“Way down in New Orleans,
       Beneath an orange tree,
     Beside the lapping water,
       Upon the old levee,
     A-laughing in the moonlight,
       There sits the girl for me!”

sang Gaudylock.

     “She’s sweeter than the jasmine,
       Her name it is Delphine.”

The day wore on, the land grew level, and the clearings more frequent.  Stretches of stacked corn appeared like tented plains, brown and silent encampments of the autumn; and tobacco-houses rose from the fields whence the weed had been cut.  Blue smoke hung in wreaths above the high roofs, for it was firing-time.  Now and then they saw, far back from the road and shaded by noble trees, dwelling-houses of brick or wood.  Behind the larger sort of these appeared barns and stables and negro quarters, all very cheerful in the sunny October weather.  Once they passed a schoolhouse and a church, and twice they halted at cross-road taverns.  The road was no longer solitary.  Other slow-rolling casks of tobacco with retinue of men and boys were on their way to Richmond, and there were white-roofed wagons from the country beyond Staunton.  Four strong horses drew each wagon, manes and tails tied with bright galloon, and harness hung with jingling bells.  Whatever things the mountain folk might trade with were in the wagons,—­butter, flour, and dried meat, skins of deer and bear, hemp, flaxseed, wax, ginseng, and maple sugar.  Other vehicles used the road, growing more numerous as the day wore into the afternoon, and Richmond was no longer far away.  Coach and chaise, curricle and stick-chair, were encountered, and horsemen were frequent.

In 1790 men spoke when they passed; moreover, Rand and Gaudylock were not entirely unknown.  The giant figure of the one had been seen before upon that road; the other was recognized as a very able scout, hunter, and Indian trader, restless as quicksilver and daring beyond all reason.  Men hailed the two cheerily, and asked for the news from Albemarle, and from Kentucky and the Mississippi.

“Mr. Jefferson is coming home,” answered Rand; and “Spain is not so black as she is painted,” said the trader.

“We hear,” quoth the gentleman addressed, “that the Kentuckians make good Spanish subjects.”

“Then you hear a damned lie,” said Gaudylock imperturbably.  “The boot’s on the other foot.  Ten years from now a Kentuckian may rule in New Orleans.”

The gentleman laughed, settled back in his stick-chair, and spoke to his horse.  “Mr. Jefferson is in Richmond,” he remarked to Rand, and vanished in a cloud of dust.

The tobacco-cask and its guardians kept on by wood and stream, plantation, tavern, forge, and mill, now with companions and now upon a lonely road.  At last, when the frogs were at vespers, and the wind had died into an evening stillness, and the last rays of the sun were staining the autumn foliage a yet deeper red, they came by way of Broad Street into Richmond.  The cask of bright leaf must be deposited at Shockoe Warehouse; this they did, then as the stars were coming out, they betook themselves to where, at the foot of Church Hill, the Bird in Hand dispensed refreshment to man and beast.