month with all the public news?"

"That was before this winter," he answered. "We have almost ceased to write. I am not like James Madison or James Monroe. I cannot follow always. Mr. Jefferson is a great man—but it is hungry dwelling in the shadow of another."

"Better dwell in the shadow forever," cried Jacqueline, with passion, "than to reign with faithlessness in the sun!"

"I am not faithless—"

"So Benedict Arnold thought! Oh, Lewis!"

"You speak," said Rand slowly, "too much like the Churchills and the Carys."

In the silence that followed, Jacqueline rose and stood over against him, the scarf trailing from her hand and the amethysts rising and falling with her laboured breathing. He glanced at her and then went on: "Burr leaves Richmond to-morrow. He does not go West till summer, and all his schemes may come to naught. What he does or does not do will depend on many things, chiefly on whether or not we go to war with Spain. I am not going West with him—not yet. I have let him talk. I have brought him and Adam Gaudylock together; I have put a little money in this land purchase of his upon the Washita, and I have given him some advice. That is all there is of rebellion, treason, and sedition,—all the cock-a-hoop story! Ludwell Cary may keep his own breath to cool his own porridge. And you, Jacqueline, you who married me, you have not a soul to be frighted with big words! You and I shall walk side by side."

"Shall we?" she said. "That will depend. I'll not walk with you over the dead—dead faith, dead hope, dead honour!"

"I shall not ask you to," he answered. "You are not yourself. You are using words without thought. It is the cold, the lateness, and this dying fire—Ludwell Cary's arrogance as well. Dead faith, hope, honour!—is this your trust, your faith?"

"Lewis, Lewis!"

He rose, crossed the shadowy space between them, and took her hands. "Don't fear—don't fear! We two will always love. Jacqueline, there is that within me that will not rest, that cries for power, and that overrides obstacles! See what I have overridden since the days beneath the apple tree! I am not idly dreaming. Conditions such as exist to-day will not arise again. Upon this continent it is the time of times for the bold—the wisely bold. This that beckons is no mirage in the West; it is palpable fact. Say that I follow Burr—follow! overtake and pass him! He has a tarnished name and fifty years,—a supple rapier but a shrunken arm. He's daring; but I can be that and more. He plans; I can achieve. I am no dreamer and no braggart when I say that in the West I can play the Corsican. What can I do here? Become, perhaps, Governor of Virginia; wait until Mr. Jefferson is dead, and Mr. Madison is dead, and Mr. Monroe is dead, and then, if the world is yet Republican, become President? The governorship I do not want; the presidency is but a chance, and half a lifetime off! But this—this, Jacqueline, is real and at hand. Say that I go, say that I gain a throne where you and I may sit and rule, wise and great and sovereign, holding kingdoms for our children—"

"Oh!" exclaimed Jacqueline.

Rand drew her to him. "Don't fear—don't fear! The child will come—we want him so!"

"Promise me," she cried,—"promise me that you will see Colonel Burr no more, write to him no more! Promise me that you will put all this away, forever, forever! Oh, Lewis, give me your word!"

"I will do nothing rash," he said. "We will go back to Roselands,—we will watch and wait awhile. Burr himself does not go West until the summer. Ere then I will persuade you. That first July evening, under the mimosa at the gate, even then this thing was vaguely, vaguely in my mind."

"Was it?" she cried. "Oh me, oh me!"

"You are wearied," he said, "chilled and trembling. I wish that Ludwell Cary had aired his views elsewhere to-night! Put it all from your mind and come to rest—"

"Lewis, if ever you loved me—if ever you said that you would give me proof—"

"You know that I love you."

"Then, as I gave up friends and home for you, give up this thing for me! No, no, I'll not cease to beg"—She slipped from his arm to her knees. "Lewis, Lewis, this is not the road—this is not the way to freedom, goodness, happiness Promise me! Oh, Lewis, if ever you loved me, promise me!"

From Rand's house on Shockoe Hill Ludwell Cary walked quickly homeward to the Eagle, where he and his brother lodged. As he walked he thought at first, hotly and bitterly enough, of Lewis Rand and painfully of himself, but at length the solemnity of the white night and the high glitter of the stars made him impatient of his own mood. He looked at the stars, and at the ivory and black of the tall trees, and his mind calmed itself and turned to think of Jacqueline.

In the Eagle's best bedroom, before a blazing fire and a bottle of port, he found Fairfax Cary deep in a winged chair and a volume of Fielding. "Well, Fair?" he said, with his arm upon the mantel-shelf and his booted foot upon the fender.

The younger Cary closed his book and hospitably poured wine for his brother. "Were you at the Amblers'?" he asked. "It's a night for one's own fireside. I went to the Mayos', but the fair Maria is out of town. On the way I stopped at Bowler's Tavern to see his man about that filly we were talking of, and I had a glass with old Bowler himself. He let out a piece of news. Who d'ye think is in town and under Bowler's roof?—Aaron Burr!"

There was a silence, then Cary said quietly, "Aren't you mistaken, Fair?"

"Not in the least," answered the other. "He came in a sloop from Baltimore yesterday. It is not known that he's in town; he does not want it known. He's keeping quiet,—perhaps he has another duel on his conscience. I don't believe old Bowler knew he had let the cat out. Burr leaves to-morrow. He was out visiting to-night."

"How do you know that?" Cary demanded, with sudden sharpness.

"Bowler's best bedroom in darkness—no special preparations for supper—Burr's man idling in the kitchen—mine host taking no cake to speak low,—in short, the wedding guest was roaming. I wonder where he was!"

The elder Cary raised and drained the glass of wine. He knew where Aaron Burr had supped and passed the evening, and a coldness that was not of the night crept upon him. As for Lewis Rand, he cared not what he did nor why he did it, but for Jacqueline Churchill. This had been the client from the country! All the time she was keeping it secret that Burr was there. She had turned pale. No wonder!—the faithful wife!

"Take care, that glass is thin—you'll break it!" warned the younger Cary, but the glass had snapped in the elder's fingers.

"Pshaw!" said Cary; "too frail for use! I'm off to bed, Fair. That bill comes up to-morrow, and it means a bitter fight. Good-night,—and I say, Fair, hold your tongue about Aaron Burr. Good-night!"

In his room he put out the candle, parted the window curtains, and looked upon Orion, icily splendid in the midnight sky. "What is there that is steadfast?" he thought. "Does she love him so?" He stood for a long time looking out into the night. He thought of that evening at Fontenoy when he had come in from the sultry and thunderous air and had found Rand seated in the drawing-room and Jacqueline at her harp, singing To Althea,—

"Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."

The words and the vision of Fontenoy that night were yet with him when at last he turned from the window and threw himself upon the bed, where he finally fell asleep with his arm flung up and across his eyes.

AT LYNCH'S

Rand, walking hastily through the hail of the Capitol, came out into the portico. Before him, between the great pillars, the landscape showed in glittering silver, in the brown of leafless trees and the hard green of pine and fir. The hill fell steep and white to the houses at its base and to the trampled street. In the still and crystal air the river made itself plainly heard. Across, on the Chesterfield side, the woods formed a long smudge of umber against the blue of the afternoon sky.

There were people here in the open air as there had been in the corridor, a number of men talking loudly, or excitedly whispering, or in silence rolling triumph beneath the tongue, or digesting defeat. Rand's progress, here as there, brought a change. The loud talking fell, the whisperers turned, the silent found their voices, and there arose a humming note of recognition and tribute. Rand had carried the Albemarle Resolutions, and that with a high hand. He moved through the crowd, acknowledging with a bend of his head this or that man's salute, frankly smiling upon good friends, and finely unconscious of all enemies, until at the head of the broad steps he came upon Adam Gaudylock seated with his gun beside him, smoking reflectively in the face of the Albemarle Resolutions and the general excitement. At Rand's glance he rose, took up the gun, and slid the pipe into his beaded pouch. The two descended the steps together.

"I am going to Lynch's," said Rand. "The stage will soon be in and I want the news. Well?"

"He's off," answered Gaudylock. "Chaise to Fredericksburg at six this morning. Pitch dark and no one stirring, and he as chipper, fresh, and pleased as a squirrel with a nut! Pshaw! a Creek pappoose could read his trail! He's from New England anyway. I want a Virginian out there!"

They walked on down the white hillside. The hunter, tawny and light of tread, scarce older to the eye, for all his wanderings, than the man beside him, glanced aslant with his sea-blue eyes. "When are you coming, Lewis?"

"Never, I think," said Rand abruptly; then after a moment's silent walking, "They should better clean these paths of snow. Mocket says a brig came in yesterday from the Indies;—attacks on Neutral Trade and great storms at sea. I've a pipe of Madeira on the ocean that I hope will not go astray. I wish that some time you would send me by a wagon coming east antlers of elk for the hall at Roselands."

"Why, certainly!" quoth Gaudylock. "And so you are going to settle down like every other country gentleman,—safe and snug, winter and summer, fenced in by tobacco and looking after negroes? I'll send you the skin of a grizzly, too."

"Thank you," replied Rand; then presently, "I dreamed last night—when at last I got to sleep—of my father. Do you remember how he used to stride along with his black hair and his open shirt and his big stick in his hand? I used to think that stick a part of him—just his arm made long and heavy. I tried once to burn it when he was asleep. Ugh!"

"I dreamed," said Gaudylock imperturbably, "of a Shawnee girl who once wanted me to stay in her father's lodge. 'It is winter in the forest,' quoth she, 'and the wolves begin to howl. All your talk of places where the river runs through flowers and the pale faces build great villages is the talk of singing birds! Stay by the fire, Golden-tongue!' and I stayed—in the dream.

"When you see a partridge
Scurrying through the grass,
Fit an arrow to the bow,
For a man will pass!

"Heigho!"

"I am already," retorted Rand, "at the place where the river runs through flowers and the pale faces have built villages. Who will say that I did not cross the forest?—I was years in crossing it! Here is Lynch's."

The coffee house on Main Street was the resort of lawyers, politicians, and strangers in town, and towards dusk, when the stage and post-rider were in, a crowded and noisy place. It was yet early when Rand and Gaudylock entered, and neither the mail-bag, nor many habitués of the place had arrived. The room was quiet and not over brightly lit by the declining sun and the flare of a great, crackling fire. There were a number of tables and a few shadowy figures sipping chocolate, wine, or punch. Rand led the way to a corner table, and, sitting down with his back to the room, beckoned a negro and ordered wine. "I am tired, voice and mind," he said to Gaudylock, "and I know you well enough to neglect you. Let us sit still till the papers come."

He drank his wine and, with his elbow on the table, rested his forehead upon his hand and closed his eyes. Adam emptied his glass, then, leaning back in his corner, surveyed the room. Two men came and seated themselves at a neighbouring table. They were talking in lowered voices, but Gaudylock's ears were exceedingly keen. "A great speech!" said one. "As great as Mr. Henry ever made. Do you remember old Gideon Rand?"

The other shrugged. "Yes; and I remember old Stephen Rand, Gideon's father—a pirate of a man, sullen, cruel, and revengeful! A black stock!"

"The Waynes were not angels either—save by comparison," quoth the first. "All the same it was a great speech."

"I grant you that," said the other. "Black stock or not, we'll see him Governor of Virginia. Curious, isn't it?"

They became aware of their neighbours, glanced uneasily at each other, raised their eyebrows, and changed to a distant table. Rand made no sign of having heard. He put out his hand to the Burgundy, filled his glass, and drank it slowly, then closed his eyes again. A figure, half buried in the settle by the fire, folded a month-old journal and, rising, displayed in the light from the hickory logs the faded silk stockings, the velvet short-clothes, brocaded coat, and curled wig of M. Achille Pincornet, who taught dancing each winter in Richmond, as in summer he taught it in Albemarle. Mr. Pincornet, snuff-box and handkerchief in hand, looked around him, saw the two at the corner table, and crossed to them. "Mr. Rand, I make you my compliments. I was in the gallery. Ah, eloquence, eloquence!—substance persuasively put! Minerva with the air of Venus! I, too, was eloquent in my day! Pray honour me!"

Rand touched the extended snuff-box with his fingers, muttered an absent word or two, and again sank into revery. Mr. Pincornet, with an affable, "Ah, hunter!" to Gaudylock, passed on to greet an entering compatriot, the good Abbé Dubois.

