Lewis Rand

ought 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 welcom

rs, 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 wind

delivered a score of messages from the Republicans of the county, gentle and si

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

my cup," said Rand. "I hope som

when he made it, and they had to hold him steady on his feet. When they broke up, I took him home to the Partri

"I wrote it. You

wer in the state. I don't know-but it seems to me there's power enough in these regions! It's getting crowded. First

imed Rand. "What shou

t," sai

s an Indian, not tall, but gifted with a pantherish grace, and breathing a certain tawny brightness

e Mississippi to the Potomac. The West doesn't like the East anyhow. But it wants a picked man from the East. It

" sai

st as well you as Claiborne-Wilkinson's naught, I don't

on B

d 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, s

said Rand, "to th

e's t

a sort of folk called traito

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-g

raised it, shut and opened it, gazing curiously at its vein and sinew. "You are talking midsummer madness," he said at last. "

nded and white-washed. It's not the tumble-down place it was in Gideon's time-you've done wonders wit

it wistfully. He wished for a splendid house,

n 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

go downstairs to-day. I shall leave Fontenoy

een Mr. Lud

some time ago. But he rides over n

. And he has taken a law office in Char

me he would

ng and maple sugar to Colonel Churchill for a bit, and then I'll go back to the Ea

e 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 i

a hostile tribe. I would come back, not in peace paint, but in war pai

e other. "What have you there,

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

own the Fontenoy road, he came upon a small brown figure

ttle brown prairie-hen, what are you doing

just walked on. I wasn't tired. I always think the country's

t to see Lewis Rand-not that I don't like all the pe

of her dusty shoe

Mr. Rand,

into the parlour to-night, and pretty soon he's going

od in moisture on Vinie's brow, she had pushed back her sunbonnet, and the bree

nch, and studied the white bloom. "Which do you think is

nswered Adam. "They ar

rlottesville." She rose and stood for a moment in the dusty road below the blackberry

ty. "He asked after you both particularly. He said h

, and grew pink. "Tha

th walking to town, we might as well walk together. Don't

Vinie, and the two went up th

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 Jo

or a moment he ceased to be the master-builder and sank to the estate of the apprentice, awkward and eaten with self-distrust; the n

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 demons

l 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

be made," said

And it passes my comprehension what a stage-coach would do

! there a

e, I assure

last time I was on that road. Taking in Fagg's Mill and Brown's Ferry and the Mounta

the count was taken before the

Major, and placed t

ried his brother. "I don't believe you've

I rode that way on the sixth of April with Cla

ord, sir, t

regarded Mr. Ned Hunter with disfavour. "I am aware, sir, t

floor, and touched Colonel Churchill upon the arm. "Uncle Dick," she murmur

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 ni

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 a

, 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.

n 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 b

ents! 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 an

tly 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

a moment, then turned and left the room. "It is my brother, sir," h

bearing as usual, quiet, manly, and agreeable. "It is a sultry night, sir," he said to Colonel Churchill. "There is a sto

ank you," he said, with a smile. "I were a Turk i

ndow where Jacqueline sat in the shadow of the curtains. Rand, look

. 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 e

at-sleeve. "The rain is coming down," he said, and w

"Now things will grow!-Jacqueline, c

Cary following her. She drew the harp toward her, then

e. 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

e gold strings, the slender figure in a gown of filmy white, the warm, bare throat pour

s do not a

n bars

ocent and

r a her

t box and of damask roses. Now and then the lightning flas

ocent and

r a her

ded 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 wh

sionate words of a lover to his mistress. It was not now the Cavalier hymning of co

hat from the

a drink

harp and brought all in the room to their feet. "That struck!" exclaimed the Co

sir," answered Fairfax Cary, half in and h

faction. "And here's Cato with the decanters! We might have a hand at

d 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! A

n be certain that it'

hat I know, I know damned well! You cry peace, but the

ceful," and Jacqueline, still with a colour and with shining eyes, laughed, struck