Rand arose.  “I’ve had a long day and I make an early start.  Good-night to you, gentlemen!”

When, in the morning, Young Isham came to his door with the first light, the boy found his master already up and partly dressed.  Rand stood by the window looking out at the pink sky.  “A bad night, Young Isham,” he said, without turning.  “Sleep’s a commodity that has somehow run short with me.  Are the horses ready?”

“Yaas, marster.”

“Have you had your breakfast?”

“Yaas, marster.”

“Help me here, then, and let’s away.  Roselands by one!”

Young Isham held the gilt-buttoned waistcoat, then took from the dresser the extravagant neckcloth of the period, and wound it with care around his master’s throat.  Rand knotted the muslin in front, put on his green riding-coat, and took from the dresser his watch and seals.  “Bah! there’s a chill in these September dawns!  Close the portmanteau.  Where did you put the holsters?”

“Dar dey is, sah, under yo’ han’.”

The boy, on his knees, worked at the straps of the portmanteau.  Rand, waiting for him to finish, drew out a pistol from its leather case, looked it over and replaced it, then did the same with its fellow.  “Are you done?” he said at last.  “Bring everything and come on.  I’ll swallow a cup of coffee and then we’ll be gone.  We should pass Malplaquet by nine.”

They rode away from the half-awakened inn.  A mist was over the fields, and when they presently came to a stretch of forest, the leaves on either hand were wet.  The grey filled arcades and hollows, and the note of the birds was as yet sleepy and without joyousness.  They left the woods and, mounting a hill, saw from its summit the sun rise in splendour, then dipped again into fields where from moment to moment the gold encroached.  They rode rapidly in the freshness of the morning, by wood and field and stream, so rapidly that it was hardly nine when they passed a brick house with pillars set on a hill-top in a grove of oaks.  Rand looked at it fixedly as he rode by.  Malplaquet was a Cary place, and it had an air of Greenwood.

Three miles further on, sunk in elder and pokeberry and shaded by a ragged willow, there appeared a wayside forge.  The blacksmith was at work, and the clink, clink of iron made a cheerful sound.  Rand drew rein.  “Good-morning, Jack Forrest.  Have a look, will you, at this shoe of Selim’s.”

The smith stooped and looked.  “I’ll give him a new one in a twinkling, Mr. Rand!  From Richmond, sir?”

“Yes; from Richmond.”

“Burr got off, didn’t he?  If the jury’d been from this county, we’d have hanged him sure!  Splitting the country into kindling wood, and stirring up a yellow jacket’s nest of Spaniards, and corrupting honest men!  If they won’t hang him, then tar and feathers, say I!  Soh, Selim!  You’ve been riding hard, sir.”

“Yes.  I wanted to be at home.”