Rand sat still, his head propped upon one hand, the fingers of the other moving upon the board before him, half aimlessly, half deliberately, as though he wrote in a dream. Opposite him rested Adam, placid as an eastern god. The room began to fill and the murmur of voices to deepen. "The Red Deer is late," affirmed some one. "Damned heavy roads!"

"Then they've sent on a rider!" cried another. "Here's Lynch's man with the bag!"

It being the custom to address letters, papers, and pamphlets to gentlemen at "Lynch's Coffee House," there was now a general movement of interest and expectation. A negro carrying a pair of saddle-bags advanced, obsequious and smiling, to a high desk at one side of the room and placed thereon the news from the outer world The genial Mr Lynch, proprietor of the establishment, took his place behind the desk with due solemnity, and a score of lawyers, merchants, and planters left tobacco, wine, julep, and toddy to press around his temporary throne. Every day at this hour Lynch mounted this height, and he dearly loved the transient importance. Now he solemnly unfastened the bags, drew out a great handful of matter, looked it over, amid laughing clamour, with pursed lips and one raised, deprecating hand, then in a cheerful, wheezing voice began to call out names,—"Major Du Val—Major Baker—Mr. Allan—Mr. Munford—Mr. Chavallie—Colonel Harvie—Major Gibbon—Dr. Foushee—Mr. Warrington—Major Willis—Mr. Wickham—Mr. Rand—"

There was a moment's check while Lynch craned his neck. "Mr. Rand's not here, I believe?"

"Lewis Rand,—no!" quoth Mr. Wickham. "What should he do in a mere coffee house with mere earthly newspapers? He's walking somewhere in a laurel garden in the cool of the evening."

Rand's voice came out of the depths of the room that was now just light enough to see the written word. "I am here, Mr. Lynch." He rose and came forward. "Good-afternoon, gentlemen—good-afternoon, Mr. Wickham!"

"Did you hear?" asked Wickham coolly. "Well, it is a laurel garden, you know! Mr. Lynch, let's have candles—"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Lynch. "Colonel Ambler—Mr. Carrington—Mr. Rutherfoord—Mr. Page—Mr. Cary—Mr. Fairfax Cary—"

"They are coming later," said a voice.

"Thank you, Mr. Mason—Mr. Carter—Mr. Call—Mr. Cabell—the Abbé Dubois-"

The list went on. Candles were lighted on every table and on the mantel-shelf, though outside the windows the west was yet red. Two negroes brought and tossed into the cavernous fireplace a mighty backlog of hickory. The sound of the fire mingled with the rustle of large thin sheets of paper, the crisp turning of Auroras, National Intelligencers, Alexandria Expositors, Gazettes of the United States, excited journals of an excited time, with softly uttered interjections and running comment, and with now and then a high, clear statement of fact or rumour. At home, the hour's burning question was that of English and Spanish depredation at sea, attack upon neutral ships, confiscation and impressment of American sailors. In Washington, the resolutions of Gregg and Nicholson were under consideration, and all things looked toward the Embargo of a year later. Abroad, the sign in the skies was still Napoleon—Napoleon—Napoleon! Now, at Lynch's, as the crowd increased and the first absorbed perusal of script and print gave way to exchange of news and heated discussion, the room began to ring with voices. Broken sentences, words, and talismanic phrases danced as thick as motes in a sunbeam. "Non-Importation.... Gregg.... Too wholesale.... Nicholson.... Silk, window-glass.... Napoleon.... Brass, playing-cards, books, prints, beer, and ale.... Napoleon.... The Essex of Salem, the Enoch and Rowena.... Texas—the seizure of Texas. Two millions for the Floridas.... The Death of Pitt.... Napoleon—Austerlitz.... 'Decius' in the Enquirer—that's John Randolph of Roanoke.... 'Aurelius'—that letter of 'Aurelius'—"

Rand, at the corner table, had moved his chair so as to face the room. Letters and papers were spread before him; he had broken the seal of a thin blue sheet and drawn a candle close to the fine, neat, and pointed writing. The letter interested him, and he apparently took no heed of the rapid disjointed speech around him. But the word "Aurelius" brought a sudden, darting glance, a movement of the lower lip, and a stiffening of the shoulders. Gaudylock, who sat and smoked, supremely indifferent to the display of newspapers, marked the flicker of emotion. "He sees a snake in the grass," he thought lazily "Who's 'Aurelius'?"

Rand turned the thin blue page, snuffed the candle, and fell again to his reading. Right and left the talk continued. "Glass, tin.... The Albemarle Resolutions. Great speech. He's over there.... All this talk about Aaron Burr.... Austerlitz—twenty thousand Russians.... Westwood the coiner got clean away on a brig for Martinique. One villain the less here, one the more in Martinique. Martinique! that's where the Empress Josephine comes from—"

"My faith!" said Adam. "It's worse than the mockingbirds in June!"

The doors opened and the two Carys entered the coffee room. Rand lifted his eyes for a moment, then let them fall to the third sheet of his letter. Mr. Lynch bustled forward. "Ha, Mr. Cary, your letters are waiting! Mr. Fairfax Cary,—your servant, sir!—Eli, wine for Mr. Cary—the Madeira. Christopher, more wood to the fire! The night is falling cold."

"Very cold, Mr. Lynch," said Ludwell Cary. "Colonel Ambler—Mr. Wickham, we meet again!"—and his brother, "We never have such cold in Albemarle, Mr. Lynch! Ha, your fire is good, and your wine's good, and your company's good. There's a table by the fire, Ludwell."

They moved to it, exchanging greetings, as they went, with half the room, sat down, drank each a glass of wine, and fell to their letters, careless of the surrounding war of words. The elder's mail was heavy,—letters from London, from New York, from Philadelphia, one from his overseer at Greenwood, others from clients, colleagues, and strangers,—all the varied correspondence of the lawyer, the planter, and the man of the world. Fairfax Cary's letters were fewer in number, but one was gilt-edged, curiously folded, and superscribed in a strong and delicate hand. "Miss Dandridge seals with a dove and an olive branch?" murmured the elder brother. "Lucky Fair! What's the frown for?"

"Olive branch?" quoth the other. "She should seal with a nettle! Listen to this: 'Mr. Hunter has been some time with us at Fontenoy. Mr. Carter spent his Christmas here—he dances extremely well. Mr. Page gives us now and then the pleasure of his company. He turns the leaves of my music for me. Mr. Lee and I are reading Sir Charles Grandison together. I see Mr. Nelson at Saint Anne's.' Saint Anne! Saint Griselda! Her letters are enough to make a man renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, and turn Trappist—"

"I wish the room would turn Trappist," said the other. "I am tired of talk. I would like to be somewhere in the woods to-night—quiet. We won't stay long here. There has been contention enough to-day."

The younger leaned forward. "Lewis Rand is over there—three tables back."

"I know. I saw him when we came in. Read your letters and we will be gone."

The minutes passed. Outside Lynch's the western red faded, and the still, winter night came quickly on. Within, fire and candles burned bright, but to not a few of Mr. Lynch's patrons the flames danced unsteadily. It was an age of hard drinking; the day had been an exciting one, and Lynch's wine or punch or apple toddy but the last of many potations. The assemblage was assuredly not drunken, but neither was it, at this hour and after the emotional wear and tear of the past hours, quite sane or less than hectic. Its mood was edged. Now, in the quarter of an hour before the general start for home and supper, foreign and federal affairs gave way to first-hand matters and a review of the day that was closing. It had been a field day. The city of Richmond was strongly Federal, the General Assembly mainly Republican. At Lynch's this evening were members, Federalist and Republican, of the two Houses, with citizens, planters, visitors enough of either principle. When the general talk turned upon the Albemarle Resolutions and the morning's proceedings in the House of Delegates, it was as though an invisible grindstone had put upon the moment a finer edge.

Lewis Rand, sweeping his letters and papers together, had nodded to Adam and moved from his table to that of a pillar of the Republican party, with whom he was now in attentive discourse. Apparently he gave no heed to the voices around him, though he might have heard his own name, seeing that wherever the talk now turned it came at last upon his speech of that morning. Presently, "Mr. Rand!" called some one from across the room.

Rand turned. "Mr. Harrison?"

"Mr. Rand, there's a dispute here. Just what did you mean by—" and there followed a quotation from the morning's speech.

Rand moistened his lips with wine, turned more fully in his chair, and answered in a sentence of such pith as to bring applause from those of his party who heard. In a moment there was another query, then a third; he was presently committed to a short and vigorous exposition and defence of the point in question. The entire room became attentive. Then, as he paused, the strident voice of a noted and irascible man proclaimed, "That's not democracy and not Jefferson—that doctrine, Mr. Rand. Veil her as you please in gauze and tinsel, you've got conquest by the hand. You may not think it, but you're preaching—what's the word that 'Aurelius' used?—'Buonapartism.'"

A Federalist of light weight who had arrived at quarrelsomeness and an empty bottle put in a sudden oar. "'Buonapartism' equals Ambition, and both begin with an R." He looked pointedly at Rand.

"My name begins with an R, sir," said Rand.

"Pshaw! so does mine!" exclaimed the man at the table with him. "Let him alone, Rand. He doesn't know what he is saying."

Rand turned to the first speaker. "'Buonapartism,'—that's a word that's as ample as Charity, but I hardly think, sir, that it covers this case. It's a very vague word. But writers to the Gazette are apt to be more fluent than accurate."

"I shouldn't call it vague," cried his opponent. "It's a damned good word, and so I'd tell 'Aurelius,' if I knew who he was."

"It wasn't random firing in that letter," said a voice from another quarter of the room. "I don't much care to know the gunner, but I'd mightily like to know who was aimed at. It was a damned definite thing, that letter. 'Buonapartism—the will to mount—sacrifice of obligations—Genius prostituted to Ambition—sin against light—a man's betrayal of his highest self and his own belief—the mind's incurable blindness—I, I am above all law—to take rich gifts and hold the gods in contempt—Dædalus wings'"—The speaker paused to fill his glass. "Yes, I should powerfully like to know at whom 'Aurelius' was aiming."

"At no one, I think," said Rand coolly. "He made a scarecrow of his own, and then was frightened by it. His chain-shot raked a man of straw,—and so would I tell 'Aurelius,' if I knew who he was."

As he spoke, he moved to face the fire. He had not raised his voice, but he had given it carrying quality. Cary raised his eyes, and laid down the paper he had in his hand. A genial, down-river planter and magistrate entered the conversation. "Well, I for one don't hold with all this latter-day hiding behind names out of Roman history! Brutus and Cato and Helvidius, Decius and Aurelius, and all the rest of them! Is a man ashamed of his English name?"

"Or afraid?" said Rand, then bit his lip. He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last. His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage. It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels. Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and flung off his pursuer; sometimes he left him far behind; more than once he had seen him mastered and done with, dead by the wayside, had drawn free breath, and had gone on with a victor's brow. Then, when all the fields were smiling, came at a bound the dark shape, leaped at the throat, and hung there. It was so this evening at Lynch's. He strove with his passion, but he was aware of a wish to strive no longer, to let the black dog have his way.

There was a laugh for the speaker before him. "You see, sir," cried a noted lawyer, "Brutus and Cato, Helvidius, Decius, and Aurelius, and all the noble Romans died before duelling came in! 'Sir, the editor of the—ahem!—newspaper, I take exception to this statement in your pages.' 'Sir, I refer you to Junius Brutus. Answer, Roman!' Never a sound from Limbo!—'Sir, Decius has grossly misrepresented. Where shall I send my challenge?' 'To Hades, no less! Not the least use in knocking up John Randolph of Roanoke.'—'Sir, I am at odds with Aurelius. Pray favour me with the gentleman's address.' 'Sir, he left no name. You see, he lived so long ago!'"

Amid the laugh that followed, Cary turned a smiling face upon the speaker. "I will answer, Mr. Wickham, for Aurelius. Do you really want to challenge me?" He slightly changed his position so as to confront Rand's table. "In this instance, Mr. Rand, I am certain there was no fear."

