Vinie took the pitcher from beneath the white phlox.  “It’s getting dark.  Tom, aren’t we ever going to have that gate mended?—­He’s going away to Richmond in October.”

The successful candidate and Adam Gaudylock, followed by Joab on a great bay horse, crossed Moore’s Creek, and took the Monticello road.  A red light yet burned in the west, but the trees were dark along the way, and the hollows filled with shadow.  The dew was falling, the evening dank and charged with perfume.

“I asked you to come with me,” said Rand, “because I wanted to talk to some one out of the old life.  Mocket’s out of the old life too, he and Vinie.  But—­” he laughed.  “They’re afraid of me.  Vinie calls me ‘thir.’”

“Well, I’m not afraid of you,” Adam said placidly.  “No one at home at Monticello?”

“No, but Burwell keeps a room in readiness.  I am often there on errands for Mr. Jefferson.  Well, how go matters west of the mountains?”

“Christmas I spent at Louisville,” answered Gaudylock, “and then went down the river to New Orleans.  The city’s like a hive before swarming.  There are more boats at its wharves than buds on yonder Judas tree.  And back from the river the cotton’s blooming now.”

“Ah!” said Rand, “I should like to see that land!  When you have done a thing, Adam, a thing that you have striven with all your might to do, does it at once seem to you a small thing to have done?  It does to me—­tasteless, soulless, and poor, not worth a man’s while.  Where lies the land of satisfaction?”

“No,” answered Adam, “I don’t look at things that way.  But then I’m not ambitious.  Last year, in New Orleans, I watched a man gaming.  He won a handful of French crowns.  ‘Ha!’ says he, ’they glittered, but they do not glitter now!  Again!’—­and this time he won doubloons.  ’We’ll double these,’ says he, and so they did, and he won.  ‘This is a small matter,’ he said.  We’ll play for double-eagles,’ and so they did, and he won.  ‘Haven’t you a tract of sugar-canes?’ says he.  ’Money’s naugh.  Let us play for land!’ and he won the sugar-canes.  ’That girl, that red-lipped Jeanne of thine, that black eye in the Street of Flowers—­I’ll play for her!  Deal the cards!’ But he never won the girl, and he lost the sugar-canes and the gold.”

“A man walks forward, or he walks backward.  There’s no standing still in this world or the next.  Where were you after New Orleans, before you turned homeward?”

“At Mr. Blennerhassett’s island in the Ohio.  And that’s a pleasant place and a pleasant gentleman—­”

“Listen!”

“Aye,” answered the other; “I heard it some moments back.  Some one is fiddling beyond that tulip tree.”

They were now ascending the mountain, moving between great trees, fanned by a cooler wind than had blown in the valley.  The road turned, showing them a bit of roadside grass, a giant tulip tree, and a vision of a moon just rising in the east.  Upon a log, beneath the tree, appeared the dim brocade and the curled wig of M. Achille Pincornet, resting in the twilight and solacing his soul with the air of “Madelon Friquet.”  Around him sparkled the fireflies, and above were the thousand gold cups of the tulip tree.  His bow achieved a long tremolo; he lowered the violin from his chin, stood up, and greeted the travellers.