His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the May-apple and the Judas-tree.  The master of Westover was a treasure house of sprightly lore.  Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, paid his compliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his own coach, to find in his late audience a somewhat distraite daughter and a friend in a brown study.  The coach was lumbering on toward Williamsburgh, and Haward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon his horse’s reins, rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her corner with downcast eyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not paler than her face.

The Colonel’s wits were keen.  One glance, a lift of his arched brows, the merest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with him, he plunged into politics.  Invective against a refractory House of Burgesses brought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the necessity for an act to encourage adventurers in iron works carried them past a milldam; and frauds in the customs enabled them to reach a crossroads ordinary, where the Colonel ordered a halt, and called for a tankard of ale.  A slipshod, blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke her thanks in broad Scotch for the shilling which the gay Colonel flung tinkling into the measure.

That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried to the coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the militia, when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door.  “I do not think that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir,” he said.  “There’s some troublesome business with my overseer that ought not to wait.  If I take this road and the planter’s pace, I shall reach Fair View by sunset.  You do not return to Westover this week?  Then I shall see you at Williamsburgh within a day or two.  Evelyn, good-day.”

Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him.  He would have taken it in his own, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though she smiled and gave him “Good-day” in her usual voice, she drew the hand away.  The Colonel’s eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, but he was a discreet gentleman who had bought experience.  Skillfully unobservant, his parting words were at once cordial and few in number; and after Haward had mounted and had turned into the side road, he put his handsome, periwigged head out of the coach window and called to him some advice about the transplanting of tobacco.  This done, and the horseman out of sight, and the coach once more upon its leisurely way to Williamsburgh, the model father pulled out of his pocket a small book, and, after affectionately advising his daughter to close her eyes and sleep out the miles to Williamsburgh, himself retired with Horace to the Sabine farm.

CHAPTER V

THE STOREKEEPER

It was now late afternoon, the sun’s rays coming slantingly into the forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone.  To Haward, riding at a gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush of the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, the violent brushing aside of hanging vines, not unwelcome.