His speech, heard of all, wrought in various ways. Mocket the day before had not exaggerated the general interest in the letter signed "Aurelius." Now at Lynch's there arose a small tumult of surprise, acclaim, enthusiasm, and dissent. His friends broke into triumph, his political enemies—he had few others—strove for a deeper frown and a growling note. The only indifferent in Lynch's was Adam Gaudylock, who smoked tranquilly on, not having read the letter in question nor being concerned with Roman history. Lewis Rand sat in silence with compressed lips, bodily there in the lit coffee room, but the inner man far away on the mind's dark plains, struggling with the fiend that dogged him. Fairfax Cary's cheek glowed and his eyes shone. He looked at his brother, then poured a glass of wine and raised it to his lips. "Wait, Fairfax! We'll all drink with you!" cried a neighbour. "Gentlemen and Federalists, glasses!—Ludwell Cary, and may he live to hear his children's children read 'Aurelius'!"

The Federalists drank the toast with acclaim, while the Republicans with equal ostentation did no such thing. Mr. Pincornet in his corner, hearing the words "Gentlemen" and "Cary," drank with gusto his very thin wine, and Adam drank because he had always liked the Carys and certainly had no grudge against "Aurelius," whoever he might be.

In the first lull of sound the man at the table with Lewis Rand spoke in a loud, harsh, but agreeable voice. "Well, Mr. Cary, the staunchest of Republicans, though he can't drink that toast, need not deny praise to a masterpiece of words. Words, sir, not facts. What I want to know is at whom—not at what, at whom—you were firing? I thought once that Aaron Burr was your mark. But he's too light metal—a mere buccaneer! That broadside of yours would predicate a general foe—and I'm damned if I wouldn't like to know his name!"

"We would all like to know his name," said Rand. "And when we know it, I for one would like to hear Mr. Cary's proofs of faithlessness to obligations."

In the hush of expectation which fell upon the room the eyes of the two men met. In Rand's there was something cold and gleaming, something that was not his father's nor his grandfather's, but his own, deadly but markedly courageous. Cary's look was more masked, grave, and collected, with the merest quiver of the upper lip. In the mind of each the curtain strangely lifted, not upon Richmond or Fontenoy or the Court House at Charlottesville, but upon a long past day and the Albemarle woods and two boys gathering nuts together. This lasted but an instant, then Cary spoke. "In that letter, Judge Roane, 'Aurelius' had no thought of Aaron Burr. I doubt if in writing he meant to give to any image recognizable face and form. I think that, very largely, he believed himself but personifying the powers of evil and the tendencies thereto inherent in the Democrat-Republican as in all human doctrine. If he builded better than he knew, if he held the mirror up, if, in short, there's any whom the cap fits"—He paused a moment, then said sternly, "Let the wearer, whoever he may be, look to his steps!" and turned to face Rand. "Seeing there is no name to divulge, there are of course no proofs of faithlessness." He rose. "It is growing late, gentlemen, and I, for one, am committed to Mrs. Ambler's party. Who goes towards the Eagle?"

There was a movement throughout the coffee room. It was full dark, home beckoned, and a number besides Cary were pledged to the evening's entertainment. From every table men were rising, gathering up their papers, when Rand's voice, harsh, raised, and thick with passion, jarred the room. "I hold, Mr. Cary, that not even to please his fine imagination is a gentleman justified in publicly weaving caps of so particular a description!"

Cary turned sharply. "Not even when he weaves it for a man of straw?—your own expression, Mr. Rand."

"Even men of straw," answered the other thickly, "find sometimes a defender. By God, I'll not endure it!"

"All this," said Cary scornfully,—"all this for the usual, the familiar, the expected Federalist criticism of Republican precept and practice! What, specifically, is it, Mr. Rand, that you'll not endure?"

"I'll endure," replied Rand, in a strained, monotonous, and menacing voice, "no taunt from you."

As he spoke, he threw himself forward. "Have a care, sir!" cried Cary, and flung out his arm. He had seen, and the men around had seen, the intention of the blow. It was not struck. Amid the commotion that arose, Rand suddenly, and with an effort so violent and so directed that it had scarcely been in the scope of any other there, checked himself upon the precipice's verge, stood rigid, and strove with white lips for self-command. His inmost, his highest man had no desire to feel or to exhibit ungoverned rage, but there was a legion against him—and the black and furious dog. The coffee house was in a ferment. "Gentlemen—gentlemen!—What's the quarrel, Rand?—Ludwell Cary, I'm at your service!—Bills and bows! bills and bows!—or is it coffee and pistols?" Fairfax Cary had sprung to his brother's side. Adam Gaudylock, annihilating in some mysterious fashion the distance between the corner table and the group in the light of the fire, was visible over Rand's shoulder. Mr. Pincornet, chin in air and with his hand where once a sword had been, tiptoed upon the fringe of the crowd. The clamour went on. "Is it a challenge?—was a blow struck?—Mr. Cary, command me—Mr. Rand—"

Cary and Rand, standing opposed, three feet of bare floor between them, looked fixedly at each other. Both were pale, both breathing heavily, but for both the unthinking moment had passed. Reflection had come and was standing there between them. To Rand it wore more faces than one, but to Cary it was steadily a form in white with amethysts about the neck. There had been—it was well, it was best—no blow struck, no lie given. Cary drew a long breath, shook himself slightly like a swimmer who has breasted a formidable wave, and broke into a laugh. "No affront and no challenge, gentlemen! That is so, is it not, Mr. Rand?"

If there was an instant's sombre hesitation, it was no more. "Yes, that is so," said Rand. "After all, men should be more stable. There is no quarrel, gentlemen."

He bowed ceremoniously to Cary, who returned the salute. Each moved from where he had stood, and the tide at Lynch's came between them. There was some questioning, some excited speech, some natural disappointment at matters going no further. It was not clearly understood what offence had been given or what taken, but many felt aggrieved by the check on the threshold of a likely affair. However, it was, they could concede, the business of the two principals, each of whom could afford to ignore any seeming reflection upon his unreadiness to pick up the glove—if a glove had been thrown. As the assemblage broke up and flowed homeward, the most pertinent comment, perhaps, was that of the down-river planter: "If 'twas just a breeze, and all over, why didn't they shake hands? Gad! when I was young and we fell out and made up over the wine, we went roaring home arm over shoulder! Your manners are too cold. A bow is nothing—one can bow to a villain! Men of honour, when the quarrel's over, should shake hands!"

"Precisely," said his companion, who chanced to be Mr. Wickham. "They are men of honour; they didn't shake hands. Ergo the quarrel's not over!—Here we are at the Eagle."

FAIRFAX AND UNITY

"Bah!" exclaimed Major Churchill. "Long ago Hamilton said the last word on the subject. Aaron Burr's sole political principle is to mount. The Gazette says he has started West—gone, I'll swear, to light the fuse."

"Then I hope the mine will blow up under him," said Fairfax Cary. "Can you tell me, sir, if Miss Dandridge is at home?"

The Major looked over the top of his Gazette. "Miss Dandridge is sitting beneath the catalpa tree." The other made a movement towards the door. "Mr. Page is with her. He is reading aloud—Eloïsa to Abelard, or some such impassioned stuff. Don't apologize! I have no objection to expletives."

The younger Cary laid down his hat, took a chair with great deliberation, and flecked his boot with his riding-whip. "The catalpa shall be sacred for me. Eloïsa to Abelard! Is it a long poem, sir?"

"It is longer than its author was. Sentimental rubbish!"

Major Edward folded the Gazette with his one hand, laid it on the library table, and leaned back in his leather chair. "It is not my opinion that Unity cares for Mr. Page. She cares for what many men and an occasional woman have cared for—liberty."

"I would give her liberty."

"She may possibly prefer it," said the Major dryly, "first hand."

The young man laughed ruefully. "So little liberty as she has left me! I am bound hand and foot to her chariot wheels. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her, short of hearing Page read aloud."

"You'll win in the end, I think. And I hope you may. Unity Dandridge is wilful, but she is a fine woman."

"The finest in the world—the most beautiful—the most sparkling—the most loyal—"

"You'll not find her lacking in spirit. She will speak her mind, will Miss Dandridge! The Carys, fortunately, have a certain fine obstinacy of their own. It is a saving grace."

The other laughed. "I never heard that the Churchills lacked it, sir. Anyhow, I mean to marry Miss Dandridge. I've told her and the world my intention, and they may count upon my carrying it out. If she only knew how lonely it is at Greenwood! Breakfast, dinner, and supper—Ludwell at the head of the table and I at the foot, and a company of ghosts in between—"

"Ludwell may yet marry."

Fairfax Cary shook his head. "No. He'll never marry. If the Carys are obstinate, sir, they are also constant."

Major Churchill rose, turned to the bookshelves, and drew forth a volume. "Is he not over that?" he asked harshly.

"No, he is not. He'll never be over it. And they say matches are made in heaven!"

"Bah! They are made on earth, and cracked hearts can be mended like any other cracked ware. 'A little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste,' with a woman's name—and it has power to turn the sunshine black! Let him play the man and put her out of mind!"

"He does play the man," answered the other, with spirit. "He neither sulks nor shirks. It remains that there was but one woman in the world for him, and that she is at Roselands with Lewis Rand."

The Major's book fell with a crash to the floor. He stooped quickly and recovered it before the younger man could give him service. "I shall run Mustapha on the sixteenth at Staunton against Carter's York," he said, in a shaking voice. "Have you seen that Barbary mare Dick has gotten over from England?"

"No," answered the young man. "I'll take a look at the stables before I go. What is your book, sir?"

"It is"—said the Major. "I'm damned if I know what it is!" and he looked at the volume in his hand. "Paul and Virginia—faugh!" He threw the book down and stalked to the window. Fairfax Cary sat in silence, one booted knee over the other, an arm upon the back of his chair, and the riding-whip depending from his hand. The Major turned. "They have laid down Pope, and Mr. Page is making his adieux! Humph! I can remember a day when the poem was considered vastly moving. I would advise you to strike while the iron is hot."

"Sometimes I think it will take an earthquake to move her toward me," said the other. "I'll give Page three minutes in which to clear out, and then I'll try again. It would amuse you, sir, to know how many times I have tried. If to have an object in life is praiseworthy, I am much to be lauded!"

"You have always evinced a fine determination," admitted the Major. "Well, life must have an object, fair or foul. With it, cark and care; without it, ditchwater! This way disappointment; that, fungi on a log. Vanity in either direction, but a man of honour must prefer the rack to the stocks."

Fairfax Cary looked at his watch. "Page's time is up. I'll go pursue my object, sir."

The pursuit took him over the greensward to the bench built around the great catalpa. The heat of the day was broken and the evening shadows lay upon the grass. Mr. Page was gone. Unity sat beneath the catalpa, elbow on knee and chin in hand, studying a dandelion at her feet. The poetical works of Mr. Alexander Pope lay at a distance, face down. The sky between the broad catalpa leaves was very blue, and a long ray of sunshine sifted through to gild the tendrils of Miss Dandridge's hair and to slide in brightness down her flowery gown. She glanced at the young man striding towards her from the house, then again admired the dandelion.

Fairfax Cary stooped, picked up Pope, and regarded the open pages with disfavour. "And at home he probably reads only The Complete Farrier—on Sundays maybe the Gentleman's Magazine or The Book of Dreams!"

"Who?" asked Unity.

"My rival. If he read Greek, he would yet be my rival and an ignorant fellow."

"He does read Greek," said Miss Dandridge severely, "and 'ignorant fellow' is the last thing that could be applied to him. Did you ride over from Greenwood to be scornful?"

"I rode over to be as meek as Moses and as patient as Job—"

"They were never my favourites in Scripture."

"Nor mine." He closed the book, swung his arm, and Pope crashed into a lilac bush. "There," he said, "goes meekness, patience, and the eighteenth century. This is the nineteenth. Time is no endless draught, no bottomless cup. Waste of life is the cankered rose. You know that you treat me badly."

"Do I?—I did not mean to."

"You do. Now you've got to say to me, 'I love you and I'll marry you,' or 'I love you not and I'm going to marry some one else.' If it's the first, I'll be the happiest man on earth; if the second, I'll go far away and try to forget."

"Won't you sit down?"

"You have kept me standing in spirit these three years. Standing!—kneeling! Now, will you or won't you?"

"I do not care in the least for Mr. Page. He is merely an agreeable acquaintance."

"And Mr. Dabney?"

