Lewis Rand | Page 9

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,