The schoolmaster answered for her:  “Mr. Marmaduke Haward has not gone with the coach.  Perhaps he only waited until the other gentlefolk should be gone.  Here he comes.”

The sward without the gates was bare of all whose presence mattered, and Haward had indeed reentered the churchyard, and was walking toward them.  Darden went to meet him.  “These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. Darden,” said his parishioner calmly.  “I should judge you were near the end of your rope.  There’s a vestry meeting Thursday.  Shall I put in a good word for your reverence?  Egad, you need it!”

“I shall be your honor’s most humble, most obliged servant,” quoth the minister.  “The affair at the French ordinary was nothing.  I mean to preach next Sunday upon calumny,—­calumny that spareth none, not even such as I. You are for home, I see, and our road for a time is the same.  Will you ride with us?”

“Ay,” said Haward briefly.  “But you must send yonder fellow with the scarred hands packing.  I travel not with thieves.”

He had not troubled to lower his voice, and as he and Darden were now themselves within the shadow of the oak, the schoolmaster overheard him and answered for himself.  “Your honor need not fear my company,” he said, in his slow and lifeless tones.  “I am walking, and I take the short cut through the woods.  Good-day, worthy Gideon.  Madam Deborah and Audrey, good-day.”

He put his uncouth, shambling figure into motion, and, indifferent and lifeless in manner as in voice, was gone, gliding like a long black shadow through the churchyard and into the woods across the road.  “I knew him long ago in England,” the minister explained to their new companion.  “He’s a learned man, and, like myself, a calumniated one.  The gentlemen of these parts value him highly as an instructor of youth.  No need to send their sons to college if they’ve been with him for a year or two!  My good Deborah, Mr. Haward will ride with us toward Fair View.”

Mistress Deborah curtsied; then chided Audrey for not minding her manners, but standing like a stock or stone, with her thoughts a thousand miles away.  “Let her be,” said Haward.  “We gave each other good-day in church.”

Together the four left the churchyard.  Darden brought up two sorry horses; lifted his wife and Audrey upon one, and mounted the other.  Haward swung himself into his saddle, and the company started, Juba upon Whitefoot Kate bringing up the rear.  The master of Fair View rode beside the minister, and only now and then spoke to the women.  The road was here sunny, there shady; the excessive heat broken, the air pleasant enough.  Everywhere, too, was the singing of birds, while the fields that they passed of tobacco and golden, waving wheat were charming to the sight.  The minister was, when sober, a man of parts, with some education and a deal of mother wit; in addition, a close and shrewd observer of the times and people.  He and Haward talked of matters of public moment, and the two women listened, submissive and admiring.  It seemed that they came very quickly to the bridge across the creek and the parting of their ways.  Would Mr. Haward ride on to the glebe house?