"The same. He entertains me—"

"Mr. Lee—Mr. Minor—Ned Hunter—"

"What applies to one applies to all."

"I am glad to hear it. All merely agreeable acquaintances. And Mr. Fairfax Cary? He is, perhaps, in the same category?"

"Perhaps. Oh, what a beautiful butterfly!—there, on that trumpet flower! I think it is a Tawny Emperor."

"I see," said the young man. "Excuse me a moment while I frighten him away." He gravely shook the trumpet vine, and the light splendour spread its wings and sailed to a securer realm. "Now that the Emperor is gone perhaps you will pay attention. Am I merely an agreeable acquaintance?"

"Oh—agreeable!" murmured Miss Dandridge.

"I am not trying to be agreeable. I am looking for the truth. Am I, then, merely an acquaintance?"

Unity sighed. "Why not say 'friend'?"

"'Friend' is good as far as it goes. It does not go far enough."

"Yes, it does," said Miss Dandridge. "It goes further than all your less sober travellers.

"Love me little, love me long.

"You want such violent things!"

"I want you. Is it, then, only a poor, pale friendship?"

"Why call it poor and pale? Friendship can be rosy-cheeked as well as—as other things. Look how the grass is burned—and all the locusts are singing of the heat!"

"It is beneath you to trifle so. If this is all, it is poor and pale, and the sooner it dies, the better! Unity, I'm waiting for your coup de grâce."

"I'm tired," said Unity. "You hurt me, and I'm tired."

"I never heard you say that before. Look at me! the tears are in your eyes."

"Everybody cries over Eloïsa to Abelard.

"O death all-eloquent! you only prove
What dust we dote on, when't is man we love!

"Where are you going?"

"Home first, then—I don't know where. Good-bye."

"Don't go."

"I'm afraid the book in the lilac bush is spoiled. If you'll allow me, I'll send you another copy."

"Please don't go."

"The tears are on your cheeks. It is a moving poem.

"Oh, may we never love as those have loved!

"This is the third and last good-bye. Good-bye."

The younger Cary turned and resolutely walked away. Miss Dandridge rose and followed him. He did not turn his head, and the thick turf could not echo her light footfall. He walked firmly, with the port of a man who hears a distant drum beat to action. Miss Dandridge admired the attitude through her tears. He walked rapidly and the sweep of greensward between them widened. It was no great distance to the driveway and the white pillars of the house. Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward, Deb, the servants, any one, might be looking out of the windows. For one moment Unity stopped short as Atalanta when she saw the golden apple, then she began to run. She touched her goal within ten feet of the house, and he stood still and looked at the hand upon his arm. "Oh!" she panted. "Don't go! I—I—I—"

"I—?"

"I love you. Oh!"

If any window saw, it was discreet and never told, remembering perhaps a youth of its own. The embrace was not prolonged beyond a minute. Unity, red and beautiful, released herself, looked about her like a startled dryad, and made again for the catalpa. Fairfax Cary followed, and they took that portion of the circular bench which had between it and the house the giant bole of the tree. Before them dipped the shady hollow, filled with the rustling of leaves, cool and retired as its parent forest.

"Oh, yes, yes; it's true, gospel true!" cried Unity. "But I'll not be married for a long, long year!"

"A year! You're going to be cruel again."

"No, no, I'm not cruel! I never was. 'Twas all your imagination. When I marry, I'll be married hard and fast, hand and foot, wind and rain, sleet and snow, June and December, forever and a day, world without end, amen! holidays and all! I may live forever, and I'll be married all that time. I want just one little year to say good-bye to Unity Dandridge in."

"We'll take her to Greenwood with us."

"No, no. We'll bury her in the flower garden the day before. Just one year—please!"

"Oh, Unity, when you say 'please'!"

"This is August. I'll marry you twelve little months from now—please!"

"A thousand things may happen—"

"They won't—they won't. Don't you love Unity Dandridge? Then let her live a little longer!"

"Kiss me—"

Unity did as she was bid. The sunlight left the hollow, but stayed bright upon the hills beyond. It was August, but in a treetop somewhere a solitary bird was singing. Nearer the earth the crickets and cicadas began their evening concert, a shrill drumming in the warm, still air. There was a scent of dry grass, a feeling of summer at its full. Dewy freshness, tender green, mist of bloom, and a thousand songs were far away, and yet upon the bench beneath the catalpa there was spring.

"The sun is setting," said Unity at last. "Let us go speak to Uncle Dick."

"He'll be glad, I think. May I stay to supper? I want to hear Unity Dandridge sing afterwards."

"Yes, Uncle Dick will be glad—he and Uncle Edward will be very glad. I don't believe that Unity Dandridge will want to sing to-night. She'll be thinking of that grave in the flower garden."

"No! She shall think of the sunrise at Greenwood—sunrise and splendid roses and the million harps of heaven playing!"

"Oh!" cried Unity, "the sunrise at Greenwood should have been for your brother!"

"Yes, for him and your cousin. Blind fate! He is worth a thousand of me, and he sits lonely there in his house—and I am here!"

"There's no pure joy."

"When I tell him to-night, he will feel but pure joy for me—not one thought of self, of the sunrise he might have watched at Greenwood! Oh, Justice and her balances! There goes the last rim of the sun."

"I'll sing to you what you will—and you may stay as long as you like—and I'll love you all my life. Oh! Now let's go find Uncle Dick."

Uncle Dick was easily found, being in fact upon the porch in his especial chair, with the dogs around him, and in his hand a silver goblet of mint and apple brandy. "Hey! What, what!" he cried, "has the jade said Yes at last? Where's Edward? Edward, Edward! Kiss me, you minx! Fair, I wish that my dear friend, your father, were alive. Well, well, patience does it, and the Lord knows, Unity, he's been patient! Oh, you black-eyed piece, you need a bit and bridle! Here's Edward! Edward, the shrew's tamed at last! Such a wedding as Fontenoy will have!"

Four hours later, when supper was over, and Aunt Nancy in the "chamber" had been visited by the affianced pair, and all matters had been discussed, and Unity at the harpsichord had sung without protest a number of very sentimental songs, and Deb had gone unwillingly to bed, and first one uncle and then the other had thoughtfully faded from the drawing-room, and good-night, when it came to be said in the moonlit porch, took ten minutes to say, and the boy who brought around the visitor's horse had caught with a grin and a "Thank'e, sah!" the whirling silver dollar, and Major Edward's voice had sounded from the hail door behind Unity, "Good-night, Fair; bring Ludwell with you to-morrow night," and Unity had echoed softly, "Yes, bring Ludwell," and the last wave of the hand had been given, Fairfax Cary cantered down the driveway and through the lower gates. Out upon the red highway he put his horse to the gallop, and rode with his bared head high to the wind and the stars of night.

At Greenwood there was but one light burning. He saw it half a mile from the house, lost it, then caught it again, crowning like a star the low hilltop. Bending from the saddle, he opened the gate, passed through, and rode on beneath the oaks to the house door. The light shone from the library. When a negro had taken his horse, the younger Cary entered to find his brother sitting before a mass of books and papers, wine on the table, and a favourite dog asleep upon the hearth. "You are late," said the elder, looking up with a smile. "Fontenoy, of course?"

"Fontenoy, of course. Ludwell, I've won!"

The elder brother pushed back his chair, rose, and, going to the younger, put both hands upon his shoulders. "Fair. I'm glad! I told you that you would. She's the loveliest black-eyed lady—and as for you, you deserve your fortune! Monsieur mon frère, I make you my congratulations!"

"What a blaze of light you've got in here! All the way home my horse's hoofs were saying, Unity Cary—Unity Cary."

Ludwell laughed. "You're drunk with joy. The room is not brightly lit. Sit down and tell me all about it."

"'Twas underneath the catalpa tree. We quarrelled—"

"As usual."

"Page had been there, reading aloud,—reading Eloïsa to Abelard."

"Oh!"

"We quarrelled. I said good-bye forever, and walked away. She came after me over the grass. Ludwell, to hold the woman that you love in your arms, close, close—"

"I can guess 'twas bliss. And then?"

"Heaven still—only quieter. We went back to the bench under the catalpa."

"Happy tree! And I never thought it a poetic growth—the flowers are so sticky! Now Unity shall plant one at Greenwood."

"'Unity'! Isn't it sweet to say just 'Unity'?"

The other laughed again. "I think you are a very satisfactory lover! And when's the marriage, Fair?"

"Not for a whole year—she won't marry me for a whole year to come!"

"Why, that's too long," said the elder kindly. "What reason?"

"Time to say farewell. Once she's married, she will never see Unity Dandridge again!"

Both laughed, but there was much tenderness in their laughter. "Oh, she's individual!" said Ludwell. "Even when you add the Cary, she'll be Unity Dandridge still. A year! Perhaps she may relent."

"I've given my word not to ask her."

"Ah!—well, a year's not so long, Fair. She's a lovely witch—she'll charm the hours away. This time next year how gay we'll make the old house!"

The younger paced the room. "I can't go to bed. Michaelmas—Christmas—St. Valentine's—Easter—the Fourth—then August again. Twelve months!"

"You'll ride to Fontenoy in the morning."

"That's true—and you'll ride with me. The last thing that she said was that I was to bring you. Ludwell, I want to say that not even Unity, though I love her so much, could ever make me love you an iota the less. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know, Fair," said the other from the great chair. "We are friends as well as brothers. I'm as glad for your happiness as if it were my own, and I'll ride with you to Fontenoy to kiss my new sister. You've both chosen wisely, and it's a great day for Greenwood! Stop that striding here and there like an ecstatic lion! Sit down and tell me all about it again. The wine's good, and I'll light more candles. There!"

"You're the best fellow in the world, Ludwell," said the younger gratefully. "She had on a gown with little flowers all over a yellowy ground, and there was a curl that came down on her white neck—and when I had gone away forever and then felt her hand upon my arm, it was like a sword-stroke opening Paradise. It isn't really late, is it? I could talk till dawn!"

THE GREEN DOOR

The coach of Mrs. Jane Selden entered Charlottesville at nine in the morning, and did not turn homeward again until the afternoon stood at four. The intermediate hours were diligently used by the small and withered lady in plum-coloured silk and straw bonnet, scarf of striped, apple-green gauze, and turkey-feather fan. She came to town but once in three months, and made of each visit a field day. Every store was called at, for buying must be done for herself and her plantation to last until Christmas-tide. Lutestring, calico, chintz and prunella, linsey and osnaburg; gilt-edged paper, sticks of wax, and fine black ink; drugs of sorts, bohea, spice, and china were bought and bestowed in brown paper parcels in corners of a vehicle ample as Cinderella's pumpkin coach, while Jamaica sugar and Java coffee, old rum, molasses, salt and vinegar, hardware, kitchen things, needs of the quarter, and all heavy matters were left to be called for by her wagon next day. Shopping over, she took dinner with an ancient friend, and afterwards called upon the doctor and the minister. The post-office came next in order, and then the blacksmith, for one of her four sleepy coach horses had cast a shoe. The fault remedied, she looked at her watch. "Half-past three. Stop at the green door, Gabriel."

Coach and four made a wide turn, swung drowsily down the main street, and drew up before a one-story brick building with a green door and a black lettered sign above, "Lewis Rand, Attorney-at-Law."

Mrs. Selden, putting her head out of the window, directed a small negro, lounging near, to raise the knocker below the sign; but before she could be obeyed, the door opened and Rand himself came quickly down the steps. "Come, come!" he said; "I knew it was your day in town, and I was wondering if you were going by without a word."

"Don't I always stop? A habit is a habit. We are all miserable sinners, and the world can't get on without lawyers. I want to ask you how I'm to keep old Tom Carfax off my land. There is no one with you?"

"No one. Mocket has ridden over to North Garden, and I've just dismissed a deputation from Milton." As he spoke, he opened the coach door and assisted his old friend to alight.

Together they went into the office, which was a cool little place, with a climbing rose at the windows, a bare floor, and a dim fragrance of law-books. The shade was grateful after the August heat and glare. Mrs. Selden, seated in a capacious wooden chair, wielded her turkey fan and looked about her at the crowded book-shelves, the mass of papers held down on desk and deal table by pieces of iron ore, the land maps on the wall, the corner ledger and high stool, the cupboard whose opened door disclosed bottles and glasses, and the blush roses just without the two small windows. "I like the law," she remarked. "There's a deal of villainy in it, no doubt, but that's a complaint to which all ways of making a living are liable. Even a shoemaker may be a villain. How does it feel to be a great lawyer, Lewis?"

He smiled. "Am I a great one?"

"You should know best, but it's what men call you. What was your deputation from Milton? About the governorship?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I thanked them for the honour they did me, and told them that I had declined the nomination."

"You have declined it! Why?"

He smiled again. "You used to preach contentment when I was a boy and you heard me rage out against my father. Well—shall I not rest content with being a great lawyer?"

His old neighbour regarded him keenly above her turkey-feather fan. "Lewis Rand, Lewis Rand," she said at last, "I wish I knew your end."

He laughed. "Do you mean my aim in life, or my last hour?"

"The one," said his visitor sharply, "will be according to the other. We all wander through a wood into some curious place at last. You're the kind of person one thinks of as coming into a stranger place than common. Have you heard the news about Unity Dandridge and Fairfax Cary?"

"Yes. She was at Roselands yesterday."

"It's good news. Unity Dandridge needs a master, and there's been no woman at Greenwood this weary while. Ludwell Cary will never marry."

"I see nothing to prevent his marrying."

Mrs. Selden suspended the waving of her fan. "He won't. Don't dislike him so, Lewis. It shows in your forehead."

"Is it so plain as that?" asked Rand. "Well, I do dislike him."

"Enmities are born with us, I suppose," said his visitor thoughtfully. "I remember a man whom, without reason, I hated. Had I been a man, I would have made it my study to quarrel with him—to force him into a duel—to make way with him secretly if need be! I wouldn't have stopped at murder. And it was all a mistake, as I found when he was dead and I didn't have to walk the same earth with him any more. It's a curious world, is the heart of man. And so you won't be Governor of Virginia?"

"Not now—some later day, perhaps. You see it takes all my time to be a great lawyer!"

"You don't deceive me," said Mrs. Selden, with great dryness. "But good or bad, your reason's your own, and I'll not ask you to satisfy an old woman's curiosity. In my day it was something to be Governor of Virginia." She waved her fan more vigorously than before, and the wind from it blew a paper from the table beside her. She was birdlike in her movements, and before Rand could stoop, she had caught the sheet. "Rows and rows of figures!" she exclaimed. "Is it a sum you're doing?"

He nodded, taking it from her. "Yes; a giant of a sum," he answered easily, and put the paper in his pocket. "Now what is old Carfax doing on your land?"

The consultation over, Mrs. Selden left the office and was handed by Rand into the pumpkin coach. When he had closed the door, he yet stood beside the lowered glass, his arm, sleeved in fine green cloth, laid along its rim, his strong face, clear cut and dark, smiling in upon his old friend. In his mind was the long and dreary stretch of his boyhood when she and Adam Gaudylock were the only beings towards whom he had a friendly thought. He was one of those men whose minds still hold communion with all the selves that they have left behind. Each in its day had been a throbbing, vital thing, and though at times he found the past obtrusive and wished to throw it off, he could never utterly do so. There was for him no Lethe. But if he tasted the disadvantages of so compound a self, to others the array enriched the man, making him vibrant of all that had been as well as all that was. It put them, too, to speculation as to how great an army he would gather ere the end, and as to the nature of the last recruit. The visitor from the Three-Notched Road looked at him now with her keen old eyes and laid her mittened hand upon his arm. "Be a good man, Lewis Rand! Be a great one if you will, but be good. That comes first."

Rand touched her withered hand with his lips. "It is women who are good. And you'll not come to town again until nearly Christmas! I'll ride over before then, and I'll settle Carfax for you. You are going home now?"

"Vinie Mocket is cutting watermelon rind for me. I'll stop there first and then I'll go home! Give my love to Jacqueline. I heard at the Swan that Mr. Jefferson is at Monticello. Is that true?"

"Yes, it is true."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Selden. "Then you'll be at Monticello all hours. I wish you'd ask him for a seedling of that new peach tree."

"I shall not be there all hours," said Rand, "but I'll manage to get the seedling for you. Good-bye, good-bye!"

The coach and four lumbered on down the dusty Main Street. Mrs. Selden, sitting opposite her brown paper bundles, waved her fan and looked out on the parching trees and the straggling, vine-embowered houses. For half an hour there had been a thought at the back of her head, and now it suddenly opened wings. Those strangely arranged lines of figures on that paper which had fluttered to the floor, they formed no sum that Lewis Rand was working! The paper that they covered was not a stray leaf; it had been folded like a letter. There was, she remembered, a piece of wax upon it. It was a day when men of mark often wrote to each other in cipher—there was nothing strange in Lewis Rand so corresponding with whom he chose. Most probably it was a letter from the President—though that could hardly be, seeing that the President was at Monticello! Mrs. Selden looked out of the window towards that low, green mountain which was now rising before her, and frowningly tried to remember some gossamer of speech which had been blown to her upon the Three-Notched Road. A quarrel between Rand and the President?—pshaw! it could hardly have been that! She had a sudden memory of Rand's face ere he grew to manhood, of the ardent eyes and the involuntary gesture of reverence which he used when he spoke of Mr. Jefferson. He could not even speak of him without a certain trembling of the voice. Any one could see the change in him since then, but it was hardly to be believed that the old feeling did not abide at the bottom of the well! Mrs. Selden was annoyed. The letter might have been from Mr. Madison, or Mr. Monroe, or Albert Gallatin, or John Randolph,—though John Randolph, too, had quarrelled with the President,—or Spencer Roane, or almost any great Democrat-Republican. It was no business of hers whom it was from. A colour crept into her withered cheek, and she tapped her black silk shoe upon the floor of the coach. "Yes; a giant of a sum," Lewis had said with great easiness, and then had put the paper out of sight. Why had he not been frank? He might have said to an old friend, "That's a cipher,—you see men will be riddlers still!" and then have laid away the letter as securely as he pleased! Mrs. Selden hated deceit in anything, great or small, and hated to find flaws in folk of whom she was fond. It was a trifle truly, but Lewis Rand had meant to give her a false impression, and that when he knew as well as she how she detested falsity! As for his reasons for concealment,—let him keep his reasons! She angrily told herself that Jane Selden had no desire to pry into a politician's secrets. But he should have said that the letter was a letter! With which conclusion, the coach having drawn up before Vinie Mocket's door, Mrs. Selden dismissed the matter from her mind, and, descending, was met by Vinie herself at the gate.

"I've got the sweetmeats all cut, Mrs. Selden! Grapes and baskets, and hearts with arrows through them, and vases of roses. I never did any prettier. Won't you come in, ma'am? There's water just drawn from the well."

"Then I'll have a glass, and I'll just look at the sweetmeats. It is late and I must be going home. Vinie, why don't you have your gate mended?"

"It always was broken," said Vinie. "I'm always meaning to have it mended. Will you sit on the porch, ma'am? It's cooler than inside."

The short path was lined with zinnias and with prince's feather and the porch covered with a shady grapevine. Vinie brought a pitcher beaded with cool well water, and then a salver spread with fanciful shapes cut from the delicate green rind of melon and ready for preserving. Mrs. Selden drank the well water and approved Vinie's skill; then, "Your brother's gone to North Garden," she said abruptly. "Mr. Rand's affairs must keep him busy."

"Yeth, ma'am. Tom comes and goes," said Vinie wistfully. "I wish he'd be Governor of Virginia."

"Who? Tom?"

The girl laughed. "La, no, ma'am! Mr. Rand." The tone conveyed, pleasantly enough, both the grotesque impossibility of Mr. Tom Mocket aspiring to such a post, and the eminent suitability of its lying in the fortunes of Lewis Rand. Vinie, shy and pink and faintly pretty in her shell calico, leaned against the wooden railing beneath the grapevine, and appealed to her visitor: "I'm always after Tom to make him say he'll run. Tom can do a great deal with him—he always could. I reckon all his friends want him to take the nomination. But Tom says he has a bigger thing in mind—"

"Who? Tom?"

"No, ma'am. Mr. Rand. I forgot! Tom said I wasn't to tell that to any one." Vinie looked distressed. "Won't you have another glass of water, ma'am? The drouth this year is something awful—all the corn burned up and the tobacco failing. Tom will be back soon from North Garden. Yeth, ma'am, he works right hard for Mr. Rand. The last time he was here he said that whether he ended in a palace or a dungeon, he'd remember Tom somewhere towards the last. Yeth, ma'am, it was a funny thing to say, but he was always mighty fond of Tom."

"Does he come here often?"

"Right often,—when there's work to be done at night, or when he wants to meet some one at a quieter place than the office. He's always known he could use this house as he pleased," Vinie ended simply. "Tom and I would go barefoot over fire for Mr. Rand."

"Well, my dear, I hope he won't ask you to," said her visitor, with dryness. She rose. "I've a long drive before me, so I'll not sit longer. Who's that—I left my glasses in the coach—who's that speaking to Gabriel?"

"It's Mr. Gaudylock."

"Gaudylock! He's not been in Albemarle for a year! When did he come back?"

"Just the other day, ma'am." A smile crept over Vinie's face. "He brought me a comb like the Spanish women wear. He's a mighty kind man—Mr. Gaudylock."

The hunter and Mrs. Selden met at the broken gate. "I am glad to see you back, Adam," she said. "You're a rolling stone, but all the same we're fond of you in Albemarle."

"I'm surely fond of Albemarle, ma'am," answered Adam.

"When I've rolled long and far enough and the moss is ready to gather on me, I reckon I'll roll back to a hillside in the old county. I'm sorry to see the drouth so bad. We've had a power of rain over the mountains."

"Not long since, I had a letter from a kinsman of mine in Louisiana, and he spoke of you. He said that up and down the rivers you were known, that the villages made it a holiday when you came to one, and that in the forest your name was like Robin Hood's."

"Robin Hood? Who's he?" demanded Adam; then, "Oh, you mean the man in the poetry book. I reckon he never saw the Mississippi in flood, and his forest would have laid on the palm of your hand. Yes, I'm known out there." He gave his mellow laugh. "A letter of introduction from Adam Gaudylock is a pretty good letter, whether it's to the captain of an ark, or a Creek sachem, or a Natchitoches settler, or a soldier at Fort Stoddert. Let me help you in, ma'am."

He handed her to her seat with the sure lightness and the woodsman's grace which was part of his charm, then gave her order to Gabriel. The coach turned and went back through the Main Street, and so on, in the yellow afternoon, to the Three-Notched Road. As she passed again the green door, Mrs. Selden looked out, but the door was fast and the shutters closed behind the blush roses. "He must have gone home early," she said to herself, and all the way along the Three-Notched Road she thought of Lewis Rand and his career.

Rand had not gone home, but was walking down the street towards the Eagle and the post-office. Presently the stage would be in, and he carried a letter the posting of which he did not care to entrust to another. He walked lightly and firmly, in the glow before sunset, and as he approached the post-office steps he met, full face, coming from the other end of the town, Colonel Richard and Major Edward Churchill and Fairfax Cary. They were afoot, having left their horses at the Swan while they waited for the incoming stage. The post-office had a high white porch, and on this were gathered a number of planters and townsfolk, while others lounged below on the trodden grass beneath three warped mulberries. All these, suspending conversation, watched the encounter.

Rand lifted his hat, and Fairfax Cary answered the salute with cold punctilio, but the two Churchills, the one with a red, the other with a stony countenance, ignored their nephew-in-law. The four reached together the post-office steps, a somewhat long and wide flight, but not broad enough to accommodate a blood feud. Rand made no attempt at speech, conciliatory or otherwise, but with a slight gesture of courtesy stood aside for the two elder men to pass and precede him. The smile upon his lip was half bitter, half philosophic, and as they passed, he regarded them aslant but freely. The burly, heated figure of the Colonel was trembling with anger, while Major Edward, striving for indifference, achieved only a wonderful, grey hauteur. They had been talking of the drouth, and they talked on while they went by Rand, but their voices sounded hollow like drums in a desert. They took as little outward notice of the living man whose fate entwined with theirs as if he had been a bleached bone upon the desert sands. They went on and, upon the porch above, mingled with a group of friends and neighbours.

Rand put himself in motion, and he and Fairfax Cary mounted step for step. The elder man looked aside at his companion of the moment, slender and vigorous, boyishly handsome in his dark riding-dress. He harboured no enmity towards the younger Cary, and for Unity he had only admiration and affection. His mind was full of recesses, and in one of them there hovered on bright wings a desire for the esteem of these two. In his day-dreams he steadily conferred upon them benefits, and in day-dreams he saw their feeling for him turn from prejudice to respect and fondness. Now, after a moment's hesitation, he spoke. "I have no quarrel, Mr. Cary, with a happiness that all the county is glad of. Miss Dandridge and my wife are the fondest friends. May I offer you my congratulations?"

He had ceased to move forward, and the other paused with him. The younger Cary was thinking, "Now if I were Ludwell, I'd accept this with simplicity, since, damn him, in this the man's sincere." He looked at the toe of his boot, swallowed hard, and then faced Rand with a sudden, transfiguring brightness of mien. "I thank you, Mr. Rand. Miss Dandridge is an angel, and I'm the happiest of men. Will you tell Mrs. Rand so, with my best regards?" He hesitated a moment, then went on: "No sign of rain! This weather is calamitous! I hope that Roselands has not suffered as Greenwood has done?"

"But it has," said Rand, with a smile. "The corn is all burned, and the entire state will make but little tobacco this year. Miss Dandridge is better than an angel; she's a very noble woman—I wish you both long life and happiness!"

They said no more, but mounted the remaining steps to the level above. Fairfax Cary joined the two Churchills and their friends, while Rand, after a just perceptible hesitation, entered the small room where the postmaster was filling, with great leisureliness, the leather mail-bag. Besides himself there was no other there; even the window gave not upon the porch, but on a quiet, tangled garden. He took the letter from his breast pocket and stood looking at it. The postmaster, after the first word of greeting, went on with his work, whistling softly as he handled the stiffly folded, wax-splashed missives of the time. The wind was in the west, and the fitful air came in from the withered garden and breathed upon Rand's forehead. He stood for perhaps five minutes looking at the letter, then with a curious and characteristic gesture of decision he walked to the high counter and with his own hand dropped it into the mail-bag, then waited to see it covered by the drift from the postmaster's fingers. "Don't the world move, sir?" said the latter worthy. "It hasn't been so long since there wasn't any mail for the West anyhow, and now look at this bag! Kentucky, and this new Tennessee, and Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the Lord knows what besides! Letters coming thick and fast to Mr. Jefferson, and letters going out from every one who has a dollar or an acre or a son or brother in those God-forsaken parts where Adam Gaudylock says they don't speak English and you walk uphill to the river! I like things snug, Mr. Rand, and this country's too big and this mail's too heavy. You have correspondents out there yourself, sir."

"Yes," answered Rand, with indifference. "As you say, Mr. Smock, all the world writes letters nowadays. Certainly it is natural that from all over the West men should write to Mr. Jefferson."

"Natural or not, they do it," quoth Mr. Smock doggedly. "I thought I heard the stage horn?"

Rand looked at his watch. "Not yet. It lacks some minutes of its time," he said, and, leaning on the counter, waited until he saw the mail-bag filled and securely fastened. Lounging there, he took occasion to ask after the health of Mr. Smock's wife, and to commiserate the burnt garden without the window. If the expression of interest was calculated, the interest itself was genuine enough. A shrewd observer might have said that in dealing with the voters of his county Rand exhibited a fine fusion of the subtle politician with the well-wishing neighbour. The facts that he was quite simply and sincerely sorry for the postmaster's ailing wife, and that he had the yeoman's love for fresh and springing green instead of withered leaf and stalk, in no wise militated against that other fact that it was his cue to conciliate, as far as might be, the minds of men. He almost never neglected his cue; when he did so, it was because uncontrollable passion had intervened. Now the postmaster, too, shook his head over the ruined garden, entered with particularity into the doctor's last report, and by the time that Rand, with a nod of farewell, left the room, had voted him into the Governor's chair, or any other seat of honour to which he might aspire. "Brains, brains!" thought Mr. Smock. "And a plain man despite his fine marriage! If there were more like him, the country would be safer than it is to-day. There is the horn!"

The stage with its four horses and flapping leather hanging, its heated, red-coated driver and guard, and its dusty passengers swung into town with great cracking of a whip and blowing of a horn, drew up at the post-office just long enough to deliver a plethoric mail-bag, and then rolled on in a pillar of dust to the Eagle. The crowd about the post-office increased, men gathering on the steps as well as upon the porch above and on the parched turf beneath the mulberries. There was a principle of division. The Federalists, who were in the minority, held one end of the porch; the more prominent Republicans the other, while the steps were free to both, and the space below was given over to a rabble almost entirely Republican. Rand, with several associates, lawyers or planters, stood near the head of the steps;—all waited for the sorting and distribution of the mail. The sun was low over the Ragged Mountains, and after the breathless heat of the day, a wind had arisen that refreshed like wine.

Rand, his back to the light, and paying grave attention to a colleague's low-voiced exposition of a point in law, did not at first observe a movement of the throng, coupled with the utterance of a well-known name, but presently, as though an unseen hand had tapped him on the shoulder, he turned abruptly, and looked with all the rest. Mr. Jefferson was coming up the street, riding slowly on a big, black horse and followed by a negro groom. The tall, spare form sat very upright, the reins loosely held in the sinewy hand. Above the lawn neckcloth the face, sanguine in complexion and with deep-set eyes, looking smilingly from side to side of the village street. He came on to the post-office amid a buzz of voices, and the more prominent men of his party started down the steps to greet him. The few Federalists stiffly held their places, but they, too, as he rode up, lifted their hats to their ancient neighbour and the country's Chief Magistrate. A dozen hands were ready to help him dismount, but he shook his head with a smile. "Thank you, gentlemen, but I will keep my seat. I have but ridden down to get my mail.—Mr. Coles, if you will be so good!—It is a pity, is it not, to see this drouth? There has been nothing like it these fifty years.—Mr. Holliday, I have news of Meriwether Lewis. He has seen the Pacific.

"Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes; nec sit terris
Ultima Thule.

"Mr. Massie, I want some apples from Spring Valley for my guest, the Abbé Correa.—Mr. Cocke, my Merinos are prospering despite the burned pastures."

Mr. Coles came down the steps with a great handful of letters and newspapers. The President took them from him, and, without running them over, deposited all together in a small cotton bag which hung from his saddle-bow. This done, he raised his head and let his glance travel from one end to the other of the porch above him. Of the men standing there many were his bitter political enemies, but also they were his old neighbours, lovers, like himself, of Albemarle and Virginia, and once, in the old days when all were English, as in the later time when all were patriots, his friends and comrades. He bowed to them, and they returned his salute, not genially, but with the respect due to his fame and office. His eye travelled on. "Mr. Rand, may I have a word with you?"

Rand left the pillar against which he had leaned and came down the steps to the waiting horseman. He moved neither fast nor slow, but yet with proper alacrity, and his dark face was imperturbable. The fact of some disagreement, some misunderstanding between Mr. Jefferson and the man who had entered the public arena as his protégé, had been for some time in the air of Albemarle. What it was, and whether great or small, Albemarle was not prepared to say. There was a chill in the air, it thought, but the cloud might well prove the merest passing mist, if, indeed, Rumour was not entirely mistaken, and the coolness a misapprehension. The President's voice had been quiet and friendly, and Rand himself moved with a most care-free aspect. He was of those who draw observation, and all eyes followed him down the steps. He crossed the yard or two of turf to the black horse, and stood beside the rider. "You wished me, sir?"

"I wish to know if you will be so good as to come to Monticello to-night? After nine the house will be quiet."

"Certainly I will come, sir."

"I will look for you then." He bowed slightly and gathered up his reins. Rand stood back, and with a "Good-afternoon to you all, gentlemen," the President wheeled his horse and rode down the street towards his mountain home. The crowd about the post-office received its mail and melted away to town house and country house, to supper at both, and to a review, cheerful or acrimonious, of the events of the day, including the fact that, as far as appearances went, Lewis Rand was yet the President's staff and confidant. The Churchills and Fairfax Cary rode away together. In passing, the latter just bent his head to Rand, but Colonel Dick and Major Edward sat like adamant. Rand took the letters doled out to him by Mr. Smock, glanced at the superscriptions, and put them in his pocket, then walked to the Eagle and spoke to the hostler there, and finally, as the big red ball of the sun dipped behind the mountains, betook himself to Tom Mocket's small house on the edge of town.

He found Vinie on the porch. "Is Adam here?" he asked. She nodded. "That's well," he said. "I want a talk with him—a long talk. And, Vinie, can you give me a bit of supper? I won't go home until late to-night;—I have sent my wife word. Tell Adam, will you? that I am here, and let us have the porch to ourselves."

MONTICELLO AGAIN

The night was hot and dark when Rand, riding Selim, left the town and took the Monticello road. He forded the creek, and the horse, scrambling up the farther side, struck fire from the loose stones. Farther on, the way grew steep, and the heavy shadow of the overhanging trees made yet more oppressive the breathless night. The stars could hardly be seen between the branches, but from the ground to the leafy roof the fireflies sparkled restlessly. Rand thought, as he rode, of the future and the present, but not of the past. It was so old and familiar, this road, that he might well feel the eyes of the past fixed upon him from every bush and tree; but if he felt the gaze, he set his will and would not return it. For some time he climbed through the thick darkness, shot with those small and wandering fires, but at last he came upon the higher levels and saw below him the wide and dark plain. In the east there was heat lightning. Here on the mountain-top the air blew, and a man was free from the dust of the valley. He drew a long breath, checked Selim for a moment, and, sitting there, looked out over the vast expanse; but the eyes of the past grew troublesome, and he hurried on. It was striking nine when a negro opened the house gate for him and, following him to the portico, took the horse from which he dismounted. Light streamed from the open door, and from the library windows. Except for a glimmer in the Abbé Correa's room, the rest of the house was in darkness. If Mrs. Randolph and her daughters were there, they had retired. He heard no voices. In the hot and sulphurous night the pillared, silent house with its open portal provoked a sensation of strangeness. Rand crossed the portico and paused at the door. Time had been when he would have made no pause, but, familiar to the house and assured of his welcome, would have passed through the wide hall to the library and his waiting friend and mentor. Now he laid his hand upon the knocker, but before it could sound, a door halfway down the hall opened, and there appeared the tall figure of the President. He stood for a moment, framed in the doorway, gazing at his visitor, and there was in his regard a curious thoughtfulness, an old regret, and—or so Rand thought—a faint hostility. The look lasted but a moment; he raised his hand, and, with a movement that was both a gesture of welcome and an invitation to follow him, turned and entered the passage which led to the library. Rand moved in silence through the hall, where Indian curiosities, horns of elk, and prehistoric relics were arranged above the marble heads of Buonaparte and Alexander the First, Franklin and Voltaire, and down the narrow passage to the room that had been almost chief of all his sacred places. It was now somewhat dimly lit, with every window wide to the night. Jefferson, sitting beside the table in his particular great chair, motioned the younger man to a seat across from him, evidently placed in anticipation of his coming. Rand took the chair, but as he did so, he slightly moved the candles upon the table so that they did not illumine, as they had been placed to illumine, his face and figure. It was he who began the conversation, and he wasted no time upon preliminaries. The night was in his blood, and he was weary of half measures. This storm had long been brewing: let it break and be over with; better the open lightning than the sullen storing up of unpaid scores, unemptied vials of wrath! There were matters of quarrel: well, let the quarrel come! The supreme matter, unknown and undreamed of by the philosopher opposite him, would sleep secure beneath the uproar over little things. He craved the open quarrel. It would be easier after the storm. The air would be cleared, though by forces that were dire, and he could go more easily through the forest when he had laid the trees low. It was better to hurry over the bared plain towards the shining goal than to stumble and be deterred amid these snares of old memories, habits, affections, and gratitudes. The past—the past was man's enemy. He was committed to the future, and in order to serve that strong master there was work—disagreeable work—to be done in the present. Ingratitude!—that, too, was but a word, though a long one. He was willing to deceive himself, and so ideas and images came at his bidding, but they hung his path with false lights, and they served, not him, but his inward foe.

He spoke abruptly. "That Militia Bill,—the matter did not approve itself to my reason, and so I could not push it through. I understood, of course, at the time that you were vexed—"

"I should not say that 'vexed' was the word. I was surprised. You will do me the justice to acknowledge that I cheerfully accepted the explanation which you gave me. You are fully aware that I, of all men, would be the last to deny your right—any man's right—of private judgment. All this was last winter, and might have been buried out of sight."

"I have heard that a letter of mine in the Enquirer gave you umbrage. It was my opinion that the country's honour demanded less milk and water, less supineness in our dealings with England, and I expressed my opinion—"

"The country's honour! That expression of your opinion placed you among the critics of the administration, and that at an hour when every friend was needed. It came without warning, and if it was meant to wound me, it succeeded."

Rand moved restlessly. "It was not," he said sombrely; "it was not meant to wound you, sir. Let me, once for all, sitting in this room amid the shades of so many past kindnesses, utterly disavow any personal feeling toward you other than respect and gratitude. It was apparent to me that the letter must be written, but I take God to witness that I regretted the necessity."

"The regret," answered the other, "will doubtless, in the sight of the Power you invoke, justify the performance. Well, the nine days' wonder of the letter is long over! A man in public life cannot live sixty years without suffering and forgiving many a similar stab. The letter was in February. Afterwards—"

"I ceased to write to you. Through all the years in which I had written, we had been in perfect accord. Now I saw the rift between us, and that it would widen, and I threw no futile bridges."

"You are frank. I have indeed letters from you, written in this room"—There was upon the table an orderly litter of books and papers. From a packet of the latter Jefferson drew a letter, unfolded it, and, stretching out his long arm, laid it on the table before his visitor. "There is one," he said, "written not three years ago, on the evening of the day when you were elected to the General Assembly. I shall ask you to do me the favour to read it through."

Rand took the letter and ran his dark eye down the sheets. As he read, the blood stained his cheek, brow, and throat, and presently, with a violent movement, he rose and, crossing the room to a window, stood there with his face to the night. The clock had ticked three minutes before he turned and, coming back to the table, dropped the letter upon its polished surface. "You have your revenge," he said. "Yes, I was like that—and less than three years ago. I remember that night very well, and had a spirit whispered to me then that this night would come, I would have told the spirit that he lied! And it has come. Let us pass to the next count in the indictment."

"The Albemarle Resolutions—"

"I carried them."

"I wished them carried, but I should rather have seen them lost than that in your speech—a speech that resounded far and wide—you should have put the face you did upon matters! You knew my sentiments and convictions; until I read that speech, I thought they were your own. The Albemarle Resolutions! I have heard it said that your zeal for the Albemarle Resolutions was largely fanned by the fact that your personal enemy was chief among your opponents!"

"May I ask who said that?"

"You may ask, but I shall not answer. We are now at late February."

"The Assembly adjourned. I returned to Albemarle."

"You took first a journey to Philadelphia."

"Yes. Is there treason in that?"

"That," said Jefferson, with calmness, "is a word not yet of my using."

Rand leaned forward. "Yet?" he repeated, with emphasis.

There fell a silence in the room. After a moment of sitting quietly, his hands held lightly on the arm of his chair, Mr. Jefferson rose and began to pace the floor. The action was unusual; in all personal intercourse his command of himself was remarkable. An inveterate cheerful composure, a still sunniness, a readiness to settle all jars of the universe in an extremely short time and without stirring from his chair, were characteristics with which Rand was too familiar not to feel a frowning wonder at the pacing figure and the troubled footfall. He was a man bold to hardihood, and well assured of a covered trail, so assured that his brain rejected with vehemence the thought that darted through it. To Mr. Jefferson the word that he had audaciously used could have no significance. Treason! Traitor! Aaron Burr and his Jack-o'-Lantern ambitions, indeed, had long been looked upon with suspicion, vague and ill-directed, now slumbering and now idly alert. In this very room—in this very room the man had been talked of, discussed, analysed, and puffed away by the two who now held it with their estranged and troubled souls. Burr was gone; this August night he was floating down the Ohio toward New Orleans and the promised blow. Had some fool or knave or sickly conscience among the motley that was conspiring with him turned coward or been bought? It was possible. Burr might be betrayed, but hardly Lewis Rand. That was a guarded maze to which Mr. Jefferson could have no clue.

Jefferson came back to the table and the great chair. "You were, of course, as free as any man to travel to Philadelphia or where you would. I heard that you were upon such a journey, and I felt a certitude that you would also visit Washington. Had you done this, I should have received you with the old confidence and affection. I should have listened to the explanation I felt assured you would wish to make. At that time it was my belief that there needed but one long conversation between us to remove misapprehension, to convince you of your error, and to recall you to your allegiance. Do not mistake me. I craved no more than was human, no more than was justified by our relations in the past—your allegiance to me. But I wished to see you devoutly true to the principles you professed, to the Republican Idea, and to all that you, no less than I, had once included in that term. I looked for you in Washington, and I looked in vain."

"You make it hard for me," said Rand, with lowered eyes. "I had no explanation to give."

"When you neither came nor wrote, I assumed as much. It was in April that you returned to Albemarle. Since then I have myself been twice in the county."

"We have met—"

"But never alone. Had you forgotten the Monticello road? After the Three-Notched Road, I should have thought it best known to you."

"I have not forgotten it, sir. But I might doubt my welcome here."

"You might well doubt it," answered the other sternly. "But had there been humility in your heart—ay, or common remembrance!—that doubt would not have kept you back. When I saw at last that you would not come, I—"

He paused, took from the table a book and turned its leaves, then closed and laid it down again. "I whistled you down the wind," he said.

There was a silence, then, far away in the hot night, a dog howled. The hall clock struck the hour. Rand drew his breath sharply and turned in his chair. "And you brought me here to-night to tell me so?"

"I will answer that presently. In these three years you have made yourself a great name in Virginia; and now your party—It is still your party?"

"It is still my party."

"Your party wishes to make you Governor. You have travelled fast and far since the days when you walked with your father! Yesterday I was astounded to hear that you had refused the nomination."

"Why should you be 'astounded'?"

"Because I hold you for a most ambitious man, and this is the plain, the apparent step in your fortunes. At what goal are you aiming?"

"I did not want the governorship, sir."

"Then you want a greater thing. What it is—what it is"—With a sudden movement he rested his elbow on the table and regarded Rand from under the shelter of his hand. "And so," he said at last, in an altered voice,—"and so you will not be Governor. Well, it is an honourable post. This is late August, and in November you return to Richmond—"

"I go first across the mountains to examine a tract of land I have bought."

"Indeed? When do you go?"

"I have not altogether decided."

"Will you take Mrs. Rand with you?"

"I think so. Yes."

"It is," said Mr. Jefferson, "a rough journey and a wild country for a lady."

As he spoke he rose, and, going to a small table, poured for himself a little wine in a glass and drank it slowly, then, putting the glass gently down, passed to a long window and stood, as Rand had stood before him, looking out into the night. When he turned, the expression of his face had again changed. "It is growing late," he said. "In two days I return to Washington. The world will have grown older ere we meet again. Who knows? We may never meet again. This night we may be parting forever. You ask me if I brought you here to tell you that I acquiesced in this quarrel of your making, shook you from my thoughts, and bade you an eternal farewell. That is as may be. Even now—even now the nature of our parting is in your hands!"

Rand also had risen. "In this room, what can I say? Your kindness to me has been very great. My God, sir, I should be stock or stone not to feel abashed! And yet—and yet—Will you have it at last? You ask discipleship—you must have about you tame and obedient spirits—a Saint James the Greater and a Saint James the Less to hearken to your words and spread them far and wide, and all the attentive band to wait upon your wisdom! Free! We are tremendously free, but you must still be Lord and Master! Well, say that I rebel—"

"I see that you have done so," said Jefferson, with irony. "I am not your Lord and Master."

"I would not, if I could, have shunned this interview to-night. For long we have felt this strain, and now the sharp break is over. I shall sleep the better for it."

"I am glad, sir, that you view it so."

"For years I have worn your livery and trudged your road,—that fair, wide country road with bleating sheep and farmer folk, all going to markets dull as death! I've swincked and sweated for you on that road. Now I'll tread my own, though I come at last to the gates of Tartarus! My service is done, sir; I'm out of livery."

"Your road!" exclaimed the other. "Where does it lie, and who are your fellow travellers? John Randolph of Roanoke and the new Republicans? or monarchism and the Federalists? Or have I the honour, to-night, to entertain a Virginian Cæsar?—perhaps even a Buonaparte?" His voice changed. "Have you reflected, sir, that there is some danger in so free an expression of your mind?"

"I have reflected," answered Rand, "that there is no danger so intolerable as the chafing of a half-acknowledged bond. The clock is striking again. I owe you much, sir. I thank you for it. While I served you, I served faithfully. It is over now. I look you in the face and tell you this, and so I give you warning that I am free. Henceforth I act as my free will directs."

"Act, then!" said the other. "Act, and find a weight upon your genius heavier than all behests of duty, friendship, faith, and loyalty rolled in one! Single out from all humanity one man alone, and that yourself, surround him with a monstrous observance, sacrifice before him every living thing that shall cross his path, crown him with gold, and banish from his court every idea that will not play the sycophant! Seat him, a chained king, high in some red star!—and still, like a wandering wind, large and candid thought, straying some day past your gloomy windows, shall look within and say, 'See this slave to himself chained upon his burning throne!' When at last you hear the voice, try to break away."

He left the window and, crossing to the mantel, pulled the bell-rope. Old Burwell appeared at the door. "Mr. Rand's horse, Burwell," directed the master, in a cheerful voice, then, when the negro was gone, spoke on without change of tone. "The night has altered while we talked. There is a great bank of cloud in the west, and I think the drouth is broken. You will reach Roselands, however, before the rain comes down. Pray present my respectful salutations to Mrs. Rand."

"You are very good," said Rand. "My wife"—He hesitated, then, "I would have you aware that my wife's hand would keep me in that same country road I spoke of, among those same green fields and peaceful, blameless folk! Her star is not like mine—"

"I esteem her the more highly for it," answered the other. "I hear your horse upon the gravel—Selim, still, is it not? A pleasant ride to you home through this fresher air! Good-night—and good-bye."

"I am not the monster I appear to you," said Rand. "A man may go through life and never encounter the irresistible current. When he does—I am as little superstitious as you, but I tell you I am borne on! All the men and women whose blood is in my veins hurry me on, and there is behind me a tide of circumstance. For all past kindnesses I thank you, sir. I admire you much, reverence you no little, and bid you a long farewell."

He walked to the door, then, turning, swept the room with one slow look. "I was fifteen," he said, "the day I first came here. There was a glass of lilies on the table. Good-night, sir,—and good-bye."

Without, the night was indeed cooler, with a sighing wind, and in the west a thickening wrack of clouds. It was very dark. The restless and multitudinous flicker of the fireflies but emphasized the shadow, and the stars seemed few and dim. It was near midnight, and the wide landscape below the mountain lay in darkness, save for one distant knoll where lights were burning. That was Fontenoy, and Rand, looking toward it with knitted brows, wondered why the house was so brightly lighted at such an hour. In another moment the road descended, the heavy trees shut out the view of the valley, and with very much indeed upon his mind, he thought no more of Fontenoy. It was utterly necessary to him to find a remedy for the sting, keen and intolerable, which he bore with him from Monticello. He felt the poison as he rode, and his mind searched, in passion and in haste, for the sovereign antidote. He found it and applied it, and the rankling pain grew less. Now more than ever was it necessary to go on. Now more than ever he must commit himself without reserve to the strong current. When it had borne him to a fair and far country, to kingship, sway, empire, and vast renown, then would this night be justified!

He left the mountain, and, riding rapidly, soon found himself upon the road to Roselands. It was also the Greenwood road. Between the two plantations lay a deep wood, and as he emerged from this, he saw before him in the dim starlight a horseman, coming towards him from Roselands. "Is that you, Mocket?" he called.

The other drew rein. "It is Ludwell Cary. Good-evening, Mr. Rand. I have just left Roselands."

"Indeed?" exclaimed Rand. "May I ask—"

"I came from Fontenoy at the request of Colonel Churchill. Mrs. Churchill fell suddenly very ill to-night. They think she will not last many hours, and she asks continually for her niece. Colonel Churchill sent me to beg Mrs. Rand to come without delay to Fontenoy. I have delivered my message, and she but waits your return to Roselands—"

"I will hurry on," said Rand. "Be so good as to tell Colonel Churchill that Joab will bring her in the chaise—Mammy Chloe with her. I am sorry for your news. Accept, too, our thanks for the trouble to which you have put yourself—"

"It is nothing," answered Cary. "My brother and I chanced to be at Fontenoy. Mrs. Rand is much distressed, and I'll detain you no longer—"

He bowed, touched his horse, and rode into the wood. Rand turned in his saddle and looked after him for a long moment, then shook his reins, broke into a gallop, and passed presently through the Roselands gates and up the dark drive to the stone steps and open door. Jacqueline met him on the threshold. She was trembling, but not weeping; there was even a wistful fire and passion in her dark eyes and a rose-leaf colour in her cheeks. "Did you meet him?" she said. "Did he tell you? I am all ready. He says that Aunt Nancy thinks that it is years ago, and that I'm Jacqueline Churchill still. I thought you would never, never come"—She turned and threw herself into his arms. "Oh, Lewis, we are going to Fontenoy!"

THE NINETEENTH OF FEBRUARY

"That's true," quoth Gaudylock. "It's the cracked I pitcher that goes oftenest to the well, and a delicate lady that's lain a-dying on her bed this twenty year may live to see you and me and the blacksmith buried! There never was a Churchill that I didn't like, and I'm certainly glad she's better this morning. If you're going to Greenwood, I'll bear you company for a bit. I'm bound for Roselands myself."

Ludwell Cary dismounted and, with his bridle across his arm, walked beside the hunter. "Albemarle has not seen you for a long while," he said pleasantly. "The county is fond of you, and glad to have you home again."

"So a lady told me the other day!" answered Adam. "It has been a year since I was in Albemarle,—but I saw you, sir, last winter in Richmond."

"Last winter? I don't recall—"

"At Lynch's Coffee House. The twentieth of February. The day the Albemarle Resolutions were passed."

"Ah!" breathed Cary. The two walked on, now in sun, now in shade, upon the quiet road. The drouth was broken. There had been a torrential rain, then two days of sunshine. A cool wind now stirred the treetops; the mountains drew closer in the crystal air, and the washed fields renewed their green. So bright and sunny was the morning that the late summer wore the air of spring. Cary stood still beside a log, huge and mossy, that lay beside the road. "Let us rest here a moment," he said, and, taking his seat, began to draw in the dust before him with the butt of his whip. "I do not remember seeing you that day. I did not know that you were in Richmond."

"I was there," answered Adam cheerfully, "on business." He took an acorn from the ground and balanced it upon a brown forefinger. "It's a handsome place—Lynch's—and, my faith, one sees the best of company! I was there with Lewis Rand."

"Ah!"

The sound was sharp, and long like an indrawn breath. Adam, who could read the tones of a man's voice, glanced aside and remembered the quarrel. "Thin ice there, and crackling twigs!" he thought. "Look where you set your moccasin, Golden-Tongue!" Aloud he said, "You and your brother came in out of the snow, and read your letters by the fire. It had fallen thick the day before."

"Yes, I remember. A heavy fall all day, but at night it cleared."

"Yes," went on the other blithely. "I was at Lewis Rand's on Shockoe Hill, and when I walked home, the stars were shining. What's the matter, sir?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"I thought," quoth Adam, "that some varmint had stung you." He looked thoughtfully at the acorn. "You are a schollard, Mr. Cary. Is the whole oak, root, branch, and seed, in the acorn—bound to come out just that way?"

"So they say," answered Cary. "And in the invisible acorn of that oak a second tree, and that second holds a third, and the third a fourth, and so on through the magic forest. Consequences to the thousandth generation. You were saying that you were at Mr. Rand's the night of the nineteenth of February."

"Was I?" asked Adam, with coolness. "Oh, yes! I went over to talk with him about a buffalo skin and some antlers of elk that he wanted for Roselands—and the stars were shining when I came away." To himself he said, "Now why did he start like that a moment back? It wasn't because the snow had stopped and the stars were shining. Where was he that night?"

Cary drew a circle in the dust with the handle of his whip. "You were at Lynch's with Mr. Rand the next afternoon. And immediately after that you returned to the West?"

Adam nodded. The acorn was yet poised upon his finger, but his keen blue eyes were for the other's face and form, bent over the drawing in the dusty road. "Ay, West I went," he said cheerfully. "I'm just a born wanderer! I can't any more stay in one town than a bird can stay on one bush."

"A born wanderer," said Cary pleasantly, "is almost always a born good fellow. How long this time will be your stay in Albemarle?"

"Why, that's as may be," answered Adam, with vagueness. "I'm mighty fond of this country in the fall of the year, and I've a hankering for an old-time Christmas at home—But, my faith; wanderers never know when the fit will take them! It may be to-morrow, and it may be next year."

"You and Mr. Rand are old friends?"

"You may say that," exclaimed the hunter. "There's a connection somewhere between the Gaudylocks and the Rands, and I knew Gideon better than most men. As for Lewis, I reckon there was a time when I was almost his only friend. I've stood between him and many a beating, and 'twas I that taught him to shoot. A fine place he's making out of Roselands!"

"Yes," agreed Cary, with a quick sigh; "a beautiful place. The West is in a ferment just now, is it not? One hears much talk of dissatisfaction."

"Why, all that sort of thing is told me when I come home," said Adam. "The Indians call such idle speech talk of singing birds. My faith, I think all the singing birds in the Mississippi Territory have flown East! In the West we don't listen to them. That's a fine mare you're riding, sir! You should see the wild horses start up from the prairie grass."

"That would be worth seeing. Have you ever, in your wanderings, come across Aaron Burr?"

Adam regarded the other side of the acorn. "Aaron Burr! Why, I wouldn't say that I mayn't have seen him somewhere. A man who traps and trades, and hunts and fishes, up and down a thousand miles of the Mississippi River is bound to come across a mort of men. But 'twould be by accident. He's a gentleman and a talker, and he was the Vice-President. I reckon he runs with the Governor and the General and the gentleman-planter and the New Orleans ladies." Adam laughed genially. "I know a red lip or two in New Orleans myself, but they're not ladies! and I drink with the soldiers, but not with the General. What's your interest, sir, in Aaron Burr?"

"The common interest," said Cary, rising. "When you quit Albemarle this time, you quit it alone?"

Gaudylock tossed aside the acorn. "That is my fortune," he answered coolly.

Cary swung himself into his saddle. "The woods, I see, teach but half the Spartan learning. We'll part here, I think, unless you'll come by Greenwood?"

"Thank you kindly, sir, but I've a bit of a woodsman's job to look after at Roselands. What was the Spartan learning?"

"You are going," replied the other, "to the house of a gentleman who knows the classics. Ask him. Good-day!"

"Good-day," said Adam somewhat abruptly, and with a thoughtful face watched the other ride away. "He has been listening," thought the hunter, "to singing birds. Now when, and where, and to how loud a singing? The nineteenth of February—and the snowstorm—and the stars shining as I walked home from Shockoe Hill. He didn't know that I was in Richmond! Then, was he on Burr's trail? Humph! Where was Mr. Ludwell Cary the night of the nineteenth of February?" Adam took up his gun and coonskin cap. "I'll see if Lewis can make that light," he said, and turned his face to Roselands.

Ludwell Cary rode to Greenwood, dismounted, and, going into the library, took from the drawer of his desk a letter, opened it, and ran it over. "As to your enquiries," said the letter, "Swartwout and Bollman are believed to be in New Orleans, Ogden in Kentucky, and Aaron Burr himself at a Mr. Harman Blennerhassett's on the Ohio. Rumour has it that Burr's daughter and her son are travelling to meet him. It says, moreover, that a number of gentlemen in the East are winding up their affairs preparatory to leaving for the West. One and all look more innocent than lambs, but they dream at night of sénoritas, besieged cities, and the mines of Montezuma! There's a report to-day that Burr is levying troops. That's war. If these men go, they'll not return." Cary laid down the letter. "If these men go, they'll not return. Is Lewis Rand so fixed in Albemarle?"

He moved from the desk to an old chess table and, sitting down, began to move the pieces this way and that. "The nineteenth of February—the nineteenth of February." He saw again a firelit room, and heard the tapping of maple boughs against a window. There she sat in her dress of festive white, listening to a denunciation of Aaron Burr and those concerned with him—and all the time the man beneath her roof! Cary sighed impatiently and moved another piece. Adam Gaudylock, who had let slip that he had been there as well—and then had been careful to let slip no other fact of value, except, indeed, the fact that he was thus careful! Cary covered his lips with his hand and sat staring at the board. The problem, then, was to construct from the hunter's character the hunter's part. A keen trader, scout, and enthusiast of the West, known to and knowing the men of those parts, and able to bend the undercurrents—a delighter in danger, with a boy's zest for intrigue, risk, and daring—an uncomplex mind, little troubled by theories of political obligation, political faith and unfaith, loyalty to government or its reverse—a being born to adventure, but to adventure under guidance, skilled and gay subaltern to some graver, abler leader—that, he thought, would be Adam Gaudylock. An old, old friend of Lewis Rand's—"There's a connection somewhere between the Gaudylocks and the Rands."

Cary put out his hand and moved a piece with suddenness. "Granted the connection," he said aloud. His eye gleamed. "That night Rand agreed with Burr. Gaudylock would have been there to give information; probably, seeing that he went West immediately afterwards, to receive instructions. But he is an asset of Lewis Rand's, not of Burr's."

His hand touched the piece again. "An asset of Lewis Rand's—Rand and Burr—Rand and Burr. What was it that they plotted that night while she talked to me of the new song she had learned? An expedition against Mexico, an attack upon the dominions of the King of Spain with whom we are at peace? Or a revolution in the country west of the Ohio? The one's a misdemeanour; the other's treason." He moved a rook. "Most like 'twas both—the first to mask the second. The boldest, simplest, most comprehensive stroke; there, there would show the mind of Lewis Rand!"

He rose and paced the long, cool room, then came back to the chess table. "They parted. Burr to the North, as I found the next morning; this trader, as he says, back to the West; Lewis Rand quiet in Richmond, quiet here in Albemarle. Quiet! That speech of his—those letters in the Enquirer. How long has he been breaking with Mr. Jefferson? That journey, too, to Philadelphia—whom did he see there? Swartwout, Bollman, perhaps Burr himself? Home he comes to Albemarle and begins improving Roselands. Cases too, in court, and a queue of waiting clients, and Richmond to return to in November. Granted there's a strange emigration West; but Lewis Rand—Lewis Rand's as fixed in Virginia as are the Churchills and the Carys!"

He slowly lifted and as slowly moved a queen. "And what other course, from time out of mind, does the disloyal pursue? A mask—all a mask. He, too, is for the West. He goes to join Burr; goes, if his fate stands true, to supplant Burr. Matters draw to a point, and he has little time to spare! Say that he goes"—A movement of his arm, involuntary and sharp, jarred the table and disarranged the board. "Will he go alone?"

Cary rose and walked the floor. "I must know—I must know." He paused at a western window, and with unseeing eyes gazed into the blue distance. "Were he Ludwell Cary, would he fare forth on his adventure alone? Perhaps. Being Lewis Rand, will he go without her, leave her behind? A thousand times, no! Even now this daughter of Burr's is hurrying by day and by night over rough and over smooth, to join her father; how much more, then, shall lover go with lover, the faithful wife with the all-conquering husband! She shall be there to buckle on our armour, to heal us with her kiss when the long day's work is over!" He bent his brow upon his arm. "O God, O God!"

From the hall without there sounded a clear whistle, and Fairfax Cary appeared in the library door. "Are you there, Ludwell? It's all dark in here after the sun outside. I am going to town."

The elder brother left the window. "Wait a little, Fair. I want to talk to you. Do you remember the night of the nineteenth of February?"

"Yes," said the other. "It had been snowing, and then it cleared brilliantly. I went to the Mayos, and I stopped by Bowler's Tavern. It was the night that Aaron Burr slept in Richmond. I told you, you know, that he was supping out."

"Yes. With Lewis Rand."

There was a silence, then, "So!" exclaimed Fairfax Cary